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metamercury · 7 months ago

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I was tagged by @darksidekelz

Thank you!

Rules: look back on your works, both past and present, finished and unfinished. What are five to ten narrative elements or tropes that continuously pop up in your work? Give a list of these things!

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Hmm, this is hard for me because how are we defining narrative elements? But I've been thinking it over. Idk if these all classify as elements, but they're themes I guess?

It's about the Yearning I've noticed for sure that I don't write a lot about tropes or physicality. I can probably count on one hand the number I've times I've written kissing or anything like that. It's not about the kissing here, it's not about if things are requited or unrequited, complicated or simple, absolute and engulfing in the case of dcrampage -- it could be any one of those things. There is always the yearning, and that tends to be what I focus on in one way or another. But it does leave me feeling quite often that I've written yet another fic where nothing really happens hahaha

Two guys fighting Nothing much to say about this. Probably 50% of what I write can be boiled down to two guys fighting. I just like to write people who want to fight each other. I like to write fights. Even when I write Ironwasp they're usually competing (or it's post-stockades angst and they're still fighting. I really write fighting a lot). Sometimes it gets out of hand and I can't get the characters to stop fighting long enough to actually do anything else (see: anything maxwil i've ever written)

Jokes that other people hate hearing One of my favourite things to do when writing fic is to make references to things in the series (or a related series) that the character Doesn't Know, but the reader does. I especially like to do this when it foreshadows bad things that are definitely going to happen. When Alia would read these jokes she'd shout at me, but when I read them back in my own fic I think I'm hilarious. I do it all the time in a lot of fics, but I do it the most with Wasp. Obviously.

The Character Study Not sure if this counts as a narrative element? But I really like to write fic that are essentially just character studies maybe with a ship wrapped up in it for engagement lol. I do have some that are just straight character studies. It can also feel like I'm writing a fic about nothing when I do these, because the focus is on the person, not the plot (generally, for oneshots at least). But I really enjoy reading them back, so it's probably fine. I just love getting in there with a character.

If I'm gonna write smut it better be fucked up I don't think I've ever written smut that wasn't dub/noncon or at least had something shady and weird going on underneath the surface. Now, you'll say "well of course, you only ever wrote shockblurr porn" but i'd like to remind you of Fit Like A Glove and then also direct you to my wip folder where I've been sitting on a dino2/megs fic (d2 pov so you know it's fucked), a tfa swindle/starscream where the feature is necro, and a snuff film fic for a fandom that will not be named at this time, for about 6-8 years. One day I'll get around to these I hope.

If it's not about the Yearning, then it's about Denial Unreliable narrators are fun, as are characters whose thoughts don't match their actions. I mean a lot of the time this writes out as anger, which leads to two guys fighting, but Not Always (and here's where I'd link that shitty two-part vampire au if I had the want to do that). (Mnemonic is a much more angsty example). Also, for wips, I have a dcrampage wip that is just about this element from start to finish, because it's dc pov. Here's the handwritten note I have for myself about the concept of this one, basically word for word: What's it about? Obsession, always. Instincts. DC is a protector, it's in his coding. And Rampage is unlucky and tortured -- that's the truth no matter how much he'd love to forget it. Anger? Disgust? Dead dedication to the vengeance he's owed? Always. Until that slagger is offline for good. But for as much as DC has thrown away his humanity, it's not as easy to throw away his nature (plus gay) I really want to pick that one back up. Anyways, if the Denial let's you play with a bunch of fun emotions in a way that works with the character. Pride, Jealousy, Insecurity, Depression, and of course Being a Shell of the Mech You Once Were. It's fun!

Five Senses This one I think I do to my own detriment sometimes. But at some point while I was learning to write better over the last 10/15 years I started to really try to lock scenes within the senses. To have the narrative focus on not just sights, but smells, texture, ambient sounds to really try to ground the characters within their environments, put us within the head of the pov character. I think, doing so can really help to make things more graphic, which is good. But i also think sometimes it slogs down the narrative and actually takes us out of the pov to more of like a 3rd camera perspective so to speak? I dunno, i like the way things read back in the end but during writing it can really feel like it stalls the flow of the narrative. I was talking to alia about this not to long ago, her narratives are always so fluid, and i think I get in my own way trying to ground things sometimes. Sometimes. I'm not sure if this one counts as a narrative element either. But its something that's definitely a thing about the way I write that I notice.

Anyways! That's all I can think of that's worth pointing out. I want to write more, and remembering to appreciate my writing as a craft I think is part of that.

I tag @neuropraxia. Do this.

#still defective #thanks for tagging me! it was interesting and fun to think about!

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purplerose244 · 1 year ago

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Watched the eighth episode of LEGO DreamZzz: Loved it!

EVERY NEW EPISODE IS MY FAVOURITE EPISODE! I feel very attached for all five of them, I want Mateo to keep working on his confidence, I wanted Cooper to keep walking his own way, I want Izzie to save her friends, I want Logan to better himself, I was Zoey to have more friends I... I... 😭😭😭

Also side note, the how to draw videos are super cute, Mateo is super good and also...

Mateo: I'll make a tutorial on how to draw all of these wonderous creatures, quite fascinating right? Anyway TODAY I'M GONNA DRAW MY VERY COOL FRIEND ZOEY

Yeah I'm pretty sure this guy has a crush 😂 And he thinks her eyelashes are pretty 💕💕

I'm super curious! ONTO THE EPISODE

(Yes I watched the whole first season already, and I was wondering if anyone knew where the second season is? I know someone on Youtube post it, but how? Where did it come out?)

THE BIGGER PICTURE

THE THUMBNAIL IS SHOWING MATEO AND ZOEY! ARE THEY FINALLY INTERACTING?!? I feel like we got lots of time to define Zoey's character, so I wonder if we'll see Teo showing more of his crush

DUDE THESE COMICS ARE SO COOL LOOK AT MY BABY GO 😍😍😍

Lol Mat dedicated two whole pages to Zoey and Zian, sweetie you're no subtle, it saves you only your shyness 🥰🥰

AWW HE WANTS TO TALK TO HER 💕

I know that he got a crush and obviously that's a major reason, but I really like how it's so simple. Mateo thinks she is really cool, she wants to talk to her. He really reminds me of me a lot 😅

Ah, the whole important milestone for every artist in school: having the courage to show his art to someone else

So not even Coop saw these comics? Only Izzie did? Interesting...

Logan is up to stuff apparently?

LOL we're finally seeing other professors aside from prof Oz and that one jerk coach! Interesting change from sensei Wu from Ninjago and sir Brickland from Nexo Knights, she seems nice

LOGAN IS BACK IN OUR TEAM?!?! 😍

Awww, he did have a bit of a change of heart! Did he realize Mateo is actually kinda great at leading and wants in? Or just really likes the team? Whatever the reason, welcome back mah dude! 💪💪

Gotta say that Izzie got great instinct, whenever something is wrong she feels it right away, so I'd trust her about this Insomniac Club

... or maybe it's a bunch of people playing Spyro or Ratchet and Clank, who knows 😂

Noooo stealing is a bad idea

NOOOO STEALING IS A BAD IDEA

Vincent's characters are quite different from each other, but they do have a common pattern: they make some pretty amazingly bad decisions 😂😂

TEO NO DON'T AGREE 😱

My baby got confidence only in the Dream World while not in the real world COME ON SWEETIE YOU CAN DO IT

Oh so we are using that locator thingie! It seemed very useful when they found it in the Night Bureau, even though the discarded it so easily

Is that thing not enough to find the Sandman? I guess not?

LOOK AT THE SCHOOL 😂

ZOEY IS THERE 👏👏👏👏👏

"Hey broseph, que pasa?" I just love these little spanish snippets, love to see some rep, especially in a LEGO show!

DUDE WHAT IS THIS COACH DREAMING

Interesting this aspect of this world, I thought that dreams were just the people landing on these realms and exploring, but I wonder if these worlds change according to the influence of the person dreaming

Julia seems like a very sweet lady... unfortunately she teaches math, therefore making her the evil incarnate 😡

I hate math sorry miss school memories

LOOK AT Z BLOB PUSHING MATEO I LOVE HIM SO MUUUUUUCH 💚💚💚💚

Zoey playing the guitar 😍 Well she has always showed she was a musical person, between the song and recognizing music notes in the seashell message, I didn't realize to which extent! It fits her

Is the Rad Radioactive some sort of narrative about drinking junk stuff before going to sleep? 😂😂

I... did not expect the Nightmare King to straight up say "dude-bro" 🤣

Awww, is Logan becoming self-conscious over causing so many troubles? I realize I've been very against him in the past but in retrospect, that must have been tough

Hey Nightmare Kin- I mean, Lance

Dude you're seriously using his insecurities against him? HE IS A KID DANG IT

I LOVE MATEO SO MUCH I CAN'T EVEN I SWEAR 😭😭😭😭😭 We got so many wonderful protagonists in the past but all with ego, with confidence, with inner strength, which is great. Then there's this kid who struggles so much into the real world, he's self-conscious about his art, he can't even talk to the girl he's into and he feels so little about himself

THIS KID WILL LEARN THAT ONE STEP AT THE TIME YOU CAN GET EXACTLY WHERE YOU WANT TO BE AND I'M ALL HERE FOR IT 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Also can I just say, love me a guy who thinks his girl is the coolest person ever 👌👌

Fun fact, in the English dub Mateo says "T-That was amazing! Your song, I mean...", while in the Italian dub he says "Beautiful, amazing... your song!". It makes his feelings even clearer 💕

WELL HELLO MORE ANGST FOR ZOEY? Gotta be honest I did think that the song debacle was a big weak, but I didn't think there was a whole thing about losing everything, included a best friend! My poor super cool girl 😢😢😢

... is... is Zian the best friend? Did the Night Hunter hit the best friend, making it a night terror, but managed to break free and now he looks like this?

HEADCANON MOMENT DON'T MIND ME JUST HAVING A BLAST 😍

Now I get why Zoey was adamant over Izzie not calling her her friend... but I think this group is making her change her mind 💕

Logan, sweetie, why did you think rapping was a good idea? 😅

Okay, new theory... what if Ms. Castillo is Lunia? Maybe when defeated, Lunia retreated into the Waking World and stayed there. She seems to be always there to help, I kinda think it could be true

PLAN TIME WITH MATEO- Logan no stop what are you doing- DROP THE MATTIE NICKNAME DANG IT HE DOESN'T LIKE IT

I know you're trying but come on

I KNOW YOU'RE TRYING BUT STOP

YEEEEEE ZOEYYYYYYYY 😍😍

"That's what friends are for, right?" I'm super happy for her but also I love that Mateo is not smiling, he looks genuinely shocked like "DID I MANAGE NOT TO MESS IT UP?!" 😂😂

THERE'S A FROG TAXIE 😵‍💫

Julia seems like another stressed character, she just wants to play her music and relax for once in her life... yeah, she teaches math, that's understandable

Okay, see, Castillo is the first one to clap! I feel like she knows more than what she lets on and after my experience throught Ninjago and master "there's something I should've told you" Wu, I don't trust old LEGO people not to know stuff

They got the answers... still bad idea 😅

LOOK AT THAT EXCHANGE OF LOOKS THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO TALK ZOEY KNOWS NOW THAT HE WANTS TO BE HER FRIEND AND STRUGGLES WITH TALKING AND OMG LOOK AT HOW SHE LOOKS AT HIM WHILE HE WALKS TO HIS DESK SHE LOOKS HAPPY AND I BELIEVE GRATEFUL AAAAAAA- 🥰😍🥰🥰😍🥰🥰

Yes I might be shipping them, we'll see what happens but so far I like what I see 🥰🥰

Ah, so the answers were useless I see

And Teo knows they screwed up, alright that's nice that he didn't loose his integrity over something like this 👌👌

Okay but did all the other people hyped up the Destroyers the entire episode to troll them or because they actually fear them? Just how mean are these middle school students, seriously 😅

Yeah Teo needs to train, my son sucks at sports just like moi 😅😅

Nice to see Cooper is not letting Logan off the hook on this one! And still Teo is kind enough to apologize for being hard on him... even though he had rights for it 😅😅

Noooo Logan don't do something stupid

Logan??

LOGAN????

ONLY TWO EPISODES LEFT AND OMG I'M LIKING THEM MORE AND MORE 😍😍😍

#lego #lego dreamzzz #dreamzzz #mateo #izzie #logan #cooper #zoey #z blob #dreamzzz mateo #dreamzzz izzie #dreamzzz cooper #dreamzzz logan #dreamzzz zoey #dreamzzz z blob #mateo x zoey #spoilers

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brown-little-robin · 1 year ago

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What are your favourite relationships between your OCs? (romantic or platonic!), Do you have any OC family trees?, What was your first fandom you were in? Did you make any art/fanfic for it?

7: What are your favourite relationships between your OCs? (romantic or platonic!)

oughhhh ok ok here's my favorites:

Naphtali and Paul (platonic-brotherly): Naphtali is the leader of a little band of survivors and a wise prophet and in some universes a crow person. Paul is Naphtali's bestie and bodyguard, a quieter, chill big guy who has animal telepathy. They're best friends they're comrades they're sitting silently together around a fire knowing they'll be together until they die.

Toad and Jack-be-Nimble (platonic-brotherly) (supervillains-in-training): Jack mends Toad's ripped jeans and claims it's because he has ADHD (he uses that as a general-purpose excuse for literally anything, including all of his love languages) and needs to keep his hands busy. Toad would die for Jack but he expresses that by spitting slime into his hair as a prank. They're so stupid about it I love them <3

Rudy and Pearl: most importantly they're ride or die partners in crime, secondarily... maybe romantic maybe not...? they're life partners but they're not necessarily attracted to each other. but they might get married in future. we'll see.

