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karliesbuzzcut · 4 years

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When art really speaks to you, pt. 2: probably just a coincidence but idk

Disclaimer: all these theories are rabbit holes on their own, so trying to explain them in a couple of paragraphs is, automatically, doing them a disservice. Especially since I’m only going to be primarily addressing the part of the theory that focuses on the artist communicating with their public through their work.

Since I’ve already dedicated paragraphs to the introduction in part 1, let’s just jump into it.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s fuckton of theories.

Let’s start with the daddy of all conspiracies. After all, not many can gloat about their reachings becoming a movie starring Tom Hanks.

The thing with Da Vinci’s conspiracies is that there are so many of them, and they range from “maybe this is also a painting made by Da Vinci but he wasn’t credited because of reasons” to ALIENS. Which, I think, shows how different our interpretations of art can be, and how much it depends on an already established worldview.

But the most interesting part isn’t the conclusions, but how people look for clues. For example, just like people say Taylor Swift is obsessed with numbers or oranges (depending who you ask, I guess), Da Vinci was supposedly a big fan of reflections. So, if you want to decode his paintings you must mirror them... and then move then a little bit... there you go, you’ve just found yourself an alien...! Or a daemon...! Or someone wearing a funny hat! And that’s totally what he wanted us to find, right? Why else would he had shown any sort of interest in reflections if he didn’t want us to reflect everything!!

Shakespeare is an illusion... kinda, but yeah.

Personally, I think Kaylors would love to dig into this one. Sure, it doesn’t have many lesbians playing political spies. But it does involve a lot of literature analysis. Just like Kaylors don’t think a heterosexual woman could’ve written Taylor’s songs; some people (referred as anti-Stratfordians, thank you very much) don’t think someone from a lower class could’ve written Shakespeare’s plays.

Here’s the tea... the very cold tea: because Shakespeare was the son of a glover, anti-Stratfordians say he couldn’t have had the knowledge to write his plays. They, instead, come up with a list of “more suitable” writers that could’ve worked together. But they decided to keep their identities a secret because being a play writer, at that time, wasn’t respectable. Here, we will start noticing a trend with Conspiracy Theories: society, as a whole, can’t handle the truth, only a selected few. That’s where Francis Bacon comes in.

Francis Bacon was a very smart dude. He, also, worked for the state - giving him the credentials to be worthy of writing Shakespeare calibre plays. And also, also, he developed a method to conceal messages in the presentation of a text. To be able to do this, you would need to use two typefaces. Guess what has more than one typeface? Shakespeare’s plays.

I have to say - while I don’t believe either theory we have seen, they are somewhat understandable. We barely know anything about Shakespeare and Da Vinci beyond their work, so it’s normal that people are trying to figure out who they were; what did they believed in; where did they get all of their knowledge. We like theorising about the answers to these questions, knowing we’ll never get a confirmed truth. Not so the case with our next conspiracy...

Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper - someone had to be, right?

Now, allow me to fangirl all over this one. It combines my interests for conspiracy theories, true crime and pop-culture.

I’m assuming everyone here knows about Jack the Ripper: a serial killer who murdered at least 5 people (mainly prostitutes) in London, between the years 1888 and 1891. Well, someone looked at this and thought “you know what this murder-mystery is missing? Famous people”. Well, this theory says that the author of Alice in Wonderland did it He was the only celebrity living nearby at the time of the killings, so... 🤷‍♀️

This becomes a case of “I have already made up my mind about this issue, so I’m going to go ahead and search for proof that confirms it”. Authors and, now, internet sleuths went through his books, selected this random-ass excerpt from the nursery version of Alice and decided it was an anagram. And a crappy one at that. Supposedly, if you arrange the letters you get a detailed and gruesome confession. You, however, have to take away some letter and add others. Listen, I’m not an English major, but I’ve heard that’s cheating.

This theory also has that characteristic we mentioned: the “I don’t want to admit it out loud, so I’m going to come up with convoluted ways for my audience to figure it out” - which almost borders on psychotic behaviour. But at least it, somewhat, works with the serial killer narrative, you know? Not very much with Taylor, a woman who simply wants to chill with her girlfriend.

The moon landing was fake and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

I’m not going to dig into the moon landing conspiracy, this post is going to be long enough already. Just know that, when the USA government was planning to fake the whole thing, they had just watched ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and they were all like “that’s so cool! That’s how we want our fake moon landing to look!” So they contacted its director, Kubrick.

According to the theory, Kubrick felt really guilty afterwards but he couldn’t say anything about it because he signed an NDA? it would be dangerous, I guess. So he did the same thing Taylor would do decades later: he “spelled it out” for us on his work, under the excuse of “I didn’t explicitly said it, did I? My most intelligent and attractive fans just happened to figure it out for themselves”.

The movie ‘The Shinning’ has been analysed to shreds. Think ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ music video, but 2 hours and 26 minutes instead. There are many theories about its underlying theme, but we’re only focusing on the moon landing one. The biggest piece of evidence, according to believers, comes from that famous scene in the hallway. Basically, the kid, Danny, is on the floor playing and wearing an Apollo 11 sweater. He stands up = the rocket launches. He walks to Room N.237. Which is almost an anagram for MOON - but actually, a perfect anagram for MORON - I didn’t come up with that joke, I’m just sharing it. Anyway. In the book, the room number is 217 but Kubrick changed it to 237 because there are 237,000 miles between the Earth and the Moon... except that’s not exactly true, but this is their Kissgate, you see?

“Paul is Dead” aka “the granddaddy of Kaylor is Real”

Now, this is THE conspiracy theory. Kaylors would love to have the amount of evidence this theory has. Give them 50 years, they’ll get there.

Our story starts in 1966, Paul McCartney dies in a car accident. The British Government panics, “this will drive our teenagers into a massive suicide!” So they cover it up. They find this guy who looks like Paul and hire him to replace the original.

You might’ve only heard about those stores where pop-stars get their beards. But there’s also a branch that focuses on celebrity look-a-likes.

The rest of The Beatles went along with it (because that’s how these artists seem to operate, they’re always the victims of their circumstances) but they did not like it. So - you guessed it - they used their music, artwork, photo-shoots, etc. to communicate the truth. Faux-Paul might’ve felt a bit awkward about it, but he’s a nice chap and let the other guys work through their grief.

Kaylors might have agreed on blue being the colour of breaks up and yellow is for Karlie-Sunshine; but the Paul-truthers concluded white is the colour of heaven, jeans are for gravediggers and black for morticians... oh! And not wearing shoes means you’re dead. Taylor being near a door symbolises her leaving the closet; Paul being near an open trunk symbolises him being in a coffin. Is the letter K, for Karlie, surrounding Taylor? Well, there’s a 28IF in the plaques of a car, for Paul being 28 IF he hadn’t died. People hear a phantasmagorical “she” in ‘Call It What You Want’; just like people heard “I buried Paul” in ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.

If you have never looked up this theory, I seriously recommend it. There are so many parallels with Kaylor. Here’s a 30 minute video, if you’re interested. It summarises the theory neatly while discussing the effects that these, seemingly innocent, conspiracies have on the way we absorb information.

Paul might be dead but 2pac is very much alive.

If I haven’t made it clear by now, I think it’s very deceptive to use a musician’s lyrics to back up your alternate version of events. As confessional as these verses can be, they’re still a form of art. Which, in terms of music lyrics, they need to follow certain parameters, as well as a desired sound. And, as many other forms of art, they might focus a bit more on transmitting a feeling, rather than an accurate portrayal of reality.

Why am I stopping to say all of this now? Well, because this specific theory relies a lot on Tupac’s lyrics.

A bit of context: In 1996, Tupac Shakur was shot 4 times while at a stoplight. He died from his injuries days later. While there are theories, to this day, no one knows who killed him. Unless you believe one of those theories, which claims no one did.

The believers of this theory cite Tupac’s lyrics to argue that he was explicitly telling his fans that he was going to fake his own death. Here are two examples:

I’ve been shot and murdered, can’t tell you how it happened word for word but best believe that n*****’ gonna get what they deserve. - Richie Rich’s N***** Done Change

I heard rumours that I died murdered in cold blood, traumatised pictures of me in my final states — you know mama cried. But that was fiction, some coward got the story twisted - Aint’ Hard 2 Find

Just like anti-Kaylors don’t necessarily oppose the idea of Taylor being gay; I bet the “antis” of this theory aren’t happy Tupac died and weren’t against his existence on the first place. It’s more of an argument about confusing your feelings with facts, just because they can be more comforting or exciting.

“Avril Lavigne is dead”... or “every artist you think is alive is, actually, dead and, the ones you think are dead, aren’t” I guess.

After everything we have seen, this one isn’t that interesting. The real Avril died in 2003, right after her first album. Her record label bought a new one. Proof? She says ‘dead’ in ‘My Happy Ending’, blah, blah. A poor man’s “Paul is Dead”.

I added it, mainly for the lulz, after the last entry, I needed them. But also because it all started with a blog. What’s hilarious is that the guy who created it admitted he only did it to show how gullible people are but, at that point, he had already convinced people about. The conspirators didn’t need him anymore. So they discarded him but not the Theory... which just reminds me a little too much of how TCG, HBH, Jennyboom &co. have been excommunicated from the Church of Kaylor.

Beyonce and Jay Z are members of the sexy sexy Illuminati.

I did not save the best for last. But maybe I’m just biased because the Illuminati theory bores me to death. However, if you allow me a bit of social criticism... remember how the Shakespeare Conspiracy started because a bunch of classicist people didn’t believe a lower class citizen could write such good plays? I think this one has a bit of that. I’d bet my life that this one started when a bunch of white dudes got super uncomfortable by black people being so talented and earning their successful.

What this Conspiracy shows, too, is the amplifying effect the internet has had on the proliferation of such theories. Most of the conspiracies I’ve mentioned were huge... but how were you supposed to communicate your ideas and add to the old ones, before the internet? You could publish a book. Talk about it at parties. And, at some point, there were internet forums but, still, you can’t compare that to how widespread Social Media is nowadays.

