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impostoradult · 4 years ago

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Media Market Research (and why its undermining all the things you love)

Trying to understand what is dysfunctional about Hollywood is an epic task, and the answers are like the stars – arguably infinite. Hollywood is dysfunctional for literally more reasons than I could count.

But market research plays a fairly heavy role in its dysfunction (IMO) and the time has finally come for me to add my professional two cents about this issue. (This rant of mine has been building for a while, FYI. Hence why it is so...comprehensive. There is a tl;dr section towards the bottom, if you want the high level summary)

*** For the last 4+ years I’ve worked in the field of market research, almost exclusively with major media makers like Warner Bros., NBCU, AMC/BBCA, Viacom, FOX (before Disney acquired them), A+E, etc. (this past year I quit the job where I was doing this work for a variety of reasons, many of which will become clear as you keep reading, but I am still listed as a consultant on the company website): https://www.kresnickaresearch.com/who/ (Rachel)

And just for comparison, here is a Halloween selfie I took 4 years ago and posted on my blog, so you can see I am who I say I am.

I know a fair amount about how market research on major media franchises is conducted and how it influences production, and a lot of these choices can also be at least somewhat tied back to the massive flaws in the market research industry and its impact. *** First, at the highest level, you need to understand market research in general is not well-conducted much of the time. Even the people doing a reasonably good job at it are VERY limited in doing it well because of financial constraints (clients don’t want to spend more than they have to), time constraints (clients want everything done as fast as humanely possible) and just the inherent problems within the industry that are decades old and difficult to fix. For example, all market research ‘screens’ participants to make sure they qualify to participate (whether it is a mass survey, a focus group, a one-on-one interview, etc.). So, we screen people based on demographics like race, gender, age, household income, to get representative samples. But people are also screened based on their consumption habits. You don’t want to bring someone into a focus group about reality TV if they don’t watch reality TV. They aren’t going to have anything useful to say.

However, a lot of the people who participate in market research have made a ‘side-gig’ out of it and they know how to finesse the process. Basically, they’ve learned how to lie to get into studies that they aren’t a good match for because most market research is paid, and they want the money. So, a lot of TV and film market research is being done on people who don’t actually (or at least don’t regularly) watch those shows or movies or whatever but have learned how to lie well enough in these screening processes to make it through. And because of the aforementioned time and money issue, clients don’t want to spend the time or money to actually find GOOD participants. They just accept that as an inevitable part of the market research process and decide not to let it bother them too much. So, a fair number of the people representing YOU as a media consumer are people who may not be watching Supernatural (for example) at all or who watch a rerun occasionally on TNT but haven’t been watching consistently or with ANY amount of investment whatsoever. You can see why that creates very skewed data. But that’s just the tip of the skewed iceberg. *** Second, media market research is conducted in line with the norms of market research more broadly, and this is a huge problem because media is a very atypical product. How people engage with media is far more complex and in depth than how they engage with a pair of jeans, a car, or a coffee maker. There are only so many things that matter to people when it comes to liking or not liking a coffee maker, for example. Is it easy/intuitive to use? How much space does it take it on my counter? How expensive is it? Does it brew the coffee well? Maybe does it match my décor/kitchen aesthetic? Can I make my preferred brand of coffee in it? The things you as a consumer are going to care about when it comes to a coffee maker are limited, fairly easy to anticipate in advance, and also easy to interpret (usually). How people mentally and emotionally approach MEDIA? Whole other universe of thing. Infinitely more complex. And yet it is studied (more or less) as if it is also a coffee maker. This is one of the many reasons I decided to leave the media market research field despite my desire to have some ability to positively influence the process. As so often seems to be the case, I fought the law and the law won. I could never make the other people I worked with in the industry understand that the questions they were asking were not all that useful a lot of the time and they weren’t getting to the heart of the matter. They were just following industry standards because they didn’t know any better and none of them want to admit they don’t REALLY know what they’re doing. Which leads me to point 3. *** Most of the people doing this research don’t have any expertise in media or storytelling specifically. They are typically trained as social scientists in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, or math/statistics. And many of them do not have any kind of specialization or education in media/storytelling beyond the English classes they took in high school and the one Media Studies course they took as an elective in college. Most of them have a very unsophisticated understanding of narrative structure, thematics, tropes, subtext, etc. They mainly think in terms of genres at the VERY broadest level. Also, not infrequently, they don’t watch or have much knowledge of the shows they are supposed to be doing research on, beyond what they’ve read on IMDb or Wikipedia or what is generally common knowledge. Unless they by chance happen to watch the shows themselves (which often they don’t) they often know very little about the shows they are crafting these questions about. Again, partly because they think it is like the coffee maker, and you don’t need to understand it in any depth to research it. (I know this must sound insane to you as avid media consumers, but that is the general attitude among those who do market research) There is such a lack of sophistication in how people in the business side of the industry understand media and storytelling. Most of them are either MBAs or social scientists and their training has not prepared them to examine fictional works with the kind of depth that people in the Humanities (who are specifically trained to study texts) have. Somehow, despite the fact that the Humanities is all about understanding texts, that is the one discipline they make almost no use of in the business side of Hollywood. And boy howdy does it show. *** Point 4 – average consumers CANNOT ARTICULATE WHY THEY LIKE THINGS. Particularly media things. I know this sounds condescending, but it is my honest observation. It is unbelievably hard to get people to have enough self-awareness to explain why they actually like things, especially things as mentally and emotionally complex as media. What typically happens when you ask people why they like a TV show or movie, for example? They will tell you what they most NOTICE about the TV show or movie, or what is distinctive to them about it (which may or may not have anything to do with what they actually LIKE about it). They will say things like “I like the genre”, “I think it’s funny”, “The car chases are exciting”, “I want to see the detective solve the puzzle.” Sometimes you can get them to talk about what they find relatable about it, if you push them a little. But often they leave it at either the level of literal identity (young black woman), basic personality traits (she’s a social butterfly and so am I) or situations they’ve personally experienced (I relate to this story of a man losing his father to cancer because I lost a close family member to cancer). But the vast, vast, vast majority of them can’t go to the deeper level of: a) Why X representation of a young black woman feels accurate/authentic/relatable and Y representation doesn’t b) Why it matters to me that X,Y,Z aspects of my personality, identity, experience get reflected in media whereas I don’t really care about seeing A,B,C aspects of my personality, identity, or experience reflected in media c) How and why they are relating to characters when they can’t see the literal connection between their identity/experience and the character’s identity/experience. (For example, many people have argued that women often relate to Dean Winchester because a lot of his struggles and past negative experiences are more stereotypical of women – being forced to raise a younger sibling on behalf of an actual parent, being seen and treated as beautiful/sexually desirable but vacuous/unintelligent, his body being treated as an instrument for a more powerful group to quite literally possess, etc. Part of the reason Supernatural has always been such a mystery/problem for the CW and Warner Bros is they could never crack the code at this level. Never.) Part of the reason they can’t crack these codes is average people CANNOT give you that kind of feedback in a survey or a focus group, or even an in-depth interview (much of the time). They just don’t have the self-awareness or the vocabulary to get it at that level. Let alone asking them to articulate why Game of Thrones is compelling to them in an era where wealth disparity is creating a ruling class that is fundamentally incompetent at maintaining a just/functional society, which is especially concerning at this particular moment, given the existential threat we face due to climate change. And the truth is, that IS part of what people – even average people – are responding to in Game of Thrones. But what they’ll tell you when you do market research on it is: they like the dragons, they like the violence, they relate to Tyrion Lannister being a smart mouth, maybe they’ll say they like the moral ambiguity of many of the conflicts (if they are more sophisticated than average). But the ‘Dean Winchester is heavily female coded despite his veneer of ultra-masculinity’ or the ‘Game of Thrones is a prescient metaphor for the current political dynamics and fissures of modern western society’ is the level you ACTUALLY need to get to. And most market research can’t get you that because the people ASKING the questions don’t know what to ask to get to this level, and most of the respondents couldn’t give you the answers even IF you were asking them the right questions (which usually you are not) And I’m not saying average people are dumb because they can’t do this. But it requires practice, it requires giving the matter a great deal of in-depth thought, and most people just don’t care enough about it to do that while taking a market research survey. (I know this is going to feel counter-intuitive to people on Tumblr. But you have to remember, you are NOT average media consumers. You are highly atypical media consumers who have far more self-awareness and a much more sophisticated engagement with media than the average person watching TV. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be here talking about it in the first place) Point 4.1 – People also lie/misrepresent their own experiences to market researchers because they want to maintain certain self-narratives. You have no idea how many people would get disqualified from our surveys for saying they watched less than 5 hours of TV a week. And sure, that might actually be true for a few of them. But if you watch TV with any regularity at all (which most people in modern America do) you probably watch more than 5 hours a week. The problem is, people think it makes them sound lazy to say they watch 15-20 hours a week, even though that’s about 2-3 hours a day (which actually isn’t THAT high). People lie and misrepresent their behaviors, thoughts and feelings because it can be socially uncomfortable to admit you do what you actually do or feel how you actually feel, even in the context of an anonymous survey, let alone a focus group or a one-on-one interview. People want to make themselves look good to THEMSELVES and to the researchers asking them questions. But that makes the market research data on media (and lots of other things) very questionable. For example, one finding we saw more than once in the surveys I was involved in conducting was people would radically downplay how much the romance elements of a story mattered to them, even large portions of female respondents. When we would ask people in surveys what parts of the story they were most invested in, romances ALWAYS came out among the lowest ranked elements. And yet, any passing familiarity with fandom would tell you that finding is just WRONG. It’s wrong. People are just flat out lying about how much that matters to them because of the negative connotations we have around being invested in romance. And never mind the issue of erotic/sexual content. (I don’t mean sexual identity here, I mean sexy content). The only people who will occasionally cop to wanting the erotic fan service is young men (and even they are hesitant to do so in market research) and women frequently REFUSE to admit that stuff in market research, or they radically downplay how much it matters to them and in what ways. There is still so much stigma towards women expressing sexuality in that way. Not to mention, you have to fight tooth and nail to even include question about erotic/sexual content because oftentimes the clients don’t even want to go there at all, partly because it is awkward for everyone involved to sit around crafting market research questions to interrogate what makes people hot and bothered. That’s socially awkward for the researchers doing the research and the businesspeople who have to sit in rooms and listen to presentations about why more women find Spock sexier than Kirk. (Which was a real thing that happened with the original Star Trek, and the network couldn’t figure out why) Aside from people not have enough deeper level self-awareness to get at what they really like about media content, they also will lie or misrepresent certain things to you because they are trying to maintain certain self-narratives and are socially performing that version of themselves to researchers. *** Point 5 – Qualitative data is way more useful for understanding people’s relationships to media. However, quantitative data is way more valued and relied upon both due to larger market research industry standards and because quantitative data is just seen as harder/more factual than qualitative data. A lot of media market research involves gathering both qualitative and quantitative data and reporting jointly on both. (Sometimes you only do one or the other, depending on your objectives, but doing both is considered ‘standard’ and higher quality). However, quantitative data is heavily prioritized in reporting and when there is a conflict between what they see in qualitative versus quantitative data, the quant data is usually relied upon to be the more accurate of the two. This is understandable to an extent, because quantitative surveys usually involve responses from a couple thousand participants, whereas qualitative data involves typically a few dozen participants at most, depending on whether you did focus groups, individual interviews, or ‘diaries’/ethnography. The larger sample is considered more reliable and more reflective of ‘the audience’ as a whole. However, quantitative surveys usually have the flattest, least nuanced data, and they can only ever reflect what questions and choices people in the survey were given. In something like focus groups or individual interviews or ethnographies, you still structure what you ask people, but they can go “off script.” They can say things you never anticipated (as a researcher) and can explain themselves and their answers with more depth. In a survey, participants can only “say” what they survey lets them say based on the questions and question responses that are pre-baked for them. And as I’ve already explained, a lot of times these quantitative surveys are written by people with no expertise in media, fiction, or textual analysis, and so they often are asking very basic, not very useful questions. In sum, the data that is the most relied upon is the least informative, least nuanced data. It is also the MOST likely to reflect the responses of people who don’t actually qualify for the research but have become good at scamming the system to make extra money. With qualitative research, they are usually a little more careful screening people (poorly qualified participants still make it through, but not as often as with mass surveys, where I suspect a good 35% of participants, at least, probably do not actually qualify for the research and are just working the system).

