#your protagonist sounds sympathetic and as you can see most of these stories are rather unkind to the transformer

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Hello lovely internet person! Folklore question: there are many stories where transformation serves an important story beat- either a character being cursed into an animal form and having to break it, the antagonist being transformed as punishment, cloaks that give the wearer the power to transform used in various ways, etcetera. I was wondering if there are any stories you know of where the character wants to/needs to transform and acquires the means to do so, but it ends up going terribly wrong?

I’m plotting a story where one of the arcs revolves around a character transforming themself both for body dysmorphia reasons and to better fit into society- but, unfortunately, it ends up going wrong in some way which I haven’t fully planned out yet. I’m trying to use a lot of folklore and fairytale themes and beats in this story, so I’d love to know if there’s any older stories that follow this kind of arc! (I know it’s a fairly common modern storytelling arc)

I think the exact motif of a story's protagonist seeking out a way to physically transform themselves at all - whether successfully or unsuccessfully - is rare in European folklore. Perhaps because magic of this kind is usually reserved for non-human or evil characters. (I can imagine there are examples from cultures who do not always treat the human body as quite so static, like the Aboriginal or First Nation traditions. But I do not know any examples off the top of my head and would not recommend drawing from those more spiritual tales for modern fantasy).

That being said, these are the stories I know that seem most closely related to what you're looking for:

● In The Story About Ciccu (Sicily) a greedy King has his servant Ciccu kidnap the beautiful princess he wants to marry, the princess says she will not marry him until he orders Ciccu to jump into a lit oven. Ciccu's magic horse (which the princess knows he has) warns Ciccu to rub himself all over with the horse's sweat before jumping into the oven. He does so and instead of burning he comes out even more handsome than he was already. The King demands to know how he did it and Ciccu tells him he rubbed himself with old grease. The King does so, and burns to death. (A similar motif shows up in the Sicilian The King Who Wanted a Beautiful Wife and the Venetian The Three Crones, in which the way to become young and beautiful is to flay one's skin off, but this is a lie not based on any magical truth, so it's not as applicable here.)

● In The Fairy Ointment (Wales, West England) a woman is fetched by a fairy (or pixie) to be midwife for his fairy wife in labour. She is given ointment to rub on the infant's eyes and slyly puts some on her own right eye as well. This gives her the power to see the fairies, even when she is returned to the human world. When she sees the fairy father and greets him, however, he finds out what she has done and makes her blind in her right eye to take the magic sight from her.

● There are various stories (eg. The Hunchback of Willow Brake, The Gifts of the Mountain Spirits, The Old Man with the Wen) about two men who have a similar physical defect (in the European versions a hunched back, in the Asian versions a skin growth). One encounters a host of fairies, dwarves, elves, goblins, etc., behaves well, and gets rewarded with the removal of the defect. When the second tries to replicate this result he behaves badly and instead gets given the defect that was taken away from the first on top of his own.

● In The Story of Caliph Stork (German literary fairy tale from 1826) an evil sorcerer makes sure the Caliph and his Grand Vizier get a scroll with a magic spell and a box of magic powder that can be used to change into animals. Once in animal form they cannot laugh, however, or they will forget how to change back. They do laugh and they become stuck in their animal forms while the sorcerer puts his son on the throne. With some help from a princess who was turned into an owl by the sorcerer they eventually manage to become human again and defeat the sorcerer.

● In Jan the Sorcerer (Belgium), The Thief and his Master (Germany) and The King of the Black Art (Scotland) the protagonist learns magic and helps his poor father by changing himself into a steer or horse to be sold at market. But the bridle/lead must not be sold with him. The father forgets this and the son is unable to change back into a human and escape, until he can trick someone into taking the bridle off him.

That's what I've got! Hope it's helpful ^^

[h-worksrambles]

Overdue thoughts on Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

I’ve been meaning to talk about my reaction to the latest Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes trailer, and now I’m finally gonna do it. This isn’t some super in depth theory crafting. Much like my Kingdom Hearts IV post this is just some early reflections.

I’ll start with what I’ve noticed in terms of gameplay because this’ll be the shorter part. Also, I’ll just quickly point out that most of my Musou knowledge comes from the two Hyrule Warriors games. So if I sound ignorant about specifics of Dynasty Warriors gameplay, it’s because I am. Just a heads up. 

One thing I’ve been consistently impressed by in Koei Tecmo’s latest Musou spin-offs is how committed they are to trying to make them feel like part of the series that spawned them. Persona 5 Strikers and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity both perfectly match the graphical style of the games they’re based off. They also both pull a ton of aspects from the gameplay of their source material and blend them with Warriors gameplay. Sure enough, we have already seen Combat Arts, Gambits, Adjutants and the class system in these trailers. Combat Arts are particularly neat, since OP special moves are a Warriors tradition, but letting you choose from multiple ones is a neat bit of customisation (or maybe it’s already been done idk). Teaming up with allies on the battle field for group attacks is also cool as is more control over AI allies, but I hope this doesn’t replace actually swapping characters which I think is a great mechanic for these games both to keep variety, and bolster their light strategy elements. Three Houses’ training is also back, and hopefully will be used to cut down on the typical Musou grind rather than increase it.

Ok, that’s all I can observe from the gameplay as far as I can make out and it all looks great. Here’s hoping there’s not any egregious performance issues.

Anyway, onto the story. So far I’m getting major vibes of Age of Calamity. This very much appears to be an alternate timeline, much of which revolves around our new protagonist, Shez. The idea seems to be that Shez’s absence was the main reason Three Houses played out the way it did, and now that they’re here, things may go differently. 

Incidentally I’m glad Shez isn’t a silent protagonist. Byleth had more characterisation than your average silent protag, but they really couldn’t carry a story without the three lords (see Silver Snow for proof). I’ve already praised the new redesigns, and yes they are all chef’s kiss. But I wanna talk chronology. Anime ages are hazy at the best of times, but from what I see, there is definitely a timeskip here and they do look older, but the changes are way less pronounced than they were in Three Houses. The war has not been going on for five whole years it seems.

The game also seems to be going out of its way to tap into some unexplored ideas from the original. For instance, we see a pink haired warrior in the trailer who could very possibly be Holst, Hilda’s previously unseen brother, as well as a new character who resembles Claude (another member of the Almryan nobility?). Even Monica seems to be here, though the jury’s still out on whether this the real or Monica or simply a disguised Kronya. 

Shez also has a companion figure much like Sothis named Arval, but this guy’s whole colour scheme resembles the Agarthans. I know that, as such, some people are expecting a twist villain but I actually hope not. The Agarthans were probably the weakest part of Three Houses’ story as they hindered the game’s gray morality by being obvious villains who masterminded many of Fódlan’s worst aspects. Giving them a sympathetic god figure similar to Sothis, or at least having one Agarthan who isn’t cartoonishly evil could provide them depth, much like the Nabateans.

And of course, we gotta talk about Byleth. 

I think posing Byleth as an antagonist is a great reversal. It takes their silent, borderline Gary-Stu/Mary-Sue nature and turns it into something threatening by turning it against us. Nice to see them living up to the Ashen Demon name. And supposedly, they nearly killed Shez at some point in the past and the story is hyping up a rematch of sorts. However, I highly doubt they are a true villain. We see that their name and gender is still decided by the player, which implies they’re playable. So I’m expecting a dual perspective story simillar to Gaiden and its remake Shadows of Valentia. This would mean switching between Byleth and Shez at story intervals much like Alm and Celica, leading up to their second confrontation. Then again, this game apparently has three routes, so I don’t know how this could logistically work in that context. Interestingly, Sothis’ narration in the first trailer makes some comment about revenge and given how, normally, only Byleth can hear her, that implies to me that maybe Jeralt’s death plays out differently in this timeline. Could Shez themselves be involved? We’ll see I guess...

Lastly, there’s the question of whether this game will have any kind of ‘everyone lives’ golden ending. On the one hand, Three Houses is supposed to be a tragedy. It has no completely happy ending and I think it’s a better game for it. That being said, the Warriors crossovers have often been kind of fanfic-y. They’re bombastic fan-pleasing spectacles that run on hype, and Age of Calamity specifically set itself apart as an AU so it could run wild without contradicting Breath of the Wild. I see no reason Three Hopes couldn’t do the same. Though the fact that it still has multiple routes means that unless there’s some Fates/Sonic Adventure 2 ‘last story’, it probably won’t have a fully happy ending. So maybe bring tissues to be safe.

There’s still a lot we don’t know, but I’m still really excited. I loved Age of Calamity (though I suspect some people would shoot me for saying that because something, something ‘false advertising’) and this looks to bring a lot of the same buckwild AU energy to one of my favourite Switch titles. Plus I’m just looking forward to seeing these characters again, AND using them to curbstomp entire armies. I just hope the playable roster is up to par, considering how much I love Three Houses cast. 

But yeah, long story short, I’m incredibly excited. 

[doppel-drop-distance]

Doppel Spotlight: Giovanna

Surprise~!

I know, I know, about time, right? The hypothetical Soul Gem has broken, and the Doppel Spotlights are back from the dead! Er…temporarily, anyway. I can’t say for certain how many more of these I’m up to doing just yet. It’s a bit too early for me to make any big estimates or guarantees. But! This Doppel analysis has sat here unfinished for quite some time now! And you all have shown such lovely support that I couldn’t help but be excited looking at all this old material again. So as a gift to you all, let’s finally analyze the Doppel of our main protagonist, Iroha Tamaki!

This analysis will contain spoilers for all of Magia Record’s first arc! This does include anime-specific content, as I will be discussing certain scenes from Episodes 5 and 7! You have been warned!

Let’s dive in, shall we?

GIOVANNA

Doppel of Silence

Feature: Cuckoo

“The master of this emotion is aware of how pitiful her Doppel is and refuses to look at it. This Doppel wordlessly wraps around and strangles anything it doesn't want to hear as it continues its search for something to fill the hole in its heart. While it should be calling for someone, it is cowardly and afraid of acknowledging the reality it has concealed, and so it remains, silently covering its ears.”

It's been a while, so how about we start things off with a little refresher?

Both Giovanna and Campanella’s names are direct references to Night on the Galactic Railroad, a Japanese novel written by Kenji Miyazawa. In the story, a shy boy named Giovanni travels on a star-bound train with his close friend, Campanella. To keep things brief, I’ll leave most of the general plot details out. However, if you’d like a lengthier summary, I suggest reading the summary I provided in the previous Doppel Spotlight, which is linked here.

I should also mention I actually located an English-translated copy of Night on the Galactic Railroad! As a result, I can quote the story directly, although I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the translations or my own interpretations. Please keep that in mind as you read!

The opening scene of the novel establishes early on that Giovanni is a reserved, self-conscious boy. In class, he is certain he knows the answer to the teacher’s question. However, when called on, he doubts himself and stays silent, bringing upon the jeers of his classmates. Campanella, who also raised his hand for the question, willingly chooses not to answer, despite also knowing, in order to show some sympathy for the flustered Giovanni.

This opening scene is likely what is referenced in Giovanna’s nature as the Doppel of silence. Giovanni stays silent out of self-doubt, and as a result believes himself to be pathetic. Iroha also silences herself in her own way, being very passive, self-conscious, and reserved at the beginning of her story. And, true to that comparison, her Doppel’s reflections of insecurity make her feel pitiful, to the point where she refuses to look at it.

Giovanni’s character can also be representative of Iroha’s inner loneliness. With his mother sickly and his father out of the house, Giovanni is too occupied with taking jobs and caring for his family to have time to talk. More often, he is bullied by his peers. The only exception is with Campanella, who doesn’t bully him, and even sympathizes with him. As Giovanni and Campanella travel on the Galactic Railroad, Giovanni’s loneliness is at its clearest. Campanella begins talking to Kaoru, another passenger on the train, and Giovanni becomes morose with jealousy. See this quote here:

“Is there really nobody who will stick with me to the edges of the universe and beyond? Campanella just sits there jabbering away with that little girl, and it hurts me more than anybody knows.”

Iroha is also incredibly lonely, deep down. She lives on her own, with parents away on business trips. The anime implies she doesn’t have a lot of friends either, with her classmates talking behind her back instead. Worst of all, her sister, who she values more than anyone else, is completely absent, Iroha being the only one that remembers that she exists. Such relationships sound awfully lonely, don’t they? It’s only through her bond with Yachiyo and the rest of Mikazuki Villa that Iroha grows into her own, letting her optimism, warmth, and confidence shine through.

Giovanna’s connections to Giovanni tie her quite close to Campanella, Yachiyo’s Doppel. And, well, Yachiyo is certainly not the kind and sympathetic Campanella at first meet. Her first encounter with Iroha is cold, brutally honest, and fully intent on keeping Iroha out at any cost. We learn later on that this attitude is a wall Yachiyo puts up to protect people – that she believes the people that get close to her die, and that she still struggles with the guilt of her past. Yet, it is Iroha who shows sympathy to Yachiyo, breaking down that wall between them. For example, let’s take a look at Chapter Six. After a trip to the Memory Museum Uwasa, Yachiyo has been reminded of the death in her life and is reflexively closing herself off again to keep Iroha safe. Iroha once shriveled up in response to Yachiyo’s intimidating rejection, but now, as her friend, she isn’t having it. She says this:

“You saying there’s nothing you can do to help Tsuruno and the others… It makes me feel sad…Lonely…We fought together all this time…But more than that, I’m angry. I’m angry with you, Yachiyo...”

“I’m your friend, Yachiyo. And as your friend, I’m going to take out that Uwasa, all on my own! I’m going to be the one to protect you. I’ll smash this made-up idea you have of me sacrificing myself for you!”

Just as Giovanni interprets his journey with Campanella as a sign to stay diligent in life, Iroha’s friendship with Yachiyo allows her to steady her own resolve and fight adamantly. Their namesake connection is a sign of their bond, and their newfound devotion to fight together and protect each other.

To wrap up this Galactic Railroad talk, have you noticed that in many of the anime’s early episodes, Iroha is riding on a train? In fact, it is on a train that Iroha is whisked away to Zenobia’s Barrier in Kamihama, where she meets Yachiyo for the first time. Perhaps a stretch, but a fun little detail regardless.

Anyway, there’s far more to Giovanna than story connections! Giovanna’s silent nature reflects a lot of Iroha’s character struggles: mainly, her feelings of denial, and her inclination towards self-sacrifice.

“This Doppel wordlessly wraps around and strangles anything it doesn't want to hear as it continues its search for something to fill the hole in its heart. While it should be calling for someone, it is cowardly and afraid of acknowledging the reality it has concealed, and so it remains, silently covering its ears.”

When you think of someone “strangling anything it doesn’t want to hear”, concealing their own reality and being afraid of acknowledging it...well, that sounds a lot like someone who doesn’t want to accept the truth.

Iroha shows quite a bit of denial in her search for Ui. The odds are stacked against her for a lot of Arc 1. She finds little to no clues wherever she searches, and the Ui she encounters from the Uwasa of the Commoner’s Horse is only a fake. Iroha is certain that Touka and Nemu, Ui’s closest friends, will remember Ui. But, they do not, and only ridicule Iroha for her seemingly impossible set of memories. Throughout Chapter Ten she is belittled for sticking to her goals. She’s ensured on all fronts that Touka and Nemu aren’t believing her, and that there’s nothing she can do to change their minds. But, no matter how many times Iroha is told by the world that she’s believing in a lie, she never lets her belief go.

“I’m still going. No matter what you say. I’m bringing Ui back with me…She’s the whole reason I came back to Kamihama.”

This stubborn determination, when twisted by the corrupt perception of a Witch, is far more like paranoid desire: an aching, fearful need to find whatever is missing in her heart and get rid of whatever threatens it.

Following this, let’s talk about Giovanna’s feature: a cuckoo. Cuckoos are solitary birds, shy and secretive, and best known for their calls. Yet, Giovanna’s beak is tied up with cloth. She cannot call for anyone. Her journey to find Ui is painted as one of futility: Giovanna searches and searches for the one she’s longed for, but in the end, is too afraid to call out to her.

Here’s a fun detail, by the way:

In Episode 5, when Iroha summons her Doppel for the first time, Giovanna actually does not have bandages around her beak (which is why she’s able to let out that high-pitched shriek):

In future appearances, however, Giovanna does have the bandages around her beak.

Come to think of it, Giovanna looks rather... different in her first appearance, doesn’t she? Not only is her beak not bandaged, but her colors are a lot redder and more decayed, her cloak is worn and full of holes, and the crown around her head is gone. This may just be a stylistic choice for Iroha’s first Doppel, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s a sign for something else. Maybe that Giovanna is angry with the Commoner’s Horse Uwasa for projecting an illusion of Ui? Giovanna does fight a lot more aggressively here than in any other appearance, after all - she wraps the Uwasa up and drills into it with her beak. Meanwhile, in her second appearance, she only attacks an Uwasa with her bandages.

Giovanna’s unwillingness to call for others actually brings up an interesting facet of Iroha’s character: her sacrificial devotion. The reason that Iroha unleashes her Doppel in Episode 5 is because she neglects her own needs in favor of others. She believes that she must be strong on her own to find Ui, a thought reflected by her own Doppel’s words in Episode 7:

“Stronger…If you don’t become strong, you won’t be able to find anything! Cover your ears! Shut those eyes! Silence determines fate!”

When Iroha fails to find Ui within the Uwasa of the Commoner’s Horse, she is filled with despair. Ui was right before her eyes, proving the beliefs that even she may have begun to doubt. Yet, in that same instant she recognizes the Ui she sees is nothing but an illusion the Uwasa projected for her. So close, and yet so far. When Iroha begins to succumb to her despair, she even mentions that it might’ve been from the shock of not seeing Ui.

With all of these feelings, all of this disappointment and despair, who does Iroha use her only Grief Seed on? Yachiyo, of course. At this point in the story, Iroha wants to be friends with Yachiyo, but they are not seen as equals. She is not comfortable enough to open up to Yachiyo about her feelings, and neither is Yachiyo with her own. Yet, Iroha still sacrifices herself to keep Yachiyo from falling to despair. And by staying silent about her own woes, Iroha falls to her despair for the first time, summoning her Doppel.

Let’s keep this topic in mind and focus on something I haven’t addressed before: the Magia Archive artbook! There are some production notes in here that provide insights on the meaning and symbolism behind a Doppel. Unfortunately, I don’t know Japanese, but I did find a translation of Giovanna’s section, courtesy of @greenyvertekins. Here is a small piece from it that I would like to highlight:

“The motif is a bird flute and a saint with a rabbit-like appearance.”

The theme of a “saint” struck me as a little odd, at first. I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to get that idea from her design. But, it did lead me to a unique little find, which is probably a stretch, but maybe kind of cool anyway?

(credit to Silvermoon424 on Reddit for the scan!)

It’s a bit harder to see in the official art, but that crown circling Giovanna’s head – to me, it sort of looks like a crown of thorns. A crown of thorns is a very striking sign of self-sacrifice.

And sure, this is the stretchiest stretch that ever stretched, but those drop-like patterns on Giovanna’s body are red, and kind of look like drops of blood, right? Beads of blood that have also been associated with the crown of thorns, r-right? Right…?

Phew…I’ve been going on for a while, haven’t I? Is this…is this longer than the first one? I don’t even know anymore…Let’s silently wrap this up with one more, fun little stretch on my part.

Both cuckoos and bunnies, which are elements of Giovanna’s design, are symbolically representative of spring. Spring is cherry blossom season in Japan, and the Eternal Sakura Uwasa lives near a cherry blossom tree only said to bloom when Touka, Nemu, Ui and Iroha are united again. At the end of the event Cherry Blossom Dreams, the Eternal Sakura even remarks that “spring can finally begin” because they are all together. So, if you squint really hard, maaaaybe the springtime connections here are representative of Iroha, Touka, Nemu, and Ui’s union under the cherry blossom tree. But probably not. I’m just having some fun.

And, that’s it! That’s all I’ve got for Giovanna! Wow! That sure was something!

I hope you all enjoyed my silly little analysis! I know some of these connections are a bit loose, but I like drawing whatever parallels I can with what understanding I have, haha. It was great to write one of these again and share it with you all!

If you have any of your own thoughts, additions, or corrections, do send them along! I would love to hear other interpretations!

[starsstruck]

cloudbusting; part four.

a classic coffee shop story. harry is a painter that quickly becomes a regular at his neighbourhood cafe, and it just might have something to do with a certain barista. horoscope readings, mandarin oranges, and star-gazing strolls.

pairing: harry x reader warnings: language, mentions of anxiety words: 13k

series masterlist

art by holly warburton. (i have no vision for the mc of the fic, people in the images of paintings i use are purely because this is how i envision harry’s art to be)

a/n: thank you for being patient with me for this chapter, i hope everything turned out okay ! a big huge thank you to the amazing tina @sunflowers-styles​ for helping me out and being the best beta ily ❤️❤️ as always let me know what you think and please share if you can ! i love to hear everyone's thoughts and comments <3 happy reading !

Sat comfortably on Mae’s couch, you were taking a big bite of the hummus covered carrot that you had just grabbed.

“I have some frozen perogies!”

Mae’s voice floated from the kitchen, both of your laziness to make a proper dinner was about to be satisfied with hummus and snacks before Mae started digging through her fridge.

“That sounds perfect!” You called back, reaching over her coffee table for another carrot. You could hear her shuffling through the kitchen, reappearing by the couch with a box of herb flavoured crackers in hand.

“I’ll put them on later,” she hummed, seating herself next to you while turning down the volume of the Fiona Apple that was playing through the speaker. “Don’t feel like cooking just yet.”

“How was the weekend away?”

Mae had just come back from a two-night stay with her partner’s parents, at their place out in Rochester. “It was good – honestly it was pretty nice to completely get away from everything, even if it was for a bit, and even if it was with Robin’s parents.”

“That sounds lovely,” you nodded, unable to help yourself as you kept reaching for more crackers. “It’s good you got to relax for a bit.”

“Work has been far too stressful lately,” Mae nodded. “Aren’t you getting some time off soon as well?”

You rolled your eyes, waiting until you finished chewing your carrot until you spoke. “I guess. It’s not really going to be relaxing for me though.”

She shot you a sympathetic smile. “It’ll be okay – if things get too bad tell me, and I’ll come over with some kind of emergency.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” you laughed, not wanting to think about the reason you were going to be taking some time off work.

“Don’t think about that just yet,” Mae told you, a smile lining her lips. “How’s work going otherwise? Oh! Anything new with the painter boy?”

You bit your lips together, watching the bowl of homemade hummus as if it was the most interesting thing you’d ever seen. You knew Mae could read you well, and you knew that as soon as you averted your gaze that she’d be onto something.

“Something did happen?” She repeated the question, voice rising in excitement as you tried to hold back your little smirk.

“He ate me out on the floor of his apartment.”

“I’m sorry, he did what?” Mae sprang up, back straightening out as she turned to fully face you. “Last I heard you weren’t even sure if he was even going to make a move on you.”

“Well…” you trailed off, not knowing what else to say. “He did.”

It had been three days since you last saw Harry. You had your usual two days off, coming back to work just this Saturday morning.

