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yanderechuu · 3 years ago

Text

Shower Thoughts

yandere!Class 1A x fem!reader

[3.2K]

Summary: Momo wasn’t as trustable as you had presumed.

Warning: Larceny, nonconsensual touching, masturbation

│

You used to spend roughly ten minutes in the shower, only ever needing to soak your body in the water, apply shampoo and body wash before rinsing all the foam of products from your skin and scalp. Shower thoughts simply consisted of the day’s agenda or any special occurrence that had happened the past week, never really drifting off to existential questions and dark notions that would keep you from leaving the bathroom later than usual. You neither necessarily liked taking a shower nor did you dread it, as to you it was only ever a mandatory routine of the day which you handled with a neutral mind.

But now, ten minutes were already a slow thirty, and majority of the time you bothered not to move your arms to make work of your hair, or lather your skin with soap as you normally would do had it not been for the questions plaguing your mind like how your classmates would terrorize your time and space.

Right, your classmates - who would spend every hour of the day with you as if they didn’t have anything better to do. As if you were an important subject of matter next to hero training. You never appreciated it, because from the start, you did not want to have anything do to with them. They smothered and coddled you as if air wasn’t that important to you, disregarding the way you felt about personal space, how it was very significant to you. Rare were the moments of peace as a few of them were always by your side, ‘ensuring your safety’ as they would like to quote it. Why ensure your safety? You had not been a prominent figure in the sports festival, neither did you have a quirk that could be of great utility for the villains unlike Bakugou or Tokoyami. You weren’t a problem child, either. Their justification of following you around like you were some sort of high-maintenance prisoner made no sturdy sense to you.

“There’s this new package of green tea my mother had sent me this week! Would you like to try it, (y/n)?”

“Sure.”

But if you had to choose among your classmates one whom you would tolerate for the following years you’d be in U.A., that would be Yaoyorozu Momo. She was kind and considerate, often determining your feelings before you could voice it out (not that you really had the courage to, most of the time). She was organized and pristine and never had you met someone more befitting for the definition of ‘mom friend’ than her. She was perfect in nearly every way, and even though you’d have the occasional pang of jealousy at some times her perfectionism was displayed (gender envy, isn’t it, (y/n)?), she never seemed to bear mal intent, so you would let the emotions slide. You’d see the galaxy in her eyes if you would stare long enough. Her tea was best substitute for coffee, too.

You never considered her more than a very great friend, though, and to her, that was a problem.

As you sauntered your way over to your dorm with her, you shuffled your bag to take your room key buried in the side pockets. “I’ll go down in a while, but you better make sure you’re in the common room before me.”

You wouldn’t allow your classmates to take advantage of your lone self simply because Momo wasn’t there to fend them off.

“Mhm! Lemon green tea as usual, correct?”

“Yeah. Thanks again, YaoMomo.”

Your use of sotto voce tone on her nickname gave a pleasant shiver down her spine; her eyes almost rolled to the back of her head had she not restrained herself. Having been always kept to yourself, you never felt the need to adjust your volume for others to hear properly, so oftentimes your voice came out in a whisper - not that she minded, of course. You sounded more sensual that way.

“Are you going to take a while or will I have to brew tea right away?”

“Training was more strenuous than usual, and my muscles can’t seem to relax,” you explained, “so I’m going to take a quick shower.”

From your peripheral vision as you were focused on your bag to fish out the key, you saw Momo’s jaw slack upon hearing your plan to take a bath. It was odd, but you didn’t give particular attention to it when you finally took out your desired item. You failed to notice the way she abruptly settled her gaze on the key, inspecting it as if she was deliberating its shape, form, and material, and installing it to memory.

“Oh- oh!” She exclaimed. “I do remember having some body wash that help soothe muscle strains and body aches. I can hand them to you if you want.”

You shook your head, smiling lightly. “You’re too kind, YaoMomo. But I think just hot water will do for me.”

She watched as you opened the door to your room, giving her one more smile before disappearing inside and locking the door with a distinct click. As soon as you did so, she pulled the sleeve of her wrist up, developing with her body lipids a key the exact copy of the one you had held.

You certainly lied when you had said you were going to take a ‘quick’ shower. Already ten minutes into it did you only decide to sleek yourself with liquid body soap, initially absentmindedly rubbing it on your body, before you gradually got rougher with your movements and soon you found yourself scuffing your own flesh with vehement motion.

They were excessively touchy again, your classmates. Denki got too close to your face while delivering a pick-up line that made you wish you didn’t exist in order to hear it, and upon nearing you did Bakugou pull you away from him, cursing at him to buzz off. He took his time feeling up your waist - the part he used to grab you - while at it. During lunch, as you were once again coerced into joining his group to the cafeteria, Izuku refused to let go of your hand as you walked, and Uraraka as adamant with hugging you by the hips with one arm. It was what girlfriends did, she said, and you were not entirely sure whether or not she referred to that word romantically.

And if not, then did girlfriends also normally touch the parts of which you did not want to be touched on? You felt, clear as day, a bare hand resting on your thigh when you sat on your usual spot, dangerously close to lifting your skirt for everyone to see, and when you gave Hagakure’s faceless face a questioning look, she asked you what was wrong. Her uniform sleeve was literally floating on top of your lap, and still she had the gall to pretend as if she was not touching you with lacking consent.

You were not safe from Shoto, either, when he offered to readjust your uniform tie and you were in no place to decline (you had the right to, but they just stripped you off of it), his breath hitching in ecstasy as his fingers brushed your chest; he was, audaciously enough, not hiding his bliss. Then he rubbed your shoulders to ‘warm you up,’ when all he really intended to do was motivate his own fantasy that you were his and he was simply scenting you like some fucking alpha to his omega.

You turned no blind eye to their gesticulations. You never once found it endearing, and wished they would stop with whatever the hell this was called, because you were quite sure this was past the border of molestation and could already be rendered a form of bullying.

But not once did you consider the possibility of having a class obsessed with your quaint self.

So you supposed that until you’d find a way to deduce their idiosyncratic actions and tendencies then you would have to make do with your own bathroom as your safe space. Momo was the only classmate you could confide to, so at least she was there.

Unfortunately, you had yet to see the other side of her coin.

Because as she was just right outside your bathroom door, obsessively taking in every bit of item you owned inside your dorm room like a madman, you were left with the impression that she was all you could ever ask for in a friend. You didn’t know how she was not any better than the rest of your classmates, adoring your very existence to the extent of insanity; how she’d crave for you so often and so terribly that she’d feel herself clench when you do so much as merely spare her a glance. And you had done that a lot today - she would have to relieve herself for it.

She spotted the heap of clothes right by your bed; it became apparent that you had stripped yourself off of it before entering the bathroom and taking a shower. Walking towards it, a portion of your seamless underwear came to view, and she resisted the urge to render into a mound of horniness in order to pick it up and inspect it closely.

It was a lighter color of (s/c). A plain, simple, modest undergarment item, still it evoked a particular feeling on the bottom center of Momo’s hips. The heat came rushing along her midriff and instigated the muscle of her legs to falter, and as soon as she felt it, a hand of hers drifted past her skirt, feeling up the slick accumulated on the fabric of her own panties only with the knowledge that your panties were currently in her possession. She needed release, but you were nearly finished with your bath, and she was still inside your room.

You walked out of the shower the moment she shut the door of your bedroom. You saw it closed, but you didn’t catch the culprit.

This unnerved you to no end. Undoubtedly, you thought, this had to be one of your classmates. Who else was it supposed to be? Aizawa-sensei (...)? You had yet to know their ultimatum, but you were sure this occurrence was another one of their schemes. You had assumed that all their weird, unappreciated antics were just to get you to socialize with them, but now you didn’t understand why it had gotten to the point of entering your room without permission.

You couldn’t keep this to yourself.

So you planned to bring it up to Momo, a representative of your class and someone whom you deemed trustable enough to share it with. Quickly, you dressed into your casual indoor attire, and rushed outside your room to head to the kitchen, where you presumed she’d be in the process of making your tea. But she wasn’t there.

Instead, she was in her own room, your panties muzzled right into her face and her own fingers buried deeply inside her cunt.

“Oh- oh, god- Ah! (Y/n)!”

Oh god, your panties. Oh god, your panties. The object most intimate to your parts of intimacy, soaking every bit of womanly secretion from your genitalia. Of all the masturbation sessions she had done to the thought of you, this was the hottest. She wasn’t quite sure whether to imagine your cunt on her lips in a position of mutual cunnilingus or your fingers thrusting into her in place of hers. She wanted both.

A whine slipped past her lips. To think that moments ago, she was in the same space as you were nude. Oh, to join you in the bathroom, doing inenarrable things to each other with the use of the showerhead. To touch your skin selfishly rather than only watch as she would do during class hours.

She came with a squeal, falling face-down to bite the duvet of her large bed. Gone in her hazy mind was her promise to you of lemon green tea, and as she still basked in the pathological euphoria of getting off, you were in the common room, anxiously waiting for her return.

But just as you had expected, someone was bound to spot you alone and take this as an opportunity to be with you, and they just so happened to be-

Oh. Aoyama.

He offered you a slice of cheese with his usual grin before settling down a few feet beside you, enough to leave you be in your personal bubble. You gave him occasional glances, unwrapping the cheese from its casing and he just sat there, eating his. He was alright, you guessed - another tolerable classmate of yours next to Momo. Perhaps it was because you used to always be alone in the classroom with him during break time that you were at ease with his presence. Or maybe he just seemed so gay and that, for some reason, comforted you. One gay presence could comfort another lol.

“It’s delicious.” Your comment came out inadvertently.

“Oui. Only the best quality for the best person.” He flaunted.

You weren’t exactly sure whether he was referring to you or to himself, but you paid little attention to that as the cheese was certainly delicious; you were not lying.

“It’s odd how your chose to take a bath at this time of the day.” He spoke.

You stopped chewing.

He meant to refer to your damp hair, but having just suspected your class of breaking and entering your room, you thought otherwise.

“I-” You choked on the cheese, ending up needing to gulp it like liquid content instead of breaking it down to fit your throat.

Immediately, he sprang up in concern, stepping over to you to gently thump you on the back. “Are you alright?”

“No- I mean- I just-!” You wheezed, occasionally having to clear your throat. You swatted his hand away from you; you hadn’t meant to appear rude, but you did. You stood up in a rush. “L-look, I have to go.”

“Don’t you want to drink water?”

“I’m- fine,”

With your words, you took off from the common room area and headed back to your room. There were two sets of emotions that mixed to form the bile in your throat. One was wrath and humiliation upon the discovery of Aoyama’s actions. The other was betrayal and confusion from Momo’s absence when she had said she’d be brewing tea for you, and it wasn’t the tea that disheartened you. She knew of your issue with the class, and if she were busy, couldn’t she have texted you a heads-up?

She shouldn’t be surprised when at the next time she saw you, you interacted with her less. Your intention to distance yourself from her was most prominent, and it didn’t help that your classmates took notice of this, because now they were taking advantage of the situation, tagging you along with them in spite of your futile attempts to decline now that Momo was nowhere to tell them off. When she’d talk to you, you would answer, though your voice was back to speaking to her like she was a stranger.

Resentment was stronger than ruing the lack of intimacy between you two. It was as if she had received your panties in exchange for the time she’d be spending with you, oddly enough. After much deliberation, she came to realize that this was your little ‘tantrum’ after not being able to meet with her the other day.

It was pretty cute, she thought, that you’d try and make her acknowledge the fault on her part by ignoring her.

You didn’t walk with her back to dorms as per usual that dismissal. Instead, just like what you had used to do before finding consolation in her, you walked alone, accomplishing being able to avoid your classmates as you did. By the time she reached the dorms, you were in the kitchen, fetching a glass of water to satiate your throat. She took a hold of your wrist before you went back to your room.

“(Y/n),” she pleaded, “tell me what’s wrong.”

You looked at her with a reluctant expression. Perhaps you should. After the short while that you had been hanging out with her, her presence turned into something you came to miss. You wanted her back, but not in the way she wanted you.

“I-it’s just,” you stammered out, “y-you know how I feel being alone in the common room without you. I... I’m not comfortable with our classmates when you’re not around.” She took pride in this. “I don’t take it lightly how you left me alone the other day...”

Your voice faltered out the longer you spoke.

So she was correct; you were certainly having your little ‘tantrum.’ With a guilty smile, she left your wrist to hold your hand tenderly, and suddenly it dawned upon you the feeling of whenever Bakugou held your waist, Shoto nuzzled his face on your neck or Izuku invaded your personal space.

Fear and apprehension.

Before you could preach your objection to whatever she had planned ahead for you, she dragged you along with her and you both reached her dorm room before you could comprehend where she was taking you.

“I’ll make it up to you.” She said, making you sit on her large bed.

Then she proceeded to make you tea, boiling water with an electric kettle situated on top of her study desk; there also laid a tea set next to her three books, which you assumed were those of which would aid her in the utility of her quirk, like encyclopedias. Beside those was a piece of cloth, unfolded, unkept - a (s/c)-colored silk fabric.

Your face drained of color.

She pushed the books towards the cloth, completely obscuring it from your view and leaving the table disorganized. You knew Momo, neat and orderly as much as possible; she wouldn’t do that without reason.

Now that you thought about it, the same day someone had barged in your room, your underwear had been missing from your set of laundry garments. You spent the next whole day actively avoiding Aoyama, thinking he was the culprit to this felony. At the present moment you were reconsidering your allegation.

“U-um, Momo, I need to go-”

“Here!”

She yelled it so giddily, so uncharacteristically, as she pushed the cup of tea towards your way. How she did so was very quick that you had not the time to take it properly, and steaming liquid fell to your décolletage, past the cotton of your uniform and streaming down the valley of your breasts. It was a moist mess. She loved every bit of it.

“Oh! Oh, my bad. I’ll- I’ll clean you up!” She exclaimed, all flushed and excited.

You didn’t find it in you to push her back when she began to do exactly what she had said, taking your blazer off, loosening your school tie and unbuttoning the dress shirt underneath, only ever being able to stare at her with eyes that evinced betrayal, because it slowly occurred to you that she was satiating her own selfish obsession with you all under the ruse of maintaining a decent friendship.

“(Y/n),” She breathed out, “I adore you.”

She was no different than the rest of your classmates, and you were a fool to think otherwise.

#bnha x reader #bnha #boku no hero academia x reader #boku no hero academia #yandere x reader #yandere class 1a #class 1a x reader #reader insert #x reader #yandere bnha #momo yaoyorozu x reader #momo x reader #momo x y/n #yandere #yandere momo yaoyorozu #yandere momo #yanderechuu

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mikeyinnit · 3 years ago

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lovebug

Pairing: Wilbur x GN!Reader

Summary: Wilbur was done with love after he lost Sally, but when Fundy introduces him to one of Niki’s friends, things start to change.

Word Count: 2k words

Notes: Songfic!! I said they would be rare and it’s the second fic I post lmao. Inspired by Lovebug by the Jonas Brothers, totally willing to do a part 2 for this one because I have other ideas with other lyrics and stuff

Tagging: N/A

After Sally, Wilbur wasn’t really looking for anyone else to love, in fact, he had given up on love entirely. He had to focus on his son and the nation he was building from the ground up.

Then you came into the picture.

You were a friend of Niki’s, that’s how he met you. Fundy was visiting the bakery and when Wilbur came to get him, he saw you helping the young fox hybrid make cookies. It was such a sweet sight that he took a moment to just enjoy seeing his son have a great time. When he did enter, Fundy introduced the two.

“This is Y/N! They’re one of Niki’s friends. Y/N, this is my dad. He’s single.”

Of course his son would throw him under the bus like that. But you just laughed, and god did you have a beautiful laugh, and held out your hand. A gesture that Wilbur returned with one of his charming grins.

“Fundy’s talked about you all day, I feel like I know you already…” you had trailed off, obviously Fundy only referred to him as my dad, prompting him to give his name.

“Wilbur Soot.”

“Wilbur. It’s great to meet you.”

You gave him your phone number, clearly you were as taken with Fundy as the boy was to you, for him or his son to use anytime. Then you said your goodbyes for the night as you sent them on their way with the cookies you and Fundy baked along with some extra baked goods.

Called you for the first time yesterday

Wilbur hadn’t used your number for a good couple of days. He had been busy with L’Manberg and honestly had barely had time to see his son, let alone the enchanting stranger.

Today was a day that he could actually spend quality time with Fundy, and obviously all of that time at the bakery while he was working just made the young boy want to bake cookies with his dad. Unfortunately, Fundy was very specific with what cookies he wanted to make. The ones he baked with you.

“These don’t taste like the ones Y/N made.” Was said numerous times throughout the night no matter how Wilbur changed the recipe so eventually, he just gave up and called you to figure it out.

“Hello?”

Your voice rang out through the telephone and it instantly felt like all of the stress of this baking night was leaving his body.

“Y/N, it’s Wilbur. We met at Niki’s the other day?”

“Wilbur! Of course. How are you? How’s Fundy?”

Another grin was brought to his face at you almost immediately asking about Fundy, though he didn’t have the chance to respond as the aforementioned hybrid returned from getting more ingredients for the cookies and practically begged his father to put you on speaker so he could talk to you as well.

“Y/N!!”

It was almost like he could hear the smile on your face as you spoke to Fundy. “Fundy! What are you up to?”

“We’re trying to bake cookies but dad can’t make them like you.”

Wilbur heard that laugh again, that beautiful laugh that he first heard at the bakery.

“That’s because your dad probably doesn’t know the secret ingredient that we used to bake those cookies. How about you give the phone back to him so I can let him know and then I’m sure you two will bake the best cookies ever.”

Then the phone was back in his hand and he spoke, “Secret ingredient?”

You grinned as you answered, “I just told him to tell the dough nice things in his life. Some people say speaking love into the dough helps, I don’t know if it’s true or not but he had fun with it.”

It sounded ridiculous, but Wilbur decided to try it.

“Thanks, Y/N. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

This time, Fundy thought the cookies were perfect.

I finally found the missing part of me

You became a big part of his routine after that night. He would see you at the bakery every time he came to get his son, he called you even when he was at work, you quickly became an important part of his life. Fundy loved you, days together often involved him telling Wilbur all about whatever the two of you got up to.

Wilbur wasn’t a stranger to love, he loved Sally, he loved his country, he loved his son. But it felt very different with you. He couldn’t even say it was love yet, you just felt like you fit with him and Fundy. You were kind, and obviously cared about his son, you were funny, the texts and calls he exchanged with you never failed to put a smile on his face. And you cared about his son a lot, which was certainly not a negative. For the two of them, it felt like you were the perfect fit to the puzzle they didn’t realize was missing a piece.

I felt so close but you were far away

Getting used to having you in his routine meant it really sucked when you traveled to a village far away. Fundy missed you and honestly, Wilbur did too. You promised the young boy that you wouldn’t be gone for long, and told him that he was welcome to call you at anytime. Which Fundy took full advantage of. Every night before the young fox hybrid went to bed, he called you on Wilbur’s phone and the two of them heard about your day and they shared details of their own. On certain nights, you even joined Wilbur in singing a lullaby for him.

People say that absence makes the heart grow fonder and that absolutely seemed true with your trip. Both of the boys missed you and wondered when you would be back, but luckily, you came back within a month. And you came back with plenty of gifts for Fundy, which made the boy ridiculously happy. You even got a gift for Wilbur, which was certainly a pleasant surprise since really, you being back was enough of a gift for him.

That night, he invited you over for dinner. He said it was to celebrate your return, which is true, but he also just wanted to spend time with you now that you were back. You agreed, and the three of you even tried baking dessert, which resulted in a small flour fight initiated by you.