Most commonly, when market research gets reported to business decision-makers, it highlights the quantitative data, and uses the qualitative data to simply ‘color in’ the quantitative data. Give it a face, so to speak. Qualitative data is usually supplemental to quant data and used more to make the reports ‘fun’ and ‘warm’ because graphs and charts and stats by themselves are boring to look at in a meeting. (I’m not making this up, I can’t tell you how many times I was told to make adjustments on how things were reported on because they didn’t want to bore people in the meeting). (Sub-point – it is also worth noting that you can’t report on anything that doesn’t fit easily on a power point slide and isn’t easily digestible to any random person who might pick it up and read it. The amount of times I was told to simplify points and dumb things down so it could be made ‘digestible’ for a business audience, I can’t even tell you. It was soul crushing and another reason I stopped doing this job full time. I had to make things VERY dumb for these business audiences, which often meant losing a lot of the point I was actually trying to make) Point 5.1 – Because of the way that representative sampling works, quantitative data can be very misleading, particularly in understanding audience/fandom sentiments about media. As I’m sure most of you know, sampling is typically designed to be representative of the population, broadly speaking. So, unless a media company is specifically out to understand LGBTQ consumers or Hispanic/Latinx consumers, it will typically sample using census data as a template and represent populations that way. Roughly 50/50 male/female. Roughly even numbers in different age brackets, roughly representative samplings of the racial make-up of the country, etc. (FYI, they do often include a non-binary option in the gender category these days, but it usually ends up being like 5 people out of 2000, which is not enough of a sample to get statistical significance for them as a distinct group) There is a good reason to do this, even when a show or movie has a disproportionately female audience, or young audience. Because they need enough sample in all of the “breaks” (gender, race, age, household income, etc.) to be able to make statistically sound statements about each subgroup. If you only have 35 African American people in your sample of 1000, you can’t make any statistically sound statements about that African American cohort. The sample is just too small. So, they force minimums/quotas in a lot of the samples, to ensure they can make statistically sound statements about all the subgroups they care about. They use ratings data to understand what their audience make up actually is. (Which also has major failings, but I’ll leave that alone for the minute) With market research, they are not usually looking to proportionately represent their audience, or their fandom; they are looking to have data they can break in the ways they want to break it and still have statistically significant subgroups represented. But that means that when you report on the data as a whole sample – which you often do – it can be very skewed towards groups who don’t make up as large a portion of the show’s actual audience, or even if they do, they don’t tend to be the most invested, loyal, active fans. Men get weighted equally to women, even when women make up 65% of the audience, and 80% of the active fandom. Granted, they DO break the data by gender, and race, and age, etc. and if there are major differences in how women versus men respond, or younger people versus older people, they want to know that...sometimes. But here’s where things get complex. So, if you are doing a sample of Supernatural viewers. And you do the standard (US census-based) sampling on a group of 2000 respondents (a pretty normal sample size in market research). ~1000 are going to be female. But with something they call “interlocking quotas” the female sample is going to be representative of the other groupings to a degree. So, the female sample will have roughly equal numbers of all the age brackets (13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.). And it will have roughly 10% non-heterosexual respondents, and so on. They do this to ensure that these breaks aren’t too conflated with each other. (For example, if your female sample is mostly younger and your male sample is mostly older, how do you know whether it is the gender or the age that is creating differences in their responses? You don’t. So, you have to make sure that all the individual breaks (gender, race, age) have a good mix of the other breaks within them, so groups aren’t getting conflated) But what that means is, Supernatural, whose core fandom is (at a conservative guess) 65% younger, queer, women, gets represented in a lot of statistical market research sampling as maybe 50-100 people, in a 2000-person survey. 50-100 people can barely move the needle on anything in a 2000-person survey. Furthermore, usually in the analysis of data like this, you don’t go beyond looking at 2 breaks simultaneously. So you may look at young female respondents as a group, or high income male respondents, or older white respondents, but you rarely do more than 2 breaks combined. And the reason for that is, by the time you get down to 3 breaks or more (young, Hispanic, women) you usually don’t have enough sample to make statistically significant claims. (It also just takes longer to do those analyses and as I explained in the beginning, they are always rushing this stuff). To do several breaks at a time you’d have to get MUCH larger samples, and that’s too expensive for them. And again, I want to stress, this type of sampling isn’t intended to sinisterly erase anyone. Kind of the opposite. It is intended to make sure most groups have enough representation in the data that you can make sound claims about them on the subgroup level. The problem is that it can create a very skewed sense of their overall audience sentiment when they take the data at ‘face value’ so to speak, and don’t weight segments based on viewership proportion, or fandom engagement, etc. Point 5.2 – Which leads me to my next point, which is that fandom activity that doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it doesn’t make you a ‘valuable’ segment in their minds. One of the breaks they ALWAYS ask for in data like this is high income people, and people who spend a lot of MONEY on their media consumption. And they do prioritize those people’s responses and data quite a bit. And guess what – young women aren’t usually high-income earners, and although some of them are high spenders on media, high spending on media and media related merch skews toward higher income people just because they HAVE more disposable income. Older white men are usually the highest income earners (absolutely no surprise) and they are more likely in a lot of cases to report spending a lot on the media they care about. Having expendable income makes you more important in the eyes of people doing market research than if you’ve spent every day for the last 10 years blogging excessively about Supernatural. They don’t (really) care about how much you care. They care about how much money you can generate for them. And given that young audiences don’t watch TV live anymore, and they give all their (minimal) expendable income to Netflix and Hulu, you with your Supernatural blog and your 101 essays about Destiel is all but meaningless to many of them (from a business standpoint) Now, some of them kind of understand that online fandom matters to the degree that fandom spreads. Fandom creates fandom. But if the fandom you are helping to create is other young, queer women with minimal income who only watch Supernatural via Netflix, well, that’s of very limited value to them as well. I don’t want to suggest they don’t care about you at ALL. Nor do I want to suggest that the “they” we are talking about is even a cohesive “they.” Different people in the industry have different approaches to thinking about fandom, consumer engagement and strategy, market research and how it ought to be understood/used, and so on. They aren’t a monolith. BUT, they are, at the end of the day, a business trying to make money. And they are never going to place the value of your blogging ahead of the concrete income you can generate for them. (Also, highly related to my point about people lying, men are more likely to SAY they have higher incomes than they do, because it’s an ego thing for them. And women are more likely to downplay how much money they spend on ‘frivolous’ things like fandom because of the social judgement involved. Some of the money gender disparity you see in media market research is real, but some of it is being generated by the gender norms people are falsely enacting in market research– men being breadwinners, women wanting to avoid the stereotype of being frivolous with money) *** In sum/tl;dr: Point 1 – Market research in general is not well conducted because of a variety of constraints including time, money, and the historical norms of how the industry operates (e.g., there being a large subsection of almost professionalized respondents who know how to game the system for the financial incentives) Point 2 – Media is a highly atypical kind of product being studied more or less as if it were equivalent to a coffeemaker or a pair of jeans. Point 3 – Most of the people studying media consumption in the market research field have no expertise or background in media, film, narrative, storytelling, etc. They are primarily people who were trained as social scientists and statisticians, and they aren’t well equipped to research media properties and people’s deeper emotional attachment and meaning-making processes related to media properties. Point 4(etc.) – Average consumers typically don’t have enough self-awareness or the vocabulary to explain the deep, underlying reasons they like pieces of media. Furthermore, when participating in market research, people lie and misrepresent their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses for a variety of reasons including social awkwardness and preserving certain self-narratives like “I’m above caring about dumb, low-brow things like romance.” Point 5 (etc.) – Quantitative data is treated as way more meaningful, valuable, and ‘accurate’ than qualitative data, and this is a particular problem with media market research because of how varied and complex people’s reactions to media can be. Also, the nature of statistical sampling, and how it is done, can massively misrepresent audience sentiments toward media and fail to apprehend deeper fandom sentiments and dynamics. There is also a strong bias towards the responses of high income/high spending segments, which tend to be older and male and white. Side but important point – Research reports are written to be as entertaining and digestible as possible, which sounds nice in theory, but in practice it often means you lose much of the substance you are trying to communicate for the sake of not boring people or making them feel stupid/out of their depth. (Because god forbid you make some high-level corporate suit feel stupid) *** What can be done about this? Well, the most primary thing I would recommend is for you to participate in market research, particularly if you are American (there’s a lot of American bias in researching these properties, even when they have large international fanbases). However, some international market research is done and I recommend looking into local resources for participation, where ever you are. If you are American, there are now several market research apps you can download to your smart phone and participate in paid market research through (typically paid via PayPal). Things like dscout and Surveys On the Go. And I know there are more. You should also look into becoming panelists for focus groups, particularly if you live near a large metropolitan area (another bias in market research). Just Google it and you should be able to figure it out fairly easily. Again, it is PAID, and your perspective will carry a lot more weight when it is communicated via a focus group or a dscout project, versus when it is shouted on Twitter. However, that’s merely a Band-Aid on the bigger issue, which I consider to be the fact that businesspeople think the Humanities is garbage, even when they make their living off it. There is virtually no respect for the expertise of fictional textual analysis, or how it could help Hollywood make better content. And I don’t know what the fix is for that. I spent 4 years of my life trying to get these people to understand what the Humanities has to offer them, and I got shouted down and dismissed so many times I stopped banging my head against that wall. I gave up. They don’t listen, mostly because conceding to the value of deep-reading textual analysis as a way to make better content would threaten the whole system of how they do business. And I mean that literally. So many people’s jobs, from the market researchers to the corporate strategists to the marketing departments to the writers/creatives to the C-level executives, would have to radically shift both their thinking and their modes of business operation and the inertia of ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ is JUST SO POWERFUL. I have no earthly idea how to stop that train, let alone shift it to an entirely different track. BTW, if you want the deeper level of analysis of why I can’t stop rewatching Moneyball now that it’s been added to Netflix, the above paragraph should give you a good hint

#market research #Hollywood #media studies

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aminiatureworld · 3 years ago

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Opposites

Characters: Xiao, gn!reader

Word Count: 1,594

Warnings: Swearing

Premise: In which the reader is the brain and Xiao is the brawn

Author’s Note: I wasn’t sure what the general setting should be so I put it in a vaguely college/university setting. Prolly cause that’s around my age and also because I cordially dislike highschool AUs. Hopefully that works out alright!

I had to type out almost 2,000 words on my iphone. I never want to do that again.

Xiao

Honestly none of your friends are actually sure how you two got together.

After all, if someone were to take a picture of you and your partner side-by-side then show it to people not in the know, well the prevailing emotion would be something along the lines of: “Are they classmates or neighbors or something?”

To be fair, when the two of your first met even the idea that you would ever end up in love was something laughable. Having been pushed together for a project, your knee-jerk reaction had been: Oh I’m totally going to end up doing this all by myself.

Thankfully however you’d been quickly proven wrong. Although Xiao hadn’t necessarily been the best about planning and other such things, his work was organized and he always showed up to every meeting with his parts completed.

By the end of the project you never wanted to work with another person on a group project again.

And, to be completely honest, you’d definitely developed a crush on your slightly aloof group partner.

Xiao’s reaction was much harder to read.

At first he appeared to want nothing to do with you. Work was emailed to you with not so much as a subject line; meetups passed in awkward silence broken by tentative questions on your part. You’d sort of assumed that he saw you as annoying and the group work as useless - which to be fair it sort of was useless.

So when he emailed you a few weeks later asking for your number and if you wanted to do something, well, safe to say you almost fell out of your chair.

Though the start was a little awkward, Xiao’s conversational nature didn’t develop much in general, you two fell into a routine of sorts, a relationship of unspoken boundaries and spontaneous confidences.

During the first few weeks of you odd sort of relationship you’d come to the conclusion that, though not a talker, Xiao was ultimately quite apathetic in nature. Eventually however you realized apathetic wasn’t the right term.

Though he might’ve appeared sullen on the outside, Xiao never actually acted in a way that hinted at any resentment or irritation; he never dragged his feet about something or implied it was stupid that you should ask for help or for a favor.

His assertiveness, which might’ve been mistaken for aloofness, was endearing. Xiao never half-asses anything, even when if wasn’t doing something for another person, like you.

You appreciated this side of his personality, the fact that he was quick to act, admired if even. It certainly stood in stark contrast to your tendency to overthink things, something that could quickly end up kneecapping you depending on what decisions were being debated.

It was an alien concept to you, the sort of philosophy Xiao seemed to live by, and its novelty was refreshing.

As your thoughts slid more and more to focusing on Xiao you became more and more aware of the rumors that abounded about him.

He was a troubled youth, he was prone to fighting, he had been so uncontrollable in secondary school that only one teacher had been able to get him to do anything. The only times he spoke was to wound, and he never had a word to say that wasn’t angry.

Well, obviously that wasn’t the truth, but any attempt to clear up the situation was quickly met with odd stares and responses that all smacked of: “Oh you poor idiot, you just haven’t learned yet.”

You would’ve liked to think that you didn’t let it affect your relationship with him, but evidently the rumors had begun to catch up to you.

“Hey, you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Have I?” You shifted awkwardly in your seat. Xiao sighed, evidently aware of where this was going.

“It’s because of what people say about me, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.”

“I see.”

That had been the beginning and the end of the conversation for quite some time, almost as if Xiao had yet to decide whether or not you were one of the few in whom he could entrust the truth. Yet despite the rumors and the odd looks you still found yourself gravitating towards Xiao, and soon enough that initial pull turned into something much deeper.

The day that you two became “official” was the day Xiao told you the truth. He had been a delinquent as a teenager.

Born into a family full of troubles Xiao shouldered the circumstances as best he could.

However things cannot stay untouched forever; the distress that Xiao experienced only grew, the pressure ratcheting up with every incident, every item thrown to the ground, every fight that ended in humiliating pain.

Eventually it became too much, and when it did Xiao took his anger out not on his family, not on the people who had failed him, but on any classmate who antagonized the vulnerable child.

Fights became a regular part of Xiao’s life until university, and it was only in meeting his mentor, Zhongli, that the lost young man had managed to pull his life together.

Things made more sense after that, though one couldn’t say that everything was right with the world. Students, coworkers, the particularly idiotic TA, all of them still carried the sense that Xiao was not to be trusted. You could see how it upset your partner sometimes, when he was ignored at the coffeeshop or excluded from class group chars in the like.

Whenever he did that Xiao tended to retreat into himself, as if worried he might explode again. It took a lot of coaxing to get him out of such situations but it was always worth it to see your partner’s expression soften, to see his small smile once more.

What you didn’t tell him was that you were just as angry as he was, just as resentful at the people within your major which were hellbent on acting like they were still in high school.

Eventually however the trials of your early were utterly forgotten, the questions and the secrets replaced by a sense of slightly hilarious domestic bliss.

You were definitely the brains of the group, something Xiao didn’t seem to mind - though he probably would find that actual statement somewhat silly.

Xiao, on the other hand, held the esteemed position of Person Who Actually Got Stuff Done. You relied on him to get you out of your mental spirals, to pull you out of your room and out of your brain fog and to get you to do something; even if it wasn’t the thing you were thinking about.

In return it was your job to make sure Xiao didn’t get himself killed doing something stupid.

Xiao’s reticence masked an almost supernatural recklessness. Though your partner didn’t own a motorbike, if he had you were completely convinced he’d ride one without a helmet. His almost total disinterest in his own safety was something that you brain shrunk from, and more often than not a crazy plan of his would end with you listing the terrible things that might happen if something were to go wrong, even if those things weren’t always the most realistic.

There was a storm in twenty minutes? It was the perfect time for a walk! There was cavern nearby with tunnels were so tight you had to walk single file? Sure why not!

He would talk about such things as if there was nothing to it, as if it didn’t send your heart rate spiking. There wasn’t the slightest acknowledgment of danger. Even his tone was as gruff as usual, as if it was the most natural thing to want to go mountain climbing, not interesting enough to get even a little excited about.

It was probably good he did martial arts. You didn’t even want to think about where all that energy would go otherwise.

Xiao’s straightforward nature came out in softer ways too, ways that you envied much more than his full-steam-ahead recklessness.

He was never afraid to state what was on his mind. Whether it was correcting a waiter who got his order wrong or telling a rude doormats to fuck off, all these things were natural to him.

To be honest you completely envied that aspect of him, unable go replicate such a mindset in yourself.

When you’d commented on it once Xiao had stared oddly at you. After a moment he told you that he figured it came from his background. Sometimes you had to learn how to say “no” or “that’s wrong” or “you’re a shitty person.”

Just as you tried to curb the most extreme parts of Xiao’s recklessness, so too did Xiao work to bring you out of the spirals your mind went down sometimes, and so did he try to coax you out of the overthinking that kept you from asserting yourself in your life.

Saying you two were complete opposites wouldn’t really be accurate. You shared similar views, similar passions, similar opinions on what mattered. Yet it was true that, in some ways, you complemented one another. And when it came to those traits in which you differed, well you would like to think that your differences just made you stronger as a couple.

Maybe your friends couldn’t understand how you two got together, or why you were so deeply in love with the person you’d chosen to be your partner. But you didn’t care.

You loved Xiao with all your soul, and, at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.

#genshin impact fanfiction #xiao x reader #genshin impact #genshin xiao #requested #headcanons #my writing

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themimsyborogove · 3 years ago

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I was talking with @fair-but-wilde-child the other day about how it seems like George Lovelace’s death came out of left field for a lot of people and didn’t serve any purpose other than being a random pointless angst hit right at the end of the book. But I never felt that way. I always felt like George’s failure to Ascend made a lot of sense in the story. (Which is not the same thing as saying it was a good thing he died, or that he deserved to die, please don’t send me hate anons accusing me of being a George-anti)

For starters, he’s a foil to Simon. They’re opposites who start in the same position. Simon is scrawny and nerdy, George is athletic and sporty. Both of them are initially put in the Shadowhunter course despite being mundanes, and they have opposite reactions to it. George is willing to go along with it and keep from making waves, but Simon quickly stands up for what he thinks is right. George follows right after because he’s a good person who does tend to make the right choices, but he never has that conviction in his opinions to stand up for them on his own first.