After the little distraction from your painting session, you had pulled your dress back over your knees. And with starry eyes and warm cheeks, you sat up with legs pressed to his and your arms around his neck to pull him in for a sloppy kiss.

He had tugged you closer to him until you were practically sitting on his lap, muttering near nonsense against your mouth. “You’re unreal, you know that?” and “Sound so good saying my name like that, could listen to you for hours.”

Just the mere thought brought butterflies to your stomach; which was something you thought only happened to protagonists in romance novels.

You could still feel his warm breath against your skin and the sweet nothings he had kissed onto your lips.

“Was he good?”

Mae really didn’t need to ask; she could tell by the look on your face. You nodded, confirming her suspicion with a smile bit between your teeth. “Really good.”

“I love that,” she chuckled lightly. “Anything else happen? And wait, when exactly did this happen?”

“Few days ago – I went over to his to do some painting with him. I actually ran into him last weekend when I was out which was when he first kissed me.”

“What? You never told me that.” She mocked a pout, not actually upset with you.

“I haven’t seen you!” You laughed, always favouring to tell her things in person rather than on the phone or through text. 

“I suppose…” she laughed. “Have you seen him since?”

“No,” you shook your head. “I mean it was only three days ago.”

“Do you have plans to see him again?”

Again, you shook your head. “No – I don’t know. I realized I don’t even have his number or anything, I usually just see him at my work.”

“You could always DM him,” Mae nodded, reminding you of the time you both had spent scrolling through his Instagram.

“That’s true,” you bit at your bottom lip. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what he wants or anything.”

You fell quiet for a second, still gnawing at your lip. When you thought about it, you really only ever did see him at your work and other than his art practice and what kind of coffee he liked to drink, you didn’t know that much about him.

“Did anything else happen?”

“No,” you again shook your head. “He said that we didn’t have to do anything more if I didn’t want to – honestly I would’ve returned the favour but things just didn’t really go that way.”

“That’s kind of sweet.”

The wheels in your head were spinning. “Maybe he just wants something physical, I don’t know…”

Mae rolled her eyes. “Don’t jump the gun. By the sound of everything I kind of doubt that, he didn’t even get off.”

“I mean, is that weird? Maybe he does that – like in Sex and the City.”

Mae let out a loud laugh. “Life is not like Sex and the City, stop comparing yourself to that shitty show. Also, what does it have to do with anything?”

“That’s a plot,” you nodded, hating yourself for remembering all the awful plot points from the 90s TV show. “Charlotte dates this guy who’s like, notorious for going down on women and wants nothing else from a relationship.”

Mae raises an eyebrow. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“No,” shaking your head, a small furrow in your brow as you actually couldn’t remember how the episode had ended. “It wasn’t bad – but it wasn’t good. That’s all he did – he wasn’t a good guy or something, I don’t remember. He only was in the one episode.”

Mae laughed.  “Babe you’ve got to stop watching that show.”

“It’s entertaining,” you shrugged, fully knowing Mae also loved to indulge in the guilty pleasure with you.

“What does this have to do with Harry – your Harry?” Mae made the distinction, as if you would have only thought about Harry Goldenblatt, Charlotte’s second husband of the show.

“I don’t remember,” you muttered, bottom lip still between your teeth as you couldn’t for the life of you remember why it was bad that Charlotte dated a guy that only wanted to eat her out.

Snapping yourself out from the mess in your mind, you shook your head. “Anyway, sorry. Things are good, I’m just overthinking.”

Mae was quiet for a second. “Do you like him?”

You paused, already knowing your answer but being slightly afraid of it. “I think I do.”

It was two days later when you saw Harry again. With your usual Monday opening shift, the slow morning had you leaning against the counter flipping through the daily newspaper as you found yourself with not much else to do.

Playing with the paper straw that was in your third coffee of the day, you blindly brought it up to your mouth just as you heard someone walk through the door.

An older man with a red baseball cap shuffled through the propped open door, giving you a two-finger wave as he walked over to the counter.

“Morning,” he chirped, placing a ten-dollar bill on the counter as you went to grab his morning muffin. “Nice day out, isn’t it?”

One pet peeve you had about your job, was the weather talk that every patron seemed to insist on having. They all loved to chat about the bright sun outside while you were stuck working inside. “Beautiful day.”

Grabbing the bill from the counter, your eyes flitted back to the front door as you were counting out the customer’s change. A familiar silhouette of someone else walking through the door had caught your attention, eyes widening a bit when you realized it was Harry who had just come in.

He had his usual canvas bag over his shoulder, light wash blue jeans and a white shirt with some kind of graphic you couldn’t see on it.

Feeling your heart beating just a bit faster in your chest, you turned your attention back to the regular (who’s name you couldn’t remember, Bill or something) with the red cap and handed him his change.

Shooting Harry one more look, forcing the corners of your lips not to open in a wide smile while you moved to prepare a small americano.

As you watched the espresso pour into the mug, you willed your body not to flush at even being in the same room as Harry. You felt like you were thirteen, with a silly crush on a boy you’d only ever spoken to once. Except that this was much more real than a small crush.

You had never really felt this way with anyone before.

“Small americano,” you spoke not too loudly in the near empty café, your voice easily carrying over the sound of Françoise Hardy’s Voilà.

The red capped regular grabbed his coffee, pouring a generous amount of cream in it with a small thank you before he headed to his table near a window, ready for his breakfast with his book.

From the corner of your eye, you saw Harry having placed his things at his usual table and was tapping away on his phone. Cleaning out the portafilter, you wiped off the counter before deciding to head back to your coffee and newspaper.

It was not even a minute later that you felt a presence loom from the other side of the counter.

“Morning,” Harry’s voice was a quiet rasp, clearing his throat as you shot him a glance.

Your stomach fluttered.

“Hi,” you hummed, willing yourself to stop your flush at the memory of the last time you saw him. Hand reaching out for your no longer iced coffee, straw between your lips as you looked up at him again. “What’s your sign?”

Harry’s brow furrowed, a twitch of a smile at his mouth. “What?”

You motioned to the open newspaper in front of you on the counter. “Your sun sign – I’m reading horoscopes.”

“Oh,” he laughed. “I’m an Aquarius. Are you reading all of them?”

You nodded with your own little laugh. “I like to compare them, plus I’m a bit bored. So,” your eyes skimmed over the newsprint. “An Aquarius hm?”

“Is that bad?”

You only hummed, finding it on the page and pausing before reading his daily horoscope to him. “Under today’s amorous skies, sometimes less is more. Resist the urge to come on too strong to a new romantic prospect. A star-gazing stroll through nature could be the perfect way to add a dash or romance to your evening. And who knows? Your nighttime adventure could even bring artistic inspo.”

A few seconds of silence washed over the two of you. Harry had his bottom lip between his teeth, unable to help the nervous twist in his stomach. The horoscope was just a bit too accurate, especially with who was reading it to him.

“That’s – that’s something.” He said after a moment. The bright sun made the little pink blush on his cheeks obvious. He cleared his throat, looking to change the subject. “What’s yours say?”

“Mine isn’t nearly as nice, a bit of a filler horoscope if you ask me.” You sighed, searching for your sign on the page even though you’d just read it not long ago. “Today is all about adventure. Today’s thrill-seeking skies get your engines revving. Expand your horizons, whether you embark on a cross country road trip or rent a cabin in the woods. It’s all about a change in scenery and spiritual balance.”

“Sounds like you need to seek some thrill.” Harry laughed, the words you had read to him about his own horoscope still stuck in his head.

“I guess I do,” you bit back a smile, closing the paper. “Did you only come in for readings today? Or maybe a coffee too?”

“So many reasons I came in today,” he shot you a smile, almost a nervous one.

“Well then,” you hummed, pushing yourself away from the counter to go start preparing a coffee for him. “Let me grab you a drink.”

He followed you, from the other side of the counter, to the espresso machine. After tamping the grounds and waiting for the shot, you placed a hand on your shoulder as you circled your opposite arm, feeling the ever growing knot under your skin. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” you smiled lightly. “It’s just my shoulder – I call it barista shoulder. Not everyone gets it, I think it depends on the way you tamp the espresso.” 

You saw the confusion on his face. 

“Tamping – it’s when you use this,” you reached over to grab the heavy tool used to press down grounds. “I honestly don’t know what it’s called - I think it’s just called a tamper? Anyway, you press down the grounds to form this kind of espresso puck.” 

You mimicked the motion, twisting your body. “You need to use a bit of force so I got into the habit of using my entire side to push it down. Some people press just in the wrist or their arm. My old boss had the same issue as me – after years of the repetitive motion it kind of fucks with your whole side; your arm, shoulder, ribs, everything.”

“Your ribs?” 

You quickly stopped the shot that was still pouring, having nearly forgotten about it. 

“Yeah,” you laughed lightly with a sheepish smile. “I went to see a physio for it, I have two ribs that are a bit dislocated.” 

“What?! You have dislocated ribs?!” Harry looked a bit scared. 

“Partially,” you corrected, as if it made a big difference. 

“Does it hurt?” 

“Kind of, yeah,” you nodded. “I try and stretch it out often, I even got acupuncture for it once. It’s more of a dull pain.” 

“Jesus,” he muttered, a small shake to his head. “Dangerous work you do here.” 

You only laughed, scooping out some ice from the machine and placing a few cubs into the glass cup, some espresso splashing onto your hand.

Placing the cup on the counter, you nudged it across in his direction. “For you.” 

“Thank you,” his fingers reached for it, before sliding it a few inches before stopping.

“Oh!” He disappeared for a moment, quickly walking to his table before reappearing in front of you, all in the few seconds the espresso had been pouring for. “Brought these for you.”

He had two mandarin oranges in his hand, holding them out in your direction before placing them on the counter between the two of you.

You were so endeared you wanted to throw them at his head.

“I remembered how you said you usually forget to eat in the morning – actually I don’t even know if you like oranges. You don’t have to – well anyway they’re there for you if you want them.”

“Thank you,” you spoke softly, warming at the small action. You did in fact enjoy oranges; you loved the smell of them as well. “I love mandarin oranges”

“Me too,” Harry grinned, done with his rambling. “Love the colour too – actually I like the colour tangerine even better,” he smirked lightly, apparently not done with his rambling. “But I only had mandarin oranges.”

“Any citrus fruit really is divine,” you giggled, grabbing one in each hand.

Harry saw you disappear behind the espresso machine for a brief second, only the top of your head visible between the mugs, before you turned back towards him while wiping your hands on your jeans.

He held the small glass between his fingers, mouth dropping open to speak but nothing came out when both your attentions turned to see a family waiting for you to take their order.

You only shot him a little smile, grabbing the pen from your back pocket and moved to take their order.

Harry went to go take his seat, pulling out his usual workbook that was slowly but surely filling up with page after page of colourful sketches.

He thought over the words you had read out to him about his horoscope. He never was one to take that in a serious manner, quite frankly not knowing a lot about astrology at all. But he took it as a sign since you specifically were the one reading it out to him.

Finding himself sketching small drawings of stars and the reflection of the sky on the water, unable to help but momentarily flick his eyes up to the front counter every so often, where you would often be found standing.

He watched the way you asked a man about the book he was reading, the way the customer was so excited to share it with you. You had that effect on a lot of patrons, he noticed. You made them feel comfortable and welcomed in the little café.

With his bottom lip between his teeth, he couldn’t help but feel slightly flustered even when you weren’t directly interacting with him.

Continuing with your separate tasks in the café for the next hour or so, as Harry didn’t want to bug you when a small line up never seemed to go away.

Walking up to the front after that line up finally did subside, empty glass in hand that he placed in the dirty dish bin, before he peered around the café as he couldn’t see you.

He finally did find you in the back room, one leg bent and knee resting on the stool. In one hand you had your phone held in front of you, attention drawn towards it. In your other hand you were holding a few orange slices, mindlessly chewing on them.

After watching you for a second longer, he cleared his throat.

“Hey,” he spoke quietly, not wanting to disturb any peace you had settled into.

You blinked while you turned your head, a slice of mandarin orange just placed into your mouth as you put your phone down on the table in front of you.

“Oh, hey sorry,” you placed your foot on the ground, orange on the table as you walked over to the doorframe. He could smell the orange on you as you neared him. “Just taking advantage of the lull.”

“No of course, didn’t mean to bug you –”

“– just wanted to ask,” he paused, leaning his hip against the wall next to him. He was only slightly intruding in on the space that was technically just for the workers, watching as you rested you back against the doorframe behind you with a few mandarin orange slices still in hand. “Are you doing anything Wednesday night?”

It was your turn to pause, eyes leaving his for a second as you chewed on your orange slice. “I close – otherwise I don’t think so, why?”

“There’s an opening show, my friend has a whole series in it. It’s at the same gallery that we work at sometimes, it’s just a tiny show but – well I’d love it if you came with me.”

Your eyes fell to his again. He could see a smile starting to grow on your mouth, corner of your lip between teeth. “What time is it at?”

“Starts at eight, but it goes until eleven. You don’t need to be there right at eight.”

You nodded, and although he felt like you were dragging this out a bit on purpose, he couldn’t help but feel a small pit of nerves grow in the pit of his stomach.

“Okay,” you hummed, voice quiet as your eyes darted over to the front counter to check for customers. “I’m usually done around quarter past seven – I can probably head over for eight-thirty? Give or take, depending on where it is.”

He knew he was smiling so wide that his cheeks were dimpling. “So, you can come?”

“I’d love to,” you returned his smile.

“Amazing,” the butterflies in his stomach flew away. “Do you have a pen? I’ll give you the address.”

He watched you pat your back pocket, not finding the red pen that was usually placed there. Taking a second to check the back room, reappearing with a little scrap of paper and a pen.

He scribbled down the information you need, watching you fold up the little piece of paper and place it in your back pocket along with the pen.

“I have to head over a bit earlier, moral support and all, but I can meet you there?” Harry asked.

“Sounds good,” you hummed, excitement growing at the idea of spending more time with Harry outside of the café.

“I have to head out soon,” he spoke, “but I’ll be seeing you on Wednesday, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you grinned, lips together as he bid you a little goodbye. Just as you were debating about if you should hug him, or say anything else, a group came in waiting to be served. As always, you were interrupted by other patrons. “See you Wednesday!” 

The following two days flew by. That Wednesday evening, you were giddy as you closed, rushing through all your duties.

Closing with Saya took no time at all, and soon you were walking with a fast pace in your step to head back home. You knew you actually had plenty of time to get ready, but you were taking your sweet time and wanted the process to be relaxing rather than stressful.

You didn’t really know what one wore to a gallery opening. It was a small show; that was all Harry had really said. It’d probably be casual, so you didn’t want to overdress, but you also didn’t want to look too out of place.

After washing your face, you were throwing clothes around your room as you searched for what to change into. It was then you realized that Harry had only really seen you in clothes you wore to work. It wasn’t that you dressed poorly at work, in fact you liked to think you had quite a nice,  casual style, but you still felt like dressing up just a bit.

You finally settled on a dark navy dress that had orange seams embroidered up the sides and around the hem. It was the kind of dress that would look good on anyone, that fit and clung to every dip and slope of your body.

Grabbing a nearly sheer black blouse to throw over your shoulders, slipping on your trusty white sneakers, hoping that you were walking on the line between casual and formal.

With a little beaded bag over your shoulder with everything you’d need for the night, you checked the time once more before heading out the door.

It didn’t take you as long as you thought it would to make it out the door, and finally you were double checking the address on your phone before being met with the red sign over the gallery and the glass double doors.

Smiling at the man dressed in a bright red blazer who stamped your hand,  you walked through the open doored entrance. You immediately felt a tad out of place, seeing everyone chatting and talking and drinking and laughing – all together.

You let your eyes skim over the space, taking in the gallery. It was fairly large, considering Harry had described it as “just a tiny show”. The room was big and open, and there seemed to be another room that opened up around a curved wall.

Gaze jumping from person to person, you found yourself feeling just the slightest bit out of place. Tentatively walking through the gallery, deciding to simply make your way around and hope to find Harry along the way.

It was when you were looking at a big dark painting, one that had different strokes of grays and browns across a large canvas, that a familiar voice spoke quietly to your left.

“Happy to see you made it.”

Turning around to see Harry, not realizing how close he had come up behind you. You had to take a little step back, the corner of your lips perking up as you saw his mouth already in a wide smile. He was wearing wide black trousers with a fitted simple black shirt, and orange converse sneakers.

“Sorry I’m late,” you spoke softly as he stood close to you.  “Had a bit of an outfit crisis.”

Not moving his feet, he leaned his body closer to yours until the sleeve of his shirt brushed your arm. His shoulder bumping yours, he slid a hand around your waist so that it rested on the small of your back.

With a light pressure against your dress, he drew you in closer so your side was pressed against his. Feeling a puff of air as he exhaled hit the side of your neck, his head lightly dipped down until his lips neared your ear.

“You look stunning,” he murmured. You shivered under his touch, even in his warm embrace. Eyes darting around you, feeling a bit lost just in the moment the both of you had shared. You felt a quick kiss pressed to your temple, before his face retreated from yours.

You could feel heat spread across your chest along with a little flutter in your stomach that somehow made you even warmer. Momentarily not knowing what to say, you faced him with a smile. “Thank you.”

His hand lingered over the fabric of your dress for a moment longer, before it fell to his side along with a little step away from you. Although with your shoulder still against his, you remained close to him as you both turned back to the painting that you had been observing.

“What do you think about this one?” Harry’s voice was low in your ear.

You opened your mouth, not really knowing how to tell him that you didn’t like it one bit. “It’s very… beige.”

“I agree,” he hummed. A touch of his fingertips on your arm pulled your eyes away from the art, arm jumping just the slightest at the contact. With a loose grip of his fingers around your wrist, he was soon tugging you by the arm across the floor of the gallery. “I’ll show you the good stuff,” he said, keeping his voice low.

He pulled you around the curved corner, into the second part of the gallery. You immediately noticed the lights on this side were a bit dimmer, a warmer glow to them rather than a harsher white light.

“All these in here are done by my friend, Yanis.” He hummed, stopping in front of one of the large paintings on the wall with a light drop of your arm from his hand.

“I helped out with a few, but really it's all him.”

“You helped out with some?” You turned to catch a glance at Harry.

He nodded. “Here and there – nothing that big. He just needed a hand.”

“That’s sweet,” you hummed. You liked that, them helping each other out with their paintings. It was just all so uplifting and supportive.

Just as Harry’s mouth opened to speak, his name was called by a deep and unfamiliar voice to you. You both turned, seeing a shorter man with black curly hair in a bun approach the both of you.

“We were just talking about you,” the man spoke towards Harry, his eyes pausing on you for a moment before he turned back to Harry with a raised eyebrow.

Your name left Harry’s lips – introducing you to his friend.

“I’m Yanis. So, you’re the famous barista Harry’s been telling me about?”

You smiled at his words, eyes flicking to where Harry stood next to you and watched the pink tint the tip of his ears. “Famous?”

Harry laughed, shaking his head. “Only famous one here is you, Yanis. The show looks like a big hit.”

You didn’t miss how quickly he changed the subject, but you turned back to Yanis. “It really does look incredible. I haven’t seen everything yet but I already like what I see.”

You mentally cringed, still feeling like a bit of an idiot whenever you tired to compliment art. You really needed to learn the right things to say.

Just as you were about to try and say something else, two more people joined Harry’s friend on either side of him.

“There you are!” A tall dark-haired woman spoke towards Harry. She was wearing a red shirt that matched her long skirt, with platform shoes and an array of necklaces. “I was worried you had left.”

“Just showing my friend around,” Harry spoke your name smoothly. You didn’t dwell on the way he had called you his friend, but it also didn’t go unnoticed.

“Oh,” she turned her attention to you, while Yanis and the other man seemed to begin a new conversation. “Sorry, I’m Rory.”

“Nice to meet you,” you smiled in her direction. You saw her give your appearance a quick once over, and you especially saw the way her full attention turned back to Harry.

“Everything looks so great,” she spoke towards him.

“It’s all this guy.” Harry let his hand fall onto his friend's shoulder, giving it a little pat. “We were just starting to look around actually, so I’ll catch up with you lot in a bit.”

In a quick move, Harry’s hand was brushing against your lower back, and he was guiding you towards the wall on the opposite end. You felt his fingers bunch lightly in the thin fabric of your blouse, side pressing lightly against yours.

“Sorry –” he muttered, leaning a bit closer to you as the both of you stopped in front of a painting across from where you had been previously standing. There was a sea of red and pink mountains, along with a bright blue skin and big yellow sun. “Knew we could get stuck there for a while – wanted you to see everything first.”

You only hummed in response, a small nod in your head as you kept your eyes forward. Although you did find yourself so drawn to the art on the wall, you couldn’t help but let your mind spin and spin around until the words were falling from your mouth.

“Rory,” you murmured, bottom lip between your teeth, “she has a thing for you, no?”

You could hear Harry pause from next to you, “I – yeah. Well, no – we used to date.”

Only nodding, you kept your eyes forward although you knew Harry was burning holes into the side of your face.

“We still kind of run in the same circle – it ended a long time ago I didn’t –”

He stopped rambling when you turned to face him. “It’s okay,” you forced a little laugh to your voice. “I was just wondering.”

Harry fell quiet again, as you turned back to the paintings on the wall in front of you. “I’m really happy you came with me,” he whispered, lips nearing your ear after a moment. “I’m really happy you’re here.” 

You turned your head around, glancing at him over your shoulder. He didn’t move away from you, hand on your back giving your hip a little squeeze before slipping away from your body. He hit your hand with his, letting his hand fall to his side.

The words he spoke were swimming through your head, having you bite your lips together to fight off a wide smile. Just the way he was looking at you made your knees weak.

“Okay,” you whispered, lips clamped together as you turned back around.

You spent the next few hours walking around, looking at everything, chatting with Harry’s friends. You had gotten along well with Yanis, he had talked at length about the series that was being exhibited and you were honestly in awe of everyone’s talent and creativity.

It was about half past ten and you were just heading back from a quick trip to the restroom, when your name being spoken had you looking around to see who it was.

Rory was slightly towering over you as she neared you, speaking your name again to grab your attention. “Haven’t gotten the chance to chat with you, how are you liking the show?”

Trying your best to hide the shock from your face, you sent her a smile as she stopped next to you. “I really like it – haven’t been to too many shows if I’m being honest, but this is for sure one of the best I’ve been too.”

“Yeah, Yanis really did amazing with everything – Harry too.”

You only nodded, not too sure what to respond in the moment. She kept speaking. “How long have the two of you been seeing each other?”

The question took you a bit by surprise, but at the same time didn’t shock you all that much. “Oh, we’re not –”

You cut yourself off, and she took the moment to speak again. “Sorry I don’t mean to put you on the spot, we’re all just a bit nosy about Harry’s life sometimes.”

Nodding, you couldn’t help the way your eyes narrowed slightly on her. “It’s no problem,” you shot her a small smile.

“Do you make art as well?” She changed the subject.