Rudy and Judy: ......long-lost siblings....? cousins....? aunt and nephew??? adult adoptive son and mother???? another hard one to define. Rudy is the clown persona of Judy's father, but he is NOT her father, and he's not her child (he's effectively an adult in terms of cognition!) but he's not her equal in life experience either (she's like mid-40s and he's one day old when they meet). But anyway they're so good. Also ride or die for each other.

Bonus: Two and Five, my clone besties. Two teeechnically isn't my oc but the relationship between him and Five is one of my favorites. They have deep philosophical differences but they love each other deeply. They're the two sides of the plot sword and they cut each other and themselves. Slippery blades, both of them.

8: Do you have any OC family trees?

Yes!!!! Sort of!!!! Which you know! I've given you this clones chart several times! but here you go:

Maybe someday I'll make a clowns family tree :)

29: What was your first fandom you were in? Did you make any art/fanfic for it?

Hmmmmm.... that's hard to say because I was an internet Lurker for a long time before I actually made a blog or anything. But I'd say my first fandom experience proper was probably X-Men! I went through SO many Pinterest panels before finding the comics and getting wildly invested in the X-Men and even drawing Nightcrawler a few times. X-Men was the first series that I read while also enjoying strangers' opinions of the stories and characters.

#Robin speaks #ask game

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phoenixglacier · 1 year ago

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I think about this a lot since Percabeth and Solangelo are in there as some of my favourite and least favourites couples respectively.

Annabeth constantly demeans Percy, calls him names, physically attacks him, and so on (fanfic also use how she's also ambitious and hence looks out for her own self-interest, and emphasise how she and Percy often disagree).

It feels like it should be straightforward that these blanket facts make an unhealthy relationship, but Percy makes it work. By the time they're ready to be and then in their relationship, Annabeth doesn't do these things to make Percy upset. She doesn't expect him to be truly insulted when she calls him names. When they get together, she's even under the impression that he's physically invulnerable because of the River Styx. Annabeth's intentions aren't what makes it okay — Percy's interpretations of them is.

See, the first five books of the series were entirely Percy's perspective. The narration had to craft a likeable character out of Annabeth, thereby contextualising all of her treatment of Percy in an acceptable manner, while still being a first-person narration by Percy. So we know that Percy understands Annabeth. We know that he doesn't spiral into low self-esteem by Annabth calling him Seaweed Brain. Annabeth isn't trying to hurt him, and Percy isn't hurt by her.

But! There are so many reasons why Percy could (and maybe even should?) be less stable than he is in canon! If a a fanfic wants to play up the bullying he experienced at school (at the hands of both his classmates and his teachers) then he should absolutely be negatively affected by Annabeth's actions! Even more so if a fanfic wants to emphasise Gabe's abuse, where he never witnessed everything being done to his mother directly, and was shielded as much as possible, but Percy was at the very least verbally abused by Gabe. Any of these experiences in his history could tip the scales into Percy being a lot more vulnerable than he truly is. Because of this, if you want to show a vulnerable Percy or address lasting scars from any of these things in his past, you also have to accept that Annabeth's behaviour is hurting him.

But in canon, that's not what happens. Percy's mortal experiences define him by making him a protector — he'll fight anyone that tries to hurt Grover or Tyson because he knows they're sensitive and will be hurt. In the meantime, he arguably becomes friends with Clarisse, who is far worse than Annabeth has ever been. As mentioned, he learns to understand Annabeth's behaviour and that she means no harm. Their arguments are almost always two-sided because neither of them will just shut their mouths and take it, so they inevitably get lots of chances to communicate and readjust. Their insults become "pet names", remnants of their silly childhood days that they look upon fondly. Percy is strong, and he had years to get used to and understand Annabeth's behaviour, and it no longer holds the surface meaning as they're roleplaying their memories from being kids.

So canonically, it works. But there's a number of hoops you have to jump through to get there. Percy had the cards stacked against him to turn out as a healthy, stable person, and Annabeth is a challenge to that emotional stability. No concrete detail has to change in canon to accept that Percy was just a little less strong and a little less okay. Percy probably would never be in love with Annabeth if not for their history together, because she does break a lot of his default rules.

None of this even goes into why Annabeth acts like this, and I'm not going to because I think an awful lot of it is summed up to "Camp Half-Blood". You know who else grew up in Camp Half-Blood? Will Solace.

So full disclaimer, I stopped reading after the first TOA book for other reasons. I've seen bits and pieces, but not well enough to know their relationship as well as percabeth. Nevertheless, I'm going to overstep and say why I think Solangelo's attempt at a copy of Percabeth doesn't work.

Let's start the same way with the face-value problems: Will doesn't physically attack Nico like Annabeth does, but he does shut down Nico when he starts talking about death and anything else along the lines of his powers, criticises him for being unsocial, tells him that everyone likes him and anything to the contrary is "in his head", expresses strong discomfort with his powers, controls what Nico is allowed to do because he is his doctor, and ridicules him when Nico says he's uncomfortable with the word "boyfriend". Of course, controlling what Nico can do is up to Nico actually listening to him, or others cooperating with Will to stop him. Everything else mentioned is categorised as "banter", and to be honest that's probably why it exists to begin with. Canon wants us to believe that all this is as light-hearted as it is with Percabeth, but it's not because:

First of all: they don't have a history. At all. Remember, Percy and Annabeth have years of learning what each other's meanings and boundaries are, and literally ages enough for them to know that the insults they started with are stupid now. In Solangelo's case, they "met" each other at the end of one book and were shown already dating in the next. Frank and Hazel were already crushing on each other when we met them, so they could get away with showing us the ending. Piper and Jason, who started from "scratch" and got together in one book, were never convincing and canonically broke up. I understand that Leo and Calypso, who got together even faster, were shown having issues together later on, which is great! And that leaves Solangelo the odd one out in terms of being the only couple here to get together off-screen and also the most "trust me bro" from canon.

I've often theorised how I would rewrite solangelo to be a relationship I like, and a lot of it is down to the missing months that we never saw. Their relationship is not convincing to the audience because we never got to see it, and we're essentially being asked to make up those few months ourselves. (Seriously, I've never shipped him with Reyna, but they had a whole book dedicating to the development or their platonic relationship and that was amazing. With Will we get basically nothing.)

Second: Nico is not as emotionally unfazed as Percy. He doesn't take insults lightly. He's hurt by what people say. He doesn't deliberately hurt others. He's strong, yes, but that's by withstanding hurt instead of not being bothered. We've been treated to two monologues in HOH and several POV chapters in BOO to specifically confirm this.

Will claims (and I don't believe this) that Camp Half-Blood thinking of him as an outsider was just "in his head". But if this is true, then that means Nico is extra sensitive to other people's comments and actions. If it's not true, then Nico has been through years of social outcasting — and the ptsd from both possibilities is the same. This is different from when Annabeth insults Percy for being dumb, because they both know he isn't. Will is attacking a part of Nico's self. Nico already has ownership for his own powers and just wishes others wouldn't ostracise him for them. Canon doesn't even pretend he's not annoyed, it just has Nico remove himself from his powers such that "his powers" scare people but "he" is loved by Will.

Third, and I think this is the most important one for me: They are woefully unequal. Nico spent the last two books making so much progress with new friends: Reyna, Jason, Hazel, Coach Hedge, mainly. And they're all gone. Instead, they're at Camp Half-Blood, the place that Nico was convinced disliked him. This is Will's turf. Those are the facts that begin their relationship. This wasn't the reality when Percabeth got together — at that point, the camp belonged to both of them, and Percy was the leader with Annabeth as his right hand. Canon asks us to believe that this inequality to made moot in the missing months.

The inequality, painfully, keeps going. It places Will in the position of his doctor. Unlike Hazel who simply cared about his health, or Coach Hedge who had knowledge of medicine and treated him with it, Will calls it "doctor's orders", deliberately implying that Nico has no choice. And I do think this is deliberate, because Will has been responsible for the entire camp for so long including wars, so he really must have his patients follow his orders. Even if this authoritative relationship depends on Nico upholding it, it does exist and is painful for me to read, because never once does it read like the expected doctor-related banter.

As the ultimate cherry of the inequality, Will's identity seems to revolve around being Nico's boyfriend — a direct mirror of their real-world popularity. The Doylian explanation that Nico was hugely popular for several reasons and Will was brought in to be his boyfriend bleeds into their book world, where Will's job is to be Nico's ultimate happy ending that fixes his entire life even the parts that don't need to be fixed or aren't his to fix. To make this possible, Nico ends up doing anything for his ultimate love Will Solace, which is very in character for him considering his disastrous one-sided crush with Percy (that being the comparison is not exactly positive), and Will becomes Nico's caretaker because he's never shown a non-hormone-related reason why he feel in love with Nico at first sight. Nico and Will's relationship seems forced and, worse, like they're both desperate to keep it. Nico is a vulnerable person that might believe he can't get anything better, while also having deep scars from this kind of treatment. Will doesn't seem to like Nico's powers, home, or attitude, which gives the same kind of trainwreck warning signs as someone marrying a prince while hating the fact that he's a part of the royal family. Love is love and all that but it doesn't automatically make you happy.

In an attempt to "fix" Nico's life and make him happy, the writer misses the mark on what all those fanfic writers actually wanted Nico to get out of a relationship and hit a lot of things that make us uncomfortable. Apart from the blaming and the taking away his control, Solangelo assumes that Nico has to change in order for people to like him, and not everyone agrees. Then Percabeth's banter dynamic is layered on top of it, and all the issues seem compounded. Percabeth only works because the canon did a lot of work to convince us!

And Percabeth and Solangelo both have a last thing in common: they're both portrayed as so completely in love that they'll probably have to destroy the world if they broke up. What are they going to do, be normal about it?

Thinking about how easy it is for fanfic writers to twist Percabeth and Solangelo into toxic, unhealthy relationships whilst maintaining a surprisingly good portion of the official content's nuances - as if all materials are already there and all they need is just a soft push towards to right (or wrong) direction.

And Rick tells me they're supposed to be canon's exemplary, top-shelf, happily-every-after couples? He's not doing a good job at it.

#I want to add that I actually love Will a lot and wish he wasn't dating Nico who I also love a lot #phoenixglacier writes #phoenixgacier's words #pjo #percabeth #solangelo crit #nico di angelo #will solace #percy jackson #annabeth chase

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d-criss-news · 3 years ago

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Nine Songs: Darren Criss

When Disney, Phantom Planet and Mr Hudson collide: Glee star, Emmy and Golden Globe winner and musician Darren Criss talks Andrew Wright through the pivotal songs in his life and the unexpected ways they found him.

“When we are younger, our gateway drugs to a lot of popular things don’t come from the sexiest of places. It’s up to you how proactive you want to be with your curiosity from there, and how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, if you go down at all.”

Choosing the songs that define you is a tricky business to say the least, especially when the power of song has provided an ongoing soundtrack to your life. “When you’re as avid a music consumer as musical artists are, trying to pin down Nine Songs is difficult,” Darren Criss laughs. So much so, his final choices only really crystallise as our conversation draws to its close. “It’s hard for me not to see the value and joy in literally everything,” he explains. “The curse of the creative person is that your ideas and your interests always move way faster than your body can execute.”

Criss is a creative par excellence. As well as his Emmy and Golden Globe winning performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, where he played serial killer Andrew Cunanan, to his upcoming role in Muppets Haunted Mansion Halloween special as The Caretaker, he’s also a prolific musician. Criss enjoyed a decadent musical consumption since childhood, so “this was a bit of an archaeological dig,” he admits. As such, everything from jazz standards, to 808s, punk rock, ‘90s teen pop, and musical numbers are excavated in the course of our extemporaneous journey through the music he loves.

Equally on his mind is how to go about approaching the task of creating his Nine Songs, full stop. “The interesting social experiment is: Are my answers going to be songs that actually shaped my life and were formative to me as an artist? Are they songs that were formative to me as a human being? Or am I picking songs that I think represent who I am to people that do not know me? All three of those things aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

He reaches a conclusion of sorts. “For the purposes of making some kind of decision, I’m gonna lean less into trying to look cool to your very cool readership, and more into the literal, ‘What made me think about music in a different way? And hit me in a very emotional way?’ I think that’s probably the healthiest route.”

Embracing the accessibility that characterises Criss’ picks - or at times the initial touchpoints that led him to them - are something he vacillates over during our chat. “I’ve seen a lot of other people’s Nine Songs and they’re super cool. It’s like Leonard Cohen B-sides and old opera records and stuff. I’m gonna be pretty honest with the pop culture zeitgeist of how I grew up but explain why there is so much value in those moments.” His contemplation continues into the next day, Criss’s publicist passes on his regrets at being tentative to admit how he encountered one of his song choices via the Shrek soundtrack.

A yearning to reinterpret accessibility and the value attached to it drives Criss, however. He tells me that a festival performance that applied the anarchic verve of punk rock to a more refined Great American Songbook number remoulded his perception of music entirely. His love of the fusion of these two genres in particular symbolises the salient musical backdrops of his childhood - the guitar bands he played in with friends, and his musical theatre endeavours that led him to Broadway and multiple Ryan Murphy juggernauts, including his breakthrough playing Blaine Anderson in Glee.

Criss employs these contrasting musical lexicons, and other areas in between, on Masquerade, his new EP. Comprising five stand-alone “character-driven” singles, it sees Criss donning different musical personas. “I’m leaning into people that might know me as an actor,” he explains. “Because if actors can do Shakespeare, romantic comedy, and then do a horror movie and wear a prosthetic nose and a wig, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just do that with music.” The song “walk of shame” draws on jazz-standard chords interlaced with hip-hop production, “i can’t dance” looks to new-wave, and “for a night like this” is the product of Criss’ goal to create the ultimate end-of-the-night crowd-pleaser for a new-year bash, wedding or bar mitzvah. “This is all of the parts of me as a lifelong fan of these genres, trying my hand at servicing the pieces of them that I love.”