Wilbur usually liked everything in order and in his control, something like throwing flour around and making a complete mess of his kitchen is something that Tommy would enjoy, but somehow it felt okay with you and his son.

I never thought that I’d catch this lovebug again

After that night, Wilbur came to realize that he did like you, if not love you. You were a nice balance to his control and an escape from the stress of his job as president.

At first, it felt like a betrayal to Sally. He decided he was going to focus on his son and his nation, not love. He decided that long before you came into the picture and he was a man of his word. Even if that word was only said to himself.

He knew he couldn’t just outright ignore you. Not only would that be unfair to you, it wouldn’t be fair to Fundy. So he had to deal with it another way, throwing himself further into his work. It meant less time with his son but it was very productive for L’Manberg. Plus it meant Fundy got to see you and Niki more so Wilbur is certain that the young fox would understand and perhaps enjoy this more than spending time with him.

There was a knock at his door but Wilbur didn’t even look up as he called out, “Come on in.” Obviously it wasn’t Tommy since the boy never knocked but it could have been Tubbo or Jack Manifold or even someone from outside of L’Manberg.

“You would think that in a time of peace, the president would have more free time.”

He knew that voice. He could never forget the face that went along with it. Your smile and eyes never left his mind even with him trying his hardest to shut out the rest of the world.

“Y/N, I wasn’t expecting to see you. What brings you by?”

“I haven’t seen you in a while, Fundy told me you’ve been sleeping here lately so I thought I would check on you.”

And there was that kindness again. The kindness that made him fall in love with you in the first place.

“I’m okay, Y/N. Just busy.”

“Too busy to stop by the bakery to see your friends? Or to even come home and see your son at night?”

There was an edge to your voice and Wilbur wasn’t sure how he felt about it, obviously he thought that Fundy would prefer spending time with you and Niki over himself but it seemed like you disagreed.

You strongly disagreed.

“I’ve just been busy. Running a country is a lot of work, Fundy will understand. He gets to see you and Niki more anyways, he’s happier that way.” He shifted his eyes back to the papers in front of him, letters he had been drafting for the past two hours and couldn’t get anywhere with.

“Fundy is a child, Wilbur. Niki and I are happy to see him at the bakery but we aren’t replacements for his dad. His dad who suddenly became “too busy” almost overnight. What happened?”

It truly was sweet the way you cared about his son that much. Enough to come to his office when you could be sleeping. This could have been a good moment for him to say what was on his mind, that he thinks he was falling in love with you and didn’t want to betray his dead wife. But he lied.

“Tommy has been getting into trouble with Dream recently, I want to make sure we don’t fight in another war so soon. Or ever again.” It was a solid lie, Tommy had a reputation for being a troublemaker and he could use that to his advantage. You seemed like you were about to speak, probably about Fundy, so he spoke first, “I promise that I will talk to Fundy and see him more as soon as I get this figured out. Thank you, Y/N, it’s really nice Thank you, Y/N, it’s really nice to know that someone else cares about Fundy this much, he needs that.”

“It’s not just him that I care about, Wilbur. I wish you would see Fundy more sooner but I was also worried about you, I know you care about him so something had to be going on for you to miss seeing him this often.”

Well that certainly didn’t help with him trying to ignore these feelings.

“Then I thank you again. I really appreciate it. Goodnight, Y/N. Get some sleep.”

“Goodnight, Wilbur.”

I kissed them for the first time yesterday

Wilbur kept the promise he made to you. Considering the reason he gave you for being busy was a lie, it wasn’t hard to get back to seeing his son and by extension, you.

If you asked him, he would say he’s handling his feelings for you rather well now. He hasn’t done anything about it but he isn’t shutting out the world so, progress.

It was another dinner night with you and Fundy, you had brought desert with you this time so they didn’t have another flour fight but it was still lovely. After he sent Fundy to bed, you stuck around.

The two of you had been sitting on the couch together for a whole, just talking about anything, and maybe it was just because it was late and you looked so beautiful but something came over Wilbur and he asked, “Would you mind if I tried something?”

You nodded, curious about what he was going to try, but you didn’t stay curious for long as Wilbur gently cupped your face with one hand and leaned in to kiss you.

A kiss that you returned.

I never thought that I’d get hit by this lovebug again

#mikey's writing #dream smp x reader #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur x reader #dsmp x reader #dream smp x you #wilbur soot x you #dsmp fic #dsmp x you #dreamsmp x reader #dreamsmp x you

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blahkugo · 4 years ago

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Sleepless

Shouta Aizawa X Reader (BNHA)

Warnings: 18+, bondage, bratty rc, over-stimulation, umm it’s just pure filth sandwiched between some fluff

Word Count: 3.9k

A good night’s rest? You’ve never heard of her!

“At least take off your heels before you throw yourself into bed,” your boyfriend’s voice rings out, still deeply agitated from a long night of feigned smiles and interest. You know that tone well— the exasperated sigh typically saved for his students at U.A— but the room is spinning too fast for you to take heed of his reprimand.

“M’too tired,” you slur your words, face down against your mattress.

The two of you had been at a pro-hero gala, or as Shouta called it, a “gaudy show of riches for politicians and government dickheads.” It had taken almost all of your energy, and a lot of homemade dishes, to persuade him to accept the invitation; however, he had followed through. He behaved properly all night, smiled and socialized with every partygoer that approached you, and even ensured the vicious insults on the tip of his tongue were whispered into your ears only after each person had turned away. You deemed the night a success, despite waving off Shouta’s warnings about that fourth glass of champagne you downed.

“You’re going to get our covers dirty, idiot.” You can’t help but feel your heart flutter at that word— our. Be it the hundredth or thousandth time, you don’t think you’ll ever get over hearing him refer to the two of you as one. It had taken years for him to warm up to you, after all. While he considers it endearing now, you’re positive Shouta had initially found your constant laughter and positive nature unbearable, thinking of you as simply another nuisance to avoid; never had he met someone who reduced his usual threatening tone to something playful or entertaining. And little did either of you know, he would slowly come to adore the way his scolding amused you.

No amount of persuasion from his students or other heroes can convince you Shouta is actually intimidating. If anything, his constant stoicism only compels you to misbehave more. You love pressing his buttons, take pleasure in watching him get riled up and lose his calm demeanor. But as of this very moment, you’re simply too tired, and a bit too tipsy, to play along. You wave off his words with a flick of your wrist, only to feel a tug at your ankle.

“Wha–”

“Stop squirming. I’m trying to take them off,” he struggles with the straps woven intricately up your calves, “damned things are more tangled than my cloth.” When he finally removes them, you feel the pads of his fingertips graze your legs softly. Shocks travel your entire body as he pays special attention to the indents adorning your skin— drawbacks of the tight laces that are quite easy to disregard when they urge him to touch you so sweetly.

Shouta stalks away for a moment, only to return with a cotton pad and makeup remover. You’re surprised he even knows what products to use, though you know you shouldn’t be. He has spent countless minutes watching you complete your night routine intently, though usually his stare is paired with a sleepy grumble to hurry up and join him in bed.

He shifts you into a sitting position, wiping tenderly at your cheek while you pull off your false lashes.

“Those are fake?” He snorts, baffled.

“Mhhm, I’m prettier without them, right?” You poke fun at him, knowing he’ll ignore the cheesy question. A faint heat rises on his cheeks.

“Shut up and put this on,” he nudges one of his t-shirts into your arms before he slides your strapless dress down your body. Even with your eyes half-shut, you can feel his charged stare ogling every hill and valley of your naked form. His fingers barely skim you— a purposeful maneuver to focus on the task at hand— but your body jerks into his grasp, keen for more. Sleepy or not, you’d never waste an opportunity for a quickie. You know just how swiftly a few words and caresses on his part could have you bucking and sobbing, like putty in his han– “(Y/N), stop. You’re drunk and half-asleep.”

“Only tipsy and a quarter asleep, thank you very much.” Your eyes flutter open to see the beginnings of a smile touch his lips, but he just barely holds it back. He’s trying his damn hardest to remain stern, how cute. “Shou,” you mewl, elongating his name in the hopes that he’ll budge.

“Don’t pout at me,” he taps a chiding finger against your bottom lip, “the answer is no. I still have work to do.” Ignoring your whined protests, Shouta walks out of the bedroom. Seconds later, you hear his office door shut, a sign that he’ll be in there long into the night.

Any inkling of sleepiness your body possessed is gone without a trace, now feeling nothing but an intense heat coursing the skin your boyfriend brushed, and the alcohol left running through your veins only intensifies that warmth. You turn yourself over in bed, naively will yourself to succumb to sleep and deal with the ache tomorrow; however, your body has other plans. Your thighs press together on their own, desperate for any sort of relief to quell the throbbing between your legs, but it’s no use. Looks like you’re getting up.

With each step towards his office, you find yourself more impassioned. Who does Shou think he is anyways, leaving you alone in such a needy state? It’s not fair. He gives you the slightest taste of his touch and then cruelly rips it away. So if anything, it’s his fault that your body won’t rest until completely appeased— until he soothes the burn. Besides, you’ll be damned if you’re going to allow him the pleasure of hearing your moans through the thin walls knowing he goaded you into touching yourself.

Upon walking through the door of his workspace, you’re greeted with the sight of your boyfriend, the stealthy pro-hero, seated ever-so casually at his desk. He has a hand pressed adamantly against his temple and his hair up in a messy half-bun. So badly do you want to run your hands through it, tug the clip off so you can watch those beautiful, dark locks tumble down his shoulders. You always catch yourself silently hoping for a piece to fall in his eyes so that you can reach out and tuck it behind his ear, delighted when you have any excuse to stroke the soft waves between your fingertips.

“Shou,” you mumble, one hand rubbing at lidded eyes. The white glow of the computer screen washes over him as he turns to you, and you feel your breath hitch again at the Adonis in front of you.

He’s opted out of wearing any sort of top. Instead, gray joggers hang low on his hips, allowing you to feast your eyes on his lean chest and softly sculpted v-lines. A dark line of hair trails down into his pants, and you feel your mouth water at the idea of licking a long stripe up his navel.

“Can’t sleep.” You’re aware it comes out a whine, don’t care to correct your tone because it may just convince him to join you in bed. He rolls his eyes, your name flowing off his tongue with a low sigh— music to your ears.

“I have work to catch up on since somebody forced me to go to that stupid gala,” the accusation is probably sincere, but you smile anyways.

“Please,” there’s that whine again, “just five minutes.” This time your words are accompanied by a quick yank at the hem of your t-shirt. Your cleavage makes an appearance, and when you see his eyes wander up towards the supple globes— tongue just barely poking out to slide across his bottom lip— you know you’ve got him beat. He mutters under his breath, but the only words you catch are something along the lines of ‘pampered brat’.

Well, spoiled or not your methods work, and he’s the one indulging your whims anyways. Being curled up against Shouta’s sturdy chest, you find the fatigue of a long night creeping up on you once again. His close proximity is enough to relax you; all of your senses are engulfed in his presence, saturated with him. Your body gladly welcomes his scent with every inhale— clean laundry, aftershave, and something a bit woodier that can only be described as ‘Shouta’. Though he shaved this morning, newly grown stubble scruffs against you every time you nuzzle against his jaw. Slender fingers tangle in your hair, smoothing lazy circles into your scalp. And with your ear pressed to his chest, you realize the slow, steady drum of his heartbeat just might actually lull you into a deep sleep.

But that’s all before you hitch a leg around his hip to pull him closer. At the sensation of your heat nudged tightly against him, you feel his heartbeat rise rapidly. If any thoughts of sleep linger in your mind, the prospect of riling Shouta up— and perhaps securing an orgasm or two in the process— throws them out the window once again.

Your fingertips begin to caress his shoulders subtly, ear still pressed to his chest to listen for any jumps in his rhythm. The less he notices your movements, the easier it’ll be to overwhelm him all at once. When your fingers don’t incite any noticeable response, you run them through his hair instead. At the same time, you feign discomfort at the position you’re in and twist your hips slightly, making sure to press your core against him harder. You feel his breath hitch under you, and then your hair being jerked harshly.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he forces you to look up at his cloudy eyes, always ringed with darkness no matter how much rest he receives. Caught. You flash him your sweetest pout, gazing up at him through dainty lashes. A slight ‘hm?’ leaves your lips, but within seconds, they’re attached to his neck, shamelessly kissing and nibbling at the sweet spot near his jaw. “If you’re not going to behave on your own, I’ll make you.” Your thighs tighten around his hips, goosebumps trailing your arms at the clear-cut threat.

“Do it then,” you urge between kisses, now peppering them up his jaw. Your teeth kiss the shell of his ear before you whisper, “or I’ll just keep misbehaving, daddy.”

In an instant, your face is shoved into the mattress, arms crossed behind your back with Shouta’s cock straining against you through his pants. Rigid cotton brushes against your folds and you realize that perhaps he was expecting this turn of events more than he let on, because the fucker never bothered giving you a change of underwear.

“You’re such a needy slut,” he spits, heated breath fanning your neck while he tightens his grasp around your wrists. “Can’t go one night without getting me worked up, huh?” His free hand darts under your shirt, now kneading and pinching at your ass.

“Nope,” you bite back, always ecstatic to provide sassy retorts, especially when he’s seething like this.

A stinging pain travels your body when he slaps the globe of your ass. Once, twice, five times, each spanking invoking a louder gasp until tears prick the corners of your eyes.

“Are you done acting up?” Shouta’s tone is slow and composed, almost disinterested. If not for his heaving chest pressed against your back, you would believe him unaffected by the punishment.

You, on the other hand, are very obviously flustered. Tears stream down your face freely now, and you’re positive the spanking has left a blazing handprint on your cheek as a reminder for days to come. Shouta gives you a final, petty love tap to shake you out of your thoughts. “I don’t have all night.”

But you’re left unsatisfied, the throbbing between your thighs only worsened by his harsh welts and complete neglect of your clit. He hasn’t made a single motion towards your glistening cunt, probably won’t ever if you simply take his discipline lying down.

“What if I’m not?” The words leave your mouth hesitantly, face turning to stare back at him with wide, unblinking eyes. He doesn’t say a word, his own eyes narrowing and lips quivering into a disgusted scowl. Even though you’ve asked for this, know exactly what situation you’ve gotten yourself into, your heart quickens at the thrill of seeing your partner so worked up. He may not be outwardly angry— Shouta has always been a man who prefers quick, biting remarks over piercing screams and smashing glass— but his mannerisms tell you everything you need to know. It’s going to be a long, sleepless night.

You feel the tight, unforgiving fabric knotted around your body before you’re even aware of what’s happening. Nimble fingers quickly wrap your arms in place. Then, your legs are bent at the knees and tied securely to your wrists. Only your taut midriff and breasts touch the mattress, leaving your sopping core exposed, no way to flail or deny him entrance. You’re his to do whatever he pleases with.

“Behave.” He wraps your hair around his wide palm and yanks hard, a pained cry leaving you at the prickling in your scalp. His fingers graze your slit, but never touch you where you need him. It’s absolutely maddening. You buck into him to no avail— the cloth wraps too firmly around your limbs.

“Shou, I– I, please,” you’re practically sobbing, his name leaving your lips over and over like a prayer. But it doesn’t matter, you’ve angered him.

“Who said you could speak?” He tugs harder on your locks. The motion rocks your skull, all nerves standing on end. It fucking hurts, but the action has your slit quivering all the same. “Are you going to be a good little whore now?”

“Yes, Shou.” The response wins you a sharp slap to the ass, the sore cheek. You suppress a loud wail, correcting yourself quickly. “Y-Yes daddy, I’ll behave.” He doesn’t respond, only lets out a low growl and loosens his grip on your hair.

Then, his presence is gone. He’s moved off the bed, and your cunt pulsates at the number of delicious things he may do next.

A slam rings out from your bedside dresser and he’s back within seconds. Something foreign, hard and long, is pressed against your tight hole. No stretching, no warning, he simply sinks the toy into your slick cunt. After a few merciless thrusts you’re whimpering softly, choking back pleas. If he wanted you to beg, you’d know it.

“Is this what you wanted?” The dildo is driven into you faster. “Is this what you were grinding like a bitch in heat for?” His words are spit like venom, tone disappointed— appalled— with you, but it only fuels your steady ascension to orgasm. You’re teetering closer and closer to the edge, but you just need a bit more. His cock, a finger on your clit, anything.

“Yes, yes, yes.” You can’t help the onslaught of moans that spill from your lips in between pants. His hands begin kneading at your ass again, right cheek still flaming with every touch. If he’d only remove the bindings, now digging tightly into your wrists and ankles, you’d be able to hump back onto the toy as you so desperately wish to.

He stills all at once, leaving you distraught and gasping. If you cry out, you’ll only be met with harsh reprimands. You want to sob— for his touch, for a break, for anything to soothe the ache in your core.

You hear it before you feel it.

A small buzzing noise as something is clicked on. Then, vibrations wracking your insides, your clit— a slew of pleasure as the dildo pulses. You sigh loudly, that stubborn itch finally being appeased by the pressure of the toy.

“Is my pretty little slut enjoying herself?” Shouta laughs behind you, voice still cold and filled with loathing. It’s as though he’s repulsed by your desire, your ceaseless need for him. You mewl loudly at the thought. “Mhm, and you’re going to continue enjoying yourself,” you feel the bed dip as he steps away, “until I finish my work.”

The fucking bastard. He’s leaving you tied up and helpless with a sex toy on the highest setting. He knows you’ll be a drooling mess for him, probably only half-conscious, by the time he’s back.

“N- no Shou, please.” Your protests do nothing to sway him. He simply snickers and walks out of the bedroom, leaving you to writhe and wail on your own. And God, does it feel good. Your stomach pulls taut as you rut against the bed like– like an animal. In a constant cycle of edging and ebbing, your orgasms build and build and build until you’re hit full force, only to begin all over again. It’s equal parts satisfying and unfulfilling, because fuck, do you just want your boyfriend’s cock inside you. It’s all you can think of— his warmth, his hands roaming your body, sweet, degrading nothings whispered into your ear while he pounds into you.

You lose track of time, aren’t even sure at this point whether your body is spasming or simply attempting to dispel the thick length inside you. The pleasure has turned to an entirely different ache, swollen clit now abused by the constant vibrations. Your voice is run hoarse, face carved into a permanent wince. And despite your attempts to stay quiet, chokes and gasps still rip through your throat. Even Shouta’s cloth is soaked through with the scorching sweat enveloping your body.

Though absolutely exhausted, you’re conscious enough to hear his quick steps as he makes his way to the bedroom. You can sense the smirk plastered across his face without even seeing it.

“Tired out?” Fingertips ghost over the cloth and across your painfully numb calves, nerves jumping at the feeling. “Ah’, you’ve soaked the bedspread.” A fierce blush runs across your skin, humiliated at the sight you must seem to him— a drooling, high-strung mess. He either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore the way your body shakes at every prod.

All you can do is let out a meager ‘Mmph’, your brain too scrambled to form anything close to words, let alone coherent sentences. “If you use your words, I’ll consider taking the toy out.” Shouta’s ruthless; he knows every inch of your body, your reactions, like the back of his hand. Of course he’d ask you to use your words. He lives to watch you come undone, thrives off the pain etched onto your features.

“Please,” the request is drawn out— paused midway to let loose another gasp— and dripping in desperation. “I can’t– I just-” It’s all you can manage in your state.

“Seems you’ve been fucked stupid,” he chuckles darkly, though the vibrations wracking your cunt finally come to a halt and the dildo is swiftly removed. Your core clenches at the emptiness. “But I haven’t had the chance to stuff this tight little pussy full,” he slaps a harsh palm against your slit, making sure to wipe the slick that now coats his palm all across your cheek. If you weren’t aware of how soaked you were before, Shouta makes damn sure that you do now. The most you can work out in response is a feeble squeak.