George is still a good person, despite this. George is kind and generous and funny. He’s a natural peacemaker. He’s well liked.

So why didn’t George become a Shadowhunter if he was a good person? One of the biggest themes running through all of the TFtSA stories is how Shadowhunters do not value these traits, to their detriment. Shadowhunters don’t care if you’re a good and kind person, they care if you’re a good warrior. And Shadowhunters can be very terrible people themselves.

Shadowhunters value justice—even when it means being cruel—bravery, and competence in battle. And the biggest thing George lacks is that competence in battle. We get two looks at the Academy kids on actual Shadowhunting missions. They’re all disasters on the first one, but by the second, they all have their shit together. All of them except George.

There’s a brief reference to him hesitating in battle.

And Robert Lightwood makes a point in his story about what hesitation in battle means.

Then Catarina expresses some uncertainty about his ability to lead a mission, which Simon overlooks because he loves George as a person.

And then there’s his actual mission. He makes bad choices that risk everyone’s safety from the get-go.

Splitting up, then pairing himself with Simon instead of doing all Shadowhunter/mundane pairs, hanging back to joke with Simon while the others go on ahead, into what turns out to be a trap, which gets Marisol hurt, and then showing no awareness of his surroundings by charging straight after the faerie he saw, which would have caused him to illegally trespass into Faerie if Simon hadn’t stopped him, but which Simon’s panicking horse knocked Simon into anyway. This is the only time we’re really shown how George acts in an actual battle, and the whole thing was a disaster that he was badly suited for.

George was a good person, but his good traits were ones that Shadowhunters don’t place any importance on. With his peacemaking nature and ability to smooth over awkward and uncomfortable situations, he could have been an asset in negotiating with Downworlders, but peacemaking isn’t a trait valued by the Angel.

Not valuing these traits makes Shadowhunter culture, as a whole, worse, which Simon notes again and again through the stories, and which culminates in him witnessing George’s horrific death. The Shadowhunters are worse for rejecting people like George, for seeing anyone who isn’t a Shadowhunter as lesser, and for the cruelty of their justice.

#george lovelace #simon lewis #simon lovelace #tsc #the shadowhunter chronicles #tftsa #tales from the shadowhunter academy

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parachutingkitten · 4 years ago

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Y'all suck at dissecting Kai's character, so I guess I have to do it.

And I'm not even a Kai stan. He's a bottom tier ninja for me, which I guess means you can trust me, cuz I'm not biased, but also why am I the one doing this? I don't know about y'all, but recently on my dash, the method by which Kai fans try to make him sound good is... saying the writers hate him, ignore him, and that he isn't written well? Which... I mean there is a little bit of truth to, but like yikes guys, is this the best you got? Kai is a wonderful character with plenty of attention from the writers, a meaningful piece of the cast when put in secondary rolls, fairly consistent character writing with actual progression and valuable qualities that help the team without having to be the smart one- despite what some posts might tell you.

Let's get one thing cleared up: Ninjago isn't the best written show. By high level Hollywood standards, most the character arcs are kinda weak or too heavy handed, character consistency can be iffy, and most things serve the plot rather than the characters. There is no character you can point to and say "wow, this character is written so well! No complaints!" Nya and Jay were butchered by their weird love plot, Cole's one season doesn't actually give him an arc, Zane's been nothing but the robot numbers guy for like 10 seasons now, and Lloyd seems to be incapable of doing anything but relive the same one piece of dad angst for depth. Sorry, it's true. All the characters suck when you look at it from a large scale writing perspective. So when I say Kai is well written, I mean by ninjago kids show standards- cuz that's the scale we're working on. No, you couldn't drop Kai into a well written drama, but as far as ninjago goes... he's got a lot going for him, and by no means is he the biggest victim of poor writing.

(fair warning, wall of text below)

The title is a bit disingenuous. There are plenty of good Kai character break downs. What I am presenting here is a more positive perspective. On the whole, I will tend to give the writers the benefit of the doubt, and credit for what they do right writing is hard guys. That's what I'm doing here. I don't see much sense in getting mad the writers on behalf of Kai, or any other character. Ninjago is a simplistic ensemble show that works because of the identifiable simplicity of its main characters with some deeper layers hidden underneath if you keep watching. They've given us a damn good show with some damn enjoyable characters, so here are some criticisms I feel are a little flawed:

First, let's get the 'focus' thing out of the way. Apparently there are people saying Kai doesn't have a season yet? Which... what? I mean, I get that the pilots aren't a full season, the first two seasons, though he is the central protagonist, aren't "Kai seasons" as we've come to define ninja focus seasons, season 7, though he gets majority focus, he shares with his sister. But like... did y'all just forget about season 4? You know, the season where he had the title card, was on the box sets, got the love interest, and the majority of the A-plot? not to mention it's the best season don't @ me Like... if season 4 isn't a Kai season, I can make a damn good argument that season 3 isn't a Zane season, and I doubt anyone wants to go down that rabbit hole. I really can't wrap my head around this one. And I get that the fandom hates season 11 for some reason, but like you can't just pretend it doesn't exist. Kai has a consistent arc across 30 episodes in which he takes his powers for granted, loses them, and learns that, not only does he have value within the team without them, but that his element is intrinsically a part of him that he reclaims, bringing them back more powerful than ever, and with new respect for them. That's one of the most solid arcs in the whole series- the location is even thematically connected to his element. That's some good stuff right there! (Quick plug for season 11 if you haven't watched it in a while. Give it a rewatch, you might be pleasantly surprised)

Not to mention the writers give him fun side stuff all the time. Lots of fears of tech and water to overcome, a deep protective streak with Lloyd, becoming a chancellor, having a true potential actually relevant to the plot as a whole, blacksmith responsibilities, befriending dragons, hanging out with his dad. Not to mention actual focus stuff we haven't talked about yet, like his whole "my dad is evil" phase, and his "I might be evil" phase with him and Skylor. And on top of that, even when he doesn't have an explicit side plot, he's always just a fun and dynamic side character to make jokes or give exposition.

Now, into character stuff. Let's start with Kai's hot headed-ness. Some people say he's been loosing this quality, and I will admit, that's true! But those that claim this makes him inconsistent... I strongly disagree. In early seasons, Kai's temper would lead him to snap at his friends or make stupid decisions that set the team back (see episode 2 Zane freak out)- these are bad things. These are character flaws, yes? Now, in newer seasons, people say that he's inconsistent, cuz sometimes he'll be hot headed, and sometimes he won't. I'd say, this is exactly how being hot headed... works? It flares up without warning, and as an individual gets control of it, it'll pop up less and less often because they're channeling it into productive things - like say directing the anger towards an enemy (see season 11 end freak out). Kai has gained control of a character flaw, and though it still pops up on occasion, the fact that it's a once in a while kind of thing speaks to his growth. I have a little brother who has this exact personality, and watching him grow up, I can tell you, this is how it is. He used to snap all the time, and he still does sometimes, but much less frequently, because he's a more mature person with better control of his emotions. This is a good thing. This is overcoming personal flaws. This is progression we're seeing.

And while you're hyper focused on this one aspect of him, things like his cocky confidence haven't changed a bit. I mean, that season 3 bit between him and Pixal, and his season 11 "fire maker" streak have the exact same energy. You can not convince me otherwise.

Another adjacent quality that hasn't been dampened is Kai's impulsiveness. This can be a good quality of his, he'll get into a fight without thinking, getting the jump on the enemy. Good stuff. But, this has become such a well defined trait of Kai's that it has been used in a comedic capacity. This is what happens when a character is extremely consistent to the extent that both the audience and the characters in universe would be able to predict their actions. Kai's impulsivity used to be a more serious quality that put himself and others at risk, and was a big power move whenever he did something rash, but it's become such a staple of the show that it's now being used for comedy. That isn't Kai's impulsivity going away, that's Kai's impulsivity being recontextualized for the sake of the show. The season 9 "Who's stupid enough to jump on that thing" isn't a joke at the expense of Kai just for being dumb, it's a joke at Kai's being so predictably impulsive that everyone already knows he'll be the one to put himself in an insane amount of danger without thinking twice (you know, something stupid that might get him killed). But because in this instance, the danger is warranted, this is bravery. It's a complement to his character- it's what ends up defeating the colossus. Why are some people so bothered by this joke?

Oh right, cuz for some reason people want to peg Kai as the smart one? Look, Kai isn't stupid, none of the ninja are. All of them have smart moments (all of them have dumb ones too) and Kai can certainly handle himself, but "smart" is definitely not one of his defining characteristics- I think some people are confusing smart for his actual strength. Connected to his impulsivity, Kai has very good simplistic instincts. He sees the big picture and looks at the most surface level solution- which when the situation calls for it, that does indeed make him smart. But the same logic that led him to think "This snake has a glowing target on its head, lets hit it" also led him to think "I'm in a video game, therefore I am immortal." Are you really going to look at me and say he figured out Lloyd was the green ninja through logical deduction and a careful consideration of the facts? No. He had a gut feeling, and he trusted it. Instincts- instincts paired with his impulsive following of said instincts is what leads him to solve problems- and sometimes, that can be extremely effective. This goes for other ninja too. Jay isn't the smartest ninja- I would really only classify Zane and Nya as having intelligence define them (hence their ship name). But Jay is extremely creative and crafty. He also knows his was around mechanics, and as such, this will lead him to come up with creative tech based solutions which are smart. But, idk about you, if I had to point to another ninja as being 'dumb' it would 100% be Jay. Kai is a lot of things. He's passionate and determined and confident and persistent. He's a good improvisor, he's powerful and he's charming! These are all wonderful qualities, he doesn't also have to be the smart one. I am the worlds biggest Pixal stan, and she's a smart, sassy, powerful character, but I'm not gonna sit here and tell you she's also hilarious and adaptable and strong willed. She's a straight man to all the ninja's antics, extremely tied to her samurai x suit, and lets people push her around all the time. That doesn't mean she can't be funny, or self interested, but when she does act these ways, it stems from her other more prominent qualities. That make sense?

And while we're clearing up what Kai isn't, please stop characterizing Kai as an overly protective brother - especially romantically. The only two times he's been romantically protective to Nya are in Wu's Teas which I mean, come on and in the pilots when Jay is literally a stranger. For crying out loud, by the end of the pilot, he's smiling when Jay and Nya hug. That's not overly protective, that's just normal, any reasonable person would react this way, protective. And it's such a great stereotype break for a kids show like ninjago, having an older brother who actually trusts his younger sister to be her own independent person who can make her own decisions. I mean, I guess it's fine if you HC differently but like... idk, I don't buy it.

Now, is there still room to criticize the writers? Yes. Hell yes. But not to an extent greater than any other character. Could he have had more of a defined reaction to events of the most recent season that I won't name for the sake of spoilers? Yes. But could Zane have reacted for more than .5 seconds at being an evil war lord for apparently 60 years? Yeah. Has Kai taken a back seat in the past 4 seasons? Yeah. But so has Lloyd- and he's literally the main character of the show. Not to mention two of those seasons have gone to people who had to wait over ten seasons to get one to themselves, and one of them is a 40 minute special. Kai's doing just fine.

Anyway. Kai is great. He's a fun, stereotype breaking, impulsively driven, ball of energy and confidence who gets a good amount of screen time and some fun side plots.

One last thing to clear up: no hate to anyone. This isn't targeted at anyone specific, this post has been a long time coming, I've just seen some weird overblown claims on various platforms over the past few months and I finally sat down to write about it.

I like the Kai content we have. After all, if the writers were really that bad at writing him, then no one would like him.

Wow this was so much longer than I thought it would be. Um... if you have other long winded rants you'd like to see from me... let me know I guess?

#ninjago #kai ninjago #kai smith #parachuterants #analysis #lets add this tag:#/lh

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masterhandss · 3 years ago

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Personally I don't see what you see in Geordo. He seems like such a scumbag to me and is the least likable charater in the whole series. He is always trying to get her alone to push her into things of a sexual/ more romantic nature without taking how she really feels into consideration. Like he "really wants her" and thats enough for him without caring what she really wants. Honestly he is the borderline non-con villian in my mind.

I mean, it's okay if you feel like that. To each their own.

Hmmm when I think about Geordo being sexually aggressive towards Katarina, I only really just think of the anime. The manga is a much more moe-fied and toned down version of the novels, and the novels does an okay job at balancing his desires for Katarina in all aspects. I'm not saying he doesn't have that trait in the other two mediums, I just think that they aren't as intense as the anime, so as someone who consumes all three versions I just tilt my head and go "huh." Of course I'm sure there are people who read the manga and novels that still feel uncomfortable about his behavior and that's valid too.

-> light novel spoilers ahead <-

tldr, there is a lot more going on to him than just someone who offers sweet words and questionable invitations to Katarina's ears, this may not be noticeable or acceptable to some people but we get to know more about how he thinks whenever the novels puts us in his point of view. You're free to dislike him as much as you want, but I like him & don't see him as a scumbag; and here's why:

I at least find it okay that Geordo is very serious about his pursuits for her because he is aware that she is dense and will not get it until you spell it in the sky. Everyone is just walking eggshells around Katarina hoping that the girl would just develop feelings for one of them to win the harem olympics. He knows that being dealt with a good card isn't enough, so he's actively taking action in order to win her heart. I mean I don't always agree with his methods either, like the "fait accompli" line or constantly inviting her to his room alone, but really, how much of that is something he really means to do vs how much of that is his excessive flirting + our minds assuming that he really means to claim her in that way?

Lines like that are really popular with japanese fans because it makes Geordo look "sexy" and "forward", which they enjoy in their fictional stories. He knows that his position gives him an advantage so he'll try to play his cards right and use it to increase his chances in victory.

It actually reminds me of a scene from the Hamefura StoryMe game, (don't really know how canon it is but I remember the JP ver. was advertised by @/hamhura) where Geordo indirectly asked Katarina how to woo a girl he really likes, and Katarina thinking he was referring to Maria, gives all the things he usually does in order to win her heart (visit her home, give her gift, dance with her in parties, be really forward about your feelings etc). I'm not saying Katarina approves of the ways Geordo attempts to win her heart, but there's some hilarity in knowing that Geordo already had and is constantly trying all the known ways to win over a girl in the world from a young age, and still has nothing to show for it. Like no awareness, much less any *feelings* lmao. So trying to make it obvious that he is interested in her romantically and sexually seems like the next logical step to him. I mean if you go by Geordo's logic and considering the time period this takes place in, he's pretty confident that he can get Katarina to love him back and they are engaged anyways so in his head he's in safe waters to attempt to make teases about such advancements if it gives him the smallest chance that Katarina would become at least aware of him through it.