Today, we can watch someone ramble for 2 hours on YouTube about how Beyonce looks like a robot if you watch Single Ladies in reverse; read someone’s dissertation of ‘Apeshit’; or spend all night looking at those pictures where someone has drawn a red circle around anything that resembles a triangle.

It might look like a lot of evidence but that’s only because there are a lot of people very attached to this theory. Wanting - for whatever reason - for it to be true (perhaps because it would confirm that their fears about the world were well founded). And all those dozens or hundredths of people were working together to form as many patterns as possible.

Unfortunately we are going to keep talking about the Illuminati in Part 3 but also about Taylor, so that should be nice. Because - to the surprise of absolutely no one - there’s a bunch of people who also think they understand Taylor better than the rest. That they have figured out her secret codes and her ultimate message. Only, not all of those theories involve lesbian supermodels, so they aren’t as popular on Tumblr.

#Kaylor #conspiracy theory

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calvarycommunitychurch-blog · 4 years

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7 things to look for when reading through the Bible - Focus on the Family

This is a great article from Focus on the Family Canada. Credit for the content goes to Written by Subby Szterszky and the original article can be found here.

This is it – the year you finally read through the entire Bible. Sure, you’ve tried before and gotten bogged down by the spring thaw or the law codes in Leviticus. But this time, you’ve found the ideal Bible reading plan: well-balanced, realistic and tailored to your reading habits. You’ve prayed about it and enlisted an accountability partner to keep you on track.

All of which is fantastic. But in order to see it through to the end – and more important, to benefit from the experience – you need to read with anticipation, with your eyes, your heart and your mind attuned to what the Spirit of God is saying through his Word.

To aid in that process, here are seven things to look for as you embark (or continue) on your scriptural odyssey. There are more than seven, of course, but seven is a nice biblical number and these are a good place to start. They’ll help keep your reading plan from becoming a drudgery and ensure it remains a joyful path of discovery throughout the year.

God

It may appear self-evident that readers of God’s Word should first seek him within its pages. And yet, people typically approach the Bible by asking, “What does this passage say about me, and how does it apply to my life?” Those are valid questions, up to a point, but they’re not the most important ones. In fact, they can be used to distort the meaning of a passage by reading one’s own experiences into it.

That’s because from start to finish, the Bible isn’t primarily about us, but about God. To be sure, Scripture has much to say about human nature and culture and history. But it addresses all those subjects solely with respect to God.

Through human language and the written word, the Creator of the universe has chosen to reveal himself – his character, power and purposes – to his human creatures. He has told us who we are, why we’re here, and how we can be what he created us to be, in a loving relationship with him.

And so, the first questions to ask when reading anything in the Bible are: “What does this say about God? What does it reveal about who he is, what he’s done and continues to do? How does it help me know him and trust him and love him more?”

Grace

There’s a common misconception, even among professing Bible believers, that the Old Testament is all about law, whereas the New Testament is all about grace. In fact, an early heretic named Marcion went so far as to claim that the two Testaments portrayed two different gods: an inferior god of judgment in the Old and a superior god of love in the New.

The Scriptures themselves will have none of that, of course. The Old Testament echoes with a repeated description of God as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Jesus himself, although full of grace and truth, also spoke at length about judgment and raised the bar of righteousness to include motives of the heart as well as outward actions.

Both Testaments portray God as eternal and unchanging, his law and grace forever intertwined, his love and judgment meeting at the Cross of Christ. To read the Bible is to discover and trace that braid of divine justice and kindness through all its turns, finally displayed perfectly in the person of Jesus.

Challenge

The essence of idolatry is the desire to domesticate God, to make the Creator more like his creation, easier to comprehend and to control. But the God of the universe will not fit into our boxes, whether personal, cultural or theological. In fact, he declares that his ways and his thoughts are as far above ours as the heavens are above the earth.

It’s not surprising, then, that his Word should contain things not only difficult but at times downright disturbing. Such things will vary depending on the assumptions of each culture, but they’ll always be present. For people in the 21st century, the Bible’s sexual ethos, its tolerance of slavery in the ancient world, and its portrayal of genocidal warfare are especially difficult to square with the idea of a just and loving God.

In the eyes of the wider culture, such passages may be deal breakers, but for followers of Jesus, they’re challenges. Strange customs, lengthy genealogies, and even the conquest of Canaan invite readers to think deeply, pray earnestly, embrace mystery and recognize that God is bigger than us. As Tim Keller observes, “If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.”

Beauty

God is beautiful, and he has designed his cosmos to reflect his beauty. It only follows that his written Word should do likewise. Its accounts brim with grandeur and glory along with moments of quiet intimacy to melt the heart and comfort the soul. It paints word pictures of a world that’s fallen and yet enjoying the kindness and care of its Sovereign Lord.

But beyond their divinely inspired content, the Scriptures are beautiful in themselves as literature, their varied styles equally inspired by God. Contrary to common belief, the Bible isn’t a textbook on science or history or even theology. Nor is it an instruction manual on morals and ethics and successful living. To be sure, it touches on all those subjects and many more besides. But it does so in the form of artful writing.

It’s no accident that God chose to record a significant chunk of his Word as historical narrative and poetry, rather than as didactic instruction. He designed it to appeal to the whole person, the heart and the imagination as well as the mind. To read it any other way is to miss at least part of its message.

Diversity

In the natural world, beauty expresses itself through diversity, and once again it’s the same with Scripture. The Bible is a library of 66 documents, written on three continents over some 1,500 years. Its human authors represent a wide range of temperaments and social classes, each writing to address the issues of their day.

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, these authors wrote in an eclectic variety of genres: war stories, pastoral romances, songs of love, songs of lament, prayers, letters, biographies, travelogues, memoirs and apocalyptic visions, among others.

Such a diverse array of genres cannot be read with a one-size-fits-all approach, and it’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to do so. Like the many flavours at a fine feast, they’re meant to be savoured, both for their own qualities and for how they blend with one another. Each one speaks with its own voice, and yet contributes its own unique facet to the overall message of Scripture. Discovering that unity, expressed through diversity, is one of the genuine pleasures of reading through the Bible.

Unity

Every great story worth following has a central plot line, a unifying narrative that frames it and gives it structure. There may be subplots and asides, but that main storyline winds throughout, by turns hidden and exposed, and it pulls the reader toward its conclusion.

The central narrative of the Bible can be summarized as a drama in four acts: Creation, Fall, Redemption and Restoration. From a human perspective, it began in the Garden, reached its climax at the Cross, and will conclude in the New Jerusalem, in the New Heaven and New Earth. From a divine perspective, it was written in the mind of God before he made the cosmos, and will resonate into eternity, to his glory.

Because of the wonderful diversity in Scripture, it’s tempting to think of its many parts as vignettes in an anthology, at best only loosely related to each other. But in truth, they combine to form a unified mosaic from their various literary shades and colours. The main storyline winds through them all, at times clear and at other times subtle, but always there. And thus, when reading the Bible, it’s always crucial to ask, “What does this passage bring to the central narrative of Creation, Fall, Redemption and Restoration?”

Gospel

It’s fitting to conclude this list where it began, by looking for God in the Scriptures. And that means looking for Christ and the Gospel. Such a search is by no means limited to the New Testament, nor is it an exercise in speculative interpretation.

There are, of course, the overt Messianic prophecies that are quoted as such in the New Testament. But it goes deeper than that. After Jesus rose from the dead, he began to teach his disciples everything that was written about him in the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms. For 1st-century Jews, this threefold description was shorthand for the entire scope of the Old Testament. In other words, Jesus was claiming that all of Scripture was about him, in one sense or another.

We need to be careful here. Jesus was not inviting his followers to dig for Gospel metaphors behind every horse and sword and city wall and loaf of bread in the Old Testament. But he was directing them to recognize that all the Scriptures – every narrative account, genealogy and poetic image – in some way points to him and anticipates his coming.

It could hardly be otherwise, given that Jesus is the protagonist as well as the fulfillment of the grand narrative of Creation, Fall, Redemption and Restoration.

Depending on our tastes, temperament and cultural background, different parts of the Bible will strike us in different ways. Some passages will captivate and inspire, while others will perplex and challenge. But viewed through the lens of the Gospel, all of it will open new vistas on the goodness, wisdom and beauty of God. And therein lies the point – as well as the pleasure – of reading through the Bible.

Sources and further reading

Haven’t yet found that perfect Bible reading plan? Here are links to a few reading plans, devotionals and other resources to help you on your journey through the Scriptures.

Bible Gateway

Bible Project

Biblica: The International Bible Society

English Standard Version (ESV)

Focus on the Family Canada

Read Scripture App

She Reads Truth

YouVersion Bible App

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 5 years

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Wan High Weeping (Part 40)

Dies a little on the inside because I can’t remember if I gave Katara and Sokka a last name already. Wishes I had my notes document and hopes that I didn’t, because I couldn’t find one while combing through my previous chapters.

Also, like Sokka, Yue has been aged up for the sake of the plot. I really wanted to give her a place in all of this.

Azula dropped her suitcases by the stairwell. The manor had such a different aura than the one Ozai’s took on, right down to the aromas. As opposed to sharp spices and incense, the house smelled of violet and lavender and other floral odors she didn’t have names for. It smelled fresh, even approaching the last week of November. She was dropped off with a stern lecture about making the most of things, being as so many strings had to be pulled to get her there so quickly. But she was in no mood for making the most of things; not only did she have to worry about adjusting, she had to worry about the charges she was going to be pressing on Chan and Usha. Moreover, she was in a constant state of dread. Somehow he would get to her.

She knew that he would.

Ursa had money but Ozai had more of it. His lawyers would be better. They would have her sent right back to him and she didn’t know how to feel about that. More than anything she craved the affection he used to give her. Even though the academically outstanding part of her screamed against it, Azula clung to the hope that she could still make things right if she could just fit herself back into the image he desired. But, lord did the prospect terrify her. He would tear her apart for the grief and struggle she was causing him now.

