#PART ONE! HYPOTHETICALLY TO BE COMPLETED AS THE FULL SONG LATER! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morkleemelon · 3 years

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nct ideal types 2021 :: dream

127 version | this has been on my mind for a bit and I wanted to write it down- these will consist of confirmed facts and then my own thoughts. the latter part is, as it sounds, strictly from my opinion and observation and may well not be accurate. this is just for fun! proceed~

mark lee:

confirmed: likes someone with long black hair who is nice (on air nct show)

my thoughts:

he moved to korea to train when he was like 13 and has been busy as a bee ever since. I don’t know his life but I feel like he hasn’t really had the chance to date much if at all yet. this brings me to think he would prefer someone who can lead in the relationship

he grew up christian and seems to still hold those ideals. although if he really liked someone it wouldn’t be an issue, this makes me think he would be drawn to someone with similar ideals

he laughs a lot and gets along well with people who are funny (haechan, yuta, jungwoo). I think that he would like someone with a good sense of humor

he doesn’t spend money lavishly and prefers to use what he has (i.e. the jansport backpack, not having youtube premium, keeping all the gifts he receives in his bag). all of this points to him preferring someone modest and not wasteful

mark got jisung a bracelet that costs over $1000 for his birthday (what a good bro I’m cry). he likes songs like ‘I got you’ by Bazzi (mark superm quarantine playlist) which is about spoiling a girl. this all makes me think that although he is frugal for himself, he likes spoiling others and would like to spoil his significant other

From Japan official book vol 1, mark said he wasn’t sure what his ideal first date would be, but he answered that it would be to go to a restaurant and have a good meal because he likes eating. So someone who’s down for simple dates and perhaps also good at cooking (because our boy can’t even make an egg)

From the same magazine, he said he doesn’t care about fashion and would like his partner to “wear what she likes”. Doesn’t seem like he goes for style much!

huang renjun:

confirmed: n/a

my thoughts:

I strongly feel like he would want to feel like the ‘man in the relationship’. he would want to feel protective over his partner and that’s why I think he would adore someone smaller than him

he’s full of chaotic rage energy (in the cutest way that would never actually hurt anybody). to balance out these vibes, renjun would match well with someone calm and sweet

looks-wise besides being a petite person, I can envision someone very cute, probably with shorter, un-dyed hair

renjun is into sci-fi movies and shows and confirmed he believes in aliens (weekly idol). I think he’d be drawn to someone with a big imagination who likes sci-fi as well

lee jeno:

confirmed: n/a

my thoughts:

jeno is really really shy (when he met yeeun from clc to mc together, they said they couldn’t even talk at first because it was so awkward). I think jeno would like someone more outgoing but not overwhelming

I feel like his ideal type is literally like renjun- a little fiesty and literally, little. jeno has mentioned that he loves renjun’s voice too, so perhaps he would be interested in someone with a nice voice

he works out a lot and likes physical activities like biking and going to the gym. I think he’d like someone who values fitness and health too

he loves animals and has 3 cats of his own despite being allergic. because of this, I think he’d like a person who loves animals too

lee haechan:

confirmed: someone with a nice voice/ singing voice. someone with shorter hair

my thoughts:

he’s so extroverted and craves attention from whoever he’s around, and that wouldn’t be an exception for the person he likes. he’d want someone who looks up to him and gives him attention

he’s still really young and even enjoys movies like the kissing booth (I’m sorry I had to bring it up because I think it’s important). ignoring the actual bad parts of that movie, I think he’s interested in that young love, dancing together at the arcade, kissing in the rain, come over to his house in secret, type relationship

haechan seems to be especially close friends with foreign swaggers line (mark, johnny, jaehyun) so I’m thinking that perhaps he likes the western vibe

during oshiete Japan, he and Yuta were the only ones who chose to give three roses to a hypothetical ‘lover’ (they had to choose between 4 types of roses to give). the psychologist said that this means haechan is “flirty and attention-seeking” which makes a lot of sense. this adds to my point that he would like someone who gives him a lot of attention and good reactions

during a recent fansign (1/23?) OP asked “what are things girls do that makes you flattered?” to which he answered “when I did something wrong and get scolded, that scary look makes me flattered”. although it’s a bit awkwardly translated, this insinuates that he likes it when he gets scolded by a girl. *jaemin voice* sexayyy. thus, I’m adding that haechan likes a someone strong headed and not afraid to scold him

na jaemin:

confirmed: n/a

my thoughts:

he has a sort of 180 personality where he’s either really energetic or prefers to be in the background. jeno says that jaemin hardly talks at the dorms after schedules because his social battery is dead. this is classic introvert behavior so I think he would vibe well with someone patient and calm

he’s the sweetest boy and he volunteers often for unicef and was even cast to sm while he was volunteering. he’d appreciate someone who shares similar values and likes helping others

I think he often doesn’t think or worry about himself. he goes out of his way to please others and help others and often disregards what he actually wants because of it (i.e. taking his shirt off at the dream show even though he was uncomfortable I’m so sad poor baby). he needs someone who is thoughtful and who reminds him when it’s time to stop and think of himself

looks-wise, I’m gonna be completely honest when I say I think he doesn’t go for looks. personality and morals are key

his favorite member of snsd is tiffany. he never confirmed if she was his ideal type, but perhaps he’s attracted to her bubbly, girly personality

zhong chenle:

confirmed: he’s only into girls (vlive)

my thoughts:

this may be a stretch, but in a live he was doing, chenle was talking about which member of wayv princesses was the prettiest. he said something along the lines of ‘ew they all looked weird’ but later admitted that kun was probably the only one who ‘looked okay’. kun was snow white which brings me to my first prediction which is that lele likes the classic chinese beauty (black hair, pale skin, elegant, gentle)

chenle loves winning and he loves to be praised. although his mbti shows that he’s an introvert, he would crave the full attention of his s/o. someone who looks only at him

during the from home live, he was asked to act out a scenario where he accidentally ate his girlfriend’s food. haechan (who was acting as the girlfriend) went “buy me 10 more” and chenle just went “okay :)”. ngl, kinda fell in love with him then but this makes me think he’d want someone to spoil

park jisung:

confirmed: likes it when people call him 오빠 (oppa) - take this how you will

my thoughts:

debuting at 14, I’m quite sure he hasn’t had the opportunity to have a relationship yet. this being said, he also seems quite innocent and shy which is why I think he would prefer someone who knows what they’re doing and isn’t afraid to speak their opinion

just from vibes, I think he would wanna be with someone like a best friend to him. someone who’s down to just hang out and talk, play video games and watch movies etc.

he’s quite tall (the tallest in dream) so I think he’d actually be ok with a tall person maybe even around the same height as him

maybe not a definite need, but I feel like he’d be impressed by someone who can dance well since dancing is such a big part of his life

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princip1914 · 3 years

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A few thoughts on writing longfic

I’ve had this post brewing for a while and I figured since today is a Friday I might as well let it out into the wild.

First off, this is not writing advice. I don’t feel qualified to give writing advice. This is a few observations I’ve made over the course of trying to write something that feels, well, long. Fandom is full of excellent authors writing long chaptered fic, but I don’t see a lot of people talking about how they go about producing such fics. I remember feeling like long fic was really out of reach for me when I started writing again in the summer of 2019 after not writing for years and years and I wanted to talk a bit about how that changed for me. Of course, this post comes with all the caveats that there is no need to ever write long fic if you’re not feeling it. Some of my favorite authors write mostly or only oneshots! But, if you are interested, here’s my lengthy, self indulgent, and entirely personal take on ~the longfic process~ below the cut.

First, to get this out of the way: long fic is anything that feels long or complicated to you, the author. “I’m working on my long fic” can mean that you’re branching out from microfiction to write something that’s 2k long, or it can mean you’ve got a multi-part 800k epic. There’s no objective measure of if something is “long fic,” Your own personal definitions can also change as you grow in confidence or change your focus as a writer (a little over a year ago when I finished Doubt Thou the Stars are Fire topping out at 31k, that felt very very long to me. Now it feels….still long, but not very very long.)

Here are a few specific things that helped me write something long. I don’t know if they will be interesting for anyone else, but at the very least writing these down has been a fun way for me to reflect on my own process.

Practice exercises. Ok, this is going to sound exceedingly obvious, but writing one shots prepares you for writing chaptered fic. Here’s what I mean more specifically: if you know you want to write (as a totally hypothetical example) a chaptered fic set in America in the summer that relies heavily on a nature metaphors, is written out of chronological order, and features a melancholy tone--it helps to write a few one shots like that before you embark on the Big Fic. Just like artists tend to do sketches before starting a big piece, it’s very helpful to write something small that gives you a feel for the ~vibe~ of what you’re trying to do in the long fic. It’s helpful for all the usual reasons--you get to know a specific version of the characters which helps plan out a character driven plot for the long fic--but it’s also helpful because you will learn if the tone and mood of the fic has enough staying power to capture your interest for the long haul. For instance, I have a few unfinished chaptered fics that have a humorous tone. I wish I had done more short humorous fics before starting them, because I would have realized that I don’t currently have the mental stamina to hold up a humorous tone for the length of a chaptered fic (hopefully that will change and I will finish Last Days some time this century!).

Plan it out ahead of time. I used google sheets for The False and the Fair. I do not think God intended google sheets to be used for fiction, but that was not going to stop me. On a more serious note, I think the best tool for planning fiction is the one you’re the most comfortable with--the notes app in your phone, handwriting, word, google drive, sheets, chalk board, summoning circle, the blood of your enemies, etc. The reason I chose to use sheets is that I knew from the very beginning that I wanted certain things to happen at specific places in the story--for instance, I wanted the first kiss to happen at the end of the first third of the story and I wanted the “reveal” about the mine accident to happen at the end of the second third of the story. But, I didn’t know what was supposed to go in between those elements. A traditional outline for a story at this point in development might have looked like:

Meet cute

Kiss

Reveal

Ending

But, what my brain needed was to preserve the blank spaces in between these story elements, and specifically to preserve the right amount of blank space between these story elements so that it didn’t end up, for instance, that the first kiss was halfway through rather than a third of the way through. In this way, I found google sheets an invaluable tool for pacing in the early parts of the planning process. I simply made 30 rows assuming 30 chapters, and started plugging in the elements I knew I wanted in the locations I wanted them. Then I filled in the blank spaces by asking myself “how do we get from X plot element to Y plot element in Z amount of chapters.” I’m not a mountain climber, but I’ve often thought about the first things that go into the spreadsheet in terms of mountain climbing terminology. In climbing, a crux move, which can be anywhere along the route, is the most difficult move of the route: if you can’t do it, you can’t do the route. I think of the first things that go into the planning spreadsheet as the crux moves of the story, the most important pieces around which everything else turns. It was not an accident that those were also all the first scenes of the fic that I wrote; if I couldn’t do those scenes, I couldn’t do the story the way I planned it so I wanted to know early on if I needed to make changes.

Make changes if you have to: even though it helps to have things planned in advance, don’t resist the story if it tries to change on you while you’re writing it. Usually the feeling that you have to make changes stems from having a plot that is not entirely character driven. As you write the story, the characters reveal themselves and sometimes the plot has to change to change with the characters’ motivations. Here’s an area where fanfic writers have a leg up on everyone else: if you write fic, you already know the characters really well. That means, (in my experience anyway) it’s less likely that you’ll have a surprise character development which leads to a rethinking of the whole plot. Less likely, but not completely unlikely, unfortunately.

Lie to yourself: The False and the Fair was supposed to be 90k words. I thought that sounded reasonable, a little less than 3x the longest fic I had ever written. Now it's 161k and will probably top out a little over 170k. Ooops. But I never would have set out to write something that long. I wouldn’t have thought I could do it, even though anyone more experienced looking at my plans for the fic probably would have laughed at the idea I could cover all those plot points in 90k. Ignorance is bliss. Protect your ignorance.

Scrivener: Long fic for me means “fic that is long enough you can’t hold all the parts of it in your head at once.” That’s where Scrivener comes in (or another app if you’d rather, but I really like Scrivener for the ability to see the project either linearly or as condensed notecards). You can put together an organizational scaffold in Scrivener that allows you to move back and forth between the forest and the trees. So, for instance, you might be going for a jog and come up with the perfect line of dialogue for chapter 27 when you’re only up to chapter 5 in terms of writing progress. With Scrivener, you can go home, and put that dialogue in the “bucket”/index card/whatever for chapter 27 without compromising your ability to see chapter 5 clearly or muddying up your google doc. You can then use the fact that you’ve started writing bits and pieces of the later chapters in conjunction with the tool of lying to yourself that, actually, you’ve written a lot more of the fic than you realize and that when you get to chapter 27 it won’t be as hard as chapter 5 because you’ve put in the groundwork already. In my experience, this lie turns out to be true about 50% of the time, which is better than 0% of the time.

Digestible mini arcs: The False and the Fair was originally broken up into thirds. I thought it would be 90k and 30k was the longest I had written, so thirds seemed to make sense. Also, 3 is a nice, time honored storytelling number. I think it’s good to give yourself seemingly achievable milestones along the way to completion. These milestones (for me anyway) lined up well with the “crux moments” I’ve described. If you’re someone who likes to write out of order, writing your way to an already written milestone can feel like sailing to an island where you get to rest for a bit from the stormy seas before setting out for the next island in the archipelago.

“It's all part of the process”: I’m categorically incapable of describing things without resorting to running metaphors, and so I apologize in advance, but I am now going to do the insufferable thing of comparing writing a long fic to running a marathon. Here’s the thing with a marathon. You are not going to feel good every step of the way. We all know this. It’s a marathon, it’s supposed to hurt a little bit, especially at the end. In the same way you literally cannot write something novel length or even novella or long short story length without, at least at some point, feeling bad about yourself and your writing. But you also can’t run a marathon if the whole thing is agony, and for most people, it’s not--your meat sack shuffling along the course is subjected to the slings and arrows of all sorts of weird body chemistry that only happens when you push it to its limits. So, you’ll be in agony and then the endorphins will kick in for a while and you’ll be thinking “this isn’t nearly as bad as everyone said,” and then you’ll drink some water at a rest stop and feel like a God for half a mile before you crash and you’re in agony again until that one perfect song comes up on the playlist...and you get the idea. Writing something long, for me at least, is a bit like that. There are massive ups and downs. The key for me is to just understand it’s all part of the process, a necessary step on the way to the finish line. If the fic is 10 chapters long, at some point you have to write chapter 5. Just like you have to write chapter 5, at some point you also have to go through a bit of despair before reaching the end. It is unfortunately non-optional. In fact, despairing is something you can check off your list each time you’ve done it. Cut dialogue tags, check. Feel awful about my writing for thirty minutes, check. Write ending section, check. Often I feel that the stress and shame and fear that come with bad emotions while writing are worse than the bad emotions themselves. It really helps me to remember these emotions are all part of the process and nothing to worry about. If I didn’t have them, then I would worry!

I certainly have plenty more to say about writing, but this ramble has gone on long enough. If you’re interested in any of this stuff, please feel free to send me an ask.

I would also love to know more about everyone else’s writing processes, so feel free to pop into my ask box to talk about your own approach too! I am very interested in this stuff!

#long post #writing #fic #princip's fic #princip writes #princip's musings #longfic #how make words go

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gascon-en-exil · 3 years

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Who Can Say if I've Been Changed For the Better?: Ferdibert Does Wicked

This concept has been a bit in building. It started from a much-loved cover by Hubert and Ferdinand’s VAs inspired by their support line and the broad observation that these two are a musicals couple who absolutely would sing their feelings in all manner of theatrical AUs. It continued through my later observation that there’s ample material to carry that idea even further, albeit with a shift outside of Crimson Flower for a better tonal match. Still, I’m not quite sure what to call this project; it’s not really a headcanon nor is it fanfic by any means. I’ve written a handful of longform character/narrative explorations before, although when it comes to FE I’ve previously been inspired to do so only for Jugdral characters. That setting is somehow both underdeveloped and deceptively dense - and I suppose in a way you could say the same of Three Houses as well, insofar as it’s been incredibly popular for fan content of all sorts.

Regardless of what this post is in terms of my fandom output, the following isn’t exactly a Wicked AU as such. Rather, it’s how I would envision a hypothetical blend of the non-CF routes of FE16 centering around the Eagles trio and set to the structure and songs of the musical as organically as possible. There are no 1:1 analogues with characters and plotlines from Wicked, because few if any would exist without a lot of tweaking; to use the VA cover example, Ferdinand might be a decent proxy for G(a)linda, but the mere presence of Edelgard substantially complicates Hubert’s claim to the Elphaba role. The similarities only unravel further from there, but I did my best.

Writing this out gave me the opportunity to play around with Edelgard’s character as a way of addressing what I and many others in my circle have long considered to be some of the major problems with her canon presentation. For Ferdibert meanwhile I got to make use of my headcanons for how their relationship would develop outside of their support line, in a way that mostly preserves Hubert’s delightful evil wickedness. Add some ruminations on how one would splice together the non-CF routes in a dramatically satisfying fashion, some snark directed at the non-character of Byleth, and a bit of background Dimidue/Lions OT5 for spice and that just about sums it up. Enjoy this…whatever this is.

Act I

“No One Mourns the Wicked”

The show opens on the citizens of Adrestia celebrating the death of their emperor and the end of her bloody war. Ferdinand rides in, resplendent on his steed, and is hailed as the new Duke Aegir as he relates to the crowd the news of Edelgard’s death at the hands of the combined army of liberators. The “Are people born wicked?” flashback sequence is replaced with a summary mostly in pantomime of Edelgard’s backstory: the Insurrection, her being taken to Faerghus and then returning, and then being experimented on by the Agarthans before agreeing to work with them. Notably Hubert is not named or referenced anywhere in this song, appearing only as a boy at Edelgard’s side at appropriate times during the flashback.

“Dear Old Shiz”

Someone in the crowd finally brings up Hubert, the emperor’s vile and murderous minister, and accuses Ferdinand of having been his friend. With Ferdinand even more flustered than Glinda since his “It depends on what you mean by friend” definitely carries sexual undertones, so begins the flashback to Part 1. There’s an equivalent intro of Garreg Mach, so one may feel free to insert any headcanons for school songs here. The following dialogue scene establishes the student body in general and the dynamic of the Eagles trio in particular: Ferdinand pompous and eager to one-up Edelgard at any opportunity, and Edelgard and Hubert cold and dismissive toward his antics and just about everyone else for that matter. Edelgard is instantly enamored of the quiet new professor, of course. Because the room assignment conflict doesn’t make a lot of sense with the monastery’s setup, instead Ferdinand is incensed that Edelgard is chosen as the Eagles’ house leader over him even though it’s been ages since a Hresvelg has attended. Neither Nessarose nor Morrible has an exact equivalent (although Seteth can act in Morrible’s role as the academy’s main authority figure), so the segue into the next song ends there.

“The Wizard and I”

Now alone together, Edelgard and Hubert have a brief dialogue outlining their villainous plans for the school year. This establishes Hubert’s hypercompetency but also how detached and professional Edelgard is around him. Then comes the song, now “My Lady and I,” which serves as Hubert’s character introduction. In tones more sinister than Elphaba ever reaches - you know he’d have fun with “When people see me they will scream” - he outlines his history with his lady, that he delights in serving her because she validates his work ethic and gives him an outlet for his ruthlessness and cruelty. Where Elphaba fantasizes about the Wizard removing her green skin, Hubert instead goes full Nice Guy, believing that once he’s given Edelgard her continental empire and crushed all her enemies she’ll be so grateful that of course she’ll put out for him.

“What Is This Feeling?”

You could rip the tone of this one directly from the Ferdibert C support and change nothing - homoerotic subtext included. I like the thought of Hubert replacing Elphaba’s deadpan one-word summation of Galinda with a mocking imitation of Ferdinand's most memetic line: "He is Ferdinand von Aegir!". The chorus can be made up of any number of other students excluding Edelgard, who’d happily agree that Hubert is ugly, creepy, and downright unpleasant.

“Something Bad”

The content of this song and surrounding scenes would have to be completely altered, but they work as a necessary reminder that the plot of Part 1 is still going on in the background of all the school drama. Seteth runs through the major events up to Chapter 9 of the game, including the bandit threat, Flayn’s kidnapping, and the experiments on the Remire villagers. The audience/accompaniment for this exposition dump ought to be Dimitri and Claude with Byleth as a silent observer (more on them later), with Edelgard brushing off the news and eventually being the one to shut down the song as Morrible does. There could be some small side character moments in here as well particularly involving the Lions and Deer since they get so little focus in this story.

“Dancing Through Life”

Speaking of which, this was an awkward sequence to place. It matches up chronologically with the ball in Chapter 9 and the main part, Fiyero’s, is a dead ringer for Sylvain and his flirty, hedonistic nihilism (“Nothing matters / but knowing nothing matters!”), but it’s hard to tie into what’s going on with the Eagles trio particularly with the Ferdibert timeframe preserved, i.e. unlike Elphaba and Galinda they don’t become closer until after the timeskip.