Of course I know that stuff like that won't fly here in the real world, but maybe that's why I'm so lenient personally when it comes to his (debatably) sexual teases and advances, because it's a fictional story for a japanese audience. Doesn't mean I would approve any advances like that if it happens to me, it's just that it's hard to take his actions seriously when Katarina or the story doesn't take them seriously. Like, the girl would be pushed down to a bed by RufuSora and gives her a hickey and she still thinks the man is out for her blood.

He wouldn't even be entirely wrong, knowing the identities of the characters who Katarina knows has romantic interest in her in the novels, actions does speak louder than words when it comes to her. Like I said, whether or not Geordo really means what he says when the story teases the readers with sexual implications in his words and action depends on the reader in my opinion. They are there, I wont pretend they don't but I'd argue about the level of intent depending on what scene you're talking about.

The only scenes on the top of my head where he is very abrasive towards Katarina is the "fait accompli" scene, the Book scene form the anime (S1 EP8), saying he wants to lock her in his room (LN6) and the multiple times Geordo had invited her in his room at night alone (LN6 and LN8, i think).

I've already explained why I am okay with both Keith and Geordo's Book scenes from episode 8 of the first season because they are accurate representations of an exaggerated and unhinged versions of their desires towards Katarina so I won't bore you with those details again.

He mentioned in Volume 6 that he wants to lock Katarina in his room forever and keep her light to himself, which alarmed a few people when the book came out, but he said that in a moment where he feels super grateful and loving towards her because she knew how tired he was despite his fake face and without even saying anything. It was a moment where he felt so infatuated towards her that he wished the moment where he gets to rest in her arms would last forever, thus he made such a comment. I make it sound more dramatic than it was in Volume 6, it was just a quick comment honestly lmao.

For people who don't read the novels, that last part looks very sus and raises a few red flags I know, but to be fair we can't definitively say what his intentions are because Katarina never commits to those visits. Katarina has actually become wary of those invitations, because Keith and Mary have warned her that Geordo's intentions are sexual, but I'm not really trusting the word of the two people who are most distrustful and antagonistic to Geordo. They could be right, of course, but who can really say? We assume that they are correct because they care about Katarina and are wary of Geordo, but hamefura('s novels) is full of unreliable narrators anyways, it's not like Keith or Mary would consider the possibility of it being anything else because when it comes to the third prince they always fear the worst case scenario.

If you think about it, Geordo is probably aware that winning her over with a "fait accompli" won't work at all because it'll put him in a position that will make other people push him for the throne (which he doesn't want) or could ruin his reputation in high society if Katarina or her family react to it negatively. I'm not Geordo though, so I can't really say if he even have such fears and doubts in the first place, that's just my assessment based on the obstacles he has. On the outside he is really sure of himself and confident (which he arguably deserves) and on the inside he is very careful and insecure when it comes to Katarina.

Also like, spoilers but for someone who is very forward when it comes to his physical advances, Geordo is super weak when he is in the receiving end of those touches. He gets super embarrassed and easily flustered when its Katarina who is touching him, as if implying that to some extent that he's all just talk lmao.

I don't really agree that Geordo doesn't care about what Katarina feels at all, in fact his inner dilemma in the novels is that he doesn't know what to do because in every step he takes he might do something that could ruin his image in Katarina's eyes, be it pursuing or abandoning the throne or looking like a monster in front of her. He even halts his plans to make advances towards her during the Keith Kidnapping Arc, but threw it away because he knows how much finding Keith means to Katarina. He puts what Katarina want and doesn't want as his priority, so when what she feels is unclear that's when he acts on his own intuition. The only reason Geordo feels so confident to advance towards her sexually is because Katarina never rejected him before (because she doesn't know what they mean, and all of this is for the sake of simply making her aware in the first place)

I'm not trying to make anyone think that one has to read all the books in order to understand him, I think the manga does okay at conveying his feelings too. The anime really prioritizes on making him look "sexy" for the japanese female audience, so anything he does is sprinkled with spice whether we like it or not.

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm overanalyzing all his actions just to justify them, everyone has the right to be uncomfortable with his advances if it seems too much for you. It's just that his actions, while over the top and unnecessary, are done to please the type of audience that hamefura caters to, and it's hard to take him completely seriously when the story doesn't either in my opinion. Doesn't mean he's right or that any of it is okay, but it's his method of trying to put a dent on Katarina's bakashield. When you're in a race versus your friends who Katarina all loves equally, he's gonna use whatever card he can get in order to win.

I like Geordo; I like how much of his feelings for Katarina forces him to reexamine himself and realize that he isn't a perfect prince at all, that he has lots of problems and flaws that he needs to work out in order to be someone worthy of her. I like the way he falls more and more in love with her in every interaction they have because he finally gets to have a genuinely and caring interaction with someone. I like how Geordo wants to do better and be better for Katarina and the people around him, and he wants to be able to thank Katarina directly for that through being able to show his love. I like that despite how much of a chad he acts in front of her, he's a blushing mess at the thought of Katarina returning his feelings. I find it funny when his "sexual advances" fails and gets thwarted because he's trying them on the densest person and most protected lady to ever live. I like how Geordo is so head-over-heals in love with her and how much comfort and warmth she brings to him by simply being her caring and bubbly self.

I guess it's just a matter of different perspectives. If you find him unlikeable or a villain, then you do you. I try to explain why I personally excuse his actions, but I know it wont fly with everyone. We all see each character differently and absorb the material in different ways. In fact it's probably a bad idea for me to defend him with material that isn't the anime nor manga yet lmao. I mean I'm not that much of a fan of Mary anymore, and I'm kinda scared and wary of her, but I know people don't see her the way I do and I'm okay with that.

Maybe its just me, who is the kind of person who just goes with the flow and doesn't think too hard because it's all fiction anyways

It's hard to tell all this from simply watching the anime, so I laid all my feelings down in hopes that someone out there would understand why I like him so much.

Thank you for the ask, you can ask more questions or call me out if I said anything insensitive or wrong, I know a lot of this is me overanalyzing things which might look like I'm jus stretching. As someone who is aware of the things to come in Hamefura X, I can say that I am both excited and nervous as to how everyone will react for the direction of Geordo's character.

#mh ask #hamefura #my next life as a villainess #geordo stuart #katarina claes #geokata #for some reason tumblr wont type the letter E #anyways there are my thoughts please dont hate me lmao #if you dont like Geordo then thats fine #im not forcing anyone to like him #i just wanna explain my own perspective thats all #DONT THROW FIRE AT ME #bakarina #destruction flag otome #hamehura #hamefura spoilers

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thedeviljudges · 3 years ago

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the devil judge + the seven deadly sins

so, i made a gifset about who i thought falls under the seven deadly sins. and also shameless plug - please go reblog the gifset i made for this. took me ages to do.

but i figured i might as well make a meta post to correlate. so this is that post. it’s not everything i could discuss. i could be here for hours more, truth be told. but i hope it’s enough to chew on.

while i feel like a lot of these are going to be a no-brainer, i still want to talk it through because idk. i can, and i want to, and i feel like it, lmao.

gluttony

the elite are privileged and have an opportunity to indulge so much more than the general public, but in many different ways. this is shown throughout the show in the fact that they can indulge on luxury food, have political power, they can make a phone call or snap their fingers and everyone must follow their orders.

and the thing about gluttony is that there is always more to be had. you take a little and then realize it’s not enough and so you ask for more. case in point: in episode 11 when sunah suggests that yohan could be the new president, the current one gives her an alternative: dictatorship. because it wasn’t just enough for him to be an actor and the presiding president.

you’ll also know they turn in on themselves - the two other guys in the elite group. one who owns the company and the other dude - i really cannot remember their names and what they do, but y’all know who i’m talking about. it was so easy for them, when threatened, to fabricate documents to give to yohan about each other in order to get ahead. gluttony is only shared in the relationships we have until one realizes they can take a little extra of the pie. it’s the selfishness of having all the leftovers. gluttony cannot necessarily exist without someone else’s sacrifice.

lust

i kind of had an ah-ah moment when i was talking this over with @technitango. i was trying to decide who was going to be lust because lust is portrayed very, very differently in this show than what most of us are used to. we, of course, know sunah who lusts after a life of indulgence and riches because she equates that with respect more than actually wanting it because it’s monetarily worth something.

but then i realized the public is lust because of their need for justice. i won’t say revenge necessarily because they’re doing as they’re told when given the judge show. but we can quickly see how that evaporates into something akin to bloodlust, for criminals and people who normally get away with shit, to have their fair taste at conviction for their misdeeds. we even see it with yohan’s fanboy club - the lust that comes from adoration and dedication.

and even more so, the public is easily swayed and so is the nature of lust. it follows in the vein of needs and wants, and as soon as new information is presented, however may false, so does the wants and desires of what people want sway. how easy was it for them to turn on yohan for a split second on two occasions - on two accounts of bribery.

envy

envy, above all, is about wanting what others have because you do not have it yourself. it may not be exactly what they have, but a form of it. some people don’t necessarily want money - they want what it can by, which is time, health and material goods.

sunah is the perfect example of this. she envies respect and recognition. she talks about bright and shiny objects, and that’s true to her kleptomania tendences, but more than anything, she wants to be seen as an equal because being poor with a vastly different upbringing means she’s looked down upon by those she thinks matters.

which also begs the question why she feels the need to seek validation from people in higher statuses to begin with when she can be the exception and not the rule - form her own understanding and environment to show others that the typical way of the elite is not actually all it’s cracked up to be - to which we see when she has no one to celebrate her victory with. it’s lonely being at the top. you get to your goal you thought you wanted but then what?

more importantly, sunah also envies family, relationships and simply put, human interaction. she wants to be cared for and treasured, and she looks for that in her position of power. because then all eyes are on you. because then that’s what people care about. what she fails to see is that those eyes are just as fruitless and just as wavering. to be a leader means people loving the idea of you but not you as a person.

“people of envious nature are sometimes stimulated to seek to emulate those who have completed some great achievements and in doing so achieve something great for themselves,” according to Understanding Philosophy.

wrath

while i realize that gaon not might entirely fit the wrath trope, he certainly has his moments, and i think he’s lived with a tampered flame since his parent’s death. he just learned to briefly put it out in the form of distractions and a false sense of righteousness and justice. it isn’t until he meets yohan that someone finally gives him the okay to feel the entirety of his emotions, that lets him breath and tells him it’s okay to feel anger and hurt. and while gaon ultimately chooses not to exact revenge, his wrath is what led him to becoming a judge and walking away from his teenage crimality.

gaon transposed his wrath into seeking justice, transformed it into livelihood, and reformed his narrative so that he was no longer angry and a teen with rash emotions. it was simply redirected and never really forgotten. yohan turned that redirection back around onto gaon’s ultimate heartache. fueled with that, it became easier to justify himself and his actions.

the most pivotal moment of turning his back on this mindset is, of course, the minister’s suicide, where he takes a good look at himself and doesn’t like what he sees. at this point, gaon’s upset isn’t necessarily at yohan but at the situation in which they got themselves into. because the thing is, gaon doesn’t absolve himself from what they did. he doesn’t turn a blind eye to that and try to dismiss it. he owns up to what happened and confesses how he feels to yohan and how he has to leave for his own good, and in some indirect way, for yohan’s, too.

with yohan, his ultimately weakness, despite never admitting to it, is family. his wrath comes in the form of anger when the ones he loves are threatened. yohan lives by a moral code of loyalty because that means you won’t be abandoned, and as a child who lived with that verdict since the day he was born, it’s an ever-pressing theme of his.

thing is, wrath comes in two particular forms for yohan. again, one is family and the second is the rose-colored glasses he’s given himself in his revenge story. he’s always had a goal to presumably make right the wrong for taking away isaac, but within that, 10 years is a long time to plot revenge, to the point where it becomes so much easier to lose yourself to that, to become enraged with it and forget the initial goal all along. we see this in his inability to form the bonding moments needed with his niece and his casual throwaway comments over people’s lives - the comment he made to gaon about moving on to the next plan, and the ultimately nail in the coffin of pushing gaon to leaving him.

his fury has also led him to convince himself his own humanity is nothing short of a lie. therefore, it’s easier to justify the means to an end because of his own self-worth and self-deprecation. it’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy: he even admitted to gaon’s mentor that he is an abyss. he’s referred to himself as nothing but an animal or a monster - all characteristics of despondency to survive and to justify what he’s doing. sort of like a catch 22, yohan claims he’s an animal/monster and behaves as such, but because he behaves as such, it means he’s an animal/monster.

wrath for gaon and yohan are very different yet the same. they are slow-burning, and that’s a dangerous type. it’s actually interesting when you think about the fire imagery surrounding the two of them because flames are quick to lap at anything in its wake, to destroy within a matter of minutes. and yet for the two of these men, their internal fire eats them from the inside out, painfully, until they’re almost unrecognizable to others and to themselves.

sloth

sloth was a little more difficult to pinpoint because of its characteristics. it was either the minister versus the mentor, both of which i think could work in this role. however, i chose the minister simply because she’s featured more and intertwines heavily with the plot line.

soth is a medieval translation of the Latin term acedia, meaning “without care.”

the ultimate characteristic of sloth is often identified as laziness, and while it’s easy to argue that the minister hasn’t been lazy in her ability to get where she is, she became as much when she started lying to get to her position. isn’t lying known as the easier way out? it absolves you of responsibility, of putting in the hard work, of apologizing and making things right. in the end, she had a goal and found the easiest solution to get there through her lack of responsibility for the roles she more than likely swore an oath to.

but that also translates into the other attributes of sloth: a failure to do the right thing, lack of emotions for people or of the self, and the fact that it “hinders man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of man’s undoing” according to The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil.

while i think there are a lot of components of sloth that may not necessarily fit the minister, the apathy and carelessness are enough to showcase her aggression, despondency and restlessness when what little efforts she does put in do not go her way. another interesting thing to note is that many of sloth’s traits correspond with symptoms of mental illness, such as depression and anxiety. it’s an interesting thing to note given the way the minister chooses to end her life.

greed

i don’t know that jinjoo would’ve had any provocation to the limelight if it wasn’t for sunah’s direction, but she’s eager to please and wants to be useful. it’s only natural for her to want more because it’s clear she’s a career woman, loves her job and has a heart for serving the people.

but like gluttony, greed is also that little thing that plants itself and can take on a life of its own. you start looking for justifications as to why you can’t have more than what you do, and in jinjoo’s situation, she’s already overlooked through no fault of her own. and it’s not that gaon and yohan are doing it purposefully, which is what makes their neglect heartbreaking, because truthfully, they’re after the same thing jinoo is. sure, it looks different and the foundation of it is different, same with their motives. but they’re all three judges on a residing bench working to exact justice - even if all three of them have their own personal agenda.

i don’t think jinoo fully aligns with greed, but she does want more for herself, and i think that’s only natural. you can tell she has a heart, and she’s keen not to be overlooked. this isn’t her pain point so much as it is she knows her worth and is more than ready to do what it takes to get where she wants. this, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad trait, but we can see how it leads to being deceived, especially for someone who’s been left in the dark for so long.