She stood awkwardly in the doorway, not sure if she was supposed to enter and make herself at home or if she was supposed to wait for her mother to greet her. She thought of retreating back to her car. But then, where would she go? Back to the hospital? She could pester TyLee for a place to stay, but that look became her just as poorly as binging in front of everyone had. She also couldn’t imagine that her relationship with the girl had been repaired enough for that to happen. She shut the door and opted to leave her luggage where she had initially set it down for the time. She wandered further into the house, trying to get a sense of it.

There were paintings everywhere of lush scenery and sprigs of rosemary. On hallway coffee tables were vases teeming with jasmine and lily. She wondered how long it would take before she came across a picture of Zuko. But then, her mother had cut Zuko out just as readily as she had cut Azula out.

She came to the backyard veranda. The door leading out to it had lacey white curtains that fluttered in the deep autumn gusts. The garden must be magnificent in the spring. There were so many trees, she could only imagine their flare and splendor a few weeks ago--painted with the fiery hues of autumn. She could only imagine how green and rich they were months ago when the air was still hot with summer. Now they were simply dead, spindly and twisted against a stonewash sky. Dead, grey, bleak, and waiting for snow to come and re-awaken their glory. But somehow they were still beautiful, forlornly beautiful.

Azula’s fingers curled around the veranda railing. It was lined with budding winter rose and amethyst ice, their vines and leaves brushed against her palm.

Ursa never stuck her as a gardener, but then, she’d never put much thought into the woman since she divorced Ozai and filed a restraining order. No thought save for wondering why the woman never bothered to reach out. Perhaps it was that she was afraid that her ex-husband would track her down through she and Zuko. It seemed logical enough, Ozai had the money and material to do so. Still she had a sneaking suspicion that she didn’t want to hear from Azula.

She recalled Zuko mentioning an anonymous call or two every so often, a few months after the woman had fled, but he never picked up numbers he didn’t know. After that, the calls stopped coming. She hadn’t expected her mother to try to get in touch with her, she was too much like the man her mother had fled from.

Until now, she had put it out of her mind entirely, the sting of being unloved by her own mother. Now it was just another glaring failure amid the rest--perhaps it had been the first indication that she would fall and amount to nothing.

Azula reached out to touch a low hanging branch.

“There you are.” Came a voice. Hearing it for the first time in years was haunting. The timbre of it was so startlingly similar to her own. “I saw your suitcases, but couldn’t find you.”

“I never tried to find you.” Azula spat, harshly. She would love to know how much effort the authorities had put into doing so.

She heard Ursa sigh. “Can I help you carry your things to your new room?”

“Do I look helpless to you?” She grumbled. “You can tell me where my room is.”

Ignoring Azula’s protests, Ursa picked up two of the few suitcases and led her daughter up a few flights of stairs, to the third floor. She motioned down the hall. “I decorated three rooms for you to choose from…”

Azula’s tummy fluttered at the thought that her mother had gone out of her way to do so. She fought to cling to her anger. To her dignity. “I’m sure you would have redecorated the whole house for Zu-Zu.”

“Azula…”

She made her way past Ursa and dropped her suitcases into the third room. The one painted in soft shades of blue. Wallpaper trim depicting silvery and turquoise blue strands of lightning caught her eye. The room was furnished simply; there was a canopy bed draped with pastel blue organza fabric and an organized heap of silk pillows that rested atop deep blue silk sheets. Next to the bed sat a white night stand with a crystal lamp in the same shades. Off in the corner was a sizable bookshelf that probably came with the night stand. A decorative velvet rug blanketed white carpeting. She figured that the rest of the decor was up to her. “When you were little, you liked to have strings of lights hung in your room. I didn’t know if you still liked those so I bought some for you just in case.” She motioned to a few boxes. “You can go through those and see if you want to use any of it.”

Again, Azula’s stomach knots. The woman remembered what she liked as a child. Ursa was making it harder than she had anticipated, to hold her grudge. She reminded herself that the woman hadn’t even tried to reach out to her.

Azula’s curiosity got the best of her so she rummaged through the box some. She spied organza curtains to match the canopy as well as dark blue velvet to match the rug. Ursa was giving her options. And that was only the things she had bought for this room. “I like these.” She stated simply, lifting up the velvet curtains.

Ursa picked them up. “Would you mind giving me a hand?”

She didn’t want to, but she didn’t want to risk not having curtains either, so she picked them up and helped Ursa arrange them. That would do for the time being, she might finish adding her own style to the room later. Frankly she liked to think that this was a temporary arrangement that she didn’t need to invest much time into.

WIth the curtains in place, Ursa stepped back to inspect them. When that was done she decided to inspect Azula who folded her arms over her chest. Ursa’s expression dimmed and she reached an arm out. Azula swatted the had away with a curt, “don’t touch me.”

The woman’s face darkened further. “He hurt you.”

And Azula knows that she had caught a glimpse of the fading bruises Ozai had left on her cheeks.

“What did he do?”

“Nothing that you tried to protect me from.”

.oOo.

Xi River Academy was very different from Wan High. From the layout to the deep scarlet and vivid gold colors. Wan High took a wolf-bat hybrid for its mascot. What Xi River had was more of a crest. A gold plate with elegantly engraved tiger lillies. If Azula were to guess she’d say that they’d simply take a tiger for an animal mascot if requested.

The campus itself was different, much more elegant. A cobblestone path led to a fine brick building with faux gold embellishments. A stark contrast to Wan High’s concrete foundations. It didn’t occur to her that Xi River Academy could be a private institute until she was swept up in a crowd of girls. Only girls. A female only, student body. At once, she wondered why her father had left her to a shabby public school when he could have sent her here, or at least a place like it. A two hour commute to and back would have been a hassle.

It seemed to settle more and more, that he didn’t care for her as much as she though he did.

The elegance of the academy only distracted her from her fears for a brief, yet merciful, window. As soon as the awe faded, it settled in that she was in a new crowd. A crowd that had never seen her at her best. The notion that they’d only see bruised, chubby, tired eye’d version of her was more than enough reason to retreat. Even more so, knowing that this would be their first impression of her. She could bury herself in all of the make up she wanted, it wouldn’t hide what she sought to cover the most. Suddenly her new uniform felt so tight and constricting. She could already feel the weight of their judging gazes--heavy and scrutinizing.

She tried not to speak with anyone and no one tried to speak with her. She opted to pass on finding her locker until after hours. The school was too large and she had a class to get to. She hadn’t anything to fetch or put into her locker anyhow.

She entered the class room as quietly as she could, lingering about, trying to scope out what seat hadn’t already been claimed. A poor plan in retrospect, when she found herself being the last woman standing. Her new literature teacher walked in. “You must be Azula.” He noted quietly. His voice had a familiar ring to it, one that she couldn’t quite place.

Has gaze was soft and inviting enough, blue eyes scanning the classroom. “It looks like you get to sit next to Zirin.” With a light smile he added a very quiet, “good luck.” A little louder he said, “perhaps Ms. Nishimura will pay more attention to the lessons with a stranger sitting next to her.” This roused a round of chuckles.

“Or…” Zirin spoke up. “Ms. Nishimura will neglect the lessons to get to know the stranger.” Another round of laughter.

“Feel free to give her a nudge or two if she becomes a pest.” The man rolled his eyes. His demeanor struck Azula as familiar, just as well has his voice. Still she couldn’t place where from. She turned to take her seat but he stopped her. “Before you sit, would you mind introducing yourself? Name and...hmm...something you enjoy doing in your free time and a fun fact.”

Fully aware of the eyes on her, Azula muttered her name. “I used to play volleyball.” It wasn’t a very fun fact, but she added, “and then I broke my ribs.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” Her teacher apologized.

Azula shrugged and headed for her seat. She wished that they would stop staring at her. She no longer liked being a spectacle.

“I believe you all are really going to like Azula.” The teacher proclaimed. “Considering we will be taking a break from our very engaging read…” a collective groan resonated about the room, “...to go around the room and introduce ourselves.”

“Hell yeah.” Came a mutter from behind. “Anything to avoid reading that hell novel.”

By the end of the hour her brain was loaded with names and faces she probably wouldn’t remember the next day. She supposed that she’d just have to get used to them, as she would everything else. Again her new teacher stopped her as she was leaving. “Can I talk to you for a moment.”

Azula frowned to herself and perhaps her dissatisfaction was apparent because he added, “don’t worry, I’ll give you a hall pass.”

She re-entered the classroom.

“I just wanted to introduce myself, since the bell rang before I could.”

Azula stood silent and waiting.

“Though I feel like I know you decently already.” This, Azula didn’t understand. “Katara, has mentioned you a lot.” And her heart thrummed against her chest. “You are that Azula, correct?” She could already feel her grade in this class dipping.

“Depends, what did Katara say?”

The man laughed and then his face went hard. “She pointed you out a number of times on various social media, usually while crying…”

Azula let herself go numb, she was already off to a horrible start.

“Which is why I was surprised to hear that she was worried about you.” He paused. “If you need to talk about anything, I’m here after hours on most days.”

“I don’t need to talk about anything.”

The man nodded. “My daughter came home crying you know…”

Azula didn’t want to hear anymore, she didn’t want to know how much damage she’d caused.

“...When she thought you were dead.”

That wasn’t where she thought he was headed and it took her aback.

“She saw that you were on my roaster and asked me to make sure you were doing alright.”

Azula swallowed. “She asked about me?”

He nodded and held out his hand, “Mr. Nanouk. But feel free to call me Hakoda, everyone else does.” Azula returned the handshake. “Welcome to Xi River, if you need to know anything about the school, feel free to ask. I’ve been working here for over ten years now.”

Azula nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Nanouk, I’ll keep that in mind.”

She turned to leave again, halting when he called, “Oh, one more thing.”

She looked back.

“Katara is having a little welcome back party for Sokka, she told me to let you know that you’re invited.”

Azula wondered just how many times she would be left with an optimistic but nerve-wracking flutter in her belly. The little reminders that, perhaps, she had been seeing things wrong all along--that people did care for her. They startled her and put her off guard just as much as they comforted her. She wasn’t used to people being so outwardly affectionate with her. Their gentleness had her somewhat flustered, silently so. She appreciate the sentiment very well. Even still…

“I’ll think about it, I have a lot going on right now.”