One of Shouta’s hands strokes at your matted hair from behind, agile fingers tidying the disheveled strands. The other rubs harsh circles on your clit; you twitch incessantly, sparks running through every inch of your body. “There’s that pained little face I love,” he grabs at your cheeks roughly, forcing your lips into a ‘o’ while grinding into your calf. “Fuck.”

Your legs and arms slump onto the mattress as soon as the cloth is unbound. Every muscle in your body aches with overuse; numbness buzzes through the limbs that were strung together for God knows how long.

Your boyfriend— sadist that he fucking is— thrusts himself into you without warning. Sure, you’ve been stretched by the toy, but your poor slit is so overworked by previous orgasms that even the slightest hint of friction invokes senseless blubbering, your tongue lolling to the side in defeat. Wet, harsh slaps of skin against skin sweep the room, mixed with cries of ‘daddy,’ ‘please,’ and senseless nothings.

“Wanna see you cum.” It’s an order more than a request, grunted into the crook of your neck. His chest flattens against your back. It should feel suffocating, should feel disgusting, considering your body is gleaming with hours worth of perspiration, but you’re enamored with the warmth— engrossed by the way your skin sizzles at his touch. His fingers are secured at your hips, propping your ass in the air and pulling it against him with every piercing thrust.

“N- no, can’t,” cheek still buried into the mattress, you muster whatever strength you have left and grip at his slick bicep behind you. He simply swats your hand away, takes your wrist between his slender fingers, and presses it into the bed. His thumb caresses the marks left by the cloth, savoring the aftermath of the punishment he inflicted.

“You can and you will.” Despite the rasp in his voice, the command still holds authority over your forlorn frame and sends prickles down your spine. You feel yourself, yet again, creeping to the edge of an orgasm. “Cum for me.”

It’s those three, simple words that have you seeing white. Breathless, your brows scrunch together and lips open into a wide ‘o’, but no sound comes out. Your whole body tenses, all senses overwhelmed by this final tidal wave of pleasure, and then finally goes slack.

You’re officially done, body worked to the point of no return. A couple more snaps of his hips and Shouta follows, your name grunted loudly as he spills into you.

For a long time you simply lay together silently, chests heaving with his body still splayed over yours. You know that eventually he’ll roll out of bed and make sure you’re all cleaned up. You always revel in the way he pampers you, taking his time to ensure he doesn’t miss a single inch of skin. If you weren’t so exhausted, he’d probably run a bath as well.

Right now, the heat is finally proving too much for you, so you tap at his hip and he slides himself out of your raw core.

“Ouch,” you wince at the friction, the ability to speak returning to you at last. The whole bottom half of your body is tender. It’ll be a miracle if you’re able to sit comfortably for the next few days.

“Surprised you actually behaved,” he chuckles, flipping you over to hold you. His fingers rub lazy circles into your back and he presses a kiss to your forehead, “You were so good for me.”

“Not like you had me tied up or anything,” you poke a finger at his chest. “And to do paperwork at that.”

“Oh,” a slow, smug smile inches across his face, “I didn’t get any work done.” You might just slap him.

“Shouta,” your voice is even, but your eyes pierce his, narrowed in disbelief, “what do you mean you didn’t get any work done?” His laugh rumbles through his chest.

“Do you think I could really focus, hearing your screeching through the walls like that?”

TAG LIST: @lookslikeleese @rat-suki @honja-saranghago @bakatenshii @theygottheircages @enjifuckersupreme @baku-no-alt @yukiimanic @sanguinekeigo @red-riot-girl642 @aurorahoneyyybunnnsss @saratour @mindninjax

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#AIZAWA FUCKERS COME THRU #this took me so long i hated it for the longest #but reading over it now i think it's okay??? lmk #aizawa shouta #shouta aizawa #shouta aizawa x reader #aizawa shouta x reader #bnha #bnha smut #shouta x reader #shouta aizawa x you #daddy aizawa #sunny writes #bnha fic #mha smut #mha

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viridiave · 4 years ago

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Daylight Prairie- Creatures of the Light (lore dump)

I've had a couple of theories and headcanons stirring around my head regarding Prairie for a while now- so right here we're gonna tie some of them together cuz I haven't lored in a good long while XD

Note- btw I'm not part of beta so this is purely just me- a crackhead- putting together a crackpot narrative. SOME spoilers for Eden are present.

okay these guys drive me fucking nuts

We barely know anything about these guys- and what little we do know is derived purely from their closed off uh... Worshipping space. Look at this freaking thing.

In the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by clouds for miles. Fairly advanced diamond technology. Altars with graves decked out in gold and candles. The mechanism for the entrance to the elevator to begin with is fairly complex as well- activated by butterflies and the butterflies don't even die in the process. And to top everything off, this place has a portal that leads directly to the Prairie Temple.

If this isn't sus I don't know what is- but I think I have an explanation.

There are six spaces for six more people that we are not aware of. The only people we DO know of is one bald person in the short garb and another bald person in the long garb. I propose that these six missing people are the Whisperers.

Which is... pretty out there, I know. Counting the 'voices' that we get in game, (including the ones from previous Seasons like Lightseekers and Sanctuary) we have one for Birds, Whales, Mantas, Memories, Crabs, and Jellyfish. For now, we're not counting either Butterflies or Krill- and I'll explain why in a bit.

As for the initial proposition that these Whisperers are the missing six, first we need to ask ourselves what exactly it was that the Worshippers were... worshipping. There is a possible god of which we see in game, and the name of this god is the Megabird.

Megabird here was heavily present in concepts, and in the final product we only ever get to see traces of her and heck to this day we're not sure if she's a canon entity in the final game at all. Megabird as an entity in the concepts is basically the god overseeing the world of Sky and is comprised entirely of light. It's unclear whether or not the Ancestors were aware of her existence after or even before the King rose to power. The Elders themselves are likely privy to this information, but somehow I doubt that it's something anyone wanting to assert control over their people would encourage.

There's certainly the possibility that these Worshippers were a religious sect dedicated to the Elders themselves- but since I'm here trying to propose that they're worshipping something tangential to the possible actual god, we're going to assume this isn't the case. On that note-

I propose that the Ceremonial Worshippers valued the Light above all else- and this worship was extended towards the light creatures themselves.

'Oi. Vir. Crabs are DARK Creatures.'

Not all of them. Heck, a dark crab might not have been the norm back then, but that's a stretch and besides- the fact is that these crabs on the far end of Sanctuary are docile.

Keep in mind that these followers were stationed in Prairie, of all places. You know what else is in Prairie? Sanctuary Isles- home to several kinds of manta, butterflies, jellyfish, and even the elusive Elder Manta (yes that's what the big chonky boi that looks like a light krill is called- it's not a whale.). Daylight Prairie is in no shortage of light creatures- and at the center of it all is its Elder.

Prairie Elder is implied to have responsibilities toward the light creatures as presented in the SkyShop poem featuring them:

'Fields of harvest, prairies of joy.

Farmer and fauna as one.

The Elder protects the creatures of light,

For darkened days to come.

Fly up, fly away,

For the Children of Light in need.

We shall recall our days of wonder,

And feel its air once more.'

-SkyShop Poem (Prairie Elder Pin)

In the greater context of the story, Daylight Prairie is the primary source of light energy in the form of the light creatures- it makes sense that the Elder of that realm would oversee the flow of light creatures from one realm to the other, and that the Ancestors in their domain would have a greater respect for the creatures than others. They're the ones working with them, and they're the ones that know them best.

Enter the Worshippers- who were likely serving directly under the Prairie Elder. I'm not confident that the Prairie Elder could have shared information about the Megabird- or if they even know the god existed. 'The Light itself' is pretty vague for something to be worshipped, and it's possible that the Prairie Elder instead encouraged people that the Light manifested itself into the various light creatures that we see.

In this world however- industrialization marches on, and eventually these light creatures became things to be harvested rather than worshipped. It's speculated that light creatures were used in the production of diamonds- we see signs of this scattered throughout Forest, and Wasteland by proxy. The mural under the bridge in Forest and the doors to the Temple seem to suggest as much at least. Eventually, this industrialization will grow out of hand. I have a few theories on what the Prairie Elder might have done to passively rebel against this.

We learn in the Prairie Elder's cutscene that they are able to form- not summon- butterflies from fire. I'm not proposing that the Prairie Elder is single-handedly responsible for the existence of butterflies- rather I'm proposing through the Prairie Elder's abilities that light is able to be manipulated in such a way that one can create light creatures, should they know how.

It could just be the butterflies, honestly. And really it could just be the Prairie Elder that's capable of such a feat- and because of these holes in this theory it's the first to go.

And yes this is the reason why the Butterflies don't count. I think. That has holes too and I can make a case for the Butterfly Charmer technically being part of this... But I digress.

Sanctuary Islands could be a literal Sanctuary for the light creatures- there is an impressive variety of them present. It's also very out of the way, tucked away in a corner of Bird's Nest. The theory I'm proposing here is that the Prairie Elder and the Sanctuary Guide worked together to keep this place hidden from the rest of the Kingdom- and that it was the Sanctuary Guide that broke the bells that would have granted the Ancestors access to the light creatures.

This is... probably improbable, but my whole post was leading up to this so we're doing this. The missing six Worshippers are the Whisperers that we've encountered throughout the game- leaving in order to either develop their relationship with or protect their creatures of choice.

The Bird Whisperer stayed close and remained in Prairie- and is probably the reason why Bird's Nest exists at all. The Jellyfish Whisperer remained as well, opting to stay in Sanctuary- the natural habitat of the jellyfish.

The Whale Whisperer ventured to Forest- where there probably once was a small population of Whales, given the corpse we see in the Bridge Area and the live Whale in the Underground Cavern.

The Manta Whisperer went to Valley- I'm guessing to see how mantas were being used for labor and competitions? And Valley is right next to Wasteland so I might be reaching but they could have been monitoring that too.

The Crab Whisperer is a tricky one because we see them travelling with the Lightseekers, and yes I am proposing that this lady was formerly a Worshipper. But because we're dealing with a creature that we now know is more dark than light, maybe the Crab Whisperer joined the Lightseekers in order to observe that phenomenon more closely? Because she does refer to the crabs as friends in her SkyShop poem. Wasteland wasn't always a... wasteland, after all. Things could have been different, and the crabs could have been adapting in a time where they would be relatively dangerous but not so much that an Ancestor couldn't approach them.

And then there's the Memory Whisperer. For this one, I don't think a spirit manta actually exists- at least, not as an organic creature and moreso just an interactive holograph courtesy of the machinations of Vault. I'm actually not too sure on what this person could have been doing, but they have a call- and my best guess is that the Memory Whisperer is one who listens to the last vestiges of light leftover by a creature- because we do see skeletons in Vault, and one is of a creature that looks like an amalgamation of several spirit mantas.

As far back as Prophecy, Krill don't appear to be aligned with the light. They aren't depicted as former light creatures, nor a corrupted variant of an elder manta or whale- they are presented as thenselves in that Prophecy mural. Though I'm sure we'll get a Krill call later on, I'm not going to count them until then.

<CONCLUSION...?>

This huge post is... full of holes and heavy speculation, I'm aware. Mostly I just wanted to dump a bunch of shower thoughts and leftover lore I came up in the Discord lore chat. Go check it out sometime, I've derived a few points in this from interacting with people there. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter, by the way- it's fun theorizing! I haven't done this seriously in a long while.

#sky cotl #sky children of the light #sky lore #sky cotl lore #that sky game #daylight prairie #season of sanctuary

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chazukekani · 4 years ago

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Previous // Next

Summary for Code:03 is here! I hope you guys will enjoy (spoilers, not really!)

Recap: Murase-officer was killed by Verlaine, so Chuuya and Adam were going to find out why he had become Verlaine's target.

From the blue mobile phone acquired from Murase-officer's pocket, Adam believed that the phone was not the original but got replaced by someone, and hence Adam inferred that Verlaine was the one who did this in order to wiretap his call, and Adam was able to get the recording of the final call on Murase-officer's phone.

'It's me, brother,' that's the voice of Murase-officer.

'The gravity guy is here, just like what you said. Wait! There is one more person! Who is this? What's his relationship with Chuuya! Call me when you hear this!" and that's the end of the call.

This recording took place shortly after Verlaine invaded the police station.

'That's very interesting,' Adam was sure about something, 'With reference to my record, his brother was supposed to be dead already.'

Murase-officer's brother, was dead in April 14 years ago. He died in an accident while conducting an experiment. His name was not on the official record, nor there was any photograph of his appearance, so let's call him N for now.

'Officer-san's brother, participated in the research of Arahabaki?' Chuuya said.

The creator of Arahabaki...? Adam could not handle such surprise in his mind. The trio (Chuuya, Adam and Shirase) continue to deduce the hints they have. They supposed N was probably the only survivor as all scientists were dead during one explosion of the experiment. Now they know, Verlaine's next target was N because he was the only one left who knew the secrets behind Chuuya. Henceforth, they have to find N now.

'Hey, you...' Shirase looked at Adam with a terrified face as if seeing a ghost. Adam was confused, but the next second he realised, that was Adam himself talking.

'I am the one who needs your help,' Adam's mouth moved, 'Adversely, you need my help too. I am the one whom you called N.' The man who called N hacked into Adam and delivered this message.

'I can no longer speak to you in such a way, come here, I want to meet you. I will leave the address in this machine.'

'Hey, wait. Meet us? What do you know?' said Chuuya

'Everything, Chuuya. Everything about you.' that voice spoke as if a god with a very calm voice, 'I am looking forward to meet you,' and the connection was lost.

They have arrived at their destination. It was a huge and broad place underground, as big as a tennis court, and there were firewalls built in the surrounding with guards guarding the front gate. Chuuya, Adam and Shirase were stopped by the guards and demanded to do a blood check before they could proceed for security purposes, but of course, Adam was spared from it.

After finishing the check, they finally saw N. That person that stood in front of them, was exactly the one who stood next to Chuuya in the picture that the Flags gave him.

'I am the director of the Arahabaki Project. The military named me as N because this is the initial of Nakahara.'

'I am your father.'

'What do you think ability is?' The group were in a corridor of the facility.

'We, researchers, frankly speaking, don't really know what ability is. How embarrassing,' N proceeded.

But there were few things that were confirmed. Other forms of life apart from humans, such as animals or plants, are not able to possess ability. Also, when the human dies, the ability that he has will together vanish from this world. Every ability has a maximum of output of power, and the military wanted to know so badly how we could break the limits. Yes, there is a way to break the limit, and that's called ability singularity. This is a phenomenon that occurred as a result of two or more contradicting abilities interfering with each other. Which means usually it requires at least two ability users to create such a phenomenon.

However, there is one type of ability user that is able to create an ability singularity on his own. They are able to do so because their ability itself consists of theoretical contradiction. The first person who discovered this was a German scientist, and he named this type of ability 'self-contradicting ability'. To be precise, this ability allows the user to amplify the output of their own ability. Since the user can continue amplifying the power of their own ability, it gives them an unlimited source of power, which breaks through the limit of ability. However, this user also needs to take the risk because once they are granted infinite power, the high density of the energy will create a distortion in space and collapse it into a gravity vortex, and can never go back.

There was an intense competition between Germany, France and Britain on investigating this subject. Since Japan was the ally of Germany, Japan also acquired various techniques and reports regarding this topic. Since most of the countries were running out of resources by the end of the war, they were eager to take theories into practice, and the most advanced country on this topic was France. They successfully weaponised ability singularity, and they found out that the most effective way to control it was heart, in other words, the human's soul. Yet with such huge energy, it was afraid that ordinary humans were not capable to manage it, but ironically, only humans are capable of possessing ability. Therefore, the French scientists came up with a solution, and that is to create a homunculus with a soul, and that’s how Paul Verlaine came. Years later, the Japanese government also obtained the related information and hence proceeded to conduct a similar experiment, which later what was known as the Arahabaki Project.

N wanted to show Chuuya something, but it was considered top secret. So he asked Adam and Shirase to wait while he and Chuuya would go somewhere else.

While going to another room, Chuuya told N that he recognised this place. However, N told him that it was just the No.2 Laboratory which had the same design as No.1 Laboratory, and it was destroyed during the Arahabaki Project. So what Chuuya remembered was actually the environment of the No.1 Lab. Meanwhile, Chuuya recalled some of his memories in this facility. He recalled that he had been staying in darkness for a long time. Yet, he heard 'Invaders!' 'Lock area 8 and 15!' one day. He used to be inside a cradle and locked from the outside world. But that day, someone broke the cradle and a hand touched Chuuya. That's Rimbaud's hand, and next to him was Verlaine.

'You are a miracle, Chuuya,' said N.

N showed something to Chuuya, and that's a cylinder which has a size similar to Chuuya. The container was transparent, and it had some blue and black liquid kept inside it so it was quite difficult to see through.

'Who is inside!' Chuuya yelled, but N didn't say a word.

N pressed a button via a remote in his pocket, and the liquid began to drain, and Chuuya was shocked to see what appeared in front of him.

What inside the cylinder, was Chuuya.

The Chuuya inside the container had his eyes closed, and quite thin. His leg was locked by two chains respectively that linked to the bottom of the cylinder.

'May I introduce, your original,' said N.

Chuuya's jaw dropped.

Suddenly, the teen inside the cylinder was in pain, and could not breathe. He cough badly and almost had his organs cough out.

'Hey! Are you alright!' Chuuya yelled.

'No way he would be alright,' said N, 'he had his living-saving fetal aqueous solution drained after all.

Chuuya grabbed the controller from N and pressed all the buttons on it, but nothing happened. Shortly after, that teen died, and his body including his skin, flesh melted together into a blue-black liquid.

All of a sudden, Chuuya felt dizzy and fell down.

'I designed you, so I know you the best. No matter how strong you are, you are incompatible with poison,' said N. Chuuya realised that poison was injected during the blood check. He was furious and tried to punch N. Yet, a bullet hit Chuuya's forehead, and he lost his consciousness immediately.

On the other hand, likewise, Shirase also felt dizzy. Adam noticed Chuuya might be in trouble as well. After keeping Shirase in a safe placed, he proceed to search for Chuuya.

In a room of nothing, Chuuya's upper clothing was deprived, and he was bleeding. The most serious injury he had was on his chest. His hands were locked up by chains that connected to the ceiling, and electricity went through his body via this chain. Under the order of N, Chuuya was injected with midazolam, and continued being tortured.

N revealed that Chuuya was the only experimental product in the country that consisted of a safety measure - in order to activate his full ability, a spell was needed. Once Chuuya said the spell, his personality will be erased and overridden. Such that Chuuya would be free from pain and darkness. And the spell was-

'O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again! I will endure my solitude, arms seemingly already useless,' N said the spells.

'O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again...' Chuuya repeated after N as if an automatic robot. This was the result of the midazolam.

'Very well,' N smiled

'I will...WHO ARE YOU?' Chuuya yelled.

'Raise the power,' N ordered the assistant to give Chuuya another electric shock, and Chuuya screamed.

Chuuya was not in a stable state of mind. He saw different kinds of illusion. He saw Dazai, Piano Man, Albatross, Ice Man, Lippmann and Doc, and the members of sheep. He was blamed by such an illusion, and his value of existence was denied.

The last person who showed up was Verlaine.

'I will kill this researcher,' said Verlaine in Chuuya's illusion. He gave his hand out to Chuuya and said, 'come here,'

'Why...' said Chuuya

'Didn't I tell you when we first met? I am here to save you,' Verlaine replied, 'Go, my brother. Kill N and take your soul back from this crazy world.'