“I really love all styles of music and understanding what makes them unique and special and what makes them really pop. There are so many things that really make things sing - for lack of a better verb - and I like acknowledging those things and celebrating those things.”

“So, let’s begin. I have runners up and shit, and I have artists, I don’t just have the songs, so we might have to pick them as we go.”

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“Part of Your World” by Jodi Benson

“When people read this, they’ll go ‘That’s cute, he likes Disney songs’, but it’s more profound than that. Some of the most formative pieces of music to hit me at a very early age would have been any of the songs that were coming from ‘The Disney renaissance.’ The early-mid ‘90s explosion of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and The Beast.

"One of the through lines between the three of those musicals was Howard Ashman, who is one of my all-time heroes. Dramaturg, songwriter - he really was the voice behind what made those songs great. I have always loved Howard’s lyrical sensibility and also Alan Menken, his partner who wrote these songs with him. There was a musical structure to a lot of the songs which I would unconsciously pick up in my own songwriting, not just musically, but the idea that not only did somebody make these songs, but they wrote them for a story.

“There’s a clip of Howard Ashman vocal directing Jodi Benson, who was the original voice of Ariel. It’s a wonderful example of his genius, where not only was he songwriting but he was storytelling in the way he would tell her how to perform it, and you can really see the song coming to life in that clip. That’s when you cross the street from ‘It’s a song’ to ‘This is an experience.’

"There are certain ingredients that are required to elevate music that goes beyond just a nice melody, a beautiful orchestration and a good voice. There are things that are required to really give a performance a characterisation, context and a vulnerability, that he architects in real-time with Jodi Benson. You see that what he’s doing is what makes the record so special, and that’s something that’s always been inspiring to me.”

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“MMMBop” by Hanson

“I think my love of Hanson was because some people didn’t like it, so I was like ‘Fuck you, I like this, how do you feel about it?’ But this is difficult for me, because you know, I’m speaking to The Line of Best Fit and we’re trying to be cool! Although, do you know what’s cool? Being accessible! Writing a pop hit when you are 10 years old. Being in a band with your brothers and you’re all below the age of 15, you have a record contract where you are writing, producing and performing songs that are doing well.

“I was 10 years old when their first album Middle of Nowhere came out, and I remember reading somewhere that there were these kids that had a record. At the time, I was playing guitar and I was writing songs, but in my mind I was a kid, and that was it. I couldn’t be on the radio; you had to be a grown up to do this.

"This was the first time where I realised ‘Holy shit, kids can do stuff!’ It’s the value of seeing yourself in the media - that’s a whole other conversation to talk about - but there’s an immense value in feeling like there’s a piece of you out in the zeitgeist and doing well because it’s encouraging. You go, ‘Holy shit, maybe I can do this as well.'

“When you see children doing things, you’re ‘Wow, this is so cute and fabulous’, but then when you actually look at it you go, ‘This is miles above what most people in this age group are capable of,’ and that’s all I saw, because I was in the same age group and I was so inspired by that. This whole album was really a turning point for me, where I was like, ‘I can do this, I can do music too, because these guys can.'

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“Ooh La La” by Faces

“This song really blew my mind. It became my own theme. It’s that ‘Make your heart sing’, nostalgic moment when you’re a teenager, driving in the car listening to it, playing guitar with your friends and you’re singing “I wish that I knew what I know now / When I was younger.” You’re like, ‘because I’m an adult now, I’m 15-years-old. If I only knew what I know now.’

“I was doing theatre from a young age and I was part of a young conservatory called A.C.T. in San Francisco. By way of somebody who knew somebody, I had an audition for a movie. As a kid not being near New York or Los Angeles it was really exciting, and this audition was for a film called ‘Max Fischer’, which would become the movie Rushmore, which would become one of my favourite movies of all time by the now very distinguished Wes Anderson.

“Separate from my own objective love of Wes Anderson, when this movie came out I was just around the age of getting into my own sort of identity with music, but also movies - indie movies - and trying to assert who I was. So, I see this movie Rushmore and I love it. I love the soundtrack, I love it so much, it’s one of my favourite albums ever. This song is the end sequence, and the way it made me feel - the vocals on it, I could play it on guitar and it was part of a cool movie - it really represented a lot in my life.

“And because of the acting thing, and Rushmore being great - it’s about this kid in high-school who's misunderstood but has his own agenda - everything about it was just so fucking cool to me. To this day, I cite that song as one of my favourite records of all time.”

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“Recently Distressed” by Phantom Planet

“A guy that really formed the way I would sing and write songs is Alex Greenwald, the frontman of Phantom Planet. I went to see Phantom Planet because I loved Rushmore and I found out that Jason Schwartzman [who had been cast as Max Fischer] was also the drummer for a band called Phantom Planet.

"So, when I saw their name on the bill I went, but I didn't know their music. I was barely 14, but their set blew my mind. It was Rock and Roll, but I loved Alex Greenwald’s voice. I loved everything, and I would follow their career from there. I always tell people that my voice is a combination of me trying to be Alex Greenwald, Paul McCartney and Rufus Wainwright, but failing. Alex was incredibly formative for me.

“One of their biggest records was a little while after I first saw them, which was the song for The O.C., "California." That was more of an Elvis Costello thing, and they employed a lot of stuff that sounded to me like The Beatles and a lot of ‘60s mod/pop-rock. But later they would employ things from Fugazi, Radiohead and harder shit, and that eclecticism, again, only accelerated my love for Phantom Planet.

“Recently Distressed” is from their 1998 album Phantom Planet Is Missing. This was a cool rock song that employed these George [Harrison] and Paul [McCartney] background vocals and included all of the things that I loved. It was harder but melodic and employed minor 4th chords and more complicated chords than I was used to. I had grown up with power chords - which are very Gregorian - on a lot of alt. punk rock, like Green Day or Nirvana, and if Kurt Cobain was using power chords then that’s how I was playing guitar. Hearing this music was like ‘Oh, I’m using full chords, not sevenths, minor 4th chords, diminished chords’, shit that I would learn to use more and more.

“When you haven’t experienced much, anything that gives a hint towards possibility, even though it’s probably always been there, you’re like, ‘I like this, I’ve always kind of liked this, but it’s very encouraging to hear somebody else do it and it’s gonna make me reconsider my possibilities.’ That was literally the moment that my power chords turned into full barre chords.”

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“Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” by Rufus Wainwright

“I forgot the other day how I got into Rufus Wainwright, because all of this stuff I was getting into quite young. It’s like when I talk to 11-13 year olds, it’s funny to think that this was when I was really starting to build my musical identity. But then I remembered, and I didn’t want to say because I didn’t want to sound uncool, because he is such a revered artist who exists in a much cooler place than what I’m about to say.

“I loved soundtracks and I would always buy soundtracks for movies that had cool playlists. I had the Shrek soundtrack, and there’s a cover of Leonard Cohen’s seminal “Hallelujah” that Rufus does and he smashes it, and I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is Rufus Wainwright? What a beautiful voice.’ Then I saw that he was going to be at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco one week, so I go and he’s there promoting his new album Poses. I remember I didn’t have enough money to buy the album that day, so I had him sign my sneaker and I saved that shoe.

“The first song on Poses was “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, which is a very dark and reflective song about his own battles with addiction, but he’s singing it over this really beautiful, whimsical song that has a lot of really great wordplay. I always love when artists, especially lyricists, can encapsulate an idea with not exactly what they’re talking about. The song’s called “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, it’s not called “Addiction”. Its talking about things that he craved and how that’s representative of other things that he’s gone through. There was a sophistication and elegance to that that I really gravitated towards, that I didn’t possess but wanted to shoot for. So when I saw him, that was a big one for me and he would also continue to influence me later in my life.

“I’ve become friends with Rufus since. I’ve performed with him and we’ve made records together, which is crazy. His songwriting was very complex and punk-rock, but he had this classic cabaret voice, the kind of voice that I don’t have. I was fascinated that there was somebody that could write this really dark material but have such elegance on top of it. He was virtuosic on the piano, which I thought was very cool because musicianship is always the thing that gets me going the most about artists.

“You know what? People say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes.' I completely disagree. Chase the living fuck out of your heroes. I’ve spent a lifetime doing so, it’s made me a better artist, and I’ve sometimes got to meet them and work with them. I’ve worked on music with Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet. I’ve performed with Hanson. I’ve performed those Disney songs with Alan Menken at The Hollywood Bowl.

"This is all because there are people that I love who I have put on my vision board, and the things that they have done are the things that are bringing me to them. So it is nuts, but at the same time you’re like, ‘Well, what else did you think would happen?’ They did stuff that some part of me connected with, so obviously there’s a magnetic pull towards that person.

“Rufus Wainwright is one of my absolute favourite artists of all time and like I said, me trying to sing like him and failing is a big part of my own journey as an artist.”

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“3x5” by John Mayer

“John Mayer’s another guy that came around when I was 15. I heard a song of his on a middle-of-the-night, singer/songwriter college radio show. This is where I used to get music. You would listen to these carefully curated playlists that you wouldn’t be able to hear anywhere else, and the host played “No Such Thing”, a new song by this young kid who had just dropped out of Berklee College of Music - John Mayer.

“I’m listening to this song and I’m like, ‘Not only is this guitar playing really interesting, but the lyrical value and everything that is going on here ticks all the boxes.' It was jazz, but it was pop. And he did something that all these other guys and girls I’ve mentioned did. They made something very unique and very accessible.

“I immediately went out to buy this album, Room For Squares, and I listened to it over and over again. It was an album that was really formative for me. "3x5” is a really beautiful song that employs a lot of chord structures and melodies that blew my fucking mind at the time, and it made me wish that I could write songs like that.

“That album was a huge turning point in the way I played the guitar, because it was the first time in my life where I would look up tabs. Up until this point in my life, if I heard a song I could play it instantly. It was like a party trick, I would get how it worked if I heard it, because most of the songs I would hear on the radio - especially those that involved a guitar - were [centred around] power chords. And now I’m hearing all of these ninth chords and thirteenths, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ So I’d have to look up tabs.

“I think any young artist can attest to this - when you try and learn other people’s shit, it’s the best tool for educating yourself. Playing other people’s music really helps you lock in what your own style is. Trying to learn these songs - and sometimes pulling it off and sometimes not - really changed the way that my hands moved around the guitar and considered chords and voicings that I’d never really thought of.

“There’s another tie to musical theatre here, where I remember seeing Audra McDonald, who is a very venerated theatre actor, and she did a cabaret. If you’re familiar with cabaret culture, it’s more about performing the story of the songs – ‘Life is a cabaret’. She did a John Mayer song because she thought it was from a musical theatre show, and I was so tickled by this, because I was like ‘Yeah, if you really think about it, I don’t think he knows this and I don’t think his fan base even thinks about this, but there’s a number of his songs that feel very theatrical in the way that the lyrics play with each other and the way the chords move’.

"When I saw this I thought, ‘That is why I like John Mayer’, because yes, he’s an amazing guitar player, but he’s also a really strong songwriter.”

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“Cabaret” by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

“Also, around this time growing up in San Francisco, as a guitar player playing music with your buddies, the number one thing that you play is punk rock. There are different parts of the spectrum of punk rock, there's the NOFX, Swingin’ Utters, like real punk, punk. And then there’s the pop-punk thing that was happening at the same time, which was also equally influential - blink-182 and Green Day.

“Fat Mike was the frontman of NOFX. I loved NOFX, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were a supergroup of different members from different punk bands, of which Fat Mike was one of the main architects. They would cover songs and turn them into punk rock songs. They have an album of hits from the ‘60s, and they also have an album called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes: Are a Drag, and that record is just a tonne of musical theatre covers that are done through punk rock.

“That was completely in line with everything I loved at this time of my life but didn’t really know how to articulate. I loved punk rock but I also really loved musical theatre. Not only the performative element of it, but there was a real musicality to musical theatre that wasn’t as present in some of the other shit that was popular at the time, just harmonically, or where chords would go. There was a sophistication I loved that seemed to not exist in punk rock.

“Then hearing Fat Mike at The Warped Tour going ‘Alright, which one of you Motherfuckers loves Julie Andrews?’ and hearing a mixed bag of reactions, because people were ‘What? I was not expecting that from you, sir?’ And then they start playing “My Favourite Things”, a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein song which is very accessible, but sophisticated nonetheless. And I am just living. I’m like, ‘This has got the attitude and simplicity of punk rock, but the sophistication of a beautiful song.’

“That was the first time in my life where I went, ‘It’s just all music. All these categories and boxes are completely arbitrary.’ So I thought, ‘I can do that.' I was playing power chords in punk bands but I realised that you can take chords and make them into other rhythms and voicings and have the same song. I could take a punk song and make it jazz. I could take a jazz song and make it country. So, quite providentially, I would end up on Glee, where they took popular songs and would sometimes do their own versions.

“By that point, I had been doing this my whole life. The first time this ever became a possibility for me was seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and that way of thinking about music and genre. I’ve put that into Masquerade, and it’s all born from that moment of ‘Oh my God, nothing has to be one thing. It’s just about how you look at it.'

“Cabaret” is from a pretty famous musical that I would’ve probably heard about later in life, but I first heard that song as a punk song and then I went back and heard the original. It doesn’t matter how these things happen, the inspiration happens and then you can go from there. But Me First and The Gimme Gimmes were a huge gateway drug and I play “Cabaret” now every year at my festival. That’s why the festival is called Elsie Fest, because it covers the song.”