she is enticed by the glitz and the glamour of being a head judge, but you can tell she feels some remorse and guilt for those thoughts at times. i think her sense of greed is a battle within herself more than it is extremely outwardly.

pride

soohyun’s pride comes in the form of her imbalance with right and wrong. her sense of righteousness and justice is so far leaning, even more than gaon’s. it can be chalked up to her being a cop, but we’ve seen instances of this outside of her role within that agency. her pride doesn’t let her see beyond saving gaon and getting to the bottom of every mystery that comes her way.

it also comes in the form of impulsiveness and her savior complex, putting elijah in danger, for example, instead of waiting for backup. it’s not necessarily from a belief that she can fix things all on her own, but she sees injustice and immediately jumps in. another case in point is her and gaon watching yohan wreck the minister’s son’s car. she’s ready to go stop him, but gaon pulls her back, most likely because at that point, they hadn’t been observing the situation for very long to get a read on it. also the fact that at that point, neither of them truly knew yohan and his capabilities.

but as to where her characteristics come from, we simply don’t know beyond that of gaon. it’s unfortunate because we don’t have much of her backstory, so there is no real understanding why she so firmly believes in entities of regulation beyond keeping her friend out of jail. she prides herself on her work and what she’s able to accomplish, which is why it’s devastating to her to have to protect gaon by cleaning up his bloody handprint.

aristotle is of the belief that, “pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character,” from Nicomachean Ethics.

but pride for soohyun isn’t about honors or rewards. it’s for herself and her capabilities, her ability to protect gaon, and the virtues she’s set as the precedent for herself. because sometimes it’s not even about establishing morals and ethics upon yourself. it’s about feelings/intuition, logic and observation. and no, i don’t mean the feelings she has for gaon. there are things that humans do, both actions and words, that we inherently know are bad without someone telling us as much and without the rules of the world seared into our brains. there are some things we know, for a fact, are wrong to us as individuals.

for soohyun, she knows that gaon’s actions, and even her own, have consequences. from what we’ve seen, i think it can be argued that it’s really about not doing those actions to prevent an outcome - not necessarily from a place of being just and right. that doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand good morals/ethics, but again, we have no background of what her internal guidance actually is.

to put this in layman’s terms, we’ll use gaon wanting to stab the conman in his youth. soohyun knows it’s wrong because it will incriminate gaon and therefore she stops it. gaon’s gone to her because he sees her as a moral compass. but is her own internal navigation rooted in justice the way gaon had to find it in the judicial system, or is hers rooted in her pride of keeping gaon safe? she stops him from doing things that will get him in trouble, but is she stopping him because the action itself is wrong or because the outcome will result in undesirable consequences for the two of them?

and of course, there is a flipped argument to be had there - i’m not arguing that gaon stabbing the conman would be right or justified. but what i am saying is that for her, her worldview is the only right one, and when anyone steps out of that, even gaon, it becomes a bit of an issue: the pride she has for that is palpable.

every character indulges

truthfully, every character has at least one form of these sins rooted in their characterization. some are larger than others, but the breadth of it can be explored even further for each. and that’s what makes them more realistic and not just characters written on a page or following a linear progression of their writing deity.

the seven deadly sins are also notoriously rooted in religion. they’re also a defining feature of aristotle’s works that represent the golden mean, in which each vice is parallel to a virtue.

the devil judge is so layered, but i think at the heart of it, it’s about humanity at its core. sprinked in are the philosophies and contradictions and what it means to look in the mirror, what happens when we’re blind to seeing our true selves and most importantly, how much changes when we’re swayed by our own misgivings. it really asks us to understand nature versus nurture, that people must find a belief in something to keep them going, and how futile our hopes and desires can actually be if we’re not carefully regulating ourselves, nevermind the entities established by society to regulate us, too.

the entirety of the show genuinely begs the question as to who is truly right, who is truly wrong, and if it’s even possible to find the correct answer.

#x #the devil judge #the devil judge meta #*#*the devil judge #so i have some Thoughts #probably not very good ones but ya know

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cienie-isengardu · 3 years ago

Note

Not only do I not regret asking you to "RELEASE THE RAMBLES!", I'm sending you requests for more. Below is a list of questions that I asked @bihansthot , and enjoyed their answers, but because you are so thorough, and answer in such depth, I'm re-asking them to you.

Brace yourself, it's a list. I didnt have time to sort thru them, I just copied and pasted, so if any are questions you already answered before, please feel free to include the links.

"LET US BEGIN!"

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In the spirit of potential future writing, I'm trying to find a building that would make a good substitution for Lin Kuei temple.

I've tried looking up ancient Chinese military barracks/forts, and have found some stuff, but is all exterior. Anyone know of any locations (or several I can cobble together) that would make good inspiration fodder?

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So, uhm, religion? What's the Lin Kuei's take on that one? I know they are aware of Gods, they team up with/ encounter Raiden all the time, and have literally worked for/against Shinook, so I know they recognize higher powers... but I guess the question is, do they care?

Do they have a religion, or spiritual practice that resembles religion? Or do they have a more practical approach "gods exist, but we just consider them very strong people"?

Which segues into... do they recognize and participate in holidays, or things like birthdays? Or are all their celebrations work related (I.E. successful missions or levels of combat mastery)?

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Food. What foods do they normally eat? What foods do they like? What foods don't they like? What foods do they absolutely love so much they'll stop what they're doing to get it?

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If you had to match the Lin Kuei with a dynasty, what one would it be? (I know the 2021 movie has the opening in the Ming dynasty, so the Lin Kuei is at least that old, but given that movie Bi Han hasn't aged in 400 years, and was taken is a child, its probably much older) (and also know the game probably cherry picked random Chinese things it liked).

What do you think the Lin Kuei's view on artistic culture (probably not the right word) is? I know they are heavily militaristic, but in the game, Kuai Liang offers Hanzo tea and he properly prepares it the Japanese way, that says they have something of an education other than just related to fighting?

Lastly, in the movie, everything Bi Han does is "for the Lin Kuei", but the Lin Kuei is on Earth (assumedly), and he is working for a guy who wants to enslave Earth, so what do you think the deal is?

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Question about the Cryomancers. I know the game lore says that they are supposed to be rare, but I also know that the Lin Kuei have had at least 5 (grandpa, papa, older, and younger Sub Zero, and Frost). 4 of which are part of 3 generations that inherited it even with mixed blood (I'm assuming Mama Sub Zero wasn't Cryomancer since they left her alone).

That's a lot of generations in a row for a rare trait... So do you think the Cryomancers as a group have figured out they're being hunted and have chosen to live in hiding?

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Lin Kuei society question? I like writing so I also like world building and I think about these things.

Is Lin Kuei society ever covered? I know there is a Grandmaster, a handful master assassins (Sub Zero's, Sektor, Cyrax, etc) and the movies always have a bunch canon fodder lesser assassins.

And they live in the very isolated Lin Kuei Palace/Temple in Arktika (or wherever it used to be)

But is Lin Kuei (we'll call it "village") ever covered? Do they have willing servants, kidnapped slaves, or a mix of both? Are there women (non fighter women, I know there's Frost) or do they employ strictly male help? If there are women, what's their role, and are there children born there? What about Elderly? What about resources, is everything (from food, clothes, weapons, and the raw materials to create them) grown or manufactured on sight by skilled laborers or do they import/interact with the outside world? How vicious or civil is this society, could you be killed for looking at Sektor wrong or do they value your services to a degree? What's the degree? This is obviously a combat culture, but is everyone expected to know martial arts of some variety, is it optional, or do they prohibit it among the servants/slaves? How strict are they on things like clothing, food, alcohol, drugs, "luxuries", or pleasures? Money? If they interact with the world do they recognize and use $$ currency, commodity currency, or a mixture? Internally are the Lin Kuei payed or just provided for? What about illness or injury, if you're not a master and it a serious injury/illness are you taken care of or do they just give you a quick death?

Etc. That's all the questions I can think of, but please feel free to answer questions I didn't ask, if you think of anything else.

Thank you for this wonderful list to talk about! I’m gonna split the answer into smaller parts, for better focusing on each aspect but also so I don’t feel bad for keeping you waiting for ages, lol. For now let’s focus on asks about the religion!

So good questions! I do think they have some spiritual practice(s) because in martial arts the state of a mind is as important as the physical body and religion is one of many ways to shape someone’s mindset from a young age. I do, however, think that Lin Kuei does not worship the gods. They are aware that the gods exist (with Raiden as the thorn in the side) and may even respect their supernatural powers and battle skills but it never has stopped Lin Kuei from desecrating holy places, murdering people and stealing stuff for the best price. So, it seems to me that whatever religion the members of the clan follow, by nature it is rooted in nontheism.

Of course, there is also a chance that Lin Kuei worships some forgotten deity or deities (as a remnant of their ancient connections with Outworld / realms conquered and destroyed by Shao Kahn?) or may even practice ancestor worship which seems like a good way to uphold a widely understood tradition that plays an important role in the discussed community.

The closest thing to religious practice was seen in Mortal Kombat X, when Sub-Zero and his warriors seemed to pray together before statue of god / deity / ancestor / legendary warrior / personalized thing they value the most (sadly, my knowledge about Asian religious practices or faiths is very limited so I don’t have idea if the statue is supposed to represent any real god/religious symbol).

At the same time, it could be just a bluff since Grandmaster was aware of Cage’s team infiltrating the Lin Kuei territory and used this moment to lure them into a trap. Additionally, Mortal Kombat X comics presented once Kuai Liang sitting before the same statue albeit in a completely different (devoid of reverence?) position.

Of course, if we take into account Mortal Kombat Armageddon, the game states that Lin Kuei Temple placed in Arctika was actually once the Temple of Delia (the great sorceress & wife of god Argus) that at some point get abandoned and re-used by Sub-Zero’s clan.

(In the background, we can see a statue of Delia that Lin Kuei does not worship but did not remove for whatever reason. Mixing both old and new games, we can only wonder if MKX!statue is also the remnant of someone else's faith/religion?)

Beside that, Kuai Liang was pretty vocal about Lin Kuei not worshipping the Elder Gods, what was seen in MK11’s intro dialogue with Cetrion

Sub-Zero: The Lin Kuei do not worship the Elder Gods.

Cetrion: We seek gratitude, not worship.

Sub-Zero: I see no distinction.

and personally did not have any reason to pray to the goddess:

Sub-Zero: Why should I pray to you?

Cetrion: Why does a bird flap its wings?

Sub-Zero: I asked a simple question.

In all fairness, in MK11 Kuai Liang seems the most passive-aggressive toward the Elder God while Frost is focused on her ambitions and Noob!Bi-Han just wants to be left alone when bothered by Cetrion. Similar thing happens toward Raiden. Despite gratitude for saving him, Kuai Liang does not spare the god criticism (can’t serve both Elder Gods and Earthrealm, isn’t fit for his role of protector) and in MKX outright says he does not fear divine beings:

Raiden: Sub-Zero...

Sub-Zero: I fear no gods, Raiden.

Raiden': That's why you shall lose.

Surprisingly, Kuai Liang’s interaction with MK11!Fujin sounds less accusing than with Raiden and Cetrion and it is connected closely to their ties with Bi-Han. And maybe Kuai Liang did seek in the past Fujin and other elements to make a peace with them, like he planned to do so in Mortal Kombat 4 Limited comics?

"I came here to make peace with the gods of the elements that you fought [...]"

Anyway, the accusingly behaviour toward Raiden and Cetrion could be just Kuai Liang’s personal dislike for gods and serious authority issues, which makes sense considering how much he suffered because of their meddling and conflicts.

But honestly?

The available examples of Lin Kuei attitude toward gods, demigods and supernatural beings suggest how little the warriors - especially cryomancers - care for them.

Like, we have Bi-Han in Mythologies, who asked Quan Chi about details of mission:

Sub-Zero: If it's so precious, why don't you get it yourself?

Quan Chi: I cannot enter the temple until the four elements within its walls have been defeated. And I am not on the best of terms with the gods of your realm... especially your god of thunder.

Sub-Zero: Tell me about these elements.

Quan Chi outright said he and earthrealm gods weren’t friends and Bi-Han, reading between the lines, could get the idea that he may end on bad terms with Thunder God. Yet he was interested only in elements (lesser gods than protector of realm?) guarding the temple.

Then Bi-Han beat down four demigods and met a displeased Raiden after Quan Chi got the Shinnok Amulet. His reaction? No fear, like meeting an angry god was a normal occurrence.

Rayden: Do you realize what you've done??

Sub-Zero: I was just earning my living.

Rayden: Your clan's ignorance and greed will cost this entire realm. You must now set things straight.

Sub-Zero: Quan Chi could simply be a lunatic sorcerer. I've never heard of an elder god named Shinnok or of a place called the Netherrealm.

Rayden: Well, you'd better start believing in both, because you're going to the Netherrealm and you're going to bring the amulet back. We must act quickly. I have no dominion in the Netherrealm... You are reality's only hope.

Sub-Zero: I'll do it, Thunder God... but only because I have no choice.

And once he came back from Netherrealm, where he was fixing what he messed up in the first place on Raiden’s order, his abrasive attitude did not change much:

Sub-Zero: Here... the amulet.

Rayden: Impressive, Sub-Zero. Perhaps you will reconcile your reckless past after all.

Sub-Zero: That's it? Not even a thank you?

Of course, to some degree Raiden’s words did have an impact on Bi-Han but even the god’s warning about his soul tainted with evil did not stop him from coming back to Lin Kuei. Bi-Han’s attitude and/or approach to gods seems to change somehow once he was reborn as Noob, but that is a different matter for different times.

Anyway, Mythologies!Bi-Han and MK11!Noob act less aggressive toward gods than Kuai Liang. But then we have Sub-Zero from from the MK novel by Jeff Rovin, who not only is not afraid of gods but outright insult them:

“Wait! Be warned, Shang Tsung. He is cursed!”

“Cursed? By whom?”

Ruthay wailed, “By the immortal Yu.”

Shang Tsung felt cold spiders crawl up his spine. “The demigod Yu?”

“Yes… he who is said to dwell in the underground caverns of Horse Ear Mountain… which is sacred to the goddess Kuan Lin. He who protects the canals… and the tunnels… and looks after all who use them, human and animal.”

“What did our brash friend do to Yu?”

“He… killed a man,” said Ruthay.

“What man?”

“A toll-taker… one who had given up a life of crime… one who had been a partner of the man… you… seek.”

“And how did that crime come to the attention of the spirit of Yu?” Shang Tsung asked.

“The man was killed… slowly disemboweled with a sword… while accomplices forced his wife and his son to look on! After his murder… the man’s remains… were dumped into a canal!”

Shang Tsung raised an eyebrow. “Is that all? I was expecting something truly terrible!”

“It was!” Ruthay shrieked. “When he disposed of the body… in that way … he profaned one of the sacred waterways… of Yu!”