Adam was dealing with the soldiers that were attacking him. At once, a teenager showed up in front of Adam, and he's Dazai.

'Nice to meet you Mr Inspector,' Dazai greeted, and he continued, ' "Why are you here?" I believe that's what you wanna ask me. I will tell you. That's a stage of the plan. "What's the plan?" you may ask, and I will tell you, everything.'

Dazai explained that the documents that he gave to Verlaine was the information about Murase-officer, N, and everything else. The purpose behind this was to save time, because Verlaine's initial first target was Mori. Hence, by manipulating the information, Dazai can squeeze out extra time and assassinate Verlaine back.

'According to the plan, Chuuya will kill N, and will not be a human anymore. However I want to see Chuuya as a human, so I am here to stop him,' said Dazai.

A fight broke out in the laboratory where Chuuya was staying, and other people were evacuated from the facility.

Chuuya had immense hatred towards N.

'W...wait! I can't help with it! It's all work! I never ever once wanted you to suffer on my own!' N cried and tried to escape from Chuuya.

'Don't listen to him Chuuya,' Verlaine showed up in the entrance.

Chuuya was holding a chain on his hand tightly, and threw it out with the speed of sound and stabbed the target: Verlaine's chest.

'W...what?'

'Didn't see that coming right, Verlaine. It's true that the researcher is harsh, but you killed Piano Man and the others after all,' Chuuya said, and the 'brothers' had a fight.

There was a mass explosion everywhere inside the room. The punches were able to create tiny suns and the gravity made the room collapse.

Amid the fight, N, who was injured nearby, yelled to Verlaine, 'If I died, you would never know your secret!'

' I am not joking, everything. Including the one you wanna know most - the Secret of the Gentle Forest,'

'How do you know this!' Verlaine shouted.

But there was no spare time for them, All of a sudden, a skeleton appeared. That's Chuuya's original, and that's what the body left after dying and melting in Chuuya's arm just now. It was connected with the tube and wearing a coat. The skeleton was under the control of N and launched attacks towards Chuuya, and he couldn't move

Shirase, who woke up and found Chuuya, surprisingly appeared and saved Chuuya by plugging out the tube from the skeleton. A while after, Adam and Dazai also found where Chuuya was. The battle was paused.

All of a sudden, the light in the room was turned off, but turned back on a few seconds afterwards. Yet, Verlaine and N were gone, and the ceilings of consecutive multiple floors above were gone as well.

Code 3 ended

#bungostraydogs #bungoustraydogs #bsd #boungo stray dogs storm bringer #bungou stray dogs storm bringer #bsd storm bringer #bsd nakahara chuuya #bsd paul verlaine #bsd adam frankenstein #bsd dazai osamu #nakahara chuuya #paul verlaine #adam frankenstein #dazai osamu

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felassan · 4 years ago

Text

Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.”

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’”

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’”

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.”

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

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popurikat · 4 years ago

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Trying to make sense of parts of Future (Mystery Skulls)

Since my last analysis went so well I thought I’d make this post as well, especially because Future really did confuse me and I know others might be lost as well; so lets discuss this together! It will be lengthy as I am basically spewing my thoughts out right on the videos immediate release date (there will be a read more option after my first thought to avoid long positng). Well first things first, I wanna address that I've been curious about what kind of spirit Arthur's arm could be (since I am not too well acquainted with any canon on its background part at least) and I think I have concluded that the closest thing to it could be is a Tenome; which is a Yochai that possesses a man's body and moves the eyes to the palms. "found lurking in cemeteries, hands outstretched, as if he has only recently lost his vision and is searching for something. Get close enough, and you’ll find out in quick succession that a) he’s not blind, but looking with eyes embedded in his hands, and b) what he’s looking for is a snack." (fyi, most of my mythos information is coming from Wiki just as a heads up)

And sure enough he found a great source for his hunger. Something he has been EYEING since the start. Which now leads me to my next points on the video...

At first watch I was convinced that each strand found on Mystery’s heart represented a singular soul bond, I thought that blue was for Vivi, Green was for the hand, pink for Lewis, purple for Shiro, Yellow for Lance, Orange for Arthur, and black and white were unknown. Which, didn’t settle right for me. SO I went in and re-watched the clip a couple more times and saw this:

Vivi’s (blue created after she got hurt) and Shiro’s (white created after she died) strands were connected to the strands located next to them. A start and an end. Mystery’s promise to Vivi to stay at her side for generations as he was spared upon prior defeat of Mushi. And then of course we have the promise of power and sustenance for Shrio as they held a symbiotic relationship for most of their lives that was only severed due to an interference. These double strands of fate are especially clearer in the scene with Shiro in Future. As the black strand gets clearer the more she gets injured or emotionally hurt, it eventually leads to the leak of the white strand on her death. Meaning; Black/white=Shiro; Purple/Pink=Lewis; Blue/Green: Vivi; and Orange/Yellow: Arthur. And why am I inclined to believe Lewis and Arthur are apart of Mystery’s heart? Well that's because those two were the only ones fully streaming before Vivi’s and Shiro’s appeared. We know that Arthur lost an arm to Mystery and discovered his identity (ergo losing most of his trust in him) insinuating both strands to arise early on of his color scheme, as well as with Lewis’ death occurring under the protection of Mystery when they were grouped and having his soul go restless/ in pain. It wouldn’t make sense to add family members or side characters not included in the mainline story to this grouping unless they would play an important role in the finale, which isn’t likely since we have only one more video left as Ben stated it was going to be a 5 video series. I am also inclined to believe each person has two strands because of Kitsune lore: “ Kitsune keep their promises and strive to repay any favor. Occasionally a kitsune attaches itself to a person or household. They follow their word of honor. They become self-destructive if they break a promise, and when someone else breaks a promise, they become deadly enemies.” Plus, It would make sense as to why in this short battle Mystery sprouted his last 3 tails when it came to Vivi and Shiro and how their connections affect his power. (more on this in a bit) But, furthermore; if anyone else notices, the Band-Aids on the heart are also remotely located on the sections of Vivi’s and Shiro’s strands specifically because for both, Mystery has vowed to protect them and has failed.

Now then lets talk about a few things on Mystery’s ultimate form shall we? The final form of a Kitsune, its celestial form as shown here is called a Tenko. (yes I am aware of the Kumiho, but that is a fully evil, flesh eating, 9 tailed fox that specialize in illusions and well Mystery has never been portrayed as human). The Tenko makes even more sense when taken into consideration that Mystery’s third eye (typically a form of wisdom connected to overpowering the mortality of ones self) opens. So how was this done in such a short amount of time? “Kitsune do not accept aid from those who are not willing. they do not ask for help, and as such, most aid must come from another's initiative. Kitsune are emotional and very vengeful. Kitsune will lose their temper at the slightest provocation. Once someone has earned a kitsune's enmity, the kitsune will begin enacting revenge that can become quite extreme. On the other hand, those who have earned a kitsune's trust and loyalty will see a friendship that can last through many trials. Freedom is very important to the kitsune. They do not accept being forced into something they do not wish, and do not like being bound or trapped. Doing so weakens the kitsune.” Mystery as we know is very much controlled by his emotions, going head first into things constantly based on reaction and his inability to control his power under distress. His tails arose in the fight sequence every time he fulfilled his oath AND used 100% of his form/power. Therefore, his tails grew because he wasn’t holding back anymore, not his grievances, not his appearance, nor his hesitance in his evident distress of being bound to two entities that both required his aid. My last note on these images comes from a tumblr user’s reverse audio clipping (https://nebulous-rain.tumblr.com/post/633555549749952512/ok-so-yknow-that-one-reversed-part-of-future). The rewind of the clip of Mystery’s transformation plays “When I’m With You”, which yes, cool a possible Easter egg to the next song! BUT what is this song about? Let me just bring up the first line of the song: “You got me hanging by a THREAD...I wish I could turn back time...I wish I could rewind life...” and before the chorus “I’m gonna make it right”. We know that this can refer to rectifying the wrongs of Lewis’ death, but more accurately to do so we need to defeat the evil inside this mutt that is pulling the strings of this whole fiasco. And this might just be the intro portion of the next mystery skulls mind you as we’ve also gotten many false starts with the previous two videos where hellbent used “every note” and future used “enemies” alongside the main song. BUT WE HAVE TWO YEARS ANYWAY, WHY BABBLE ON ABOUT THIS. LETS MOVE ON!

Hearts in this series have not been just for identifying the dead or for aesthetic purposes, they are the life force of each powerful legend. I am actually surprised to see Shiro have a heart as she started off as a creation from Mystery and therefore her lifeforce is just his blood and without it she is nothing. I am curious about her color pallet though, her heart is purple and pink. Lewis’ is gold/yellow with touches of orange. And Mystery’s is just red, but it has a mix of everyone’s essence within it to keep it tied and whole. Shiro’s could be colored this way in reference to Lewis’ aid to help find her creator; which would explain why Mystery surrounds himself by color as he required outside help and how Lewis’ heart is yellow in reference to how recently Arthur helped him remember his friends/hidden memories. One thing we have learned about hearts is that they can be broken repeatedly and can be ripped apart from the body, but they can be repaired too through resolution/hope. Lewis restored his heart in hellbent by using Vivi’s flower petals and finding hope that he will get revenge, only for his heart to be repaired again through Arthur’s touch. Shiro may have withered away, but her heart is essentially not broken, she’d need Mystery to restore it as it was flung into space (and that again relies on Mystery finding his sanity and finding it in himself to even bring her back). And as for Mystery himself, he’s gonna need the whole gang to reach out to him to extract the parasite within and restore balance. I really want to know more about the heart properties and how they give their users their powers as well Vivi is able to summon her strength through a material connection (bat) that function in its own way as the vessel a heart does since its connecting her to her ancestry.

NOW to finalize, I offer you two queries:

WHO IS ARTHURS HAND REACHING FOR!? I know it seems like Mystery, but that would be counter productive for the hand demon if he has Arthur interfering with his control. Is it still after Lewis as we’ve seen previous times where his arm acts up only in Lewis’ presence and when specifically other “magic” is at play? If so, is the goal to ward off Lewis and Vivi from defeating Mystery? Is Arthur gonna use the arm to find his own power as we’ve seen when he is able to momentarily cease control of it he kinda ruins anything electrical he touches and well, electricity is currently running rampant in there.

and lastly, I am really curious how touch sensitive hearts are, We know that even the smallest of brushes can detect memory/links to the person holding it (as seen with how Shiro managed to get soul flowers in hellbent), but the fact that Lewis was so in touch with the feeling of Arthur EVEN THOUGH ARTHUR GRABBED HIS HEART THROUGH HIS METAL HAND MIND YOU!, that he still managed to feel the disturbance instantly. So my question is, is the touch sensitivity reliant on how close someone is to someone? I would like to say yes cause when Shiro touched his heart he didn’t react instantly, he felt her rummaging his memories and was awoken, but he didn’t kick her butt by fully reforming until after she had long since stepped on his heart and then forced the memory of Mystery to arise. But yeah, its a nice little detail.

Either way, thanks for reading! Feel free to add on, comment, or even dm me about more Mystery Skulls information and theories! Love to hear them!

#Mystery Skulls #MSA #mystery skulls animated #future #MSA future #Mystery skulls animated future #Lewis #Lewis Pepper #arthur #arthur kingsmen #Vivi #vivi yukino #Shiro #Shiromori #???#Arthur's arm #Mystery #theories #theory

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legitimateluffy · 4 years ago

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One Piece Animation Thesis: East Blue

If you would prefer to follow via the master Google Doc, [HERE] is the link! This will be updated as we go through the arcs and is currently planned to be updated weekly!

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Whew hey everyone!

So this is the beginning of a project that I have had in the back of my mind for quite some time and finally decided to start working on. A quick rundown of what this actually is, it’s a somewhat showcase of the animation found within the main One Piece anime (so, no movies/specials/filler arcs between canon arcs etc. although that may be something I will attempt to tackle one day if this does well). This will also include some insight into the anime industry and essentially give some insight on behind the scenes and why certain decisions are made as well as giving names of the hard working animators to their respective scenes. Hopefully this whole thing will continue to give a bit of insight into the One Piece anime as I believe that it is greatly under appreciated and while criticisms of it are valid, there definitely needs to be more of an understanding as to why the anime is the way it is. This will be a long journey ahead so please bear with me! Let’s get started!

The One Piece anime, including movies and specials, is animated by Toei Animation, and they are responsible for many other famous animated properties and adaptations, including Digimon, Dragon Ball/Z/GT/Super, Sailor Moon, Toriko, Gegege no Kitaro among many others. They animate many different series and have a big load to take on. This is something that will be touched on later, because it greatly affects the anime in later years. But for now, I’ll be going through the arcs, starting with the East Blue saga. The East Blue saga is made up of episodes 1-53 (including some filler) and consists of quite actually not that many noteworthy animated scenes, even though it covers many arcs (Shells Town, Orange Town, Syrup Village, Baratie, Arlong Park, LogueTown). Animation throughout this portion of the anime was quite limited, using minimal movement and taking appropriate shortcuts where necessary. Scenes are also quite hard to tell exactly who animated what due to the style consistency. There are a few noteworthy scenes though, but first I would like to introduce the rough structure of how the anime is made. An important part in animation is someone who is the character designer, someone who essentially designs the characters and in this case, attempts to replicate Oda’s style for it to be easily animated. During this part of the anime, the character designer is Noboru Kizumi who would continue to be the character designer for the anime for the next 10 or so years. These are the some of the sheets he made for the main characters:

This is something I’ll continue to showcase as we continue to go through each of the arcs, showcasing the strawhats as they pop up in the story. When the time comes, we will also compare the changes of style and why things have changed. But for now, I’ll just present the first designs.

One Piece at this stage was very cartoony and had quite a different style, especially compared to a lot of the current anime/manga at the time and it still continues to have a distinctive style to this day. Following these sheets allows for a good sense of continuity, which is very important with anime. If anyone out there attempts to draw something without looking at a reference, it’s not going to look quite as well as we want it to. So in using a reference, we can have a better grasp as to how the character looks from certain angles, heights compared to other characters, facial expressions and more.

In order to keep these characters looking somewhat similar so as to not disrupt the viewer’s experience by seeing jarring styles, someone works as a Chief Animation Director. They aim to ensure that characters remain consistent throughout the episode, and that they are on model. So, how is this achieved? Well, we’ll have a look at the process on how something is conceptualised and then put to screen.

Initially, a script is conducted. Going through the manga, people take what is deemed necessary material and put it into script format. It is important to note that as the anime and manga continue to go on for years, the gap between the anime and manga release shortened significantly, resulting in pacing issues. Keep this in mind for later as this is something I plan to touch on. Then a storyboard is created, having very rough lines in order to convey what is to be created. Here is an example:

A good storyboard can make or break an episode, as it dictates angles, how long scenes linger on screen, etc. Once the storyboard has been decided on, the animating can begin. Scenes are appointed to animators, where they create something called Genga. This is done on paper, similar to how it’s done in other parts of the world. Here are some examples of older Genga:

Even though times have changed and anime has become digital, with some animators now exclusively animating digitally, the anime industry still uses Genga, using paper and pencil to create their scenes. Here are some examples of newer Genga:

Once the Genga has been created, the Chief Animation Director will go in and correct what is necessary to ensure that the style remains consistent. Others may also help participate in this process, such as an Animation Supervisor. Here is an example of a Genga being corrected to ensure that it remains consistent in style:

In doing something like this, some animators can animate great action and keep their lines rough to save time, and an Animation Supervisor can clean it up and make it look good. After this has been completed, the Genga is then made into what is called Animation Cels. This is not exclusive to Japan, as for decades this is a process that has been used. This is a transparent sheet that had the lines and colours painted on, and is then photographed over painted backgrounds. Yeah...A long and dubious process indeed. This is not common place anymore due to how time consuming it is, and with the rise of digital, creating colours, effects, filters and backgrounds are much faster and easier to accomplish. Here are some examples of One Piece animation cels:

I would have much preferred to share cels directly from the anime itself and not the movies but they are quite difficult to come across and have more than likely been sold off from Toei long ago. But they will suffice, as it gives a good idea as to what they look like.

But voila! Animation has been created! All that’s left is music, sound effects and voice over and you’ve got yourself an anime. Wonderful. Easy right? Yeah, not exactly. All of this takes time and patience. And this is something that needs to be remembered. Time. A very important keyword in the animation industry and a lot more important than the word budget that likes to get thrown around. Due to One Piece being a long running weekly series, the animators have a lot less time than, say, My Hero Academia or Demon Slayer, two very prominent seasonal anime. These series do not have more money shoved into them, more budget, than One Piece that results in higher quality and consistent animation, a problem the One Piece anime definitely faces further down the road. Here’s an example:

Michelangelo is one of the most famous artists of all time, due to his remarkable attention to detail in his works present in the High Renaissance period. One of his most famous works is the Statue of David, an incredible piece of work that was worked on for 3 years. However, if you were to tell him to replicate it but say, give him a month, he’s not going to get anywhere near the same results as the piece where he spent 3 years on. It would be quite rough around the edges, and quite rushed. No matter how much money you throw his way, he still won’t be able to get anywhere close to those results. And this is the same with any artist, including animation. This is a big misconception in the anime community, and that is that as long as you throw money at people, they’re going to end up creating incredible works, regardless of the poor time management. That is just not how it works.

This does seem like quite a ramble, and it’s already quite long prior to even reaching the main aspect of this whole project, in which I showcase animators, but this is important background information that needs to be understood prior to delving in. With that very long introduction, let’s now get to showcasing animators!

Some of the animators that were present on many early One Piece episodes include:

Kazuya Hisada, Masahiro Shimanuki, Naoki Tate, Jin Inaba, Tadayoshi Yamamuro. Please note, there are many others involved animating wise, but these are some key names, and ones that will develop and evolve as the years go on.

Kazuya Hisada is someone who will pop up later and fulfil a more important role in the series, but in the early days he created some great scenes with some snappy timing, while using lines to help convey impact. He is found throughout early One Piece, however due to the limited animation and consistent style thanks to Noboru Kizumi, he can be difficult like most during this era to spot.

Hideaki Maniwa is more prominent in his animation, being more pronounced due to his camera movement on his characters. He uses subtle smears usually on impact to further enhance the idea that whoever is being hit, is being hit HARD. He also created the most animated piece of early One Piece in episode 23 where he creates seemingly natural movement of the background of the ship and water, making the sea feel powerful and heavy.

So what have we learnt so far.

Well, there is a lot of hard work that goes into the production of an anime series, and that is no different with One Piece. Early episodes for the most part had not too many interesting scenes animation wise, and the animators essentially got the work done in order to produce and release the series week to week. It will continue to be a bit of a slow start, with arcs like Alabasta and SkyPiea being similar in the regard of not many noteworthy scenes however, we can begin to see the cracks of emerging stars and evolving styles that will later become staples within the series.

This is it to the first of what is hopefully a long and engaging project! So far it has been quite a read and very lengthy and I apologise for that. Hopefully from here on out we should be able to successfully get through more animators and styles become more distinct and animation continues to evolve. Next up I intend to cover Alabasta.

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A massive thank you to everyone who has participated and uploaded at Sakugabooru! Without it, I would not have been able to make nearly as much as I have without all the hard work in identifying and tagging animators’ work! Most of the footage used to showcase these animators has come from there! I simply just turned the videos into gifs for an easier showcase.

I would also like to issue a big thank you to Animators Corner! The staff listing really helped me in determining who worked on what episode to identify animators and their works!