As such I see this song as an opportunity for little vignettes with the other students: Dimitri angry over how Dedue’s talked about and hoping they can share a dance (fitting contrast with the coldness of Edelbert), Felix prickly between Dimitri’s recent outbursts and Sylvain’s showboating, Claude hinting toward the bigger picture with Hilda flitting between her excitement over the dance and knowing more than she's letting on, Dorothea casually taking note of Edelgard’s fascination with Byleth (see just below), Bernadetta as a wallflower who doesn’t want to be disturbed (a setup for Act II), etc. Thanks to one of the Forging Bonds events in Heroes I had the thought that the "You/we deserve each other" through line that later gets attached to Nessarose can become one for Dimitri's relationships, with Felix initially throwing it out at him and Dedue and the two of them then turning "We deserve each other" into a romantic line...and then an ironic one and finally a triumphant one come Act II, by that point with Felix et al included as well.

I’m not sure that the following scene of Galinda and Elphaba bonding on the dance floor really needs an equivalent, although it could be altered to something Edeleth-related. In any case Ferdinand ought to get a dance scene of some nature, so he can try to show up Edelgard as he brags about in canon.

“Popular”

It would be a travesty to have a musical starring FE16’s cast and not give Dorothea and/or Manuela a solo. This song works quite well for the former, and it doesn’t intrude on the Ferdibert development with the aforementioned timeframe and how the lightly sapphic vibe doesn’t translate well to two guys. Dorothea has taken note of her good friend Edie’s crush on their mysteriously wooden professor, and she senses the opportunity for a makeover. Not as exaggerated as Dorothea trying to make over Hubert, naturally, but I still think this works out well. Also, Galinda’s observation on leaders, “Did they have brains or knowledge? / Don’t make me laugh! They were popular!”, is darkly comedic when said to Edelgard.

“I’m Not That Girl”

This song comes with preceding dialogue scenes for setup, so those first. Edelgard emerges fresh from her makeover (given her general hot for teacher fixation, I’m thinking she’d lean pretty hard on the naughty schoolgirl look) to Byleth silently grieving Jeralt’s death - bad timing there. She’s as callous about it as she is in canon, only now with more clumsy flirting, and while it’s impossible as always to tell if Byleth notices or cares Hubert most certainly does. The scene segues into the Eagles trio together, with Edelgard alluding to the upcoming events in the Sealed Forest and indicating that Hubert should meet up with her later for some more villainous scheming after he’s ditched Ferdinand. Ferdinand, indignant about being left out of the loop as he is in canon, grumpily points out that he was a much more splendid dancer at the ball than Edelgard, makeover or not. To his utter surprise, Hubert acknowledges that this is true before leaving. This leads into the actual song, altered from homoerotic via triangulation of desire to an outright sexual awakening for Ferdinand. He realizes that part of his jealousy toward Edelgard is that he wishes Hubert were devoted to him instead, and tells himself not to get his hopes up because he’s, well, not that girl or even a girl. We shall of course leave aside how anyone could be attracted to someone as repulsive as Hubert; that’s part of the inherent comedy of this pairing.

“One Short Day”

This was the hardest song to place in this whole project. The touristy trip to the Emerald City just doesn’t have an analogue in the story of Three Houses, especially not late in Part 1 when tension is mounting toward the upcoming reveal and war. It took me a while to realize that it works wonderfully as an Edeleth piece: Edelgard invites Byleth to Enbarr for her coronation, but that scene is left offscreen in favor of a light romp through the city that further highlights Edelgard’s crush as well as her emotional immaturity in spite of everything she’s about to do. She just wants to have a fun day out and take in the sights and eat sweets with her beloved teacher, and it’s all very “Edge of Dawn”-esque where Edelgard knows she’s about to do terrible things that will change everything forever and hopes to prolong the time until she has to take that step. Adjustments to the lyrics could even work in reference to that song to make the similarities more apparent. An awkward/funny issue here is that I envision Byleth to be totally silent throughout this musical with no sung or spoken parts, which would naturally make them having a duet impossible and make Edelgard’s fascination with them even weirder. Even their gender should be left ambiguous throughout, somehow never confirmed if it’s m!Byleth or f!Byleth. It would take a lot of reworking, but I can see the value in it.

“A Sentimental Man”

The core of the Wizard’s character is not all that different from Rhea’s. Both were thrust unexpectedly into positions of authority that required them to enact a large-scale deception to maintain their power/safety, and both are driven somewhat by parental feelings. The tone of the Wizard’s songs doesn’t align well with Rhea, but once you cut out the vaudeville and do some rewording I could see this one working as Rhea addressing her child (among other things) Byleth at the Holy Tomb just before the Flame Emperor reveal. Of course the dramatic irony hits differently; Rhea knows who and what Byleth is whereas the Wizard doesn’t learn about Elphaba until the end of the show. Nonetheless this would still establish Rhea’s character and motivations as well as set the stage for the impending betrayal.

“Defying Gravity”

Said betrayal being Byleth’s, who decides to stand by Rhea and condemn Edelgard as the Flame Emperor when she arrives with her army. This is another song in parts that would need to be broken up. Edelgard gets the bulk of it, but the middle sections between Elphaba and Glinda could work as a kind of separated duet with Edelgard and Hubert attempting to convince Byleth and Ferdinand respectively to join them. Because of Byleth’s silence only Ferdinand can reply in song; only he and Edelgard add the “my friend” bit to the end of this segment, to illustrate the unevenness of Edeleth and Ferdibert at this point in the story. Then things turn to full bombast, albeit darker than in Wicked proper. Edelgard does the belting, Hubert’s sinister laughter reverberates below her (would it be too tasteless for him to be leering up her skirt the whole time?), Ferdinand has Glinda’s mournful “I hope you’re happy!” toward Hubert, and through this and the reprise of “No One Mourns the Wicked” the major events of the timeskip are enacted in pantomime or silhouette. Byleth tumbles off a cliff, Rhea is taken captive as is Dimitri but Dedue rushes after him, and Claude makes a tactical retreat. Side note: “And if I’m flying solo, / at least I’m flying free” is classic Edelgard fixating on Byleth and forgetting that Hubert exists.

Act II

“Thank Goodness”

A surprisingly tough one here. The core of the song, pivoting around the double meaning of “I couldn’t be happier,” suits early Part 2 Ferdinand perfectly, second-guessing his choice and, outside of CF, melancholy about fighting his homeland. In terms of plot it’s an easy translation too, with the crowd announcing the terrible things the Empire has been doing to win its war - persecuting believers, abducting civilians and turning them into Demonic beasts, consorting with inhuman shadowy figures who can disguise themselves as ordinary people - and the assembly working as a way to bring together the leads of the three routes: Byleth, Dimitri (who had Dedue always at his side and thus never had a full psychotic break), Claude, and Seteth, with Ferdinand representing the Adrestian resistance. It’s only the wedding announcement that’s hard to pin down, and I toyed with a number of ideas including Dimidue making yet another public declaration of devotion to one another or Ferdinand planning to follow through with his arranged marriage to Bernadetta they have in their supports (which makes more sense in light of the following sequence). In the end though I don’t think the marriage element is strictly necessary, leaving the song as a means of catching up with the cast five years later and seeing them united against Edelgard - with Ferdinand’s private regrets the only sour note.

“Wicked Witch of the East”

More a dialogue than a song, but still important. Bernadetta is arguably the Eagle other than Hubert most comfortable supporting Edelgard, because all Edelgard has to do is put Count Varley under house arrest for Bernadetta to sing the emperor’s praises. I can also see her as the same sort of self-centered, negligent ruler that Nessarose becomes in Wicked, not because of an unrequited attraction but because of her reclusive desire to be left alone. I see this scene playing out as Hubert surprising Bernadetta at her estate, angry about rumors that she may be helping the rebels and/or engaged to Ferdinand if going with that plot point after Edelgard has done her the favor of locking up her father. He’s fully prepared to, ahem, “persuade” Bernadetta, but before he can break out the torture implements Ferdinand arrives asking for her to support the rebels’ cause.

Farcical, sure, but it gets the two of them together again after five years and underscores how strong their UST has become in their time apart, with Hubert too flabbergasted to attack a known enemy and Ferdinand expressing how happy he is to see Hubert again despite everything. Each learns that the other isn’t as happy about his chosen path as he’d hoped, in Hubert’s case because his lady has grown ever more distant from him as the war has dragged on. Bernadetta cuts through the tension by bringing things back to the song (sort of) and blurting out that she knows both sides are marshalling their forces near Gronder Field. Ferdinand is too caught up in the fraught romance angle to do more than leave with this new information, but Hubert recovers enough to condemn Bernadetta for her flagrant misrule (venting by inference his frustrations toward Edelgard in the process) and resolve to set her on fire for her treachery.

“I’m Not That Girl (Reprise)”

The Gronder rematch happened offscreen - and Bernadetta was indeed set on fire - and on the Imperial side Edelgard is left increasingly frustrated over her losses and hurt that Byleth still refuses to listen to her and continues to fight her regime. You may notice that I’ve shuffled around the middle of Act II, necessary at this point in order to better line up with FE16’s story and Hubert and Edelgard’s separate narrative climaxes while also ensuring that those climaxes don’t overlap too much. This song is only a brief reprise, but it’s a significant one; Hubert finally realizes that Edelgard will never love him. It’s also kept gender-neutral, because Byleth.

“As Long as You’re Mine”

That segues naturally into this moment. Ferdinand sneaks into Enbarr using his unexpected stealth powers (I usually talk about Dedue having them, but Ferdinand shows he’s no slouch in his Mercedes supports) and encounters Hubert. Their UST boils over in a furor of awkward, impassioned sex and also this song. I like the idea of rewording some of Fiyero's lines to incorporate Hubert's acidic snark: “Maybe you’re brainless, / maybe you’re wise.” It’s all very desperate and sensual, ending with Ferdinand taking Elphaba’s line about feeling wicked for the first time - which will have a dark reverberation two songs from now.

“Wonderful”

Again, axe the vaudeville and it’s a solid Rhea song. There’s just the small problem of Rhea being captured at this point in the plot; I thought about moving this number toward the very end at first before reconsidering. While Hubert and Ferdinand are rolling in the sheets, a distraught Edelgard confronts Rhea in prison. Rhea responds to Edelgard’s frustrations with Byleth with her backstory in song, much more somber than the Wizard but, like him, still willing to rehabilitate her estranged listener. The bits of this song about the nature of history are especially relevant to what Edelgard falsely believes about the church and what she views as her own legacy, so I could see this as an interesting character study on what Edelgard actually wanted with her war apart from dragon genocide. There’s a lot that could be done here in the dialogue surrounding those revelations.

“No Good Deed”

However the interrogation of Rhea turns out, Edelgard takes a leaf out of SS Dimitri’s book and visits Byleth alone at the monastery, only to be as harshly rebuffed as is possible to be without the rebuffer speaking. Then comes this song, which was incidentally the one where I realized that Edelgard would need a major role in FE16-does-Wicked even with the Ferdibert focus. Hubert fully embraced his evil wickedness long ago and wouldn’t think twice about being wicked or being perceived as such, but Edelgard is a different matter. Here she breaks down, admitting that her good intentions were largely selfish and that she regrets that her war has cost her any relationship she could have had with Byleth (continuing the joke at his expense, Hubert goes unmentioned when Edelgard names the people she’s lost/failed). It ends with a foreshadowing of her Hegemon form, the sign that she’s abandoned all pretense of goodness and become truly wicked.

“March of the Witch Hunters”

Another ensemble/vignette piece, checking in with the various members of Byleth’s army as they prepare to storm Enbarr. Dimitri hopes for the chance to forgive his stepsister, Claude has big plans for the continent and wants to remove the threat Edelgard poses, Seteth is desperate to find Rhea, and Byleth…is there. As in many of the songs, the self-righteousness of the crowd here rings more sincere and less hypocritical than in Wicked given Three Houses has actual villains, but it still works.

“For Good”

The song that inspired this whole thing, now with many paragraphs of context to set it up instead of only some fluff based on the Ferdibert A+ support. Ferdinand sneaks into Enbarr (again) ahead of the battle, and their second love ballad is more somber as they resign themselves to their fates. As in the VA cover, Hubert refuses to ask forgiveness for anything and Ferdinand is fine with that.

“Finale”

Wicked reduces the final battle from The Wizard of Oz to silhouettes backed by sections of “No One Mourns the Wicked,” and that’s what comes here: Ferdinand and Hubert facing each other in battle, Edelgard becoming the Hegemon before being defeated and then dying as in AM’s final cutscene, and Dimitri taking the throne with Dedue at his side and proclaiming his intention to do all he can to restore both the Kingdom and Duscur - and that his first act as king is to announce that he and Dedue have decided to open their marriage up. This is met with much manly cheering and stripping and someone (Ashe?) saying incredulously that he didn’t even know they were married. End silhouettes.

The final scene with the Wizard and Morrible becomes Claude, Seteth, and Byleth rescuing Rhea. Rhea names Byleth her successor as leader of the church and says that she will go into quiet seclusion and do what she can to correct her mistakes. This all suits Claude just fine, who tells everyone that he’s off to take care of some other business and that Byleth will make a great archbishop - and also they can have the Alliance, no big deal. As with the King of Faerghus’s gay orgies, the King of Almyra’s grand ambitions are too large for this story to do more than allude to.

Next, Ferdibert does a version of the Elphaba/Fiyero scene, with Ferdinand revealing that he had Hubert spared on the condition that he help root out any remaining Agarthans and that he remain under house arrest at the Aegir estate. Ferdinand was also required to assume governance of the Empire, because Dimitri wasn’t getting that dumped on him as well. They can be together, but the general population can’t know that Hubert survived lest Ferdinand’s reputation and basic ethics be compromised…which in a darkly funny hypocritical twist then segues to Ferdinand pontificating before the crowd at the beginning of the show, reprising “For Good” with Hubert until they’re drowned out by “No One Mourns the Wicked.” Thus the story concludes on one of my favorite things about Ferdibert: perhaps even in this non-CF continuity Ferdinand wasn’t changed for the better by falling in love with the Most Wicked Man in Fódlan, but they’ve both been changed….

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Ferdibert #Hubert von Vestra #Ferdinand von Aegir

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thisstableground · 3 years

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do you have any hcs for if usnavi's parents hadn't died? it would change him and his story a lot and I feel like it could be really interesting, how he's still him but with such different experiences. and you write him and get his character so well so you're definitely the person to ask about this kind of thing if you're up for it :) (also as a fellow brit the uk au is really really weird to me, I can't quite work out why)

(lmao ikr? i wouldn’t actually call it a uk au because i firmly do not believe it could work as a fully-fledged idea without changing way too much about a very culturally specific story in a way that has very uncomfortable implications, tho it is hilarious to briefly entertain the idea of ITH except it’s all set in fuckin milton keynes or something because Simply No Thank You)

THIS WILL BE LONG, BUCKLE UP

i think that a lot of canon usnavis traits are perhaps things he already had but that got magnified by a huge amount after losing his parents, because they could also be seen as ADHD traits; particularly the anxiety and the difficulty with making changes or starting new things. he’s still worried about messing up, about making a fool of himeslf, or just doesnt have the executive functioning to do things. but the difference is prior to losing his parents he had a lot more optimism and self-confidence to push himself past those anxieties or to find it easier to listen to his friends and family when they encourage him, because he has this certainty when he’s younger that things will turn out okay. an usnavi who never loses his parents carries that certainty into adulthood (i think even after abuela passes, because while it’s difficult and tragic for him, it isn’t deeply traumatising in the same way). so this version of usnavi still worries about failure, but the stakes are so much lower; he might embarrass himself but he has the safety net of his parents support, whereas the fear that fuels canon usnavi’s difficulty with changing things or moving forward is “what if i fuck up and lose someone else important to me again?”, where things which aren’t actually literal life-or-death tend to feel that way to him, and he’s a lot more cynical about whether things will have a positive outcome.

with his parents still alive doesn’t find it so terrifying to look into the future – “today’s all we got”, he says in the opening song, and i think he would still say that but in a way that means “live for today, live in the moment, enjoy life”. that might be the attitude he’s trying to get across in canon, but he also uses it as a way to hold himself back and keep himself stuck in place, to not let himself hope for anything in the future: in canon, he knows in a very painful way that he isn’t promised a future, and nobody he loves is promised a future, so why make plans or hypotheticals or even seriously believe that he’ll ever go back to DR? (i genuinely think there’s a subconscious part of him that’s firmly convinced he’s going to die young, but that’s a whole other tangent). he’s living in the moment because he’s scared of what he’ll see when he looks past it; usnavi with his parents still around lives in the moment because he likes the moment he’s in.

i wonder if him and vanessa would have ended up dating, or at least if they’d have been so successful and long-lasting as a couple. they’e always known each other and got on well, but i see their deeper feelings as growing out of this shared understanding between them based on the difficulties they’ve been through – would they have still had the champagne bet, if usnavi didn’t have that grief and loss and extra responsibility that drives his vague non-plans to go live in DR? would he even want to leave new york, in this version, or would he still be content with the place he grew up because it doesn’t have those painful memories?

the character arc of reconciling moving forward from a place that symbolises a painful past without having to completely sever from the good things about it is something that both of them share in canon. without those moments of both being given too many responsibilities and too much independence way too young because they don’t have parents who can ease the transition into adulthood, or this unspoken recognition that even with all their barrio family around both of them are very much on their own in some ways, would they make the deeper emotional connection that makes them work so well together in a more long-term way? or would they just have gone on a few casual dates that didn’t stand out from any other casual dates they might have with others?

and hell, maybe usnavi would’ve already been in a relationship with someone completely different – he’d be working at the store with two other people who were experienced in running it. he’d have so much more time to go out, have a social life, go to clubs and hang out with more people his own age. usnavi after losing his parents became quite disconnected from the larger group of people him and benny would hang out with at school; he doesn’t have the time, he doesn’t have the energy, and for a long time while he’s still so deep in grief i think they find it hard to know how to be friends with this quiet, broken, listless usnavi. they’re all still friendly but internally i think he loses his sense of place with his peers because he’s been rapidly catapulted into a stage of life that none of them are in. an usnavi who doesn’t lose his parents also doesn’t lose his sense of being around the same level and life stage as his peers, so who knows who he meets or develops feelings for?

his relationship with sonny is definitely different. his love and care for him isn’t so full of fear, because he doesn’t feel this need to protect him from every little thing or like it’s his personal responsibility to keep him alive, because it doesn’t really occur to him that he could lose him. canon usnavi i think has a lot more of a somewhat parental vibe, and often an overprotective parent at that. i think this usnavi, because he doesn’t have to grow up so quickly and he isn’t sonny’s boss, has much more of a fun big brother role. and i think sonny in return doesn’t feel so much responsibility for usnavi as he grows up - he doesnt feel like he has to force him to have fun or get some rest or put himself first every so often because usnavi doesnt push himself nearly so relentlessly and because his parents can look out for him when he does.

maybe sonny doesn’t start working in the bodega until much later, either – a lot of why he spends so much time there is because usnavi watches him while his mom’s at work but can’t just close the store. if his parents are there to keep working then usnavi watches sonny at one of their homes, or they go out and do more stuff. the bodega is still important to both of them but it isn’t nearly as much a main setting for sonny’s adolescence as it is in canon.

on that note, since in my version the first thing that makes usnavi hold an instant vendetta against pete is catching pete tagging the store only a few weeks after losing his parents, where his feelings are still so intense and raw. the store hasn’t reopened and so the graffiti feels like someone else making a claim on the only thing he has left of his parents. in this version he’d be annoyed to catch someone tagging the store at most but much quicker to forgive and forget. so in a world where usnavi doesn’t lose his parents, usnavi also doesn’t hate graffiti pete.

if we’re assuming that things did go roughly similar to the point of usnavi being in the club with vanessa on the night of the blackout, here’s the things that would change:

- sonny isn’t the one at the bodega, his parents are, and they’re together so usnavi doesn’t feel the same urgency to get back and check on things there when the power goes out. instead he finds vanessa and walks her home and by the time he’s back at the store, i think his mom would already be with abuela making sure she’s okay, and usnavi would focus on helping his dad make sure everything was safe and secure at the bodega

- he’s also probably still pretty drunk at this point, so there’s a chance that when everything at the store is secured he just goes straight to bed; it’s been a long night, and he’s tired, and he doesn’t have the trauma of past loss making him feel like he personally has to check every little thing himself. he trusts his parents to take care of abuela, it isn’t all on his shoulders. so they don’t have their moment together on the roof.

- whether the store gets looted in this version or not, i don’t think usnavi’s waking up at sunrise to deal with it, but even if he is then he gets up, helps his parents, is upset and annoyed but not in the same visceral, overwhelming way that he is in canon because he doesn’t have all those other long-term anxieties building up in him, he doesn’t have that pressure of his parents legacy tied up in the store when they’re still right there, he doesn’t have that conversation with vanessa where she’s hurt and betrayed that he left her in the blackout and didn’t check up on her. (sidenote this may even mean that vanessa doesn’t move downtown, because if he isnt looking for a way to make things up to her before he leaves then he might not think to speak to dani about co-signing her apartment)

- this means he probably doesn’t get overwhelmed and abandon cleanup to go visit abuela in the morning like he does in canon when we get Hundreds of Stories. he might not even be around, since he tells sonny in canon to get a generator and candles to the church and that’s probably an errand he’d do himself while his parents manned the store. this means he probably does not see abuela that one final time or have that one final meaningful conversation with her before she passes.

final sad note: in a version of events where usnavi never loses his parents, christmas is still his favourite time of year.

#in the heights #usnavi de la vega #fandom: in the heights #long post #good to know that no matter what universe i find a way to make myself so sad about usnavi #Anonymous

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carmenlire · 4 years

Text

Come and Go

Written for BTS Aspec Week over on twitter!

read on ao3

There’s no place else that Yoongi would rather be, even if he feels a bit like an intruder.