“No,” you caught Harry’s eye from across the floor of the gallery, “God no, I can barely take a decent picture. What about you?”

“Oh, sorry I just kind of assumed! But yes, I have my own practice. Mostly installation, plus some two-dimensional work as well as some performances here and there.”

Again, you wished you fully understood everything that was being discussed. “That’s so cool,” was all you said.

“Thank you,” she smiled down at you. “What do you do for work?”

“I uhm –” feeling somehow small for the words you were about to speak and a small pit of anxiety at the bottom of your stomach. “I work in a café.”

“She manages a café,” Harry’s voice surprised you slightly as it was suddenly heard from next to you. You turned, seeing him take a few more steps towards you and stopped when he was right next to you, facing Rory.

He was surprised to see the two of you speaking in the first place, a maybe the slightest bit worried when he saw the way you were slightly recoiling away from her.

“Oh nice!” She seemed a bit surprised from Harry’s arrival as well. “Sorry,” she paused, her eyes flitting over to somewhere behind you. “I just saw a friend I wanted to chat with before she leaves – it was nice meeting you!”

And then she was off.

You were quiet for a second, as you felt Harry’s hand brush over your middle. You barely registered the movement, bottom lip between your teeth as you felt a bit lost in your head – just the slightest offput from the conversation you had just had.

“Are you enjoying yourself?"

Harry’s voice pulled your attention away from your thoughts, shooting him a quick glance as his words registered. You nodded, a smile pulling at your lips as you saw his eyes never leave yours. “Yeah, I am.”

“Wanna get out of here?”

You fully turned to face him, standing in front of him. He saw your gaze flick between his, curious look in your eyes. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” he paused. Unable to help his eyes from falling down to your mouth, he watched the way the lightly shining lips were curved in a smile. “I just remembered something I read in a horoscope. And I was thinking … fancy a star-gazing stroll?”

It was your turn to pause, fully turning on your feet until you were standing directly in front of him. He could tell that you were trying to keep the smile from growing on your lips, but the gleam in your eyes immediately gave you away.

“I think I read something about that somewhere too,” was all you said, speaking quietly enough for just the two of you. The teasing tone of your voice, paired with the way your eyes seemed to glow more with every passing second sent a warmth straight through Harry’s stomach.

“Is that a yes?”

You let out what could only be called a giggle. “Yeah, it is.” 

Harry didn’t try to hide his giddiness a single bit and sent a short nod towards you before he was again leading you through the gallery. With a quick stop by Yanis to give him a hug and congratulate him, and a wave on your part before he was pulling you out of the gallery.

He was a few steps in front of you, holding the glass door open as you stepped out next to him. This time, he didn’t try and hide the way his eyes fell to eye your outfit, eyelids dropping slightly with a smirk on his lips.

“Christ,” he muttered, joining you by your side. He watched the way you obviously noticed his stare, giving him a small shove with your shoulder. “You really do look stunning.”

“You already said that,” you hummed. 

“Needed to be said again,” he couldn’t help but brush his fingertips over the raised orange embroidery that went up your side. “Also, I don’t know if you noticed sunshine, but we match.”

Sunshine.

You glanced down his outfit from the corner of your eye. The dark hues of both outfits along with a splash of orange looked like you guys had almost planned it. “I did notice, actually.”

“I think that’s quite sexy of us.”

You laughed, following Harry along the sidewalk.

The air outside had cooled down a bit, still warm enough that you were perfectly content in what you were wearing but not so hot that your skin felt sticky.

Harry led the way through the emptying streets, walking so close that it seemed every other step his hand hit yours. He really felt like he had been flirting with the idea of grabbing your hand for what, maybe a week now? He just wanted to grab you, hold you close.

Hell, he had been a lot closer to you than that before.

Walking through a darkened alleyway to take a quick short cut, you shuffled even closer to him. You kept your eyes focused on your surroundings out of habit, even if you were trusting where Harry was bringing you.

It was then that when his hand hit yours, it didn’t move away like it usually did and instead his pinky finger caught your own and soon he was lacing every last one of his fingertips with yours until your palms kissed.

Harry kept his gaze forward, but from the corner of his eye he saw you shoot your newly intertwined hands a quick look. While revelling in the way that your palm felt in his, and in the way that  every finger laced with his seemed to cause a tiny jolt to go  straight  through his body, he nearly missed the way you pulled yourself even closer into him.

By the time the water was invading your sight, after about fifteen minutes or so of walking in peaceful silence, Harry noticed the way you were walking so close to him your head was nearly resting on his shoulder.

He basked in the way you seemed to draw into him as much as he did you, and the way that you urged to be close to him and feel yourself against him just as much. The thought itself sent a new wave of butterflies straight through his stomach, clouding his mind as his pace slowed near the water. 

Clearing his throat, he turned to catch a glance at you. “I remember you telling me how you like to walk along the river, but you didn’t get to do it that often.”

Smiling softly at the memory of the conversation the two of you shared after running into each other at the grocery store; you thought of that as the first time you really felt captivated by Harry.

“Is this kind of what you meant?” He asked.

You glanced around, seeing a wooden boardwalk start not too far off. “Not quite.”

Turning around and tugging him by the hand, following the expanse of the water until your shoes were walking over wooden boards that hovered above the river.

Your pace slowed even more, your hand fell from his grip as you glanced around and took in the sights around you. It was a relatively calm night out, no harsh winds upsetting the murky waters. The lights ended by the street, only a soft hue for the two of you as the boats docked out on the water were barely in sight.

There didn’t seem to be any other people out near you – then realizing that you had no idea what time it was, something that wasn’t often the case and something that you enjoyed a great deal.

The moon was high and bright in the sky, with the few stars that could be seen dusting the sky. It was for sure a star-gazing stroll, just as Harry promised.

“Looks like a painting,” you spoke from next to him, gaze out over the moving surface of the water.

Nearing the railing, the two of you took slow steps along the wooden boards. Harry laughed softly from next to you, the sound carrying in the empty space.

“Have you always been into painting?” You asked, eyes trained on the wood in front of you.

Harry hummed next to you. “I think so, yeah. I guess you could say I was drawn to the arts since I was young, I remember my mum bought me a little painting kit when I was like seven or eight.”

You nodded as he continued to speak. “Started a bit more seriously through school, like getting into techniques and stuff. But I never thought I would ever try and make a career out of it or anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” Harry paused, hand pushing through his hair. “I actually studied marketing for a bit, thought I would go into business or something like that.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped past your lips, surprised by the news. “I’m sorry but I can’t picture you as a business student.”

“Yeah,” his cheeks dimpled. “Neither can I. Left after nearly two years. Then I started taking a few painting courses at a local art store and I’ve been doing just that ever since.”

“Wow,” you breathed out. “And your family they were – I mean you made everything work out for you?”

He nodded again. “Obviously I kept a job for a while, I was actually working at that little art shop for a few years too. My family was okay with it – my mum especially was always supportive. I remember when I told her I wanted to leave school to work on art she said she couldn’t imagine me doing anything else.”

“I love that,” you hummed, biting your lips together. A small part of you wished that you had that kind of unconditional support. But you kept your lips together and pushed the thoughts from your head, not wanting to bring down the mood.

“I send her some of my paintings; take them off the frame and roll them up for her. Her and my sister flew out and came to my first show over here – even though I only had two works in it.”

Mentally giving yourself a pat on the back for having correctly assumed Harry couldn’t have been an only child with the way he acted. You really did love when your hunch about someone was proven right.

“That’s really sweet,” you smiled at him. “You must miss them.”

“I do, yeah.” He hummed, catching your eyes with his for a second. “But I am glad to have moved out here. I felt like it could be temporary – I would love to live in London someday but I’m really happy to be here.”

Only nodding, you felt yourself getting lost in your own thoughts for a brief second before Harry pulled you back out of them. “What about you, you miss home much?”

Shrugging, you didn’t know what to say. “I mean a bit, in the way that anyone gets nostalgic. But,” you took a breath.

“I know this sounds terrible but honestly I don’t. It’s… exhausting to be home. I moved further away for school for a reason.”

You didn’t know what else to say, hoping that Harry would jump in with something else. You shot him a quick look, seeing his eyes intent on yours as he listened and waited for you too keep speaking.

“That’s not terrible,” he spoke quietly, after a few more seconds in silence.

You hummed, not sure what to say. Walking in silence for a few more moments and taking another breath before you chose to speak again. “My parents live hours away from each other now anyway, so I feel like there’s not really a home to go back to, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry’s voice was soft.

“You don’t need to apologize,” you smiled, small shrug in your shoulders. “Nothing to be sorry for. I’m happy to have moved away – happy to be here too.”

Harry remained quiet, giving you the chance to go on if you wanted to. Although right now you really didn’t want to – you were having such a good evening and you didn’t want to bring any of that down by discussing your family.

Quietly walking side by side, with only the moon and the stars surrounding the both of you, Harry cleared his throat once more.

“So, what was it again that you like about this place?”

“Just the mood of it,” you shot him a glance. “Something about walking along the wood – I just really like it. And I like the smell too, I know it’s probably diesel and chemicals but it’s just oddly nostalgic for me for no real reason.”

“I see that,” Harry smiled. “So other than walking out here, what other small things make you happy?”

You were confused for a second, Harry further explaining himself after you didn’t answer.

“Just like, anything that could seem insignificant that you enjoy for whatever reason at all.”

“Oh,” you hummed, a small smile tugged at your lips at the question. You didn’t know why it made your heart soar that he was asking you about this – but it just did.

“This is really dumb,” you said after a moment. “But at work, I really like it when an older customer – they’re usually regulars – when they come in with their book and they get a coffee and a little cake or a treat and just sit there for hours.”

Pausing, not sure how to explain how you felt because right now it just sounded like any other interaction with a patron. “It's a happy-sad feeling – I don’t really know why. I love that coming into my café and having a chat with me is part of their routine, but there’s also something that just makes me feel the tiniest bit sad…”

Harry remained silent, letting you explain yourself. “It’s like, sometimes you watch a movie that has a happy ending, but you can’t help but feel the slightest bit melancholic, you know?”

Your eyes darted over to him, seeing him nod. “I know the feeling, yeah.”

Harry had never really thought about that before, never paying too close attention to the other patrons when he frequented your café. “You pay close attention to a lot of regulars, huh? I thought I was special.”

You let out a laugh, shaking your head as your shoulder bumped his.

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” you teased, feeling his pace slow down, deciding to stop where you were.  You leant up against the railing that  kept you from the water.

“What about you?” You turned to him. “I know you said you didn’t want to share much about the paintings you're working on currently, but what’s something small that you like to pay attention to for your art?”

“I don’t want to bore you with every detail…” he started out, feeling like he had been speaking about his practice the entire time.

You shook your head. “I want to hear about your art – I like it.”

Harry slipped his lips between his teeth, head dipping down for a second as he felt his cheeks blush. “Well,” he started. “My current work is still very much in progress – not really ready for anyone to see or hear about it just yet.”

“But right now – or for the past year or so I’ve been really paying attention to moments between people.”

“Just … small touches or moments of intimacy, you know? Like seeing someone rest their head on someone else’s shoulder, seeing two people hug in a big crowd. Just small moments like that where you know that they’re in their own world.”

You were quiet, even after he was done speaking. Leaning your forearms against the wooden railing, feet kicking at nothing on the ground. You saw exactly what he explained – about the little touches of public, yet private, intimacy.

“I know what you mean,” you finally said, voice quiet as it carried over the space between the two of you. Harry has his back against the railing as he keeps his eyes on you.

After he realized you weren’t going to say anything else, he kept speaking. “It’s nice, you know? Seeing people wrapped up in their … love and adoration for each other like that.”

You hummed, his words swimming through your head. “Guess I never really thought about that –” cutting yourself off, before continuing even quieter, “– guess I haven’t really experienced it like that.”

Another wave of silence washed over you, before Harry turned in his place so that he could face you directly.

The reflection of the moon rippled in the water. “Have you ever been in love?”

His words caught you slightly off guard.

You had been in relationships, sure. You’d had partners tell you that they loved you, and maybe once or twice you returned the sentiment. But you didn’t really know what it meant.

“I –” you paused. “I don’t know.”

“You say that a lot.”

You could just make out Harry’s expression. The lighting was sparse, but every little dip and curve on his features were clear as day, and his eyes held that little smile they often did.

“I know,” the words were too small puffs of air past your lips.

You held your breath in, before continuing. “I’ve always thought that I’d know, but I feel like I’ve never been in it in the way that you described. Not fully. I – I don’t know.”

The way he looked at you made your heart beat just a bit faster in your chest, so loud you were sure he must be able to hear it.

“It’s okay to not know,” he spoke so softly. You didn’t even realize you were leaning in closer to him until your knee bumped his.

“Have you?” You cleared your throat, the noise breaking through the otherwise quiet surrounding. “Have you ever been in love?”

You didn’t know why you were so afraid of his answer.

“I think so, or,” Harry paused, a small furrow in his brow as his eyes were still intent on yours. “I thought so.”

This time, your heart stopped.

“Thought so?” Voice sounding a bit hoarse, you again found yourself afraid of his answer.

There was a small shrug in his shoulders. You couldn’t help but briefly think about Rory, about whether he was ever in love with her, but you shook the thought from your head.

“I guess… I guess I’ve been heartbroken before. I’ve loved, for sure. But I don’t know if I was really in love. If that makes sense.”

Maybe he really was just as confused as you were.

“I guess you don’t know until you’re really in it.” He had his bottom lip between his teeth.

“I guess you don’t,” you repeated.

What Harry wanted to tell you, was that he had never felt the way he did when he was with you.

He also didn’t know how to tell you – he really felt like he didn’t know anything at that moment either.

He was drawn to you from the first moment he had spoken to you, and found himself unable to ever get enough every time he saw you. It had been over a month and a half since he’d first walked into your café, since he’d first met you, and he couldn’t believe the way you made him swoon.

But he didn’t truly realize that, and the last thing he wanted to do was scare you off.

So instead, he reached forward so that his palm could rest under your jaw and stepped a tad closer to you. He saw you visibly leaning in to his touch, your eyelashes hitting the top of your cheeks for a brief moment with a slow blink.

“Thank you for coming tonight,” he whispered, voice low as his knuckles brushed over your jaw.

You nearly sighed at his touch, butterflies in your stomach erupting once again when he spoke so softly. He always seemed to be able to grab such a strong hold on you – both physically and metaphorically – but all while treating you with the gentlest of touches. “Of course.”

“I really,” he paused with his own sigh. Hand on your jaw sliding over your skin, grabbing a light hold at the back of your neck. “I really like spending time with you like this.”

Only able to nod, almost having to look away from his intense gaze. There was nothing else to look at though, nothing else you wanted to look at. 

“Me too.” The words were barely there, just a pass of air from the back of your throat.

You felt his other hand smooth over your spine, fingertips finding your waist as he seemed to be blindly tracing the raised orange embroidery on your dress. Further leaning into his touch, you knew your eyes were darting all around his face as you were unable to focus on just one thing.

His own eyes fell down once more to the curve of your lips, and you felt them fall parted with your tongue wetting them on instinct.

“Can I kiss you?”

Nearly wanting to giggle at the question, as he had done much more than kiss you in the past week, and since the question seemed to be just a little late, but a laugh was the last thing on your mind right then.

All you could do was nod in his grasp, your eyes never leaving his – not for one single second. After a heavy swallow and a raspy little “yes” leaving your mouth, you let your hands fall to his shoulders to embrace him closer.

He pulled you closer in a quick motion, hand on your back holding you tight. Your chest fell against his, head remaining upright with his thumb still under your jaw.

Lips pressing against yours lightly at first, like whispers of a kiss against your mouth. He pecked two, three, four kisses on your lips like that before you edged your jaw forward and let him fully capture your mouth.

Your heartbeat was loud in your ears when he fully pressed his lips against yours, with just enough pressure and desire to make your head spin. A little gasp escaped the back of your throat when he grabbed hold of your bottom lip between his, a soft nip of his teeth against the sensitive skin.

Lips parted together, never able to get enough of the way he felt against you. Harry’s tongue heatedly pushed past your lips mouth gladly opening for him. He grazed into your mouth, arm around you pulling you closer to him. Hot breath mixing together, he pushed your back against the railing behind you just a bit more so that his hips could press with yours.

His hand on your back had migrated, dancing over the curve of your bum before sliding around and giving your hip a sharp squeeze. It never rested in one place, as if he couldn’t get enough of the feeling of your body against his.

You returned his fervour, one hand smoothing over his neck until your fingertips were being pushed through his hair. Fist closing as you tugged gently on his hair, eliciting a little groan from Harry before he was licking into you once more.

Minutes passed, you had no idea how long the two of you spent like that under the stars and the moon.

He pulled away, barely, for a breath with heavy eyelids trained on you. His forehead was a millimetre away, loose curls brushing over your skin and tip of his lips brushing yours when he spoke.

“I,” he sighed, voice sounding so close to you as your eyelids just barely opened. “I – you’re unreal.”

His voice rasped slightly, as if he had just been woken up. The way he murmured  quietly against you had your head spinning, thinking about how he would sound moaning your name. 

Just as he was moving in to capture your lips with his one more time, a quiet buzzing was heard from somewhere. It took you a moment to register that it was your phone that was sitting in your purse.

“I think that’s yours,” Harry chuckled quietly, air hitting your lips as he spoke.

“Oh, fuck I’m sorry,” you pulled your arms away from him, fingers fumbling with the zipper of your bag. Pulling your phone out, you saw your brother's name flash across the screen.

You knew you should answer it, but you didn’t want to and he had already interrupted you. Declining the call with a text, telling him you couldn’t talk right now, you placed your phone back into your bag.

“Sorry about that,” you hummed, gazing back up at Harry.

“It’s not a problem,” he grinned down at you, a hand still wrapped around your waist. “It is getting late though, let me get you home, yeah?”

Waking up to a ringing phone wasn’t ideal. Especially early on your day off.

At first you thought it was your alarm, and you tried to snooze it. And then when it started ringing again, you slowly blinked yourself out of sleep to squint at the phone screen.

Realizing it was a call, realizing it was a call from your boss at seven in the morning, you sprang up.

“Hello?”

She spoke your name, seemingly relieved to hear you answering the phone. “I’m so sorry to be calling you, I know it’s your day off.”

“It’s okay,” your voice was groggy. “What’s up?”

“No one’s at the shop right now – no one’s opened.”

You jumped out of bed this time, double checking the clock on your phone to see it five minutes past seven. “What?!”

“I happened to check the cameras this morning, and no one is there. Do you think you could head over there to open?”

You let out a sigh, hearing the desperation in her voice. She was away at the moment, otherwise you knew she would do it herself. It was also lucky that she could check the security cameras from her phone, something you knew she did very rarely.

“It would just be for a bit; I can get a hold of someone else to finish off the rest of the shift.”

“Yeah I can go over,” you were already looking for your pants. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you so much,” she rushed through the phone. “Noah was supposed to open today I think, right? I’ve been trying to get a hold of him but not luck so far.”

After getting off the phone with your boss, you quickly pulled on jeans and a bra, a baggy shirt over the rest of your body before jumping to the washroom.

There had been moments where you had to get ready in a rush before, of course you had, it happened to everyone to sleep past their alarm. But the magic of the opening shift is that even if you were late to the beginning of the shift, it was always possible to get there before the café actually opened.

Today you didn’t have that pleasure, you would likely be arriving after half past seven at the earliest.

Mentally cursing Noah, you tried to the best with your hair you possibly could and roughly rubbed in some moisturizer into your skin before you were running out the door.

After a not so elegant speed walk down the street, you were unlocking the café doors and unfortunately leaving the door propped open for anyone to walk in.

And to your displeasure, people did walk in. You had a grumbling regular who was mad he couldn’t come in bright and early, you had a big family grabbing an early breakfast, you just had too many people asking you for things all while trying to open the café.

It was only after an hour that things settled a bit, that you were able to catch a breather and actually grab yourself a glass of water.

You were sat on the little stool in the back room, keeping your eye on the front counter in case anyone showed up. Updating Grace, your boss and owner of the café, on how everything was fine on your end and that you still hadn’t heard a peep from Noah who was the one supposed to open today.

It was just as you sent him one more text, that your name was heard from a familiar voice. You saw Harry poking his head through the doorway, both of your expressions mirroring the others in your surprise.

“Hey,” you sighed, running a hand over your hair, knowing you looked a bit a mess. Standing from the stool, you walked the short distance to the doorway as you leant up against it with your glass in hand.

“I thought you were off today?” He grinned dimples showing on his cheeks. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, I just – didn’t expect it is all.”

“I am,” you couldn’t help the hint of bitterness in your tone. “No one came in to open this morning – I got called in.”

You saw his eyebrows fall to a small furrow. “Oh fuck. How does that happen, no one opening?”

Only shrugging your shoulders, you took another sip of your water. You couldn’t help but gently shut your eyes, feeling your exhaust slowly overcome you.

“I don’t know. Can’t get a hold of the person who was supposed to open. I mean I’m assuming that they’re just still sleeping or something.”

“That’s shitty, and on your day off too.”

“It’s okay,” you shot him a small smile. “At least I don’t have to work the full shift today, just opening and I should be off soon, someone else is coming in to finish the shift. Did you want to get a coffee?”

“Uhm – if you were taking a little break its okay, I don’t need to –”

You cut him off with a laugh. “Stop that, I’ll get you a coffee.”

“Just to go for today,” he spoke, as you were tamping the espresso grounds. Nodding as you grabbed a paper to go cup, placing it under the portafilter and pressing the button to begin the slow and steady pour of espresso.

“What do you have going on today?” You asked, keeping your eyes on the passing seconds of the espresso pour.

“I’m actually headed over to Yanis’ place – a few of us are working on a collaboration piece together.”

“That’s so cool,” you smiled, sliding the to-go cup over to him as he grabbed a lid from where they were on the counter.

“What about you?” He returned your grin. “Get some sleep after this impromptu morning shift and before another week of work?”

“Oh, I’m actually going to be off for the next week or so,” you spoke absentmindedly. “My brother is coming to stay with me.”

“That’ll be good,” Harry mused from across you, having never heard you speak about your brother.

You only sighed, his words not really registering. “I guess.”

Not wanting to think too much about the week you were going to have to spend with your brother, you cleaned out the portafilter and tried to change the subject. “What are you working on with everyone?”

Harry was quiet for a second, eyes intent on you before he cleared his throat and answered. “It's all Yanis’ idea – he wanted a big collaboration but really, he’s the brains behind everything. We’re just starting today so honestly I’m not really sure what will come of it.”

“That sounds like it’s gonna be good,” you grinned.

“I hope so –” he paused, checking his phone, “sorry I have to head out. But I hope your day gets better and I’ll see you soon!”

You waved as he left, only a few more minutes into you were able to leave the café.

You physically felt your shoulders drop when you saw Aleena walk through the door. She had been scheduled to work today already, just coming in a bit earlier to give you a big helping hand.

“Thank you so much,” was the first thing you said when you saw her. “You are the absolute best. I promise I’ll buy you a drink, or dinner.”