“I can imagine.” Hakoda replied.

Between all of the lawsuits and the transfer...and her mother…

Even without that baggage she wasn’t exactly up for another party. It would only bring back vivid images of the night she had made up her mind that it was time for her to go. She felt obliged to add, “it’s nothing personal, I’m just tired of the party scene.”

.oOo.

The lunchroom was crowded, everyone was well into their routines. Everyone save for her. She was alone again and this time she didn’t have a Teo. All of the tables seemed full. She tried reading faces, looking for the most inviting one. Her eyes fell upon someone who she could write off right away, she carried herself in the same way Usha did. In the same way Azula herself used to. With any luck she could just bleed herself into the background until her time at Xi River Academy was through. Unnoticed would be better than what she had at Wan High. Evidently, she was already unsure if she could manage that. She decided that she would pass on lunch today, she didn’t want to make that kind of scene on her first day. She’d been eating too much at the hospital anyways.

“Hey!” She spied a waving hand. It took her a moment to realize that the display was directed at her. It was that Zirin girl. She didn’t see any other options so she answered the girl’s gestures. “Earlier today you mentioned that you used to play volleyball?”

“Yes.” Azula replied, taking a seat.

“I just so happen to be a member of Xi River’s team!” Zirin declared, “and I’d like you to meet the rest of the girls.” She motioned around the table. “This is Ikue, Chinami, Shoko, and Ryoko.” They were quite a variety. Ikue with her side shave and Ryoko with her black and white dye job. Chinami was a small and adorable thing, smaller in height than even she. And Azula was probably the smallest woman she knew. Shoko was a heavier girl, the kind she would have targeted before her accident. “And this is Nagako.” She pointed to the most unremarkable girl of the group. She wasn’t unattractive by any means, she was more or less ordinary. “She just quit the team.”

“Why?”

“Eh, I get tired of doing the same thing all the time.” Nagako replied. “Besides, practice ate all of my free time.”

“In other words, we could use a new player.” Zirin offered.

“You don’t want me on your team.” Azula mumbled.

“Sure we do.” Zirin insisted.

“I’m no good anymore…” Azula trailed off. “I haven’t played since my accident.”

“That’s fine, we suck anyways.” Ryoko shrugged.

Chinami agreed. “Yeah, we lose pretty much every game.”

“Xi River is known for our outstanding academics not our sports program.” Ikue put in.

“We can all suck together.” Zirin declared.

“I can’t wait.” Azula grumbled.

“So you’ll join us then!?” Shoko asked.

Azula sighed, the more she mulled it over, the better it sounded. She supposed that joining the team would buy her at least a little more time away from her mother. That alone held an appeal. It would probably do her well to at least try to get back into things. And from the sound of it, she wouldn’t have to worry about looking like a fool alone. Still, the idea of putting herself back on the court in such an out of shape state was daunting. It practically screamed for mockery. “I’ll think about it. I have...things to do after class.”

She certainly wasn’t ready to confess that she was going to therapy. Outpatient had been the decision, with a heavy warning that if she gave even the slightest indication of self-harm she’d land herself a prolonged inpatient stay.

“What do you have to do?” Zirin asked. “Coach is usually pretty good at working around schedules.

“I’m still trying to get settled at my mother’s ma...place.” Azula lied, also deciding that it was probably better to leave her status out of the equation.

“I’m sure coach can work with you.” Zirin said again. “I’ll let her know that you might be interested.”

“Don’t jump the gun, Zirin! She hasn’t said yes yet.” Shoko spoke.

“I know, I know. I’m just going to mention it. No guarantees.”

Ryoko looked to Azula, “did you forget your lunch?”

And so it began. “I did, yes.”

“Want some of mine?”

“I think I can last the day.” She had lasted much longer than that and she would do so again. She looked at her knuckles, the scabs had just begun to flake away and she was going to pick them again. She had to, or else she’d never see her trim figure again. She noticed that the conversation was going on without her. It seemed that way anyhow.

“So, why did you transfer to Xi River?” Chinami asked.

“I. It wasn’t my choice, my brother ran away from home and the CPS got involved.” She supposed that a half truth couldn’t do much damage.

“I’m sorry.” Chinami replied.

Azula waved her off, “we didn’t get along anyways, I’m sure I’ll see him again some day or another.”

.oOo.

She didn’t know why she was doing this to herself, but curiosity was gnawing at her. She didn’t know if it would be better or worse to know exactly how much damage her hospital stay had inflicted. She searched the bathroom, finding no scale. She wondered if her mother had been informed of her diagnosis. She had to have been. Azula grimaced, now she had no way to gauge if she was on the right track. No way save for a glance in the mirror. A mirror that tells her that she had, indeed, grown even softer since her stay.

Turning away from the mirror, she stipped off her uniform and tugged on her day clothes. Clothes that fit just the same as they had before she had landed herself in the hospital. She smoothed the wrinkles out of her shirt quickly ran a comb through her hair.

“Are you sure that you don’t want me to come with you for your first session?” Ursa asked.

“I’m more than capable of doing things on my own.” Her grip on her car keys tightened.

“I just thought that you might want some support.”

“Where was your support when I was in the hospital? Surely they told you how I got there?”

“Yes.” Ursa confirmed. “I know that we...I didn’t leave on the best terms with you. I was afraid that showing up would have made things worse for you.”

Resentfully, Azula noted that her mother wasn’t wrong. A sudden appearance from her probably would have set her off again. She found herself entirely conflicted. “You could have at least tried.” It stung, in retrospect that she hadn’t. Azula knew that she would have turned her away, but at least Ursa could have used an attempt as proof of care. “It wasn’t worth it to you, was it? You knew that I’d turn you away so you didn’t waste your time.”

“Azula.” Her voice is annoyingly level. A stoic demeanor so agitatedly like her own. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

But she had. “I’m going to be late.”

Not that she was actually eager to get to her appointment.

.oOo.

It was hard to believe that her therapist wasn’t completely burnt out already. Thirty minutes into their hour and a half long session and Azula hadn’t said a word. They could make her attend, but they couldn’t make her speak. The woman, Yue, was nice enough, but Azula had no interest in spilling to a stranger, what had taken a good while for Teo to pry out of her. The woman only knew what the other doctors did; that she refused to eat and threw it up when she finally caved. That was all she needed to know.

She had already tried asking how her first day of school was, how she was adjusting to her new home, and if it was difficult to settle in. She tried asking what had driven her to take the pills and if death was what she had really wanted. It took everything in Azula to not, shout that, of course she didn’t really want to die. And then the woman was bold enough to ask if her struggle with bulimia went hand in hand with the attempt.

Each question struck Azula with more unease and fury. Fury she refused to express so openly. The woman was trying many tactics. She tried firm questioning, she tried kind questioning. She tried telling stories of other patients. She tried speaking of her own experiences. She tried returning the silence.

“You’re a pretty girl, Azula.” Now she was trying flattery. She was only saying it because she had to. Azula resisted the urge to correcter with an, “I was a pretty girl.” She wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “Can you help me understand why you think that you need to throw up?”

Azula hated her bluntness, it made her almost uncomfortable. Evidently she didn’t even know why the woman needed to ask, it was very plain to see. The woman was just taunting her, trying to coax a reaction. She wouldn't so readily give one.

“Does it have anything to do with your father? I am aware that child protective services have gotten involved in your case.”

That struck a nerve. “It has nothing to do with him!” She might as well have said that it had everything to do with him. Yue’s face told Azula that she knew it too.

“He put a lot of pressure on you, didn’t he?”

She tried to save herself, but she probably only dug herself deeper in. “He didn’t say anything I didn’t agree with.”

“So you put pressure on yourself too. Whose idea was it?”

“Was what?” Azula scowled, folding her hands over her chest.

“Did you make the decision to start throwing up yourself, or did your father suggest it.”

She didn’t like that question either. Even less, she liked the implication that she could be forced to do anything she didn’t want to do. “Of course it was my idea! It was only supposed to be once or twice. I just needed to...fix myself to make the team.”

“The team?”

She was saying too much. Maybe she could redirect the conversation. “I was in volleyball.”

“Volleyball.” Yue nodded. “A good sport. Which playing position was your favorite?”

She allowed the conversation to drift away from her disorder. “I enjoyed them all. I was good at them all.” She thought for a moment. “I liked being the setter or the outside hitter the most.”

Yue nodded. “I don’t know that much about volleyball, would you mind telling me what those positions include?”

Azula took no issue in discussing this. Ideally she could chip away the rest of the session time.

She launched into an in depth explanation of the six positions and the game play. Doing so only took up about twenty minutes. Leaving her with a good forty-five left to kill. She tried to think of anything she may have missed. But Yue came up with something faster.

“So you started throwing up to get yourself back in shape for the team? You wanted fast results, correct?”

Azula groaned to herself. “Yes.”

“Understandable.” Yue replied. “But have you seen any changes since you started?”

At first she was inclined to fess up and say no. She would have rather said no instead of coming to the dreadful realization that, if anything, she had seen her weight go up. She shifted uncomfortably. Another mistake, Yue picked up on the motion quickly. She loathed her for it, she was just as good with mind games and reading people as Azula herself. She was going to have to tread with more care.

“You’ve probably seen an increase haven’t you?”

Azula remained silent, but at this point, even that spoke volumes.

Yue’s face hardened and Azula knew that she was done playing nice. Kindness, hadn’t worked up to that point. “Throwing up doesn’t get rid of all of the calories, Azula. It doesn’t even get rid of most of them.”

Her discomfort swelled and would only continue to do so as Yue kept speaking.

“You do realize that there have been many studies to show that a good number of bulimics reach their highest weights during the cycle.” She paused to let it settle, drawing the quiet out for a good while. “Purging is only an illusion. It makes you feel like you’re preventing something, but that isn’t the case. Is it, Azula?”

She felt her cheeks color. The facts that Yue laid out, leave her feeling naked and helpless. She wondered if coming here was a good idea at all. It certainly didn’t feel like it. Perhaps Yue really wanted to set things in stone because she continued. “Your doctors wouldn’t release any details of your stay. But I imagine that, at some point, your hands must have been swollen. Maybe your ankles and your jaw too. Do you know why this is?”