The beach is deserted for the wedding, just a few dozen guests and a beautiful archway set into white sand, the very definition of romantic with its tulle and flowers and other fanciful yet understated adornment.

Taking a deep breath, the fresh salt-tinged air relaxes him, if just for a moment. Before he can quite get his bearings though, before he can remind himself that no one has to know what he’s thinking, that he’s happy for Jimin and Jungkook and that’s all that matters-- the processional music starts.

Because their wedding was so small, Jimin and Jungkook have a single violinist off to the side and they play a delicate song that floats along the breeze, notes dancing around the guests and adding to the twilight ambiance.

Yoongi might not consider himself an expert at this sort of thing but he can’t deny that it’s a stunning moment to pin to his memory.

Jin’s elbow nudges him and Yoongi meets his eyes for a split second, enough to exchange a fond if exasperated eye roll, before they’re standing and looking towards the back where the to-be newlyweds stand arm in arm, waiting one last dramatic moment before heading down the aisle together.

And maybe Yoongi gets a little choked up at seeing two of his best friends looking so completely in love, so impervious to anything around them except each other.

He watches them walk down the aisle, beaming grins so wide their cheeks must ache, and remembers when he first met them all those years ago. Jungkook was the last addition to their tightly knit circle of friends and as soon as Jimin had tripped in the dining hall they all met at every afternoon and spilled his salad all over Jungkook’s back, the rest had been history.

It’s been seven years that seems like a blink of an eye to Yoongi.

Rolling his eyes at himself-- if anyone heard him, they’d no doubt call him an old sentimental man no matter that he’s still shy of thirty-- he lets himself sink into the moment and enjoy seeing his friends so incandescently happy.

When Jungkook and Jimin reach the archway, the guests sit down and Yoongi takes the opportunity to look around. He sees Hoseok and Taehyung bury their faces into their matching handkerchiefs that they’d bought just for the occasion and smiles softly as he sees Namjoon discreetly wipe at the corner of his eye.

Shifting a little in his seat, Yoongi turns to face Seokjin and he bites a lip at his best friend’s red eyes and damp cheeks.

Jin sees him looking and narrows his eyes in a dare. He’d been caught vehemently swearing to anyone who would listen that he wouldn’t cry during the kids’ wedding, that he was far too suave and his face far too beautiful to ruin with tears.

Yoongi raises a brow, quirks his lips in a grin that threatens to take over his face. Jin glares and turns resolutely to watch the ceremony, ignoring Yoongi’s smug look.

He still doesn’t acknowledge him even as he takes the tissue Yoongi subtly pushes into his hand.

And so the ceremony starts and all at once, Yoongi feels the same pervasive heaviness that usually makes his heart ache become a little more leaden.

Weddings are a double-edged sword for Yoongi. He loves seeing his friends happy and being part of their special day. But the accompanying feelings, the toll it sometimes-- often-- takes on his mental health is always a little too much to ever get used to.

He listens to the officiant start on a winding speech about love and its power, it’s indescribable beauty. He listens and he knows what the words mean one by one but when they’re all strung together-- that’s when language fails Yoongi.

He’s almost thirty and he’s never felt like the officiant describes. He’s never been overcome with longing, breathless with anticipation.

That’s never been in the cards for him and at this point, Yoongi doesn’t think it will ever be meant for him. Relationships allude him and even if he can plainly see how happy strangers are, how loved and in love his friends are with their partners, he feels so far removed from their reality that it’s almost laughable.

Next to him, Jin shifts in his seat a little. Yoongi looks over and there’s a soft smile on his friend’s face. He looks like he’s reliving some pertinent memory, like he understands, like he’s not feeling weightless under the knowledge that he’s not like everyone else here.

Because that’s the thing about weddings and relationships in general-- Yoongi usually (re: always) feels like an outsider. Romantic love is wonderful in the movies but in real life it’s nothing but a mystery and one that Yoongi doesn’t particularly care to piece together, if he’s being completely honest.

The officiant trails off and Yoongi watches as Jimin takes a deep breath before turning towards Jungkook. Then, he’s reciting his vows that he’d agonized over for weeks. He’d even consulted Yoongi at one point when he was desperate, claiming that his hyung was such a talented songwriter, surely he’d be able to help, but Yoongi had felt put on the spot, like he was being tested on material he’d never even heard of before.

It was different writing hypotheticals-- usually when Yoongi writes love songs he feels like he’s parroting everyone around him, like he’s spent his whole life observing like a studious little alien and is just regurgitating what everyone else says love is when he pens down lyrics in his own messy writing.

Jimin doesn’t make it through his vows without a tear slipping but Jungkook has hardly started before he’s a sobbing wreck. He looks at Jimin between the tears and Yoongi feels so indescribably out of place. The emotion is so strong for Yoongi to feel so completely removed.

Sometimes he wonders if he’s broken. He’s spent a lot of time wondering what’s wrong with him.

Listening to Jungkook’s vows, Yoongi feels unmoored for the thousandth time even if he’s far more secure in himself than he was when he was younger.

Weddings mess with his head, make him remember when he was young and all he wanted was to fall in love, to complete the picture-perfect idea of what life was supposed to be-- marriage, kids, white picket fence.

Yoongi’s long since learned that he’s not that kind of person and that there’s nothing wrong with that. Romance isn’t for him even if he likes to indulge in romcom marathons with his roommate every Thursday night.

It feels like the blink of an eye before the ceremony is done and Jungkook and Jimin are officially lawful wedded husbands. Shaking his head a little to clear it, Yoongi smiles and cheers as he stands proudly and watches two of his best friends share their first kiss as husbands.

They look so happy and Yoongi is so happy for them.

The reception that follows is a raucous affair and Yoongi finds himself downing more shots of soju than is probably wise but then Hoseok had already thrown up before dinner had even been served, so at least he’s ahead of someone here.

It’s late at night and the fire on the beach is burning bright, the music loud and bass heavy, all of the older relatives having retired for the evening already, and it’s just the seven of them left.

Yoongi looks around the fire, eyes heavy but heart full, and knows that there’s no place else he’d rather be.

Still, he’s definitely feeling drunker the longer he sits still so with a heaving sigh, he hauls himself to his feet. Of course, he stops by the open bar and orders another drink because he doesn’t want to completely kill his buzz but he tells himself he’ll savour this one, won’t just tip and chug.

New drink in hand, Yoongi moves away from the fire, down the beach a little ways until the light fades away and he’s left surrounded by nothing but waves and shadows.

Sitting down in the sand and definitely not thinking about how he’s probably ruining his dress pants, Yoongi sighs again and this time it’s even heavier, seems to empty his soul out when he exhales.

Left alone to his thoughts, they inevitably turn a little maudlin. Damn weddings, he thinks wryly, and lifts his cup up to take a small sip of his whiskey sour.

He watches the waves almost hypnotically for awhile, at least until his thoughts start crowding together like they always do when he’s drunk-- and sometimes when he’s sober too and just can’t stand another minute of pushing things down and away and out of sight.

Smiling a little, Yoongi wonders if he even knows what love is. He knows that’s probably ridiculous but he catches himself in moments like these-- the quiet, lonely moments-- wondering if he even knows how to be human, if he’s not a step behind everyone else because he’s fundamentally missing something.

He knows that’s probably bullshit. Probably.

“Ah hell,” he groans out loud, rubbing his hands over his face.

That’s the thing, he thinks, just a little sad. Yoongi was always very confident in what he wanted, at least when he was young. He wanted the cookie cutter idea and it wasn’t until he got to college and started learning that there was a whole great big world out there outside of the conservative, ignorant views of his hometown that he realized cookie cutter was never an option for him, was never going to be an option.

He still remembers learning about the ace spectrum and thinking, huh. That’s interesting. I wonder what that must be like.

And then he remembers meeting people occasionally and wondering if they were it, if this was it. But as soon as they expressed an interest, as soon as he accepted a date, he was suddenly over it all. He remembers joining dating sites when the guys would start teasing him for his lack of a love life but feeling like he was just going through the motions, no one ever catching his eye and the thought of pursuing a real relationship leaving lead in his stomach.

He remembers seeing the spectrum again a few years later and thinking huh. Is this what it’s like?

Being ace was an easier thing to accept than the prospect of being aromantic. But Yoongi’s firmly an adult and there’s still never been anyone who’s caught his eye. He runs into someone sometimes and he tries to picture something with them but he’s almost immediately repulsed at the practicalities of it.

He doesn’t think love is for him. He doesn’t think romance is for him.

In his better moments, he’s getting better at acknowledging and accepting that romantic love is not the end all be all it’s painted as. He loves his family and his friends and Holly and that’s enough for him-- he just can’t help but occasionally cave to society’s ideals that tells him that if he’s unattached, there’s something wrong with him.

“You look like you’re thinking deep thoughts, Yoongi-chi.”

Smiling before he’s even aware of it, Yoongi looks up and sees Jin staring down at him with a fond smile of his own. It’s a little faded but so warm that Yoongi doesn’t even feel the ocean breeze for a moment.

Wiggling a little in the sand, he motions towards the spot next to him. “Got a penny,” he asks and Jin laughs as he gingerly sits down next to Yoongi, close enough to that their thighs are brushing.

“For you, I’ve got two,” Seokjin says softly and something in Yoongi slides into place.

Yoongi takes a deep drink, then lets out a slow breath. He feels his muscles relax for the first time in hours, now that it’s just them.

Yoongi’s favorite place just might be right next to Jin.

Letting his head fall until it’s resting on his best friend’s shoulder, Yoongi hums, lets the sound linger as he thinks of what he wants to say. He knows that he can say anything and Jin will treat it with respect and a certain gravitas that he likes to pretend he doesn’t possess.

Finally, without letting himself think too much, Yoongi just mumbles, “Weddings. You know?”

His head is jarred a little as Seokjin laughs quietly, more an exhalation of worry than anything else. “Yeah, I know,” he replies gently.

Shifting closer, Yoongi closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. It’s quiet between them in the way Yoongi craves-- in the way Seokjin has also confessed he needs, when the pressure to be light drags him under and he feels his careful facade cracking.

Yoongi feels the gentlest kiss to his the top of his head and it’s that little gesture that gives him the courage to say, “I love you, hyung. You know?”

Seokjin doesn’t laugh this time, and his voice is a whisper as he just repeats, “Yeah, I know. I love you too Yoongi-yah. You know?”

And this time, it’s teasing and fond and Yoongi’s heart aches because this is what he wants, what he needs and Jin just gets him in a way he didn’t think was possible before he’d learned what all those big words mean and what they meant to him specifically.

His smile is big enough for his gums to show as he laughs and tilts his head up to meet Jin, who’s already looking down at him. “I know,” he says brightly, feeling good, so good.

Jin sighs, wrapping an arm over Yoongi’s shoulder and pulling him down so that they’re laying on their backs and staring up at the night stars, the sound of the ocean just feet away.

It feels like they’re in their own little world, safe from everything, removed from it all.

“What would I do without my forever roommate,” Seokjin muses to himself and Yoongi snorts as his best friend continues. “Who else just knows that Pride and Prejudice is the pinnacle of romance and that cold pizza is better than hot and who else could I take to a wedding only to have them ditch me to sit in the dark and think big thoughts by themselves.”

Laughing, Yoongi mildly replies, “I do believe I was the one who booked our plane tickets.”

Seokjin just waves a lazy hand through the air. “Semantics, Yoongi-chi.”

They fall silent after that and Yoongi almost thinks he could fall asleep like this, with Jin so close and the rest of the world so far away. Curling into his best friend’s side, Yoongi doesn’t know how anyone else could call what they have less just because they aren’t in love, because they're friends-- the best of friends-- but nothing more.

He’s lived with Seokjin for a decade. A few years in a shitty dorm and several years later in a considerably nicer complex and Yoongi couldn’t imagine his life without Jin. They get meals together and explore the city together and when he needs a hug, Jin never hesitates, and when his hyung needs quiet and shadows, Yoongi welcomes him with open arms.

There’s never been anything more to it and Yoongi wonders for the thousandth time that he’s found someone who understands even when Yonogi didn’t know it himself.

The whiskey drips through his veins saccharine slow. Yoongi feels a little dizzy but in the good way, the safe way when he has Jin to hold onto, to keep him from spinning out of control.

In the back of his head, Yoongi knows they shouldn’t pass out on the beach, that it’s probably at least a misdemeanor and that there’s no telling what their friends won’t do to wake them up when they notice.

It’s been a very long day, though. Yoongi’s confronted his feelings-- his confusion, uneasiness, mild repulsion-- for romantic love and all it entails. And he’s made it to the other side.

His hyung is already asleep under his ear and snoring a little.

Yoongi has picked out a little moment of happiness for himself and he’s loathe to cut it short, wants to sink into the feeling of feeling loved and loving someone else, trusting in the threads of their friendship to keep him upright another day.

With that in mind, Yoongi lets the hushed crash of the ocean lull him to an easy sleep.

#my first time writing yoonjin how exciting!#my writing #come and go #yoonjin fic #yoonjin au

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madiiko12 · 4 years

Text

new york’s very own madison ‘madi’ ko was spotted on broadway street in chanel sneakers . your resemblance to kim chungha is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty-first birthday bash . while living in nyc , you’ve been labeled as being obsessive , but also ambitious . i guess being a virgo explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be glittery eyes, dangling earrings, & chanel draped in pearls. ( cisfemale & she/her) + ( kale, 20 , she/her , est. )

hi honeybuns !! im back and with child. there is a brief mention of an ed under the cut but i block it off with a tw start & end. if you’d like to plot pls leave a like and i can dm you or hit you up on discord !! my discord is kale#3079

BACKSTORY

haneul madison ko was born september 18, 1999 to two immigrant parents from S.K. her birth name is haneul, but she went by the name madison since it was easier to pronounce + madi began to almost detest her culture??

it was just that growing up she would sometimes get bullied for looking different at her school, for the way her packed lunches smelled/looked, the way people would stare if she spoke korean to her parents, how other kids would make fun of her english since she didn’t pick up on vocab/grammar as quickly since she didn’t practice at home with her parents. she just became SO insecure about it that she rejected her culture. she wouldn’t bring her mom’s food to school, if her mom ever forced her to take it she’d throw it away and choose to starve instead. she wouldn’t speak korean back to her parents in public, barely even in private (which reeaaallly upset her parents). this also REALLY destroyed her korean language skills. she can understand still, but she can barely hold a basic conversation anymore.

as she grew up, and continued this sense of distancing herself from her culture, she ultimately distanced herself from her family. which left her feeling - - alone often, even though it was all due to her own choices. in this loneliness, she found her escape in music. she would wear headphones constantly through the halls, in car rides, in her room when her parents yelled at her to turn the music down. she just loved music. she saved up the money her parents gave her whenever she worked at the nail salon (her parents owned it!!) to thrift an old keyboard. she became self-taught by trying to copy melodies of songs she’d listen to, thrifting piano lesson books, staying after school with the music teacher learning to play. sometimes she’d even skip lunch to sit in the chorus room with her choir director and play.

it’s not that she had a LACK of friends growing up, maybe just that she lacked a best friend. she had a lot of friends, but no one that she felt so connected to in the way she felt connected to music. perhaps, she was addicted to her loneliness.

she spent a lot of time playing the piano and dabbling in writing music that her grades started to fall (not that she was ever the BEST student) and her parents literally took away her piano. they said it was a waste of time because they wanted her to focus on doing well, so she could get into a good university, and then live a good life. music was just a distraction

but that didnt work

she would sneak out into the city to go to concerts and poetry readings. she’d sneak out and go to indie songwriters scenes while her parents thought she was at the library with one of her school friends

This underground scene had her full heart!! she was surrounded by likeminded people who just lived for music. she was hearing all of these incredible people who were all looking for their start. maybe not looking for anything at than just to sing their songs. tbh i think this was the point she was happiest. she was completely enveloped in music, just for the sake of music. There wasn’t any pressure, just music. Just the songs. she was wide eyed looking at this whole underground scene of artists. So maybe some plots from these underground charas?!

she’d perform some songs at karaoke nights and the indie sessions, and a producer took a keen interest in one of her songs. basically im kind of stealing halsey’s career start, but she posted a song Came in Close on SoundCloud and just blew up overnight. in the morning, she woke up to a record label asking her to fly to LA for a meeting.

and thus, Madison Ko began a career as Madi Ko where she’d release her debut album, Honey, a few months later. (DISCOGRAPHY HERE). her music is very 80s synth inspired!

new album that is most definitely CRJ’S EMOTION is coming soon...

PERSONALITY

right off the bat, madi is an absolute firecracker!! she’s loud, bursting with personality, has a lack of inhibitions that CHAOTICALLY mixes with her spontaneity

part of this is projecting her insecurities. she felt lonely as a child but doesn’t want to be seen as that to the world. it’s not so much a persona but an exaggeration of who she was.

she likes to show off her glam bc it, once again, hides her insecurities.

she just kind of is dramatic anymore

like everything about her

her persona as Madi Ko, upcoming popstar underdog, is like DUNKED in glitter, over the top stages and sets, draped in couture. basically her stages/outfits/dances/mvs are like Chungha’s but with Pale Waves and Carly Rae Jepsen VC. ex: 1, 2, 3, 4

also bc im obsessed with chungha’s famous diamond wink, IT’S GONNA BE MADI’S THING TOO. so basically madi has trended on twt a few times bc of her signature diamond wink bc she effing glues rhinestones and glitter under her eyes for performances !! she said fuck corneas !! ex: 1, 2, 3 ....god chungha is magical

so while madi is like a brand hypebeast n never shuts up, she can also get,,, easily annoyed. and heavily perceives ppl on first impressions despite that being the reason she felt misunderstood a lot growing up.

definitely argumentative!!! will blow up arguments for no reason n then later questions why she made it such a big deal but cant own up to her mistakes

when she decides she doesnt like you, SHE DOESNT LIKE YOU. it’s done. bridge is burned, she’s not keen on second chances

fame has definitely given her a bit of an ego problem --- she’s a bit more aggressive, self-obsessed while intrinsically insecure, is too busy flaunting her material possessions and trendy life that she can...lose touch of reality. basically most of her high school friends cant stand her. HC that her high school bf broke up with her bc she was no longer was the madison ko he knew!!! so if anyone wants to be that ex lmk !!! she’s written songs about them!!!

definitely the type of girl who is so hype at a party, dancing in fallen confetti, standing on the fireplace mantle, but then midway realizes she’s lonely. sad at a party.

ED TW STARTS!!!!!

....

she kind of always had body image issues growing up, but it was very off and on, but once she got signed and being by surrounded by cameras became normal she formed a full fledged ED. she’s passed out at concerts a few times bc of her ED, but they always brush it off as “not enough rest” or “she wasnt feeling well that day but pushed to perform anyway as to not disappoint the fans”

so feel free for ur muses to point it out !! she’ll get really defensive like “i eat i just work out a lot” and yeah it’s true she works out a lot but she...doesn’t really eat

it’s also one of the causes of her irritability ...

.....

END ED TW!!!!

idk why this is so long

always up for mischief!

does love a good prank. asks weird hypotheticals

is not scared of an ouija board

will get wasted off a few shots and drunk madi is UNSTOPPABLE

one time drunk madi cried bc her siamese cat (MOCHI !!!) wouldn’t ever get to go to school and would never know chemistry..... the dramatics.....

she is sensitive and despises it. she does everything she can to not come across as sensitive

however, she’s so obsessive. so deep in feeling. when she feels something she FEELS it. when she is mad it boils through her. when she is in love it is all she knows. when she is sad it covers her like sweaters and blankets on rainy days. she doesn’t know how to half-feel. everything she feels stops her in her tracks.