She laughed. “No need for that, really. Should be Noah buying both of us dinner.”

“Yeah,” you muttered, nodding your head. “He really should be.”

She clocked in, and you waited a second before speaking again. “Is it okay if I head out now? I can stay and help if you need me to but –”

She cut you off. “Go, go. I know you have to go get your brother later today, and I’m sure you don’t want to be here right now.”

You could kiss her. “Really, thank you so much.”

You were rushing out of the café after grabbing your bag. You wanted to shower as soon as you got home, hopefully having the time for a little nap before you had to go over to the airport to greet your brother.

Just as you were turning the corner away from the café, a familiar outfit across the street caught your attention. You recognized Harry, nearly amused to see him still so close to the café. Your pace slowed down slightly, you were considering catching his attention or maybe just yelling his name across the street as you didn’t really have time to stop and chat once again.

Although any idea you had fell out of your head when you saw two more people with him, getting a better view of them as you walked along your side of the street. You recognized one of those people to be Yanis, and after a small squint you realized who the other person was.

You kept walking, eyes flitting over to the group across the street a few more times before you turned another corner and away from them. You knew you had no reason to be upset, or not upset, annoyed that Harry was spending time with his ex.

He had mentioned that they both still ran in the same circles, but you didn’t imagine that meant hanging out just on the daily. Or maybe not the daily, in fact you had no idea how often they spent time together. He had never mentioned her to you before, and you tried not to feel overly annoyed because you knew you had no real right to.

This just wasn’t coming out to be a very good day for you.

Trying to push everything about Harry and Rory out of your mind, you rushed the rest of the way home as you were slightly dreading the fact that in a few hours you were going to have to head over and greet your brother at the airport.

The first day with your brother was okay.

You were never that close growing up, for no particular reason. It wasn’t until you grew older that you realized you wished you had a better relationship with him, that you wished you could be like those siblings on TV.

He tormented you, in the way that older brothers usually did, but there was never a good side to your relationship with him. It got to a point where you began to realize that you nearly resented people for how close they were with their siblings.

Ever since your parent’s divorce, the two of you somehow grew closer and further apart. Closer in the sense that now it truly was the two of you against them, but further apart because your lives were in such different places.

He always knew  what he wanted to do in life, and he was currently doing well for himself. He had gotten married already, and was living in a nice apartment that was also close to both your parents, much closer than you were.

He was going to be spending three days with you, his idea. You knew it would be bad to say no, knowing deep down that you needed to maintain a relationship with him. You loved him – he was your brother but you didn’t necessarily want to spend three days with him.

You always came out of any interaction – even a phone call with him – exhausted and anxious about the state your life was in.

Since you were going to be taking some time off anyway, you decided to give yourself an extra two days off just so you can have some time for yourself and didn’t need to jump right back into work.

“How’s Sophie?” You asked your brother about his wife, as you unpacked some groceries you got after meeting him at the airport. They had gotten married nearly two years ago.

“We’re good, she’s good,” he seemed to pause, sitting in your recently deep cleaned kitchen.

“Yeah?” You probed further, noticing his sudden hesitation.

“She’s actually – she’s pregnant.”

You nearly dropped the knife you had just grabbed. “What?”

He nodded. “She’s due next March. We’re really excited.”

“Oh my God –” you muttered, still in the headspace where when you heard when you heard the word ‘pregnant’ it was usually followed by anxiety not joy, even if some of your friends from college had kids of their own as well.

“Congratulations,” you snapped out of it. “That’s – that’s great! Congratulations, I’m sure she’s really happy.”

“Yeah, she is. We both are.”

“That’s great,” you repeated, turning back around and busying yourself with starting to prepare dinner.

He was quiet for a second. “How about you, are you seeing anyone?”

You very rarely shared details of your personal life with your brother, unless specifically asked. And even then, it was all very vague.

“Uhm,” you didn’t know why you were pausing; you knew your answer. The question was simple, the answer was just as simple – but for some reason the reality seemed much more complicated.

But you really didn’t want to talk about that now, especially not with your brother. “No, not really.”

You only heard him hum from behind you, before he spoke again. “Oh. You know I was talking with mom – you know she was younger than you when she had me.”

Christ.

“I know,” you only muttered, not giving him the satisfaction of getting upset over his words.

“All I’m saying,” he could likely sense your annoyance. “Is that I know you’re having fun out here in the city and whatever, but you’re nearly thirty.”

You spun around, unable to hide your anger. “I’m not nearly thirty. I’m in my mid-twenties – and even if I was, so what? There’s no timeline I need to be following.”

“I’m just saying” he put up his hands in defense, as if you had been attacking him unprovoked.

You had to tell yourself to not continue down this path, he wouldn’t budge in what he was saying. “How’s work going?” He said instead.

Again, something else you didn’t feel too keen on discussing with him. “Fine.”

“If you wanted to get your foot into something else, I can probably help you with something at my company.”

Your jaw clenched. “Thanks, but I’m good.”

“Seriously – even in the New York office I could help you out. You’d probably need to intern first –”

“I said it was fine,” you cut him off, feeling worn. “Thank you, but I’m okay with what I’m doing.”

Again, he only put his hands up as if he was doing nothing wrong. You willed yourself to not feel too angry over it, knowing that you were already mentally tired and if you kept speaking with him about this you might start crying – something he’d only use against you.

After a few much needed topic changes, dinner was ready and you were playing a show the both of you used to enjoy when you were in secondary school. You didn’t go to bed very late, making his bed on the couch before you headed off to sleep as well.

Only two more days, you told yourself. It would be fine – it was your brother and everything was going to be fine.

Settling yourself into bed, phone in hand as you tentatively typed in Harry’s username into Instagram. You found it quickly, seeing him having no new posts since the time you and Mae had looked over his page. Although, there was a little circle around his icon showing that he had a story.

Curiosity getting the best of you, knowing full well your own username would show up if he were to check who was looking at his story, you tapped on the icon.

Holding your thumb down on the single picture eyeing over the three accounts that were tagged in the story.

You paused when you read over a username that contained the name ��Rory’.

So he had been spending the day with her.

You tapped on her username, watching the app take you to her account. It was a public page, with a pretty hefty following. You scrolled through rows of images, tapping on a few here and there to further inspect the posts. Most were about her art, some pictures of herself and her friends here and there but nothing out of the ordinary for a twenty-something woman.

Holy shit. You were about two years deep on her account, seeing pictures from a show she had in Berlin. You couldn’t help feel the slightest bit impressed.

Going over to her tagged photos, you scrolled a bit seeing mostly photos with friends and a few of what you figured were her art works.

The one that caught your eye, though, was a painting that seemed familiar to you for some reason.

Going over to the image, you realized why there was an air of familiarity to it. The picture was from Harry’s Instagram, a painting he had done of her back in early 2018.

His style had seemingly slightly evolved since then, but it was still very much him. The painting was of the side of her face, the setting around her not very defined so all the focus was on her profile. She was looking away, the side of her face painted in hues of gold and yellow that blended into her dark hair.

Green and yellow surrounded her, like she was outside during a sunset – it was a beautiful painting of her. The caption read “inspiration”.

You shrank back into bed.

The post was about two and a half years ago, it was in the past and you shouldn’t be overthinking it. But you felt small in comparison.

She had clearly been his muse, of some kind and the fact that he was still spending time with her just was sitting right with you.

You knew, a huge part of you knew that you shouldn’t be thinking about this. You tried to think back to all the stomach fluttering and weak-kneed kisses he had given you, the way that every touch of his skin on yours felt so right.

You thought back to the other night, the nearly romantic conversation you had shared before he kissed any anxiety or fear out of you.

But still, a smaller but louder part of you was telling you that it didn’t mean as much as you originally thought it did.

The day seemed to be one thing after another, and just as you were about to shut off your phone and try not to cry because you knew it’d make you feel silly, your phone buzzed with a text.

Again, this day was just one thing after another. It was Grace, your boss, asking you to cover Noah’s shift tomorrow. He had taken the weekend off last minute, and his 9-3 tomorrow couldn’t be covered by anyone else.

Typing back an annoyed ‘yes’, this time you couldn’t help but feel truly upset. You were exhausted from work, honestly. You knew you would still have some time off, and Grace was so kind to you, but you were just. Tired. 

[linkspooky]

hey, can you share your thoughts and opinions on dazai osamu's no longer human?(just the book and not in connection with bsd) i read it, i liked it, but i couldnt really relate to it. so im wondering if i should read the setting sun or not. what do you think abt this book?

I don’t think books really need to be relatable to be impactful, but context can help you understand it. In general my advice is the best way to understand a book is to read more books like it. Always, read more books. 

Sure, I can write a repsonse to the text though. The book, not the anime. (Ignore the picture of Dazai, he’s just there to look cute.)

The biggest and most important idea in No Longer Human (Ningen Shikakku).  The most literal translation of the title being  (人間失格)  "Disqualified From Being Human. I bring this up, because use of the character in the title has specific meaning.

人 (hito) : human, person 人間 (ningen): human Generally speaking, 人 is used for people, while 人間 is used for humans as a taxonomic classification. 

Much like English, the fact that a person is a human is usually a given, because in our world, we call those who are humane “people,” and only humans can be humane. Just like you wouldn’t usually count humans with “three humans” and say “three people” instead, the usual way to count three humans in Japanese would also be 三人 instead of 三人間.  “Human society” is 人間社会, etc.

Or to shorten  人 (hito) : human, person 人間 (ningen): human, biological.

So, there’s an extra nuannce there in the translation. The title of the book uses “ningen” as in the sense of taxonomical classification. So, it’s like saying “disqualified from being considered as a part of the human species.” 

I go this far in my intro because most consider Dazai’s work to be a response to Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, (he name drops both Dostoevsky and the novel itself). Both of these novels portray society as a whole as an antagonistic force to one individual, who is considered an outsider to that same society. There’s a lot of similarities between the protagonists, both Raksolnikov and Yozo are terminally ill, show signs of mental illness, and both are characters who show incredible self-awareness and moments of self reflection while at the same time being unable to connect to the feelings or identify with the people around them in any healthy way. 

To connect back to my little rant on the translation of the title though, what could disqualify a person from being considered a human being? Well, they could commit a crime for instance. Then they’d be classified as a crimminal. 

Both protagonists of both novels are crimminals in a sense. However, that’s about where the similarities end. NLH is centrally about the main characters egoism. Society matters so little in NLH, society is just something that hangs ominously in the background to the outsider. 

Now there’s another novel by Dostoevsky that similiarly is recorded in a journal format, and is mainly about the main characters Ego.  Notes from Underground is considered to be one of Dos’s first existentialist novels. Existentialism (to oversimplify) in a sense of what does existing in this world mean? 

That’s why I say the central conflict is not with society itself, but rather within the character’s own head. The outsiders of society only exist within their own heads. Their main challenge is not to grapple with society, morality and law like Raskolnikov but rather to figure out what is inside their own heads and what they live for. 

Which is why the protagonists of both novels are terrible egoists. Their main personality trait is their egocentrism, or rather their inability or unwillingness to try to see or understand the feelings or experiences of others. They are first person narrators who only see the world from their own point of view, but they are not objectve narrators. The only thing they can see, the only thing they can relate to, the only thing they can convey is their feelings to the reader. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald writes a similiar novel from a similiar point of view in This Side of Paraidse, which shows the journey of one young man born into a rich family who grows up to not only lose the love of his life, but also to squander all his fortunes at the end of the story. However, Fitzgerald drops all pretense on what the story is about. The chapter titles are things like, the romantic egoist, the egoist considers, narcissus off duty, all the way to the egoist becomes a personage. 

The book ends like this. 

He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky.

“I know myself,” he cried, “but that is all.” 

It’s an egoists journey to developing a personality. To way oversimplify again, ego is yourself that exists in your own head, personage is what you show to others. At the end of This Side of Paradise, the main character gains himself, while at the end of NLH the protagonist loses himself. It’s the same journey but in reverse, it’s a net loss, it’s tragic. 

NLH, This Side of Paradise, and Notes from the Underground are all about egoists who are aware of their own feelings, but aren’t aware of the feelings of others. They’re all ridiculously self absorbed individuals. That’s actually, like, the unreliable narrator trick of the novel. 

Yozo is sympathetic yes, he’s an outsider to society, but at the same time Yozo is not the helpless, miserable victim he portrays himself as. He is not the victim to a cruel society, one he comes from a place of privilege and two he becomes a perpetrator. Hence, the whole... crime and punishment allusions. It’s this added complexity to Yozo that’s what makes the book as brilliant as it is. Yozo is someone who is both victim and perpetrator, but he only sees himself as a victim and the story he tells paints him exclusively as a victim. 

But Yozo’s central problem isn’t society its himself. His conflict and greatest obstacle is always his own ego. The reason we read the book biographically, is because we see him grow up, or rather fail to grow up. As a kid he is sympathetic, as an adult he’s a pretty serial user of people. 

Yozo constantly asks for sympathy, but at the same time he’s not really one to sympathize with others. When he tries to commit suicide with a woman, he reports these events with no remorse at all. 

I removed my coat andput it in the same spot.

We entered the water together.

She died. I was saved. 

He seems real broken up about it. 

That’s also a pattern that repeats again and again with Yozo. If you want to see the real nature of Yozo’s character you should see how he treats both women and children. They exist to make him happy, to soothe his misery, and when they don’t he leaves them. 

Like, out of context. What does this sound like. 

What a holy thing uncorrupted virginity is, I thought. 

I had never slept with a virgin, a girl younger than myself. I’d marry her.

The few times we do meet outside characters we see that Yozo is someone referred to as a crimminal, but refers to himself as a victim. 

“Don’t be cheeky now, I for one have never been tied up like a common crimminal the way you have.” 

I was taken aback. Horiki at heart did not treat me like a fully human being.

If you read No Longer Human as a response to Crime and Punishment, you could even read the many women that Yozo falls into flings with and then promptly abandons as a response to Raskolnikov and Sonya. For Yozo, each woman he meets is his Sonya, they are meant to redeem him and bring him peace, and whn they don’t he leaves. Yozo someone missing the point that, Raskolnikov loved Sonya because he sympathized with her circumstances and suffering while Yozo really only ever cares about his own suffering. 

To bring the discussion back to Notes from the Underground. It’s a story divided into two parts, that really doesn’t work without the second part of the story. In the first part, as we are just fed the main character’s thoughts he looks like some kind of revolutionary philosopher. Then in the second we follow the character though a day in his life and he’s just sort of... socially awkward. He’s not some brilliant thinker, he’s just an outsider who can’t connect with others, like Yozo. The second part is necessary to underwrite the first because in the first part of the journal he looks like a champion, and in the second he’s just pathetic. He’s just some guy. Notes from the Underground also has one of my favorite lines in all of fiction. 

"They won't let me ... I can't be good!" I managed to articulate; then I went to the sofa, fell on it face downwards, and sobbed on it for a quarter of an hour in genuine hysterics. She came close to me, put her arms round me and stayed motionless in that position.

The protagonist encounters a young prostitute name Liza, he tries to save her at first, but then turns around and starts to treat her terribly and has a mental breakdown in front of her that ends in this line. She finds him pitiable, and comforts him in that moment. 

However, after this moment of comfort he then he goes back to treating her terribly once more. He yells at her, and she grows tired of him. He pays her and she leaves and that’s the end of that relationship. 

See it’s a moment that’s simultaneously, a moment of human connection, but also it shows how the protagonist regards other people and why he can’t connect to them. If you only use other people to comfort your loneliness, you’re going to end up alone either way. The same way the Narrator uses Liza, Yozo chronically uses women. 

However, at the same time. 

“They won’t let me... I can’t be good.” 

Is what I consider the most striking lines in all of fiction. It is both an avoidance or responsibility, and at the same time an utterance of the baisc human desire to be good. It's always everyone else's fault, the problem is with other people. Yet both Narrator, and Yozo want to be good people, they want to connect with others. 

Yozo and the Narrator are crimminals. They are bad people. (A person who has committed a crime isn’t necessarily a bad person but..) However, being a crimminal does not disqualify you as a human being. They are still people who are suffering. The secondary goal of a novel like Crime and Punishment is to show St. Petersburg as a city where everyone is human, and everyone suffers, good and bad people alike. Yozo and the Narrator are miserable, and there’s humanity in that misery. You don’t have to even connect to their feelings, isn’t it bad to see a person suffering? Doesn’t that elicit an emotional response because nobody wants to see other people suffering and in pain. That’s the basic humanity in these characters. Yozo and Narrator aren’t inhuman. They’re just like... normal people. They are anxious, avoidant. They are terminally insecure. They’re socially awkward. They understand themselves better than other people. Those are all just normal human sentiments shared by everyone, it’s just Yozo and Narrator are so egocentric they act like they’re the only people in the world.

Yet the same, just like the moment Liza sympathized with a man who treated her terribly and only saw her as a prostitute, people still sympathize with miserable people and want to ease the suffering of others. That’s why Dazai writes stories for miserable people.

I am writing a tired story for young readers,

not because I want to be different,

or because I am unconcerned with young readers’ tastes.

I write it rather because I know it will please them.

Young readers are tired and old themselves these days,

and my story can bring them no discomfort and no surprises.

It is a story for those who have lost hope.

                                                                       (Osamu Dazai, Of Women)

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: What Makes The Existential Dread Of Flowers of Evil Work So Well?

  Flowers of Evil is a story that grapples with difficult material: adolescent perversion, bullying, depression, and self-harm. But when the anime adaptation aired in the spring of 2013, the topic du jour was the rotoscoping. Director Hiroshi Nagahama and crew made the decision not to simply replicate the character designs from the manga but to adapt them via an aesthetic designed to make the viewer uncomfortable. The final character models, based on real-life actors playing the parts in each scene, evoke the uncanny valley between fleshy humans and simple, noseless anime characters. Critics couldn’t make up their minds: was the Flowers of Evil anime "an utter trainwreck?" A masterpiece that looks and sounds like no other anime ever made? Or a bundle of great ideas foiled — or, perversely, strengthened — by bad execution?

  With the passage of time, we can look back on Flowers of Evil as it was, rather than what it could or should have been. For instance, we can discuss how wild it is that they managed to convince both Noko, the lead vocalist of underground rock band Shinsei Kamattechan, and Mariko Goto, lead vocalist of jazz-punk band Midori, to guest on the show’s theme song. We can discuss how the show predicts Nagahama’s future career, with later projects like The Reflection and Uzumaki stretching the boundaries of what is traditionally considered “anime.” But today, we’re going to talk about how the series develops its setting: a small town in Gunma prefecture surrounded by mountains.

    Flowers of Evil’s backgrounds were created by Studio Pablo, one of the most famous background art studios of the past decade. Their sizable body of work includes contributions to shows like Penguindrum, Revue Starlight, and Sonny Boy. But nothing else they’ve ever done looks as worn, rusty, and scummy as their work on Flowers of Evil. This is not a story set in the exciting Tokyo neighborhoods or picturesque tourist spots of other Japanese anime. It lacks the nostalgic haze that livens up FLCL’s crappy town of Mabase. The signs are bent. The metal is rusty. The roads are dark. It’s an old town, a dying town. A town that, in the eyes of the protagonist Kasuga, is festering with evil.

  Each shot in the first episode is framed in the most oppressive way possible. Here, Kasuga is framed through the iron bars of a fence. There, Kasuga and his friends are held within the reflection of a traffic mirror pole. The structure of the episode itself is repetitive, so as to drive home the banality of each day. The same city landmarks repeat. Even Kasuga himself notices, taking a moment at the doors of his school to look away toward the mountains. What lies beyond those mountains? In the anime adaptation’s 13 episodes, the viewer will never find out.

    It’s not hard to recognize and even sympathize with Kasuga’s feelings of alienation. Unfortunately, Kasuga is a jerk. He believes himself to be better than his classmates because he’s read Charles Baudelaire. He crushes helplessly on his classmate Saeki, revering her as a saint, but then steals her gym clothes and wails about it. Depending on your perspective, you might see Kasuga as awful, sympathetic, or even ridiculous. But he is understandable because, from the very first episode, we are taught to see the world through his eyes. The rust, the back alleys, the faded brown signs. The environments of Flowers of Evil reflect an outlook. They are the show’s ace in the hole, an empathy generation device constructed through careful world-building. It is through this world that we learn the stakes.

  Flowers of Evil is a horror story. There are no monsters or killers. The horror is far more banal. It is the horror that Kasuga feels as he walks the same route to school each day. It is the horror that torments Kasuga’s tormentor and friend Nakamura as she futilely looks beyond the mountains surrounding their town. They act out because they are horny teenagers, but also because they are afraid. The fear that drives them is the fear of suffocation. The fear that the world is a locked box and that there is no other option but to die without ever being understood. That in the spring of youth, there will be nothing else.

    It’s a distinctly adolescent nihilism, the fear that nothing will ever matter. It’s a fear I can’t help but remember from my own teenage years — the feeling of walking through a dark train tunnel, futilely searching for the exit while knowing you might never make it to the end. Flowers of Evil grapples directly with this nihilism but refuses to be defined by it. The world built by Studio Pablo, Hiroshi Nagahama, and his crew is infected by Kasuga’s fears and biases, but it is not his. With time we learn that his crush Saeki is not a saint but an ordinary person. We learn that Kasuga and Nakamura, who are convinced nobody will ever understand them, are capable through great effort of understanding each other and sharing each other’s joy. Were the Flowers of Evil anime renewed for a second or third season, we would learn that the story of the comic is not a tragedy but a coming of age story. 

  The ultimate cruelty of the Flowers of Evil anime adaptation is that we were never given that second or third season. Kasuga and Nakamura remain trapped by those mountains, left hanging between liberty and despair. I couldn’t help but be frustrated when I first saw the show’s final episode. Now, I think about the mountains surrounding my own life. The melting of the ice caps, the instability of democracy in the United States and abroad, the societal inequality that enriches a few and abandons many more to suffer and die. Just like the last episode of Flowers of Evil is haunted by flashes of future catharsis deferred, the years in which we live are stalked by visions of an ending. I remind myself: surrounded by those mountains, Kasuga and Nakamura are friends. Is that enough? I don’t know.

  What’s your favorite anime that made you feel bad? Are you excited for Hiroshi Nagahama’s new series Uzumaki? Have you listened to Mariko Goto’s wild album Aratamemashite, hajimemashite, Midori desu? Let us know in the comments!

      Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he isn't thinking about Shinsei Kamattechan, he sporadically contributes with a loose coalition of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at: @wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[normal-thoughts-official]

Fandom racism anon here and yeah absolutely (I didn't realise I had anon on lol)

Because while LOTR has problems within its themes (ie the orcs can be seen as to be coded as people of colour, especially since they ride elephants) the explicit message of the book is evil bad

Because the only people who work for sauron are evil. There are no morally grey people, they aren't misguided or tricked they just are evil and want to take over the world

And yeah I totally agree that this is more of a literal take on like empirical war (is that the word) and that makes total sense considering Tolkiens history

Whereas I would say that the allegories in shaowhunters is way more based on racial conflict within a country itself especially slavery, I can't remember if this is show Canon but is it that they have the warlock tropheys? I remember that in the books magnus talks about shadowhunters hanging warlock marks on their walls? (sorry to bring the books up)

Idk it's very hollow to me, unlike with LOTR though it's a different allegory it's totally irritating to show many of these supremecists as morally misled. LOTR says bad guys are bad guys, shadowhunters says well yeah they did follow a guy which thinks that downworlders are subhuman and should be eradicated but they just made a mistake

I want to compare this to tfatws which while it isn't really fantasy I just feel like it shows how the priorities of the writer can impact the message of the show so powerfully (I know u aren't up to date so I'm gonna be pretty vague)

There's a scene in tfatws where the new white perfect captain America does something bad and doesn't pay for the consequences - done to comment on white privelege and how America condones white supremacy and how Sam is in comparison to that

Mayrse and Robert revealed to be part of the circle! And paid no consequences Shock horror my parents were the bad guys (even rho they were either implicitly or explicitly extremely racist the entire time) also I haven't finished the seires but do the lightwoods ever try to get their parents to face the consequences?)

Only one actual really critiques the situation and the reality behind it whereas the other one is just to centre the white characters once again and present them in a further sympathetic light

AND ANOTHER THING! I was mostly talking about show Canon here and I'm sorry to bring up the books but I literally can't believe I hadn't picked up in this before.

So like downworlders = people of colour, Simon is a vampire so is coded as a person of colour. However in the books in the last one he stops being a vampire and becomes a shadowhunters instead, coincidentally that's also when he starts dating Izzy HOW IS THIS ABLE TO HAPPEN!!????

I mean I know cassandra clare is lazy right? The original seires is by far the worst of all her writings but come ON!!!!! By the allegory has he become the white man!????? These books made no fuckin sense when I read them at 15 and they make no sense now I'm digressing anyways

I don't know man I wrote this ask because I was trying to find some fantasy book recommendations on booktube and SO MANY of them were about slavery or general ly extrême préjudice with à White protagonist to save this 'poor souls'.

Also I was watching guardians of the galexy the other day and realised nearly every movie set in space is just bigger stakes imperialism - planets instead of countries. Literally star wars, star trek, guardians of the galexy 2, avengers infinity war - all are facing genocidal imperialistic villains without actually paying much, if any attention to those effected

Just writing this ask made me exhausted I'm so tired of lazy writing and exploiting other people's struggle. I'm white and I'm trying to be more critical about the movies, shows and books I watch and read but let me know if I said something off here❤️❤️ you gotta get up to date with tfatws man, Sambucky nation is THRIVING!!!!

i'm not sure i agree that the whole "the evil people are evil" thing is a good thing, because i feel like more often than not making the bad characters just like... unidimensionally evil just means that the reader will be like "lol i could NEVER be that guy" and when it comes to racism that is a dangerous road to take because white people already believe that racism is something that Only The Most Evil People, Ergo, Not Me, Can Do, which makes discussions of stuff like subconscious racial bias and active antiracist work become more difficult because people don't believe they CAN be racist unless they're like, Lord Voldemort

which is not to say that racism should be treated as morally ambiguous, just that the workings of racism should be represented as something that is not done only by the Most Hardcore And Evil, but rather as a part of a system of oppression that affects the way everyone sees the world and interacts with it and lives in it

yes the warlock trophies are mentioned in the show, albeit very quickly (there is a circle member who tells magnus that his cat eyes will make "a nice addition to his collection" and then it's never mentioned again because this is sh and we love using racism for shock value but then not actually treating it as a serious plot point or something that affects oppressed ppl). and you are absolutely right, shadowhunters (and hp, and most fantasy books) has genocide as its core conflict and treats it, like you said, in a very hollow way, treating racism as both not a big deal and not something that is part of a system of oppression, but really the actions of a few Very Bad People. it's almost impressive how they manage to do both at the same time tbh

i think you hit the nail right on the head with this comment, actually. for most of these works, racism is SHOCK VALUE. it's just like "lol isn't it bad that this bad guy wants to kill a gazillion people just because they are muggles? now that is fucked up" but it's not actually an issue. in fact, when this guy is defeated, the whole problem is over! racism is not something that is embedded into that world, it's not a systemic issue, it's not even actually part of what drives the plot. the things that led to this person not only existing but rising to power and gathering enough followers to be a real threat to the whole world are never mentioned. it's like racists are born out of thin air, which is dangerously close to implying that racism is just a natural part of life, tbh

anyway my point is, it is never supposed to be questioned, it is never part of a deeper plot or story, its implications are barely addressed except for a few fleeting comments them and there; so, it's not a critique, it's shock value, even though it is frequently disguised as a critique (which is always empty and shallow anyway. like what is the REAL critique in works like hp or sh/tsc other than "genocide is bad"? wow such a groundbreaking take evelyn)

about simon and the book thing: i actually knew about this and the weird thing about this is that, like... simon is jewish, and he's implied to be ashkenazi (calls his grandma bubbe which is yiddish, which is a language spoken by the ashkenazi ppl), and it seems like cc is always toeing the line between him being accepted by shadowhunters and then not accepted by them, which sounds a lot like antisemitic tropes and history of swinging between (ashkenazi) jewish ppl being seen as the model minority myth and thus used as an example by white christians, and being hated and persecuted. i'm not super qualified to talk about this since i'm not jewish and i'm still learning about/unlearning antisemitism and its tropes, and i don't really have a fully formed thought on that, tbh; it just reminds me of the whole "model minority" swinging, where one second simon is part of the majority, the other he's not, but always he is supposed to give up a part of himself and his identity in other to be "assimilated" by shadowhunter culture. this article (link) covers a book on jewish people and assimilationism into USan culture, this article (link) covers british jews' relationship with being considered an ethnic group, and this article (link) talks a bit about the model minority myth from the perspective of an asian jewish woman

it just really calls to my attention that cc chose to make her ashkenazi jewish character start off as a downworlder and then become a shadowhunter. i don't think she made that decision as a conscious nod to this history, because it would require being informed on antisemitism lol but it's incredible how you can always see bigoted stereotypes shining through her narrative choices completely by accident. it just really shows how ingrained it is in our collective minds and culture

and anyway, making a character go from the oppressed group to just suddenly become the oppressor is just. wtf. not how oppression works, but most of all, really disrespectful, especially because she clearly treats it as an "upgrade"/"glowup" that earns him the Love Of His Life

also, out of curiosity, are you french? it seems like your autocorrect changed a few words and i'm pretty sure extrême and préjudice are the french versions of these words, and since u said ur white, that's where my money would be lol

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hello! My story has several protagonists (multiple POVs) but there is that one character that kinda holds everything together and through whom the reader is driven in the story (like Ned in Asoiaf I guess? If that makes any sense?). The thing is, the character is not "likable", not the hero-type, and makes some wrong/hard/brutal decisions (their arc ends in a positive way though). Could it be a problem for readers to engage w the whole story since this character is key 4 its development?

Difficult to Like vs Impossible to Like (and How to Make a Difficult Character Likable)

Here’s the thing... unless your character is a completely irredeemable monster who is the villain of the story, there is no reason to have an unlikable character. With the exception of some villains, unlikable characters are just lazy writing.

“Unlikable” doesn’t mean “difficult to like,” it means “impossible to like.” An unlikable character is meant to be feared, hated, and loathed. And when a character isn’t meant to be an irredeemable villain, why would you want a character to be hated and loathed? You wouldn’t... 

Since you’re familiar with ASoIaF (Game of Thrones, for anyone who doesn’t know...), let’s use that as an example. (*** SPOILERS, obviously, for anyone who hasn’t caught up with the books and show) ASoIaF has LOTS of awful, bad, and morally gray characters... the Jamie Lannister, Theon Greyjoy, Cersei Lannister, Melisandre, the Hound... the list goes on and on... but while some people might not like these characters, and some may even hate them (let’s face it, humans are complex just like the characters modeled after us), none of these characters are impossible to like. In fact, these characters have many fans. So, while these characters may be difficult to like at times, they’re not impossible to like. And that’s what’s important about them--they’re not impossible to like, which is important because they all play such an important role in the story. If they were impossible to like, we wouldn’t care about them at all. 

So, what makes these characters likable even though they do terrible things? They all have relatable struggles, sympathetic back stories, motivations that are misguided rather than malicious. Cersei doesn’t do every awful thing she does because she’s evil and power hungry... she does it because she is loyal to her family, and because she wants her children to rule Westeros. And later she’s motivated purely by hate and revenge. Theon Greyjoy didn’t ask to be ripped away from his family and culture as a child, only to be placed in a foreign court where he would be stuck between two great families but never fully accepted by either one. Every horrible thing he did was in service to the family he was desperate to get back to, and the culture he deeply wanted to prove himself to be a part of. The Hound was horrifically abused by his older brother as a child, and as a result of his experiences, he became deeply misanthropic, distrusting everyone and seeing everything good as a farce. Most of these characters grow or are redeemed, in some way, over the course of the story. And for anyone having trouble liking these characters, that growth or redemption brings them around.

So, with your character, it would help a lot if you can do the following:

1) Give them relatable struggles... in other words, give the reader to connect with them on an emotional level even if they may not agree with the brutal decisions they make.

2) Give them a sympathetic motivation... even if the reader doesn’t agree with why they do the things they do, let them at least understand it on a human level. Like, pushing Bran out a window was a despicable thing, but however cavalier he was about it in the moment, Jamie was protecting his sister and their children knowing that being caught with Cersei by Bran would mean the end of everything for all of them. The reader isn’t going to understand pushing a kid out a window, but they’re going to understand doing something drastic to protect their loved ones.

3) Give them scruples... when they make those brutal decisions, show them struggling with it, weighing the options, trying to make the best decision. Make it clear to the reader why they choose what they do, and when it’s appropriate, show their concern over whether they made the right decision, or their guilt when they made the wrong one. Give them a line that they refuse to cross for any reason.

4) Give them growth and/or redemption... it sounds like you’ve got this covered, and that’s good, because allowing a difficult to like character to grow or even find redemption for the bad things they’ve done is essential to making complex, interesting characters that will keep your reader engaged.

5) Give them personality... one of the reasons the difficult to like characters in ASoIaF are, in fact, likable, is because they all have complex personalities. Jamie is charismatic, narcissistic, and sometimes witty. Theon starts out cocky and optimistic, then later he’s like a battered teddy bear. The Hound is bitter, caustic, and super snarky. They make the reader smile, laugh, cry, ooo, and aww.

If you can do these things, it won’t matter if your character isn’t the hero type or if they make a lot of brutal, sometimes wrong decisions. What will matter is that you’ve given the reader someone they can connect with, so even if they’re difficult to like, they won’t be impossible to like. This character will be one more thing that keeps your reader engaged in the story.

Good luck!

————————————————————————————————-

Have a question? My inbox is always open, but make sure to check my FAQ and post master lists first to see if I’ve already answered a similar question. :)

[itsclydebitches]

(1/?) I'm curious as to your thoughts: was there a good way to write Ironwood as CRWBY intended him, 'fundamentally good person shows signs of instability and a worrying commitment to the idea that everyone should be willing to make a sacrifice as long as he is, takes this to unacceptable extremes when a great sacrifice is called for'? I've been reading all these posts that actually make it seem like a coherent character arc, and I don't consider myself a 'bootlicker' or someone who

Always happy to explain my thoughts! Though Ironwood’s situation is incredibly complicated and I’m tired as hell right now, so apologies if this attempt at working through things is more than a little messy… 

You’re right that Salem herself fundamentally changes the heart of the “well-meaning but ultimately misguided general” setup. Meaning, normally when we see a character like Ironwood, someone military-minded and driven by pragmatism, whoever it is they’re fighting against is us. It’s a war against other humans, or at least another intelligent (and sympathetic) form of life. Ironwood’s attempted archetype here relies heavily on the assumption that he’s taking things too far when there are better, more peaceful options open to him. No, general, don’t nuke all those people even though we’re at war with them because they’re still people. No, general, don’t blow up the alien ship even though you perceive them as a threat because they feel just like we do and I, the protagonist, believe that I can make peace with them. Though RWBY doesn’t have quite that same conflict—everyone agrees that Salem needs to go—it’s nevertheless worth acknowledging that his archetype is built on a history of unsympathetic characters… who are unsympathetic because they’re choosing to harm others for needless reasons. The hardened military general is an antagonist because he takes the violent route either due to greed or a lust for power. He makes sacrifices not because they are truly necessary, but because they’re easier or better for him. He believes that this violence/sacrifice is the only answer when the audience can clearly see another, better route. Think characters like Miles Quaritch from Avatar whose goal is, ultimately, to force a peaceful people out of their home/outright kill them in order to gain access to a natural resource on their world. Even if there is, broadly speaking, a “good” reason for doing this (humanity needs that resource to solve their energy crisis) there’s no confusion that his reasons are far from justified and that he’s taken things way too far. Not only because gaining resources is, you know, not a reason to kill people, but also because Jake Sully, our hero, provides him with alternative routes that he then rejects. These people are peaceful. We can negotiate with them… but Quaritch says no. 

So this is, broadly speaking, the archetype Ironwood and Team RWBY are thrust into. He’s the general supposedly taking things too far and they’re the heroes standing in his way. Problem is, RWBY’s enemy isn’t a sympathetic, potential victim. The grimm are literally mindless beasts and Salem is a classic Big Bad. She might have a tragic backstory now, but that hasn’t impacted how we read her as a threat. She isn’t another group of humans we should be making peace with. She’s not an alien race who we just have to extend a hand to. Defeating her—in a literal way—is thus far the only possible route and that undermines the archetype Rooster Teeth wants to chuck Ironwood into. He can’t be the cold-hearted military man choosing violence over peace when peace is simply not an option.

So we have a setup where every single one of Ironwood’s decisions is automatically both sane and justified because there is an immortal grimm queen trying to kill them. And she cannot be reasoned with. Extra security? No duh you want that. Suspicious of others? No shit Beacon fell precisely because it was infiltrated. Making sacrifices? What else is there to do except roll over and let Salem win? The options presented to him were “make sacrifice” or “everyone absolutely dies” so no, in this case the sacrifice is not deemed “unnecessary” and therefore something that we can criticize him for. Ironwood is not fighting a powerful but also potentially sympathetic enemy, inviting a perspective that his actions may be too severe in the face of that threat. Salem isn’t a Darth Vader who is going to turn back to the light when she sees her child. She isn’t a Sauron with a convenient Achille’s heel (as of yet anyway) thereby inviting an easy solution that doesn’t risk too many lives. The grimm are not the Klingons who, if you just take the time to know their culture, you can find common ground with. They and Salem are more akin to the Borg: a relentless, unreachable, immortal force that seeks only to destroy everything. She is RWBY’s devil and thus by default any question along the lines of, “But should Ironwood really have..?” is answered with an emphatic “Yes.” Because the only other option is total annihilation for the entire world, not just the one city you’re worried about. RWBY’s villain is such a massive, unarguable threat that the setup doesn’t allow debate in regards to what’s going “too far.” By having Team RWBY and Oscar parrot those views from other stories they just come off as sounding naive, foolish, and arrogant. Salem is not an enemy that you just need to try really hard to beat in battle. She is currently immortal. She is not someone you just need to talk down. She will annihilate you and laugh while doing it. “Unnecessary sacrifice” only exists in a world where you have a chance of taking another route with success. RWBY hasn’t provided that route yet. 

Thus, most military archetypes don’t have to face the level of threat that Ironwood does. In fact, their status as antagonists largely relies on the belief that the threat isn’t severe enough to warrant whatever horrific order they’re giving. Rooster Teeth has written a character based on tropes that do not work within the scenario they’ve set up… and a good chunk of the fandom aren’t critical enough viewers to see the disconnect. They just watch that collection of tropes and characteristics and fill in the blank based on what they know from the rest of popular culture. Like a really messed up Mad Lib. “Ah! I recognize this character! He’s a military man. He’s strict at times. He’s taking control of a situation and achieving that with an army. This is all a Bad Thing and I know that because I’ve seen it a thousand times before in a thousand different stories. The powerful military man is the antagonist and the heroes are the ones who fight for the marginalized!” And thus the viewer is encouraged to prioritize that assumed reading over the actual context of this particular story. Few are willing to admit that “Leaving marginalized people behind because otherwise we will all be slaughtered” is not the same situation as something like “Outright attacking a marginalized people because I want something from them. Or abandoning them because I just don’t care.” They see the basic, surface characteristics and think they know the answer to this story. Team RWBY = good and Ironwood = bad. 

That’s only the tip of the problem though. It’s a big problem, but literally every step of the way Rooster Teeth would need to change things if they actually wanted to give Ironwood this arc in a way that made any sense: 

They would need to change how they portray Mantle going all the way back to Volume 4 because we knew straight out of the Fall that Mantle has had a lot of problems for a very long time. That’s not all on Ironwood—it’s not possible for it all to be on Ironwood—and thus it’s neither correct nor fair to paint Mantle’s dystopian-like state as his doing, as we saw at the beginning of Volume 7. 

They would need to convince us that Ironwood is actually paranoid/being overly cautious, rather than what we actually have which is… completely logical safety measures against everything that has done them in up until now. Everything Ironwood implements is in direct response to something that killed people or felled a school. 

The story would need to give Ironwood better solutions that he then rejects. Obviously this is crucial for the leaving Mantle situation. As I’ve said numerous times before, you can’t paint Ironwood as a horrific person for following the only plan they had. “Stay to die” is not a plan. If they wanted him to read as in the wrong for leaving, Team RWBY needed to give him a good reason to stay, one that doesn’t automatically equal everyone dying, especially when Ironwood’s own solution is “save at least some.” However, this also needed to happen in regards to Amity. The fandom keeps pointing out that Ironwood took resources from Mantle, painting it as this cruel and awful thing… without acknowledging the necessity of that. Or that our heroes likewise demanded that he finish. Ruby is equally responsible for taking those resources. Again, if they want to paint Ironwood as unhinged and cruel in his decision, they need to provide him with alternatives: “Hey, general! Why don’t we just use these other resources instead?” “No. They must come from Mantle.” or “Hey, general! We’re just going to let you know that finishing Amity is fundamentally useless because you can’t defeat Salem with a giant army. Maybe stop taking resources now.” “No. I don’t believe you. I’m going to forge ahead with my own plans, ignoring this new information.” Neither of these things happened. We weren’t told that there was another way to build Amity and Ironwood wasn’t told that his plan was flawed… making his decision both necessary and justified, given what he knew. To my mind, Team RWBY is far more responsible for Mantle’s state since they encouraged that drain on the resources while knowing the use of those resources wouldn’t achieve what Ironwood assumed it would. Which, while failing to paint them as heroic, likewise undermines Ironwood’s supposed villainy. Why do we hate him for this again…. when Ruby is doing the exact same thing…? 

They would need to have established, all the way back in Volume 2 and onward, a personality that allows for him to go to certain extremes, such as shooting Oscar. I don’t have the energy to dive into this one in great detail right now, but suffice to say the fandom has decided to horrendously miss-characterize Ironwood in an effort to justify an illogical action based on what we know about him. I’ve seen the “He once said he would shoot Qrow!” so often I’m literally astounded by the reach there, but I’m also seeing a lot of “Ironwood has never shown any sympathy towards children!” Which… okay. The absence of interaction is not proof of hatred. Meaning, having watched seven volumes in which Ironwood doesn’t interact with kids only tells us we don’t know how he feels about kids, not that he obviously despises them. A lack of scenes wherein Ironwood expresses his adoration for everyone under the age of twenty is not evidence for dislike, nor more than making a claim like, “Well Ruby obviously hates pears” would be. Why would she hate pears? Because we’ve never once, ever, heard her say that she likes them. She’s never spoken positively about them. Never stood up for them! So clearly they’re her least favorite food. Sound ridiculous? Same situation here. To say nothing of the fact that we do see Ironwood interacting positively with kids, if we define “kids” as “characters significantly younger than him.” We watched him desperately protect large groups of students at Beacon. Stand up for Weiss at the party despite how much that threatened his political situation with Jacques (as seen in Volume 7). Send Yang an expensive new arm purely because he knows what it’s like to lose a limb. The narrative has gone out of its way to demonstrate how kind and compassionate Ironwood is, all of which would need to be changed—if not outright erased—to give us someone capable of shooting Oscar like that. 

The fact that the fandom chooses to ignore characterization doesn’t mean it’s not there and that characterization, at its core, fundamentally hinders the “military man goes off the deep end” archetype. Because Ironwood is nothing like his parallels in popular culture. His situation is not one that he can resolve peacefully. He was not given better options that he then rejected. He has never been a cold, manipulative, cruel person. Honestly, if they wanted to write this arc then they needed someone other than James Ironwood living in the world of RWBY. We’d need a different kind of war and a different character introduced all those volumes ago. Because as it is, the story Rooster Teeth wanted to tell simply isn’t a story fit for the Ironwood and the Remnant they created. 

[ploppythespaceship]

So I watched the Artemis Fowl movie...

Usually I make a list of good things and bad things in my reviews, but in this I literally do not have one good thing to say. Artemis Fowl fails as an adaptation, and it fails as a movie. It’s almost incomprehensible how terrible this film is -- Percy Jackson looks competent by comparison. So instead of my list, I’m gonna just talk about why it sucked.

The Plot

The movie combines the plots of the first two books in the series, with a few elements from later books tossed in for good measure. In the first book, Artemis learns of the existence of fairies and takes one hostage -- Captain Holly Short -- in order to extort them. In the second book, Artemis’s father has been captured, prompting Artemis to team up with Holly to rescue him.

The problem with combining these two is that they are fundamentally different stories. The latter relies greatly on the former to be well set up. Additionally, both are rather busy stories that need time and focus to do them well. The tension of Artemis holding Holly captive works because it lasts for a significant portion of the book. The development of Artemis teaming up with Holly works because they have hated each other for over a book now. This does not happen in the film. Everything is rushed, leading to a jumbled mess that barely makes any sense.

Artemis’s father is captured by Opal Koboi (a villain from the later books who does little to nothing in this film), who demands that Artemis give her something called the Aculos (a mcguffin that the movie made up). Artemis then captures Holly, and demands the Aculos as ransom. But when the fairies have no interest in giving him this ransom, Artemis teams up with Holly. Because it turns out her father, Beechwood, stole the Aculos years ago, and Artemis’s father knew Beechwood. The fairies send in a dwarf named Mulch to break in, and he locates the Aculos in the Fowl Manor. Mulch then teams up with Artemis, and there’s a long sequence where everyone fights a troll. Once that’s done, Holly uses the Aculos to rescue Artemis’s father. The end.

If you’re thinking that this plot makes no sense, that’s because it doesn’t. Information is presented at the strangest times, making things impossible to follow. Not to mention that character allegiances are constantly shifting for no discernible reason. There is no reason for Holly to trust Artemis, or vice versa -- yet they declare themselves “forever friends” before the end of the film. I can’t even tell you why Mulch sticks around, he just does.