Azula shook her head.

“It happens because your constant vomiting leaves you dehydrated. Your body is trying to cling to the water it has.” She paused again, leaving it to turn in Azula’s mind. “Your throat hurts, doesn’t it.”

“Not as--not that badly.” Her unease was making her speech less careful.

“Not as much lately? Do you think that, that could be because you haven’t thrown up recently.”

She did, but she wouldn’t say it.

“It has only been a little over a week since you’ve last thrown up, and you’re already feeling that much better for it.”

Azula swallowed a lump in her throat.

“You’re lucky the tooth decay hasn’t begun to set in yet. And luckier still that you haven’t developed any intestinal problems. Or heart problems. I’m sure that your doctor has talked with you, at least a little, about electrolytes.”

Lord, was she tired of hearing about those. “Heart problems?”

“Among other things, yes. Low potassium can lead to heart problems.”

And lord knew that they had tested her for that in the hospital. She stared at her arm, a faint patch of pink still decorated the area the IV had jabbed into.

“Of course, those are long-term effects. I would guess that you haven’t done any permanent damage yet, but that can easily change. Do you think that you will be able to make the team with an irregular heart beat or kidney failure?”

The question answered itself.

“You wanted instant gratification. You wanted fast results. Do you like the results you’ve seen?”

“No.”

Her head dipped.

And Yue’s expression softened. “Of course you don’t. You’re hurting yourself. Do you know what will get you fast results?”

Azula looked up.

“Exercize.” Yue replied simply. “You enjoyed volleyball, you still enjoy it, right?”

“I think.”

“Pick up the ball again.” Yue replied. “And if you still like the game, then weight loss should come very easily and naturally to you. From the sound of it, you have a very natural talent.”

“But I’m hungry all the time.” She couldn’t imagine that, that would do her any favors.

“That’s what happens when you restrict your diet. You start to think of what you can’t have, you hold off and hold off until you can’t take it anymore. And then when you do eat, you eat to make up for days of not eating anything at all.”

It seemed so simple, she feels like a fool for not thinking of it on her own.

“You’ve gotten into a habit, Azula. The sooner you break it, the easier things will be.”

“But--”

Yue left her with no room for that. “Right now you’re going to have to rip the band-aid. Typically I go easier on patients, but I feel like babying won’t work on you, will it? I don’t think you want to be babied.”

“I don’t.” She agreed.

“So I will be blunt with you.”

She didn’t want any babying, but she didn’t particularly want her to be so straightforward either. Yet, it was what she needed.

“I want you to start eating again. Like you used to before…”

“I broke my ribs.” Azula filled in.

“I want you to start eating like you did before you broke your ribs.”

It sounded easy enough. It should have been easy. “If I do, I’ll just...” Azula trailed off.

She didn’t need to finish for Yue to gauge the direction. She’d probably seen it dozens upon dozens of times. “ You’ve thrown your body into starvation mode. Right now it is going to cling to everything you put in it. So yes, you’re right, you probably will see another increase in your weight.” At least she wasn’t sugar coating. “Eventually your body will get used to a healthier diet and you’ll level out again. After that, it gets easier--you’ll start to see the drop you’d like.”

Azula’s fingers tighten over her kneecaps.

“I’m willing to say that if you stick to a regular volleyball and workout routine, the gain will be minimal, perhaps it won’t happen at all.”

She didn’t know if she believed that.

“I promise you that if you go back to the very basics, a healthy diet and regular exercise, you’ll see much faster results than throwing up will ever get you.” She paused. “So, let me ask. How do you want to do this? Do you want to take baby steps or do you want to rip the band-aid.”

“I want to rip the band-aid.”

Yue nodded. “If that doesn’t work then we’ll have to take baby steps.”

“Fair.”

“Alright then.” Yue clapped her hands together. “We’re running short on time so I’m going to take you through this quickly. I’d like you to join the volleyball team again. Start slow if you have to. I’d also like you to follow a diet plan…”

.oOo.

It was a lot to absorb and that was only their first session. But she had requested tough love. Apparently their next session was going to focus wholly on re-learning nutrition facts. She supposed that, that wouldn’t sting too much, it would do her well to have a more concrete understanding of such. The only thing she had going for her was that she didn’t have the burden of stress-related eating habits.

She fell upon her mattress. It was hard enough handing Ursa, of all people, that night’s meal plan. Granted the woman was in ass kissing mode and eagerly accepted the task of cooking it. Azula rubbed her hands over her face. She was completely unready to face another possible spike in her weight. She was frustrated to the point of misty eyes. She could smell the crisp of chicken, it met her nose so invitingly. Her empty stomach yearned for it. Habit alone left her feeling disgusting for craving it so badly. She sighed, it was going to be a tedious task to sort out what a normal food craving felt like verses the impulsive uncontrollable desire.

Apparently, that was going to be a topic of discussion in the next session as well.

Azula loathed to admit it, but she wanted to see Yue again. The woman was firm with her in a way that didn’t leave her feeling ashamed of herself. She was forceful but she left the final decision with Azula. The woman could talk all she wanted about eating well, but at the end of the day it was on Azula to follow through. “You can make me empty promises if you want. At the end of the day you’re only going to hurt yourself. No matter what you choose to do with this diet plan, I’m going to go home, watch some Netflix, and pet my cats.”

But something told her that it would hit Yue hard if Azula fell deeper into her disorder.

Ursa shouted up that the food was ready.

And Azula felt absolutely ridiculous; she shouldn’t feel this nervous about a simple dinner. The kind she used to eat without issue. That’s what she clung to as she ate her share. That she wasn’t over doing it, that this was normal. That this was the amount everyone else ate, a decent cut of chicken with a side of corn and a glass of orange juice.

With an empty plate, she pushed her chair in. She headed back to her room with an impulse to purge. She halted in front of the bathroom and forced herself past it. She attempted to turn her thoughts elsewhere. So she opted to text Teo and TyLee about her first day. And she let Katara know that she was still deciding if she was up for a party.

The window between their texts left her with too much time to think. So she stood up again, picking a fight with Ursa ought to do the trick.

She wouldn’t have done it if she knew her mother was going to just stand and listen. Stand listen, and sometimes agree.

She threw accusation after accusation. “You never loved me.”, “You were selfish.” “You left us behind.” The woman would occasionally flinch. “You didn’t even try to contact us.”

“I was selfish.” She agreed, after Azula’s onslaught. “And I was afraid. I was afraid of your father…”

“You were afraid of me.” Azula muttered.

Ursa drew in a sharp breath. “You’re a lot like your father. The way you talked to your brother…” She trailed off. “I was afraid of you, yes.” The confession was like a slap in the face. “But I still loved you then. And I still love you now.” She laughed to herself and Azula couldn’t fathom why. “I can’t believe it took me so long to realize that you’re more like me than him. Believe it or not, I have some fire too, Azula.”

Azula furrowed her brows. “Then why didn’t you try to talk to me?”

“I did. You had me blocked. Every time I found your number, you blocked me again.”

The confusion Azula’s her face so closely resembled Ursa’s expression. Because she swore to God, that she had done nothing of the sort. She hadn’t even blocked Chan and Usha. Much less her own mother.

“I don’t know why I didn’t take you and Zuko with me. It was bad enough hearing that Zuko was in rehab.”

Azula couldn’t tell if Ursa was talking to her still or if the woman was musing to herself.

“And then I find out that you were in the hospital. And with bulimia...what was he doing to the two of you?”

It truly settled in, how dire the situation was. What had he done to her?

“I should have stolen you both away.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I had no money. It was all his, I lost everything in that divorce court. And they weren’t going to award two children to a mother who couldn’t even feed herself.”

Azula stole a look around the manor.

“I worked really hard and got really lucky” Ursa noted her glance. “I’ve been working on a novel since I met your father. It just so happened to gain a large following overseas…”

She could fill in the rest.

“It had a movie adaption. It should be released here, some time this year.”

“Why didn’t you come find us then?”

“I thought that you were happy with Ozai.”

“I was…”

“Until he wasn’t happy with you.” Ursa filled in. “That’s how it is with that man.” Before Azula knew it, she was in Ursa’s arms, the woman running her hands over her hair. It was such a stark contrast to Ozai’s coldness.

Azula fought to hold onto her resentment.

#Avatar #Azula #Zuko #Ursa #TyLee #Mai #Ozai #Katara #Sokka #Aang #Toph #Suki #Fanfiction

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quranreadalong · 6 years

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A TALE OF TWO CITIES KINGDOMS, PT 4/4

Despite describing Josiah as a king promised by YHWH and one of the greatest monarchs to ever live, the Bible offers only the following line on his death:

While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo.

The phrasing is (probably intentionally) vague, but what appears to have happened here is that the Egyptian army was originally in the area trying to help Assyria hold off the Babylonians, who the Egyptians recognized as an even greater threat than Assyria itself had been. But the Assyrians lost, and the pharaoh moved his forces north. The Bible doesn’t make it clear why Josiah was involved in this situation, nor why Josiah was opposing the pharaoh or even trying to stop his forces from continuing onwards in the first place. The Book of Kings is based on real people, but often distorts the circumstances of their lives, so it’s possible that Josiah was executed by Egypt for infringing upon territory the Egyptians considered theirs or something of that nature. Regardless, Josiah died, and his religious fervor died with him. All of the remaining kings of Judah after him, right up until Judah’s fall (three of whom were his sons, the fourth was his grandson) are described in the Bible as heretics.

It’s clear that the population wasn’t particularly interested in abiding by the dead Josiah’s rules once he was gone. Idols of other gods, like the goddess Ashera, continue to be found in archaeological sites dating to after Josiah’s reign. And like Hezekieh’s evidently aborted religious reforms, Josiah’s successors had bigger problems to worry about than enforcing monotheism. The threat they faced was no longer Egypt or Assyria. It was Babylon.