HOWEVER she’s the most obsessive with her own insecurities — so in relationships she’s kind of known for tapping out early. she just gets scared and the fleetingness of her career and that she’s at her very core, lonely and disappointed in herself, makes her want to run away thinking that letting down her walls and being vulnerable could only be disappointing for her SO. so maybe she ghosted ur chara or gave some lame excuse

Kind of obsessed with how she’s perceived

terrified that at any moment her career could be thrown away, her deemed irrelevant, and she goes back to being Madison Ko, daughter of nail techs in Koreatown. and then her parents would have been right all along, music was a waste of time.

she’s just my little fallen angel who flew to the sun (fame) and it constantly eats away at her girlhood, at her heart.

anyways this is all i got rn <3 come love me sorry i kind of didn’t shut up this is long

WANTED CONNECTIONS

an ex from before she was famous who broke up with her because of how she changed!! PLEASE i have ideas for this. plus,,, you get a lot of songs about ur chara!!! could be from high school, maybe someone in the music scene she frequented before she was signed, anything!!

anothr ex/fwb/undefined relationship i’d love is one when she was first famous who just introduced her to everything. something like a whirlwind that was exciting and magical. she’s written songs about this person.

exes in general.

hookups/fwb

romantic plots. pls i have songs who need meaning. friends to lovers, one sided (either way), slowburn, ANYTHING. love cruel summer plots, anything lover by tswift

PR relationships -- would LOVE one where she falls in love with the other despite how clearly defined they made their relationship

love triangles in general just get me going

best friend!!!! the one’s who know how the other feels just by looking at each other. they have countless sleepovers. tell each other everything. cry together on bathroom floors. pregame together.

ex friends. for whatever reason -- maybe madi did smth shitty, maybe they did. maybe there was backstabbing, maybe madi sacrificed friendship for a career, maybe she made moves on their romantic partner/interest despite being fully aware. idk. gimme

People she knew from the underground/indie scene before they were famous!! they’d have bonded over their love for music, little indie dreams kind of vibe. just imagine a group of dreamers !! Would love if they made some kind of pact!!!

party friends

collabs !!

pranks. mischief. gimme

enemies. gotta cook up some drama, yknow

GIRL GANG. god i just want this so bad like make a girls dream come true

#wealthyhq:intro #zoo wee mama #pls love me honeybunnies #tw ed

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autisticmight · 4 years

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how does someone who knows little-to-nothing about it get into sanders sides? i saw thomas' vines, and i've been sort of tangentially aware that the facets of his personality that he portrayed in the vines have since become characters, but there's a whole bunch of new ones??? what the fuck is a janus???? HELP. tldr where do i find The Lore? plz obi wan ur my only hope

it’s very simple!!! you hyperfixate on thomas sanders’s content in, like, 2016? and then he uploads a video called ‘my true identity’, which is a bit weird, but you love those vine characters. then he uploads more, and it becomes a trend. apparently people in the comments are shipping the prince guy and anxiety. you rewatch the new year’s video an embarrassing amount of times with your dog

i had a whole paragraph here about why i like the series, and why i dropped it and then picked it up again, but it was just a block of lowercase text and i guess it’s kind of hard to read

anyway, here’s the playlist of every episode, but i’m going to put a summary of the series and individual episodes under the readmore, while also ranking them, because i am Special Interesting and i like being useful. and i guess i’m gonna write using. like. actual grammar. if the readmore doesn’t work, then. have fun reading my infodump

here we go

Sanders Sides: A Summary

Fictional Version Of Thomas Sanders (known as Character!Thomas, and will be simply referred to as ‘Thomas’ henceforth) has ‘Sides’, which are parts of his personality that have been exaggerated and personified. It’s a nice little series set in some kind of semi-urban fantasy world, but mostly in Thomas’s living room. It mostly uses the idea of ‘Sides’ to represent the inner schemata of an individual. In simpler terms, you know when you’re conflicted, and you end up arguing with yourself? Yeah, it’s that.

Also, don’t read the comments, unless you want to disregard the care I’ve taken to not put spoilers in the Season 1 Summaries.

Season 1

I’d like to split this into parts, because there are a lot of things in earlier episodes that conflict with later characterisation. However, it’s also fun to watch them, and then rewatch them after some of the longer episodes, and feel your heart shatter!

This half of Season 1 was made solely by Thomas. It tends to be a bit more scattered, and can be watched out of chronological order, or completely skipped. Yes, I’m telling you that you can skip literally all of this section, if you want to. However, these are also the easiest videos to watch, and offer a taste of Silly Sanders Sides Hijinks without the emotional commitment.

My True Identity (6 min) - Thomas delves into the three aspects of his personality; his Logic (Teacher Guy), his Creativity (the Prince, also called Princey), and his Morality (Dad Guy who is Not Thomas’s Dad). At this point, the characters are far more similar to their Vine counterparts, and the characterisation clashes with later episodes. (3/5 - A nice way to see if you’ll enjoy the humour of this series)

Way Too Adult (5 min) - Thomas is asked by his family to help cook Thanksgiving dinner. Dad Guy pops up and discusses with Thomas how he can better learn to take care of himself. Features a talking stove, which is part of the reason why I classify this series as urban fantasy, and the start of a running joke. (2/5 - A fun, albeit rare, look into Dad Guy being responsible. I actually prefer this to My True Identity, but ranks lower due to conflicting with later S1 characterisation.)

Taking On Anxiety with Lilly Singh (6 min) - Thomas hopes and dreams to get rid of his Anxiety, who is a sassy, snide guy, sitting on the staircase. Princey, as the embodiment of Thomas’s hopes and dreams, is... Usurped by an imaginary version of Lilly Singh, who helps teach Thomas how to cope with feeling anxious. (3/5 - Introduces some secret tools that will help us later. The tools are Thomas being able to travel to various places in his head, and also Anxiety.)

A New Year of Lying to Myself... In Song!! (7 min) - The first video wherein you realise that this is A Thing. Thomas welcomes in the new year, hoping that 2017 will be better than 2016. Logic shows up to help him figure out some New Year’s Resolutions, accompanied by Dad Guy and Princey. Anxiety joins in to point out that Thomas has rarely, if ever, kept to his resolutions before. Through the first musical number of the series, the Core Sides and Thomas figure out simple, achievable resolutions that Thomas can use to improve his wellbeing. (4/5 - Unintentional foreshadowing in the form of a bop.)

The Dark Side of Disney (6 min) - Princey, not for the last time, enthuses about the wonders of Disney. However, Anxiety also appears, insisting that Disney is not as wholesome as it first appears. They argue and bond, despite the fact that Thomas still hasn’t redacted his statement regarding his hopes and dreams to get rid of his Anxiety. (2/5 - I have strong feelings on the meaning of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, both of which are shrugged off in favour of the tryhard-edgy ‘blegh stockholm syndrome’ and ‘blegh change yourself to get your man’. Still, it’s a fan-favourite for a reason, and the endcard always makes me smile.)

I’m in a Disney Show!! (6 min) - Princey enthuses about the wonders of Disney, because Thomas is in a Disney show. He talks about what happened, while the Sides (mostly Logic) suggest clickbait titles in order to entice people to watch the video. (2/5 - L*gan P*ul is mentioned, as he was also in the episode.)

The Mind vs. The Heart (6 min) - Thomas finds himself split between following his mind, Logic, or his heart, Morality. Features onesies, and looks further into the characters of Logic and Dad Guy. (3/5 - Pretty calm and peaceful, to be honest. It’s nice.)

Then we move onto the second part of Season 1. This is when Thomas’s friend, Joan, began to offer their input into scriptwriting and directing. They’re most of the reason why Sanders Sides is an actual series, instead of being silly skit characters in short vlogs. From here on in, episodes become more complex, and work on an actual timeline.

Alone on Valentines Day (9 min) - Thomas is rather upset that he will be, as the title says, alone on Valentine’s Day. The Sides try to help him figure out how to get a date with an imaginary version of his friend Valerie, but each of them has a weirder way of going about it than the last. (4/5 - Far more cohesive than previous videos, but Thomas still wasn’t fully out as gay, so his hypothetical date is a woman. Yes, I took points off because of that. Yes, I’m about to erase the 3/5 to make it 4/5 because Valerie is a delight.)

Losing My Motivation (9 min) - When Thomas finds himself procrastinating, Logic takes it upon himself to find out which side is causing it. In order to get into a deductive mindset, Logic dresses up as Sherlock, while Dad Guy joins in as Watson. Once the case is solved, an important piece of information is revealed: the Sides have names. (Logic’s name is revealed) (3/5 - It’s just a fun little video, and I can’t keep giving every video from here on in 4/5, or that’ll ruin the whole thingy.)

Sanders Sides Q&A (9 min) - Exactly what it sounds like. There’s not much else to say. (2/5 - I love it, but it’s not really necessary to understand the whole series. It’s just extra characterisation.)

Am I Original? (12 min) - Thomas finds himself in a creative rut, trying to think of a completely original idea. Princey requests full creative control - “full-on Daydream Mode” - in order to rapidly consider and enact many different concepts, all while trying to make something that has never been seen before. (Princey’s name is revealed) (4/5 - Important characterisation for Princey. I originally rated it lower due to Thomas’s inability to rap, but upon rewatching, i found that the ending dialogue between Princey and Thomas was worth two points, rather than the single one I gave it previously.)

My Negative Thinking (13 min) - When Thomas messes up in an audition, his ego - Princey - is out of commission and being cared for by Dad Guy. Therefore, the only Sides available to aid him in this situation are Logic and Anxiety, neither of whom can help Thomas in the way he wants to. Anxiety is worsening Thomas’s mental state, so Logan proposes a debate in order to combat those cognitive distortions. (4/5 - A fan-favourite episode which offers a lot of insight into Logic and Anxiety as characters. It is useful as a tool for identifying cognitive distortions in real life, which may help with the individual’s mental health. Even though it introduces another running joke, it’s educational and fun, and it develops their relationship in a positive manner, I just don’t particularly enjoy it.)

Growing Up (15 min) - It’s Thomas’s birthday! He’s in his late twenties, and he’s still a kid at heart. He hasn’t done his laundry, he's silly and immature, and he feels like he isn’t at the point that he needs to be in his life. Therefore, all the Sides, except for Dad Guy, who ironically embodies Thomas’s inner child, work on trying to make him more mature. (Morality’s name is revealed) (3/5 - Features the concept of Voltron Shirt. I love this episode, but there is a noticeable change in audio quality at the end which affects how enjoyable it is.)

Making Some Changes (15 min) - Back in Thomas’s living room, and in opposition to his view from the last episode, Anxiety is worried about how life changes in unpredictable ways, and especially about losing contact with Thomas’s friends. Therefore, in order to keep Thomas’s friends permanently by his side, Princey gets them all to shapeshift. (3/5 - It might be skippable, but it’s just really, really fun.)

Becoming A Cartoon (10 min) - Adding to the whole urban fantasy thing, it turns out that animators can literally, physically turn people into cartoons. Thomas wants to be a cartoon. Princey catches Anxiety in his arms and says “everybody loves the villain,” and I think that’s all you need to know. (1/5 - Co-stars B*tch H*rtman, known for Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom, and Being A Bigot, who did the character designs for the Sides, if not the actual animation. And the designs are kind of. Eh. Just watch some fanmade animatics.)

Accepting Anxiety (23 min) - Part 1: Excepting Anxiety (10 min), and Part 2: Can Anxiety Be Good? (14 min) - HOO. If the musical number or the animation didn’t clue you in, this video confirms that Sanders Sides is A Thing. Remember how Thomas hoped and dreamt to get rid of his Anxiety? Remember how he never redacted that statement, or even expressed a bit of remorse? Well, here, his wishes come true, and he doesn’t feel bad about it at all! That’s because he has absolutely no shame, caution, or fear of death. Yeah, he’s a mess. Therefore, the Sides make him take them on a magical quest to Anxiety’s Room, in order to un-mess-ify Thomas. (Anxiety’s name is revealed) (5/5 - The team really went above and beyond with this one. Like. Hoo. That’s it. Just. Hoo. Hoo. I’m an owl.)

And that’s Season 1!!! I’m going to add Season 2 in a reblog, because this has taken roughly three hours and it’s been really difficult to not spoil their names!!! which i did anyway because their names are all easier to type from muscle memory!!!

#helen stfu #asks #sanders sides tag da lee lay da lee loo #Anonymous

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crystalsexarch · 4 years

Text

Red is My Favorite Color - Crystal Exarch - E

“Does it hurt?”

Raha is wrapping soft gauze around your wrist. The gash, long and half dry on your forearm, is nowhere near the beginning of his bind at the inner flesh of your thumb. Though his fingers, crystal and skin, are gentle as he circles closer to the cut, his eyes are heavy. Full of something you can’t quite place but recognize as other.

Suffice it to say, the Exarch has something planned and he's not quite ready to tell you about it. But fate may have it that you find out anyway.

This and more writing available here.

You nip at the air as he reaches the crest of the wound but bite back a stronger reaction, not keen on letting any grunt, whimper, or cry echo about the Ocular. Not under these circumstances. The Exarch’s ministrations tickle like a light burn. “You mean the wound or…?”

“The battle,” he says, letting the feathered strip float to meet your skin, pupils wide. With index and thumb together, he picks up the end and continues wrapping.

You squint and look at the ceiling as the gauze’s grip tightens. “You’re no stranger to warfare yourself.”

“Hmm.” A smile with bright, cold eyes. “I do not fight as you do, Warrior.”

You scrunch your lips, look high and left, high and right - but when you lift your eyebrows and sigh, he knows you’ll not question him further. Which is precisely what he wants.

He never lied about his scrying habit. You understand the invasion of your privacy was in some ways necessary, even after your summoning. Surely the intrusive behavior had saved you more than it shamed you. And what’s a little shame between lovers?

The thing is - you’ve never quite asked him to stop.

Aether tingles at your flesh. “That should suffice, then,” he says through a mist of magic. “What of your plans for the morrow?”

You examine his handiwork. Thick, secure bandages. Nicely wrapped, offering a good deal of mobility. Nothing that will interfere with your work, you think, testing and twisting your fingers. “Though it pains me,” you say, “I still think traveling south tonight will put me in a better place for the work ahead.”

“I suppose.” He smooths the lap of his robes and sighs. “So you’ll not be staying?” His chin down, eyes asking. Asking perhaps too perfectly. A glint catches your attention, but soon you lose it to his beautiful crimson. Will you fight to get it back? He watches. Will you fight?

The man you love covers his mouth for a yawn and struggles to keep his red eyes open.

....not tonight, you decide. You’ve quite the journey ahead, and you aren’t sure what to expect of the Empty. When you kiss him goodbye and feel the little press of nails on your neck, like a kitten accidentally extending his claws, you feel for another moment that your lover is perhaps up to something...but heed the call of Lakeland’s night sky anyway.

So you leave.

The Exarch lets the door to the Ocular click behind you and pulls his fingernails into his palms, staring where you’d stood just moments before. What you don’t know is how far his ears strain to catch your footsteps, how once he is certain you have left he opens the door, peeks through, and secures it once more. He can’t help but chuckle to himself as he picks up the leftover gauze from the Portal’s platform and heads to the Umbilicus.

There is art he has shown you. There is art he has not.

He picked up the hobby in earnest some forty years ago, though he’d first tried his hand not long after his arrival in the First. Back then, he had thought to hone his unsteady crystal arm through study of the field. Misguided study, he soon found out. The wounds were too fresh, the anxiety too potent for him to watch clumsy lines leak from his fingertips. The sight of his own name scrawled onto parchment was enough to make him weep, and he abandoned the idea in a matter of months.

But after he had half a century to relearn patience and humility, he could bear it. And once he abandoned the idea of writing with his crystal-bitten hand, he found he was quite capable with his left. Even more so after years of practice.

Raha loves you. He would spend each moment with you if he could...but should your departure be a necessity, there are certain things he ought do in your absence. There are certain things he’s afraid to ask for, certain things he’s not sure he wants, certain things his body responds to regardless. And surely as you answered his interstellar pleas, he will answer himself.

With a grunt, he shifts a pile of books from a desk in the Umbilicus. It’s just one of many pieces he arranged for at your insistence - a modest bed, a table for two, matching chairs that wouldn’t have looked out of place at an Ishgardian cafe. You also helped him replace old shelves with new, and it is to one of these he draws close and closer, until he’s pressed his chest into the wood and knelt with his left hand prying behind its back. Fingers reach and grasp until finally, nuzzled between the wood and the wall, they close around a loosely sealed portfolio and bring it out into the light.

With a hum, Raha slides it onto the desk space he has cleared and works at the seal with his fingernails. For now, he is content to observe past works, knowing full well you’ll provide him more inspiration in the morning.

The seal gives. Raha holds the pack at an angle and lets slide the pieces within. If he tells you he has hidden works of art that make him blush, you will assume he speaks of something overtly self-indulgent and erotic. And that’s not to say these pieces aren’t...but were you to see them you’d be surprised by how little skin he’s painted. And by how much blood.

Raha blushes. The piece at the top of the stack. His latest and only partially complete, swathing colors claiming only the most important parts of his pencil sketch. The figure, undeniably you by your mail alone, straining against a rush of stabbing ice, left arm caught and cut - the same gash he’d just dressed for you - your right arm ever-thrusting that lance forward. So far, he’d paid particular attention to your snarling lips, the spray of blood on your cheek, the cracked gauntlet that let the cool blade into your well-muscled flesh.

It’s not that he wants to see you injured or pained. He is fascinated by the way you endure.

Fascinated. Yes...

The paint is cool beneath his gentle fingertips. He touches your face on the page like he does your real cheeks, lips, scars. And though a half-finished painting can’t touch back, his eyes grow heavy with a curious lust, just as he anticipated. Hand yet on the page, he tilts his head back and remembers the scene that inspired it. Oh, what he would give to have been there instead of in the Ocular, scrying and hard at the sight of you picking your blood-sprayed body off the ground, wiping your lip, and besting your enemies blow by adept blow. That was not the first time he had conjured your image for his own selfish pleasure. But it was the first time he had done it with a hot smile on his face and frenzied eyes. It was the first time he had called so loud upon orgasm that he was half-surprised you, ignorantly basking in your victory, didn’t turn to look upon his invisible window into your life.

He wants to finish this painting tonight so he can start a new one tomorrow, with fresh inspiration, but he finds he produces his best work undistracted. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he removes his hand from the page and places it instead at the pitch of his robes, sighing at the slight release of tension. A sing-song purr of pleasure later, and he realizes he’s going to need more. More touch, more pressure. Less fabric in the way.

Since he’s off to bed soon, anyway, he works at his outer layers, the white and red sash. No patience to fold them - he sends them to a corner of the room to be picked up later. Then he unclasps his black robe and draws it apart, leaning against the desk with his crystal arm, freeing his member with the other. Freeing it, stroking it. And he imagines.

Imagine - you with your fingers bone-frozen around your lance, your helmet chipped and cocked. Red at your chest, at your neck - yours and your enemy’s - giving you a color deeper than the flush of your cheeks. Than Raha’s cheeks as he imagines. Imagine the sound you make rushing forward in retaliation, the sharp inhale of impact, the kiss of victory in your exasperated laugh. Imagine the electricity that runs through your muscles at the final blow, the euphoric aftershock of violence even amidst pain.

Yes, he is fascinated by those moments, the ones that hurt and glorify you. It’s hard to hold himself back as he thinks about how honed your body is, how that armor clothes a work of art. He sinks his chest onto the table, face pressed into the page, and rocks his hips against his hand.

Feeling foolish, he imagines jerking himself off on the side of some hypothetical battlefield. What if he hasn’t come by the time you best your foe? What if you spy him on the sidelines and toss your helmet aside, approaching with a tricky grin? He imagines you taking both of his hands and holding his wrists together just above his tail so you can slide him into your mouth and get him closer. In his mind’s eye - the mist of blood on your jawline, your breath still hot from battle. What if you, too, are burning beneath that mail? How impatient are you when he resists the fervor of your tongue and tenses and tenses but never quite gets there?

In the Umbilicus, he laughs into the table with his lips smushed open and his fingers ever curled around his cock, but in his mind you have decided to remove just as much mail as you need to have your way with him. But what way? Growing closer, he alternates between two scenarios: in one, he sees you, a gloved hand pinning his shoulder, an ungloved working at his entrance; in the other you have opted to have him fuck you instead.

Raha’s tail twitches in time with his member. He wants to come, but he wants to see each fantasy through to its own conclusion, though he’s not sure he can manage. The visions come in debaucherous waves. You, pressing your armored chest into his back and entering his heat with the same vigor you display in battle, fresh blood coloring the crystal curled around his tense shoulder muscles. Your hand wrapped around him and teasing at his chest, floating lower until it finds his erection and works…

...just as he works you in his twin fantasy. The push and pull of your body beneath him, your open huffing mouth. He knows he’s being loud. He knows he’s traded soft moans from breathy pants, that if someone were to enter the Ocular they’d certainly hear him approaching climax. He tongues the corner of his mouth and keeps the pressure mounting.

He imagines - victory is its own reward, but he wants to please you anyway. He wants you to come inside him or beneath him or with him. He wants you to feel the rhythm of his sex, to paint pleasure into his flesh with your fingernails. These are things you have done, things you doin private, safe and calm. But how he’d love to have you fresh from the fray, not keen on tending to your wounds, but on fucking him. On being fucked.

“Ah…”

He’s close. Cheek still pressed into the desk, he moves his crystal arm to push against a sensitive spot on his inner thigh and bends his knees. He’s so blind to anything but the battle-lust in his brain he never considers how obvious he may have been in your presence, how easy he is to read. He never considers you may have suspected something of his poorly hidden grin and lusty gaze.

And what’s most suspicious - how easily he let you leave. That’s what brings you back to the Tower before you’ve time enough to reach your mount.

Climax imminent, he becomes aware of the sweat on his neck only when the door to the Umbilicus clicks. Ears flick back and he winces, knowing only you would enter without knocking.

He can pretend that’s the reason he keeps rubbing himself over the edge, but at that point he knows there’s not a force in the world that could keep him from finishing. His name just escapes your lips.

“Raha?”

“Yes?!”

And then he surges against the desk, coming into his hand after a few more fevered strokes. Now he knows his face is as red as the paint it’s pressed against. Should’ve finished the painting instead. When he turns, he sees you with wide eyes of amusement, hand rubbing your forehead.

“This is what you...why you…?” you ask, shaking your head.

Instead of righting himself, he uses one hand to pull his robe back together and deflates against the desk, his tail twitching left and right beneath the fabric. “I...can...explain, my love.”

“And what’s this?” You step closer and coil your fingers into his hair while examining the piece half-hidden by his body. “I haven’t seen this one.”

“I’ve been...hiding it from you, you see.”

“This?” Nothing about the painting strikes you as embarrassing at first glance. And perhaps even astute observers wouldn’t have recognized anything of note. The Warrior of Light and Darkness, straining in battle. He’s certainly not the first to choose that subject. But then you see the wound and how very familiar it is. “This is…”

“Yes. Your battle at - “

“You’ve been...watching me then?”