#one piece #anime #opgraphics #gif #if you could please share this!#would love for this to be spread thank you!#op animation thesis

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archer3-13 · 4 years ago

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Early Concept Arts of Dimitri, Claude, Edelgard

Consider it an occupational interest of sorts, We dont have much in the way of early concept art for three houses unfortunately. Most of what i’ve seen released is more so late development and reference sheets on that front. For a while now however there have been some early looks into dimitri, claude, and edelgards character designs that i feel might be worth a quick glance at.

well start with dimitri since his is the least changed in comparison to the final product, though not without its interesting notes.

like i said, not too much is overall different. The cape and sword belt thing [dont remember the proper term] are identitcal, dimitris hair and face, and well the gauntlets look slightly different compared to the final release they are still there, though strangely without the leg armour which is instead normal boots in the garreg mach uniform style.

the most notable and obvious change is of course the lack of the upper body armour, followed by a change on the trimming of the outfit which is the standard gold as opposed to gunmetal grey/dark silver seen on the final outfit. in place of the upper body armour you’ll note that dimitris actually wearing a near identical uniform set up as the final version of school edelgard wears [namely the cravat and gold chain mind you] so perhaps those are suppose to be elements of a standard/baseline house leader uniform originally as opposed to edelgards unique flair? At least at some point during the development? Certainly these elements were either dimitris first before being moved onto edelgards design later, or were edelgards first and were attempted to be utilized in dimitris design as well before being scrapped from him and kept to edelgard. That certainly gives me the impression that this is a fairly late early design piece though as it were, considering how close it is to dimitris final school design. Something that can very much not be said for claude and edelgards early designs.

moving onto claudes

We see that either leicester was a lot different of a place in early development, or claude was a lot less subtle about his foreign origins. funnily enough, you can also see similar elements of a ‘standard house leader’ in this version of the uniform, the jacket being more in line with edelgards final jacket and dimitris early jacket and claudes even sporting a cravat like the other two. if his cape wasn’t covering the other side of his outfit i wouldn’t be surprised if the golden chain was there as well. speaking of that cape though its certainly very different compared to the final cape he wears. Not only is it drapped on the front on the opposite side of his final design, it has a series of black lines cutting into it. and as opposed to the longcoat design of his final uniform hes sporting a similar length shirt as other garreg mach uniforms [with the sleeves pulled up form the looks of it], a fabric belt, and even poofier pants [with golden embroidery on the sides which further give it a more foreigner vibe then his final outffit] then his final design along with shorter boots. on a smaller note youll also notice that hes missing his left ear earring, though otherwise his face and hairstyle are the same as the final version.

the keen eye of you will also notice that this early claude design actually shares quite a lot in common with another claude design. Namely, claudes post timeskip outfit. Cape draping over the front right side of the body, short coat and poofier pants, a cravat, and most importantly the belt which is near identical here to his post timeskip belt

its even worn in a very similar fashion. Why they would do this im not sure, claudes late inclusion in development perhaps pressing them to settle on reusing these elements as opposed to something more unique? Or did the design staff like these elements enough to continue them into clades post timeskip design? questions questions.

now onto edelgard, who i’ve held off for last because hers is by far the most radical departure of design, and she has a lot more content to go over

first to start off i’ll just quickly mention the elements that held over to her final design: white hair, ribbons, leggings, lavender eyes. Now that that’s out of the way... it really is quite the design shift isn’t it and kinda what i meant when asking which came first with the garreg mach ‘house leader uniform’ elements as it were. Was it dimitri, or was it edelgard? Regardless this certainly feels like to me the earliest design of the lot with edelgard sporting almost none of the garreg mach uniform elements [perhaps they were closer to this originally? perhaps edelgard wasn’t even a student initially?]. You’ll also notice that the reds on her outffit are much more subdued compared to the final outffit, a bit of purple splashed in as opposed to the pure red she sports in the final design. And as opposed to the shorts she wears in the final design, here shes sporting a dark blueish skirt along with a black... belt thing.

additionally her house cape [lacking decoration but with some of it pulled over the front when it is there] colour is black as well indicating that yes the black eagles house colour was very much suppose to be black initially. Additionally the uniform itself well not having much in the way of parallels to the garreg mach uniform does invoke elements of 19th century military officer uniforms rather strongly, especially the two to the right which go all the way up the chest to the neckline belt thing. though maybe the original garreg mach uniforms were more to this style in general? Her own cravat is also in a much different style and black as opposed to white like dimitri and claudes early design cravats. additionally well we can’t see the rest of he legs its seems she was originally suppose to have much taller boots as well looking at the little bit of black we can see on her legs there. she does have a gold chain as well but its hooked under her right arm, and her sleeves like the gold cuff trimmings.

Youll also notice that shes got a much different hairstyle here, not only sporting some rather straightesh bangs and an alternating ribbon colour of lavender or red, consideration as to whether or not she should have a bit draping in the front, slight differences in the long side bits of her hair and even some consideration of if she should have hair buns or even short hair altogether [though her designs lean more towards long hair]. Either her hair was giving them a lot of trouble, or her early designs here are damn near the beginning which im inclined to believe. We even have a sheet dedicated to trying out different styles for her

the one they ultimantly landed on, minus the front sweeping hair, you can see in the bottom left. I kinda prefer the top left one myself though, though thats probably due to its similarities to saber from fate/stay’s hairstyle. The top left one reminds me a lot of lysithias hairstyle incidentally, which might possibly mean that lysithias character [atleast her look] sprang from unused edelgard concepts.

overall:

i prefer dimitris final design myself since it suits him and his story better, but its also so similar to his final design that i feel part of it might just be better familiarity with the final look. Either way it generally works.

Claudes early look i find fascinating in terms of how it seems to have carried over into his post timeskip look to some degree. in the end though i prefer his final look for what they eventually decided on with his character, someone sneaky whos hiding his cultural origins. The final design speaks more to a claude that much more open about those origins instead.

edelgards... im stuck on because her early design speaks to me of a much different game in terms of look and story, well her final design meshes better with even claude and dimitris early designs. However if i had to pick one i prefer from visual looks alone... i’d say edelgards early design with short hair [the one on the far right of her first picture essentially]. I like the implication of the uniforms in general looking closer to that obviously since im a sucker for that visual look [perhaps even have more individual flair to each countries school uniform including designs and colours], and a sucker for short hair in general, but i feel the militaristic aspects of the early design suit edelgard better and the shade of red more appealing in general here. Maybe blend this one and her final design to get the perfect edelgard outffit? idk.

#fire emblem #fe3h #fe16 #claude #dimitri #edelgard

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star-trekkin-across-theuniverse · 4 years ago

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Worthy, pt 1 & 2

I stopped and stared up at the building in front of me. Imposing, huge, and a beacon for anyone concerned with clean energy. I had won the internship at Stark Industries research and development division by working my ass off all year, coming up with innovative and exciting ways to utilize the arc reactor technology. I’d been interviewed by Mr. Stark himself when it came time to award the position. I’d never been so excited to work in an unpaid position in my life. It was made all the better by being in New York City. And even more awesome because accommodation was provided in the tower. Even if the internship didn’t lead to permanent employment at Stark Industries after my sojourn there, it would be a resume jackpot.

I stopped at the main security desk and picked up my passcard. Elizabeth Carmichael. It sounded much more glamourous than Ella did, but I’d never been called Elizabeth in my entire life. Always Ella, except from my Nan, who called me Bethy. I clipped the tag on my blouse and headed to the elevator. The email from the HR department had been clear: pick up your passcard, and report to the main office of R&D on the 55th floor. I pressed the button and waited for the elevator to close. A hand reached in to stop the door and Mr. Stark stepped in. He smiled, like he would to anyone he shared the elevator with, and then his eyes narrowed as he read my nametag.

“Ms. Carmichael! You’ve made it to the city then? Where are your bags? Are you not staying on site?” He spoke so fast I could barely follow him.

“My flight arrived late last night. I thought I would stay at a hotel overnight and then get organized to move into my room, sir.” I felt breathless just trying to keep up with his speech, and rushed through my own explanation.

“We’ll send someone to collect your things. We’re having a little social in the lounge tonight; you don’t want to miss it. Good networking opportunities. There are three of you that earned internships. Pepper was particularly excited about you. Not a lot of women in STEM, you know. So we’re having a meet and greet for the three of you. Mostly Stark staff, but there'll be some others in attendance. Angela will get you organized.” There was even information stored in the nuances of how he spoke. It was going to be overwhelming until I got used to it. If I got the chance to get used to it. This elevator interaction might be the last time I saw Mr. Stark for the rest of the summer. The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out into the bright, clean research and development administrative office. I waited at the desk while the woman sitting there was on a call. Her nameplate said Angela, so I suspected she was who Mr. Stark said would organize me.

“Ella, right?” She swivelled her chair to face me. I nodded. “I’ve already contacted the concierge at your hotel to have your belongings sent over. I’ll show you to your rooms at the end of your orientation and tour. Then you can get settled.”

“I won’t be working?” I was surprised.

“Not today. Today is all about the Stark Industries machine and how you fit into it. So orientation to the labs, meet some of the people you’ll be working under, settling into your suite and figuring out your way around. There’s a meet and greet tonight.” She typed something into her computer and then rose. Without waiting for me, she headed off down a hallway. “This is the administrative floor for Research and Development. R&D takes twenty floors here, from 55 to 75. Starting at the 76th floor, the Avengers Tower begins, and you’ll only end up there if Mr. Stark wants to meet with you. Well, and for the mixer tonight. The 56th and 57th floors are all housing. Our guest scientists are housed on 56 and your suite is on 57. The project you’ve been assigned to is an offshoot of the household arc reactor project, and will allow you to work on one of your proposals. That division is on 60 through 65. Your direct supervisor is Markus Reid.” I scrambled to scribble notes and keep up with her and she led me through a maze of hallways and offices. We finally came to a halt and I was so busy scratching notes into my notebook that I bumped into her.

“Oh, god. Sorry,” I apologized. She smiled and shook her head.

“Relax, Ella. You were the top candidate. Your proposals rocked Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts' socks off. You belong here,” she reassured me. “And I’m going to email all this info to you, so you can put away your notebook.”

“Thanks. I’m feeling a bit small right now,” I admitted.

“The first few days are very overwhelming for every Stark Industries employee. It’s why we schedule nothing work-related on the first day.” She knocked on a door and hesitated just a second before opening it. “I have Elizabeth Carmichael here to sign some paperwork.” She led me into the office, and sat in a chair near the door after pointing to a chair at the desk. Another woman smiled and dropped a sheaf of paper in front of me.

“The bottom half of that is the paperwork for you that explains everything in the top half. But this is a basic non-disclosure agreement. The second one is the follow up to the initial waiver you signed when you applied for the internship, giving proprietary rights to Stark Industries, while maintaining your intellectual property, authorship and development rights. That basically means if what you’re working on goes into production, it will be a Stark Industries product, but you will be credited as the inventor. There’s some tax paperwork and a release for your university.” The woman handed me a pen. I looked up at her while I tried to process everything she’d explained.

“Tax paperwork?”

“For your pay.”

“Oh, I’m here for the internship. I’m not paid.” I thought that would be clear to an HR person.

“No, Mr. Stark pays his interns. It makes the transition when you are hired easier,” she explained.

“What?”

“Did you not read your acceptance package?” She gave me a look that suggested she thought I might be stupid.

“I did. It suggested that if Stark Industries was happy with my performance, I could be offered an extension at the end of the internship, provided my degree was complete.” At least, that’s what I’d understood from reading it.

“And you’ve already provided transcripts showing you’ve finished both your bachelor’s and master’s degrees. There were only three internships offered, Ms. Carmichael. We complete all your paperwork now with the assumption that you will be staying on at Stark Industries. If you’ve passed our rigorous application process, we feel you are a keeper. If you choose not to stay, it will be because you chose not to stay,” She explained. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I knew the internship was prestigious, but I didn’t realize exactly how incredible it was.

“Oh. Well. In that case,” I said and scratched my signature across the papers in front of me. She offered her hand. I stood and shook it.

“Welcome to Stark Industries, Ms. Carmichael.”

XXX

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Angela assured me that her email would include maps, and secret notes and tidbits that would help me remember everything, but I was so floored from the words of the HR person that I really couldn’t focus. Angela led me to the commissary for lunch and ordered for both of us. I didn’t even realize until she handed me a tray with food on it.

“Are you going to be okay?” She asked. I gave my head a little shake to snap back to reality and smiled in apology.

“Sorry. I’m feeling even more overwhelmed than I was when I got out of the cab this morning,” I laughed. She took a seat at a table and nodded for me to sit across from her.

“You should give yourself some credit. You earned your place here. Pepper is really excited about having you. I suspect you’ll be the poster child for gender equality at Stark Industries for some time to come. As soon as you won that internship, your place here was secured. Probably for life,” she grinned. I shook my head.

“What if I’m a dud?”

“You aren’t though. Mr. Stark himself thoroughly vetted your application, and Pepper went through your references with a fine tooth comb. She even tracked down extra references. You deserve this more than anyone who’s ever applied before, Ella.”

“I feel like I might be sick,” I groaned. It was her turn to shake her head.

“It’s first day jitters. Once you’ve settled into a routine and have your nose into all that sciencey stuff you do, it’ll all blow over,” She laughed. I didn’t want to pick a fight so I just focussed on my lunch.

XXX

My suite was ridiculous. I’d understood we’d be provided with a room. In my mind, I had thought dormitory style, like at university. I was quickly learning Tony Stark did nothing by halves. I had a suite. First of all, the whole thing was fully furnished. The master bedroom had the biggest bed I’d ever seen in it, and an ensuite bathroom with a shower bigger than my last dorm room. There was a second bedroom, I’m not sure why. Plus an office, an open floor plan living room and kitchen and a main bathroom. There was a storage closet that I’m pretty sure could have kept a small family comfortable. And a deck with a view of the city. I opened the fridge and discovered it had been fully stocked already. I grabbed a bottle of water and stood at the counter, the overwhelming feeling of just too much washing across me again. There was a bound book on the counter, and when I flipped through it, I realized it was a Stark Tower lifestyle guide, with information about the pool, the gym, the on-site movie theatre, the commissary, and on and on. There was a tablet on the wall that allowed you to order in take-away or groceries. Housekeeping was once a week. I pinched myself to make sure it wasn’t a dream, fully expecting to awaken back in the dorm room at the university. But I didn’t.

I unpacked my bags and checked my email for the details on the get together. Casual evening wear. What was that, even? I grabbed my phone and texted Angela. Whether she liked it or not, she was my new bestie.

“What does casual evening wear mean?”

“Nothing too fancy. Knee length dress is more appropriate than floor length.”

“I’ve been in university for the last nine years. I have nothing even remotely appropriate.”

“I’m on it. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

XXX

“I’m sorry, Angela, I just didn’t know who else to ask.” I felt like all I was doing was apologizing to her. She laughed.

“You’re my assignment for the next few weeks. And you are so much nicer than the last new hire I was paired with. I can see actually wanting to spend time with you,” she laughed.

“Really? You’re my personal person?” I arched an eyebrow. She laughed again.

“Something like that. Human Resources likes to pair someone from admin to new hires as an orientation guide. It’s a pretty awesome job, to be honest. I get to meet most of the new people on their way in the door. Make lots of new friends. Meet lots of cute science nerd guys.” She winked. I laughed.

“And yet you don’t mind being assigned me. I must be very special indeed,” I teased.

“You’re little lost puppy eyes sucked me right in,” she giggled. “Come on, let’s get you a dress.” It felt like she dragged me all over town, but the truth was, we didn’t go far, and we only visited a couple of stores. I tried on everything she brought to me, and let her tell me what looked best. I was most comfortable in jeans, a t-shirt and a lab coat, so I trusted her judgement. We were a whirlwind of activity after picking the dress. She steered me over to a shoe store, and then a make-up store. I didn’t even realize there was such a thing as a make-up store. I only kept mascara in my bathroom because my eyelashes were so light you couldn’t see them without a bit of mascara on them.

When we finally got back to the building, I wanted nothing more than to take a nap. Angela shooed me into the shower and ordered us some dinner instead. She helped me with my hair and then sat me down to eat.

“Do you wear contacts ever?” She asked. I pushed my glasses up my nose and shook my head.

“No, they don’t make contacts for eyes like mine,” I admitted.

“Okay. I can work with that,” she looked at me thoughtfully and chewed on her pizza. Before I knew it, she was rearranging my hair, and applying make-up and amazingly, although I’d honestly never thought I’d enjoy the fuss that went along with dressing up, I did enjoy myself. It helped that Angela kept a running commentary of exclamations about how pretty I was, and how nice my eyes were. I never had thought there was anything particularly special about my brown hair and brown eyes. I changed my mind when Angela let me look in the mirror. My hair was loose and wavy, and cascaded over my shoulders. The red dress she’d found for me highlighted that my hair was more than one shade of brown, and brought out the natural glow in my cheeks. My eyes, despite being framed behind my glasses, looked big and sparkly.

“Wow.”

“You’ll have half the R&D guys begging for your number by the end of the night!” Angela laughed. I blushed.

“I don’t know about that,” I protested. She laughed again.

“Come on. I’ll be your wingman.” She linked arms with me and led me out the door and to the elevator. XXX

The crushing feeling of inadequacy hit me again as the elevator opened up to let us out into the cocktail party. I hesitated at the gap between the elevator and the large, noisy room. Angela gave me a gentle nudge, but I froze, taking in the panorama in front of me. Almost every scientist I’d ever quoted in any of my research was standing in that room, mingling with one another. When Tony Stark isn’t the biggest name in a room, it can make you pause. I’m pretty sure I recognized the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics standing by the bar. And Dr. Banner was lingering near the door to the patio and pool deck, looking exceptionally uncomfortable. At least he was near an exit where he could cool off and relax if he needed to. His research was what drove me into the sciences. In the end, I decided gamma radiation wasn’t really the area I was passionate about, and pursued research that put me in Stark’s path. But he was still kinda my hero.

“If you don’t step off this elevator right now, I’m going to push you off, and then you’ll draw a lot more attention to yourself than if you act like a normal person.” Angela had my number already. I stepped into the party tentatively. Angela steered me straight to the bar. “Let’s get a drink into you, loosen you up a little. These people have all been where you are, Ella. What’s your poison?”

“Vodka, rocks.” My eyes were glued to the room, and I just kept recognizing more and more people. Surely they all didn’t work for Stark Industries. I would have noticed that at some point during my application process. Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts saw me as Angela handed me my drink. Ms. Potts smiled in welcome and headed straight to me. I didn’t have time to panic.

“Ms. Carmichael! I’m so pleased to see you. You look a bit like a canary in a room of cats. Don’t. They’re all harmless. And some of them are very excited to discuss your proposals with you,” she took my hand and squeezed it familiarly. It was not at all like my boss was shaking my hand, but more like a friend greeting me.

“It’s nice to see you again, Ms. Potts.” I managed, and took a sip from my glass.

“Please, Pepper is fine. We’ll reserve the formality for press releases,” she smiled. “Are you settling into your rooms?”

“I am. They’re much more than I was expecting. Everything about this internship is more than I was expecting,” I blurted. I was nervous enough that I took a perhaps-larger-than-it-should-have-been swallow from my glass and nearly choked.

“We’re so pleased you accepted, Ms. Carmichael,” Pepper gushed. “Really. I’m sure Angela has filled you in about the women in STEM initiative Stark Industries is backing.”

“If I’m going to call you Pepper, you’re going to have to call me Ella. Angela mentioned a little about it, but I didn’t realize there was an entire initiative.” The combination of vodka and talking shop with Pepper was starting to ease my nerves, and I could feel the tension starting to melt from my shoulders.

“We’re starting summer and weekend science and technology camps for girls. I’m hoping you’ll be able to find some time to work with me on promoting them. I think Angela has scheduled a meeting for us sometime in the next few days,” she explained.