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“Modern Nature” by Sondre Lerche

“One of the great joys of being a younger brother is that you get to inherit the music of your elders. My brother and I were both really proactive consumers of music, so we would share stuff with each other all the time. But then he would come home from college, which is like coming home from a music festival essentially, right? He was in a new time zone with new people, so he’d bring home these mix CDs that he’d made from people that he’d heard about, and he brings home this guy named Sondre Lerche.

“Hearing this guy blew my mind, because he also was using jazz chords and drawing on musical theatre. Musical theatre’s a massive category, so I can’t just say that musical theatre sounds like one thing, but when I say this, I’m referring to The American Songbook, the jazz standard songbook. “Modern Nature” was a duet that I would go on to play many times with one of my oldest musical collaborators, Charlene Kaye. When we got to college and we both found out that we loved this guy.

“There was a much more whimsical way to how he wrote these songs. And what’s crazy is that loving this guy meant that we also loved Rufus Wainwright, that we also loved these other artists. But Sondre was the first time I considered that I loved that type of music, but I didn’t know that you could be a singer/songwriter and put out music that sounded like it.

“I don’t know if ‘twee’ is the right word to use, but with “Modern Nature” there was a playfulness about it, and again, a musicality that I really gravitated towards. There is a through line - there was a sophistication that was accessible, and me trying to learn those songs did make me rethink the way that I was writing music. The structures were weird and different and I liked that.

“To this day, I find myself writing songs that I think might be difficult for people to ingest, because they’re a little too left of centre, and I realise that I’m trying to write like Sondre Lerche, or I’m unconsciously just copying him.”

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“Everything Happens to Me” by Mr Hudson & The Library

“I was in an H&M in Stockholm when I was 21, and I heard this really cool groove and the lyric was “Why must I always play the clown?” It was sung with a really thick British accent, had an 808 feel on it, and lyrically it had an attitude. Who would say something that sounds so like you’re in a Gilbert & Sullivan musical, but it feels hard? It was cool.

“I went home and looked this up and it was off the record A Tale of Two Cities by Mr Hudson and the Library, which would really, really fuck me up. I bought the album immediately because I loved this song. I had to order it on the internet because I couldn’t find it. It was doing well in England and he was on the festival circuit in the early-mid 2000s, but the first song on the album was a musical theatre cover with 808s.

“It was a pared-down, sort of a hip-hop version of “On The Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady, and I’m like ‘No fucking way, this guy gets where my head is.’ I’d thought about punk rock musical theatre, but I never thought about 808s and 909s scoring these beautiful songs. I go down the track list and he has “Everything Happens to Me”, which is another very famous standard, and he had this really cool, what we would now call chill-hop, ‘study beats’ version of this song. I was like, ‘This is it. This guy gets that good music is good music and you can reinterpret it to offer it as a new song.’

“I would later become great friends with Mr Hudson. I got to meet him years later when I was with Columbia Records, and they said to me ‘Who do you want to meet?’ He was at the top of my list. I went to London and we’ve been friends ever since and have created all kinds of music together.

“He told me a story where Tyler the Creator went up to him once at Coachella and said, ‘Oh man, “Everything Happens To Me”, that’s like my song.’ We both wondered if Tyler the Creator knew that it was a Chet Baker cover. And we were thinking how cool it is that you can offer these songs to a new audience through a different lens. Tyler’s a smart guy, he’s very cultured, and I’m sure he did know. But it’s more the idea that if someone experienced this song and didn’t know that it was a cover, and this is like the first time they ever get to experience it.

“Mr Hudson would go on to do his own thing with Kanye and was on 808s & Heartbreak and has had his own career. I think “Supernova” was a hit in the UK, it didn’t really cross over here to The States, but before that moment for him, that Mr Hudson and The Library album changed my life. People use that phrase willy-nilly, but this literally was a turning point in my life. It all had to do with the same thing that happened with these other songs, where I saw someone do what I always wanted to do but didn’t really know how to pull off. Where he had this fusing of old songs delivered through a contemporary lens, but also laced it with his own original material that also employed the things that made that old songwriting interesting.

“It’s like changing the font of a great essay but finding the font and figuring out that that font is its own art form. He really displayed that marvellously on this.”

The Masquerade EP is out now

#darren criss #the line of best fit #press #sept 2021

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balillee · 3 years ago

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why 'there's no lore going on' right now in the dream smp - The Misfits Analogy

Fans of television, especially British television, will probably be familiar with an early 2010's show called Misfits. The show ran for five seasons spanning 2009 to 2013 - while the first two seasons (the first moreso than the second) are regarded more as cult classics, the latter half of the show completely falls in writing and production quality due to one significant change - the cast.

Seasons one and two of Misfits was centred around the original misfits gang - Nathan Young (portrayed by Robert Sheehan), Kelly Bailey (portrayed by Lauren Socha), Simon Bellamy (portrayed by Iwan Rheon), Alisha Daniels (portrayed by Antonia Thomas) and Curtis Donovan (portrayed by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett).

The show was good for two different factors from my perspective -

The intersection of superpowered television and interpersonal conflicts that broke the norm for stereotypes.

How the cast reflected modern British society.

In summary, the show followed a group of five young offenders at a community service centre. Not too interesting - but give them relatability, realism and explore their character development and their existing stereotypes/tropes through the use of superpowers? Genius.

Nathan was most definitely the fan favourite character of the show - he was outgoing, annoying, larger than life in a lot of ways and in all senses, he was a skeevy asshole who would insult characters at every turn. He was very much the class clown of the show and any British viewer could probably see someone they remember from school in Nathan, except Nathan was lovable and you could sympathise with him because you could see him struggling primarily at home and with his family.

Spoilers for the show - Nathan's power was immortality and the ability to resurrect himself from death. This power wasn't explicit immediately either to Nathan or to the audience unlike all of the other young offenders, and it reflected his 'nothing can hurt me ' attitude. Nathan was a character who could take any comment and brush it off like it was nothing, and he in the physical sense could take being thrown off a roof, impaled and practically buried alive and be sitting in his own coffin with his iPod all fine and dandy.

Kelly was also another standout example - her character reflected the stereotype of a chavvy girl, 'council house and violent' - loudmouthed, not very smart, questionable fashion choices and a bit abrasive. The only difference is that the show knew they had to subvert that stereotype - instead, Kelly was smart in her own way and she was empathic -> her superpower was the ability to hear other people's thoughts, and later, she became superintelligent and when her character left the show she decided to move to Uganda use her newfound rocket-scientist level intelligence for good. She was still loudmouthed and definitely chavvy, but she was also a whole human person who cared about other people and who was definitely intelligent.

If I kept going, I'd be lamenting about how season one's cast well reflected and subverted stereotypes and expectations using their superpowers, but I'd be here all day and that's really not the point I'm trying to make.

By the end of season 2, Robert Sheehan, as the standout performance from the show, decides to move on to greener pastures (which,, I don't blame him, being stuck on E4 would have been a nightmare for his career and look where he is now? He's a fan favourite as Klaus in TUA now!) - thus, Nathan is written out of the show in a post- season 2 special in which he gets locked up in prison in America.

This was the first character to get written out of the show.

In season 3, we lose Kelly who moves to Uganda with Seth to defuse landmines, and Simon and Alisha are both killed, and the only remaining member of the original ASBO five is Curtis.

Season 4 rolls around, and we pretty much have an entirely new Misfits cast - Curtis, and then we have Rudy (who had been present since season 3), and then we have new additions Jess, Finn and Abbey.

Let me tell you that by this point in the show, all of the fans had lost interest.

Not only had the two biggest fan favourites, Nathan and Kelly, left the show, but you now have to replace four out of the five original cast members with new ones that don't function the same way the originals did. What type of person is someone with X-ray vision trying to represent? You could argue that maybe Jess is good at figuring people out, but I don't really remember this being explored that much in the show. And the difference between this reflecting a minor personality trait is that the original cast didn't do that - in dumbed down terms, Alisha was a 'sket' who had the power to make people horny for her, oftentimes against her wishes, through skin-to-skin contact. That's much more impactful and there's a lot more to explore there.

Episode 7 of Season 4 of Misfits is the clearest indicator of the departure of the original show's intentions and explains perfectly why it didn't work the way it used to.

For the entirety of the season, Jess had been crushing on a guy called Alex from a bar she frequented (who later went on to replace Curtis as the fifth Misfits member in season 5, go figures) who, as far as we had seen, not at all reciprocated those feelings nor was there any indication of him wanting to.

In episode 7, we figure out why.

Jess, using her x-ray vision, finds out that Alex's penis was stolen by a trans man.

I'll be honest, when I first heard it, I thought it was a joke.

The show went from having a diverse cast, not only in terms of having two black characters in it's main cast, but also in it's diversity of character tropes that they aimed to subvert - to then having a mainly white cast in a show that actively perpetuates harmful stereotypes about trans people being dangerous.

Now, and I want to preface this, I don't think that the Dream SMP is malicious in the same way that the writing of that episode of Misfits is. I don't think the SMP is malicious at all. What I want to highlight is how the change in cast directly mirrored when the audience dropoff was and when the show itself started to go south in terms of quality, production and what they wanted to achieve.

For the sake of my argument, there is currently three seasons of the dream smp. The start of the server up until the end of the initial disc war is the prologue, season one encompasses Wilbur's L'Manberg and the Pogtopia arc, ending on November 16th, season 2 starts November 17th and ends January 20th (the disc war finale) and season 3 spans from January 21st to the present day.

Most of the fans of the Dream SMP can tell you that the primary story of the server is centred around quite a few certain characters who viewers started watching to see more of. I'm guilty of this myself - I primarily watch the SMP for Tommy's story, and I also stick around for Wilbur, Tubbo, Ranboo and a little bit for Phil, Techno and Jack Manifold. Those were the people I was invested in and those are the stories I like to follow. Not to discredit or to downplay the work or the stories of other characters, but I can imagine that there are a few people who watch the SMP primarily for a close few perspectives/storylines, and following some storylines over others just because you're not interested in them is completely fine and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

In season one, there was always things going on with my favourite characters. Tommy was always getting himself into spots of trouble and making up different schemes to get people to come visit L'Manberg as a tourist attraction, or getting people to support the rebellion, and this was interspersed with the heavier, plot-driven moments such as Wilbur's mental breakdown, the festival, the pit fight and the season 1 finale. This got me invested in him as a character because he had been there for quite a while and we'd seen him develop and grow into the character we now see in season 3.

In the back half of season 1 came Techno, who really shook things up and threw a spanner in the works and provided a totally different perspective - unlike Dream he didn't hate L'Manberg because he couldn't control it, and unlike Wilbur he didn't have a personal connection to it and he didn't know it's history. Techno initially hated L'Manberg because it was a government he knew nothing about (and still knows nothing about even today), and because violence and destruction is kind of his thing.

We had a well balanced cast of characters - not too many - that we could follow and who all had varying perspectives, experiences and personalities. We had clearly defined groups of individuals with different morals: you had the people on the side of Manberg, the people in Pogtopia who wanted Manberg blown up, the people in Pogtopia who didn't want Manberg blown up, and on the side to compliment it all you also had the Badlands, comprised of three longstanding members of the server,,,, and then Antfrost who was kidnapped by Tommy that one time. It was all wrapped up nicely in a neat little bow and there was structure to it all. There was one plot that went in one direction, and despite the many perspectives, it all ended up in the same spot and the story ended. There was a conclusion.

In season 2, the two primary additions to the 'cast' were Phil and Ranboo, whose characters complimented the existing story well. Phil functioned mostly as a successor to Wilbur alongside Ghostbur by exploring well the departure of Wilbur as a character in that moment, and he also functioned well as a companion to Techno's character. Ranboo, on the other hand, had a pretty good complimentary solo story that could be followed alongside the main plot, however his story wasn't too distant from the main story to the point where he was completely removed from it - he had direct involvement in different events such as the exile conflict, his connection to Dream as the main antagonist of the season and his involvement in blowing up the community house.

Season 2 starts with a focus on two different spaces - it breaks up a longstanding duo and the storyline diverges into two halves: Logstedshire and New L'Manberg, and you have Techno's short 'retirement' arc working decently to compliment it and also to set the tone for his character going forward in that season. In Logstedshire we see the aftermath of Tommy being exiled from L'Manberg by Dream - we see him endure what is (in canon) at least a month of isolation and physical and psychological abuse and it culminates on December 15th when Tommy rescues himself, jumps from the tower and goes to hide in Techno's house (which acts as a good precursor to his involvement in Techno's storyline in that season). On the other side, we follow Tubbo in L'Manberg dealing with Presidency - he talks a lot and gets 'friendly' with Dream, he prepares to run against Ranboo in the coming election cycle (primarily because he doesn't want to be President) and we see his interactions with the power-hungrier Quackity who all too often takes the reigns and this culminates in the creation of the Butcher Army, and following the Butcher Army's attack on December 16th, once again, we have two clearly defined sides:

One one side, we have Tubbo, Quackity and Fundy who represent L'Manberg, and on the other we have Tommy (who is unaware of the Butcher Army's attack), Phil and Techno, and more in the middle we have Ghostbur and Ranboo.

Season 2's finale format is a clear departure for the format of November 16th, but it's not a poor choice - I think, especially considering the story that they were telling, it worked perfectly. On November 16th, pretty much everyone was streaming their perspective of the event; at the time, there were even compilations of everyone's reactions to Wilbur blowing up L'Manberg. On January 20th, however, we only had two perspectives - Tubbo and Tommy.

I'll say it now, while Season 2 was definitely Clingyduo's season, it didn't focus solely on them. There was also a big focus on Techno as a character, whose arc came to an end a little earlier on Doomsday, and there was also a focus on Ranboo a lot as a solo character, and he streamed a little later on January 20th with what I refer to as the 'epilogue', where there was also a shift in his character to expect moving forward.