“...I have.”

“Watching me and…”

He shifts beneath your hand. You use his movement to undo his braid. He continues squirming until he’s turned over, his back now against the desk and painting. Through a shy kitten smile he speaks. “I must admit there are certain qualities you exhibit in battle...that I’d not mind bringing to the bedroom.”

Though his comments have raised your eyebrows, you can’t help but admire his body, patched not only with crystal but now sweat and heat and blush. You plant your hand on his stomach and trace down. “I’ve got to be careful about bringing you into the field, then, haven’t I?”

“You are talking to a man who is well-versed in self-restraint.”

“And yet, you lured me back here, did you not? Couldn’t help it, what with your sly expressions.”

He blinks. “I assure you, it was never my intention to - “

With a wicked smile, you catch his lips in your hand. “Tell me more about those qualities you so admire. I may find myself willing to demonstrate a few.”

#crystal exarch #ffxiv fanfiction #ff14 fanfic #g'raha tia #final fantasy xiv #5.0 spoilers at least #uhh there's battle referenced in here but nothing too graphic #there's an arm wound but It's Fine #mywriting

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lisatelramor · 4 years

Text

A Sip of Liquid Courage (No Way to Take it Back)

AN: In December I took a trope list and a random number generator and tried to make myself some short fic prompts. This is the result of one of them ^_^;;; Not quite my usual sort of fic setup, but it works!

***

Kudo Shinichi was not drunk. In fact, he was entirely sober. The funny thing about having a group of people try to kill you that went by alcohol names, it kind of put you off alcohol for life. Although watching Mouri Kogoro make a fool of himself over the years had kind of helped that aversion along. So no alcohol to numb him to the ridiculous behaviors of people around him at events.

Honestly he didn’t mind too much. It’s kind of fun to know what people are like under the influence if only for hypothetical blackmail information. But when he agreed to come with Hakuba to a forensics conference, he wasn’t really expecting them to get invited out for drinks, let alone at a club. Shinichi was a bit out of place.

Hakuba knew one of the younger officers that invited them. And Hakuba definitely wasn’t as uptight or shy with a drink or two in him.

At the moment, Hakuba was flushed-faced and grinning at something his friend was saying. The relaxed smile was a nice look on him. He actually looked his age.

The song playing changed and the person Hakuba was talking to let out a whoop and grabbed someone from the group to drag toward the dance floor. Left alone, Hakuba’s eyes skipped around the table and landed on Shinichi. His wide grin became a little less wide, but no less warm as he scooted closer.

“Didn’t know this was your kind of thing,” Shinichi said when Saguru was close enough that he’d be able to hear.

“It’s not really,” Saguru said, “but I have enough friends who like this sort of thing that I’ve grown used to it.”

For a man that was more than a bit tipsy, he was still very articulate. But not perfectly put together anymore—Hakuba had run a hand through his hair at one point and his shirt was a bit rumpled from brushing up against bodies to reach the bar. Shinichi offered him a smile. “So you don’t have a secret love for dirty dancing?”

Hakuba snorted. “Hardly. Although dancing in general is nice. Do you dance?”

“Not like that,” Shinichi said with a nod to the grinding going on at the edge of the dance floor.

“How about that?” Hakuba said, with a nod for the wilder waving of arms and shimmying bodies moving in and out of each other’s space.

“Never tried.”

“Care to try?” There was something flirtatious in the way Hakuba held out his hand and tilted his head to the side, something the edge of challenging too. Shinichi was probably reading too much into it. Hakuba was just drunk and enthusiastic.

The moving bodies on the dance floor weren’t very appealing, but the genuine invitation was, so Shinichi put his hand in Hakuba’s. “Sure. Why not?”

“Lovely.”

Hakuba swept Shinichi out of their booth and to the loud crush of the dance floor before Shinichi could register how warm Hakuba’s hand was. Hakuba danced like someone with formal lessons who’d decided to throw them out the window—good posture and sense of rhythm, careful awareness of a partner, but moving however felt right instead of to any pre-set choreography. Shinichi moved with him, a laugh startled out of him as Hakuba gave them a spin, a hand still holding Shinichi’s own.

Shinichi had no idea what the hell he was doing. He almost elbowed half a dozen people and stepped on Hakuba’s foot at least once. He should have felt too sober and self-conscious to do this, but it was actually kind of fun. The room had an energy to it. The music might be too loud and the people too close, but they moved like one organism with the beat of the music and it was its own kind of exhilarating to be caught in the middle of it. Plus it was kind of hard to be too self-conscious as Hakuba had completely lost any of that a while back. When everyone else was drunk, the sober party was the least ridiculous by default.

The song changed, and the beat surged faster. Shinichi found himself pressed closer to Hakuba in an effort to not get too close to strangers, and Hakuba didn’t seem to mind.

He had a hand on Shinichi’s hip, probably helping him balance, and when dancers crushed them closer still, Shinichi realized that Hakuba was a lot closer than he’d thought. He had a happy grin on his face and Shinichi suddenly wasn’t sure what he was feeling.

He tugged Hakuba’s shoulder, nodding off the dance floor.

Hakuba went willingly enough, not taking hands from Shinichi as they somehow ended up against a wall in the far end of the room, not near their table at all.

“A bit too many people,” Shinichi said, having to speak loud to be heard.

Hakuba nodded. “This is better. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Er. Yeah.” Shinichi realized Hakuba still had a hand on his hip. Usually Hakuba didn’t touch anyone more than needed.

“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about going to the conference with me.” Hakuba tilted his head to the side and his body shifted a bit with it. Shinichi shot a hand out but it seemed that Hakuba wasn’t actually tipping over, just shifting on his feet. Shinichi kept a hand on his arm anyway just in case. “Kudo-san.” Hakuba looked him in the eyes suddenly serious.

“Uh, yes?”

“I’m glad to have you as a friend.”

“You too.” Shinichi hadn’t realized that Hakuba considered him a friend. They spoke when they crossed paths on cases or Kid heists, but this was the first time they’d ever done anything together deliberately.

“And I’m glad you’re here now.” Hakuba’s free hand landed on Shinichi’s shoulder.

“…Yeah.” This was getting a bit too…intense. And Hakuba leaned in closer. Shinichi could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Uh, Hakuba-san maybe you should—”

“I’m really glad,” Hakuba said like he hadn’t heard Shinichi start speaking at all. Shinichi lifted a hand to Hakuba’s shoulders to get a bit of distance, but the next moment Hakuba’s face was right in his and lips pressed against his, messy and a bit off center.

Any words he might have found died in his throat. What the hell.

“Mm.” Hakuba hummed against his lips. Tilted his head to try again.

Shinichi unfroze. “Wait wait wait wait.” He pushed Hakuba back and Hakuba let him, blinking at him in confusion. “Hakuba-san,” Shinichi said firmly. “You’re drunk.”

Hakuba blinked again. “A little bit, yes,” he said reasonably.

It shouldn’t have been endearing, but it was and Shinichi couldn’t even feel too bad about the situation. He patted Hakuba on the shoulder, hoping it came across as friendly but not so friendly that Hakuba was going to try and kiss him again. They kind of needed to have a sober conversation about this, which wasn’t going to happen tonight. “I think that it’s time to call it an evening.”

“Oh?” Hakuba looked hopeful.

Shinichi snorted despite himself. “Not that kind of evening.” He tugged on Saguru’s hand, stepping away. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the hotel and sobered up.”

“I don’t think I’d be able to be this forward sober,” Hakuba said, following along happily enough. He was a little unsteady, but not so bad that Shinichi thought he’d have to dive closer to keep him from falling flat on his face.

“And that’s exactly why we’re going to go sober you up.”

Hakuba was silent, turning that over in his mind with a slight frown on his face as Shinichi said goodbye to Hakuba’s friends. They were halfway into the walk to the hotel when Hakuba, probably starting to sober up said, “I made a grave mistake didn’t I?”

Shinichi glanced back to find Hakuba looking at Shinichi’s hand around his wrist, still guiding him on the off chance Hakuba decided to try doing something spontaneous and potentially dangerous the way drunk people could do. The frown had become full-fledged and troubled. It was so far away from the open grin earlier that Shinichi felt a pang of guilt. Looked like he’d kind of ruined Hakuba’s evening even if he didn’t mean to.

“I wouldn’t say a mistake,” Shinichi said carefully. “You’re just more impulsive right now.”

“I did make a mistake then,” Hakuba said with heavy certainty. “Damn.”

“Hakuba, it’s fine.”

Hakuba said nothing, just followed Shinichi back to the hotel room they’d booked for the conference and accepted the glass of water Shinichi got him from the bathroom tap.

“Want to talk about it?” Shinichi asked.

“I think I’m going to be very embarrassed in the morning,” Hakuba said in a detached way that said he wasn’t properly processing emotions now. A pause, then “Kuroba is going to mock me mercilessly for having a type.”

“Kuroba?”

“A…classmate? Friend? Enemy?” Hakuba squinted at the ceiling. “Past crush? Is it really past though…? It’s a bit like those relationship lists with a check-box for ‘it’s complicated’ or ‘all of the above’.”

“Right.” There was a lot Shinichi didn’t know about Hakuba, and who Kuroba was only comprised a small part of that. “Feeling a bit more sober?”

“Unfortunately. I always have hated the crash.” He drank half the glass of water in one go and wrinkled his nose at it. “It’s so nice not to overthink everything for a while.”

Well, Shinichi could empathize with that. “Finish the water and get some sleep, Hakuba-san and we can talk in the morning.”

“Must we?” Hakuba said with a sigh, then, “I don’t suppose I could get one more kiss for the night?”

“Ask me in the morning,” Shinichi said, finding himself meaning it. He didn’t really look to men, but really, outside of Ran he didn’t find himself attracted to people in general. If he let himself look at Hakuba that way, well, he wasn’t un-interesting.

Hakuba nodded and downed the rest of the water. “Right. Apologies in advance if I try to run in the morning.”

“You’re not going to now?”

“Oh, no. I’m much too tired and not nearly mortified enough yet.” Hakuba collapsed face first onto one of the two twin beds, not even bothering to take any clothing off or get under the covers. “Goodnight.”

Shinichi snorted when he started snoring softly a few moments later. He wasn’t really sure what to do with the situation, but he honestly did find Hakuba a friend, so this wasn’t something they couldn’t work out. Shinichi took off Hakuba’s shoes without him even twitching before going through his nightly routine and climbing into his own bed. It was pretty easy to fall asleep, all things considered.

o*O*o

Shinichi woke up to muffled swearing and Hakuba clutching a stubbed toe with his eyes squinted in the light-sensitive way people had when they were hung-over. “Are you running?” Shinichi asked sleepily.

Hakuba froze. “Kudo-san.”

Shinichi sat up and stretched. Hakuba’s eyes followed the motion like he couldn’t help it. He also looked like he was terrified what was going to come out of Shinichi’s mouth next. Well, that wouldn’t do. “I don’t suppose this hotel room has a coffee maker.”

“Er. I hadn’t looked for one.”

“Hmm. Well I need caffeine. If you’re not trying to run away, we can get breakfast and talk.”

Hakuba relaxed in degrees, lowering his foot back to the floor. “…I’d like that.”

“Great. I cleaned up last night, so the bathroom is all yours.”

“…Thank you.”

Hakuba all but ran, taking clean clothing with him.

There was a restaurant attached to the hotel, so that could be their next destination. Shinichi still didn’t feel uncomfortable with what happened last night. He’d kind of thought he would, but if anything he was a bit curious how far the faint interest he’d felt during that kiss went. And, well… He sighed internally. He wasn’t in a relationship right now considering things with Ran had been more than a bit tense after he came back from being Conan. No time like the present to explore the full spectrum of his sexuality.

o*O*o

Hakuba was quiet until halfway through his first cup of tea. Then he just looked nervous. Shinichi sipped coffee—and this was good coffee—and waited patiently for Hakuba to figure out what he wanted to say.

“So,” Hakuba said finally, once the pinched look of a hangover headache was starting to smooth away. “Apologies for last night. It appears that I let myself go a bit too much and ended up inconveniencing you. And. Taking liberties with your person.” Hakuba blushed, not looking quite in Shinichi’s direction. “I assure you that such a slip of propriety won’t happen again, and I hope it hasn’t caused you any reason to regret our friendship.”

Hakuba, Shinichi decided, was kind of cute when he was shy. Not as much as when he was smiling unreservedly, but it made him look vulnerable and approachable a lot more than his usual confidence did. Not that he necessarily found confidence unattractive. “You didn’t ruin anything,” Shinichi said. “And I’m not mad. I was a bit surprised, but nothing you did upset me.”

Hakuba’s eyes flicked up and away. “That isn’t how most people respond,” he said a bit ruefully. “I admit that I’d hoped you would be interested in return, and that I invited you to go to the conference for less than pure reasons, but I honestly only intended to find out whether or not you’d even consider being interested in men last night. It’s just that I was nervous and the last time I attempted to determine this sort of thing it wasn’t…”

Shinichi blinked. “Honestly you seemed really confident last night.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Hakuba said. “I can get… tripped up by over analyzing and second guessing and a few drinks tends to turn that part of my mind off. Unfortunately, a few too many drinks and I end up overconfident and impulsive and prone to giving into whatever emotional whims I happen to feel.”

“So it was a whim?”

Hakuba still couldn’t look at him. “…Not entirely.”

“Hmm.” So in other words, Hakuba definitely thought of kissing him before that night, he just didn’t have the usual inhibitions not to. Shinichi sipped at his coffee. “Well, last night you were drunk enough that I definitely wasn’t going to respond. Just saying, a drink is one thing, but that much alcohol is a different story. Now that you’re sober…” Shinichi shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure how I feel, but you aren’t unattractive and I enjoy your company. I’d be up for trying that kiss again.”

Hakuba stopped trying to avoid looking at him and stared. “I… truly?”

Shinichi shrugged again. “In all honesty, I hadn’t kissed a man before last night or even thought of it, but it could have been a nice kiss under different circumstances, so…”

“Oh.” Hakuba blushed again, faint pink along his cheeks. “Oh.” The shy look vanished as a much more confident smile crossed his face. “Well, then I’d like that. I. Would you be interested in a date? A proper one, not just me inviting you to things and failing to reveal my motivations.”

“I’d like that.” Shinichi smiled back.

The rest of breakfast went smoothly, conversation switching over to their hobbies instead of the usual routes of crime and cases, last night’s dancing opening a new topic to know each other better. And at the end of it, once they were back in their hotel room gathering up their things to leave, Hakuba drew Shinichi into another kiss. A much more hesitant and shy kiss, but no worse than the first one.

And Shinichi kissed back.

#detective conan #fanfiction #shinichi/saguru #my writing

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ancientbooshartifacts · 4 years

Text

Pantomime

Author: BeansidheBaby

Year: 2008

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Howince

It was easy to forget that Vince had been raised in the forest these days. He never stopped to speak to animals any more, or told stories about Bryan Ferry and his childhood adventures. He had lost the slightly naïve wonder he used to regard the whole world with. Now he smirked and swaggered (well, minced really) with an arrogant grace, that was completely divorced from the awkwardly gangly teenager Howard had lured away from the vacuum that was state education with promises of adventure and millet rotas. Howard was shocked then, to discover that Vince had never heard of Cinderella. Later he realised that there was no logical way that he would have known. Leopards are not known for their knowledge of the collected works of the Grimm's Brothers and Bryan was more the lullaby than the bed time story type. “Howard,” Vince bounded up excitedly “What?” Howard muttered barely looking up from his copy of Global Explorer “Can we see this?” he held up a poster, “It looks well trendy. It's about a girl who gets made a princess because she had great shoes. Imagine that!” Howard looked more carefully at the poster. “Vince, this is for the panto. It's for kids,” he said flatly, “Besides you already know what happens in the end, so what's the point paying twenty quid to see some sad collection out of work soap actors and and has-been pop stars torture us with two hours of double entendres and dodgy slapstick?” “Why, what happens? Does she win X-factor?” Vince asked with sincerity shining from his eyes. Howard eyed him suspiciously. “Are you trying to say that you never heard the story of Cinderella?” he asked incredulously, “You know the words to every Gary Numan song ever written and you don't know what happens at the end of Cinderella?” “Yeah,” said Vince churlishly, “So are we going or what?” “I'll book the tickets,” Howard sighed. He had forgotten how loud it was. Even as a child he had found it all very unnecessary and tedious. It was worth it though, to see Vince staring at the play wide-eyed, whooping for the good guys and hissing at the bad guys. Howard had been ready to tackle any and all questions about girls playing boys and middle aged men playing old women, with historical background notes on the theatre prepared in bullet points, but Vince had taken it all in his stride. Typical. At the moment he was admiring the actress who played Button's tight knee length trousers. “Those are genius! Do you think that the Victorian butler look could be coming back?” he asked in Howard's general direction. Howard chose to see this as a rhetorical question, as Vince would hardly ask him his opinion on fashion trends in dead earnest. During the interval, Vince bought a bag of liquorish all sorts “to share” (translation: he ate them and picked out the plain black ones for Howard) “Thanks for taking me Howard,” he said with his cheeks full of sweets, looking more childlike than he had in years. His free hand rested on Howard's armrest, his long fingers plucking at the worn nap of the velvet. The lights dimmed and the curtains reopened. The second act was beginning. Vince impulsively grabbed Howard's hand and rested his head on his friend's shoulder. Ooh that's low, thought Howard, wait until I can't make a fuss. It didn't actually bother him very much really. But it did worry him that it didn't. He nervously reached out an arm and placed it self consciously around Vince.

Vince was quieter during the second act, not heckling the dumber heckers any more or throwing all-sorts at the people in the stacks. He just sat slumped against Howard's shoulder and fiddling with a loose thread on his sleeve. Howard sat as stiff as a board with his arm mechanically around his friend's waist, trying so hard to be nonchalant. Vince shifted and his cheek came into contact with Howard's neck. Howard flinched slightly, but tightened his grip on Vince. He spent the rest of the performance focusing solely on Vince's hot breath against his throat. When the curtain finally fell after three curtain calls (three too many, thought Howard) they rose to their feet awkwardly. Howard shifted away from Vince and looked steadfastly at the ground but, made no move to take his arm away. They walked towards the exit holding on to each other loosely but closely, bumping hips and legs together occasionally. I missed this, Howard realised abruptly. Doing stupid things with Vince that neither of them would ever normally do. Vince touching him. He told Vince not to touch him so man times that apparently he'd stopped trying. “What I don't understand is,” Vince said tiredly, “why did Cinderella marry the prince?” “Fitted the shoe. If the shoe fits, wear it,” Howard replied “No, I mean why did she want to marry him not how did she manage it. And I'm not even going to go into how unlikely it is that one person would have a different shoe size to everyone else in the country and still be able to find fab shoes” “Why wouldn't she marry him? He's the prince. That's how stories go” “But what about Buttons?” Vince insisted. How did bloody chocolate come into it? “Buttons loved her and she liked him better than anyone else she knew. Why does she drop him?” Oh that Buttons. “Button's being in love with Cinderella is supposed to be a joke. She didn't see him like that even as a possibility,” Honestly a footman who was a very ineffectively disguised girl over the heir to the thrown? “That's bullshit,” said Vince vehemently, “No one falls in love with people they hook up with at parties. You wake up, you find your clothes, you go home and never call them and they never call you. Those are the rules!” “You're absolutely right Vince. We should write a letter to Disney immediately and tell them that they're perpetuating a falsehood about the 'rules' as regards classic fairy tales,” Howard said with a sarcastic wave of his hand “Don't get shirty with me. I'd rather marry my best mate who loved me rather than some pouf that fancied me for my shoes!” Vince snapped back “Stories aren't supposed to be realistic, Vince. It's supposed to be an escape,” Howard said quietly “Haven't they seen 'When Harry Met Sally'?” Vince was patently sulking now. Howard sighed and pulled him closer and ruffled his hair. “Here don't get upset, little man. It's only a story, yeah?” “Yeah,” Vince muttered against Howard's coat. It was only forty five minutes later, when they were home and Howard was folding his clothes for the next day onto the end of his bed, that he remembered exactly what Vince had said. I'd marry my best mate who loved me rather than some pouf who fancied me for my shoes He put his shirt down carefully and sat down on the bed. Had Vince meant that literally or was he talking about some hypothetical best mate that he'd marry. Who he'd marry?! Howard decided suddenly that he didn't care if he looked like a fool and Vince teased him about this for a year. He walked towards the door quickly, gaining speed as he made his way to Vince's room. He burst into the room and just as suddenly realised exactly how embarrassing this would be if he'd gotten it wrong. And how stupid it looks to burst into a room sheepishly. Vince was semi undressed and sitting on his bed. “Took you long enough. I thought you were supposed to be the clever one?” he said casually but with a delicate tremor in his voice that was only just noticeable. “So what now?” he asked plucking at his shirt in a way that was equal parts sultry and nervous fiddling. “Vince I-” Howard coughed and blushed before looking up, “I think traditionally I would produce a white charger from somewhere and we'd ride off into the sunset” “Nah, that's princes you're thinking of,” smiled Vince, “you're my narky little butler who adores me from afar and then gives me up the second a jazzy village wench walks by” “So what now?” Howard echoed Vince's earlier question, feeling slightly hurt by the reference to his birthday party. Vince sashayed across the room until he was a foot away from Howard. He then shuffled closer until they were nose to nose (nose to chin to be completely accurate). He stood up onto his tippy toes and looked into his friend's eyes before pressing a gentle kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Vince-” Vince shushed him and laced their fingers together before resting their foreheads together. “Do you know what friends with benefits are Howard?” Oh shit, thought Howard. Vince continued without asking for an answer. “We've been sort of married without benefits for ten years now.” Hang on, what? “I want to be with you. Just you. And really with you. You know?” Was Vince actually nervous? Howard wrapped his arms around Vince and kissed him firmly. “Why me?” he asked incredulously. “Because you love me and I love you. That's usually a good reason,” Vince smirked cheekily. “I'm not. I've never,” Howard stammered, becoming increasingly aware of his friends erection pressing into his thigh. “Don't worry, I'll fix that.”