The movie is also terribly paced. Despite only being ninety minutes long, it feels like it drags on for an eternity. Alternating between Artemis and Holly in the opening creates a distinct lack of tension, making it impossible to stay invested in any one thing for too long. Topping the whole thing off is the movie’s framing device -- the story is narrated by Mulch, as part of an interrogation that’s never properly explained. This setup feels so unnecessary, and it’s actually jarring every time we cut back to Mulch growling his exposition at the camera.

The Characters & Actors

I cannot think of one character that has not been butchered by the writing, the acting, or both. All of them are terrible. And across the board, the acting isn’t terribly good.

Artemis Fowl

The titular character gets it the worst of everyone. In the book, he’s a criminal mastermind. He’s cold, calculating, and eerie. He behaves so much like an adult that it unsettles people. He isn’t at all interested in typical child things, instead focusing on his own lofty goals. He’s an utter genius, learning the existence of fairies all on his own and coming up with the plan to capture one himself. Though he’s sympathetic in his own way, he’s also not presented as a terribly good person. As a protagonist, he’s almost unlikable -- it’s not until later books that he learns to have friends and become a better person.

But in the movie, Artemis is about as generic a fantasy film protagonist as you can get. He’s a more or less happy child who adores his father. He likes surfing and skateboarding. He doesn’t learn about fairies on his own -- his father tells him about them. And while he’s shown to be intelligent, it’s nowhere near the genius level he should be at. He’s so watered down and uninteresting that he’s unrecognizable as the same character. Even accepting that this isn’t the book character, he’s just boring to watch. There’s nothing interesting or compelling about this random kid. Ferdia Shaw’s performance doesn’t help -- while I’ve certainly seen worse child actors, I’ve also seen far, far better.

It’s worth mentioning that some of the best moments in the books are when something rattles Artemis so badly that the walls come down and he acts like a scared little kid. These moments work because they’re rare. This movie tosses them at you left and right. I don’t know who this kid is, but it ain’t Artemis Fowl.

Holly Short

In the books, Holly is an adult woman working an adult job -- she’s a police officer. She’s also described as having medium dark skin, with the phrases “olive” and “nut brown” being used most often. So the decision to cast a fourteen year old white actress... it boggles the mind. In fairness, Lara McDonnell did a decently good job in the role. But there wasn’t much role to do a good job with. Holly is a very bland character, with all of her drive and fire from the book simply gone. There’s also a backstory tossed in about her father, Beechwood Short, which is implemented in the strangest way and only comes up when it’s strictly relevant.

Domovoi Butler

Oh, Butler. Artemis’s bodyguard slash best friend slash pseudo father figure. A tremendously important character in the books who is barely in the movie at all. His role is so cut down that it’s absurd. I guess Nonso Anonzie was doing a fine job, but he was hardly there enough for me to tell. All indication that this man is a tremendously important figure in Artemis’s life is simply gone.

Edited to add: I didn’t initially think of anything wrong with Butler being a black man for the movie, but after seeing some complaints from others... yeah I think making a character from a family that’s been servants to a rich white family for generations now into a black man is uhhhhhhhhhh. It’s questionable.

Juliet Butler

Butler’s niece, Juliet, is in the movie so little that I kept forgetting she was there. Which is a damn shame, because I actually really liked Tamara Smart from The Worst Witch already and thought she was an excellent choice for Juliet. In the book, Juliet is the only other child around, and about the only kid that Artemis will remotely consider an equal. She’s great to balance him out and keep him more grounded. In the movie? Eh. She has a handful of lines.

Mulch Diggums

As far as being accurate to the book, Mulch is probably the closest. Though the decision to make a dwarf character not actually short boggles the mind... my main complaint is that Josh Gad likes to improvise his way through scenes, and his style of comedy is pretty grating. It gets old, fast. Throw in the fact that he’s also growling all of his lines to sound different, and you have a character that’s nearly unwatchable.

Julius Root

Speaking of growling all your lines! Commander Root is played by Dame Judi Dench in this movie, changing the character’s gender. I really don’t mind that, and the characterization is largely unchanged. What I do mind is Dench’s delivery. All of her lines are growled in such a low rumble that it sounds like she’s been smoking for eighty years. It becomes impossible to take anything she says or does seriously when she’s speaking like that. Josh Gad even pokes fun at it in a scene with the two of them, saying that they sound like “hippos with a throat infection” -- the only line to get a chuckle out of me.

Artemis Fowl, Sr.

To round it off, we have Colin Farrell as Artemis’s father. And... he’s here, I guess. Farrell mostly sounds bored in all of his scenes and it’s incredibly easy to forget about him.

Angeline Fowl

But wait! A fan of the book may ask. What about Artemis’s mother? How did the movie do her? Surely they didn’t forget Artemis’s mother! And my friends, I regret to inform you that the movie did, in fact, forget Artemis’s mother. She isn’t present, nor is she even mentioned. A major part of the books, a major force to drive Artemis’s character, just... gone. Lovely.

The Production Design

The best word I can think of is uninspired. Most things are serviceable, but unimpressive, leading to the film looking very generic. I was especially disappointed with the look of the fairy underground. A combination of magic and technology has a lot of potential to look visually interesting. Instead, the fairy police just look like the E.L.F.S. from The Santa Clause. And once you’ve seen it, you’ll never unsee it. So you’re welcome.

Additionally, the action scenes tend to be poorly shot and edited. Everything is extremely fast paced with a freely floating camera -- this makes things nearly impossible to follow. Several times I said out loud “what just happened?” because I legitimately could not tell where things were in relation to each other, and who was attacking, who was being attacked, etc. Thankfully there aren’t a lot of action scenes, but the few that do exist are pretty bad.

There are also several sequences of Mulch unhinging his jaw to burrow through the ground. In the book, it’s mildly amusing, but it doesn’t at all translate to film. It’s horrifying in every sense. The CG looks rubbery and fake, and Josh Gad’s performance doesn’t at all sell it. If there were any change from the books I would actually welcome, it’s this one. There are plenty of other ways he could dig. But nope. They stuck to that one. For some reason.

In Conclusion

This is easily the worst book to film adaptation I have ever seen. Please don’t watch it unless you’re a fan of the book and want a laugh.

[eryiss]

Request: Both Addictive and Electric

Summary: After finishing filming for the final season of the fantasy series Fairy Tail, Laxus finds himself at a party. Across the dancefloor is Freed, a co-star and a man who Laxus respects more than any other actor. But his feelings are more than just respect, and the space separating them is an ocean, but Laxus wants to change that. He just needs some time. And courage. [Fraxus One Shot]

This was part of a prompt based request thing I'm doing, based off of a request to have a Fraxus Actor AU made by @veikari. I hope you all enjoy and if you have a request please leave a comment or maybe talk to me tumblr.

You can read this on FanFiction, Archive of our Own, or under the cut. Hope you enjoy it ^.^

Both Addictive and Electric

"Well, I'm sure you were bored of my voice before this even started," Makarov spoke into the microphone, getting a chuckle from the crowd. "So I'll end it here. Have a fun night, drink well, and don't do anything that'll get you in tomorrow's papers."

A cheer went through the room, and Laxus raised his glass of champagne into the air in solidarity. He was attending the wrap party for Fairy Tail's latest series, in which Laxus was a main actor. The show was a high budget, large scale fantasy drama that had been on the air for years. It had managed to shake off the comparisons to Game of Thrones and was standing strong with its own passionate audience. It was one of Laxus' largest rolls, and he was proud of the show and what he had contributed to it.

Laxus had been relatively famous since he was young, thanks to his grandfather being a well-known producer. He had been the embodiment of spoiled celebrity kid, so his grandfather had ended up refusing to give him parts based off his behaviour. After years of getting smaller parts on crappy shows, he and his grandfather made up and Laxus got an audition for a small part in Fairy Tail.

His part sort of… exploded.

Originally he was just a war general. Not overly important, more of an antagonistic rival character for the protagonist to overcome. The character got peoples attention in the first season, so he got more screen time in season two. This came with a narrative arc focused around a member of the royal family, who his character had a rivalry with. People responded well to this, and both his character and the prince were promoted to the main cast from that point. It was the best roll that he had worked for himself, and he was proud of his work.

Although he couldn't claim all the credit. He wouldn't have gotten there without Freed.

Freed played the prince and had done so perfectly. The antagonistic rivalry between the two of them – ranging from butting heads on small things to full on fights – were some of the best acting Laxus had done. When together, they dominated any scene, and somehow had managed to get along well behind the scenes without difficulty, which apparently showed in their performances. One review claimed they had an electric, addictive chemistry together.

Even thinking of the man, Laxus looked towards him.

Freed was on the other side of the dance floor. He was speaking with Mirajane – one of the lead directors of the show – and looked amazing. Laxus rarely saw him in formalwear, as both their characters mainly wore ruined clothes and were covered in dirt and blood for their story this year, and to see him so clean cut was amazing. The blonde had forgotten how good his co-star looked in a suit, and now was a cruel reminder of the fact.

His attraction to the man wasn't ideal. Laxus wasn't insecure about his sexuality, he couldn't care less. But he and Freed had some scenes that put them in less than brilliant situations if one had a crush on the other. Lots of intense arguments where they ended up face to face, quite closely; occasional falling against each other in battle scenes in positions that were somewhat compromising; and on one occasion they had to bathe in a fairly small river beside one another. That was not Laxus' favourite scene to film.

Mirajane didn't help, insisting they needed a tighter shot and that they should get closer. She knew – Laxus wasn't sure how, but she knew.

But now, their work relationship was over. The season marked the end of Fairy Tail, and therefore he and Freed would no longer be working together. It was inevitable, and it wasn't as if they would never see each other again. But they weren't going to be spending most of their days together anymore. And that wasn't the nicest feeling in the world.

As if to contrast his melancholy, a burst of laughter filled the room.

Laxus looked to the source and saw most people watching a large screen, wherein Gildarts was waist deep in a decorative fountain, and Natsu was laughing madly at him for falling in. The blooper reel had begun then; Laxus hadn't realised. He shifted his seat so that he could better watch the screen – it was cheap entertainment, but funny.

For whatever reason, the editor had put the bloopers in order of plot lines. First all the clips containing Natsu and Lucy, the main characters; then the side plot surrounding Gajeel's character; then Levy's. As a clip of Jet stumbling over a line for the fifth time ended, Laxus had finished his drink and was picking at a plate of nachos that were on his table. The next clip was familiar to him – it was located in the castle set that he and Freed had done some of their scenes in. So it was time for their bloopers now.

The first few were fairly conventional. A side actor unable to get out a line, the camera operator accidentally walking backwards into a wall during a shot, and a few other small things put in there to fill in time.

When one scene started to play, Laxus rolled his eyes but grinned. He knew the clip, it was from a scene shared by both he and Freed, where their characters were arguing viciously. On cue, with their face's inches from each other, Laxus made the mistake that Freed still refused to let him live down. Saying Freed's actual name rather than his characters'.

The second Freed heard his own name, his face quickly turned from his character's anger to his own smugness. He raised his eyebrow, smirked, and Laxus' heartbeat increased. This happened both when they filmed the scene as well as when Laxus watched it back.

"Excuse me?" Freed had said, smirking as Laxus groaned.

"Shut up," The blonde grunted.

"No, I don't think I will," Freed continued, not stepping back from their close position. "Because Laxus Dreyar- my apologies. Award winning actor, Laxus Dreyar."

"You're such a dick," Laxus chuckled.

"Has forgotten the key principal of acting," Freed kept going. "That there's a little difference between actors and their characters."

Laxus watched as he pushed Freed's face away on the screen before the clips went to whatever the next blooper was. The blonde paid no mind to it, letting his gaze drift to Freed again, who was laughing as he watched the clips with everyone else. The light was hitting him just right and he looked practically angelic, and it left a dullness in his stomach. Even despite the music and the sound of the video, Laxus could basically hear the sound of Freed's velvet laugh. Maybe he was imagining it.

With a small sigh, he picked up the half-drunk beer he'd abandoned when the champagne had been handed out and stood up. He looked to Bickslow, who was sitting on the table with him.

"I'm gonna get some air."

"Sure," Bickslow smiled, and it was perhaps sympathetic. Bickslow was one of the few people Laxus had told about his attraction to Freed.

The blonde gave him a short nod and made his way out of the event room. He followed the signs to the fire exit and opened the door, walking out onto the metal balcony that made up the fire escape. He leant on it, cradling the beer in his hand and looking up at the sky. It was a cloudless night, meaning he had an unhindered view of the stars that hung above him. It looked pretty nice, even Laxus could admit.

Somewhat melodramatic though.

He drained his beer, a sense of sadness filling him. It was an odd feeling. Not only was he not going to see Freed as much as he would like, he was saying goodbye to the show. He'd been working on it for years, had gotten close to both the cast and crew, and it basically all over now. This hadn't happened in Laxus' career yet, and he didn't really know how to deal with it.

But, after draining his beer did nothing, he turned to the pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket. A habit he really needed to stop.

"You do know the tabloids will destroy you if they find out you do this."

Laxus' head shot around at Freed's voice, and he saw the man walking towards him with a small smile on his face. Equal parts teasing and soft; an expression only Freed could manage to create. Laxus took a single drag of the cigarette before stubbing it out and flicking it into a drain; it was just rude to smoke in Freed's face.

"I barely have one a month, hardly news," Laxus shrugged, looking over the balcony again. Freed joined him, leaning against the railing beside him.

"I think the people who wrote the multiple articles about you in men's health would disagree," Freed chuckled, and Laxus flushed a little. He'd been forced to model for that magazine five times now, being on the front cover three times. "What's wrong, Laxus?"

There was no point in arguing, but he would anyway.

"Who says anything wrong?"

"There's an open bar which you've barely used. You've smoked, which you only do when you're either stressed or sad, and you're leaning on a railing in the middle of winter when you could be inside watching a video of your co-workers making asses out of themselves."

"Smartass," Laxus muttered.

"Yes," Freed agreed, and Laxus chuckled. "So, I ask again, what's wrong?"

"Just feeling a little shit, you know," Laxus sighed. "First time saying goodbye to something I actually cared about. Not really sure how to deal with it properly."

"I can understand that. It's not a pleasant prospect," Freed nodded a little, then looked towards him. "But we still have some time left. And I've no doubt you'll be redubbing your lines when it comes to ADR, because you still haven't learned not to mumble half of your lines."

"Fuck off," Laxus grinned, but didn't deny the claim. "But yeah, I guess so. Just won't be the same, though."

"In what way, exactly?" Freed asked, and Laxus sighed.

He wanted to tell Freed. Tell him that he was going to miss spending time with him. Wanted to tell him their time in makeup was a highlight of Laxus' days for months because they got to be themselves and have fun with each other. Wanted to tell him that if he had even a little bit more confidence that he would be taking him out to his favourite burger place or sushi bar or whatever right now on their first date. Of course he couldn't say all that, so he just shrugged.

Freed looked at him for a little while but didn't say anything. He looked over the balcony with a content expression on his features, and it took a lot of restraint on Laxus' part not to ogle him. Because he really was a handsome man; unfairly so.

"You know, given your fame for playing stoic characters," Freed began, seemingly out of nowhere. "You're awfully easy to read."

"What does that mean?" Laxus asked, a little cautious.

"It means I'm going to miss you too," Freed said, tone a little soft. He shifted slightly and Laxus could feel his forearm resting against Freed's. That must have been intentional. "But if you think I'm doing the press tour with anyone but you you're incredibly mistaken."

A sense of giddiness filled Laxus, and he blushed a little at the sensation. He smiled a little but continued to look forward.

"And what if I wanna do it with someone else?"

"Well they pair us up by storyline, so the only other people you could pair with would be Bickslow or Ever," Freed chuckled. "Could you handle spending days alone with them in an un-air-conditioned room answering the same question hundreds of times?"

"And you can make it more tolerable, huh?" Laxus nudged Freed with his shoulder. "How d'you plan on doing that?"

Freed seemed to think for a moment. "How willing are you to piss off your grandfather?"

"Spent most of my teenage years doing it, why?" Laxus asked with a frown.

"Because he explicitly told us not to do anything that might get us in the tabloids," Freed had a small smirk on his face, and Laxus couldn't help the small thrill that ran through him. "And, I imagine that this would make the papers eventually."

"You gonna flash the cameraman or something?" Laxus chuckled, and Freed laughed.

"Get me another beer and I'll consider it," Freed grinned. "But actually, I want to take you to dinner tomorrow night."

"To dinner?"

"As a date, Laxus," Freed clarified, now looking directly at Laxus. The blonde felt his heart stop at the words. "Because, as fun as it's been dancing around it, the fact is I like you. I had made enough excuses as to why I shouldn't ask you out, and I'm done with it. So, Mr Dreyar, would you like to attend a press tour with someone you've been on a date on?"

Laxus waited a moment, to process, before he grinned. "Fuck yeah I would."

"Good," Freed said, and he was smiling. No smirk or grin in sight, and it made Laxus warm inside. "Now, are you still planning on spending the rest of the night out here. Because if you are then I'll inevitably be the one tasked with brining your slice of cake to you and I don't think I have the energy to fend Natsu off while doing it so you might not get any."

"Wow, you ain't willing to fight a guy so I can have some cake huh? Maybe this date ain't a good idea," Laxus teased, and Freed laughed. When he spoke again, Laxus' voice was softer. "I'll go back in a minute, fucking boiling in there, and there's too many people."

"Of course. Take your time," Freed smiled.

Freed went to walk away, but Laxus felt a sudden burst of courage flow through him. He took Freed's hand in his own and intertwined their fingers, making Freed pause and look at him with a slight cock in his eyebrow. How he had that much control over his damn eyebrows Laxus still didn't know.

"Y'know, if I'm gonna piss off Gramps, I'm gonna do it right," Laxus said in explanation, standing up and facing Freed.

"Meaning?" Freed asked.

"Meaning this," Laxus grinned.

He tugged Freed towards him, so that they were chest to chest again. Freed grinned back at him, still with that cock in his eyebrow, and Laxus didn't say anything. He placed his hand on the back of Freed's neck and pulled him that little bit closer. He leant down and closed the distance between them both, bringing their lips together in their first kiss.

It was fucking electric, and Laxus found himself addicted within an instant.

[littlemisssquiggles]

(Pt1) I just,,, is it bad that at this point I just feel exhausted with the Oscar bits and crumbs? Everyone is like “oh his development is coming just be patient!” But I’ve enjoyed him as a character since he first appeared and watching him get denied or overshadowed has just become exhausting

(Pt2) I feel bad because a episode like this would usually excite me!! We see the boi fight!! And he did good!!! I just kinda want to see him away from everyone else, like from jnr or rwby. Because at this point? I kinda feel like when he’s around them he’s used to help them, never the other way around, I’m just so tired

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Hello there anon-chan. Apologies for the super late response. Y’know, ironically enough your message reminds me of @ozcarpin​’s post from a few weeks back after V7CH5 dropped. They too expressed the same sentiments. As a fellow Pinehead myself whose favourite RWBY Character is Oscar Pine, I share in your exasperation of watching him be obscured by other characters when it comes to receiving his own development.

While I didn’t become a full-fledged Oscar Stan until the start of V5, I still feel you. Despite enjoying V5 in my first watch of the season, even now, it still kind of bothers me that we spent the majority of that season mostly watching Ozpin in control of Oscar’s body or taking control during moments which could’ve been used to allow the PLOT to flesh out Oscar a bit more especially when it came to integrating him into the hero team.

And of course, it still bothers me to no end how they handled his side of the story back in V6 especially during CH9. But do you know what one of the most upsetting parts about this is, anon-chan?

Even if one tries to express their frustration regarding Oscar’s writing within the series, you will always get those one or two comments that say:

“…Quit your complaining about Oscar not receiving any development. He’s not the main character!”

I was reading through some of the comments left in response to ozcarpin​’s post and I actually saw one or two folks hit them with that same remark and I couldn’t help but feel sympathetic for ozcarpin. It actually upsets me when other fans used that kind of remark to denounce criticism of Oscar’s treatment within the show. Mostly because, in my opinion, this remark misses the point trying to be made here.

Speaking for myself, this squiggle meister more or less falls into the same lane as ozcarpin. I am one of those Pineheads who hasn’t 100% been pleased with the way the show has treated Oscar and I’ve never really shied away from expressing my opinions in regards to that. However when I share my critiques of Oscar’s writing, I’m not implying that the Writers should make Oscar the main character of RWBY. That’s not what I’m saying.

I understand that Oscar is not a protagonist for RWBY. However, what I think some folks fail to miss is that Oscar is a part of the main cast or at least he’s supposed to be. When I look at Oscar, I see him in the same category as the JNR gang. In my eyes, JNPR have always been the deuteragonists of RWBY—the secondary huntsmen team of importance to complement our four main girls.

While RWBY hold the title of our four protagonists whose individual stories and team adventures help shape the core PLOT of RWBY, the narrative additionally follows the development of Jaune, Pyrhha (formerly), Ren and Nora since their stories make up the PLOT too.

As I mentioned in this post I made after watching the recent V7CH7, as a Pinehead, when I ask for the PLOT to focus more on Oscar as a character, I’m not implying that he should become the main character of RWBY. All I’m simply asking is that he should be given the same level of respect as a character as we’ve seen from others within the main cast. Because as I’ll repeat again, Oscar is a part of the main cast.

It is for this reason why I really enjoyed the recent episode so much. V7CH7, in my opinion, is the best I’ve seen this season utilize Oscar within a scene because rather than have him play background character to another character; this episode gave him some much needed attention. We actually got to hear Oscar express his thoughts and feelings in contrast with Ironwood’s and for me,it was really great.

This is what I’ve been hoping for. I just want the story to allow us as the audience to get to know Oscar more. To have him speak on screen, share his own ideologies and sentiments with other characters especially the ones he’s in alliance with. Maybe even see him use his opinions to support or challenge said characters on their views and see their reactions to it. 

We spent so many episodes debating whether or not Oscar is a character within RWBY that this episode felt like a breath of fresh air. I haven’t loved an Oscar moment this much since his Dojo scene with Ruby back in V5. 

But as much as I love the dojo-scene from V5, I can’t help but feel like that moment was more to help Ruby than Oscar. However, I still appreciate it a lot since it established a pinnacle moment in Ruby’s growing friendship with Oscar. I felt like I learnt more about Oscar as a person from that one conversation that he shared with Ruby back in Mistral than his entire runtime in V6; believe it or not. But this is just me. 

There are people in this FNDM who genuinely hate Oscar. Who believe he’s a useless boring character or not a character at all BECAUSE of the way the writing has handled him up until now.

As a Pinehead, it’s honestly frustrating when I go into forum discussions or search Oscar-related content on YouTube only to discover videos discussing how problematic of a character Oscar is BECAUSE of the glaring issues with his writing.

Because whether anyone wishes to admit this to themselves or not, the writing for Oscar Pine has not been the best or at least it hasn’t been as good as it could be. It’s been sometime-ish at best. Some might even call it subpar. Thus he’s left feeling as less of a character since the writing has done very little for him up; unfortunately.