“That would be really cool.” I took another sip. There wasn’t much left in my glass. I was going to need to slow down. Mr. Stark was watching the crowd, but I could tell that his head was in our conversation.

“I hope you’ll come out of your shell a little, Ms. Carmichael. You were vibrant during the interview process. I hope that wasn’t a one-off. It’ll be hard to sell STEM as cool with a mousy science nerd girl as the PR star.” He was suddenly back in the conversation full force. I flushed.

“Tony! It’s first-day nerves. We can’t all be the shiniest constellation in the sky all the time,” Pepper scolded him. “Don’t pay attention to him, Ella. Parties bring out the worst of his quirks.” The way she said it, I could almost see the air-quotes hanging in the air around the word quirks. I smiled.

“I promise you, Mr. Stark. I can be just as shiny as you need me to be when surrounded by young women. It’s when I’m in the presence of the likes of Dr. Banner and Dr. McCoy that I tend to get star-struck. And I think, did I see Reed Richards?” I found my voice. Mr. Stark smiled.

“Since we’re all making friends, you may as well call me Tony,” he allowed. “I make sure my best and brightest get a chance to meet the best and brightest.”

“As much as I appreciate the opportunity, it’s just a little overwhelming.” I felt it was only fair to be honest with them, since they were my employers. Pepper squeezed my hand again.

“I have no doubt, after speaking to your references, that you will be everything that we are looking for, Ella,” she reassured me. I took another sip from my glass, and Tony suddenly noticed it in my hand.

“Please tell me that’s not water. We have a strict no water at parties rule here at Stark Industries.” Mr. Stark took my glass away and finished what was left. He coughed and handed it back. “Oh, I think you’re going to fit in here quite well, Mouse.” Angela took the glass from me and got a fresh one from the bar. I reminded myself to go slow. There was no point in getting drunk in front of such an auspicious crowd on my first day.

Angela led me around to a number of people I would be working with, including my direct supervisor, Markus Reid. He shook my hand with enthusiasm and launched into a long-winded explanation of my project and how it would fit in with his project. I found myself lingering with him for longer than was probably necessary. He was passionate about his work with the arc reactor technology and he reminded me of my thesis supervisor, ready to help and happy to share whatever advances he had discovered. It was the lynchpin in making me settle for the evening. If my supervisor was excited to have me, no one else really mattered. Angela’s face lit up and she excused me from the conversation.

“Shut up. You are not going to believe this. I have someone to introduce to you!” She exclaimed. I followed her as she led me across the lounge and toward the windows overlooking the outside deck. I couldn’t figure out who she wanted me to meet, but the last person who’d been near where we were headed was Dr. Banner, and I was sure she’d seen him earlier. She slowed to a more dignified walk and led me to Dr. Banner. He was chatting with a petite brunette who looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. Dr. Banner looked up and acknowledged Angela as he finished what he was saying to the other woman.

“Angela, you always walk with such purpose.” His tone was warm, and he gripped her hand with both of his. It was obvious from Angela’s relaxed posture that they’d worked with each other a few times.

“Comes with the job. This is Elizabeth Carmichael, one of the new interns here at Stark,” she introduced me. “Ella, this is Bruce Banner.” She paused and turned toward the woman. “And if I’m not mistaken, this is Dr. Jane Foster?” Dr. Banner shook my hand and nodded toward Dr. Foster.

“So pleased to meet you, Dr. Banner. It was your work that led me into the sciences.” I tried not to gush. I don’t think I was successful.

“Really? My understanding was that physics and engineering were your specialties,” he asked. My heart nearly stopped. He knew my areas of study. My science geek girl idol knew my specialties.

“I got really into green energy during my undergrad studies, and my focus switched,” I admitted.

“And my accident had nothing to do with that?” He raised an eyebrow. I laughed and realized that might not have been the best response. I bit back my smile and shook my head.

“Actually, no. Your accident happened when I was in first year, and I stuck with my studies as a minor. It was when it was time to begin my master’s that I felt I could do more good, with my level of knowledge, if I pursued green energy,” I explained. He looked thoughtful.

“And once again, Bruce, I point out that your accident has significantly less effect on the opinions of others than you think,” Dr. Foster jumped in, and offered her hand. I shook it. “Such a pleasure to meet you, Ella. Tony has been beside himself with excitement about your thesis. I think the other two interns might be getting the short end of the stick.”

“Except that there is no short end of the stick at Stark,” Banner argued. Dr. Foster laughed and nodded.

“It’s so true. I wish these internships had existed when I was struggling for funding.” she looked past my shoulder, distracted. I turned and followed her gaze until it lit on the most beautiful man I think I’d ever seen. He was tall, and blond, and broad, with a big smile and an equally large laugh. And from the way Dr. Foster was looking at him, I realized he must be Thor. “I didn’t realize he was going to be here.” The smile fell from her face.

“I’m sorry, Jane, I had no idea. Why would he be here? He’s not one of you sciencey types,” Angela apologized. Dr. Foster turned to me and shook my hand again.

“It was truly lovely to meet you, Ella. I look forward to watching your project. If you ever need anything, Angela can get you in touch with me. Even if it’s just a woman-to-woman bitchfest. We STEM ladies need to stick together.” She excused herself and made her way quickly to the elevator. Angela and I watched her as the elevator doors closed. I was disappointed, but turned back to Dr. Banner. He opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Thor stepping up to us.

“Banner, my friend! It has been too long since we’ve met. You look well!” Everything about Thor was big. He pulled Dr. Banner into one of those one-armed-man-hugs, his massive arms straining against the confines of his t-shirt. He towered over both of us. He released Dr. Banner and turned to Angela and I. If I looked anything like Angela did, I was gawking like a slack-jawed idiot. I nudged her gently and she closed her mouth.

“Ladies, it is well to make your acquaintance. I am Thor, of Asgard,” he introduced, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles. I raised an eyebrow and glanced at Angela.

“Ella Carmichael.” I couldn’t form any other words. There was just so much of him, and it was so close. I was completely star-struck in a way I’d never been about a fellow scientist. He took Angela’s hand.

“Angela Benett,” she breathed. I was so glad I wasn’t the only one on the verge of swooning. The man was truly a specimen. Banner cleared his throat, and I snapped my attention back over to the man who had arguably been the first crush of my science geeky heart.

“What brings you here, Thor?” he asked. Thor turned back to him and smiled his ridiculous, large, beautiful smile.

“I had need to speak to Tony. I’d not realized it was a celebration, or I would have come tomorrow. Twas not urgent,” he explained. “And I am afraid I have chased Jane from her colleagues.” There was regret in his tone. Things were obviously over with them, not merely bumpy or awkward.

“He said twas,” I whispered to Angela. She stifled a giggle. I’m not sure why it was so amusing, other than that I had finished my second vodka. I’m not sure what her excuse was; I knew she hadn’t been drinking. “I hope we’ll get a chance to talk more about what you’re studying now, Dr. Banner.” I had to excuse myself before I made an idiot of myself in front of Dr. Banner and Thor. Angela followed me to the deck. I stretched out on a deck chair and looked up at the sky. Stark Tower was so high that it seemed to be above the smog of the city. There was still loads of light pollution, but I was reassured that the stars were the same in New York City as they were at home in Washington. We sat quietly for a few minutes.

“Thanks for being my sidekick, Angela,” I sighed. “I don’t know if I’d have made it through the afternoon, let alone this evening, without your assistance.”

“Well, like I said, it’s my job. But paycheque aside, you’re alright, Ella,” she chuckled.

“I’m glad you think so. I don’t know if I can afford Stark wages to keep you as a friend.” Across the deck something caught my eye, and I slipped off my shoes to walk over to it. Angela must have seen it too because she followed curiously. It was the biggest damn hammer I’ve ever seen in my life, just sitting on a low table beside the pool. It was fancy, tooled with knotwork. I ran my hand over it. I wasn’t sure what it was made of. It had the warm feel of vibranium, but it almost seemed to hum under my hand. I slid my hand up the leather wrapped handle. The grip was comfortable. I squeezed the handle, and felt the give of the leather wrap against my hand.

“I don’t know if you should be playing with that, Ella,” Angela warned.

“What do you suppose it is? It feels like it’s got more of a purpose than just a giant paperweight, or decoration,” I thought out loud, flexing my fingers along the handle. It felt like it needed to be held. I might not be describing that properly, but it was almost like it spoke to me. Which clearly suggested I’d had too much to drink.

“I haven’t seen it before, but I don’t get up into this part of the tower much. Is it heavy? Maybe it’s a prop or a prototype or some sort,” Angela shrugged. I adjusted my grip on the handle and prepared myself to lift it, assuming it would be ridiculously heavy. I was surprised when after a slight tug of resistance, I was able to heft the thing in the air. The air around us crackled with static, and suddenly a shock ran through my body, from the hand that was holding the hammer through to my feet. Everything around me slowed down, almost like slow motion in the movies. I looked up at Angela and saw Thor and Dr. Banner running towards us over her shoulder. Thor was reaching out, his mouth forming some kind of words, but I couldn’t hear them. I felt the hammer tug out of my hand and it flew away from me. The electricity left my body and I collapsed on the pool deck.

“What the actual fuck?” I muttered before blackness overtook my thoughts.

#bruce banner x OFC

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tpnmangadub · 4 years ago

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Goldy Pond Manga Dub Update #4!

It feels like we should be past #4, but it’s been a while since we’ve had an update post that isn’t just me plugging auditions.

Now that auditions are coming to a close at the end of the week and I’m confident we’ll have enough people to make this happen on a voice acting front, it’s time to talk about another very important (and overdue) aspect of this project: Audio Editing and Video Editing!

The concept of this project has been slowly evolving over the past couple weeks, so let's talk about the format. My current thoughts for the final product is something akin to the fan audio plays circa 2015: Backgrounds, character portraits, and dialogue boxes. But this is still at its heart a manga dub, so backgrounds would be notable panels or inspired by panels.

I wanted to structure it this way so there is a visual reference for who is speaking and the action that’s occurring without necessarily confining it to the exact structure of the manga or recreating copyrighted material word-for-word. (Because almost recreating it is sooo different.)

So what do we need to accomplish this?

Audio Editor(s): We need someone to add and procure sound effects and balance them with other audio. There is also the possibility of the addition of music. As a sort of pseudo director, I will most likely be compiling lines and then handing them off to the audio editor for additional work. Someone who is familiar with treating audio would also be helpful to make everyone one sound the best they can.

Video Editor(s): This is the part of the project I’m least familiar with, but I think it would be really cool to pull it off well. Like I said, I’d like to include backgrounds and dialogue boxes. (The first reference that comes to mind is later episodes of Attack on Space, which is on youtube.) The layout would also need to be designed. I would think the most time consuming part after initially establishing a format is adding dialogue and matching it up to the audio. Artists?: If anyone would be interested in touching up/redrawing panels or drawing background art, let me know! If anyone is interested, you can message me here on Tumblr or email [email protected]. A few people have already offered to help with these things, particularly with audio, but I also wanted to post about it publicly in case there are others interested!

#tpn #the promised neverland #audio editor #Video editor #art #ynn #yakusoku no neverland #Project Update #Sometimes I feel like these posts are like Public Speaking #But it's tumblr and I'm talking about my crazy project #Sometimes thinking about all these things is concerning #But everyone has been so wonderful and helpful so far

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artemisdesari-blog · 3 years ago

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Why I Find Tauriel Problematic; An Essay On My Thoughts, Feelings, And Why Ambivalence Has Turned Into Frustration and Distaste

Although I have only been back on the fanfiction horse for about two years, and what a wonderful two years those have been, my brief stint writing fanfiction for The Hobbit has shown me a great deal about the fandom, and one of those things is that Tauriel is something like Marmite. For those unfamiliar with Marmite, it is a British salty yeast extract spread that is either utterly delicious or utterly vile depending on the tastes of the one eating it. The marketing slogan for it is “You either love it or hate it”, so even the manufacturers are aware that enjoyment of their product is a very subjective thing. Tauriel seems to polarise the fandom almost as much as said yeast extract, although there is a little more mid range ambivalence towards her as well. For me, personally, I prefer to pretend that she never existed in the movies at all, something that I will get into at a later date. That ambivalence has, sadly, shifted to distaste.

It is no secret that in popular literature and culture there is a very glaring absence of strong female characters. To the extent that when your Captain Janeways, Samantha Carters, Natasha Romanovs and so on pop up they become worth commenting on. Tolkien, of course, is no saint where this is concerned. It is glaringly obvious that for every Lúthien, Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn there are dozens of male characters who play far greater roles in the saving of the world. In fact, The Hobbit is without strong female characters entirely, being a novel completely dominated by the male Company of Thorin Oakenshield, including the title character. Considering who Tolkien is supposed to have originally written the tale for, the source myths that he referenced and prevailing attitudes of the time, it is unsurprising. In fact, that characters like Eowyn and Galadriel pop up at all, not discounting Lúthien whose romance with Beren was said to have some inspiration from Tolkien’s own marriage, is impressive all things considered.

With that in mind, let us consider the matter of Tauriel. She was not in the book, and while I can see why the studio wanted her added to the film they later made decisions about her which sat, and still do sit, very poorly with me. Generally speaking, as a writer, I prefer to try ignoring the fact that she exists in the movies, even if I reference the movie appearances of the dwarves to avoid writing about too many bearded males with white or blue or blond hair. If I do reference her it is usually in passing and with no intention to do anything further with her other than acknowledge that she was added to the cast. Frequently, however, I get asked the questions “Will Kíli and Tauriel be forming an attachment?”. “How do you plan to handle the romance between Kíli and Tauriel given the relationship you’ve been building with X character?”, “Why do you dislike her so much?”. I’ve even been accused of disliking her from the misogynistic view point of “the evil female who corrupts the helpless males,” which is frankly offensive and not at all the case.

To the first two questions: she is not book canon, I do not need to address the so-called romance because there is nothing in Tolkien’s canon to support her existence and thus the romance. To the last question… well, that one is a little more complicated and requires an in depth examination of her introduction, actions and interactions with Kíli, as well as his personality as established over the course of the films since we have precious little to go on in the books.

First, let us look at Kíli. He is a flirt. We know that, we see him flirting with various elves during dinner in Rivendell. Beyond that, however, we see very little of his tastes or preferences, although it is probably fair to assume that he is probably something of a romantic as well. As much as he is a main character, he is still more of a background character compared to Bilbo and Thorin. It is, after all, about the hobbit of the piece. He is young, either just about to turn 77 or not long having done so and that makes him young enough that we get the impression that he and Fíli both are still of an age where it is perfectly natural to idolise their uncle and be desperate for his approval. We see that the few times he is dressed down he feels it very keenly. We also see that he is playful and open, perhaps the most playful and open of all of them except, maybe, Bofur. He is curious, perfectly capable of giving his all when it comes to a fight and Gandalf refers to him as one of Thorin’s best alongside his brother and Dwalin.

We also see him flip from open and loving, though perhaps infatuated is a better word, to cold and murderous in a moment, so we can probably include passionate in all things in that as well.

Now, let us look at Tauriel. Unlike Kíli, we have no set age for her. We know that she is young for an elf, but the ages given range from somewhere around 600 to 1,400. There is one quote placing her at 1,347 but it is in a sea of conflicting information. Regardless, she is young, she is idealistic and curious. She has never left Mirkwood and has dedicated much of the last few decades to attempting to curb the influx of giant spiders which are spreading from Dol Guldur while arguing with Thranduil; who wants his borders kept clear but refuses to deal with the source of the threat. An attitude not unfamiliar to many of us, sadly. She has the friendship of a prince of Mirkwood but is declared not good enough for him. Also, not an uncommon attitude in those who could be thought of as nobility.

She, like any being that has literally had hundreds of years to practice, is incredibly good with her weapons and pings and flips around like the others of her kind. Given her youth and position we can conclude that she is considered unusually skilled for her age but she still has the advantage of living forever, unless she tires of life or is killed, to keep improving her skills.

Finally, let us look at the history between elves and dwarves. It is not a pretty one. They come together for the sake of occasional trade, or to face the threat of Morgoth, and later Sauron, and their armies, but otherwise they keep to themselves. The dislike is clear on both sides and occurs well before the day Smaug arrived in Erebor, during the First Age in fact. So it will be difficult for this young pair to overcome millennia of bad feeling between their people, some of whom actually remember the events that set the dislike in stone. Legolas and Gimli are later understood to be among only a very, very, few who become close enough to be considered great friends. Much of fandom would probably cheerfully have them be a great deal more given Legolas snuck his dwarf into Valinor after Aragorn’s death.

To the shoe-horned in romance, and I do mean that in the literal sense. Evangeline Lily has been heard in interviews to say that she was wary about the fan reception of Tauriel from the start and that she signed on under the explicit understanding that there would be no romance or love triangle. And at the end of the initial shoot there was not. When they came back for studio shoots and reshoots, however, she was presented with a list of scenes that had been added and some that needed to be reshot to accommodate, you guessed it, a love triangle. She was signed in, she had taken the money, done the work and was boxed into a corner. The love triangle went in and it became the part of the films that polarises the fans the most. Besides, if we want to ship something, we do not need to have it spoon fed to us. Bagginshield is the most popular ship in the fandom and we only get the odd hint towards it here and there. Then look at the multitude of other ships. We did not need to be given something we can make up for ourselves.

That out of the way, let us look at their meeting:

The Company is beset by giant spiders, destined to be dinner, confused and disorientated and more than a little desperate, weakened due to lack of food and the weird miasma of Mirkwood which has been playing havoc with their minds. None of them are in good shape but, as they do, they fight on anyway. They need to survive and reach the mountain so that they can take back their home. Enter the elves, arrows whistling, blades crunching into thick spider exoskeletons, performing all manner of acrobatic leaps and twists to avoid getting bitten or killed. It is impressive, eye-catching even to the older dwarves, and would likely be even more so to a pair of young dwarves like Fíli and Kíli. We do not see Fíli’s reaction, he is too busy frantically looking for his missing brother who has been cornered by a spider.

Enter Tauriel, who refuses to give him a knife to defend himself with and help her deal with the stragglers because she believes he may well be an enemy. She is, in fact, somewhat derogatory towards him. I would not say that Kíli is charmed, although he is certainly impressed, because were he charmed I do not believe he would have such a massively discontent expression on his face as she takes him back to the others. I suspect that, much like in Rivendell, he would have put more effort into turning on the charm.

As the dwarves are led away, we get the first indication that Tauriel has noticed him; she comments that he is not entirely unattractive for a dwarf due to his lack of beard and the fact that he is tall for one of their kind. Legolas is unimpressed, but we expect that.

Once they reach the cells we see the dwarves desperately attempting to avoid being locked up. Most of them are attempting to force their way free, Fíli appears to be in the process of having yet more knives removed from his person while he huffs and sulks, and Kíli is watching as he is taken to a cell of his own. A solitary one at that. Fíli and Kíli, it could be argued, are a little bit co-dependant. Not horrendously, but they have been watching out for one another over all the rest from the start, they are brothers after all, and in the life of a dwarf five years is not all that much of an age gap. So we can assume that Kíli does not really want to be locked up on his own, he is a social person regardless it would seem and I suspect that being alone would be a special kind of torture for him. He tries stalling.

“Aren’t you going to check me? I could have anything down my trousers.”

I’ll give Tauriel this, she is quick witted and this is possibly one of my favourite exchanges of the films. Her reply; “Or nothing” is cool, a little bit cutting and gives no indication of any sort of interest at all. If anything, she seems a little exasperated with all the fuss the lot of them are creating and she simply wants to be done with it. Away Kíli goes and off she goes to report to her king.