Howard shuffled anxiously while Vince's cocky grin flickered. “We don't have to do anything you don't like,” he said quietly, all traces of his earlier confidence gone. “I do want to have done it. It's just doing it makes me feel a bit funny,” Howard admitted. How did it work anyway? He knew only the theoretical aspects of how to do it with a girl, was it different with men? Obviously it was different but, how different? Did Vince want to bum him? He had somewhat mixed feelings about that and he had been sure that his feelings on being bummed had been clear and to the point yesterday. Not that he thought of it much. Hardly ever. It was scarcely his fault that Vince insisted on wearing those tight trousers that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Which unfortunately only made his imagination competitive. It was impossible to look at him and not wonder what being fucked by him would be like. It would be like going to a race track and ignoring the cars. Vince's face froze slightly. Howard realised his mistake. “Just take it slow. I'm new to all this,” he said sheepishly. This made Vince smile again, though more affectionately condescending than arrogantly this time. “Nice and slow,” he agreed and pulled Howard into a gut wrenchingly slow, sensuous kiss. Their lips slid across each other in a lazy fight for dominance. Howard captured Vince's tongue in his mouth and gave it an experimental suck. Vince groaned and muttered, “Oh Howard” into his mouth. Not with the intonation that those words usually received either, like he was a puppy that had shamed itself in the middle of the kitchen floor. No, this “Oh Howard” was a creature far removed from the “Oh Howard” of old. This “Oh Howard” was doing something very, very right. Emboldened by this success he nipped at his friend's lower lip and teased it between his teeth. That went down quite well, with Vince making a small noise in the back of his throat and pressing himself closer to Howard's body and pulling their hips together suddenly. They were both hard and straining against their flies. Howard yelped girlishly and jumped at the pressure causing Vince to break away and look up worriedly, “Too fast?” he asked nervously “No, no just right,” Howard said breathlessly. Vince flashed an impish grin before cupping the bulge in the taller man's trousers and squeezing. “Too much!” Howard squeaked. “Seriously?” Vince asked, “Sorry. Maybe we should lie down for a bit” “Ho ho, Vince. I'm not that bad,” snapped Howard. Vince waved his hands hurriedly “No, no. Look like this,” he said, grabbing Howard's hands and lay back on the bed, pulling Howard on top of him. He spread his legs and settled Howard between them before grinding upwards with his hips. He guided Howard's hand above their heads before wrapping his arms around his neck. “That good?” he asked sounding a bit winded. “Aren't I too heavy?” Howard asked concerned “Naw, I'm not made of glass. If Naboo can support a fully grown primate, I think you n' me'll manage.” Howard looked as though he was going to ask for an elaboration on what Vince had just said but, he soon forgot everything about tiny shamen and what they got up to on business trips with their familiars, when he felt Vince's sharp incisors against his jugular vein. It felt very nice and then very painful. For about ten seconds he was sure Vince actually was the vampire of Shoreditch and had seduced him so he could drink of his virgin's blood. Or something like that. And then he got used to the pain and wet suction and it was very, very nice again. Vince might be mistaken for a women with startling frequency, but from this position there was no denying that he was a man. His stubbly cheek was scraping the delicate skin on Howard's neck, there was a taut if spare manly musculature writhing underneath his body and if any doubt could still remain on the topic, the hard cock digging into his groin put it firmly to rest. Abandoning the neck, the thinner man kissed up the whiskery jaw and nibbled at a fleshy ear lobe. “We're going to have to lose the clothes, Howard. That bloody corduroy monstrosity is a mood killer if I ever saw one,” Vince muttered a wet explosion into the shell of Howard's ear. Without asking permission he instantly got to work on the practical belt buckle that was responsible for the restraint of said corduroys. “And the less said about the shirt the better,” he went on, his voice was shaking slightly from the effort of unfastening the buckle. Rather than throw a strop, Howard decided to concede this sartorial victory to Vince and started to unbutton his shirt, blunt fingers fumbling with the tiny buttons. Two warm little white hands batted his away impatiently and wrenched the garment off, sending the buttons flying in every direction. “I've wanted to do that for years,” Vince said with a voice husky with lust. Howard toyed with the idea of asking him if he meant destroy his shirt or ravage him but decided neither answer would be totally satisfying. It was better to retain some degree of mystery in a relationship. Vince wiggled out from underneath him and started undressing. There was no question of helping him. True love or not, no one manhandled Vince's wardrobe. Suddenly Vince was completely naked and Howard was down to his socks and underpants. Vince smiled at him ironically and went down on one knee taking one of Howard's feet in his hands. He hooked his fingers around the elastic and eased the sock down the foot , pausing to kiss the Achilles heel, the instep, the ankle. When the sock fell to the ground he gently sucked each of Howard's toes in turn like tiny fat phalluses. Howard was thinking in a small part of his mind that he was glad that he'd washed and cut his toenails recently. The rest of him was not thinking much at all. When Vince released the big toe with an audible pop, he kissed his way back up Howard's leg, rubbing his cheek against his inner thighs like a pet cat and licking and nipping gently upwards. Howard held onto his shoulders, more to ground himself than to try to control Vince, and whimpered. Vince's face was in the hallow where his thighs met and his breath was coming in warm gusts that Howard felt through his pants. There was a slim hand on his stomach with a dexterous thumb stroking above the top of his undergarments. No matter how he tried to angle hips, that thumb stayed where it was. “Please, Vince,” Howard begged pitifully “Please what?” asked Vince with faux innocence, “Tell me what you want” “Want you,” Howard gasped “I'm right here. Tell me what to do,” Vince stroked, stroked, stroked. Please there! “I don't know but do it soon, please!” Please, please, please. “Howard-” “Please touch me!” Oh god, that was embarrassing. Howard tried to look away, but couldn't escape Vince's smiling eyes. “As you wish,” he said and pulled off the underpants in one smooth motion, pausing only for Howard to raise his hips. He moved fluidly, taking the head of Howard's purpling cock in his mouth, pumping the shaft with one hand and cupping his testicles with the other. Howard watched the dark head bob between his legs with astonished fascination. Then, Vince looked up and the sight of his engorged penis slipping in and out of that familiar mouth was almost too much. “Stop, too much,” he gasped. Vince stopped and looked up. “Are you freaking out up there?” he asked, “Do you need to stop, stop?” “No, not that. I just don't want to, you know, not yet,” he looked away blushing. You would think that it would get easier to say these things to someone who had been moments ago sucking you off. Apparently not. “Alright,” said Vince hoisting himself up and slithering up Howard's torso like a snake or a professional slitherer. “Can I still kiss you, or is that weird after what I just did,” he asked two inches from Howard's face. Howard grabbed him by the back of his neck and tasted his own precome on those sweet lips. Salty, but not as bad as he thought it would taste. Vince smiled against his lips and opened his mouth hungrily. He began to rock and grind against Howard, who tentatively bucked back. They found a rhythm and ground against each other, erections digging into hips, lips on necks, ears, noses. Howard reached between their heaving bodies and grabbed their cocks together in his large hand. “Wank me off, Howard,” Vince whispered in his ear urgently. Cock against cock, they both fucked Howard's tight fist desperately. Howard felt a tell tale tingle in his lower belly spreading downwards rapidly. He let go of the cocks and gripped his friend's shoulders. “Vince, I'm going to- I'm, I'm,” overcome with sensation and modesty he hid his face in the crook of Vince's shoulder and bit down on the tendon. “I'm going to too,” Vince said and screwed up his face before they came moments apart. The electro boy collapsed bonelessly on top of his jazz maverick. “That was really good,” he said into the pillow. “Really? I mean I thought it was but you've had more-” Howard spluttered slightly hysterically “Howard,” Vince turned his face off of the pillow, “You were the best” “Don't mock me,” Howard scowled. “I mean it. And now I know you've been holding out on me, I'm never ever letting you go,” Vince snuggled closer limpet-like, hooking his legs around Howard's. “Do you really mean that? You're not toying with me?” “Well it was a bit of a lie,” Vince said thoughtfully, “I'd still never let you go even if you were rubbish and I had to teach you everything. Go to sleep.” “I would but I've got a disenfranchised princess on me,” Howard said and tickled Vince playfully. “Gerroff you northern idiot.” Vince squealed and rolled off and to the side of Howard, where he latched onto him again and hummed contentedly. They lay twined together sticky and naked until the next morning when a surprisingly nonchalant Naboo casually informed them that shops didn't open themselves and would they mind terribly to take a moment out of their busy schedule to do their bloody job before they were out on their ears. “Yes stepmother,” groaned Vince reluctantly detaching himself from his new lover.

#the mighty boosh #mighty boosh #boosh #howince #howard moon #vince noir #vince noir/howard moon #howard moon/vince noir #vince/howard #cinderella

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nothingunrealistic · 4 years

Note

2, 5, 22, 27, 30, 34, 36, 41, 45, 48

2. Favorite scene(s)?

hmm this was a surprisingly hard one… the three failed escape attempts of sheila nail isn’t my favorite song (though i do like it!) but i think it does make for the best Scene in the show. also a big fan of the endings of oh well, i was a teenage delinquent, and the finale

5. Favorite orchestration moment(s)?

the two instances during oh well where there’s no singing and we just get “boom, boom-boom, tsh” repeatedly, incredibly loud and powerful (timestamp 1, timestamp 2)

also the end of the first chorus in oh well, where the sparse orchestration that’s been under the whole song so far gives way to the entire band bursting to life (timestamp)

the horns under the first few lines of susannah’s reprise of masochist that then give way to the full band (timestamp)

i could probably double this if i listened to the whole show again. charlie rosen tony award When

22. Headcanon(s) for what happens between Teenage Delinquent and Finale?

dozens upon dozens lmao, so much so that all the lihn fic i’m writing / planning to write focuses entirely on what happens in that timespan. a few:

the girls get split up after the police arrive at nation - dorothy and ya-ya manage to stick together, but everyone else is separated.

susannah moves to new york city as soon as possible, and that’s where she becomes involved both in professional music circles and in civil rights / lgbt rights activism. this is basically canon tbh

given how often we see rat flipping through a magazine or newspaper and listening to the radio, i think it’d be fun for her to ultimately do something in journalism - maybe writing, maybe photography, maybe being a reporter.

either dorothy or ya-ya (or both!) somehow gets work in hollywood - maybe ya-ya achieves her dream of working on special effects for scifi movies, or dorothy uses her vocal chops to become a voice actress.

i like tatiana wechsler’s idea of judith becoming a very chill therapist

kitty moves to san francisco and also becomes involved in lgbt rights activism. though none of the girls know for many years where the others are, once susannah becomes famous enough to be sent fanmail, kitty manages to write to her, and they stay in touch for years.

sheila does successfully get to mexico without tearing francis’s head off, and spends several years living and working in various cities in mexico before moving back to, and around, the western united states. she often attends / supports protests and labor strikes.

francis gets attacked by an ocelot :)

27. Teenage Delinquent or Revolution Song?

teenage delinquent! every line from “and if we meet again, how i hope the world is different then” onwards gives me chills, as does the accompanying staging. i’m always a sucker for sunset / sunrise imagery and big dramatic kisses that actually feel narratively earned

30. Scene(s)/concept(s) you would like expanded upon?

i’ve said this repeatedly but i would really like to see a further exploration of the contrast between dorothy’s commitment to playing the part of the Happy Homemaker / being Properly feminine and nurturing, and her implied tomboyish past and current willingness to get violent

34. A very small detail that you appreciate?

i really like the notebook that susannah carries around that has her logo on it! here are some good pictures that include it

36. Favorite song(s) off the Hits of Nation/character playlists?

i haven’t listened to all these songs / playlists yet, but of the ones i have heard:

jesus was a cross maker - judee sill (i first heard this song via these playlists and listened to it on repeat for DAYS)

be my baby - the ronettes

fast car - tracy chapman

i’m on fire - bruce springsteen

back to black - amy winehouse

rose’s turn from gypsy

41. An anecdote about your experience with LIHN?

thanks to lihn, i have a moment of [!] whenever i unexpectedly hear be my baby anywhere. a couple weeks ago, i heard it playing while i was in the bathroom because my family was watching dirty dancing in the next room; a few days later i heard a salsa cover of it that was partly in spanish and partly in english and that i sadly have not been able to find online.

45. If you could ask a single member of the cast/creative team about one thing, what would it be?

i’d ask joe iconis if sheila’s line about “i like to be with a guy, and then i like to not be with him” is meant to imply that she’s somehow had boyfriends / dated guys despite having been in a juvenile hall since she was nine or if that’s a completely hypothetical statement. or if she’s just flat out lying

48. Favorite time Francis was wrong?

his letter to susannah is just a delightful bevy of Being Wrong. claiming that the crystals sing “will you love me tomorrow”? wrong, as pointed out by susannah. saying that he is “following [his] moonlight” like kerouac? the quote he appears to be referencing is from allen ginsberg (and was also written in the 1980s, but no matter…). saying that by the time susannah gets his letter, it will have been a week since they saw each other? it’s been nine days! wrong again!

(Love in Hate Nation ask list!)

#inbox #cockbiteproductions #love in hate nation

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antialiasis · 5 years

Text

Matilda

Matilda was one of my favorite books when I was little. I got it as a present, with a cover based on the 1996 movie, and immediately decided it looked stupid and I wasn't going to read it. Then one day I was sick with nothing to do, and I reluctantly reached for this book that I hadn't read yet, and whoops I loved it. (This was also my reaction to the first Harry Potter book, and to the Pokémon games. My actual tastes were not a great match for my stubborn contrarianness.)

So when I heard Tim Minchin was writing the songs for a musical based on the book, I thought that sounded pretty cool. I'm not sure I actually went and listened to the soundtrack until after I'd gotten into Groundhog Day, though. Either way, once I did a couple years back, the changes it implied from the book fascinated me, and I dug up my copy of the book and reread it. Later, I went on to see the musical in London, then the Icelandic production of it earlier this month, and finally the other day we watched the 1996 movie adaptation, the one piece missing from my Matilda experience before I could write a lengthy Tumblr ramble about this book and its adaptations, as one does.

It never occurred to me reading it as a child, but from an adult's perspective, and a writing perspective, I have a strong suspicion that it was written on the fly - that Roald Dahl did not know what would happen later when he was writing the earlier parts, and the draft was only minimally edited from there. I actually think that's kind of neat - it provides something of a raw window into the author's process. But it does lead to the book having some noticeable flaws that the adaptations try to fix.

Structurally, Matilda the book is split into distinct sections. It starts with a bit of an intro where the narrator vents their frustration with the way that parents are annoyingly convinced their children are perfect, adorable angels, even when they're actually total little shits - complete with hypothetical acidic reports with colorful metaphors that they'd love to give some children's parents if only they could. It's funny, and educational (this is where I first learned about cicadas), but undeniably kind of mean-spirited, and has very little to do with the rest of the book - from there, we just segue to introducing Matilda, the very opposite of these children, who is genuinely brilliant and delightful but treated with contempt and derision by her deeply unpleasant parents. She's left to fend for herself a lot of the time and becomes very independent, and she begins to visit the library to read books, starting with finishing all of the children's books and moving on from there, with the help of a kind librarian, to an extensive list of literary classics.

Here we start the first major section of the book, Matilda's efforts to strike back at her parents when they wrong her. For several chapters, we follow the Wormwoods (well, mostly Mr. Wormwood) being awful and abusive, followed by Matilda thinking up a prank to play in retaliation - the iconic superglue in the hat and bleach in the hair tonic, plus one involving borrowing a neighbor kid's parrot and stuffing its cage into a chimney that both adaptations leave out, probably wisely. Roald Dahl loves thinking up pranks and karmic punishments - this is a recurring theme in his children's books - and basically all of this section is extremely him, but doesn't have much of a sense of progression to it and isn't leading towards much of anything.

Then, we're quite abruptly off to the next section, where Matilda goes to school. She's enrolled in Miss Honey's class, Miss Honey recognizes her talents, and we follow Miss Honey's unsuccessful attempts to convince first Miss Trunchbull and then Matilda's parents that she should be moved straight up into sixth grade. Then we get back to full Roald Dahl form as for several chapters we see/learn about the various outrageous ways that Miss Trunchbull abuses students - Chokey, the hammer-throwing, the iconic Bruce Bogtrotter cake scene, lifting a boy by the ears, etc. - and how the students have tried to fight back. ...And then, as Matilda is being unfairly accused of something she didn't do, she tips over a glass with her eyes.

The story takes a sudden swerve away from being a series of inventive over-the-top pranks and punishments. Matilda confides in Miss Honey about her newly-discovered telekinetic powers, proves them to her by tipping the glass again, and comes with her to her house - which is a tiny cottage. Miss Honey reveals that she grew up with a horrifically abusive aunt after the death of her mother and later her father's suspicious apparent suicide, and that the aunt commandeers her wages, and that the aunt is Miss Trunchbull. We're the vast majority of the way through the book now and it just suddenly got real. Matilda formulates a plan; she painstakingly practices using her powers at home until she can levitate and precisely control one of her father's cigars telekinetically; and the next time Miss Trunchbull teaches their class, in the middle of her abusing the children further, Matilda telekinetically uses some chalk to write a threatening message from Miss Honey's late father on the blackboard, and Miss Trunchbull faints on the spot and is taken to the infirmary.

The next day, Miss Trunchbull gets out of town, and Miss Honey's father's will turns up unexpectedly, allowing Miss Honey to move back into her family's house. Matilda becomes a frequent guest, and reveals one day that she's no longer able to use her powers - which Miss Honey suggests might be because she's finally getting the mental stimulation that she needs. When Matilda heads home that day, though, her parents are in the process of packing everything for a move to Spain. When Matilda returns to Miss Honey, upset, Miss Honey reveals that it was well known her father was in with some shady people, selling stolen cars from all over the country, and they're probably moving to escape the police. Then they run back, Matilda asks her parents to please let her stay with Miss Honey, and they basically go "Whatever" and leave, leaving Matilda and Miss Honey to finally have found a loving family with each other.

It's a fantastic story and I love it, but there are definitely some noticeable oddities in how it plays out, likely thanks to being written on the fly, and the adaptations take a couple of different approaches to addressing these things.

First, structurally it's weird how long we spend on Matilda's library adventures and then the prank war with her parents, when the main plot turns out to revolve entirely around what happens at the school, and specifically the increasingly terrifying Miss Trunchbull, with the early stuff almost entirely irrelevant. In my Icelandic copy, we're a hundred pages in (out of 240) before we even properly begin to hear about Miss Trunchbull's atrocities. We learn late in the book that Miss Trunchbull is Miss Honey's aunt, who abused and terrorized her to the point where she meekly agreed to let Miss Trunchbull receive all her wages and leave her with pocket change - but in the early scene where Miss Honey goes to see Miss Trunchbull, it jarringly doesn't read like she's confronting someone with that sort of control over her: Miss Honey is stated to be kind of terrified of her, but it only sounds like it's in the way that anyone would be terrified of a person like this, and she's perfectly willing to argue with and object to her until she gives up, seemingly just because Miss Trunchbull is completely unreasonable and refuses to listen. Matilda's telekinetic powers come out of nowhere two thirds into the book, with nothing foreshadowing them even in hindsight; Miss Honey's explanation of the powers as having come about simply because Matilda wasn't using enough of her brain rang false and annoyed me even as a child, when her discovery of her powers had seemingly arisen specifically out of this intense justified rage at this person who was such an awful, despicable monster; and after Matilda's father had in the first half of the book been portrayed merely as a sleazy used car salesman who sells his cars as newer than they actually are, the sudden revelation a couple of pages before the end that actually he was involved with organized crime this whole time is quite jarring and feels distinctly pulled out to get rid of Matilda's awful parents for good and let her live with Miss Honey as they both so clearly deserve (and don’t get me wrong, that’s so satisfying that it’s hard to care that it took a weird asspull for it to happen).