Why season 2's finale worked is because it was centralised around only three characters, only two of which we ever see the perspectives of, and it was the finale of the longest running storyline of the entire narrative - the disc war. Two boys who were on their last life, making their last stand at the one man who pulled the strings to make their lives miserable - those two perspectives only, and it worked. We didn't have compilations of everyone reacting to the things happening around them which worked for season 1, instead, we focused on these two characters whose turn it was to get the focus, and we had iconic and moving moments. We had the two boys walking down the prime path saying what they could only assume might have been their last goodbyes to the people that still had a shred of care for them, we had the two sailing to where they would face off against Dream for their final stand and finally talking about their feelings a little and dreading the implication that if they were both to die, nobody would live to tell their stories, we had Tommy choosing his best friend over his discs time and time again, and we had Punz - Dream's last confidant - standing against Dream and bringing everyone with him and sending him to prison, now on his last life too.

Everything about it was perfect. The more focused ending worked for the ending of season 2 because it was their time to have their climax moment - and it wasn't some spectacular display of explosions or violence like in Wilbur's finale on November 16th, where the ramifications hit everyone and we got to see it, nor was it a show of violence and almost oppressive dominance like Techno's finale was on Doomsday, where we saw everyone's breakdown and how the people contributing to the destruction of L'Manberg, no matter how righteous they thought they were, did not care to understand how much they were hurting and destroying the lives of the country's citizens. On January 20th, Tommy and Tubbo went into it thinking they were going to die, they got their asses handed to them despite how hard they tried, and they had their behinds saved by Tommy's preparative thinking by people who weren't there to save them more than they were there to get rid of Dream.

Season 3 suffers a lot from a lack of focus, awful pacing and really poor timing.

Seasons 1 and 2 occurred during the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, where everyone was stuck at home and had more time to stream because it was their primary form of content and because it was the best way to communicate with their friends. Thus, the pacing of those seasons was extremely steady and things were always happening.

Now, lockdown restrictions have eased quite a bit, and creators can branch out a lot more and can meet with each other in real life and can do vlog-style content. Therefore, they don't stream as much, and the focus of the Dream SMP story has shifted more towards newer or sideplot characters. If you enjoy those characters, that's fine, but when they take the focus away from the characters and the storylines the majority are expecting, a lot of people won't try to keep up with it and from their perspective there'll be a massive lull in narrative content.

What I'm saying, is that Tommy streaming for thirteen days in a row in July 2021 is a fucking pipe dream. It happened in December because the story was consistent and the pacing was steady and he had the time and the want to be there. Now, Tommy's off making his vlogs and hanging out with his friends and thus he can't stream as much as he used to. He's sort of suffering from the Robert Sheehan problem, isn't he? Tommy is still involved with the Dream SMP and his story is definitely continuing, and his narrative in season 3 is really starting to pick up with the newer developments, it's just that he doesn't have as much time to play the role anymore because he isn't streaming as much.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing - it's obviously making him happy that his content is changing and I'm fully supportive of that.

So when all of these meetups are happening and we don't have as much content from the main characters that we follow anymore, what happens?

Well, the fans get a little itchy. This fandom, especially. They might throw out a comment or a tweet asking when they're going to stream on the SMP, or if they really don't understand why the Dream SMP is good, they'll ask when the next 'lore stream' is, and they'll lament a little about how the content and the story has slowed, especially in contrast to the fast pacing of season 2 which only lasted a little over two months with much more story going on than in season 3 despite it having been going on for triple the time. What they'll get in response is that the Dream SMP is still going on and that lore is still happening.

On all accounts, these statements aren't incorrect. Lore still is happening.

But when you've been following lovable characters for two seasons, setting up their struggles and then switching the focus onto newer or 'sideplot' characters that you haven't really followed before, there's going to be a bit of moaning about it on twitter dot com.

The SMP now suffers from having too many characters, too many unfocused narratives, and poor pacing/ditched or unfinished storylines from the characters we used to follow and love while we're being told to love other characters instead.

I never really cared too much about the egg subplot, I'll be honest. I was a little interested in the involvement of Sam, Puffy and Ponk, but other than that, I wasn't really too invested. It very much tried to replicate the 'you should have paid me more' moment from January 20th at the Red Banquet, and it really didn't hit as hard because most of the characters there were either ones that didn't belong there at all (like Niki, Fundy, HBomb, and Purpled), weren't that involved with the plotline and felt out of place with the established characters in that storyline (Techno, Quackity and Ranboo), or were new characters that were difficult to get on board with because they hadn't really had too much of a story beforehand (Hannah and Foolish), or in the case of Antfrost, characters with no known motivation to be there other than that being the storyline they're currently in. Not to discredit those involved or their characters, but the Red Banquet really tried to replicate what the disc finale did with it's focused perspectives and it's Punz moment, and it failed.

Now, following the egg subplot's finale, I'm meant to focus on Las Nevadas, Snowchester and the Syndicate.

Las Nevadas is the most consistent storyline, however it's biggest problem is that it is filled with new characters or ones that are barely there. Despite how long he's been on the server, Purpled really is a new character if only because he's only really become a character recently - Foolish is still considered new, Slimecicle is new, Fundy rarely streams on the SMP. The only consistent longstanding and heavily involved characters that are a part of Las Nevadas are Quackity and Sam, and even their streams are infrequent, with a lot of Sam's perspective not even focusing on Las Nevadas but instead the prison.

Snowchester's plot is very much dying, dead and in the water. She's suffering. We haven't seen Michael in over a month, a nuke is still missing, Jack Manifold is dubiously a citizen and Tubbo doesn't even think he has a character on the SMP. It breaks my heart.

The Syndicate suffer from a lack of existence. The four characters really aren't a friend group in canon - all of the stuff about them hanging out all the time and them basically being a book club is all fanon. They've hung out as a four all of twice, the first time they ever got together they celebrated someone's death and then basically invaded Snowchester to give themselves a reason not to destroy it, terrifying Tubbo in the process. The second time was because it was Techno's birthday.

Now, Techno is in prison, and the only reason Phil hasn't read the will to progress the story is likely because of difficult scheduling with other server members, which is written off in canon as Phil not wanting to accept the possibility of Techno potentially dying.

Literally reading the will and having the Syndicate figure out that Techno's in prison with Dream will solve all of season 3's formatting issues and have the story back on track.

Currently, we don't really have two clearly defined sides the way we always had. We were meant to root for L'Manberg against the Dream Team, we were meant to root for Pogtopia against Manberg, and in season 2 we had a lot more moral ambiguity and room for side switching between the forces of Dream, Techno and Phil against L'Manberg, and then we rooted for Clingyduo against Dream.

I can predict that if the will is read, here's how a good conflict can arise.

Two clearly defined different sides - Las Nevadas on the side of Pandora's Vault, and the Syndicate (currently consisting of Phil, Ranboo and Niki), and you have compromises to make. If the side of the Prison wins, Techno and Dream stay in Pandora's Vault without a proper trial and being treated inhumanely, and there's also the threat of the rest of the Syndicate also being imprisoned. If the side of the Syndicate wins, the prison is taken out and Techno and Dream are no longer being treated inhumanely - problem is that Dream's out, and he's very much dangerous because despite what c!Dream apologists will tell you, he's not docile and he's not going to have a healing arc with Techno because he doesn't think he's done anything wrong and Techno can't tell him that he's done anything wrong (because Techno is the most wilfully ignorant character who gets to be political it's INSANE) - he'll go right back to the evil, abusive bastard he was, obsessed with Tommy, probably worse now that he can easily get Wilbur to do anything he wants and more vindictive against Quackity. Plus, if the Syndicate take down Las Nevadas they'll hold the most power on the server systematically and the so-called anarchists will ironically be the top dogs of the server.

Then towards the middle you'll probably end up having Wilbur, Benchtrio and Jack Manifold - Tubbo and Jack would prefer Techno and Dream staying in prison, except Tubbo's really not on the greatest terms with Q at the minute (because Q's paranoid and making conflict with parties that would have otherwise helped him out and thought they were friends), whereas Tommy would be stuck between wanting Techno out but needing to either keep Dream in or kill him, and Wilbur will be having to pick between aiding Dream's escape from prison or staying with Tommy, because he can't have both. Ranboo will probably be having the same problem as Tommy, except he's on the side of the Syndicate and will have to pick between the Syndicate or keeping Dream imprisoned.

Season 3 is salvageable, it really is. You can fix the poor pacing and you can fix the lack of focus with literally one revelation from fucking Philza M|necraft. But as it stands now, season 3 suffers from a similar situation as Misfits - almost replacing the cast of characters we've followed for the longest time with a new one in a format completely different to the original seasons.

#dream smp #dsmp #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #dsmp meta #dream smp meta #long post #esclapoanalysis

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mallowstep · 3 years ago

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Hey, ok, so I feel kind of weird asking this but like…how do u write a character study? Like what are you supposed to do? Bc it’s not like a rewrite of the book…but then the concept is also kind of restating the book?

character studies are the still lifes of writing. they aim to capture a character like a painter captures a bowl of fruit or vase of flowers.

much like a still life can be of a variety of subject matters, mediums, and styles, a character study is not a rigid class, which makes it hard to define more than, "they are an attempt to explore the character."

in less lyrical thoughts,

i think you're limiting yourself by thinking about it in terms of books. you can write character studies of an original character. i have, many times. one of my favourite short stories i've written is a detective who finds her girlfriend murdered, and she's cataloguing all of these things, and it's showing how she processes grief as well as who she is, without anything really happening. the writing is not up to calibre, nor do i think i could find the sheet it's written on, but the concept has stayed with me for...oh, maybe five years? more?

the point of a character study is as i said earlier to capture a character. their interest comes from discovering the character. i should add, here, that i have my own style and quirks and tastes, which is why i started with a link to a discussion about this that's hopefully less biased.

but i think of how i unwrap presents: carefully sliding my finger under the tape to try to preserve the paper. i want to unveil a character. i want to discover them. i want to examine them from every angle and find them.

"denouncement", about leopardstar. "what catches the ear; what catches the eye", about poppyfrost. "veneration", about firestar. i've written a lot of character studies, although i don't always label them as such.

i've always thought a good story does not diminish in its retelling. in that sense, i suppose when i embark on a character study, i am endeavouring to find such a story within a character. because of who i am, that tends to focus on love. all three studies i listed are about love.

i keep drifting very formal. hm. apologies. i tend to, when i let myself talk about writing. it's a product of having written many, many essays.

but i digress: for another thought, i can compare "denouncement" and "my heart ran away with me." i don't consider the latter to be a character study: it is not about leopardfur, it is about stonefur and leopardfur. if it had been about leopardfur, there would've been more about her siblings, more about her father, more about shimmerpelt and brightsky.

(i told you, i'm predictable. i like to write about love.)

despite my flair for taking myself too seriously, i've not progressed beyond a high school education when it comes to literature. a good high school education, but still. i am very much about hands-on learning.

which is to say, i'm not a good person to ask for definitions. all i've really done is rambled for a bit, in a way that hopefully nudges you in the right direction.

#mine #ask #anon #writing

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harryhighkey · 4 years ago

Text

the 1

hi!

so because i haven’t been able to listen to anything but folklore ever since it came out here’s a one shot inspired by one of the songs, the 1.

i’m really proud of how this turned out and i’m thinking of maybe doing more one shots inspired by songs from that album!

hope u like it and happy reading ♡

______________________

You were doing good.

So good in fact, that when someone asked you how you were, it wasn’t a mundane, somewhat conditioned response of ‘good’ - even if you weren’t. It was a genuine, wholehearted ‘I’m so good’ kind of response you’d hear in some finding the light moment by a protagonist in a movie. You deserved it too, you had been actively trying to find this frame of mind and finally here you were.

You first noticed the change in yourself when you started some new habits in your life. The moment came when you were caught in a drunk-minded deep conversation with one of your best friends.

“Y’know what I need?”

“What?”

“Get on some new shit.”

“You wan’ drugs right now?”

“Nah, nah, nah, not like that. I mean like, in life in general, y’know?”

“Yeah, dude. Same, like... let’s day drink on weekdays too.”

You laughed at her reply, but you remember not saying no. That was something else you were trying to do. Saying yes instead of no.

It’s not that you were necessarily a no person. In fact, you liked to think you were more of a yes person. You were always the friend who was up for anything once upon a time. No matter if it was going to sushi train, spending an afternoon following a Bob Ross tutorial, going axe-throwing, having a Sunday sesh of drinking bottomless margaritas or simply laying in bed and bitching about the people you didn’t like from high school and how boring their lives seemed compared to yours. You were always very friend orientated and you had amazing friends who you always had the most fun with and when that part of your life halted, it effected you more then you realised.

It had stopped by your own choice. You happened to fall in love with one of the most known and beloved male singers of this generation. Harry Styles. At first you kept living normally, but it was only a matter of time before you would get recognised more and more due to being his girlfriend. You didn’t sign up for being a celebrity, it was never your plan and you didn’t consider yourself to be one. But you couldn’t deny that you were known in the Harry Styles fandom for sure. Because of this, you started saying no to a lot more things. It was a sacrifice, but one you were willing to make at the time for the boy who you were so sure was the one.

It was impossible to ignore his status when you two were together and even now when you were not. There was a day when it had been two months and six days since you broke up where you were driving home from work and you were thinking of him. On your lunch break, your co worker who was named Henry was drinking from a mug with a ‘H’ on it. It was the same mug you had bought for Harry when you two were together. And on your way home there was a split second where you thought you saw him at the bus stop. You didn’t though. Of course not, it was just your mind playing a sick trick after you’d been thinking of him so much. Someone of Harry’s fame wouldn’t be able to catch a public bus, especially at peak hour without causing a ruckus. It was easy to miss the good parts and that moment was a slap in the face of reality at how the two of you struggling to be a ‘normal’ couple was a big reason why you broke up.