In the year 605 BC, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the allied forces of Egypt and the remnants of Assyria at Carchemish in Syria. The Egyptian army promptly ran in terror right back home, and the Assyrians were finally, utterly defeated. Now Babylon had essentially uncontested control of the region, and its leader had big plans.

Nebuchadnezzar … sought to gain complete control over all the lands to the west. [His forces] marched down the Mediterranean [coast], laying waste to the rich Philistine cities.

It was Josiah’s grandson Jeconiah (or “Jehoiachin”) who was unfortunate enough to be in charge during the time that the Babylonians were menacing their way towards Judah. The Bible grimly records what happened after that, presenting it as YHWH’s judgement:

At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it, and Nebuchadnezzar himself came up to the city while his officers were besieging it. Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him. ... he took Jehoiachin prisoner. ... removed the treasures from the temple of the Lord and from the royal palace ... carried all Jerusalem into exile: all the officers and fighting men, and all the skilled workers and artisans—a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.

Contemporary Babylonian records just say that Judah was conquered and made to pay tribute, so the number of people taken into exile here is probably inflated. But whatever happened around 597 BC, that was only the prelude to an even worse day.

Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah, the uncle of Jeconiah and son of Josiah, to rule the newly-subjugated province of Judah. But Zedekiah, having learned not a goddamn thing from the previous 100 years of Jewish history, decided to rise up and join an anti-Babylon alliance. Babylon responded as you might imagine: in the year 587 BC, virtually all of Judah’s important cities were ruined until only Jerusalem remained. 2 Kings 25 says that the capital endured a famine and the upper class fled from the city, leaving it to its fate, but Zedekiah and his sons were captured; he was taken captive and his sons were killed. The Babylonians conquered the city and burned large parts of it, including the Temple, then took a huge part of the population as captives. This was the last day of Judah. It would never be an independent state again.

There were only a few bright spots in the total destruction of Judah. One, Babylon was not Assyria. It did not resettle the depopulated areas with captives from other lands, as Assyria had done to Israel. Two, while the number of exiles was in the thousands and possibly the tens of thousands, there were still plenty of Jews in Judah, just as there had been plenty of Israelites left in Israel. (However, continued unrest within the province drove even more people out of Judah in the next couple of decades, usually to Egypt.) And three, the exiles were not all living in total captivity and misery, as the captive Israelites presumably had been a century before. Some lived comfortable lives in the city of Babylon, while others established new settlements in undeveloped lands throughout the Babylonian Empire. Jewish communities were able to stick together.

That meant that when Babylon itself collapsed only two generations later, falling to the Persians, the exiled Jews had not only retained their identities and traditions, but had expanded upon them and created the basis for what would become the Judaism that we know today. Past prophets and kings who had advocated for YHWH-only monotheism were retroactively declared righteous and truthful, and Judah’s fall was seen as a result of the population’s refusal to go along with their “reforms”. Judah’s salvation, therefore, required the implementation of those reforms.

And because the Persians had wisely allowed the exiled ruling class of Judah (now called “Yehud”) to return to the province and govern it, the YHWH-only exiles were now the arbiters of religious authority. They decided what the “right” religion was, and they decided who practiced it... and who did not. That led to conflict with the people of the former Kingdom of Israel when the returnees began to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem:

When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, they ... said, “Let us help you build because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here.” ...the heads of the families of [Judah] answered, “You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us.”

The Samaritans were seen as foreigners and not real Jews, and they weren’t included in the new religious movement. The Bible goes on to portray them as villains who tried to stop the temple from being built, though the project succeeded despite their maneuverings. And they weren’t the only ones to be harshly reminded of their place:

Within the three days, all the men of Judah and Benjamin had gathered in Jerusalem. And on the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people were sitting in the square before the house of God, greatly distressed by the occasion and because of the rain. Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. Now honor the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.”

In the new version of Israel and Judah’s history, which would not be fully completed and assembled as the Bible we now have for centuries after the exile, the land’s woes had started with Solomon marrying foreign women and allowing them to seduce him into idolatry. That meant that men who repeated Solomon’s “sin” had to be brought in line. The archaeologist Israel Finkelstein believes that most of these “foreign” women were Edomites whose people had settled in the Beersheba valley and who posed an unacceptable risk of making their husbands and children accept religious pluralism. So they had to go. The days of the last Judean kings’ religious and social tolerance were over. Josiah and Hezekieh’s reforms had failed because their successors hadn’t bothered to enforce them, but the new ruling class made sure not to repeat that mistake.

Something else was over. After the Persian conquest and the return of the exiles, the monarchy headed by the House of David was no more.

the Davidite family played no [further] role in the history of Yehud. At the same time, the priesthood, which rose to a position of leadership in exile … maintained its prominence because of its ability to maintain group identity. Yehud [had] a dual system: …governors who were appointed by the Persian authority [and] priests. Lacking the institution of kingship, the Temple now became the center of identity of the people of Yehud.

The priests continued to produce literature to codify new religious rules and update the old stories to make their moral messages reflect the priests’ own beliefs. The Book of Leviticus was written in post-exilic times, Aaron became a major figure of Exodus, and Numbers was updated to emphasize the role of priests--specifically Levites--in society.

And by this point, with religious and social authority so completely centered in Jerusalem, their vanquished northern neighbors were nearly written out of the history of the land. Israel became an accidental breakaway that was once rightfully ruled by Judah; Israel’s kings were idolatrous and sinful; Israel’s people were now foreigners removed from YHWH. All of the accomplishments and successes of Israel over the centuries of its existence were stated to have come to nothing, and the nation utterly perished by YHWH’s command. Judah, though, had survived, and had to devote itself utterly to YHWH and his laws because of that.

As a result, the only “kings of Israel” that most people now know are the guys who likely never ruled Israel in the first place, namely Saul, David, and Solomon, the latter two of whom are the ancestors of the ruling house of Judah. Pour one out to the forgotten Kingdom of Israel.

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

#surah 27 #quranreadalong #historylesson #an naml

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gabriel-gabdiel · 3 years

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【Draft】 Keit-AI! Tomoyuki x Seiko Chapter 22: The Dream Is Dead

Don’t let your dreams be dreams. DO IT!

The rest of the chapters of my original story based on a plot from 4chan are available here. Enjoy.

"You're doing what to impress Seiko?" asked AU Seiko Okamoto over the phone, the strength of her disbelief and incredulity able to travel across dimensions through the volume of her voice. "I mean, the other me?"

Tomoyuki Yamamoto couldn't believe that he revealed what he'd been up to so soon.

Especially after he kept his other plan—ruining Kazuhito Sugata's harem to force a resolution between the "Will they? Won't they?" relationship status between him and his universe's Seiko Okamoto—a secret from her.

But this time this was different. He had to tell her this. Because it was kind of her "fault" why he had to do this in the first place.

Her careless kindness struck his heart almost as hard as when he first fell in love with her other self, when she rescued him from his own bullies.

He tried explaining himself again. "I joined the Literature Club so that I can be more... creative. I want a creative outlet, Amazon Queen."

Dammit. Why was it that he couldn't convey into words what he was thinking?

"B-But what about your job at the convenience store?"

"It's not like I'm the manager or anything. I'm just a clerk. I can manage my time just fine even with after-school club activities."

"I... I didn't realize you were a writer, Cherry Boy," said the Amazon Queen quietly. "Well? Was the other me impressed at least?"

He shrugged even though Seiko couldn't see him do so over the phone. "She's still treating me like normal. She even congratulated me."

Seiko's treatment of him was certainly a nice change of pace from all the teasing he got from her because of Akira's recently exposed catfishing shenanigans.

"W-Wait, why would you even need to impress me? Also, how is that supposed to impress me? I mean, the other me!" said AU Seiko, which puzzled Tomoyuki himself. Why did she seem upset by all this?

Clearing his throat, he continued. "...I want to keep up with you," he said, practically repeating what he said to Megumi Minagata, the childhood friend of Seiko Okamoto and Kazuhito Sugata.

"...Are you an idiot?" she finally said after a minute of silence.

"HEY! Who are you calling an idiot? BAKA! (STUPID!)" he almost yelped in defense of himself, confused by the Amazon Queen's reaction.

What was going on? Why couldn't she understand him and why he was doing this?

"H-Hey, watch your... mouth, AU Cherry Boy!" she said, grasping for words like she'd grasp for flotsam from being swept up the rapids of her own turmoil. "I'm not picking a fight here!"

"Well, neither am I! But you called me an idiot first!" was the Cherry Boy's petulant response.

"Look, I called to thank you for helping me deal with both my Cherry Boy and Miku-chan. Again. As usual. I-I... only wanted to help you get AU Me the way you helped me with my Miku-chan. B-But... now you don't even seem to care about wooing the other me! Have you already given up on me? I mean, O-Okamoto S-Seiko? Jeez, that felt weird to say."

"I-It's not that... Y-You don't understand," he said, deflating like a balloon with a prolonged sigh. Lowering his guard down. "I'm doing this for me but I'm doing this for you too. I mean, for S-Seiko... Okamoto. For her too. You know what I mean."

She sighed long and hard herself. "No, Cherry Boy. No, I don't."

Why couldn't she understand that she was out of his league and that he didn't deserve her?

That he needed to be within her league or at least reaching towards it to feel confident about wooing her?

Or at least the other her that he could actually reach?

***

Keit-AI! Tomoyuki x Seiko

An Anime-Inspired Original Story from 4chan's /a/ Board by Abdiel

Original Idea by Hataki.

The other shoe drops.

Disclaimer: This work may reference copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All copyrighted material referred to in this work belongs to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

***

Chapter 22: The Dream Is Dead

***

Back at the Maehara High cafeteria...

Class 2C Representative Aya Fubuki continued what felt like a police interrogation to Tomoyuki's ears.

"Why did you join the Literature Club?" she asked.

"Er... why do you ask?" he said in return.

"It'd be a shame if all that progress you made with Seiko-chan were to end up wasted because you were too busy with your li'l club and all." Aya smirked with half-lidded eyes, sipping daintily on her drink. "Consider me your devil's advocate."

'I consider you Satan herself! Ugh. Why is everyone nipping at my heels about wooing Seiko-chan? They should mind their own business. Even AU Seiko-chan,' Yamamoto thought with an inward scowl hidden behind a forced smile.