The 1996 movie is really quite faithful to the book, more so than I expected, but makes some reasonable modifications. Some of the early stuff about Matilda's reading and so on gets told nicely in the form of montages, it cuts the parrot prank, and instead Matilda at one point remotely shuts off the TV after being forced to sit down and watch it - foreshadowing her telekinetic abilities early. There's also a scene at a restaurant that reads as simply wacky comedy logic as it's happening but is probably also foreshadowing her telekinesis, in hindsight. The cops are after Matilda's dad from the start, with scenes added where the cops are watching their house, trying to gather information, and one where Matilda, now in control of her powers, sabotages their warrantless search of the garage and sends them fleeing. The discovery of Matilda's telekinesis and Miss Honey's backstory happens significantly earlier in the runtime, relatively speaking; a subplot is added about Matilda and Miss Honey trying to retrieve some of Miss Honey's possessions from Miss Trunchbull's house following this, and Matilda then using her powers to scare Trunchbull in her house, setting up her belief that the ghost of Miss Honey's father is haunting her. Matilda's powers, which are considerably more potent than in the book, don't disappear at the end at all - but they're also clearly established as being linked to her sense of justice, with her needing to tap into that feeling specifically to activate them. The theme of her sense of justice is emphasized in general and works pretty well to tie the story together - a scene early on where her father offhandedly says "When a person is bad, that person has to be taught a lesson!" inspires her retaliation against her parents and then subsequently Trunchbull. And there's a really cute montage at the end where Matilda and Miss Honey goof around together and it's great because they're both basically getting to be children for the first time. Trunchbull is also more extensively humiliated before she bolts (in the book she only faints and a student dumps some water on her "to wake her up", but her real punishment is the conviction that she will be watched for the rest of her life by the vengeful ghost of the man she murdered, which I think is plenty, honestly). The tone of the film is largely pretty silly and goofy, similar to the tone of most of the book; the plummeting darkness of Miss Honey's story in the book is toned down, though we do learn in the movie that Trunchbull broke Miss Honey's arm when she was seven years old, so it’s not as if she gets off easy either.

The musical, on the other hand, has its own approach and takes more interesting liberties with the story; it allows itself more tonal range, ranging from extremely silly and over-the-top to some truly heartwrenching emotional moments, which I think may be easier to pull off in a musical than a regular movie.

The first time I listened to the musical soundtrack, I heard the first song, "Miracle", and realized that - oh, wow, they adapted the intro. In the opening number, spoiled, untalented children sing proudly of how their parents call them miracles and princes and princesses, while a hapless children's entertainer takes on the role of the book's narrator:

One can hardly move for beauty and brilliance these days It seems like there are millions of these one-in-a-millions these days Specialness seems de rigeur Above average is average, go figure Is it some modern miracle of calculus that such frequent miracles don't render each one unmiraculous?

Tim Minchin absolutely read the first chapter of the book and just straight-up adapted that irritated musing on how somehow every parent thinks their children are extraordinary into a song, and I love it.

What's even cooler about this, though, is that the musical actually goes on to deconstruct the mean-spiritedness of that intro. The children in this song are the same children who will end up being Matilda's classmates - where they're made likeable and sympathetic. Their parents may have pampered them, but they're just kids who don't deserve Trunchbull's abuses, and in the end they're brave and stand up for each other, in a Spartacus-like scene where every child stands up to deliberately misspell a word to force Trunchbull to punish them as well as the student who'd failed her spelling test. In "Revolting Children", their triumphant victory song after chasing Trunchbull away, we actually explicitly call back to "Miracle" and turn its cynically parodesque opening line into an empowering affirmation:

Never again will the Chokey door slam Never again will I be bullied and Never again will I doubt it when my mummy says I'm a miracle!

It's great and I think this is one of my favorite things in Matilda the musical. Maybe these children weren't as inherently special as their parents were convinced they were, but they aren't just props in Matilda's story; they're pretty cool in their own right, and maybe they actually deserve to be called miracles.

The musical's solution to the Wormwoods' sudden move to Spain is to set up throughout the show that Mr. Wormwood is specifically trying to sell a bunch of cars to these particular Russians that he's swindling, and at the end the Russians turn out to be gangsters, who are all set to beat him to a pulp when Matilda impresses them by speaking perfect Russian and pleading for her father's freedom (well, saying that she's had enough of revenge) - leading to the Russians threatening Mr. Wormwood, and thus to the Wormwoods leaving to get away somewhere they'll never encounter them again. It's a pretty funny scene, and just by making Mr. Wormwood's customers throughout the story all be this same group of Russians, it becomes clear to the viewer that they're going to come back in some way, making it all work out pretty satisfyingly.

In the musical, Trunchbull being Miss Honey's abusive aunt is absolutely telegraphed. Miss Honey's first solo song is "Pathetic", where she brutally berates herself for the sheer panic she's feeling at the thought of facing Miss Trunchbull:

Look at you trying to hide, silly Standing outside the principal's office like a little girl, it's just pathetic!

Look at you hesitating, hands shaking You should be embarrassed You're not a little girl, it's just pathetic!

Not only is she clearly terrified out of her wits about this - she's clearly a victim of emotional abuse, someone who's been told over and over that she's pathetic. It's not obvious it's Miss Trunchbull herself, of course - that'd give the game away - but in hindsight you can clearly see it, in a way you couldn't in the book, and it's heartbreaking. Miss Honey also has a bit later in the song “When I Grow Up”, echoing some lines originally sung by the children, but they take on a new meaning when you know what the creature beneath her bed actually is:

When I grow up I will be brave enough to fight the creatures that you have to fight beneath the bed each night to be a grown-up

The first time I listened to the Matilda soundtrack (the original London version, nota bene), I noticed this better setup of Miss Honey’s past, and that was the first thing to make me really interested in how this adaptation was done - and then "I'm Here" started, and it just instantly punched me in the gut emotionally. I had no idea what on earth this song was on about - Matilda was telling some story about an escapologist's daughter, which sounded suspiciously like Miss Honey's story, and why was Matilda telling that??? - but man, I felt things.

What turned out to be going on was that the musical took a whole different approach to presenting Miss Honey's story. Throughout the story, the musical solves the structural problems by interleaving the parent stuff and the library trips with the school storyline - so at several different points, Matilda goes to the library, where she tells a serial story to the librarian, Mrs. Phelps. When Mrs. Phelps asks her about her parents, Matilda always maintains they're so wonderful and loving and they probably miss her so much while she's away - and the story, though kind of silly and over-the-top, is heartbreakingly clearly also a wish-fulfillment fantasy on Matilda's part: it's about this perfect, wonderful couple, an acrobat and an escapologist, who are the most wonderful people and the greatest circus performers in history, and all they've ever wanted is a child. Only then it takes a dark turn: when they're finally expecting a child, they're forced by the acrobat's sister to perform a horribly dangerous circus act, which fatally injures the acrobat so that she only lives just long enough to deliver their daughter, and from there the acrobat's sister begins to abuse the daughter when the escapologist is away. In "I'm Here", a distraught Matilda just out of an explosive confrontation with her father retreats to her room and then abruptly, without an audience, begins to tell the final part of the story, where the escapologist manages to come home early and find his daughter crying, locked in the cellar. He breaks the door open and tells her not to cry, apologizes tearfully for leaving her behind, and promises he'll spend the rest of his life making it up to her and they'll be together forever, while giving her a scarf that her mother used to own - and then she, softly echoing the same melody, tells him not to cry and starts apologizing to him, and guh I'm a blubbering mess what did you do to me Tim Minchin. When she's asleep, though, he's filled with righteous rage and goes to confront the aunt - and he's never seen again.

Later, when Matilda first discovers her powers, we get the song "Quiet", which is also excellent - Matilda just trying to explain what is happening to her in a way that's frantic and disorganized but plainly brilliant, talking about these ideas of philosophy and physics buzzing in her head all the time, and:

But I wonder if inside my head I'm not just a bit different from some of my friends These answers that come into my mind unbidden These stories delivered to me fully written

These aren't stories at all - it's her powers. She's not just telekinetic, she's telepathic - she picked up this story of the acrobat and escapologist in some paranormal way, and a little later, in the song "My House", Miss Honey turns out to own the scarf from the story, and her parents were an acrobat and escapologist (in the book her father was a doctor and her mother's line of work is never specified, I believe, but presumably they were given more extravagant, unique professions to add flair to the story and make it more unmistakable that this is no coincidence), and Matilda realizes it's Miss Honey's story she's been telling the librarian.

There's probably still a made-up element to it - Matilda's story as she tells it, especially the first couple of parts of it, is pretty over-the-top and ridiculous and hard to take entirely seriously. But I think the point is just that it was emotionally true. They were an acrobat and an escapologist, they desperately wanted a child, maybe the circus act didn't literally involve the acrobat being on fire with dynamite in her hair but it was still pretty dangerous - and the final part of the story, told in "I'm Here", is devoid of these over-the-top elements and was probably entirely literal.

This is a pretty brilliant adaptational choice, I think. In the book, we had to hear about Miss Honey's story in a big exposition dump where she told Matilda the story - it worked pretty well there, though it was very late in the book, but I doubt it would in the theater. This way, we get to hear this story pretty innocuously, get kind of invested in it as a fairy tale sort of thing, then get this incredibly emotional song that's simultaneously a reenactment of Miss Honey's past and a fantasy sequence where Matilda finally gets to be comforted by a real parental figure who cares about her - and then all we need once Matilda gets to Miss Honey's house is to link these things together. And once we do, we realize the story has been setup for her powers and for Miss Honey's story all along, tying everything together. It's beautiful and I'm really impressed they came up with this.

In the musical, Miss Honey's proposed explanation for Matilda's powers being lost becomes that she no longer needed them. Overall, with the telepathic element added, it gains a bit more of a feel of the universe granting Matilda these powers specifically so that she could set things right with Trunchbull and Miss Honey - less apparently connected to Matilda feeling righteous rage, as in the movie, and more about the intervention of greater powers. And I'm okay with that too. One might ask why a skeptic would feel that way - and to that I say, come on, we're talking about psychic powers, we're kind of beyond the scientific. Still, though, I did think the movie actively and explicitly making it about Matilda's justified fury was pretty powerful, and though she ultimately ended up being able to use her powers casually there, if I were adapting the story myself I think I’d go with her powers being driven by righteous fury but she hasn’t been able to use them since her life became normal and happy and she stopped feeling that way.

All in all, Matilda the musical is a super-interesting adaptation and I’m quite fond of it. There are definitely bits I like less, but the good bits are really good.

(One of the bits I like less: the musical adds a curious subplot that doesn’t quite go anywhere about Matilda's mom, who is very obviously cheating on Mr. Wormwood with her "part Italian" dance partner Rodolfo. In "Miracle", there's a silly bit with Matilda's birth, where when Mr. Wormwood comes along and sees Matilda, he's completely baffled that the baby doesn't have a "thingy". It's a ridiculous gag about how ignorant he is, but also sort of implies that Mr. Wormwood just doesn't understand human reproductive anatomy at all, and along with the way that Mrs. Wormwood is clearly having sex with Rodolfo but there's no sign of intimacy between her and her husband, it may be implied (for the adults in the theater) that they've just never actually done it and Rodolfo, or someone else, is the father of her children. Possibly the idea here is that Matilda's biological father was someone significantly smarter than Mr. Wormwood. I may be reading way too much into this, and I'm kind of iffy on the implications of this if it's actually the intention, but either way I think it's kind of a weird part of the show and wonder what lay behind it.)

#matilda #matilda the musical #adaptations #ramble #review #oh boy this is long #me and my musical rambles

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blindestspot · 6 years

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No Bastard Ever Won a War by Dying for His Country

Over the past year I've gotten a lot of asks about Jon and what I think is going on with him. During that time I've also managed to calm down about the inconsistent number of redshirts during the Wight Hunt. Yes, I remember that this was a thing that happened, along with a bunch of other dei ex machina, like Cersei's brilliant strategies for everything, Jon's repeated, increasingly dumb survivals and the whole Winterfell plot.

But calming down about them meant that I could think about Game of Thrones again in a manner that kind of naively assumes that the work is coherent . That 2+2=4, not 5, or orange, or a tiger. And this is what I think is going on with Jon and why it is so crucial to the whole work.

George R.R. Martin once said that A Song of Ice and Fire is supposed to have a bittersweet ending. Now that phrase covers a lot of ground. A bittersweet ending might be just ASOIAF's Scouring of the Shire (which at this stage is assured) and a few good guys passing into the Great Beyond (also nearly certain) – which would be a copy of Lord of the Rings.

A bittersweet ending might also be Davos, Brienne and Sam emerging alone from the rubble like the unhappy winners of a Battle Royale. A few good guys surviving would technically make the ending not a complete downer and thus "bittersweet".

However, a more nuanced look at a bittersweet ending should look beyond mere survival and destruction but at an ending that irrevocably changes the characters and how and what we think of them.

An issue that strikes readers as unrealistic about Lord of the Rings is that a lot of its human and hobbit-y heroes move on from the events of the story into psychologically very ordinary, uncomplicated lives that they would have lead even without the events of the story. Sam, Merry, Pippin's (and to a lesser degree Faramir, Aragorn and Eowyn's) easy passing into normalcy feels vaguely hollow.

If GRRM really plans to have a realistic take on Lord of the Rings and its "bittersweet" ending (and with his complaints about Aragorn's tax policy it appears that this is a crucial element of ASOIAF), then obviously he is going to continue what he has been doing all along and create an interplay between narrative events and characterization. Take Arya, for example. In the early parts of AGoT she would have not wanted to become a Faceless Man – for obvious reasons. But Arya from a few books later, after events have matured and traumatized her, wants to become one. And that choice will again impact her characterization and that will in turn impact future events.  It is logical that this interplay will continue right up until the end. So speculation has to take into account that these characters are dynamic and can be pushed by events into new directions. And not just "can" – but will be.

The question is not who will be alive to experience the Scoured Shire but who they will be at this point. And that change shouldn't just be cosmetic or physical, it needs to be psychological, visible, noticeable and profound. We shouldn't get an Aragorn who just walks into a kingship after a two battles, marries the cute elf girl and then doesn't have a tax plan.

And obviously, I am not talking about Gilly. I am very much talking about ASOIAF's Aragorn. I am talking about Jon.

...

Now here is a hypothetical scenario for Season 8: Jon with the help of Dany and her dragons (and, to paraphrase Roger Ebert, the usual stock characters who fight every fictional war for us, even those in space), fight the White Walkers, win, then fight Cersei, then win (the order of this is might be reversed) and then Jon's revealed to be true heir and has to rebuild Westeros.

How does any of this really change and mature Jon as a character? How does being right about everything (the White Walkers being the real threat), then leading a righteous force to victory over evil make him a realistic take on Aragorn?

It doesn't. 

What Jon needs after five books and seven season of making serviceable to great, sensible, ethical, right strategic choices (with admittedly a number of great tactical errors in between) is being wrong. And not just being wrong about failing to communicate to his sworn brothers what his strategy is, not just wrong about going on that Wight Hunt, not just wrong to send Sam away, not just lightly ethically challenged for exchanging a pair of babies against one mother's will or misleading his love interest on his commitment to her political cause... but wrong in a truly profound way that the audience cannot blame on stupidity or short-sightedness.

I admit that calling it "wrong" or even "profoundly wrong" is a bit of misnomer. What I am trying to get at is the character going into a direction where the audience cannot and should not easily follow. Those actions would be too alien as might be their rationalizations. These actions should strike the audience as questionable, reprehensible, immoral, unethical, or dishonorable.

A perhaps too perfect example of such an action is Cersei firing up the Sept. It's mass murder and it's intended by her to be mass murder. If anyone in the audience found it not reprehensible and immoral, I would have some questions for these people.

But Cersei firing up the Sept was a success. Her survival was at stake - and she survived. Before her kingdom was full of powerful enemies and afterwards it wasn't. And she even snatched the Iron Throne afterwards despite having no royal Targaryen or Baratheon ancestry.

In realpolitik terms, Cersei made the "right" choice. All other choices would have lead to her death. The first rule of anything is that you cannot do anything if you're dead.

And frankly, that's a lesson Jon desperately needs to learn. His twice-tried strategy of rushing alone against an army of his enemies is idiotic. It might be honorable for a war leader to be the first person on the battlefield but it's not a winning war strategy.

It's not a nice thing to say, but it's necessary for a war time general or commander to be willing to have other people die for him and his goal. And not just for him but in front of him, literally shielding him. An army commander who isn't willing to ensure his own survival, is gambling with such terrible odds that he has already lost the war.

Cersei's strategy of killing her enemies instead of allowing herself to be killed is profoundly wrong, immoral and yet Jon needs understand that when mankind's survival are at stake an immoral action like that might be a necessary choice.

His attempt to drown in an ice lake alone is a sign that at this point he hasn't understood the necessity of being alive to lead a war at all. As George S. Patton put it: "no poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb son-of-a-bitching bastard die for his country."

Out of all our main protagonists, Jon has never been willing to play as dirty as it should be necessary for an apocalyptic fight such as his. Unlike Sansa's willingness to go along with Littlefinger's nefarious plans for her cousin in the Vale, Arya's willingness to kill potentially innocent people for the Faceless Men, Tyrion raping a prostitute and killing Shae, the torture of innocents during Dany’s Slavers’s Bay arc, Bran warging Hodor... Jon has nothing in his arc that is as dark, dishonorable or questionable as these things. Jon appears to be a character class apart, like the hero of a more classic fantasy epic.

Is this because Jon's so special that his arc is a whole different genre or is this because he hasn't leveled up in realpolitik yet?

Or is there perhaps even a third option to deal with his relative over-the-top good guy characterization?

***

You know, when it comes to stories about morality like Game of Thrones a crucial factor for their success is not just the quality of the good guys but also the quality of the villains.

And what makes a compelling villain?

IMO, they hit more than one of these characteristics:

1. They are well-rounded, fully realized characters, drawn with the same care as the heroes.

2. They are able to win against the good guys. They are not a cardboard that will be blown over once the heroes wave a magic stick or sword around.

3. Their evil deeds get an emotional reaction out of the audience. (Most audiences tend to have a vague discomfort with CGI mass carnage while reacting to a well-executed scene of high school bullying with actual empathy or even horror.)

4. Their motivations are understandable, perhaps even sympathetic. At best they are a well-intentioned extremist, utilitarianism gone wrong, rather than setting stuff on fire because their mom was mean to them once.

Now looking at this list, it becomes obvious that GOT has a problem with its current crop of villains. Any of the three that are left (Cersei, the Night King, Euron) could be the Final Boss – to use a video game term. But none of them are very compelling villains. Two of them are inhuman monsters. To call their characterization shallow would be an insult to puddles.

And Cersei, the only one with a decent characterization (and some past Mean Girls bullying sins of her own) suffers from being incredibly stupid in the books, having a prophecy running against her and stealing Aegon from Essos' story in the show. In other words, Cersei's chances of success and survival and actually making it this far in the books are as good as that of a snowflake on a hot summer's day. One suspects that she is a show-only final-ish villain, so if one looks for GRRM’s final-ish villains, they would not find Cersei.

Talking about chances of success – the Night King isn’t winning this either. Because then ASOIAF would reveal itself to be a nihilistic mess in which all the human storylines were nothing but shaggydog stories. So the Night King is bound to melt in the summer sun along with Cersei. There is little question about it. And is Euron "was he even mentioned in the first book?" Greyjoy really going to win the Iron Throne in the end? Is anyone taking this possibility seriously?

And what are their motivations? Ambition, being evil and being anti-human. None of them are particularly sympathetic.

In one word, GOT's current crop of villains is not particularly exciting – especially if you compare them with some of the villains that came before them. And if one of these three is the Final Boss, he or she is gonna be lame.

But a lame Final Boss is actually a great tradition in the genre. In Lord of the Rings Sauron appears to be literally two-dimensional and about as interesting as a character. (Gollum gets to be the well-written villain and he is doing very little damage to the world at large.) Voldemort in Harry Potter is completely outshone as the most despised, scary villain of the series by the one-book-wonder Dolores Umbridge who excels at committing low-key evil deeds that make every reader/viewer wince in sympathy. The Emperor in the original Star Wars trilogy is... there and then dead and has fewer fans than a one-line bounty hunter. And the same fans that endlessly shout "Han shot first", don't even appear to care that he got a complete face replacement in the Special Editions. And if there is one consistent complaint about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's that its villains tend to be boring and forgettable. Yet they're lame and forgettable to the tune of billions of box office dollars.

So a lame Final Boss for the heroes to fight... that is indeed a thing. And that might be just the thing GOT/ASOIAF is doing. This is what we have to seriously consider. We are likely to get a MCU villain... you know on the level of Ronan the Destroyer or Malekith, the Dark Elf. And you probably need to google in which movies those two turned up.

That would be a terrible let down.

Or maybe it's not actually that terrible of a thing? Because if our final boss and villain is not Cersei, the Night King, or Euron, it's a good guy gone bad. Someone who is currently fighting on the side of the living before becoming someone who needs to be fought.

It's possible that this is in the cards. After "Ozymandias", the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad, aired, GRRM wrote on his blog that "Walter White is a bigger monster than anyone in Westeros, I need to do something about that."

The thing is that White appeared to start out as a sympathetic if flawed hero you were rooting for even as he was making meth. What made White monstrous is not doing depraved psycho shit beyond comprehension (like nailing a living, pregnant woman to a ship like Euron Greyjoy) but that he appears to evolve into this monster before the audience's eyes.

Breaking Bad tricks the audience into liking a character for much longer than he ever deserved and that becomes crystal clear in that penultimate episode. If GRRM wants a monster like White he can't use his old, repetitive trick of making a one-dimensional psychopath do depraved stuff. He has to logically progress a character we root for into a monster.

(Of course, GRRM might also not be able to pull it off, however much he wants to. It could be that he has not prepared the ground to make a main character go Walter White and thus it will always fall short of Breaking Bad's accomplishment. Sure, Greyworm or Dolorous Edd could become evil and monstrous but even GRRM should know that's not quite the same as making your main protagonist evil.