According to some folks with the FNDM community, Oscar’s biggest flaw right now is his lack of proper development by the show which lends to him feeling like less of a character. And sadly to admit…at this point in the story, I’m starting to see their point.

Going to back to what I said earlier about Oscar falling in the same lane of  as JNPR, when it comes to the JNR trio, at least I can say that I know who Jaune, Ren and Nora are as characters. I can even say the same for Pyrhha. I know who these characters are because the PLOT actually paid attention to these characters when they needed focus and allowed me as the audience to get to know them.

But when Oscar needed attention to help flesh him out, instead it focused on other characters.

When we needed to see Oscar getting to know the team, it focused more on providing more insight into Ozpin’s character as a build up to the events of V6, I suppose. Even when Oz was removed from the story, the PLOT still didn’t shift gears and allowed us to see what was going through Oscar’s mind after what happened with Oz.

Instead, Oscar’s development happens mostly off-screen while the PLOT focused on other characters. And by the time we did get the chance to hear how he’s feeling, instead of actually showing us how Oscar felt, it’s said in a single line that makes the moment fall flat.

“…These past few days, I’ve been scared of the same things you were. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be me but I did some thinking, and I do know that I want to everything I can to help with whatever time I have left…” 

Gee…how swell it would’ve been for us to have seen Oscar going through all those emotions over the course of those few days, am I right? But I guess that his feelings weren’t all that important if all we got from that is a throwaway line of dialogue while not receiving much of a reaction from the other characters to Oscar being perfectly fine with possibly disappearing one day.

After V6 and after having more time to think about the events of the last season,I’ve gone into V7 with a slightly more cynical approach. 

In spite of what a few folks might interpret from my more negative opinions, I’m still respectable of the CRWBY Writers and appreciative of the effort they put into the ongoing story for RWBY. 

However that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to remain honest in my opinions. In regards to Oscar’s presence within the show, if the Writers do something with his character that I genuinely liked then I will praise it many times over given how much I love it. Hence my admiration for the Ironwood and Oscar scene from V7CH7.

However, if the Writers do something with Oscar that I didn’t enjoy or I didn’t personally feel was as good as I would’ve liked it to be, then of course I’m going to admit that when asked of my views (case in point: V6CH9) 

That being said, I’m not saying all of this to make it seem like I’m bashing you for your own opinions anon-chan and if I sound that way in my response then I humbly apologize.

What I’m basically saying is, as a fellow Pinehead, I hear your frustrations. On some level, I feel your frustration and exhaustion and share in it with some of my own. But in a hopefully much nicer tone that you’ve heard from others, I will say that perhaps there is a bit of truth to what others have said about waiting a little while longer for Oscar’s development. 

What I mean by that is, perhaps we should at least give the full season a fair chance. I’m not telling you to bottle up your frustrations. As a matter of fact, to quote, Shannon McCormick—the VA of the other half of our Man with Two Souls—what I’m saying is let’s try and “keep the faith” fam.

As of now, we are at V7CH7. We still have 6 more episodes to go before V7 concludes. As I said, CH7 did real good on Oscar and since promise of this season being an exciting one for Oscar is still in the air, let’s at least see where it goes from here. Perhaps things might pick up for the third act? 

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t starting to lose confidence for this season being a better Oscar-worthy one than the last until CH7 renewed some of my hope.  . With Oscar advising Ironwood to quote, “talk to the people you’re most afraid to”, I’m hoping that this was an indication that we might be revisiting the plot point with Oscar confronting Ruby again about telling James the truth. 

I’m hoping that CH7 isn’t the only episode we’ll get to hear Oscar speak his mind and it makes me interested to hear what he hopefully has to say for CH8.

So yeah, to reiterate—I know it might be a little tough fam but, let’s try and hold strain till the end of season. 

Admittedly, V7 is still pretty young and there have been elements to Oscar’s character and overall purpose in the plot of this season that have been teased a little for part of this season that I’m looking forward to seeing come to fruition:

Oscar confronting Ruby about revealing the whole truth to Ironwood (possibly with the last question from the Lamp of Knowledge)

Oscar unlocking his semblance which has been alluded to be a ‘great and powerful’ one that would possibly be the envy of his comrades, according to Ruby Rose.

Oscar receiving more clarity about the nature of the Merge from Ironwood (since he seems to know more about that).

Oscar reconciling with Ozpin within his mind and aiding in his reconciliation with the hero team.

Oscar helping Ironwood with his Baobab—possibly at some point suggesting that Atlas finds a way to get in communication with the kingdom of Vacuo to seek aid before their inevitable fall since Tyrian mentioned that’s what will be needed to thwart Salem’s plans for Atlas.

Oscar officially joining JNR and reviving their original huntsman team (possibly JNPR 2.0 or ALPN—one of those two, I dunno. My money still remains vehemently with JNPR 2.0)

Will these subplots actually be done? And if done, will it actually be good? Will it be disappointingly bad again? Or maybe it might be surprisingly better than we ever hoped for our boy? Will this be the case or not?

Don’t really know, to be honest. I couldn’t tell you even I wanted to. The best thing we can do for now fam is to wait and see what the rest of the story brings for Oscar and then make our own final judgments based on that once the story is fully complete. That’s pretty much all I can say.

I’m not sure what your thoughts on the recent episode were but for what it’s worth, I’m hoping that it might’ve renewed some of your hope for Oscar this season too? Even if it’s just a smidgen.

But let’s wait and see fam. We’ve got a cordial dinner episode with Formal Oscar coming up to look forward to. Here’s to seeing what that episode brings for us Pineheads.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[simonjadis]

A friend talked about a lot of geeks bemoaning how female characters aren't "allowed" to be girly anymore. I agreed with him on how they're not disallowed from being girly so much as allowed to be human.

This is SUCH a complicated topic because there ARE ways in which women are penalized, in real life and in fiction, for perceived femininity . . . but that is essentially never what these hellclowns are talking about

I’m not going to try to define femininity. It’s not exactly a cultural constant or some sort of universal truth. Even if it were, I would not really be the best authority on the subject. Or on masculinity, for that matter.

But the people saying this could mean multiple things

ONE

The first and most obvious is that they want a return to storytelling and characterization norms that our society is trying to move past. Whether it’s a soft, slightly ditzy girl with bunny ears, a feisty barmaid who wields a cast iron skillet like a cudgel, or deeply intelligent princess who is nonetheless in need of rescue (and perhaps “needs” to learn about the real world through a male protagonist’s eyes), storytelling has been filled with women for many years and they can genuinely take many roles while being “girly.” But these women, in most “traditional” media, are contrasted with Mother Figures, with Bad Women Who Are Too Darn Sexy, and with Bad Women Who Are Too Masculine. The hero might be tempted by the Too Darn Sexy, might fight and respect the Too Darn Masculine women, etc . . . but at the end, his love interest will meet an easily accessible definition of femininity (such as those I listed above) and also need his help. I should note that this can also be true of extremely good storytelling, and that a woman being feminine OR needing help during her story are not dealbreakers or even necessarily storytelling mistakes. It is that their roles and how they are morally framed within the story are so limited by their gender performance that is the problem. (Just think of how many action movies have the male protagonist have a fistfight with an enemy -- she is always going to be “too big/strong/masculine” so audiences are not supposed to care). Anyway, so people with this gripe want to see women back in these tropes, and if they see a woman with great arms being the hero, they get culture shock.

TWO

Not every character exists to be thirsted after, but for SO long, any woman who wasn’t at least twice the (white, straight, male) protagonist’s age existed, if not necessarily to be his lover, to be a potential object of temptation for the hero or thirst for the person consuming the story. Increasingly, female characters without any of the usual femininely attractive traits are appearing in media -- buff orc women, women wearing realistic armor, etc. Now, basically all of these women are going to be objects of thirst anyway, but for people seeing them as not feminine/hot enough, this feels like a waste to have that character there. Well, folks, welcome to the club. I’ve been feeling that way about so many men in stories for all of my life. However, being an adult tells me that not every character exists to be thirsted after, and that even though I do not personally thirst after a guy does not mean that no one is. Just as a gorgeous buff orc woman might be wasted on your average straight dude but adored by others, a character I wouldn’t even glance twice at as a prospective thirst object will have other people falling head over heels, no matter how much I cannot personally relate.

THREE

Sometimes, it’s just about things like hairstyle and outfit. There are very feminine women with short hair or who don’t dress in an overly provocative or “soft” manner. Not every fictional character is going to dress like Princess Jasmine, or have her tiddies out, or have long hair. They can still be hot. There are lots of ways for someone to be hot. I saw someone whine about “a bald lesbian” upon seeing a short-haired, attractive-faced woman in a trailer for Outriders (SO hyped for that game) and I was just like . . . she’s a beautiful woman on a nightmare monster planet, I’m sorry that she’s not wearing pasties, panties, and pleasers with 3-foot hair and body glitter. It’s 100% okay to have women who dress like that in the right context (fitting the story and setting, also ideally coupled with men who are dressed more or less the same -- no Conan-style false equivalences with male power fantasies either). Anyway, actual human women in real life can be hot but maybe that’s not apparent when they’re wearing their welding outfits or whatever, but I think that many brave and wise lesbians would agree with me. Also, here is the lady from Outriders who was dismissed as a “bald lesbian” when she’s likely just a player character

FOUR

Okay, here is where I might sound a little sympathetic to these dudes -- when it comes to video games, the way that graphics keep improving means that people are looking more realistic. In many ways, that is great! But it also creates a wealth of potential for characters to look, well, worse, because of details that did not exist in earlier models. For example? I watched YouTube playthroughs of the first three Uncharted games. I enjoyed them. I also spent the whole time thirsting after Nathan Drake. Well, then Uncharted 4 comes around, and suddenly he doesn’t look like Alistair Theirin’s cousin, he looks like . . . Liam Neeson? I have to be honest . . . I straight up just quit watching Uncharted 4 because looking at Nathan was no longer fun. (I’m not saying that I’d say “no” to him, but that doesn’t mean anything when you have standards like mine) So if some straight guys are feeling that women in video games are getting “uglier” because they’re getting more realistic, I’m not going to say that I sympathize exactly, but I do “get it.” I’m splitting hairs there, but whatever.

[I was going to paste a photo of Drake before and after here, but looking at them side-by-side I worry that people will roast me for being deeply shallow about video game man. they’re right]

ANYWAY

There are a ton of real women who have to dial back their femininity in real life in order to be treated with respect. Women who have to go twice as hard as they, say, cheer for sportsball in order to be viewed as a friend and fellow fan rather than as “one of the guys.” A lot of things are not designed with long nails in mind, or long hair in mind, though of course neither of those are intrinsic aspects of femininity.

There are also a lot of ways in which femininity is demanded. This performance can be required to be viewed as attractive or as “not political,” etc.

The fact that some ladies have big strong arms or wear armor in stories doesn’t mean that women aren’t allowed to be feminine. That’s a complicated subject, but this isn’t the touchstone for it. The men saying this either lack understanding . . . or are cowards.

[simonsaidthat]

“It Gets Better Later...” JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2 (also... Part 2)

Splitting up my written thoughts on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure into Parts, I’ve finished reading the manga and I’m listing each part from “least looking forward to sitting through the Anime version of to most excited for”. Which doubles as a “Worst to Best” list.

I’ve already listed Part 1: Phantom Blood as the worst entry (it’s not... that bad?) but we’re moving up to the next part that’s not AS bad as Part 1.

Part 2: Battle Tendency

(I have seen the opening, and the opening rocks).

As stated previously, I think the worst Part of Phantom Blood is Will A. Zeppeli, Hamon/Ripple, and basically the entire second half of Part 1. The strongest element of Phantom Blood was Dio trying steal the Joestar inheritance in the first half. The second half is about Johnathan learning random magic bullshit that wasn’t in the first half to find and defeat Dio who was now off-screen.

Part 2 is at least all in on the magic bullshit, so it can instead focus on applying it to its ridiculously escalating series of battles.

And I didn’t really go into greater detail about this, but Johnathan Joestar wasn’t particularly interesting either. He was just kind of a boring ‘good boy’ and any extended screen time made sitting through Part 1 harder and harder.

Joseph Joestar on the other hand was anything but boring. The strongest elements of Battle Tendency were the heroes Joseph, Caeser Zeppeli, and Lisa Lisa. Their dynamic is so good, that I’m frankly disappointed in every other JoJo Part that doesn’t have as strong a group pairing as these three.

After reading 8 different JoJo’s, Joseph might be my favorite Joestar protagonist.

...but Part 2 is still my second least favorite JoJo part.

Look, I’m reading JoJo because everyone keeps recommending the series (and the series they’re most fond of appear to be post Hamon/Ripple stuff), so Part 2 can’t help but be a roadblock in that way, but I attest that it’s not the lack of Stands that makes Part 2 a hard sit through. After all, the inclusion of Hamon/Ripple is what ruined Part 1 for me, and simply removing it would have made Phantom Blood easily in my top 3.

It’s not the Hamon/Ripple that makes Battle Tendency worse, nor is it the lack of Stands. Instead I’d say it’s because in execution, Part 2 is the total opposite of Part 1.

Part 1 had a great antagonist but a boring protagonist; Part 2 has amazing heroes, and boring villains (and one, sympathetic, cybernetic nazi to sour things further).

And I don’t like the Pillar Men.

Hirohiko Araki’s artwork is still a little rough during the early JoJo’s, that I wasn’t sure how large the Pillar Men were. I thought that maybe they were literal giants (which would have been interesting) but it may have just been a perspective thing...

Anyway, the first thing they do is walk through people and cause them to melt through contact. They seemed kind of boringly invincible beings which, to be fair, does lead to the one thing I like about the Pillar Men, is how susceptible they are to Joseph’s bluffs. This helps to elevate how unpredictable Joseph is (hence being my favorite Joestar) but it really hurts my impression of the Pillar Men in the process.

Other JoJo villains share a certain amount of “hubris” as a defining weakness for them, but the Pillar Men in particular come off as being incredibly short-sighted/dumb. They easily have the capacity to kill the heroes by contact and choose instead to give them a months time to “get stronger”.

Seriously? These are the LAST of the Hamon/Ripple Fighters, trained in the art of your only weakness (aside from sunlight which is only a mild inconvenience to them), and your willing to let them go because an idiot blow-hard “lesser being” claims that he can get stronger than you IF YOU LET HIM!!!

...this is probably why other JoJo villains either actively run away from the heroes or only get involved when there’s absolutely no other option and it’s the final battle.

I don’t know, maybe the anime adaption of Part 2 does the Pillar Men more justice (or maybe it’s been long enough for me to get a new perspective on them) but it’s agonizing knowing in advance that these “Super Vampires” are just one arc/part/block in the way of having Stand villains.

Granted, not all Stand Villains are created equal, and even though I’d be more excited to see the Anime Adaption of the next entry on the list... even the Pillar Men might be better than “that guy”.

Part Six: Stone Ocean

(Here comes the first curve ball)

Let me say this about reading through Hirohiko Araki’s writing: every JoJo parts  individual arcs, encounters, “battles”, however you’d describe magic people showing off their weirdo powers to defeat the heroes and the strange stipulations on overcoming those said weird powers;

Everything escalates to higher, grander, tenser encounters, that every Part becomes more lethal than the previous entry. Sure you can probably point to one particular Stand from parts 3-5 and say “nothing beats this”, and I would counter with “Rainbow Snails” and those in the know will hopefully know what I’m talking about.

(That or every subsequent JoJo part finds new ways to trigger some new phobia I didn’t know I had.)

Basically if you think that I would suggest that Stone Ocean, which currently does not have an anime, starring the first female JoJo, is somehow not worth making an anime adaption of, than you’d be wrong. I’d love to find out what the soundtrack of Stone Ocean is gonna sound like for one thing, and Stone Ocean has my absolute favorite supporting character!

...but this one was a disappointment.

There was a point while reading JoJo where I had basically given up on remembering any character names (probably started with Part 3), and instead focused on the general flow of the story beats; “what’s the objective right now, who’s in the way, and who has which stand in the party.” This does occasionally mean I glaze over the details of the Stand fights (which are the highlights), and by the end of reading each Part, I can only really remember what happened in the Story.

And the Story of Part 6 is not as good as its own Stand Battles. (Minor Spoilers from here on out!)

I remember being psyched for Part 6. Female JoJo (who was also Jotaro’s kid), Shawshank Redemption/Green Mile/Prison setting, Dio’s possible return, and some kind of “Universe Ending Climax” that I heard might put all other JoJo endings to shame. But, as it turns out, some of those very elements that I was initially excited for were either absent or turned out to be a detriment to Jolyne Kujo’s story.

(Turns out setting your location in a boxed prison in Florida Marshland is only fun at first. Which is probably why the set is abandoned for the last third of Stone Ocean.)

While reading Part 4, I remember thinking with Jotaro’s inclusion that “I hope Jotaro doesn’t steal the spotlight away from Josuke”. By the time I reached Part 6, I realized that it wasn’t strictly Jotaro that was a problem, but rather the reverence for Part 3′s Jotaro Kujo and DIO.

The STORY of Part 6 seems to be a love letter to Part 3, which actively ruins Part 6.

What was the point of introducing DIO’s additional offspring? As far as I can tell they add nothing to the main villains schemes, nor do they seem to behave in any meaningful way like DIO. Giving them the Joestar Birthmark is only there to convey to the audience that they’re a big deal, and they’re barely in it. And they’re only revealed/show up during the last quarter of the story!

They’re the “Knights of Ren” of the Joestar Universe. Their name/origin makes them sound like a big deal, and they’re not.

If I had to guess, I would suggest that the only reason we’re introduced to “DIO’s kids” is because we needed a group of bad guys with Stands to fight the heroes, but we did not want to explain/worry over how this group of bad guys got Stands in the first place.

The worry over minutia of canon was a poison slowly killing JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure; starting with Part 4′s “we need another JoJo, let’s say Joseph cheated on his wife to have an illegitimate son so we don’t skip forward too far into the future”, and “how did the cast of Part 3 get Stands? Let’s say a Magic Arrow did it, now there’s a Magic Arrow that gives people Stands in Part 4”, the virus of continuity returns in Part 5 and finally takes roost in Part 6.

All because we might’ve taken Part 3 a little too seriously.

Again, DIO’s kids are barely a plot device of Part 6, but I think it’s perfectly emblematic of the problems with Part 6.

Strangely when it came to characters that I liked/disliked, I was able to divide my feelings by gender lines: I really like the Female main cast of characters and I didn’t care about any of the Male main cast of characters. The closest Male character that I liked was “Weather Report” when he was just a stoic support guy, but then he gets his memory back, briefly gets a worse personality, and is thrown aside shortly after.

And then you’ve got the main villain, Enrico Pucci.

One of the joys of reading through each Part was figuring out limitations of each stand user, and the eventual identity/stand of the final boss that must somehow be a greater threat than everything else that came before. If we know the identity of the Villain (Part 3) there’s a dramatic build up to the reveal of their Stand. If we know about their Stand first (Part 5) then we can slowly unravel the identity/appearance of the Villain.

Or you can do what Stone Ocean does and give us both close to the start of the series.

And visually speaking, hinging the plot of Stone Ocean on collecting Memory CD-Rom’s and sending them to the right people is just not exciting. And using this power to steal Jotaro’s Stand Power (this is early enough in the series to be an inciting incident and only a minor spoiler) and NOT USE IT or give it to a henchmen is a wasted opportunity!

I honestly think we missed out on an opportunity to switch Stands among the Party, but I guess that sequence would’ve been too similar to one that played out in another Part.

I hope an anime adaption “changes the CD-ROMS” to be more alien-like. They can still be round-disks/CD-like/vinyl disks, but, I don’t know, have screaming faces of the damned fade in and out of the reflections (faces do occasionally show up, but their usually static portraits to convey to the audience whom the CD belongs to). Make them more horrific/alien to look at.

Voice acting and music may help change things; for a North American Dub I hope Pucci gets the same voice actor as Netflix Castlevania’s Isaac, Adetokumboh M'Cormack. It’s... a very similar role, which would be fun, but I think his voice would provide a lot more charisma for Pucci.

(Apparently Pucci in Part 6 isn’t black, he’s just ambigiously brown and born into a pale white family. I had forgotten about his family, but I’d still like the Castlevania Actor to play him for the previously stated charisma and the casting gag of a loyal servant mourning the loss of his vampire lord).

The soundtrack to this arc has got to be tight if it hopes to elevate itself from the impression I got through reading it.

Also maybe have a filler arc for more Foo Fighters (F.F.) content. (She’s likely the “Tsuyu Asui” of the JoJo Universe, and if she’s not now, she will be once she’s in an anime).

[ellynneversweet]

Ok, so I’ve finished Normal People and I have ... thoughts. Mostly about whether it succeeds or fails as a text, and what the relative metrics are by which success should be judged (it’s succeeded in getting me to think about it, for sure). This got long and a bit ranty, and does discuss the mental illness aspects of the book, so I’ve put it below the cut. Spoilers etc.

I haven’t watched the show or read any of Sally Rooney’s other books (book?) or reviews yet, because I wanted to get down what I took away from the book by itself, rather than what other people thought about it. I did see the headline of like, one review that seemed to think it was all about capitalism, which struck me as a significant stretch as a primary theme, but hey. My take was that it was primarily concerned with (many and various) degrees of mental illness and unwellness experienced by various characters, the causes and effects thereof, etc etc, and it’s really because of that that I don’t know whether or not I actually liked the book.

Ultimately I think my ambivalence comes comes down to how the narration is structured, and the way Rooney doesn’t at any point step in explicitly prompt the audience in one direction or another.

So what took me a hot minute to realise was that the book’s written in a very close third person narration, alternating between Connell and Marianne’s perspectives.The thing is, however, that this close third person isn’t immediately obvious, because Rooney subverts the whole ‘show don’t tell’ advice. There’s a lot of phrasing given as ‘she felt good’ ‘he felt anxious’ ‘then they had sex’ etc.  The most personal aspects of the plot are constantly elided with this flat, clinical, definitive language that sounds almost like a witness statement in a criminal case. That’s especially the case with Marianne, who disassociates a lot, and slightly less so with Connell, who’s anxious, but the flat description is pretty present throughout. There are moments when the narrative dips into describing sensation, but that seems to occur only with regards to things that are irrelevant and impersonal, like drinking a glass of (insert carbonated beverage here), or feeling the breeze from an air conditioner. The book is all about this very intimate, arguably co-dependant and unhealthy relationship between these two intermittently sexually involved characters, so the aforementioned flatness struck me as an odd choice initially.

However. There’s two things that this does. The first, and IMO more significant, is that is creates an illusion of the narrative voice as omniscient and impartial, rather than biased and unreliable as it actually is. The seeming authority of the definitive statements in the narrative is emphasised by the stock filler phrases that the each of the dual protagonists uses in direct dialogue, and which inevitably mean the opposite of what’s actually said — in the case of Marianne we get ‘okay’ (I disagree but I want this conversation to end) and ‘I don’t know’ (i believe this to be profoundly true but it makes me unhappy), and in the case of Connell we get ‘obviously’ (I’m not sure at all, what do you think?). So the upshot of this is that especially in the earlier parts of the novel the audience is led into thinking the description of a particular plot point is what objectively happened, rather than the biased viewpoint of one of two people who keep talking past each other (I’m thinking particularly of the part in which Connell moves home because he can’t make rent, and each of them was waiting for the other to propose his moving into her flat instead).