Shang Tsung smiled now. “Then he is definitely the man I want,” he said. “Anyone who is impudent enough to insult a demigod won’t be afraid to attack a member of the White Lotus Society, or the gods who watch after them. I will send Hamachi, Ruthay. When he nears his goal, see through his eyes and guide him!”

Book!Sub-Zero was impudent enough to insult a demigod which is why he was one of Shang Tsung’s favorites. And to be clear - book!Sub-Zero did not regret insulting the demigod at all. Even more! He found humor in it!:

He dwelt in a cave two hundred feet up the face of a cliff by the sea. The mouth of his home was barely wide enough to accommodate a slender adult, and was accessible only by climbing the sheer wall of rock, a feat that was impossible for most adults and daunting even to the few arachnids and marsupials that tried it.

Maybe some of them were even sent by Yu, he thought with a smirk, little assassins who would chastise me for having spilled blood in his precious canal.

The less abrasive attitude toward gods was shown by Cyrax, who talked a bit with Raiden over Bi-Han’s remains. He wasn’t outright antagonistic but wasn’t overall respectful either. He talked with Thunder God like he would talk with any other human being that wasn’t actually Scorpion. Frankly, from the named Lin Kuei only MK9!Smoke actually addressed Raiden in respectful manner, with proper bow and the name of lord

albeit did he do so because he respects the divine beings or just out of gratitude for saving him, hard to tell for sure.

So yeah, it seems like no matter what kind of timeline or age or medium of the story, Lin Kuei does not fear gods nor pray to them. And the clan has a long history of dealing with Raiden, so the Lin Kuei had first-hand experiences with supernatural beings. Somehow, cryomancers are the most impudent warriors when it comes to dealing with or criticizing the gods.

Interestingly, as much as Lin Kuei warriors don’t care for gods, most of the known to us named characters believe to have - and to care - for their own souls. Sektor and MK11!Frost embraced the Cyber Lin Kuei idea but Kuai Liang, Cyrax and Smoke were opposed to C.I. project out for concern for their souls among other things. Even Bi-Han, to some degree became concerned about his soul after trip to Netherrealm.

Believing in souls is usually a sign of belief in the afterlife, albeit after all of them went through (the change into cyborgs, death and change into Revenants) this is less a matter of faith (religion) and more first-hand experiences. And let's not forget that regularly dealing over the centuries with Shang Tsung who steals people's souls on a daily basis makes it really hard to not believe spirits are real.

Also, an interesting matter of Lin Kuei practices that could have a religious/spiritual ground and/or be an example of ancestor worship is the clan’s funeral rites. I don’t think we actually saw any Lin Kuei to bury their own (especially after warrior’s failure?) and for sure MK9!Cyrax and Sektor did not bother to take care of Bi-Han’s remains. However the sources provide examples of Lin Kuei keeping corpses, most likely of their own leaders or warriors.

And so, we could see human remains:

put in two coffins on each side of statue

hidden / kept in a block of ice(?) in chamber of Fallen Lin Kuei in which Frost’s frozen body was also laid, but on the altar

Cyrax’s cyber body was kept and guarded by Sub-Zero (and this is like the only thing that Kuai Liang and Cyber Sektor so far agreed on)

and even Cyber Sektor’s remains, even if just for pragmatic reasons, are kept in what seems to be respectful manner:

It could be just Kuai Liang’s good nature to honor fallen of his clan (I’m still not sure if Lin Kuei Palace is the new place for Sub-Zero’s clan or the ancient hideout) but even in MK Conquest TV series, after Grandmaster was killed by then-currently-Sub-Zero, there was the farewell ceremony with clothes on display (cause there was not much left of body after freezing and shattering) while new leader gave the speech promising to punish the guilty.

Which makes me think that Lin Kuei did honor their fallen warriors (especially those exceptional, deserving). Such custom and apparently common belief in soul could also support the ancestor worship - both as some ancient, mythical ancestor(s) connecting warriors into one clan (family) and tradition to follow in the footsteps of forefathers (Bi-Han taking place of his father [old timeline] or grandfather [current timeline] or Kuai Liang taking Bi-Han’s place as Sub-Zero).

My general conclusion about Lin Kuei is that its members believe in souls, have respect and use of spiritual matters (meditation?) and maybe ancestor worship. Whatever the religious / spiritual practices they have over the centuries, it is not something they will share, as the Lin Kuei by nature are secretive people who keep personal things mostly for themselves. The people that joined the clan (Cyrax and Smoke) maybe kept their old, eventual religious beliefs but overall, Lin Kuei warriors did not fear, care for nor pray to gods. They may respect god (Raiden, Fujin) as a person but not because of their divine nature. And even that would not stop them from criticizing said god. Which is pretty much how Kuai Liang and Raiden’s relationship looks like. Grandmaster is grateful to Thunder God for saving him but he won’t blindly follow his authority.

(Kuai Liang has serious authority issues, hasn't he?)

As for holidays, I can’t really see Lin Kuei to follow any specific religious (theistic) special day cause they don’t care much for gods in the first place. Unless they worked undercover and needed to act as normal human beings, religious holidays would mean nothing to them. The warriors may however celebrate their mission success, combat mastery or promotion between themselves or in secret, I think. Like, Lin Kuei did forbid friendship because it was considered warrior’s flaw yet we know some members either were blood-related (Kuai Liang, Bi-Han, previous Sub-Zero - father or grandfather, depending on which timeline is correct) or considered each other a family (Kuai Liang and Tomas Vrbada) and most named characters worked in duos so they have both opportunity and knowledge about each other to celebrate important matters. If they managed to remember anything from previous life, that is. Because from ancient to at least Great Kung Lao’s times most(?) adepts were kidnapped from biological families at a really young age (something around 6 years old). And Mythologies: Sub-Zero takes that even further:

Its warriors are chosen at birth to be raised apart from the workings of day to day civilization and are stripped of their former lives. Only the clan knows their existence. Each of them posses certain skills and abilities that set them apart from normal men. These abilities are passed on from generation to generation and honed throughout the experiences of life.

So, celebrating birthdays doesn’t sound like happening much, unless those with family around could allow themselves such luxury. The clan may however celebrate the day of becoming a fully trained and sworn warrior? Or the fallen warriors? Who knows.

Also, something worth thinking about: in Mortal Kombat Conquest TV series, when the Grandmaster presented newly appointed Sub-Zero to the rest of the clan, he “celebrated” the cryomancer's first official performance as the execution of two men who failed their mission. So, yeah, celebration of something special in (old) Lin Kuei does not necessarily mean anything nice.

(The next part of answer most likely will be focused either on food or architecture / origin of Lin Kuei. Let's hope I will get it written sooner than later)

<><> EDIT <><>

RELIGION <> ORIGINS / ARCHITECTURE <> FOOD <> FOR THE LIN KUEI <> ART <> CRYOMANCERS <> LIN KUEI SOCIETY <> MONEY & MATERIAL GOODS

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zosonils-art · 3 years ago

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ohhh can we hear more about sweet woman 🥺

we totally can!! infodump about this gaslighting gatekeeping girlboss is under the cut as always

sweet woman was commissioned by a super classy french dessert restaurant called the orgueilleux pâtisserie [orgueilleux being very poorly google translated french for elitist/snobbish lmao], acting as both a chef and a mascot! the gimmick worked wonders for the restaurant's popularity, with rich people coming in droves to experience the novelty of food prepared with a robot master's help, and she was quickly promoted to social media manager as well as her original duties. despite her cutesy demeanour, she's much smarter than she looks, and is equipped with an in-depth understanding of chemical reactions and inhumanly accurate sense of timing and spatial awareness. she knows hundreds of recipes and most of them cost several hundred dollars to make

her personality is more deliberately engineered than most robot masters, designed to fit her appearance and be marketable. she's unwaveringly cheerful, incredibly extroverted, and just silly enough that it's cute rather than grating. she plays these traits up a lot for the cameras, exaggerating her energy and playing dumb when it'll appeal to the masses, but even when she doesn't have her public image to consider she's a bubbly and energetic goof. she's a stubborn optimist, and if she can't find a bright side to look on she'll take out a flashlight and make one. her optimisim makes for a good workplace morale boost and an even better social media presence, although when combined with her ditziness and being a bit out of touch from almost exclusively interacting with the 1% it often makes her come across as insensitive

since she's in the spotlight a lot, most of sweet's hobbies and interests outside of work are still carefully selected to match her public image and look good on an instagram post. she has a passing interest in shopping and fashion, and enjoys going to parties and gatherings and what have you to meet new people. she also loves to experiment with cooking and come up with new recipes, some of which end up on the orgueilleux menu. she does, however, have a private interest in chemistry! as mentioned earlier she knows a fair bit about it already, since cooking is just chemistry with a restricted set of substances, and in her own time she ended up getting curious and reading into the sort of reactions that arise from chemicals she doesn't work with. she rarely mentions this interest herself, but she gets super excited if someone brings it up or gives her the excuse to talk about it, and it's probably listed as super secret trivia about her on the pâtisserie website

unlike other robot masters, sweet has an acute sense of both smell and taste! [since robots seem to only use e-tanks for fuel, there's not much benefit to smelling or tasting things, so i personally believe that most of them don't have those senses unless it'd directly benefit their job.] being able to actually taste the food she cooks makes it much easier to tell if she's doing it right, especially if she's trying to come up with something new. she's also capable of replenishing her energy by eating - it's less efficient than e-tanks, but she thinks they taste gross so she always opts for actual food. fittingly, she has a massive sweet tooth, but she's accustomed to only the highest-class dining and dislikes cheaper or less 'refined' tastes

her magical girl vibe, brought to you by someone who has watched maybe 4 episodes of anime that weren't sonic x, is entirely an aesthetic and marketing gimmick rather than serving any functional purpose. she'll play it up for promotional videos and photoshoots, twirling her fork-trident thing and striking dramatic poses and calling out thematically appropriate attack names like 'sparkling sugar swirl' and 'cinnamon whirlwind' whenever she does anything, but it's mostly for show. while she genuinely enjoys the shouting and posing and twirling, she massively tones it down when she's not performing, maybe occasionally saying an attack name at a reasonable volume while she works. her fork-trident thing isn't even a real weapon, magical or otherwise. it's just styrofoam with metallic paint on it

sweet's weakness to harpoon shot was decided before i figured out exactly what tide man's weapon would be, going on the idea that getting food wet tends to make it sad and gross. this logic doesn't quite carry over with harpoon shot being, well, a harpoon rather than something specifically water-based, but i imagine shooting a cake with a harpoon would also be a very one-sided battle so this weapon wheel makes sense i promise. i guess you could also make the argument that it's because sweet is only experienced with a fake pronged weapon made of foam and would be completely blindsided by a real one? maybe it's that tide is so staunchly anticapitalist that his weapon inherently vibe checks her? i'm grasping at straws a bit over here but listen, if mega man 5 can insist that water is elementally weak to trains, i can insist that it's elementally strong against the french

i think her stage could be some kind of factory! lots of conveyer belts definitely, maybe some crushing hazards, definitely a few mets. the idea there is that she's seized a major food processing plant and is using that position to wreck the regional supply chain. even when she's evil, she basically keeps the exact same personality she shows to the public with only a noticable capitalism upgrade. she has pretty much no combat abilities on her own, but at her own suggestion she was upgraded to shoot a specially formulated icing that's acidic enough to burn through thin metal, finally putting her interest in chemistry to use. her fork-trident, on the other hand, was not changed in the slightest. still just styrofoam. i think it'd be pretty good if she opened her battle with it but even if it hits mega man it only deals one point of damage and the second it touches something it snaps in half and she never pulls out a new one

designing sweet was pretty fun because she's pretty different from my usual taste in character design! my experience with the magical girl genre is that i read about half of sailor moon when i was 12 and absorbed everything else through pop culture osmosis and tv tropes pages, so it was definitely fun to draw what i think a magical girl might look like. i also don't use oranges and yellows much, so picking out her colours made for an agonising exciting challenge! she didn't change too much from the initial microsoft paint sketch, although she lost a skirt layer along the way because i didn't feel like figuring out how to draw another one, and her weapon was originally just a big fork that probably would have been a ksjfjhkjhfillion times less cumbersome to draw. oh well. live and learn [HANGIN ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW]

that about wraps it up for sweet woman, i think - thank you so much for asking about her!! here's the transparent art and the version without 15 different filters on it to make it look kinda like an 80s anime screenshot

#this was agonising to draw BUT I REALLY LIKE HOW IT TURNED OUT SO!!!!! WINNING #zos draws #mega man #mega man oc #robot master oc #sweet woman #zos talks #zos answers #zoriginal characters #anon

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leportraitducadavre · 4 years ago

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Can we talk how trauma (Sakumo's suicide and war) gave a 6-year-old Kakashi the mental maturity of a teen (like, 14 years old, talking in a sense of daily life) and at the same time it was trauma (team Minato's and Kushina's death) what made him keep that mental age even at 31?

I don't know, I feel the shinobi system didn't let Kakashi grow further by sending him to the ANBU, making him unable to cope with trauma for him not to realize he was being thrown shit. For him to not, like any Uchiha less Itachi did realize, had right to be angry and say "fuck the system".

I sort of agree while at the same time I do not. I don’t think it is fair to merely blame everything wrong in Kakashi on trauma alone, sure, he was traumatized (how could he not be) but in the manga, there’s not much of that at display -the scene where he cries while doing the dishes is exclusively from the anime, I believe-. Kishimoto has never been shy when it comes to showing how much trauma affects characters’ decisions -particularly, and most of all, Sasuke-, and yet, Kakashi is not particularly driven by them. His personality when an adult, is more of a way to pay tribute to Obito, a kid who he started to admire minutes before his death because he -unlike most of Konoha-, considered Sakumo a hero.

We can’t know for sure if the position in which he upheld Obito was because Kakashi actually saw the light and therefore honestly started to believe in what Obito thought, or because he was desperate to give Sakumo some redemption -and grasped whatever positive light someone was willing to give to his father-. The answer to that is up to each reader. But when it comes to Kakashi’s “quirks” -his personality traits, which are the reason the fandom loves him for, I’m almost a hundred percent sure they are some self-taught mannerisms he picked up by observing Obito; he quite literally is mimicking him from his perspective (he’s copying how Kakashi think Obito was).

I’m not even sure we ever saw the real Kakashi, sure, his grieving six-year-old self is actually his truthful way of coping mechanism, but he was too young back then for that behavior to be considered the actual personality of Kakashi. Furthermore, I’m not even sure Kakashi actually knows his true self. He, quite literally, lives as Obito -perhaps because he considers that Kakashi doesn’t deserve to live, while Obito does.

He believes that saving your comrades goes above any mission -but does he really, or he’s merely projecting Obito’s beliefs (and therefore, redeeming his father’s when no one else would), he cared for Rin -but did he, actually? Or did he try to protect her because it was a promise he made to Obito, who actually did care about her? He claimed to care for team 7 but went out of his way to properly teach Sasuke (who not only was a prodigy, but also an Uchiha -like Obito), even despite Naruto being his sensei’s child.