Did the 2C Class Rep still have a chip on her shoulder over the infamous Cherry Boy because of the bad first impression she got from him?

'First AU Seiko, now Fubuki. Yet just literally last year, people were also making fun of me for being too desperate in getting a girlfriend and being too clingy towards girls. Jeez, make up your damn minds!'

Deep down, a voice inside the Cherry Boy asked, 'Did you give up on wooing Okamoto Seiko after seeing how much in love with Sugata Kazuhito she is, like Fubuki is implying?'

The name of that voice? Insecurity.

He nonetheless answered both his insecurity and Aya,

"It's not a li'l club and I didn't join it for shits and giggles. I love movies. I also love writing and reading stories. Or watching them on the big screen. I kind of want to write one of my own, if I could. You know, because it's my dream to do so."

"And he's actually pretty good at writing too. Even our club advisor is impressed by his works," said Miku Machida in his defense.

Tomoyuki was half-flattered but also half-unsure of the sincerity of the praise. Not because Miku was a dishonest person but instead because she was probably just being nice. Nice to a fault, perhaps.

Her niceness was what led him to also chase after her during their first year, only for him to get friendzoned hard by her.

Lesson learned. A nice girl wasn't just nice to a particular boy because she liked him. She was nice to him because she was nice to everyone.

"Come to think of it, isn't the Literature Club supposed to be a book club where you just read books all day? Like it's the Library Club or something?" asked Yukari Goto with a finger on her lip and a head tilt to the side.

"W-ell, technically we are, but ever since Miss Kitamura became our club advisor, we started making essays and creative writing projects too," Machida explained.

"Oh, is that so?" said Yukari, who now had her arms spread like a restless child mimicking an airplane's wingspan, her body tilting from side to side.

'What the hell is this goofball doing?' thought Tomoyuki as he just stared at Goto.

"Why don't you write a love story about Seiko-chan then, Yamamoto-kun? Or maybe even dedicate a poem? Make good use of your talents," Aya kept pressing the issue. "Actually, it seems like you've been avoiding her more and more lately. Would you rather spend time with Miku-chan instead? If you chase two rabbits you'll lose them both."

"W-What are you saying, Aya-chan?" stuttered the glasses-wearing class rep. She probably still remembered the Cherry Boy's embarrassing fake love confession to her that he did in order to help Fubuki save face from her own failed love confession to Kazuhito.

Come to think of it, he kind of was avoiding Seiko though. He still couldn't look her in the eye after they were both photographed by Akira in such a compromising, suggestive position. In a love hotel of all places, at that.

There was also the time when the Amazon Queen acted angry (perhaps jealous?) when she heard the recording of his fake confession to Miku. Also recently, Okamoto told him that he always found a way to say the right things to her.

The last one made his pulse quicken and cheeks flush red in remembrance.

He then told himself to not be presumptuous about Okamoto's reaction the same way he used to overthink Machida's embarrassed reactions towards him, when in fact the mousy nerd was merely being either friendly with him of scared of him and his desperation for a girlfriend.

Nevertheless, he countered, "I don't want to be clingy around Okamoto. I learned my lesson the last time."

Fubuki chuckled, crossed her arms, and smirked. "You're not just using this club thing as an excuse to run away from her, are you? You coward. She intimidated you so bad back in that Sports Fest volleyball tournament that you don't feel worthy of being in her presence. Am I right?"

She actually hit the nail right on the head. No that he'd ever admit it to her face.

"Well, thank you for filling me in on my intentions, Fubuki!" he answered, standing... or rather, sitting... his ground. "Besides, I don't want to be called her stalker or anything by overstaying my welcome when I'm around her. You should know what that's like, right?"

'Or maybe it's much harder winning over a version of Seiko-chan that isn't already in love with you? Or rather, another version of you!' his own insecurity further needled. Like a pinprick to his heart.

"Hey," Aya's brows furrowed, grabbing the edges of the table and looking like she was about to rise from her seat. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Hey, you two! Don't fight!" said Yukari with her hands raised up in seeming surrender. "You just made up recently so don't ruin it!"

"WE'RE NOT FIGHTING!" Tomoyuki and Aya chorused in a way that belied their denial.

Fubuki took a deep breath and sighed. "I'm not trying to pick a fight."

Yamamoto himself exhaled, sinking back down on his seat. "Neither am I."

Even after their misunderstanding regarding the rumors of them dating was cleared (he actually dated Aya's brother in disguise, not her), he and Aya still couldn't see eye-to-eye. It must be a personality clash then.

Regardless, he looked Aya in the eye and said, "I'm not running away either. I won't lose this fight the way I helped our class lose the volleyball finals at the sports fest. Understand?"

"Hey, I won an event there!" said Yukari in remembrance. "We were first place in the three-legged race, right? Aya-chan?"

"Fine. If it's really your dream to make movies or write stories or whatever, good on you," Fubuki relented, which made Goto remark, "Oh, I'm being ignored, huh?"

The 2C Class Rep then teased, "A certain little bird told me that you're much more romantic that people give you credit for, so I expected more from you when it came to Seiko-chan. I hear you're quite the gentleman when you try your hardest. You do your research and try to learn more about a woman's likes and interests even if you yourself have zero interest in those hobbies. You're very dedicated."

"GEH!" Tomoyuki yelped and pointed but the words he intended to say got caught in his throat lest he incriminated himself, his other hand covering his agape mouth.

Aya was talking about her snitch of a crossdressing brother, Akira, wasn't she?

Yamamoto didn't want to reveal or confirm that Akira catfished him to more people. He had no answer to that one.

However, apparently the same Akira had already confessed his crime of catfishing Yamamoto by pretending to be his own big sister to his own big sister! He even told her all the dates they went on! The long talks they had! The embarrassing things he told her, er, him!

'Don't make such a happy face,' he thought, not said, to the giggling Class 2C Rep, whose hand covered her own mouth. 'You're enjoying this too much, Fubuki! You're swaying so much that you might hit the table with your shin, you sadist!'

"Jeez, stop teasing Cherry-kun, Aya-chan!" said Goto with a pout and a wagging finger. "If you keep doing that I'll get mad!"

"Oh, and what will happen when you get mad?" Aya asked with an eyebrow raised. "Will you whip your twin ponytails back and forth and hit my face with it?"

Tomoyuki then thought, 'Oh, so she did that stupid technique before on someone else, huh?'

"Then I'll... I'll... I'll cry!" said Yukari.

"You don't say. Sure you will. And water is wet," remarked Fubuki to the crybaby, nonplussed.

"Actually," began Machida, unable to help herself, "Water isn't wet. Wetness is a description of our experience of water; what happens to us when we come into contact with water in such a way that it impinges on our state of being. We, or our possessions, 'get wet'. Not water."

"...." said everyone.

"...What?" the bespectacled girl asked with a double blink.

"How can water not be wet?!" said Aya. "It's water! It's surrounded by water. Anything that's surrounded by water, even water, is wet! You've been hanging out with Yukari-chan too much, Miku-chan! Next you'll say the sky isn't blue!"

"Not at sunset, dawn, or night. Or when it's rainy. The sky doesn't even have one particular color," pointed out Yukari matter-of-factly.

"Case in point!" said Aya. "You're both insane!"

'What is this conversation even?' thought Yamamoto.

Goto's eyes welled up.

"DON'T ACTUALLY CRY! Jeez," said Aya.

"You're being mean, Aya-chan! Aren't we supposed to be best friends?" said Yukari.

Fubuki raised an eyebrow at Yukari. "Wait, wait, wait. Since when were we ever best friends? Don't decide that on your own!"

"We aren't?" a tearful Goto asked. "B-But you keep fetching me at the front gates of the school! I always keep waiting for you at the same time every day since we're beeest fweeends!"

"You're not supposed to wait for me around that time! You're supposed to get to class on time!" Fubuki scolded, hitting the twin-tailed girl square on the noggin with a karate chop across the table.

"Owie! Aya-chaan! That hurt!" cried the klutz.

"Besides, it's not as if I was waiting for you at the gates every day! I was just doing my job to prevent delinquency in our class like a good iincho (class representative)!"

'What a tsundere,' thought Yamamoto.

***

Well, that was an interesting lunchtime.

Yamamoto walked back to class, leaving behind Machida to chat away with her friends from Class 2C, Fubuki and Goto, about whether water really was wet or whether the sky really was blue.

Seriously, she managed to bring up some good points.

As usual, in the background, he expected shenanigans afoot with the Official Class 2B Couple of Seiko Okamoto and Kazuhito Sugata, bickering about whatever.

With him not any closer to breaking the Golden Pair apart.

"DT-kun! DT-KUN!" he heard Seiko yell. Huh. Must be a new nickname she gave Sugata. They had all sorts of pet names for each other by then. Amazon Queen. Yankee. Furyou (Delinquent). Okama (Effeminate Gay Man).

Actually, the two of them both called each other okama for different reasons. Kazuhito was called that as an insult to his manhood. Seiko was called that to imply she was practically a man in a dress.

They weren't exactly politically correct, after all.

Meanwhile, Tomoyuki's half-baked harem elimination plan had ended up in shambles too. He got assaulted by Sugata himself after doing a fake confession to prevent a real confession by Aya.

He then wasted time with Aya's crossdressing brother that didn't even have anything to do with the harem plan. For selfish, personal reasons.

Maybe he had given up on Seiko by joining the Literature Club after all. Perhaps deep down in his heart, he realized he really didn't deserve Okamoto, as Aya claimed he thought.

Perhaps talking to another version of Okamoto and helping her end up with the other version of himself was as good as it would get for him. At least there was one dimension where the two of them would end up together.

He then felt the world blur around him as something grabbed hold of his collar and jerked him towards the stairs.

The next thing he knew, he was backed into a corner, with Seiko Okamoto of all people having her hand slammed on the same wall, right beside his face, cornering him and keeping him from escaping.

Wow. She was such an ikemen (hunk). Or at least the girl version of such. An Alpha Female.