Two days after that, you spent a week where you swore to hit the ground running each night that week to feel better. The first night was out to dinner, the second was a board game night, the third was visiting your parents, the fourth was an escape room, the fifth was a rooftop bar, and finally came Sunday where you hit the matinee.

That week was exactly what you needed. It was busy as hell, but you wanted it to be. By the end of the week you were exhausted, but in the best possible way. Almost in a way of when you exercise and the release of good endorphins follow. You really felt like the main character in your life again, and when you were reminiscing back on the packed week, it was like a montage in a movie and your favourite songs would’ve been playing as the soundtrack. But then you had a wave of him. One single moment alone, and of course he’d crept into your mind. A simple memory of when you couldn’t decide what movie to watch. You had very different tastes when it came to watching something and Harry in an effort to soothe this over before it became frustrating asked in a dramatised voice,

“Don’t you know that the greatest films of all time were never made?”

At the time you had rolled your eyes and laughed at him. But maybe he was right after all. You missed him again in that moment, you never thought you would have to miss him in that way. When you were together and you missed him because he was away for a work commitment, you could call him up. Now you couldn’t. The the last phone you’d had with him flew to the front of your mind and sadly it was a bitter memory.

“Hi, baby.”

“Hey, H.”

“You okay?”

You sighed.

“That’s a no.”

“Mhm.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well I’m home again.”

“Go out then, (Y/N). You don’t need to have fomo.” He tried to lighten the mood by saying it like that, you were an extreme fomo sufferer and it was a personal joke within your life and at first he had found it cute and joined in. But it wasn’t simply fomo anymore. You were beginning to become depressed with the downfall of your social life that was once, such a defining aspect of who you are, and one of the reasons you had caught Harry’s attnetion in the first place, he loved your extroverted attitude.

“If I go, I’m gonna’ feel like groups of girls are looking at me and talking about me.”

“I know how that feels.”

“Harry, it’s not the same for me.”

“I know.”

You gave him silence, some sort of this conversation had became pretty repetitive for you two towards the end of your relationship.

“I am sorry you’re feeling like this (Y/N), but I’m not sorry for having my life.” He was getting frustrated, you could hear it in his voice. You were too, but you understood his frustration now, you didn’t then.

“Well, how I was to know that dating you meant this? You never know... never know that dating someone is going to fuck your life up.”

“I fucked your life up?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

He hung up then. It wasn’t pretty due to things only getting rockier. You broke up the day after that call. And fuck, were you devastated. You didn’t have your old life because going out meant feeling like people were looking at you for being Harry Styles’ girlfriend and that would hurt too much knowing you weren’t. Another thing that kept you inside for the most part, was the knowledge that it would only be a matter of time before rumours spread on social media that the two of you had split. And you didn’t even want to think about how it would make you feel to hear people you didn’t know at all whisper about you being his ex. So there you were, without your old life and also without Harry and the new life you had with him.

It fucking sucked.

You waited for him to call, or to show up at your door to display some proclamation of love to get back together. In the first two months you would’ve said yes of course. But unfortunately it happened five months and twenty-eight days after the break up.

You were having a really good night. Harry wasn’t.

You and your sister were at the movies and you had to go to the toilet after ordering the biggest slurpee size and not being able to make it through the movie without needing a pee break. Just after you’d washed your hands your phone rang and you answered without looking at who it was, assuming it would be your sister asking to get some more m&m’s.

“Yeah?”

“Ah..hi. Bad time?” You recognised his voice and swore you felt your heart lurch into your throat. “(Y/N)?” You hadn’t answered him and you had answered the call so quick, he was caught off guard at your abrupt answering of the phone and now complete silence.

“No.. I, I didn’t look who was calling. I thought it was (Y/S/N).”

“Oh, you out?”

“Just to the movies.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“Bet you look so pretty, baby.” He was drunk. His compliment did cause that warmth to appear in your heart, but you fought against it.

“Why are you calling, Harry?”

“Miss you...miss you so much.” Tears welled in your eyes, this was all you had wanted months ago. Just not now, not after you’d work so hard to get your life back on track to how you liked it. “Want you back, (Y/N).”

“Stop.”

“No.”

“It’s too late.”

“Why?”

“You had so much time to do this, it isn’t fair you’re doing it now. If you wanted me, you really should’ve showed.”

“I’m-”

You hung up on him and then cried.

You never made it back to into the theatre, instead, your sister came to you in the bathroom, making a joke about if you had gotten diarrhoea. She quickly stopped when she saw your makeup ruined and teary eyes. Immediately becoming concerned and when you explained what had happened, she simply told you,

“If you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow.” And that was all you really needed to hear.

And so bleed you did, figuratively. You thought you had gotten past the crying stage but that call brought on a second wave. Except this time, you were determined to keep up with your found again lifestyle. More often then not you saved the crying for when you were alone. But sometimes, something reminded you of him and you couldn’t help but to become a little teary eyed in public.

One day though, a month and eleven days after that call, the tears weren’t out of complete sadness. You were at your nieces birthday party and the current activity for the children was making balloon figures with those long, skinny balloons. Your attention was on one kid who was seeming to struggle a little and you could quickly see that her balloon was shaping into something not so appropriate for a kids party. It made you laugh and before you gave it a second thought, you snapped a photo and sent it to Harry, due to it reminding you of a memory with him.

“Baby, I don’t think giraffes are meant to look like that.” Harry was laughing at you, the two of you had, had some drinks and after finding a random packet of those bendable balloons in your backpack, you decided on seeing who could make the best animals.

“I know! I can’t figure out how to do it any differently.” Your tone was frustrated. That was your third attempt and it was turning out exactly how the first two had. In the shape of a penis.

“That dirty mind of yours.” He continued to tease you so you hit him with your penis shaped balloon and he quickly picked up the other two to hit you back with them. It wasn’t long until the swats of balloons became grabby hands and you two had some of the best sex you’d ever had.

It was such a fun moment and your eyes did well up slightly, but it was more of a nostalgic feeling. He replied to the photo quickly.

Harry: I want to support you in whatever you do but I can’t support you teaching the only balloon shape you know how to do, to kids.

His reply was funny and you laughed and gave a quick wipe under your eyes before a tear could roll down but your sister caught the movement and gave you a questioning look so you told her,

“It’s alright now.” And she knew exactly what you meant.

You didn’t message him back. That day. And you had to really fight with yourself not to but for the next two nights he was in all of your dreams so that third morning when you woke up and was still half asleep, you messaged him.

(Y/N): I had this dream you were doing cool shit.

Harry: You did? What was I doing?

(Y/N): A bunch of things, it was like I was watching a movie of you.

Harry: How so?

(Y/N): Idk, having all these adventures on your own.

Harry: Anything in particular that stands out?

(Y/N): You met a woman on the internet and took her home.

Harry: It wasn’t you?

(Y/N): No.

Harry: Interesting.

You didn’t reply after that. You thought it would be another light hearted text conversation but something felt weird about it. Yes, you were obviously broken up but you swore there was a shift of some kind.

You tried your best to forget about, you really fucking tried but a few more weeks passed and on a Saturday at 1:33am you were drunk calling him.

“’lo?” It was his ‘I just woke up voice’. And your heart fluttered, he always was a ‘Do Not Disturb’ person when he slept, so this meant your contact was still selected as a favourite.

“Hi.”

“(Y/N)? What time is it?”

“1:33am.”

“You okay?”

“I don’ know.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“My life feels out of place...and I’ve been trying real fucking hard to get it back on track.”

“I’m sure if you keep trying-”

“I hate tha’ you’re missing from my life.” You cut him off.

“(Y/N), I think you need to get some sleep.” He could tell you were drunk.

“I know we never painted by the numbers, but like, we were making it count... Right?”

“Right.”

“But it doesn’t mean anything anymore... the greatest loves of all time are over now.” You were so drunk, and speaking a little dramatically but Harry knew you were in a state, so he was being a little patient with you. “Do you miss me, Harry?”

“I do.”

“I miss you, too.”

“But think of all the things you missed when we were together. I don’t want you to stop living your life that you love so much.”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“This is for the best.”

“Do you actually think that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you want to come stay tonight? I miss you a lot in the mornings.” You were getting more tired and Harry could hear it in your voice.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t, (Y/N).”

“Fine, it’ll just be another day waking up alone.”

“You’re not alone, you’ve got so many people in your life.”

“But not you, anymore.”

“Well, you still do, just not in the same way.”

“But, we were something, don’t you think so?”

“I do think so.... Are you okay, (Y/N)?” Harry asked a second time, he still cared for you so much.

“I think so, I just, can’t stop thinking about what if we had been together in another time... Like, imagine us in the roaring twenties. We’d be so vibrant and throwing parties together... Wishful, too. Tossing pennies in the pool.”

“What would you wish for?” He knew it was wrong to ask this while you were intoxicated but your emotion was flowing onto him even through the phone and he couldn’t help himself but to induldge in your scenario.

“Harry, if my wishes came true, it would’ve been you and me always.” You so unashamedly admitted, and Harry felt guilty then. He was pretty certain you’d wake up in the morning and regret this.

“I think I should go, (Y/N). Let you get some sleep, okay?”

“Yeah, night.” You were exhausted.

“Goodnight.”

The next day your best friend called and once you had told her of your late drunken call to Harry she immediately asked you,

“Now why the fuck would you do that?”

“In my defence... well I have none.”

“Exactly, and my question still stands, why the fuck would you do that?”

“You know me, just can never leave things well enough alone.”

After that call and promising your best friend that you wouldn’t go drunk dialling ex boyfriends again, you really wanted to stick to it. And so you did.

For seven months, there was no contact. And Harry had been laying pretty low so he wasn’t really being talked about and plastered in places so you couldn’t not see his face or hear his name or his songs.

Until news broke of him and his new girlfriend.

It was everywhere and you hated it. You hadn’t even thought of dating someone new. A couple months ago, you and your friend had set up a tinder profile for you but you hadn’t used it at all. You didn’t end things with Harry because you didn’t love him, because you did. So maybe part of you thought that you would get back together eventually, and maybe part of you thought he felt the same.

Apparently not.

The following weekend, you only had a couple drinks when you went out for a friends birthday. Truth being told, ever since seeing photos of Harry simply holding hands with another girl who wasn’t you, you had a pit in your stomach. You didn’t stay out for long, either. It was probably just you being a little anxious but you couldn’t shake the feeling that people were staring at you, and it had been a while since you felt like that and it was not a welcomed feeling.

Once you were home, you persisted and resisted the temptation to call or message Harry, simply to ask him if one thing had been different, would everything be different today? But you did resist and that was something you could celebrate.

Eventually those feelings that came from seeing Harry with his new girlfriend, faded. Partly because you’d done everything in your power to block hearing any news about him, but it was what you needed for your own peace of mind.

But today, you were going to see him, you knew that. And you knew there was a possibility of his new girlfriend also being there. It was a mutual friends engagement party, and maybe you had tried extra hard to look as good as you possibly could due to this knowledge.

You’d brought your best friend as a plus one and she spotted him before you did.

“Don’t turn around, but he’s coming in now.”

“Is she with him?”

“Yeah.” You took in a deep breath at your best friends confirmation of what you’d been worrying over. “He’s just spotted you.”

“Fuck... Does he look like he’s gonna come over?”

“Maybe, he’s talking at the moment.”

Harry was only a 180 twist away from seeing him after no contact for so long, but anxiety overtook any feeling of excitement or temptation. “Let’s move, I’m not ready.”

“We’ll go get a drink.”

The two of you walked off to the bar area and you released a sigh of relief which was followed by a few wet pussy shots to calm your nerves.

As the night continued on, you started to feel more at ease, which was probably from the alcohol but you didn’t care what it came from, as long as you felt better. As far as coming into contact with Harry, you hadn’t yet. You’d spotted the back of him a number of times, but he was always involved in a conversation with someone else.

It was when the engaged couple and their families announced speeches, you’d ended up closer to him then you would have liked. You sat down beside your best friend, only to look slightly to your left and see Harry sitting just to the side of you and a tiny bit forward.

You wished you could’ve said you found this fine and you enjoyed the speeches given by the couple and their family members but you kept allowing your eyes to drift over to him. It was so easy to considering he would have to look over his shoulder to catch you looking. He seemed happy with the rosé flowing with his chosen family.

“Are you okay?” Your best friend whispered to you and you looked back to her with a soft, sad smile.

“Yeah... just would’ve been sweet if it could’ve been me.”

You were so grateful she was there with you and when the final speech was completed with a cheers, the both of you downed your own drinks and then laughed at each other. The laugh of yours that was familiar to someone else in the room and when you felt your vision moving to the left again, you were greeted with Harry’s eyes locking with your own. You weren’t even sure how, but your heart stilled and you watched as he turned his head back to the woman stood beside him to tell her something. She gave him a smile and nodded and you quickly looked at her as she glanced to you, you barely mirrored the smile she offered you because then Harry was making his way towards you.

“Hello, ladies.” He greeted the two of you. Moving to hug your best friend first because you had subconsciously taken a step back when he became too close.

“Hey, Harry.” She greeted him back and you took the brief moment they embraced to glance down and try to quickly regain your composure as best as you could.

It was only a quick timeframe between him hugging your best friend hello to then solely directing his attention to you but at the same time, it seemed like time was in slow motion.

“(Y/N), hi.” He moved to you so easily, and you to him. You were worried about it being awkward but your bodies knew exactly what they were doing when it came to each other. Your arms didn’t bump into each other, rather they so elegantly glided across one another until yours were up and around his shoulders and his were clasped so snugly around your waist.