Perhaps it wasn’t the entire Team Minato he actually cared about, but only Obito -and that just because Obito validated Sakumo, something that hadn’t happened before.

In which case, we can infer that, hypothetically, Kakashi’s driven force is -and always has been, Sakumo (and his suicide), which catalyzes in his sudden admiration for Obito (who was the first one who endorsed his father’s actions -the very same for which the entirety of Konoha considered him a pariah), and later on blind trust into Naruto (who, like Obito, proclaimed to care more for his comrades than the mission).

Sure, the shinobi system gave him no mental support, nor when his father killed himself, not when Obito died and not when he killed Rin, and in each and every one of those instances, we can turn around and literally point out the adult responsible for it: Minato, his Jönin captain. And yes, Minato was part of a system, a mere pawn, and yet, when you want to look for people to blame for the abandonment of a six or thirteen-year-old Kakashi, he’s no less responsible than Hiruzen, furthermore, since he was in direct contact with the child -being none other than his sensei, he’s far more guilty.

#kakashi #kakashit hatake #naruto #anti konoha #anti shinobi system #anti minato #anti minato namikaze #anti hiruzen #anti hiruzen sarutobi #obito uchiha #sakumo hatake #rin nohara

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xkaileo · 3 years ago

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Hi! For the one shot request, would love to see something with animals - saw a very cute prompt when I googled ideas (I have so little creativity which is why I read so much!) where one of them works at an animal shelter and the other comes in to pet the cats when they are sad. Maybe something along those lines? Thanks so much for considering! ❤️❤️❤️

Ahh I'm so, so glad you sent in this request! I had a lot of fun writing it, honestly.

Growing Felines

"I'm not going to make it in today, it seems," Shisui said over the line. "The snow's just too thick, and my car won't start." Oh, Sakura could not believe this. She'd struggled to make it here through all of the snow, and now she was stuck here alone?

"Damn," she said over the phone. "Kakashi can't make it in today, either." Sakura wasn't a fan of working alone at the shelter, but it seemed she had no choice today. Her coworkers, Shisui and Kakashi, were stuck at home in the snow, and Sakura was the only one who'd managed to make it to the shelter for the day. Curse her managerial position! With the weather outside getting worse, she felt she would be staying overnight with the animals to make sure it didn't get any worse. They tended to get upset when the weather turned sour like this.

"You gonna be okay there by yourself?" Shisui asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine. Maybe one of the volunteers will make it in, so I won't be on my own all day." Part of her was hoping that she might see that one volunteer today… There was one boy that always came in. Sasuke Uchiha. He was quiet, withdrawn, and rarely talked, but Sakura noticed when he was with the cats, he seemed to smile a lot. She'd never asked why he came so often, but he was one of their most active volunteers. He never seemed to have much to say, though.

"Hmm… maybe." Sakura frowned at the tone in his voice. "Well, good luck, Haruno!" With that, Shisui hung up the phone, leaving Sakura wondering just what crazy idea Shisui had. She knew Sasuke and Shisui were related, but… no, it couldn't be that. Could it?

Shaking the thought off, she went to do a headcount of all of the cats, making notes as to which kennels needed a bit of cleaning and the conditions of the cats that they'd noticed were ill. Most of them were doing much better, and there weren't any that had severe conditions that would need immediate veterinary attention. Hana lived not too far from the shelter, but if Sakura could avoid having to drag Dr. Inuzuka out into the snow for anything, she would. They'd just have to make do with phone consultations if they had any questions.

---------------------------------------------

Sasuke hated the snow.

He hated it because it reminded him of that day. After all, he'd been stuck there for days and days. The memories plagued him for years. A snowstorm where no police could get out, and a poor, tormented little boy stuck there with his murdered parents because no one could get out there to help him. Sure, years of therapy had made him better than previously, but days like today were days that he wanted to be out of the house and distracted.

Even despite the terrible weather.

Thus, he made a point to bundle up well and make his way to his truck, thankful it had four-wheel drive that could carve through the snow with ease. He'd just go for a drive around the city, pick up a few things, and come back. No other plans. Why bother with them? He would've preferred not to talk to anyone today anyway.

As if on cue, while he was sitting in the driver's seat waiting for his truck to warm up a little more, his phone rang. He pulled it out, frowning at the caller ID. What the hell would Shisui want today? Shisui was one of the few people who knew what today was, and yet he was calling? He should have known the kind of mood Sasuke would be in. Sighing, he opened the phone and held it to his ear.

"What?" He asked, clearly grumpy.

"Ouch, don't bite my head off, cous'," Shisui defended over the other line. "I just wanted to ask you something. Just a little personal favour, if you could." A personal favour? Today? Well, in all fairness, Sasuke was one of the only people who had a vehicle that could traverse through weather like this.

"What do you want?" He wasn't going to give Shisui an answer just yet. He'd hear him out, at the very least.

"Look, you know how garbage my car is in this weather. I'm stuck at home, and so is Kakashi, according to her. Sakura's at the shelter all by herself. Could ya check on her, maybe?" Wait… Sakura. That was the girl that worked at the shelter with him. Sasuke bit his lip, contemplating. Sakura was tough… she could handle things there on her own, probably.

"Sasuke~" Shisui's teasing voice rang in his ear. "I know you like her~."

"Shut up," Sasuke bit back. "I told you that in confidence." He hadn't even meant to, but Shisui, annoying as he was, had managed to get it out of him. Now he hadn't stopped teasing him about it. Then again, what wasn't to like? Sakura was cute, she was nice, she was friendly, sweet, warm, welcoming… All traits anyone would like in a girl like that.

"C'mon, Sasuke. At least check on her. You don't have to stay if you don't want to. But I am genuinely worried about her being there all alone." Sasuke drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes and releasing a sigh. Alone. Sakura was alone right now. He couldn't ignore that. What if something happened? What kind of a person would he be if something happened, and he could have done something about it?

"Fine. I'll check in on her. I'll text you. Bye." He wasn't going to listen to anything more Shisui had to say; he'd probably just tease the hell out of him. He turned on the four-wheel drive and kicked it into gear, making his way down the rural roads until he reached the shelter, swearing as he tried to find a place to park. He could see Sakura's car, but by now, the blizzard had covered it in snow; she had no hope of ever making it out of the parking lot. Shisui was right; it was worth coming here to check on Sakura if she was all alone.

Stepping out of his truck, he squinted through the snow to try and make out the door, barely able to see it through the blistering snow. He managed to move forward, checking back occasionally; the moment he couldn't see his truck, he was finally able to see the door, breathing a sigh of relief. He found it was open, struggling to pull it open against the wind and drifts that had practically barricaded it; there was at least a foot-high drift in front of it. He made it in, hearing the door slam behind him as he stared at the pink-haired girl sitting behind one of the computers.

After checking the kennels, Sakura made her way back to the main desk and worked on some paperwork when she saw a shadow outside the door. She shielded her eyes as a mess of black hair, blown around by the snow, covered the boy's face as he struggled to make it through the door. She could feel her heart pounding; who would have dared to come out in this weather? Was it someone… untrustworthy? And here she was, all alone…

He pulled his scarf down, brushing snow off his shoulders and stamping his boots to loosen the snow out of the treads. She was uncertain about his intentions but came around the desk with a concerned expression.

"Are you crazy?" She asked, mouth agape in shock. "The storm's--"

"I could ask you the same thing," Sasuke replied dryly. He unzipped his jacket, glad it was warmer inside. "You're out here all by yourself?" Okay, so maybe he had a point. She was a little crazy to have come out here on a day like today. What made her even consider it? There was no way she was going to make it out of there on her own. Hell, he wasn't even sure his vehicle would make it out of there, but he could deal with that later. He'd figure something out.

"I had to come in! Someone had to look after the cats…" She couldn't have just left them on their own. They could have gone without food or water for days, and she couldn't have that happen. Sasuke could understand that; he was only a volunteer who came to visit the cats when he was lonesome, partly at the behest of his cousin Shisui. As they stood there, the power flickered for a moment, drawing both of their attention.

"Oh, no," Sakura griped, scrambling back to the computer. It had been just a brief flicker, so the backup battery had kicked in, but she needed to get the paperwork done fast. She hit the save button, realizing she probably wouldn't have time to finish it all. At least she was caught up to a certain point; she could do it when there was more power. If the power was flickering, that meant they would lose heat… and she would have to make sure there was extra insulation.

"Look, um… I appreciate that you're here, so… do you think you could help?" Sakura's eyes were pleading. He'd planned to turn around and leave, but he couldn't ignore that look. He'd never been quite this close to her; she was prettier than he remembered. Her skin was fair, and her hair looked soft; her bangs framed her face while she'd pulled the rest up into a high ponytail. She wore red glasses as well; he could swear he'd seen her without them before.

"Sure." He knew they weren't leaving from here, but he wasn't about to say that just yet. She didn't need to know that he'd come out here almost entirely with that intention, nor did she need to know that he'd come in through that door, intending practically the same thing. He made sure to lock the door for them to leave. That way, nobody else could come in through the door unnoticed.

"Okay. We'll carry the blankets up from the basement and start packing them around the windows to keep some of the cold air out. I think there are towels there, too, so we can use those. Then we'll put some of the smaller ones inside the kennels for them to curl up under. After that, we'll make sure their food is good and boil water to keep in thermoses to top it up as the water starts to freeze. Let's see, there are six thermoses, but they're all about two litres each, so…" Sakura started doing some math in her head as they moved down the stairs, whispering to herself under her breath.

Sasuke was listening, but… he was also busy paying attention to her. Standing behind her, he could just faintly smell her shampoo as the hair in her ponytail swayed back and forth with each step. She was… kind of short, too. She had to be almost a foot shorter than he was, maybe a touch less. She also seemed to like the colour red… He could tell by the fact that she always seemed to have something red to complement her outfit. Today, it was her hair tie and her shirt; other days, it was a red headband she wore, and in the summer, he often saw her wearing red sandals or sneakers.

He followed her to the basement, following her directions to grab blankets. They made their way to the singular room that housed all the cat kennels, stuffing blankets and towels against the windows. They then moved to open each kennel individually, carefully stuffing more blankets in and refilling each of the cats' water dishes before closing them in. After that, they were left with a few more blankets as the lights went out on them, the sudden darkness surprising Sakura.

"Sasuke? Hold on-- I have a flashlight," she called, scrambling in the bag that was at her feet. She fumbled with the flashlight; Sasuke could hear where she was and crept toward her in the dark, hoping he might find her before she had to use the flashlight. As she finally found the button and turned it on, Sasuke was nearly right in front of her, causing her to squeal in surprise and jump back, startling a few of the cats.

"Sorry," he reassured, raising his hands. "I didn't mean to startle you." Sakura could feel her heart pounding in her chest, though she breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, she only had one flashlight, though she had quite a few sets of batteries they could use. With the power out, their heat would be out; the building was well insulated, and they'd done extra work, not to mention there was enough food if they were stuck for a day or two--something Sakura made extra sure of during the winter months, given the shelter's location--but hopefully, they'd at least be able to shovel their way out.

"Come on. There's probably enough hot water that we can make some hot cocoa if you like." She led the way out, Sasuke following not far behind her as they found the small kitchenette. Sakura found the hot water, prepping herself a tall mug of cocoa.

"Is there any tea?" Sasuke asked, doing his best to peer into the cupboards in the dim light. "I'm not really a fan of cocoa." More accurately, he didn't like anything sweet.

"Yeah, um, there's some black tea up in the cupboard here, I think." Sakura pulled the tea down and got a mug ready for him, pouring the water over it and putting the lid on for him. She grabbed a couple of packets of honey and a couple of sugar packets for once it had steeped, grabbing a couple of snacks for the both of them as well. She opted for a few things in the fridge likely to perish first; without power, the food in there would go bad first.

They made their way back to the cats' room, stopping by one of the visitation rooms to grab a couple of bean bag chairs to sit on. If they were in the room for the cats, they could at least monitor them in case anything went wrong. Sakura handed him a small bag of chips, giving him a warm smile.

"So… you decided even in the snow to come out and visit the cats?" She was pretty curious about the reasons he'd come out. He heard the question but wasn't sure if he wanted to answer. He chewed his lip, contemplating whether he should tell her the truth or not.

"Yeah… something like that." Sakura found his mysteriousness a bit intriguing. He'd barely said a word to her any time he'd been here, except one or two in greeting or passing. She was often busy with paperwork while he was just there to visit. He spent more time talking to Kakashi and Shisui than anything. This had to be the most he'd ever spoken to her at all.

Sakura set the flashlight between them, facing upward so they could see each other. She was doing her best to read him, but she couldn't get much. Even his facial expressions gave nothing away, but he seemed… awkward. The way he spoke, it was like he was trying not to admit something. It intrigued her. She wanted to know more about him. That, and… she might have thought he was a little attractive.

Okay… a lot attractive.

"...Shisui called me," Sasuke admitted. "He said you were here alone, and… that he'd like it if I could check on you." He sipped at his tea, pleased with how it had steeped; he preferred it black and unsweetened. "I have a pretty big truck, so I was the only one able to make it out here before the snow got bad." So much for that now. His truck was probably half-buried, too. He was glad for the darkness in the room; Sakura couldn't tell that his cheeks had tinted a faint pink colour.

"You came all the way out here just to check on me, then?" Sakura felt her face heat up, at a loss for words. He nodded, which left her speechless; he looked away out of embarrassment, making her heart beat a little faster.

"Oh, wow," she commented, internally scolding herself. Talk about a lame response! "So, um… I'm guessing your truck is probably stuck now, isn't it?" Sakura reached for one of the blankets, wrapping it around herself as she shivered. She could notice the difference when the heat wasn't blowing from the vents. It was still more than warm enough, but she missed the warmth.

"Yeah. It's stuck." He didn't have to see it to know it. "So I'm… just as stuck here as you are." He didn't mind it. She seemed like good company, if nothing else. Shisui had probably planned for this. Shisui seemed to like to play matchmaker once in a while.

Sakura laughed awkwardly. "Well, um… I guess it's a good thing this wasn't like, a date or something." Oh, she was just digging herself deeper and deeper, it seemed. If Sasuke hadn't been so good at maintaining his composure, he might have choked on his tea at that statement. A date? Yeah, it… would be a pretty lame date. Wasn't it kind of like one, in a sense?

"Mm… I wouldn't really know." He sipped his tea. "So… Sakura, what do you do other than… work here?"

"Oh, not much, honestly. I live with my friend Ino, who's going to school to be a fashion designer, so I tend to, um… end up having to model whatever designs she has a lot of the time. She pays me a little for that, and I get a lot of free clothing out of it." Sasuke saw her shiver and reached for two more blankets, wrapping one of the smaller ones around himself then throwing the larger one over her before wrapping one half over himself.

"It's warmer if we're both under it." He was a little chilled, but he wasn't about to admit it. Looking at her… He could imagine her being a model. She was pretty. Very pretty.

"What about you?" Sakura asked, moving a little closer as he'd instructed. It was warmer with both of them under the blanket.