I might also be wrong on GRRM understanding what makes Walter White feel so monstrous. The first big sign that White took the road down to hell is not an act of murder or sadism but simply not helping someone who is choking to death. His monstrosity is based in a three-dimensional characterization, not in particularly outrageous acts of evil. He is monstrous because he used to be likable. If GRRM doesn't see that, he might actually think that one-dimensional psychopath Euron nailing his pregnant girlfriend to a ship is nailing the same kind of monstrosity.

He also could be talking about a plot point we now know about but that he has not published yet – like Stannis burning Shireen. So one should be careful looking for ASOIAF's Walter White.)

Interestingly enough, the trick Breaking Bad is pulling is quite old. White isn't making meth by chance, it was the worst thing his creator could think of besides him becoming an arms dealer. The twist of Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias" is actually not that White becomes bad but that he has always been bad. You'll find a similar character in Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's Lolita where his monstrosity is barely a plot twist and even Milton's Paradise Lost where it's none at all. (The trope of the protagonist being a piece of shit throughout the whole story usually goes down as "villain protagonist" and the list of stories containing one is pretty expansive.) But the plot twist of a surprise villain protagonist is such an old one that Aesop already codified it in his fable "The Farmer and the Viper" around 600 B.C. (Farmer helps harmless looking viper, then viper bites him because it's a viper. And has been a viper all along. Duh.)

Now if Dany, for example, turned into a villain then she would fall squarely into villain protagonist territory. But the fun thing is that doesn't mean that she is already one. The viper is not a villain until Aesop has it biting the farmer. If Dany decides to slaughter her future subjects by the thousands just so she can have the Iron Throne (and this is portrayed as despicable) then this will be in line with the Dany from the first season/AGoT who wanted the Dothraki to wage their type of warfare (pillaging, raping, enslaving, killing) onto thousands of her future subjects, so she could have the Iron Throne. But that doesn't mean that Dany will cross this particular moral event horizon.

Whether Dany will turn out to be a villain protagonist is not a question of foreshadowing. It's a question whether the authorial intent will will it into existence. The viper is a poisonous snake but if the author hasn't it biting the farmer, that poison doesn't matter at all.

Now Dany is a well-rounded character (same as Cersei) and might be difficult to defeat but her most likely, hypothetical, evil deed (mass carnage via dragon) is not particularly compelling and neither is ambition as her motivation. Villainous Dany is about as compelling as Cersei. Keeping Cersei for so long when there is Villainous Dany in the wings strikes me as a weak narrative choice: “Meet your new villain, same as the old villain...” The difference would be the element of surprise but that's a paltry surprise, especially since Villainous Dany was supposed to be The Big Plot Twist.

Honestly, Dany as the mass-carnage causing, ambitious type of villain is a low-hanging fruit. Call me edgy, but it's just nowhere near "Ozymandias". It's Boromir getting seduced by the Ring.

And there are not a lot of precedents for that storyline in ASOIAF. You know the story of a good guy gone beyond redemption evil. There is Theon, whose ambition, jealousy and insecurity drove him into sacking Winterfell and killing two children – but even he turned out to be not to be beyond redemption. There is Catelyn, but she goes crazy and becomes a zombie, so it's hard to compare.

But there is, of course, the most compelling, interesting and meaningful character arc of a good guy gone bad: Stannis Baratheon. But he isn’t a good precedent for a mass-carnage causing, ambitious type of villain.

***

You see, Stannis starts out as not exactly the most sympathetic character: he burns people and places of worship, he is a religious nut, he has his brother killed. But after getting defeating at the Battle of Blackwater, his arc does a 180. He gets the call from the North to save the realm, and out of all of the five Kings involved in the war of the same name, he is the only one he realizes that in order to "win the realm, you have to save the realm."

That isn't a coincidence. Stannis is also the only king who fights for a higher purpose. Joffrey, Balon, Robb, and Renly just fight for power (be it the power over all of Westeros or the power that lies in independence). Stannis is fighting not just for power but also for his religion, for his one true god; he is fighting a crusade. That out of all the kings, the king who believes that his religion will save Westeros ends up wanting to save it from a supernatural threat is not a coincidence. One thing clearly causes the other.

And once he makes this choice, Stannis, the Mannis (as he was lovingly called by his fans once upon a time) always fights the bad guys, he fights for the living. Of course, he doesn't stop being a religious nut, he doesn't stop burning people, he is inflexible in his beliefs, he still thinks he is the chosen one, he is Azor Ahai, he is the One True King, he belongs on the Iron Throne. But he is also the man who executes soldiers of his army who rape. He has good sides. But what weighs so heavily in his favor is that out of all the people in power in Westeros, he is fighting the bad guys.

And that matters – until it doesn't when Stannis strikes out to fight the Boltons. The Boltons are special because they are despicable without exceptions. Even the Freys have Robb's squire in their midst to have that one decent family member/bannerman that all of Westeros' notable houses appear to have. All but the Boltons anyway. There is not a good or decent living Bolton. They are the literal worst Westeros has to offer.

And yet, Stannis manages to cross a moral event horizon that makes everyone forget that he is doing it to fight the Worst. And that moral event horizon is not the sacking of a city, the killing of hundred of thousands. He is not extinguishing a house or a people. He manages it, doing something every single GOT character could do right now (save for little Sam.) He kills a single person.

And he doesn't come back from that. Like a proper Ozymandias, his hubris, his pretension to predestined, prophecied greatness is followed by his inevitable decline. Killing Shireen has Stannis losing his real world fans and his in-story followers, his wife, his fight, his priestess, his army, his purpose and consequently his life. He proves very quickly that not all ends justify all means. He is the living embodiment of the Friedrich Nietzsche quotation that "those who fight monsters should take care that in the process they do not become monsters themselves."

Stannis' final turn into villainy is actually paralleled by something another character does in ASOIAF. Except he is not a character we meet; he is a story-within-a-story; a legend, a prophecy or both. He is who Stannis thought he was: he is Azor Ahai.

And Azor Ahai absolutely does what Stannis did to turn into a villain, a monster: he murders... sacrifices an innocent to forge Lightbringer to end the Long Night. The way the story gets told makes that murder necessary, but Azor Ahai as the hero and winner of the Long Night gets to tell that story, gets to tell history his way. It's a legend and of course Azor Ahai is its hero. But remember the first person who claimed that "only death can pay for life" was a liar who wanted to make sure that "The Stallion Who Mounts the World" died in the womb. (The second was Melisandre who tends to be wrong on a lot of things and whose track record on human sacrifice is abysmal.)

So there is absolutely a chance that Nissa Nissa's death was as necessary as Shireen's. We won't get the opportunity to fact-check the legend, the ancient history. But if it's a prophecy we might see its reality.

Of course, if GOT really goes the way of making a good guy go bad, then they can do this the middling way, the mediocre way. Theon's Sack of Winterfell Redux or Catelyn's descent into madness and murder. Or by making Dany a villain protagonist who is basically just another Cersei with dragons. And despite not quite measuring up to Stannis' dark turn – ambition, grief, fear, insecurity, jealousy, vanity, or disappointment leading to mass carnage delivered onto a hundred-thousand computer-generated extras is still more interesting than the Night King Sauron with his ice dragon.

But the reality is that we don't care about the 100,000 inhabitants of King's Landing. We will cry over a single Hot Pie before ever giving a fuck about a massive number of fictional people without any characteristics. Mass carnage is easy to oppose morally because it's something we oppose in real life but emotionally there is no difference between 10 fictional people or a billion fictional people – if they are simply there to be nameless, featureless cannon fodder. The ability to cause mass carnage doesn't make you the most emotionally effective villain by default. Quite the opposite.

If Bran were to warg a dragon and set King's Landing on fire, we would get that this whole Three-Eyed Raven thing didn't work out well for his ethics and be, like, "okay". If Bran set fire to Arya, he would immediately become the most hated character ever on GOT. (And that isn't an exaggeration for effect). And any good intentions regarding defeating evil would matter as much as the fight against the Boltons did once Shireen started screaming.

I would like to add that Stannis died pretty much immediately after killing Shireen, blown over like a cardboard once Brienne showed up. But who would defeat or want to defeat a Stannis, an Azor Ahai who succeeded at ending the Long Night?

The ultimate story subversion when it comes to the classic "good vs. evil" plot is that the bad guy wins.

And wouldn't that be something if it was surprise villain protagonist? We get someone winning that we would have been okay with winning until they turned into GOT's least liked character? Wouldn't that be bittersweet? Getting who you were okay with, perhaps even wanted on the Iron Throne, who might even know which is the right tax plan and what to do with baby orcs... except they suck now?

Now who could that true Azor Ahai possibly be?

Is there someone who has been fighting monsters longer than anyone else has? Who has been so corrupted by that fight that he has tried and sacrificed already everything he could and had to defeat them? A man on quasi-religious crusade? A man who has the sort of righteous hubris and single-minded focus on the White Walkers that makes him often deaf to good advice? Who who has already laid down his life for a chance... and even a "no-chance-at-all-now-let-me-drown-in-an-ice-lake" at defeating the Night King? Is this possibly the same guy who we think is going to be crucial to the defeat of the White Walkers? The one who has the perfect bloodline to claim the Iron Throne in the end? The one who is shown to Melisandre when she looks for her prophecied chosen one in the fire? The one who appears to be the straight hero of the story, the Luke Skywalker, the only major character where pulling a Stannis would actually shock us? The one who has never been "profoundly wrong"?

I am not saying, we are getting "Aegon, the Worst of His Name". I am saying that if I wanted to create a villain who subverts all expectations while fulfilling them, a villain who is truly compelling and whose turn emotionally wrecks the audience, I would not make it happen by having Daenerys or Bran roast King's Landing. I simply would choose a more likable and successful version of Stannis and have him doing something terrible, wrongfully believing it's the right thing to do.

Now theoretically this could be anyone but little Sam. And regardless of that character's identity, they would be a great, compelling villain. Practically though, the best candidate for going off that particular deep end is not some random second tier character. And it's not Daenerys "What Even Are White Walkers?" or Bran "I'm a robotic, omniscient plot device now the Three-Eyed Raven now" Stark either.

It's Jon.

***

There is an issue with this though. Stannis murdering a family member/sacrificing a child for their royal blood to win a battle was simply a continuation of Stannis' previous actions. Stannis had no issue with his wife's uncle being burned as a sacrifice to R'hllor, had his brother murdered to win a battle, and attempted to have his underage nephew (Edric Storm in the books, Gendry in the show) sacrificed for his royal blood.

Killing Shireen is Stannis taking this to its logical extreme. Everything he does is simply something he has done before. Except this time the audience isn't given an out: Shireen doesn't escape like Edric/Gendry, we care for her (unlike Alester Florent) and she isn't Stannis' opponent in battle (Renly).

What Stannis is doing, is not surprising or entirely unprecedented. It is ultimately just a darker twist on something he has done before. Which is weird because you would think that something that crosses a moral event horizon would be a real departure from his previous actions. But it's not and that is really crucial if we want to discuss Stannis 2.0.

If a good character goes bad then having them simply do something they've done before – except this time it's just too much – makes sense. Just like the road to hell is paved with good intentions, escalating villainy should be a slippery slope of ever indefensible bad deeds.

And this is why it makes no sense to look at Jon and wonder who he is going to burn at the stake for R'hllor – because he won't. What he would do to incur the audience's disdain needs to be something he has kind of done before. And that he has done on the show before, because it stands to reason that the show would want to keep its foreshadowing. (Hence Gendry's slightly pointless kidnapping by Melisandre in the show.)

So the the baby swap is out since it didn't happen on the show. Breaking a vow is a bit too generic and on its lonesome will not evoke any emotional reaction. And making high-handed, impulsive decisions that end up with terrible consequences has been already done with Jon making a series of high-handed, badly thought through decisions that netted the Night King a dragon and destroyed the Wall and yet netted Jon no audience disdain at all. So probably not that one either.

That leaves his relationship with Ygritte. In the books, we only see this relationship from Jon's point of view with all his justifications and inner struggles and his self-knowledge that while he lies about his allegiance to the Wildlings' cause, his feelings for Ygritte are real.

Now if one imagines that relationship from Ygritte's point of view (as she is in the books), Jon would come out of that as a supreme douchebag. He lead her on, lied to her, pretended to have feelings for her, then left her, publicly humiliated her and finally participated in a battle with her on the other side. Jon doesn't kill her but he is willing to do so by fighting her.

Now a real neutral point of view that doesn't vilify Ygritte to prop up Jon as a cool dude (as the show has done with her allying herself with cannibals and the village massacre), would be more of a wash, ethically speaking. Jon lies to Ygritte but his life is at stake and it wasn't even his own idea in the first place. There are consent issues with their relationship and Ygritte is as willing to kill Jon when she participates in that battle as it's the case the other way around.

But then Stannis wasn't that unjustified to go after Renly who was willing to fight and kill him in battle after all. Killing Renly nearly rates as self-defense. And Edric Storm got away. The question is not how horrible Jon's actions towards Ygritte were. But rather what the escalation of that sort of overall action would be like.

Now due to time constraints the only relationship where Jon could pull an escalated "Ygritte" is his relationship with Daenerys. And here I am kind of puzzled by the discourse around the idea. Because as passionately as people argue about it, they actually agree quite fundamentally: that Jon is doing it/not doing because he is the quintessential good guy.

That he either betrays his lover or the plutocratic will of his nation is disregarded as some sort of higher purpose collateral that doesn't at all reflect on his moral character.

But isn't Occam's Razor to the question of how a "good guy" manages to betray either lover or nation simply to question the "good guy" part?

But let's step back a bit. The theory that Jon is playing Dany proposes that Jon initiates this emotional manipulation because she wonders aloud about two things (while he wants her commitment on the fight against the White Walkers): 1. Her ability to achieve her overall strategic goal of winning the Iron Throne 2. What happens to her rear if she pulls all of her forces north.

Now, Jon never actually answers any of these questions (or any questions on how to get the Northern Lords to remain loyal to him and Dany) and that is a bit problematic. Because the second question of what happens in a war if you leave one side open to your enemies is an enormously important one.

What Jon appears to do, is rely on a truism about the North: that it cannot be conquered in Winter (and Winter is here.)

*beleaguered sigh*

This truism exists in our world about two countries. One is considered unconquerable in Winter, the other unconquerable in general. And while these truisms have held true for few centuries now, the reality is that attempts to conquer them have devastated both countries on more than one occasion to the sound of millions of dead inhabitants and bombing it to the bottom of the HDI.

If Jon relies on Winter to protect him and his allies from Cersei, he is an idiot. If Cersei attacks the unprotected North from the South, his ability to fight the White Walkers will be profoundly diminished even if Cersei fails at conquering the North itself. Dany is right to ask this question and he is wrong to ignore it.

And if that theory pans out and Jon took these strategic, legitimate concerns as a sign that he needs to loverboy it up instead of thinking how to protect the North from the South, then that's next level mansplaining.

But forget that point for a bit and go back to the situation in which Jon supposedly initiates it. He is recovering after the Wight Hunt and Dany swears to avenge her dragon while musing on her overall strategy of winning Westeros. And while Jon isn't in good shape, he is not in mortal danger. Not in general, not specifically by Dany. She is letting her hair down and she's pledging her support to his cause.

Jon's life is not the least on the line and the question whether Dany would or would not have pulled out of the war against the White Walkers if Jon hadn't started flirting with her in that moment is an unanswerable hypothetical. No matter how you slice or dice it, it's not certain at all (not to the audience, not to Jon) that she would have pulled out.

So Jon had three choices in this moment: not initiate a romantic relationship with Dany, initiate a romantic relationship out of genuine feeling, initiate a romantic relationship to manipulate her.

None of these choices would spell certain doom. It's not at all like the relationship with Ygritte, where not going along with it would have blown his cover and cost his life. It's also distinct from that situation insofar as he didn't choose to go undercover with the Wildlings in the first place but was commanded into the situation by his superior officer.

If Jon initiated the relationship to manipulate Dany, he chose to do this voluntarily without true necessity. It's, in fact, as necessary as Littlefinger manipulating Lysa into intrigue, murder and ill-fated marriage was. Of course, without that manipulation Littlefinger would have never advanced at court and become Master of the Coin, Lord of Harrenhall and Sweetrobin's guardian. But none of these things were necessary to grant his survival at any time.

The key difference between Jon and Littlefinger is that Jon allies himself with Dany to ensure mankind's survival instead of personal gain. But on the balance, another difference between Littlefinger and Jon's situation is that the romantic relationship wasn't necessary to ensure Dany's support. In fact, even the idea that Dany's concerns are sign of her wavering in her commitment is a minority if not fringe opinion among GOT's audience.

And that makes the idea of Jon manipulating Dany very unpalatable. The lack of necessity makes him a Littlefinger, rather than a Robb or a Ned or even the Jon who lied to Ygritte. And audiences prefer to see their heroes as honorable fools rather than manipulative, emotionally abusive jerks.

Because there is the heart of the problem. If Jon is truly manipulating Dany, he is an emotionally abusive jerk. He is profoundly wrong. He is the guy that your BFF has warned you about. "He is just using you for [something.]"

And that hits home in a way shadowbabies and Frey Pies and Qyburn doesn't. We don't know any necromancers who vivisect people. But we know the kind of jerk that Jon would be. It's not theoretical, it's something we know and because of that will not appreciate.

***

But while this absolutely checks off “make the evil deed painful to the audience” point in the “compelling villain” check list, it’s still nowhere near as ethically questionable as Stannis burning Shireen.

But Jon's Ygritte storyline doesn't end with him duping, betraying and leaving her. It ends with her getting killed. And not just killed, but killed in battle against Jon and his brothers. While Jon is not directly responsible for her death – he neither instigated nor executed the killing – he was willing to risk that his actions would kill her in that battle. The goal of a battle is to win and to use the Patton quote from above "make the other bastard die for his country." Of course, Jon acted in self-defense, Ygritte was fighting that battle against him and the NW voluntarily, fully willing, ready and able to kill him.

But then, to go back to Stannis, Stannis was also just acting in self-defense when he send the shadowbaby assassin to kill Renly. Renly had the superior force and showed himself fully willing, ready and able to kill Stannis in battle. The question whether Stannis' assassination of Renly is justified is a digression too far because that is not the point. The point is that Jon and Stannis got some person killed who was really close to them (brother, lover) and that was kind of, maybe, perhaps justified self-defense. You can argue for it in both cases.

However, as I mentioned before, Stannis' ultimate escalation of Renly's murder is killing Shireen. There is no maybe, perhaps, kind of, about the lack of justification for it. Stannis did not act in self-defense, Stannis was not provoked. The true necessity was also absent... although the proof for that is just hindsight. The sacrifice was supposed to save Stannis and his army. It did not. Thus it was never necessary. The whole thing is just wholly indefensible.

Now would an escalation of Jon's Ygritte storyline limit itself to the affair and betrayal or would it go all the way down to that self-defensive arrow that Jon wasn't directly responsible for? Except for a Stannis-like escalation that arrow could not be self-defensive, it would have to be undeserved, unjustified, unnecessary and Jon's responsibility.

The audience doesn't even have to like Dany at that point. That would be just crossing all moral event horizons, turning Jon into a villain and serving a "King Arthur Aragorn Jon Snow is the final villain" plot twist that makes R+L=J look like child's play in comparison. It would be truly an epic twist, ending up in the plot twist pantheon next to "Bruce is a ghost" and "Soylent Green".

However, I don't think this is gonna happen. A villain protagonist on that level would have been foreshadowed much, much more, both in the books and the show. "The villain wins" is also really nihilistic and ends up on a quite bitter note with very little sweetness. Davos, Brienne and Sam emerging alone from the rubble would be a more positive and happier ending. It's also the sort of plot twist you think of five books and seven TV seasons later (too late), not when you conceive the story.

So what will happen to Jon instead if he doesn't become a villain?

There are really only two options: his characterization remains in a class of its own and he remains the only truly good guy protagonist or he takes a level in realpolitik and starts to play as dirty as necessary in whatever way. Not quite Jon, the villain but Jon the ethically challenged, Jon the Utilitarian.

(By the way, I am not saying that he has to play dirty with specific characters to qualify, just that that he has to play dirty somehow. In fact, playing dirty with certain characters might evoke a negative, emotional audience reaction that is not in proportion to the ethics violation it presents and thus the whole Utilitarianism bit might accidentally devolve into perceived villainy.)

The really fascinating bit about this is that Jon's characterization will define ASOIAF quite significantly. Jon is so crucial to the story's most fundamental conflict, that even if you discard the idea that he is The Protagonist, you would still have to agree that he is one of the most important protagonists. His characterization will contribute and lead to the resolution of that conflict. If he resolves it by playing dirty, the moral of the story will quite different than it is if he resolves it by always taking the heroic, high road.

And it's not just the moral of the story. Once the story decides to land on "Jon, the moral" or "Jon, the Utilitarian", the question whether we are consuming "Lord of the Rings with boobs" or a true deconstruction of Lord of the Rings will answer itself. And that will reflect on more than just Jon's storyline. If Jon stays heroic, Night King Sauron, our final, two-dimensional villain and other neat and flat resolutions become much more likely.

As such I would argue that the Jon’s characterization will define how good ASOIAF's famed realism truly is, what ideals it propagates, and what kind of story ASOIAF is.

I honestly can't predict how this will play out. But I remember that Ned and the Red Wedding promised a deconstruction of the genre, an acknowledgement that taking the high road constantly can be a dead end in real life. Jon not needing to be smarter than them in the end would break that promise.

#A Song of Ice and Fire #Jon Snow #Aegon Targaryen #ASoIaF #meta #Game of Thrones

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