Who proceeds to compliment her on her good handling of things so far, order her to make it better faster, reject her proposal for exterminating the source rather than simply dealing with the fallout and then tell her that no matter what else she has done, she is not good enough for his son. Oof. She hesitates before replying, stumbles her way through a response and seems genuinely upset about it. Regardless of whether her feelings for Legolas are of friendship or if she had been hoping for a little more as well, being told something like that had to hurt.

We next see Tauriel patrolling the cells. Some of the dwarves are making noise, most seem pretty resigned, Kíli is fiddling with his promise stone. Which he promptly drops and loses through the bars, only for it to be stopped by Tauriel who demands to know what it is. As you do. Kíli, as you do, replies that it is a curse stone and any who is not a dwarf who looks upon it will suffer greatly. I forget the exact quote, I could look it up but I’m not feeling quite that dedicated to making my point here. Tauriel hesitates. I will not say that she is alarmed, she seems to take his words with a pinch of salt, but she is definitely wary and we have to remember that she is a very young elf who has spent all of her life in Mirkwood. She has not interacted with dwarves, has no reason to have done so and so she has no idea if what he is saying is true or not. And we have no idea how many of the old stories about elves and dwarves she has heard, although we know it is enough for her to have a generally low opinion of them. Her hesitation is enough to cause Kíli to come clean, perhaps fearing that she will take this precious memento of his mother from him. You can see the moment that Tauriel decides to return it, the flicker of surprise that a dwarf would mention a parent with such apparent fondness and it makes me wonder what stories she has been told about dwarves and their emotions. Regardless, she gives it back and the two begin a conversation which starts with Kíli’s opinion on starlight and moves on to become centred around Kíli’s travels.

It is a good, safe, sensible conversation which would ring no alarm bells. In fact, the only thing that hints towards the idea that we should be looking for a romantic angle is the shot of Legolas looking down upon them with a disgusted sneer.

This is where I began to feel uneasy with the direction the story was taking. Legolas is clearly jealous, Tauriel has clearly been hurt by the callous words of Thranduil and there was, perhaps, a little bit of flirting going on between the bars. This is Kíli after all. One thing we forget, however, is that she is his jailor. She is in a position of significant power over him. Let us flip the genders. The one behind bars is female, the one who holds the keys and is showing a marked interest in her is male. This is a familiar trope, and one which many of us shudder back from due to the power divide and the vulnerability of the female character, no matter how kind the male one seems. Why, then, do so many of us ignore the reverse scenario? Why is it alright for a woman, or elleth, in a position of power over a male, and especially a young one who might well be looking for a way out and a way to keep his friends and family safe, to pay such marked attention to a male captive?

The answer, of course, is that it is very much not alright, but we let it slide because it is not the reverse and society seems to have this thing for women in power seducing helpless males.

So, they have got their flirt on, spent an unspecified length of time languishing in the cells and now it is time to escape. The book would have us believe that they spent a month or so in the cells and rode their barrels out with relative ease. No gates, orcs, arrows or chases through the rapids. I can understand the movies needing something a little more dramatic. It would have been a dull escape otherwise, but we can already see the shift in Tauriel when the dwarves escape, even though she has known them at most a month, and the film makes it seem like they have only been in there a day or two which is what makes her actions later make even less sense than they would had she known Kíli a month. She hesitates. Her prisoners have escaped, her king is going to be very displeased, and still she hesitates.

I refuse to get into the thing with the morgul arrow, I find it very hard to believe that Sauron would have allowed the use of those and thus tipped others who were not Gandalf, Saruman, Galadriel and Elrond off to the fact that he was on the move. I am not even entirely sure they were a thing in book canon which is neither here nor there. It is believable that Kíli would have been hurt, that is a risk in every combat situation, and I will leave it at that.

The dwarves escape and head to Lake Town with Kíli in increasingly poor shape, Tauriel and Legolas take an orc to Thranduil for questioning which results in the elf king ordering the gates sealed. He wants nothing to do with whatever quarrel is between the orcs and dwarves. I hardly blame him. Legolas and Tauriel both object at different times and get shut down, and Legolas goes to obey his father’s orders, only to realise that Tauriel has already run off after this bloke she hardly knows.

I love Kíli, I do, but at this point he holds about as much of a permanent place in her life as the bloke I started to play Dungeons and Dragons with three months ago does in mine. And she probably knows him about as well as I do that guy.

She is idealistic, young, desperate to see the world. I get that. It is as good a reason as any to want to go out there and save it given that she is, to borrow from Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the idiots who lives in it. But saving the world, or that corner of it, was not what set her off in Thranduil’s throne room. Being told that Kíli was going to die slowly and painfully was. As much as the scene argues that she is going out there to save the world because she believes that they have a responsibility to do so, she has also already shown that Kíli is one of her primary reasons.

Four years ago, my then four year old, looked at this whole mess and said “But Elsa says you can’t marry a man you just met”. Where she got the idea Tauriel wanted to marry Kíli, I do not know, but that observation stuck with me.

Anyway, because this is getting rambling, stuff happens, the dwarves have a feast, Kíli gets left in Lake Town with Fíli while the rest go on to Erebor and Tauriel fights her way into Bard’s in time to get some athelas to heal Kíli, although not without a little bit of dithering about before hand as she tries to work out what, if anything, she can do to help him. It is not the first time we see the calm, collected and confident character we were introduced to take a backseat before she pulls herself together but it is quite prominent. Kíli, while being healed, spouts off some romantic gibberish about him and Tauriel being worlds apart from one another and wondering if she could have loved him.

It is very sweet. It is also delirious ramblings. I have said some things while feverish and sick that have had my Significant Other raising his eyebrows at me. It is not meant to be taken really seriously. For all we know, five minutes before he might have proposed marriage to Óin or been hallucinating a fight with Smaug. It is sweet and romantic, as we might believe Kíli to be, but can it be considered a true declaration?

Incidentally, this part is one of the changes that makes me really quite angry. Fíli and Kíli were always supposed to be at Thorin’s side when they entered Erebor. He leaves Kíli, and therefore Fíli, behind with barely a twitch, and callously does so after making him struggle his way to the dock and the waiting boat in front of the population of Lake Town who are waiting to see them off. It raises questions about whether the gold obsession that plagues the line of Durin had already started to set in, but I think it was a decision made to give a greater sense of peril to the scenes in Lake Town when Smaug is razing the place.

Either way, I do not like it.

The morning after the night before dawns, Kíli seems none the worse for wear after his near brush with death, though we know that Frodo was heavily weakened after his own such encounter in sixty/eighty years, depending on if you book or film timeline it. He is saying goodbye to Tauriel and effectively tells her he loves her by calling her “amrâlimê” which most of us here know means something to the effect of “my love”. Watch Fíli behind him, rolling his eyes and shaking his head as though this is not the first time he has seen his brother act like this. Fíli is the Darcy to Kíli’s Bingley, except maybe this time it really is not love at all and Fíli is right to be wary and frustrated. It is also the time we see Kíli go from adoring puppy to murder hound in about 0.6 seconds with the arrival of Legolas. This time he is clearly infatuated, but I would still hesitate to say “in love” for a couple of reasons. The first is that they really hardly know each other, and while love at first sight is a wonderful idea it is not necessarily the strongest foundation for a relationship. Especially one with such incredibly strong Romeo and Juliet vibes. The second is that she has saved his life twice at this point. It is a known phenomenon that when someone does such a thing gratitude can be mistaken for powerful love.

In fact, Aidan and Evangeline have both reported to have said that had Kíli survived the pair of them would have very rapidly recognised that this is not love at all. It is gratitude and infatuation and not something which could withstand the judgement of both of their peoples.

Here, they separate, and neither mentions the other at all. Tauriel is cast out of Mirkwood, Legolas vows he will not return without her which is a whole other host of problems on its own, and they go forth to Gundabad to see what the orcs are up to.

It is bad news, but then these things usually are.

Things go horribly wrong in Erebor, words and Arkenstones are exchanged, hobbits are nearly flung from very high places and battle commences while Dwalin attempts to knock some sense into a gold consumed Thorin. You can see why Kíli will not have had time to think about Tauriel at all.

With the battle joined, it is fight or die. Kíli is unaware that Tauriel is anywhere on the field, or that there is a trap waiting for him in that bloody tower and Tauriel… well she panics. Seeing that Thranduil is intending on withdrawing for the good of his people she stands before him and pulls a weapon on her king demanding that he stay and fight and help the dwarves. If not for the fact that Legolas comes and takes her toward Ravenhill I think Thranduil probably would have crossed a line into kinslaying right there and then. There is only so much disobedience and, frankly, treason one can endure from a subject before something more permanent needs to be done about them.

They get to the tower, Fíli is already dead and Kíli is desperately trying to hold his own against an ambush so that he can avenge his brother. And Tauriel, for some unfathomable reason, races through a tower full of orcs screaming his name. That… that is not how you do these things. At all. By doing that you draw the attention of every creature that is currently free to track you down and kill you.

Moving on.

Watch them fight against Bolg together. They do not do it well. Kíli is fabulous next to Fíli, and probably Thorin and Dwalin and any other dwarf for that matter. He probably would not do too badly with one of the Men beside him but the elvish style of combat and the dwarf style are very different and it does not mesh well for these two who barely really know each other. Legolas and Gimli fight in many of the same battles, but rarely side by side and they are certainly more in tune with one another than these two are. In this case, Tauriel is definitely panicking and I wonder if she would have done the same if it had been Legolas she was fighting with.

Somehow I doubt it.

Anyway, eventually they are overwhelmed, longing looks are exchanged and Kíli is killed. Tauriel breaks down to Thranduil who declares that it was clearly real love.

I just, there is so much wrong with this I hardly know where to start.

A lot of time is dedicated to this addition. It drives a wedge between Thranduil and Legolas that we had no reason to suspect existed, it deprives him of one of his loyal guards and it does absolutely nothing at all to affect the outcome of the quest for Erebor in a positive way. It adds nothing to Kili’s death, it does not make it any more of a tragedy than it is in the book. In fact, if anything I think it takes away from it a little bit. For those not in the know, in the book Thorin is felled on the field, fatally wounded by Bolg who is then crushed to death by Beorn. Fíli and Kíli, who do not wish to see their uncle’s body taken and desecrated, and likely hoping that there was some small chance he could be saved, fight over him as guards until they are overwhelmed and die side by side before help can come. It is, ultimately, a terrible waste of their lives. Thorin lives long enough to apologise to Bilbo in one of the healing tents, much as he does on the side of the mountain in the film, and then he dies.

So Tauriel has made no positive impact upon the outcome, it could be argued that her moment of hesitating to threaten Thranduil could have been the moments where she and Legolas might have reached the tower fast enough to save possibly Kíli, perhaps even Fíli, we will never know. What we do know is that the addition of the love triangle added extra time which could have been given to any of the rest of the Company, most of whom were given very little at all to do other than carry on in the background. We could have spent more time with Bilbo, who got shunted aside for the Legend of Legolas parts and, of course, the love triangle additions. We did not even get the funeral in the theatrical release!

It seemed to primarily be, well, filler. And the studio’s bizarre opinion that they were not going to get female viewers if they did not stick some form of romance in there. It seemed to almost be an attempt to mirror the Arwen, Aragorn, Eowyn triangle from the Lord of the Rings, except they missed the mark there spectacularly. Arwen knew very well what she was giving up in marrying Aragorn, and she ultimately made the same choice that her uncle had made thousands of years before as had her very nearly ultimate grandmother (bar Melian) before that. Tauriel could have had no concept at all of what she might have been tying herself to. And that does not even get into the political ramifications of it had Kíli survived, or if he and any one or both of Fíli and Thorin survived.

This next is, of course, speculation, because we have no real way of knowing.

Tauriel has sacrificed everything, her home and position for some dwarf she hardly knew. They think it is love, but in the coming weeks with Kíli dedicated to the mountain, whether alone as king or with his uncle and/or brother, distance begins to grow. Tauriel is an elf, she may have fought in the battle but she is still not completely trusted. Rumours from those who might have seen her interaction with Thranduil during the battle start to surface. Kíli might overlook them for himself, but could Thorin or Fíli? If they were to send Kíli to do something that Tauriel would not like, could they trust her not to do the same to them as she did to Thranduil? She owes them even less loyalty than she did him and she threw it all to one side in a heartbeat. If Kíli is the only one of the younger two who survived, where does that leave the succession? If he and Tauriel cannot have children together the throne is not secure, even if they could with all the millennia of bad blood between elf and dwarf will the general populace really accept a half elf on the throne? Especially one who might live forever. The answer there is very likely to be no, which will cause more problems further on and puts Dáin and later Thorin III Stonehelm on the throne again. So there was no point saving Kíli if the original timeline would come to pass anyway, if with a few more hurdles and a heap more unrest thrown in. In other words, it would cause a lot more contention than it would solve.

If they did grow apart, as the actors have stated they would, I think Tauriel would have come to resent Kíli for his role in her decisions, even though she was a grown elleth and perfectly capable of reasoning out possible consequences for herself. Evangeline says that Tauriel went back to Mirkwood after the battle and I suspect Thranduil forgave her out of pity and because he knew she had learnt a terrible lesson. I doubt, though, that she ever regained his trust, and I very much doubt she ever rose to any real position within the kingdom again. If Kíli had not died, I suspect her reception would have been less forgiving and more in the nature of “well if it isn’t the consequences of your actions” before being thrown from her home in disgrace.

Either ending is unhappy for her.

This whole diatribe actually makes it sound like I quite like the character, and there are some small parts of her that I do like. The film needed a strong female character, and this is perhaps one of the reasons that one of the more popular genderbends in the fandom is female Bilbo. Because either way, the story still works. And all the initial stuff with Tauriel worked. Her early interactions with Kíli, that snappy comeback which is actually a favourite because as a response to someone intending on unsettling her it is perfect, even that little bit of wanderlust that she lets seep out. Where it falls apart, and where my dislike stems, is the introduction of the love triangle, the huge power imbalance between them when it begins in the dungeons of Mirkwood, the fact that gratitude and love are allowed to blur over the line with no one questioning it. Except, perhaps, Fíli, who is the long suffering older sibling accustomed to his brother becoming infatuated with this or that pretty face or great warrior.

Had it been left at the wanderlust and the whole bit with the delirious confession been done away with, she could have still been great. Had she kept her head a bit better upon seeing Kíli fighting Bolg or even had a material effect on things for good I could possibly, possibly have overlooked how it all began. But that moment in the cells set my squick metre off and coloured my opinion of it from there. And even repeat watching has not helped me to see it in a positive light. It was filler, time wasting, and I find it hard to like a character who was introduced as someone that girls could look up to, and who became, instead, every cliché female love interest that I feared she would. They set her up, let her and us down, and as a result I prefer to pretend she never existed, or gloss over her entirely.

And because people are always asking me what my problem with her is I’ve grown to despise her.

Kíli is a grown dwarf, he is perfectly capable of making his own decisions and thinking for himself. Tauriel does not manipulate him into having feelings for her, she seems to be made uncomfortable by the confession in fact, but just as he is capable of thinking for himself, so is she. And I question every decision she made from the moment she locked him behind those bars, because that is where the Tauriel that Kíli met in the spider’s nest begins to vanish.

She could have been a great character and she did not need a love interest, or to become one, for that to happen. The studio handled her poorly, and that is why I would prefer to ignore the fact that she, and that stupid love triangle, ever existed.

#thehobbit #WhyTaurielisaproblem #Because I feel she is #fandom ramblings

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nostalgic-pancakes · 4 years ago

Text

F is for friends who do stuff together - the awake at 2 AM remix

Joan needs a swear jar, Talyn's a lightbulb, Valerie is tired and valid, and Thomas+Sides are very confused)

Summary- Thomas has had his sides around for... a long time. That's for sure. And he knows that nobody else can see them (except maybe Lilly, but she has sides too, so).

Pairings- Pintroverts, Thomas and friends, Thomas and Sides

Read on AO3

Word count- 2666

Warnings- It has character!everyone, and NOT their real life counterparts. Please remember this.

Other notes- AU where instead of Vine, c!Thomas left chemical engineering for signing with a really dope theatre company with his friends. He still meets Nico at the mall, but Nico's a new writer for the company! All the sides are friends too! Enjoy!

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Look, the first time was an accident, okay? Joan was tired and a bit incoherent and what was Thomas supposed to do?!! Leave them be? No! So Joan ended up staying the night.

Except, the next morning was when everyone had entered the courtroom together and they'd gotten WAY too dramatic over whether to lie to them about a text they'd made like… two days ago and that Thomas had only seen after combing through a barrage of memes and that Joan probably wouldn't remember, come to think about it. But that was hindsight and after the utter nightmare that was a whole day (A whole day!!) with Aunt Patty the day before, Virgil and Patton were absolutely freaking out, probably giving Deceit (Who, in hindsight, Thomas knows as Janus) a little extra leeway into the conversation that day.

Either way, Joan had stayed the night in order to recover from the utter sleep-deprivation that they'd been going through, and Thomas had forgotten about the fact that Joan was even there for most of the morning, only seeing them after the entire courtroom spectacle (and a suspiciously dire warning from Virgil) at breakfast, and them leaving to see Talyn a little after (with plenty of hugs involved, duh).

Then Thomas told Joan the truth over the call, and Joan had said The Line (as Roman, Virgil and Janus call it with an oddly cryptid-like voice) and Thomas felt himself go frigid.

Since when did Joan know that Thomas talked to his sides?! Had they learned their names? Figured out that Thomas might just have a few extra screws loose than they might have initially thought?

"Maybe they even hate us now because we got so crazed over one little text and--”

“Virgil. Not helping!” Thomas yelps, and Virgil catches himself in his spiel of worst case scenarios, looking a bit sheepish. Patton and Thomas smile at him reassuringly (he hopes) and Logan clears his throat, causing everyone to turn to him.

“Well, Joan seems to be aware enough of the fact that you speak to us, but mostly considers it as you, as they had said, ‘talking to yourself’, and besides, you didn’t name-drop us too many times, anyways. And while it’s not really...ideal, that Joan thinks you talk to yourself for this long-”

“You can say that again, Stephen Hawk-Nerd”, murmured Roman. Logan winces, and Thomas kind of wants to hug him, so he does.

“Yes, Roman, and as bad as that nickname is, note that this is not, in fact a worst-case scenario. This can be put down to the fact that Thomas has some strange personality quirks-”

“Did you just do some wordplay there, kiddo?” Patton beams at the implication, while Logan, currently being shared by Thomas and Virgil, just groans and descends further into the contact.

“No, I did not, Patton, but what I am saying, is that this is not too bad. We can talk about it as a general personality quirk. This is fine.” Logan finishes, and becomes a heap in the total hug-pile of Thomas and Virgil, flopping over. Huh, he (as usual) has a point. Maybe this can work.

The second time was a pretty near miss, but once again, it was unexpected! He and the sides were just watching Mulan together as usual! They were piled up together, blankets in hand, and yeah, it might look weird to anyone who can’t see the sides, he guesses, with the blankets stretched out in places that have nothing to stretch onto, but once again, he wasn't expecting someone to come over! But anyways- whatever happens, happens. He's trying to be better about it.

It really doesn't stop Janus from pulling out all the stops (teaming up with Virgil, even!) when it comes to having to come up with an alibi to Terrence over why the blankets are arranged so strangely, even though there is literally nothing keeping it afloat. In the end, it's not the most believable lie, but Terrence is busy with Valerie just after, so he probably doesn't really think about it too hard. Besides, Thomas has always been a pretty quirky guy! ("Which could be an insul--" "Jack and Sullen, we love you very very much, but please, for the love of all things Disney, please breathe and take out your fidget cube..") So hey, what was a new quirk when added to everything else?