"I… write music." He'd thought about going to school for it, but it was easier to do it from home and do his research. Cheaper, too; he lived on a large acreage he'd purchased with an inheritance from his parents. With the house and the rented farmland, plus the hefty life insurance money he'd spent years living off of, he could spend years living out there. "Not much else. I live alone just down the road from the shelter, actually."

"Oh, really?" That wasn't what she expected. Musicians were always exciting types. "So you just come to visit the cats when you need inspiration?" It made sense to her. Creative types always looked for inspiration in the strangest of ways.

"No." Why did he find it so easy to talk to her? Something about the way she spoke made him want to open up to her. He chewed his lip like he was trying to hold back his words, but it was no use. "I come when… I start to feel like I'm too alone at home."

Sakura suddenly felt sad. "You don't live with anyone there? Not even your parents?" An acreage like that, she would have assumed he still lived with his parents. Maybe not a wife--they were far too young for that--but not even his parents? That seemed odd to her.

Sasuke shook his head. "I… they're not… around." He couldn't open up that much, but by his expression, Sakura figured it out. He didn't have to say anything more. There were one of two options there: either they were dead, or he never spoke to them any longer. She reached up from underneath her blanket, reaching underneath his and gently rubbing his shoulder. He looked at her, staring down not at her hand but her face. She was… quite close. She'd been the one who brought up a date. Was she… possibly interested in him? Had she said something to Shisui at some point?

Sakura saw the change in his demeanour, heart thumping in her chest. They were close, faces almost inches apart; it was like he was leaning down toward her. She'd heard Ino talk about this kind of feeling, but… she'd never experienced it. Well, they were alone, basically in the dark… What else were they going to do? They couldn’t let the cats out of the kennels, at least not unless they were strictly holding them. At least some of the cats were able to visit one another across their enclosures.

He was so close to her, his face only inches from hers. He could see her eyes in the dim light; green eyes were the rarest colour, and hers sparkled a bright jade colour. He wanted to kiss her, but… was it appropriate? Should he? No, maybe not yet. This was the first time they were really having a conversation. He wanted to know her better first.

“So…” he cleared his throat and moved back a bit. “You live with your best friend, you said? Anyone… else you spend time with?” He felt it was too tacky to ask her if she had a boyfriend or girlfriend. Sakura was a little miffed he moved away, but she’d just have to deal with it.

“Oh, no, not really. Well, there are a couple of girls we hang out with as a group, but… not anyone otherwise. No boyfriend, either. What about you?” She was a little oblivious to his prying.

“Mm… I have a friend, Naruto, but we haven’t talked in a while.” Wait, Naruto… why did Sakura recognize that name?

“Hold on. You mean Naruto Uzumaki?” It couldn’t be the same one, could it? Sakura remembered him. Ino had dated him at one point, in the last few years of high school.

“Yeah, Naruto Uzumaki.” Sasuke rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “We, um… we were foster brothers for a while until I moved away in high school. I haven’t seen him since.” Naruto had been annoying, but they’d looked out for each other at least. He’d yet to try and reach out,m. “Then there’s also Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo.” Wait… Karin. Karin was a girl’s name. His girlfriend, maybe?

“Oh, so… is Karin your..?” Why did her heart drop at that idea? Him being taken was… a sad thought.

“No. Ex, actually. High school.” He hadn’t been as invested in that relationship as Karin had. He’d felt it was unfair to her and broken things off, though he knew she still pined for him. She seemed never to let him forget it. One day she’d have to, but for now, he could ignore her.

“Oh, I see.” That was a relief. An ex she could handle. Just as she opened her mouth to ask another question, a loud crash came from outside in the hall. It sounded like it came from the supply room, but Sakura wasn’t sure. Had someone broken in? Worry crept up in her spine as the flashlight started to flicker.

“What was that?” She whispered, instinctively huddling a little closer to him. He looked out toward the door, frowning and unconsciously moving closer to her as well.

“I don’t know. Do you have extra batteries for the flashlight?” He reached for her bag, digging through it in an attempt to find them before the flashlight died.

“Yeah, um, inside the pocket there.” She helped to hold the light for him, unscrewing the back and pulling out the old batteries. He took the flashlight and inserted the fresh ones, breathing a sigh of relief as the light flicked back on without issues. He stood up, turning to Sakura for a moment.

“I’ll go check it out. Wait here.” He was about to take a step before Sakura stood, shaking her head.

“Can I come with you?” It wasn’t an offer but rather a question. “I— I don’t want to sit here alone.” She was sure the cats would be fine, but it would be a problem and a half if someone had broken in. Sasuke hesitated before reaching for her hand, grasping it and nodding.

They made their way out into the dark hall, Sakura sticking close to him as they worked their way to the storage room. Once they opened the door, they were hit with a blast of cool air, and from what Sasuke could see, it looked like one of the windows had cracked. Something had hit the side of the building—a tree, it seemed—and a part of one of the branches had cracked the glass.

“Just a broken window, but not too badly. Is there some tape here?” He rooted around for something, anything; duct tape would work best. Sakura found a toll and handed it to him, giving her the flashlight so he could reach up and tape the glass. It would be enough to hold until a technician could adequately repair the window. Sakura shivered in the cold as he worked, wishing it wasn’t so chilly. He was done quickly, grabbing a few boxes to put them in front to help insulate.

“Come on. Let’s head back.” He could tell she was cold; he made a point to snag a couple more of the blankets to wrap them both in. Once they were back in the kennel room, he wrapped her in one blanket, then wrapped two of them around them both, keeping her closer for warmth. It wasn’t cold in the shelter yet, nor was it likely to get too cold, but it was better that they stay warm than try to warm up.

“Here. Stay close.” He could feel his cheeks burning with embarrassment. “We’ll, um… we’ll stay warmer if we share body heat.” That sounded creepy, but how the hell else was he supposed to put it? He kept an arm around Sakura, making sure she was close to him. Sakura could feel herself nodding and agreeing, leaning against him and glad for the warmth he provided.

“Thank you,” she said, her lips forming a small smile. “I-I mean, not just for this right now, but I mean… for coming out when Shisui asked. I probably wouldn’t have gone to investigate that window if that happened while I was on my own.” She was thankful he’d come. It meant she had someone to talk to, someone who could hold a conversation. Talking to cats was fine for a little while, but they didn’t make for too many intellectually stimulating conversations.

“Yeah,” he responded softly, shifting so he was more comfortable. He was pretty comfortably warm; a nap would have been pretty nice right about now. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. What else were they going to do as the storm raged on outside? Well… there was at least one thing he wanted to confess, but… maybe not yet. Maybe after the storm was over, he could ask to spend more time with her. That wouldn't hurt, would it?

Hours passed as they chatted idly, listening to the cats and hoping the storm would slow down soon. There… wasn't much to talk about. Sakura did most of the talking, chattering away for a lot of it, and while he contributed, he preferred to listen. He liked the sound of her voice. It was something he could get used to hearing.

"Sasuke?" She asked, drawing him out of his thoughts. She'd asked a question, but he'd been too busy thinking about her to listen to what she'd asked.

"Hm?" He tilted his head to the side curiously.

"I… I know we should stay close for warmth, but… Are you tired at all? I thought maybe the bean bag chairs, we could, you know, lay them out kind of like a bed? A nap wouldn't hurt." Oh. A nap. Now that she mentioned it, he realized he felt a little tired. It probably had something to do with sitting in the dark for so long; the room had stayed warm, and while they could hear a few of the cats padding around and mewling, most of them seemed to have gone to sleep. They understood they were in a safe, warm environment, especially with Sasuke and Sakura sitting there with them.

"Oh. Yeah. We can." He stood up and lifted the more oversized blanket off himself, wrapping Sakura in it. He dropped the one he was wrapped in to the floor, grasping the bean bags and thinking about it logically. If they laid them primarily flat, and one of them--probably Sakura, since she was lighter--laid down on them first, they could be adjusted to form a comfortable bed. He pulled them together and instructed Sakura to lay down, and she did so; once she was comfortable, he settled in beside her, reaching for the flashlight to keep it close. They'd turned it off a few hours ago to save the battery, preferring to listen to each other talk.

"Hey… Sakura?" Sasuke at least wanted to ask her one thing before they fell asleep.

"Mmm?" He could tell she was sleepy, and he wondered if she'd even remember what he was about to ask.

"I was wondering." Wondering was putting it mildly. "You… mentioned you didn't have a boyfriend, and I know this isn't an ideal situation, but…" He bit his lip, trying to squelch the nervous feelings that were creeping up. "Do you think maybe… you'd want to do something a little more appropriate after?" He grumbled. That sounded… not right. "Another time, I mean." That sounded better.

Sakura was too sleepy to hear his entire statement, but she caught parts of it. He wanted to hang out again after the storm let up? It sounded like a great idea to her. She couldn't put her finger on why he was asking if she had a boyfriend, though. Why did that matter? She was too tired to comprehend what he was asking entirely.

"Mm… sure. That sounds like fun." Her voice was quiet, notably half asleep. Sasuke was relieved to hear that. He suspected she might not have got the entire question, but it was enough. Even if it was platonic… He would like to spend more time with her. Why not? She was fun, energetic, animated, and could carry a conversation all by herself, and didn't seem bothered that he contributed little.

Hours passed, the storm raging on outside as they both slept, only being unceremoniously awakened as the lights in the shelter came to life all at once, nearly blinding them out of sleep. Oh, that was unpleasant as hell! The sound of the furnace going again caused them both to sit up, rubbing their eyes and trying to open them. Sasuke felt that usual grumpiness coming on; he hated being woken up when he wasn't ready to get up. His gaze turned to Sakura, who was sitting up on one of the bean bag chairs, rubbing her eyes and trying to straighten her hair. Cute, he thought to himself, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Looks like the power's back." That meant they should be able to leave.

"What time is it?" Sakura's phone had died overnight, so she had no way to contact anyone. Sasuke checked his, seeing the time. It was about six in the morning, but the shelter had notably cooled.

"It's about six," he confirmed, putting his phone into low battery mode. "Come on. We can probably get out of here now. With the power back, the cats will be fine." That was one bonus about their furry friends: they were more equipped to deal with the elements than their human caretakers, even in a cooler environment. It was still dark outside, but at least they'd be able to head home and get some proper sleep.

"Oh, well, that works. Let's top up what the cats have for food and water for the day, and we can head out… assuming we're able to even get out of here." She was pretty sure her car was snowed in; she'd parked right up against the building in the hopes that she might be able to avoid her vehicle being buried. That didn't seem likely. How silly of her to have done such a thing.

They changed the water and litter boxes in each kennel, then refilled the cats' food bowls before doing another double-check around the place. With everything seemingly in place, Sakura grabbed her keys and jacket, putting away the blankets and bean bag chairs before meeting Sasuke in the entryway.

"Okay. Let's see…" She opened the door, unsurprised by the pile of snow that was in front of it; it had to be almost up to her knees. Peering out, they could see that the storm had lightened considerably; it was still snowing, but it was more of steady snow than a blizzard. Her car was up against the building with snow piled up almost to the windows; the drifts had blown up against it, making it look worse than it was. Sasuke's truck was parked further up, and with its raised wheels, it had been spared the brunt of most of the drifts, though it was still going to be a challenge to get out.

"I… don't think we're getting my car out," she admitted. "Well… If you want to head home, that's fine. I can wait here and shovel my car out once the snow stops, or I can call Ino to come to get me." It was better than nothing.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sasuke scolded. "I'll drive you home. It's fine. The roads probably aren't cleared yet, but that shouldn't be a problem." He pulled out his keys, indicating for Sakura to lock up the shelter before trudging through the snow. He made sure to walk ahead of her, doing his best to flatten the snow so the drifts would be easier for her to traverse. He looked at his truck, then at her… Ah, with the way his truck was lifted and the fact that he hadn't put steps on his truck yet...

He followed her around to the passenger side, opening the door for her. "Just stand there," he instructed, and she did as he said. Damn, she was practically going to have to crawl into his truck; it was so high up, and she couldn't even reach the handle at the top to pull herself up into it. Without warning, she felt hands on her waist, causing her cheeks to flush as Sasuke lifted her high enough to reach the handle.

"I, um-- I-I got it," she stammered, holding on for dear life as she swung into the seat. He closed the door behind her before coming around to the driver's side to start the truck. Well… Days like today were why he had a vehicle like this; on an acreage, a tiny little car wouldn't do. He needed to be able to get down his driveway through crappy snowstorms. The truck flared to life, and he immediately put it in four-wheel drive, carefully wedging himself out of the snowdrifts. They took it slow down the road, Sasuke following Sakura's directions back into the city and to her house.

The streets were deserted. Vehicles could be seen abandoned along the freeway, along which they crawled at about a quarter of the speed. They made it to one of the smaller residential areas to a little townhouse; one vehicle could be seen parked out front, and there appeared to be a space where a second was usually parked. He pulled in front of the small driveway, putting the truck in park before hopping out and around to the passenger side to help Sakura out. Once she was safely on the ground, he looked down at her, taking a deep breath. This was his last chance to be direct.

"Sakura?" He asked, reaching a hand up to rub the back of his neck. Sakura could see just how nervous he was; he seemed… awkward, in a sense.

"Hm? What is it?" She was genuinely curious. He'd been too kind to her yesterday, coming to check on her; she could at least hear out whatever it was he had to ask.

"I was wondering… Would you maybe like to go on… a proper date, another time?" He knew that what they'd done wasn't exactly a date, but it was close enough, right? His offer shell-shocked Sakura; that was not what she'd been expecting. A date… a proper date. He wanted to go on one? And with… her, nonetheless? Had she been totally out of it all night? Well… now that she thought about it, there was that one time where she was pretty sure he was about to kiss her, but he'd backed off.

"Oh, um… I think I'd like that," she admitted, her posture turning shy as she looked away. She knew she was blushing, but she couldn't help it; he had an air of aloof mystery surrounding him, and she wanted to learn more. She wanted to know more about him specifically.

"Great. I'll… I'll call you." He had her contact number from a pamphlet he'd been given when he'd signed up as a volunteer; he could get it from there. There was one last thing he wanted to do, too. Stepping forward, he raised a gloved hand, stopping before taking off his glove to touch her face. Her cheek was warm and soft, fitting gently into his palm. Sakura felt herself freeze at the gesture, glancing at his hand before looking up into his face.

Sasuke leaned down, gently pressing his lips against hers. He kept the kiss brief and chaste, but… Damn, he'd wanted to do that since yesterday. Running a thumb over her cheek, he smiled and stepped back, bidding her farewell. Sakura waved and hurried inside, doing her best not to slip on the ice patches she was sure were hidden under the fresh snow. Once he saw she was inside, Sasuke put his truck into gear and drove off, and for once… he was driving with a smile on his face.

Sakura stepped in the door to the townhouse and was met by her blonde friend standing in front of her like a mother about to scold a child.

"Oh, you have some explaining to do, Forehead. A lot of explaining. And I want it to start with hot stuff out there who just kissed you in the driveway."

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