So it is really interesting on that level of language structure. I do feel that the section headings (‘two weeks later,’ ‘six months later,’ ‘five minutes later’) were a bit of a red herring — especially towards the climax of the book, when things became violent, I was frankly expecting it to take a schlocky turn towards one or both of the main characters being maimed or killed in a domestic violence and/or drunk driving accident, à la Jodi Piccoult.

It didn’t, which was a relief, but I didn’t subsequently find the ending satisfying, and I think that’s because the way that it ended — a breakup that’s not really a breakup, just a breather — felt like something that had occurred at least three or four times already in the text. It’s always tricky to write a satisfying ending when all the main characters are alive and young and (presumably) going to continue their lives. Why stop the narrative here, rather than there? I think for that sort of ending to work, a story does need to feel like it’s shifting into a different stage of the characters’ lives, one that can be inferred, however dimly, but is distinct enough from the part described in the text to form a natural break. This didn’t feel like a break from what had gone before. It felt like a groove in an emotional cycle that had already been repeated, that had been shown as being repeated, that gave every sign of being repeated again and again, forever and ever amen.

This leads into the part where I talk about what I didn’t like, fyi, and fair warning, mostly what I didn’t like was the characterisation of Marianne. Sorry if she’s your fave.

So Marianne gets the last word of the narrative, in which she thinks about how ‘they’ve [Marianne and Connell] been so good for each other’. And i would argue two things, which is that 1) unreliable narrator or not, this being the last part of the text gives weight to this being read as a true statement 2) this is, uh, pretty clearly not the case. Marianne’s still fundamentally the same, teetering on the edge of self-destruction, and Connell is still anxious (and being made more so by Marianne’s reaction to his small successes).

Now, neither character is perfect. They’re also not bad people -- but they are struggling people who use maladaptive coping strategies and don’t ever really appear to move past those.

At first glance, on a scale of quantifying unhappiness, Marianne gets the raw end of the stick. She’s a character who’s sympathetic and pitiable, because she starts out as the smart, bullied kid who turns out to have an abusive home life and who is brutally dumped by her first boyfriend. So far, so sad. Connell, by contrast, is much less upfront about the things that cause him trouble (although they’re very much there) and has the initial upper hand. Connell also comes off as much more self-aware than Marianne — the part where he’s lying on the floor in a post-shower depression slump reminds me of that piece that goes around tumblr occasionally, about lying on the floor sobbing about the state of the world, and simultaneously noticing that the last time you painted, you didn’t do a good job with the brushwork in the corner you’re looking at, and thinking about how you should re-do it once you finish crying.

But the thing I can’t get my head around with Marianne is how Rooney feels about her, and it boils down to this: what level of awareness and intentionality is Rooney operating at when writing about Marianne’s mental health arc? Does Rooney agree with Marianne’s self-assessment of herself as ‘better’ and ‘normal’ (ie still acting in more or less the same way as she did throughout the text, but no longer a subject of gossip) at the end of the book, or does she not?

As I mentioned, I haven’t seen the adaptation, but I’ve seen a gif or two, and what struck me as I was reading was that the way that Marianne is described as looking (and styled in the show) is reminiscent of the pop-culture caricature of Sylvia Plath — increasingly thin, indie-fashionista, bangs, statement lipstick, weird but precociously brilliant, magnetic, male muse and male victim, mentally ill in a way that is complex but always sexy and sexualised (of course she developed a cute, posh eating disorder that involved eating half an expensive sugary pastry and a sugarless black coffee every day. Of course she did).

Basically, what I want to know is, is Marianne someone Rooney wrote based on that image of Plath, or is Marianne someone cosplaying as that image of Plath, whom Rooney is consciously deconstructing?

See, I think writing Marianne as someone (possibly unintentionally) cosplaying Plath is interesting. The myth of the hot, damaged girl is pretty pervasive (Harley Quinn, the suicide girls, etc etc) and writing Marianne as a character who has legitimate issues that she has trouble facing, who then instead focuses her self-awareness into this trope of ‘acceptably damaged’ has potential. I feel like there’s an opportunity there to examine the line between struggling with a mental illness vs self-consciously performing that struggle in a way that’s socially acceptable, which is a topic that suits the period when the novel’s set.

Unfortunately though, I think Rooney is probably buying into that myth rather than  examining it, because the fact that no-one, in a book that starts in 2011 ever sits Marianne down and goes, ‘yes, I get that people have told you you’re mentally unwell as a tactic to bully you, and that was shitty, but you pretty clearly have a raging case of ptsd which is NOT YOUR FAULT, please accept some help’ — that is frankly hard to believe. Not Connell who seeks out therapy and takes some dubiously successful medication? Not Joanna, who is by all accounts well adjusted and who makes a point of caring in a friendship where she’s doing a lot the heavy lifting? Not Lorraine, parent of the decade? Not some random teacher or professor, looking out for an obviously promising student?  Really, no one?

Marianne is supposedly brilliant and a tireless researcher, but she apparently never becomes aware of the possibility that there might be ways to process her past experiences in a way that would allow her some measure of peace. Never wants it, even in the worst of times. Never ceases to wallow in her own unhappiness. And it’s relevant, I think, that in the period of the novel where Marianne is (kind of) happy, when she’s making a success of things at uni, the focus of the book is on how she’s making Connell jealous by dating an abusive man. The closes she comes to self-awareness is recognising her proclivity to seek out unhealthy relationships and decide to lean into that, in what is consistently the least unhealthy romantic relationship she has. That feels like a cop-out.

Like, I’m not suggesting that every story that features mental illness as a theme needs to show recovery. That’s, unfortunately, not always the case. Some people never get better. Some people can’t bring themselves to believe in the possibility of getting better. It’s not even the case that recovery is a straight line, when it happens. I know that. I’ve seen people I care about it struggle with a whole range of problems, I’ve struggled myself. But this felt like 13 Reasons Why for adults, like depression-porn, and I just...am a bit angry, I think, that I can’t tell if that was the intention, it that wasn’t the intention but was the outcome, or if that’s just my take and I’ve misread the thing entirely.

Obviously people can write whatever they want in fiction, but I do think that when you’re dealing with a topic that has impacted a lot of people, that’s been poorly handed in fiction in the past, you do have a responsibility to treat it sensitive and thoughtfully, and not glamorise something that is ultimately destructive under the guise of ‘this is interesting and cool, and a good way to treat yourself and others, actually.’ And I don’t know if that’s the case here.

[linkspooky]

A meta on Emma maybe?? I like seeing how she was so similar to Mama and how the series never really condemns or dissuades her from her optimism!!

So what makes Emma such a great character is that her ideals are what make the central ideology of the story, and also the world in The Promised Neverland basically exists to challenge Emma’s ideals at every single moment. Emma’s ideals are what bring her in conflict with the entire world, because the world she exists in denies her right to live as anything but cattle, but also her right to see the value in the lives of others, and both things are important to Emma’s character. 

So, while Emma has ideals that sound like they are basically every other shonen protagonists ideals ever “I want to save everyone”, and “I fight for my family and friends” what makes them unique in this case is that Emma’s ideals  are not built off of her being some weirdly pure empathy magnet, who loves their friends unconditionally, never struggles, seems too stupid to actually understand the complexity of the world. etc. etc. the kind of characterization shown in most shonen protagonists to make their personalities accomodate their ideals with little conflict. 

The fact is Emma is as smart as the other two boys, even to the point of being book smart and a cunning strategist, even if not as much as Norman and Ray she can at least always keep up with them. What is unique about Emma is she sees how unrealistic her expectations of the world are, how her ideals aren’t practical with a world at all that is trying to kill them, and Emma wants to stick to her ideals anyway. What is also unique is that she’s the fastest learning of the two, which means that Emma is the one most open to change and most adaptable which is useful not only for going into an outside world they knew nothing about with their sheltered upbringing, but also when it comes to people Emma tends to be the most understanding of others. She’s the one who always tries to encourage others to open up to her, and tries diplomacy first and reasoning rather than just fighting for survival right away. 

Emma is yet another shonen protagonist whose ideals boil down to “never give up” but her determination isn’t just to be really good at fighting, or to be the best like no one ever was. Emma’s determination specifically applies to refusing to stop caring about others in a world that pressures her to only care about her own survival. 

So from the start of the manga we’re introduced to Emma’s primary character trait. That she cares deeply about her family, she always thinks of others. The first chapter of the series, Emma realizes she’s going to die in less than two months and she has no allies other than Norman, and even Norman who is a decent guy has already suggested that just the three of them try to escape and fend for themselves, but Emma never even considered that as an option. What hurt the most to her was not her own life being in danger, but the rest of her family disappearing like Connie did. 

This is the inciting incident in which Emma’s focus and goal for the entire manga becomes the unrealistic goal of letting everyone survive, in a fight where children will be fighting against not only adults, but unknowable horrors of demons and escaping into a world they know little about. 

Every single antagonist in the manga has given up to some extent. Especially the human adults who are for the most part cattle children who became a part of the system. In the themes of the manga the most morally wrong thing to do, is to give up thinking of others and only think of your own survival. Even if the circumstances are stacked against you, even if you have sympathetic reasons for doing so, it’s still a moral wrong to sacrifice others especially innocents like children in order for you to survive as a cog in the system. The first antagonist even declares this, this is the motivation of both Krone and Isabella, they just wanted to fight back with their own survival.

When the trio first confront each other about their escape plan, it’s Emma who sets the ideals for the other two boys to follow. Even if it seems impossible, they should plan with the intention of everybody escaping. 

If the world is against their entire existence and denying their personhood, rather than conform to the world, they need to change the entire world. That’s been the overarching goal of the manga. Notice Emma’s wording, she refuses to bend on her primary ideal of saving everyone but she also thanks Ray for challenging her because it made her realize what she wanted to do. 

Emma isn’t just an idealistic idiot who only understands her own way of thinking and doesn’t accept others, she actively understands the circumstances of others, considers it, challenges it against her own and even then refuses to let go of her ideals. This is what Emma shows time and time again in the manga, because the world exists to challenge Emma’s ideals. The first real test of this is the spy, who Emma wants to save even after learning they betrayed them to mama. 

At that point Emma reconfirms her ideals again, even if they betrayed them at one point if they’re not completely evil at heart they deserve a chance to be won over to their side, and that’s the ending that Emma wants to shoot for. That’s where the key in Emma’s empathy lies, she gives others second chances believing they’re deserving of it. Her insistence is not that things like betrayal and deceipt do not exist in this world, but rather what she’s saying on a more baseline is even after that person betrays them she wants them to live so the best thing to do is try to escape with them still. Emma’s central message is live, and she continually offers others second chances to live. 

Which is why because Emma’s so accepting of others, she’s the one that inspires others to be like her, and aspire to their morals even if they believe it’s impossible to abide by those morals with the harsh reality. The reason all the other characters move and throw themselves into conflict is because they become centered around Emma’s ideals. 

When Ray confronts Emma, we get more of Emma’s idealism reinforced. Just as she said she’s willing to forgive the spy for what they did in the past as long as they never do it in the future.

Emma’s not stupid, she’s also not unaware of the circumstances, she knows that Ray had to make tough sacrifices when building for his escape plan in the future. So looking at the reality of that she decides to forgive him again, giving him a second chance. Emma is aware people lie and deceive but believes in people’s capacity to be better and therefore decides to give others a chanceand trust them again. Of course with the framing of this scene it also shows Emma as the reckless idealist again, its all on the unstable premise that Ray will never try to sacrifice someone again for the sake of the greater good, or one of their family members so escape will be easier. THe recklessness comes from the fact that sometimes when things go off track for Emma she’ll try to force it.

The next major challenge for her ideals (i’m going in broad strokes here forgive me for not recapping the entire manga) is when she has to willingly accept Norman’s sacrifice. Something that neither her nor Ray are in favor of, and try to plot around him because while Ray insists they have to sacrifice some of the siblings to escape he cannot bring himself to let Norman or Emma sacrifice themselves, whereas Emma did not want to accept any sacrifices. 

The big challenge in this moment is Emma accepting that even if she pulls things off perfectly, uses everything in her ability and intelligence, and gets everyone to cooperate people will still die. Knowing that living without losing any of their family members is impossible, will Emma continue to hold her ideals. Is Emma capable of striving or a scenario where they save everyone, if she’s forced to accept sacrifices time and time again, can her heart withstand that and still hope for the best?

We see once again Emma shows her recklessness. The same as the time with Ray, when scenarios fall far off of her ideals, like when Ray turned out to be the spy, when Norman decided to sacrifice himself, Emma gets really mad at the world and the others around her and experiences pure emotion. In a childish way she has a hard time accepting the circumstances that in her front of her and the actions of others when it doesn’t go along perfectly with her ideals, and sometimes she tries to force it by acting emotinoally, yelling, with intidimation, throwing a tantrum, Emma is just eleven after all. She’s not a perfect angel, she’s a person who continually gets frustrated that the world won’t go her way, and is out to get her loved ones. What she has the most trouble with is accepting the actions of others especially when it conflicts with her ideals, and accepting that not everybody can think the way she can. While it’s her refusal to accept sitautions that makes her so determined to change the world in the first place because she is rejecting the whole world, and the social order that dictates she’s cattle with no value, at the same time she’s also sometimes so reckless and gets frustrated the world and people around her won’t adapt to her ideals quick enough when she seees how things can be better. 

That’s her recklessness, when the chips are down she’ll always resort to what she thinks is right before anybody else, the world’s logic, or even her own safety. She nearly threw away the entire escape just to save Norman, even though Emma would never accept sacrificing the other children just so the three of them could escape alone. 

That wasn’t even her intention though, her intention was of course to save Norman, and then save the others, and insist there must have been a way out that they just hadn’t grasped yet and needed to take a risk to try to achieve. Except this time there was not one, and was not one they could think of in time, so Emma just gambled and only got away with it because Norman calmed her back down. For the first arc of the manga Norman is the one who comes up with the means to bring Emma’s ideals back to life, but after that Emma and Ray the pragmatist have to work it out between the two of them.

Without Norman it seems even more impossible, and then once again Emma is reminded of the basic moral dilmena of the manga. The fact that she’s suffering so much and struggling so hard is because she’s trying to make an impossible wish come true for the sake of everybody else around her, but she could just give up and save herself.

The world is trying to rid her of those qualities, and will punish her for every second she has them, because those unrealistic expecations and her recklessness makes survival even harder for her in a world where it was hard to survive to begin with. 

However, in the face of that Emma’s solution is to not give up. She doesn’t give up on other people, she continually gives them a chance even when they threaten her, disappoint her, or betray her, and she also doesn’t give up on the idea that she can save everyone with the mans she has as long as she uses them in the best way possible.

Emma is a high idealist, but not only does the story challenge those ideals again and again, she also puts them into practice. The story doesn’t say that Emma’s optimism is wrong, in fact the themes of the story are made by Emma’s belief, however the story does continually challenge Emma’s optimism. The central theme of the story is this, the world will do everything it can to destroy your childlike innonce, your love for your family, your value for life, your care for others, and that’s why you need to never give up on those things or throw them away willingly because the world will try to pry them away from you regardless. 

Even more cynical characters like Ray are saved by Emma’s idealism, and then become necessary to Emma’s survival. However thy would not have been saved if Emma did not reach out to them in the first place so their cynicism would have been no use. Ray literally wanted to Roast himself alive because he did not see a future where he could escape and grow up and saw that his only escape was to burn himself before he could be eaten as cattle before Emma showed him he still had a future.  

The next challenge to Emma’s ideals is Yugo who is an adult, and an escaped cattle child like them but rather than wanting to cooperate he only cares about his own survival. That time too, even though Emma is taken hostage the first time they meet, Emma insists on negotiating with him and trying to understand him, even though in her typical Emma way she doesn’t mean an entirely peaceful negotiation and is completely willing to use threats to get him to go her way. 

Yugo as somebody who started out as an idealistic kid like Emma who escaped with his whole family believing in William Minerva’s words brings up what I mentioned earlier as the way of challenging Emma’s methodology. Does she really believe in those lofty ideals, or will she give them up when she’s lost too much to continue beliving in them. For example if half of her family died from the escape attempt would she continue with the other half still aiming for trying to protect what she had left or would her heart be too broken? 

And Emma’s answer is pretty clear. Yes, her ideology is to save everyone and that naturally conflicts with the idea of losing others. Once she loses one person she’s failed to save everybody so what then, what becomes her reason for fighting? However, her answer is clear cut, that in every situation you have to keep trying to save everybody you can.

Even when you lose others, you keep going for the people that remain. So once again, Emma is not a precious baby girl with soft feelings, she’ll get angry and frustrated with people when they refuse to go her way the way she sees as best and doesn’t alway sunderstand why people don’t just shoot for the best to begin with. She doesn’t accept all the negativity in the world with a smile, she fights back, she gets angry. She refuses to bend to others and insists they bend to her instead just like her first fight with Ray. 

Not only that but Emma is extremely confrontational and always tries to talk things out as fast as possible even when it’s easier to avoid things, or to just not deal with people. Yugo was unconscious and they could have just killed him in his sleep especially since he was an adult that took her hostage the first time, and she does the much riskier thing of trying to talk it out with him and understand what he’s feeling after he’s made multiple attempts on her life.

Empathy means acknowledging the feelings of others. Emma isn’t saying she would never give up like Yugo did in the past after suffering his loss, what Emma is saying is that she cares about her family so much that she understands how it must feel to lose that precious family. She’s acknowledging his emotions, and the possibility that she could have ended up like him if left all alone and tormented by her regrets. She’s using the feelings they have in common to reach him, but at the same time imagining a situation that is wildly different from her own current one to sympathize with a person who has been hostile to her in the past while acknowledging the danger and that she might just get hurt again. That is radical, true empathy.

Empathy means you have to try to understand the circumstances of others, even when those other people are coming into conflict with you. 

Not only that but she points out that refusing to confront his pain is not only bad for them because they’ll get killed, but bad for him as well because he’ll suffer. There’s an ending where they can both come out of this for the better so that’s the ending Emma wants to shoot for. The way she finally gets through to him is relating her own circumstances. Even though she’s only talking about the loss of one person, not her entire family and having to deal with that loss for years she’s able to tell Yuugo the resolution she reached with her ideals. How she was able to believe she was saving everyone even after having to accept the sacrifice of Norman who was a part of her everyone.

And that too comes from the realization that even if other people died while she lived, they would not want her to die, and instead she has to carry on those hopes and dreams especially for those dead people who wished just as much as she did to reach the human world. She has to respect the wishes of those dead people even over her own emotions of grieving and move forward, because even if she wasn’t able to save them, she was still saved by them and they wouldn’t want somebody who they saved, who they loved and cared for to die.

The next challenge to Emma’s ideals is in the goldy pond arc, where she’s thrown into a situation where she basically has no familiarity around her at all, none of her family, no resources, where she’s basically powerless. These people aren’t her family, they’re complete strangers, and yet she feels their losses just as much. 

Once agani, the scope of Emma’s ideals have to widen as she realizes there are more people to worry about than just her own family, and her own plantation escaping free to the human world. Not only does she have to accept that there are people she wants to save outside of her family and rapidly confront that relaity in front of her, but she also grapples directly with her own powerlessness again. As she went from a position of relative security haing escaped gracefield with relatively bloodless tactics to an all out war. This chapter basically spells it out, there are situations where there’s nothing you can do no matter how hard you try and your only real option is to get through them and try to do better next time. 

This is the arc where Emma transforms from someone who just runs away, or escapes, or survives to realizing she also has to go on the offensive from time to time in order to help others survive. It also is an arc where she vastly expands her definition of family and realizes she wants to save more than just the ones from gracefield house. 

Even when pushed to her edge though and motivated to fight back. Emma still considers that the best ending possible is the one where everyone gets to live. She even tries talking this out with the hunter, even if it’s only a strategy to buy time she offers that chance and tries the tactic of diplomacy. It’s something Emma never forgets no matter how many weird demons or maladjusted adults try to kill her. 

Remember, the key in Emma’s philosophy lies in never giving up and always trying, and making sure not to waste anything you had to achieve the best ending possible. Of course it’s an inhuman standard but they’re twelve year olds with machine guns, they’re already enduring some pretty inhuman situations already.

IN this arc as well Emma’s recklessness also has a consequence. She’s injured when she takes a risk to attack the demon hunting her. They decide to go on an all or nothing shoot him until he stops moving strategy.

And just like this arc insists over and over again there are times when strategies don’t pay out, there are times when you can do nothing, and when the demon finally starts to recover, it stabs straight into Emma first. At that point they weren’t able to make it in time and the demon went for the obvious leader everybody was rallying behind and almost finished her in one blow.

So, as I’ve said so far, Emma’s naivete and ideals exist however she’s not unaware of the world around her. She’s not immune to danger or consequences from her actions either. Emma’s ideals aren’t there because she exists in a little bubble that never gets popped by the world around her. The world is as equally as harsh to Emma as it is everybody else, Emma also has to accept sacrifices, accept losses, accept times when she’s powerless.

What makes Emma’s ideals even stronger is that even after surviving those cirucmstances she doesn’t stop believing in her ideals.

Which is what makes her ideals so simple and powerful, because Emma herself struggles with them and realizes that they’re totally incompatible with the world around her. And her reconciliation with that is, this world is harsh and unfair and I refuse to accept that so I’m going to change it by giving it everything I have. That’s her recklessness, take the most risk and go for the best result.

The net big challenge to their ideals comes when their shelter is destroyed, and they’re hunted this time by humans rather than demons. We see once again, Emma tries to explain herself and attempts diplomacy even when two people are dead at her feet.

And once again she’s met with the fact that not only does the world not care about Emma’s ideas it’s denying even her basic personhood and her right to have those ideas. 

So yes Emma’s dreams are unrealistic but once again she’s dreaming in a world that was never going to allow her to dream in the first place. That’s why it’s so mportant that it’s Emma who makes the world bend to her, rather than bending to the world. Emma doesn’t see her dreams as unrealistic, because for her all dreams or ideas to having a right to life of her own are unrealistic in the first place, and the world will tell her it over and over again.

And once again Emma’s reckless but she doesn’t ignore the consequences to her actions, or the dangers she faces in the world. She faces all of those things and chooses to continue hoping and working for better, and continue valuing life and living which in itself is a direct act of defiance and rebellion against the world that named them cattle. 

The series is called The Promised Neverland and the main character Emma is Childish, Naive, but that is her strongpoint as well as her weakness. As a child she’s unaware of the world around her, separated from it, not a part of that system but because she is not a part of it she’s also able to think in ways no adult that’s associated with the broken system of that world ever could and imagine a new and better world and fight for that. The traits of a child she retains, forgiveness, empathy, believing in the best for yourself and others are traits that you should never give up on even as an adult.