Meanwhile, Terrence is trying to figure out what the fuck he just saw, because he's pretty sure that there were more than one Thomas there, and Thomas only has two other brothers. Also none of them dress like twenties mobsters or are semi-transparent.

Nico was having a good day. In fact, he still is!

He and his (amazing) boyfriend were sitting on the couch- though more draped on top of each other than anything while binge watching ELITE and Tiny Pretty Things, while also being pleasantly high (as opposed to stoned).

Things only entered strange territory when during one of the flashback murder-y scenes in Tiny pretty Things, a strange man who looked like an even more chaotic Thomas with some grey hair on him entered the room from seemingly nowhere, and proceeded to occupy the sparse space on Thomas’s lap with his head, essntially just napping on his boyfriend’s lap while also being kind of see-through (???!!!???AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH). Thomas noticed, waved a small wave and started playing with this weird guy’s hair.

Nico is now a little high from the bong that he and Thomas had shared, but not enough to hallucinate, especially since, when the high was pretty much gone, the guy was STILL THERE. MIERDA. At this point, he’s just going to call it ghosts. Thomas doesn’t seem to mind too much anyways, so they must not be harmful. Nico decides to table this for another day and go back to binge watching crazy maniacs with his very soft and warm boyfriend, and let the remainder of the high coast along.

"We have to talk about the Thomas thing." Is the first thing Joan says without any bullshit, as soon as everyone except Thomas himself, Gavin (because it's two AM) and Quil are packed together in Thomas's living room, where he just binged Parks and Rec with everyone. They've all finally managed to shove Thomas and Quil back to their respective areas of sleep after 42 hours without said sleep, and nobody was allowed to talk loud enough for them to wake up.

"The… Thomas thing?" Asks Valerie. Oh that sweet summer child. Joan once again quietly calls everyone's attention by asking Talyn to shake their hair around like a neon-coloured alarm bell. This was especially effective in the otherwise dark kitchen where they were trying out glow in the dark hair dye.

"Well, as of lately, we've been seeing a lot, and I mean a lot of really weird shit coming from Thomas. Everyone, recount your experiences." Joan says in the most serious voice they've got. "I'll go first."

They wave their hands like Matt Mercer, as if they were setting up a dope DND campaign. Quietly, of course.

"Well, about a month ago now, I was cleaning here, at Thomas's, because I was sleep-deprived and would have crashed and died if I'd tried to go back to mine and Talyn's. So most of the night goes normally, as one would expect, but when I wake up in the morning…" Joan readjusts their beanie. "I hear Thomas in the living room, talking to people called Logan, Roman, someone called Pat, Virgil and 'deceit'. And this debate becomes an ordeal, alright? He re-enacts a whole entire ace-attorney style courtroom scene with these imaginary people? I called him out on it over the phone when he apologized for some random thing- I don't remember, and he kind of just… admitted that he talks to himself? And moved on.

Everyone absorbs this new information. Camden keeps braiding Talyn's hair.

"But that's not too big of a deal, right Joan?" Whispers Camden, tying up the elaborate mini fishtail plait in Talyn's hair. "I mean, thanks Thomas we're talking about. He could have been rehearsing or something- isn't he JD in the next production of Heathers?"

Terrence speaks up next. "Yes, this would have been all well and good, had the Blanket Incident ™ not occured."

Valerie shakes her head. Why are her friends like this? Oh wait. They’re all theatre nerds, queer and D&D players.

"In the blanket incident ™, I was walking past Thomas's room, as one does. HOWEVER, while he was watching Mulan, I noticed something wrong with his blanket pile!"

"What, that they don't have any Vetal Miking references on them? Because that's the true tragedy here."

"Nope, sorry Tal, the weirdness here was not about Vetal Miking references, but the fact that parts of the blanket were freaking floating, in thin air! I have discreet pictures!"

"What the fuck, Terrence." whispered everyone in a strange, haunting unison that could only be possible at two AM as they saw the very strange pictures.

"And that's not it!" Pipes up Talyn, who is now realising that they are very close to becoming too loud for 2 AM kitchen chats, and makes an effort to quiet down.

"At breakfast today, Thomas's waffles were making themselves- Thomas can't cook, y'all. And he can't even use is fucking waffle iron. And he was on the other side of the room! Talking to Quil!" After Quil left, he told the waffle creator to chill out because the stack was getting too tall!"

"Is this about Thomas's ghosts, guys?" Asks Nico, the new cute boyfriend and new theatre company writer as he plops down in Quil's usual spot. Nico's nice- everyone likes Nico except maybe Nico, to which, well, mood. ALSO- ghosts?!!

"Nico what the fuck do you mean by ghosts, you serial killer in training?"

"One, just because I have to write a serial killer in this new script and I'm enjoying it, it doesn't mean I'm gonna be a serial killer, you tonte. Two: yeah, the ghosts that follow him around and look just like him? They seem nice enough." At everyone's super unspoken request to elaborate, for fuck's sake, he takes the hint and does.

“Oh! So the first time I saw them, I was at the mall. You know, where Thomas and I met?” everyone nods, and Talyn readjusts their braces.

“So there was this guy in a hoodie- Virgil, as you said, and the Disney prince. Roman, I think. And they were just kind of… there? Roman was holding Virgil’s shoulder affectionately, and that’s about it. They were only really visible after about three or four hours of us talking, though.” Some of the people hum.

“Then, we were watching a movie and these two guys who also look a lot like Thomas just kind of lounged? On the couch? They were pretty faint, like if their brightness was decreased to about thirty percent in Photoshop.”

“Hey, same!” says Terrence.

“Yeah, so those guys- the one in the green t-shirt that has the legs on the bus meme- so weird- kind of just stretches onto Thomas’s lap and stays there, while the twenties mobster just… curls up to his side? And thomas is probably like, used to this because he kind of just lets it be and curls the meme shirt-”

“I think it’s Remus.”

“-Remus’s hair absentmindedly and moves on.”

“Fuck.” Whispered Joan very softly, but with great feeling.

“So what do we do about it?” asks Camden. There, finally, someone asks the real questions.

“Well,” puts forward Talyn. “They’re not harming him, right? And he’s had them around for a long enough time, right? So what’s the harm? Thomas is just haunted and will probably be on Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural at some point when he dies but hey, if he’s cool with it, we are too.”

Everyone seems to agree with that, and they’re in comfortable silence, until Valerie asks everyone to go the fuck to sleep, we’re still doing the Heather’s costume rehersals and Death Week starts in two days. With groans and cracked joints from Talyn, everyone hobbles off to their respective rooms in the duplex.

Meanwhile, a certain white-streaked side and his hoodied companion are listening through the wall, far away from what anyone can see, and they both visibly sigh in relief. That didn’t go too badly. The question remains: what do we do now?

“They KNOW????” exclaims Thomas, the next day in the (thankfully empty) breakroom, in between rehearsals- Candy Store is being run through and that means that everyone else is outside.

“Yes, Thomas, they know. Or they somewhat know, I suppose.”

“Yeah, because they think we’re-Thomas is being HAUNTED!!’

“Are you not haunted, then?” comes a voice, and Thomas turns around, forgetting to let the sides dissipate in his surprise. It’s Nico, with Talyn and Valerie close behind, who are clearly taking in the six other guys in the breakroom. Well, fuck. The cat’s out of the bag for good, he guesses.

“Could you get everyone else during lunch break? I’ll explain then.” Talyn nods and leaves with a smile, telling him that they’re not mad at him, while Nico asks, voice farther away “So are you haunted or not?”.

“So they’re… aspects of your personality that you’ve been able to manifest since you were a kid?” Camden asks, a bit disbelieving, even as Logan, Roman, Patton and Janus drape themselves over Thomas on one of the beanbags in the breakroom, filled with other nerdy gay young adults. Logan pushes up his glasses, ready to go on another tangent. Go wild, you funky little dude.

“Well yes, that’s exactly what we're saying. I myself am the embodiment of Logic- every fact that Thomas has ever learned, and his, and these are his words, not mine, ‘the only braincell’. He makes the air quotes to go with the expression, but is also smiling fondly.

“Classic Thomas.”

“Yes, Valerie, I am inclined to agree. However, this is not specific to Thomas. Other people can, in fact, do what Thomas is. Lilly Singh is one of them- the reason that she and Thomas are even friends is because in high school Thomas caught her talking to one of her sides in the art room.”

“So wait-- we can summon sides too?!” asks Nico, and he and Camden look genuinely excited, but Thomas knows the answer to that question.

“Unfortunately no, not really. You have to have an extremely active imagination, and also be ‘innocent’, as society would put it. I’d say näive.”

“For example, I couldn’t make any more sides after i was fourteen, because I watched the news by then.” pipes in Thomas. Joan seems to process this first, nodding and grinning sardonically. “Ah yes, the news. Wrecking childhoods since forever.” everyone nods in gay syncing, because gay minds think at the same time.

Valerie suddenly speaks up; “So how many sides do you have, Thomas?”

Thomas perks up, because his sides are possibly his favourite metaphysical beings (as narcissistic as that might sound) “I have six! My logic, morality, both creativities- Kids and Family and PG13-and-up, anxiety and deceit! I have two creativities because of catholic guilt and my mind’s inherent need to cause chaos, I guess.”

“Valid” replied Valerie.

The rest of break passed by pretty smoothly, with questions being passed back-and-forth about what the sides truly were, considering they clearly were not just Thomas, and Virgil even felt okay enough to come in later! So that was good. Though he kind of wishes Remus had made fewer Heathers jokes- Camden was starting to look squeamish, even as Nico frantically took notes of gorey facts to use in his script.

Honestly, Thomas thought to himself. What was I scared of?

Irrational things. And rejection, replies Virgil in his head. He laughs and pulls him in for a hug, and tries as he might to deny it, Virgil is looking pretty chuffed.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #character thomas #nico flores #nico flores x thomas sanders #pintroverts #not rpf #do not repost #ts virgil #ts logan #ts remus #vee's writing #2021 #f is for friends verse

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rvmmm21 · 4 years ago

Text

[ V V S her diamonds ] – ch 03.

[4:15 p.m.] Disappointment tweaks at Seungwan’s heart when she peers through the huge glass window of their study cafe and sees no Bae Joohyun.

. . . . .

A group of students are huddled in the back, bent over open textbooks, laptops and scattered stationary.

Yerimie, Saeron, Seul, wow, there’s Jennie sunbaenim. And she spies Sooyoung sunbaenim balancing a tray of various caffeine-injected drinks back to the table.

A sad sigh escapes her lips. Perhaps she’s l–

“Seungwan?”

Oh my g– what the–?! Seungwan screams, whipping around in shock at the fingers gently resting on the back of her shoulder. She’s met with a slightly surprised Joohyun, standing there wearing a cream Jute blouse tucked into denim jeans, twinkling eyes and endless amusement etched into rosebud lips.

“S-Sunbae!” She exclaims, grasping her chest to calm her rapid-fire heart. “Y-You’re here, I was just–”

What, peering through the glass, looking for you like a creep?

“It’s fine,” Joohyun chuckles, adjusting her hold on the stack of thick notebooks cradled in her arm and motioning for the younger girl to lead the way. “Let’s go. This is heavy.”

Thursdays might’ve found an unexpected favour with Son Seungwan.

Busy eyes move from annotating to the two girls urgently making their way over, the students lifting their heads at Seungwan’s warm greeting.

“Sorry we’re late,” she sincerely apologises.

Jennie knowingly eyes her friend. “Not surprised.”

Joohyun raises her a playfully challenging brow before slipping into the free seat next to Sooyoung at the end of the table, right across her partner.

“You ordering anything, Wan?” Seulgi asks between highlighting her page, offering her and Joohyun biscuits in individually wrapped aluminium packets.

Joohyun takes one and Seungwan nibbles on the edge of her biscuit, deep in thought. The group soon slips into the robotic rhythm of monochromatic scribbling, greyscale note-taking, typing, and intermittent snacking. Jennie slips away to order small desserts for everyone at the table. They thank her with shocked bows and hungry stares, unable to settle on one in the garland of appetising coloured treats on the tiny table.

“Sunbae, you’re like Santa Claus,” Seulgi happily attacks the New York baked cheesecake. “When did you order this? It’s like we were asleep and we just woke up to presents!”

Her bearish enthusiasm has an observant Sooyoung unconsciously smiling around her fork.

As the group tucks in, Seungwan thinks a group study date is the safest she can be in terms of being on the receiving end of any more of her senior’s teasing mannerisms.

Fortunately, Joohyun always surprises her.

A little later on, they’re discussing the historical impact of contemporary Korean literature. Right in the middle of a sentence, Seungwan’s concentration is shattered by a deep blush of raspberry when she feels a feather-light graze against her right Adidas sweatpant leg. She chokes, almond eyes shooting up from messy essay notes, silently begging for mercy. But of course, Joohyun’s serene, unbothered expression gives nothing away as she continues to ask for her opinion as though Seungwan is crazy for looking like a flustered mess.

The frazzled junior doesn’t know what makes her head spin more; the fact that Joohyun, composed as ever, initiated a game of footsie right under both their friends’ noses in public… or that she secretly enjoys it.

Not that she’ll ever admit to the latter.

Small fists corkscrew the sleeves of her sky-blue Chrome Hearts hoodie as the desperation to hide the cherry-blossom tint in her cheeks builds.

. . . . .

It’s past midnight by the time they’re done, and everyone bids goodbye with ‘Z’s coming out of their ears. Much to everyone’s surprise, Sooyoung and Seulgi got along pretty well this evening and the taller girl had hastily agreed when Seulgi suggested they visit her favourite boba place. Yerim and Saeron were late for their movie, and Jennie was spending the weekend at her girlfriends’.

“Wait, are we dumb? Why did we book this now,” Saeron asks incredulously, “aren’t you gonna get wrecked by grumpy ajumma? Curfew ended like ten minutes ago.”

“Ah who cares, she’s always like that,” Yerim retorts with a dismissive wave. “I could fill a prison wall with how many strikes she’s given me and Seungwan and Seulgi unnie.” She slings an arm over Saeron’s shoulder, urging them to hurry. “C’mon, ads don’t take forever.”

“Wan-ah,” Seulgi calls back as she’s being dragged away by an eager Sooyoung, “if you order pizza can you leave some out for me!”

“Yeah, yeah. Enjoy. Don’t wake me up.”

“Hyun-ah, you sure you’re not coming?” Jennie’s sleek midnight-black Vetements cardigan blends with the hues of the night sky, giving away how late it is. She swipes into her messages. “Chaeng said she doesn’t mind.”

Joohyun laughs with mock disgust. “Thanks Jen, but I’m not crashing your date-nights anymore, thank you very much. I saw enough the last time, my eyes can’t take that kind of stuff.”

Waving goodbye, Jennie and Chaeyoung speed off, leaving Seungwan wondering what ‘kind of stuff’ Joohyun could be referring to.

The pair are drawn to the horribly lit bus stop and just about the only source of light for miles.

Seungwan yawns silently, but she doesn’t mind waiting with Joohyun. It’s late and although her apartment is in the opposite direction, she’d be at ease knowing her friend got home safely.

The darkness is engulfing, allowing an overhead street lamp to bathe them in its flicking spotlight like stars in a West End Production.

“We were pretty productive today, sunbae,” the younger tries to make conversation to fill the space between them. “Do you wanna come for next week’s session too?”

“Sure,” comes the reply. “Thanks for waiting with me. When’s your ride getting here? We should’ve booked at the same time.”

Seungwan nervously scratches the back of her neck, crinkling her worksheets in her grip. “Uh, I’m just walking home tonight actually.”

“Oh? Do you live closeby?” she asks in surprise, assuming they were both waiting for taxis.

“Ah, yes, I’m just– it’s just down there.”

Joohyun narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Down there… where.”

“Just a quick walk, past… past the duck pond,” the girl mumbles, staring down at her shoes.

“Q-Quick? Quick?” Joohyun stutters, malfunctioning at their severely clashing definitions of ‘close’. A delicate fist draws back and Seungwan flinches, Bae Joohyun looking closer and closer to doing what she did to Lucas to her poor, startled junior. “The duck pond near uni? Yah, Son Seungwan, that’s almost a twenty minute walk from here.”

“Fifteen if I have my speed walking playlist on,” Seungwan tries, but she isn’t listening.

“A lot of dangerous things can happen in twenty minutes, you know.” She hurriedly unlocks her phone and clicks into the KakaoTaxi app, altering the destination to add a stop and shoving it into reluctant hands. “Hurry, put your address in.”

Seungwan so badly wants to politely decline, not confident in her ability to sit in a moving vehicle with such a pretty person without hurling herself out the window at top speeds. But the latter’s glare dares her to try.

With shaky fingers, she successfully types in her address after three tries and hands it back. Joohyun checks it and confirms the change. Seungwan wants to comment on how her frantic nature is actually really endearing, but she resists, thinking she’s still cooling off from it.

“Thank you, sunbae,” she bows instead. She even tries to insist she pay her share of the ride, but Joohyun refuses, saying it’s what she gets for thinking it was a good idea to walk home alone.

Finally, a black Sedan pulls up to the curb and the driver winds down his window. “KakaoBlack for Bae Joohyun?” He checks, looking as ready as both girls are to go home and crash for the night.

The girl nods, opening the door for Seungwan to get into the backseat and climbing in after her.

Grand streaks of neon dance across the car windows, falling behind as quickly as they appear. Seungwan tears her gaze from the rapid city lights when she hears her name.

An almost child-like excitement masks Joohyun’s usually steely features when Seungwan hums questioningly, not having heard what she’d said. “I said unnie,” she repeats, “you should call me unnie now that we’re closer. Honestly, I wanted to correct you this evening, but I never got the chance to. Aish, everyone was so noisy.”

The topic of noise has Joohyun distracted, suddenly popping off on a tangent about how sound-proof couple study rooms should be integrated in cafes and student-dense areas alike. But Seungwan finds it hard to focus on anything other than those glowing eyes and that tiny, lopsided smile.

For the rest of the journey, the two exchange stories of their university life experiences, life outside classrooms and even a few laughs; mostly on Joohyun’s part at how Seungwan seems to have the most prankish roommates slash best friends in the world. She loses it at ‘carbonara shampoo’, finding the idea wickedly genius and hilariously absurd altogether. Uncontrollable cackling booms in the backseat and Seungwan can’t help but giggle too, ears saturated with Joohyun’s chimerical laughter.

Eventually, the street lights and the houses start looking familiar and they’re pulled into a student apartment lobby before either of them knows where the time went. Joohyun can see the grumpy ajumma at reception wearing a frown, but she doesn't know it’s because someone’s gone over curfew. Again.

“Goodnight Seungwan.”

“Goodnight… unnie.” Seungwan wishes, ignoring the way their new closeness unfolds her heart like a secretly passed note. “Stay safe, and message me when you get back!”

Making to get out of the car, she flinches when she’s unable to fully stand up. Gulping, she glances over her shoulder to see Joohyun holding her back by her bag straps. In her sleepy state, the younger can’t tell if that intently searching gaze is serious or not.

“By the way, when you were looking into the cafe from outside this evening, you weren’t checking Jennie or Sooyoung out, were you?”

Seungwan shakes her head truthfully. “Why?”

“Good.” A cat-like smirk graces her lips and Seungwan’s stomach drops. “Just making sure.”

. . . . .

#red velvet #wenrene #university au #i ranted about cheesecake #because i want some #established chaennie #YES CHAENNIE IS MY FAV #AM I WRONG?#NO.#the aggression speaks volumes #hints of Saeri and joygi #are we surprised that irene takes kakaoblacks

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