Fuck, it felt good. It had been so long since you’d seen him, let alone felt him. You were so happy it was a genuine hug, being pressed against him and being held so tight felt so right. “Hi.” You finally returned his greeting, quietly and he pulled you in closer then.

“I’m just gonna head to the bathroom, guys.” Your best friend spoke up and part of you was glad because you weren’t sure you could ever let go of Harry again after being apart for so long. Another part of you wasn’t because it did cause the two of you to break apart and look towards her. You both shared a look, an unspoken ‘are you going to be okay?’ before she walked away after an unspoken confirmation.

When you looked back to Harry, you realised your hand was still gently holding onto this arm and when you noticed he had completely dropped his touch from you, you did the same. “Sorry.” You apologised and held your hands in front of you, but he smiled so warmly at you.

“Don’t be, it’s all good.” He always was so good at making you feel okay.

It was beginning to grow louder where you were with the completion of speeches and the party going back into full swing, so at the same time you both started to suggest finding a different spot.

“Should we-” You both stopped to allow the other to continue but with the double stop you both laughed.

“Let’s go.” Harry continued and so you walked with him in search of a more peaceful spot. After a few steps, you started to grab his hand without even realising why it would be a little problematic to do that right now. “(Y/N)...” He garnered your attention by calling your name and before you could finish filling the gaps between your fingers with his own, he pulled his hand away. His movements weren’t quick or aggressive and he didn’t speak your name with any kind of warning, it was more of a sad tone.

“Sorry.” A second apology was given.

“It’s okay.” He accepted, he wasn’t trying to make you feel uncomfortable.

Eventually, you two found an empty side balcony with a little corner seat to occupy and when you sat down, your knees touched but neither of you made any effort to move to stop the accidental physical connection.

“You look beautiful.” He complimented you so doubtlessly and as your eyes found his again, you swore the stars you saw in them made their way right to your heart to pierce through it. At a different time, you would have slid right beside him and held his face in your hands and kissed him so tenderly. His hands would have effortlessly found their place on your hips and if you were both feeling daring enough, you would have fucked hard and fast right there on that balcony. But he wasn’t yours anymore. Those stars weren’t for you anymore, as much as you wanted them to be. So you couldn’t allow yourself to react how you wanted to.

“Don’t do that, Harry.”

“What?”

“Tell me that and look at me like that. It’s not fair.”

“(Y/N),” He looked away then with a sigh, but you kept your eyes trained on his side profile. “You wanted this.”

“Okay, no.” Immediately, you argued against his words. “This,” He looked back to you then as you waved your hand between you two, “is not what I wanted.”

“Enlighten me, then.” His tone changed, it was slightly angered now.

“Really? Do you really want to dig up that grave another time.”

“I mean, as far I can remember you broke up with me.”

“But not because I didn’t love you or want you or anything like that, though.” You turned more towards him and the contact of your leg against his became more prominent.

“I know... but I’m with someone else now.”

Fuck, that hurt.

“I know.” Your voice cracked and instantly you snapped your head to the side in an effort to hide your teary eyes but he had already spotted them welling up.

“(Y/N),” He placed his hand on your knee and without looking at him you put your hand over his, at first you told yourself you were going to push his hand away, but instead you let your hand simply sit atop his. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m trying not to.” And you were. Harry could see that and he waited as you took in a few very shaky breaths. It took everything in him to not gather you in his arms and cradle you against him, but he knew that wouldn’t be the right thing to do right now. But with each breath they became more evened out.

After a couple of minutes, you looked back to him while also lifting your hand from his and pushing his hand from your leg. He got the message and removed his grip.

“I swear I’ve actually been really good.” You spoke up and Harry smiled.

“I don’t doubt that.”

As you continued on, you looked away from him. Mindlessly glancing at whatever you could as you tried to explain. “No, really...like, I miss you, yeah, but, I really have been doing good.”

“I believe you.”

“Honestly, I swear I don’t sit around crying all the time.”

“(Y/N),” Instantly you looked back at him. “I know, you don’t have to explain yourself.”

You laughed and so did he.

“It would’ve been fun... wouldn’t it?”

“What?”

“If you would’ve been the one.”

#Harry Styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfic #one direction #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles angst #harry styles concepts #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles writing #writing #writings #my writing #my writings #the 1 #folklore #by blue

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autoraton · 5 years ago

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Fantasy High Asks

because every fandom needs an ask meme, alright? and also maybe because i have way too much time on my hands. enjoy!

the bad kids: tell us about your closest friends!

adaine abernant: if you could ask one question about the future and receive a true answer, what would you ask?

fabian seacaster: how do you think you have grown as a person over the last year?

figueroth faeth: give us a mini playlist of five songs that best define you

gorgug thistlespring: what is the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?

kristen applebees: what would you be the patron saint of?

riz gukgak: have you ever thrown up in someone’s bag?

aelwyn abernant: if you could pick a movie or tv show to star in, what would it be?

the hangman: tell us about your pets! and if you don’t have any, what kind of pet do you want?

bill seacaster: what is the most chaotic impulsive thing you have ever done?

hallariel seacaster: if you had to lose one of your five senses, which would you pick?

cathilda the black: give us a fantasy high headcanon!

ragh barkrock: favourite kind of pizza?

ayda aguefort: what is the biggest thing that has ever gone over your head?

jawbone o’shaughnessy: if you could pick any real or fictional person to have as a father figure, who would it be?

tracker o’shaughnessy: would you want to be a werewolf or vampire?

gilear faeth: does gilear have rights?

sandra lynn faeth: what fantasy high character are you the most similar to?

gorthalax the insatiable: which of the seven deadly sins do you embody best?

sklonda gukgak: when you have cereal, what is your milk to cereal ratio? do you pour milk or cereal first?

pok gukgak: if you could pick one non-fictional deceased person to meet in an afterlife, who would it be?

zelda donovan: what is the most awkward or embarrassing thing you have ever done?

penny luckstone: have you ever babysat?

ostentatia wallace: have you ever hosted or been to a party?

zayn darkshadow: if you were a spooky ghost, how did you die, and what would you do now?

arthur aguefort: if you could go back in time to any point, where would you go?

bud cubby: sweet or savoury?

alistair ash: if you could freeze time for a day, what would you do?

garthy o’brien: do you have or want any tattoos?

zaphriel: have you ever been kicked out of anything?

doreen: what is your favourite 90s song?

johnny spells: what loot would you drop if you died?

biz glitterdew: do you have any favourite video games?

coach daybreak: what school subject would you want to teach?

penelope everpetal: what is your favourite article of clothing that you own?

kalvaxus: favourite all-time fictional villain?

chungle-down bim: is there anybody that you hope you never run into again?

captain james whitclaw: pirate, cowboy, or knight?

baron: what was your most recent lie?

kalina: tell us about a strange dream you had

nightmare king: did you have any irrational fears when you were a kid?

night yorb: what is the spookiest scene from fantasy high?

helio: what is your favourite season of the year?

sol: what is your favourite thing to do on a warm, bright, sunny day?

galicaea: it’s the middle of the night, and you're leaving home. where are you going?

cassandra: alien, ghost or cryptid?

thistlespring tree: what does your ideal home look like?

strongtower luxury apartments: do you have coffee, tea, or energy drink vibes?

seacaster manor: would you rather travel deep in the ocean or up in space?

mordred manor: if you could live in a manor with five people, real or fictional, of your choice, who would you pick?

durinson mithral factory: if you are a content creator, give us a sneak peek of something you are currently working on

st. owen’s memorial hospital: who would you want cast in a hypothetical live action production of Fantasy High?

mumple school: who is your favourite npc character?

hudol college: who is your favourite pc character?

aguefort academy: what high school archetype best fits you?

the black pit: have you ever been to a concert?

basrar’s soda fountain: what is your favourite flavour of ice-cream?

cravencroft cemetery: tell us about an oc!

elmville: tell us about your hometown!

bastion city: what city would you want to visit or live in?

hotel cavalier: do you have a middle name?

the swan’s little parade: what is your favourite place to go out to eat?

fallinel: have you ever been to camp?

highcourt: if you could pick three languages to be able to speak fluently, outside of the ones you already know, what would you pick?

the celestine sea: if you were a merperson creature, what kind of aquatic life form would you want your non-human half to be?

leviathan rock city: favourite fruit?

the gold gardens: if you could have any meal right now, what would you have?

compass points library: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving?

the row and the ruction: if you could pick one fantasy high character to fight, who would it be?

forest of the nightmare king: what would you have encountered in the forest of the nightmare king?

solace: what is your favourite holiday?

spyre: what would your d&d class and race be if you lived in the world of spyre?

hilda hilda: have you ever gotten away with a ridiculous lie?

the ball: do you have any nicknames?

ribbon-dancing: do you have any interesting but useless skills?

romance partner: do you have or want a romance partner? describe your ideal person!

are you my dad?: what is something you are searching for?

spring break: freshman or sophomore year?

hoot growl: do you have any catchphrases?

owl bears: what is something you hope to see in future seasons of fantasy high?

bloodrush: do you play any sports?

shrimp party: what’s an inside joke you have with your friends?

cell tower: if you had wings, what kind of wings would they be? feathered, reptilian, insect?

van boat: if you could choose one song to be able to perform absolutely perfectly, what song would you pick?

half-dead oyster: do you play any instrument, and if not, what instrument would you like to be able to play?

sexy rat: if you were a mythical creature, what would you be?

palimpsest: if you had to remain in one location for the rest of your life, where would you want that to be?

battle sheet: if you had a superpower, what would it be?

arquebus: if you could own any item from fantasy high, what would it be?

corn cutie: if you had to change your name, what would you change it to?

#ask meme #ask game #fantasy high #d20 #dimension 20 #adaine abernant #fabian seacaster #fabian aramais seacaster #fig faeth #figueroth faeth #gorgug thistlespring #kristen applebees #riz gukgak

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siratrem · 3 years ago

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I need to nerd out about Haikyuu right now (Season 1 Episode 1) (manga spoilers)

I have nobody that I can nerd out about Haikyuu with so I’ll do it here.

My first introduction to volleyball was through Haikyuu and watching reactors from coaches and players on YouTube really expanded my understanding of this manga/anime. Now that I’ve finished the manga and watched all available episodes (more than once) I want to see why I find this shounen sports anime so bloody compelling.

A good beginning sets up the middle and end. The opening scene of Haikyuu is the famous “a tall, tall wall looms before me…”. Before the rewatch, I had it in my head that the scene after the opening (Hinata seeing the Little Giant on TV) was the first scene. So, no, Furudate-sensei actually started this chapter at the end – Hinata is already in the Karasuno gym, he’s already scared of the block, and he’s lining up with the shoes of five of his teammates. This is a common framing technique – sets up the question of “how did we get here?”.

On my first watch of Haikyuu, I didn’t know anything about volleyball. I have, however, watched a fair amount of anime, including shounen. I think my inexperience actually helped me understand why Hinata was so awestruck by the Little Giant when he saw him on TV.

I knew the premise of the anime – tiny Shoyo wants to play a sport made for tall people – but rewatching it actually confused me. This scene is set 3-4 years before even making it to Karasuno, so Shoyo is, what, 11? He doesn’t know how tall he’s going to be, so why was he fixated on this “small” player going up against the bigger blockers? I mean, he could still be small for his age and be self-conscious about it, I guess, but not like he would be at 15. Then I thought – maybe it’s because the Little Giant jumped so high?

Shoyo is small, yes, but he can jump high. This is a defining aspect of his character. This was also the moment Shoyo became interested in volleyball, from what I can tell. So, if he’s as inexperienced as me, he wouldn’t be able to see the technique that the Little Giant used to defeat the big blockers. In his little kid head, maybe he assumed that the Little Giant beat the blockers because he jumped so high. So, perhaps little Shoyo thought: hey, I can jump high → I’ll be good at volleyball.

Themes

What are the overarching themes of Haikyuu shown in this episode?

Friendship. This is a Shounen anime, after all. Hinata makes friends wherever he goes, but it’s not until the match in this episode (and later Karasuno) that he finds a place that he belongs. Hinata has a wide variety of friends and is lovable enough to both get Izumi and Koji to join his team and make them emotional about the game.

Kageyama takes a liking to him from this match (although whether Mr Grumpy himself even recognises this is up to interpretation). From the moment they snap at each other in the hallway outside the gym bathroom to that beautiful jump that scores the first genuine point for Hinata’s team, Kageyama is intrigued by the bouncing ball of sunshine. After the match is finished, Kageyama snaps at Hinata “what were you doing for the last three years?”. He’s the first person to see Hinata’s potential, although Hinata takes it as an insult. It’s okay – they just don’t know each other yet.

Rivalry. Kageyama vs Hinata. Later (ep 6 minor spoilers??): Karasuno (Hinata and Kageyama) versus Aoba Johsai (Kunimi and Kindaichi). Shoyo sees Kageyama as the biggest barrier to his dream of playing volleyball. He wants to defeat him with all his being: if he can defeat the strong player, then he will be the strong player.

Victory and defeat. Duh. It’s a sports anime. One team plays another in a game where only one can win. Hinata is sure he is capable – he’s over-confident and inexperienced. He doesn’t know what good volleyball looks like, let alone how to implement it. But he’s also a show-off – a facet of his personality I didn’t really grasp until season 4. He wants the recognition the Little Giant got. He wants a stadium of people to go “wow, did you see him jump? Did you see how he beat the three-man block? Oh my god, he’s so amazing”. I’m sure the cool nickname – the Little Giant – caught his attention as well. So if he tries hard and jumps high enough, he’ll win, right?

Yeah. Poor baby learns a very harsh lesson. This defeat is crushing. He jumped high, like the Little Giant, but he couldn’t defeat the block. Those looming hands haunt him – “a tall, tall wall looms before me…”. This is a barrier he can’t overcome and he doesn’t know *why...*You can see it on his face after the block – ‘huh? I copied the Little Giant’. This sets up the goal of the first season: Hinata needs to learn how to see what’s at the top, the other side of that tall wall. He needs to hit rock-bottom before he can start climbing up.

Kageyama’s team won because it was a better team. Kitagawa Daichi is a powerhouse on the Miyagi junior high volleyball scene. I don’t know if it’s a private school, but it’s a feeder school for Aoba Johsai, which is a private school. Both seem to have a specialism in volleyball training. Maybe if Hinata went to Kitagawa Daichi, [Manga spoilers] if he’d been introduced to volleyball as early as Kageyama was, maybe he’d already be a monster. Or maybe his natural instincts would have been trained out of him. It’s important to the story that Hinata starts off as an untrained underdog, deprived of good volleyball and hungry for victory.

Team versus the individual. Kitagawa Daichi was the favourite to win the whole tournament. It’s a powerhouse team with more players than can fit on the bench. They’re tall, they’re scary, they’re elite. The team members often go on to Aoba Johsai, a high school powerhouse. Hinata’s school didn’t even have a team until he came along. They’re small (exactly 6 players, no reserves, no libero). His teammates don’t even know the rules for the game. Hinata had to fight tooth and nail to get on the court. However, he’s encouraging to his team members and dedicated. He’s glowing at just being there. He wants to win, of course, but most of all he wants to play volleyball.

Volleyball is a team sport. “The team that wins is the one with the strongest six players”. However, at times, it seems like both Hinata and Kageyama are the only ones really playing on their teams. Kageyama is giving it his all, yelling at his team for not keeping up with him and slacking off. Hinata is the only one on his team who wants to be there, the only one who wants to play. He’s hitting the most spikes, jumping the highest, playing the best (not that that’s saying much). This match, in a large way, is Kageyama versus Hinata.

Talent. Kageyama is a genius setter. (Manga spoilers:) He was raised in a family of volleyball players (one of which is an alumnus of Shiratorizawa for christ’s sake). He’s enamoured with the sport – obsessed with it. He lives and breathes volleyball. (Manga spoilers:) he keeps a volleyball journal where he records and analyses every play, practice and game he’s ever made. He’s tall and strong and athletic. He goes to a school with a good volleyball training programme. He’s built for this game.

Hinata is (superhumanly) athletic. He can run fast and jump high. But he’s short and untrained. His talent is raw and unrefined. But it’s still enough to catch Kageyama’s attention.

Characters

Furudate-sensei is a fan of the Meaningful Name™ convention. This is actually fairly common in Japanese culture anyway: traditionally baby names are carefully chosen to reflect the parents’ aspirations for the children. (I also don't speak Japanese so I'm going off other people's translations for the kanji).

HINATA SHOYO (日向翔陽) - “sun place” “soaring sunlight”. He’s a bouncing ball of sunshine who makes friends wherever he goes and jumps really high. He’s a shounen protagonist to his core: boundless enthusiasm, determination, friendship, the underdog. He’s also a magnetic hero.

This episode needs to cement the key aspects of Shoyo’s personality. He’s outgoing and “magnetic” – he makes friends with people from all walks of life. He is an underdog. Everyone loves an underdog, right? Effort and passion should be rewarded. The good guys should win. This episode really sets up how hard little Shoyo had to fight to be on the court and how he’s willing to fight to stay on it. The flashback occurring the moment he walks into the gym for his first tournament demonstrates this nicely: his junior high school didn’t have a team or a real club, none of his friends was interested in volleyball (although they were athletes of various persuasions) and he spent most of his time practising by himself against the wall or begging his friends to set the ball for him.

It’s okay, though: he has the magnetism of a true Shounen protagonist and not only manages to talk his friends into occasionally throwing the ball to him but also drags them to a tournament of a sport they’ve never played and don’t really understand. He’s also managed to talk some first-years into joining the team. Shoyo is very magnetic and I wonder how much he’s aware of it at this point. He’s not exactly reflective or a deep thinker.

He’s enthusiastic and determined. He will play volleyball to his full capabilities until the match point. When his teammate worries about getting hurt after watching him run into a wall, his response is “I don’t understand [why you want to slow down]. We haven’t lost yet”. It ain’t over until it’s over.

KAGEYAMA TOBIO (影山飛雄) - “Shadow Mountain” “Flying Hero”. What are his main traits? He’s volleyball mad, he’s ambitious and competitive, he’s tall, he’s athletic and strong, and he’s grumpy. Also intimidating – to his opponents and his teammates. The second-years on his team are scared of him. He hates to hear them trash-talking other players as they are only benchwarmers. He’s a setter – a control freak who takes every match he plays seriously, no matter the opponent. He will win at his best, dammit, and without holding back. He especially seems annoyed that the benchwarmers on his team place themselves above Hinata, even though they’re not even good enough to be regulars. “Don’t ride the coat-tails”, he tells them.

He wants to beat the block and the faster the attack, the better the hit, he believes. If people can’t keep up with him, that’s their fault. His sets are perfect. They need to keep up with him. If only they were as fast as Hinata, and capable of hitting difficult sets like when Izumi fumbles the ball and Shoyo leaps to save it and hits it anyway. They score their first genuine point off that, and Kageyama is impressed.

Kageyama and Shoyo are opposites, but they’re also mirrors of each other. Both are reckless: Kageyama throws reckless sets and Shoyo will leap for the ball even if he has to crash into walls and what-have-you. Both want to win. Both have their talents. Both love volleyball.

Something I found interesting is how the characters are in “sets”. Shoyo and Kageyama, obviously – their relationship is one of the major focuses of the whole series. The secondary characters too: Kunimi and Kindaichi to Kageyama and Izumi and Koji to Shoyo. They share the same jersey numbers: Kindaichi and Izumi are #5 and Kunimi and Koji are #6. These “sets” of minor characters only exist in the narrative in relation to each other. If Kindaichi appears, Kunimi is never far behind.

Izumi and Koji are third-years at this point, so why are their numbers lower than the first years? I realised (at the end of the episode) that Shoyo actually talked the first years into joining the volleyball club, not just the tournament team. Shoyo inspired a new generation of volleyball players – something he continues to do throughout the series.

Kindaichi and Kunimi are often showed in the background of Kageyama’s shots. Kunimi is the first person to serve in the game – he gets a few service aces. Kindaichi is the ace(?) of the team, often shown spiking Kageyama’s sets. This is an example of the subtle manipulation of the audience: hinting that these faces will reappear. It’s the same kind of story-telling that makes the reactors I’ve watched feel so smart when they predict something. The author wants you to notice them. The author is practically hanging a sign over them saying “remember these two!”.

When Kindaichi almost misses a reckless toss from Kageyama and expresses surprise that they managed to score from it, Kageyama responds “Faster!”, which makes Kindaichi irritated. Kunimi complain about his sets with him – Kunimi makes a comment about not having to work so hard as they’re outclassing Hinata’s team by miles – but Kageyama is taking the game seriously.

Kunimi and Kageyama squabble over Kunimi’s “laziness” – he doesn’t run for balls when they’re far enough in points, he doesn’t see why they have to try hard against such a weak and untrained team.

Kindaichi and Kageyama argue over Kageyama’s sets. Kageyama is the self-centred King of the Court after all. I think Kindaichi is actually a friendly sweetheart – and he seems to interact with Kageyama the most and deals with most of his sets. These missed friendships are missed opportunities for the three of them. (Manga spoilers): Kageyama shows he wants to be friends and play with them as adults.

Then, there are the Karasuno players. No faces, just those awesome black club jackets. I love those things. I now know that they are Suga, Daichi and Tanaka, but Furudate-sensei is good at building tension and anticipation by hiding their faces.

They appear in the stands at the junior high tournament, talking about Hinata and Kageyama’s match. Suga comments on Kageyama being “the King of the Court”. Ep 2 spoiler: Suga is a setter. Of course he’s going to appreciate Kageyama. Daichi also appreciates the overwhelming talent. It’s Tanaka who bets on Hinata becoming a threat. Tanaka seems to like Hinata’s spirit and athleticism. Ep 2 spoilers: He’s also the main hitter for the team at this point, so as the setter recognises the setter, the hitter acknowledges the hitter.

We later see them upon Shoyo’s arrival at Karasuno amongst the other clubs gathering applicants. Shimizu is also there. Daichi comments on the limited selection of applicants – this sets up the fact that Karasuno has been in decline: the “flightless crows” and such. There’s character establishing moments: Suga trying to cheer up Daichi and Tanaka flirting (and getting shut down) by Shimizu.

The Little Giant. Shoyo’s inspiration and hero, who shapes the entire course of his life. The 170 cm wing spiker makes him fall in love with volleyball and determined to enter Karasuno High School. Interesting how Shoyo never mentions his name. Maybe he doesn’t know it? He doesn’t really seem to understand the Little Giant at all. (Manga spoilers): I think this is why, by the time we meet Tenma Udai, he isn’t upset about his hero leaving volleyball behind. Now that he understands volleyball, he knows that he could never be the Little Giant anyway. Their play styles are different. Their positions are different. Shoyo can now be himself, forge his own playstyle – Ninja Shoyo, the ultimate decoy.

One thing I like about the characters is how their personalities/character development reflect their play styles, which becomes more apparent later on.

Motifs

“A tall, tall wall looms before me…”. This is the opening (and closing) of the season. It’s Shoyo’s greatest barrier – a literal wall holding him back from scoring. He can’t overcome it on his own, so, as shown in the opening scene, he needs the five other players on his side to get through it.

Crows (obvs). I find it funny to watch non-weeb reactors who don’t know what “Karasu” means. There are crows everywhere in this anime*.* The first time Shoyo sees the Little Giant jump, he sees black crow wings over the arms and gets blasted by crow feathers. Inspiration – seeing a human fly. Shoyo is now hooked on volleyball. When Shoyo’s running to the volleyball gym on Karasuno campus, he startles a crow who drops a feather in his face.

King of the Court. Before Shoyo even hears Kageyama’s nickname, he sees him wearing a cape and crown. The crowd (which Furudate-sensei often uses for exposition) also give him that name, and then Suga repeats it. When Kageyama appears in the hallway outside the bathroom, Shoyo sees him wearing the same outfit. Of course, Shoyo thinks this is a great thing – a reflection of his talent and powerful aura. Kageyama sets too fast for Kindaichi during the warm-ups and criticises him. Kindaichi rolls his eyes and half-heartedly apologies. The coach scolds him and tells him that the best set is the easiest for the hitter to spike.

Face receives. 2. 1 with a football (soccer) to Shoyo’s face, the other when Koji misses a receive.

“I can jump”. Shoyo says it to Kageyama while he’s being chastised for talking big. Izumi says it to Shoyo when they’re trying to sike themselves up for their match.

The pre-game bathroom break. Shoyo gets nervous after seeing Kitagawa Daichi and runs to the bathroom, only to run into players from the opposing team. This is a running gag throughout the series.

I don’t know if this counts, but I saw Shiratorizawa jackets in the crowd at the junior high tournament.

Many Youtube reactors commented on how Shoyo runs everywhere. He runs through the Karasuno campus on the way to the gym. The bouncing ball of sunshine has one gear: zoom. Similarly, Kageyama sets fast while Shoyo can cross the volleyball court in the blink of an eye. Their play styles complete each other.

Jersey numbers. Shoyo is 1, Kageyama is 2. When they get their jerseys (spoiler maybe?), Kageyama is 9 and Shoyo is 10. This is the only time Shoyo’s jersey number is higher than Kageyama. (Manga spoilers): in the V-league, Kageyama is 20, Shoyo is 21, then 9 and 10 again in the Olympics. As mentioned above, Kindaichi and Izumi are #5 and Kunimi and Koji are #6.

“One more” - mou ikkai. Hinata will forever ask for one more chance to play volleyball. He asks Izumi to set for him despite his complaints.

“The strong get to remain on the court”. Shoyo has to be good at volleyball to play volleyball. He wasn’t good enough to beat Kageyama, so he only got to play 31 minutes before having to leave, while everyone else got to play more games. Kageyama is used to winning at this point and only values people who can stay on the court.

Plot

Kageyama versus Hinata. This is arguably the main plot point of the series. Hinata wants to win and Kageyama defeats him. Hinata sees him as a good player, so if he also wants to be a good player, he needs to be able to outplay him. Kageyama envies his natural jumping height and speed. They argue and fight and challenge and inspire each other – destined rivals. Such a shounen trope.

Hinata is an underdog who had to fight to stay on the court. He didn’t have a coach, he didn’t have a team. Kind of an aside, but somehow he has good jumping form (according to Coach Donny) which seems to confuse volleyball players who react to Haikyuu. They wonder why he doesn’t know how to change his spike direction and forget that he’s new to the sport. As someone who doesn’t know anything about volleyball form, I found this interesting.

Hinata is willing to put the work in to develop his skills. At the beginning of the episode, he is horrified when a teacher suggests he joins the girl’s volleyball team but asks them for help (along with the 1st years who seem to be permanent members now) at the end of the episode during the montage. He also studies for the High School entrance exams and makes it into Karasuno – his determination has paid off and he wants to go to his dream school even if he has to bike over the mountains every day.

Kitagawa Daichi is in the newspaper/magazines stating their defeat. This is foreshadowing the downfall of Kageyama and the King of the Court and sort of the big plot twist at the end of the episode:

“I’m finally at Karasuno!” Shoyo thinks, running to his first meet at the gymnasium. Then...Boom – Kageyama. His sworn rival is now his teammate.

I'm sure I missed a whole lot of stuff but this was what caught my attention.

#haikyuu!!#meta #long post #analysis #themes #1x01 #manga spoilers

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