If the genders were reversed, this situation of theirs would totally look like the cover to a girl's romance manga. Or if both genders were male, then it'd totally look like one of those yaoi (boy's love) manga that Machida read in secret.

"DT-kun! I've been calling you all this time!" said the tall, pony-tailed tomboy that had been running in his mind. "I haven't been seeing you around lately. Something up?"

"D-DT-kun...?" he stuttered. 'Wait, I'm DT-kun?!' he also thought to himself.

"No, no. Not DDT-kun. You're not giving out DDTs like Jake 'The Snake' Roberts, after all! R.I.P. to him, by the way. It's your new nickname! DT-kun!" she explained, which somehow confused him more, thus defeating the purpose of her explanation.

He vaguely remembered AU Seiko also telling him that the front facelock or inverted headlock driver was innovated by a western wrestler from the Eighties. The seeming acronym didn't actually stand for anything specific, but it was named after a pesticide.

"What does DT mean anyway? Dimension Transfer?" he then asked, half-joking and half-bewildered.

"No, no. It's doutei (virgin)!"

He almost face-faulted to the ground after hearing that. "That's just another way of saying Cherry Boy! Amazon Queen no baka (You stupid Amazon Queen)!"

Seiko then burst out laughing, with tears in her eyes. She was in stitches, leaning on the wall and clutching her stomach in laughter.

"You sure are proud of your joke," he said.

"I-It's the best!" she said, wiping the tears at the corners of her eyes.

Oh God, she was so cute.

"Oh, by the way, I wasn't able to give you a gift for your birthday a few weeks ago," said Seiko. "What do you want for your birthday?"

"You already gave me a lunch date," he pointed out.

"We do that every lunch except as of late," she refuted. "That doesn't count."

Agh. Wasn't that the most "Seiko" thing he heard her say or do. Aside from cluelessly handing him the best present he could possibly get in an offhanded manner, of course. Just ask him what he wanted.

He remembered that he gave her the impression that he wanted a date from her for his birthday. Maybe he should cash in that rain check?

No, no. He shouldn't push his luck. He actually hoped she forgot all about it since it sounded skeevy in retrospect. What sort of creep would ask their crush for a date as their birthday gift?

He then figured out what to answer. "Give me something you like."

"Huh. But you're not remotely interested in sports things. What would you want with sneakers or a boxing DVD?" she asked after considering his response for a minute or two.

He smiled and shrugged at her. "I guess, but I want to know more about you and a gift you like will tell me more about you."

Seiko's cheeks flushed before she smacked Tomoyuki upside the head.

"OW! HEY! What was that for?"

"Stop acting so corny, DT-kun! Jeez!" she said, leaving in a huff back to their classroom.

"Fine, I'm corny! But just call me Cherry Boy instead! That's somehow less embarrassing that Doutei-kun!" he called out after her.

"FINE! You're Cherry Boy again!" she called out as she retreated from him with her long ponytail sashaying from behind her, not bothering to look back at him again.

Normally, he'd interpret her reaction as her being mad, but he knew better now. Okamoto actually found his answer charming or even romantic. He got the answer straight from the source, after all.

He already tried out his "pick-up line" on AU Seiko when she herself asked straightforwardly what he wanted for a birthday gift before getting creative about it.

She also told him to stop being so corny but she actually loved it.

Nonetheless, he felt guilty for knowing what to say to her question in advance though. He'd already had a speculative or conjectural discussion with AU Seiko about what she would've done had she not figured out what Tomoyuki wanted for his birthday.

These other-dimensional shenanigans were a bit unfair, really. Like getting the answer key to a test and scoring high not by hard work but by cheating.

"DT-kun, huh?" he murmured to himself before wishing he could smack himself upside the head. 'DT-kun is so much cooler a nickname than Cherry Boy! Most people don't even know what it means till you ask! Why did I tell her to call me Cherry Boy instead? Stupid!'

After dismissal time though, she ended up giving him an MMA DVD collection. It was Fedor Emelianenko's greatest hits, with his fight against Brock Lesnar as the main attraction.

How very "Seiko" of her to do so. Oh, and she said she wasn't sure if her sneakers could fit his feet.

Huh. Maybe AU Seiko would appreciate the video clips he could record from this gift he got.

***

The first few days of working at the Literature Club went great for Tomoyuki. Swimmingly well. No complaints.

It reminded him of the happier days of his youth, before he got into a fight with his junior and got socked in the face by him for his troubles.

Or before he embarrassed himself on stage by crying multiple times as a kid when he was asked to recite a poem or play the role of a tiger for a school play. But never mind his childhood trauma.

Actually, he was like a kid "scenario writer" back in the day.

Whenever he had playmates in school, he would "direct" and make stories with them so that when they played pretend as superheroes, ninjas, samurais, pirates, monsters, or whatever else, they could depend on him to set up some sort of scene.

It was through such things that he got his first pieces of praise, which to an attention-starved, socially awkward kid with few friends was like an oasis in the desert.

Because it was one of the few things he was praised for as a child, he started becoming really interested in making up stories in his head or continuing stories from television shows he watched so that even after it had long concluded, he could have the show continue in his mind.

He'd made and lost friends from writing and making stories or proposing ideas for movies. So much so that when he hit puberty, he abandoned such childish dreams yet longed for a Hollywood-style romance with the way he unrealistically chased and wooed over girls using clichés found in romantic comedies.

Or at least in retrospect, that was what he viewed had happened. He wasn't so self-aware when he got rejected over and over by girls one after the other through his clingy, disgusting ways.

However, once he stopped being the newbie of the class and Miss Kitamura took her kid gloves off and became more critical of his writing, it was when his doubts started to surface.

Little things started to happen that chipped away at his fragile ego. Trivial issues by themselves but they stuck out in his mind all the same.

For example, when making a simple short story about a millionaire playboy falling for an ordinary secretary (something straight out of a romance novel, even), even though he wrote with the correct structure in mind, he still got criticized.

"The story is fine, Yamamoto-kun," Miss Kitamura said, "But isn't it a bit... heavy in the middle? Your pacing needs work. A story, even a short story, should have proper structure. We discussed this in class, remember?"

"But I followed the structure," Yamamoto said. It's Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, right?"

"Whoa. When did I teach you that?" she asked.

"...I-I learned it from the Internet," he admitted. "It's the structure Hollywood movies use. I mean, even foreign literature uses it. It's universal. Isn't it the same for Japan?"

"No, no. It's not supposed to be a three-act structure like in overseas works. Here in Asia, such as Japan, China, and Korea, it's supposed to be Kishotenketsu, or the four-act structure."

'Kishotenketsu?' he thought to himself. If Machida were here with him, she'd joke that it sounded like a special attack in shonen (boy's) manga like Dragon Ball or something. Then she'd explain what it meant.

"Ki is the introduction. Sho is the development. Ten is the twist. Ketsu is the conclusion. It's Kishotenketsu altogether," Miss Kitamura herself broke down the individual meaning of each character. "You're missing the Sho and Ten parts, mixing it up with the Ki."

He scratched the back of his head and shook his head, his eyebrows furrowed. "But isn't that the same thing, sensei?" he argued. "Just bring Ki and Sho together, Ten will serve as the Antithesis or conflict then Ketsu is the Synthesis or conclusion."

"But it's not exactly the same, Yamamoto-kun," insisted his club advisor. "The third act of a Kishotenketsu story is a complication but not a conflict. You must watch a lot of western films to follow their structure by heart, but the Hollywood audience is used to central conflicts that are supposed to be defeated every time. Sho isn't a conflict but a twist. Do you understand?"

"A story without conflict? I never even heard of it!" he complained. "All stories have conflicts! Life is defined by conflicts and resolving them!"

Kitamura riposted, "Hmmm? But you more than any student here have watched all sorts of movies. Surely you've gotten to see the same conflict-free structure in Japanese media."

"But we've covered western books and stories, so it's okay to mix it up and use their structures, right? If Shakespeare and Hemingway can use it, why not students, even if they're Japanese?"

He was about to go on a rant about how rejecting western influence and culture was what kept Japan from technologically progressing during its isolationist period, but his teacher popped his ballooning ego with pinprick precision.

"It's okay to use it, but you're not exactly Shakespeare or Hemingway... Right, Yamamoto-kun? Please use what's been taught to you. You can experiment on other forms later if you want once you get control of your stories' pacing."

"But...!" he said before trailing off, his shoulders slumping down before he bowed at his teacher altogether. "Yes'm. Thank you for the feedback."

When he got back to his seat and discussed what had happened to Machida, the Walking Encyclopedia of Class 2B shared, "Huh. Well, maybe you should've used the eastern three-act structure. Johakyu."

"Eeeh? So I should've said I used Joha-whatever instead?"

"Well, even though they're both three-act structures, Johakyu does conclusions more abruptly than western works, which are more methodical and slower paced. And it's an assignment where we have to use what was taught to us."

As his so-called best friend explained what Johakyu or Jo-Ha-Kyu (literally Beginning, Break, and Rapid) meant, how it originated in Noh Theater, and had applications in martial arts, he placed his face on his desk and covered his head with his crossed arms.

Even Miku herself wouldn't defend him from Miss Kitamura's criticisms, huh?

In fact, the class rep even confirmed that movies like "Kiki's Delivery Service" by the anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki did indeed use the Kishotenketsu four-act structure.

***

He also got to read some of the works of his fellow writers in class. Whether it was to compare notes and techniques or as an assignment to learn how to critique the works of others, Tomoyuki had his fill of amateur stories written by his peers. Many of whom were strangers.

For the longest time, he only had Miku Machida to talk to in class.

This was the same case as in Class 2B, actually. It took some time for him to even muster the courage to talk to the intimidating, larger-than-life Seiko Okamoto on top of him having to deal with his bullies from first year ending up in the same class with him as second year.

Even now, in Class 2B, he still had issues talking to people outside of the Seiko, Miku, and Kazuhito clique.

He was just glad he got into a clique in the first place after being thought of by most of his classmates, especially the girls, as a desperate woman-chasing stalker creep with social anxiety.

Even until now, he didn't really think he deserved Seiko's love, whether it was in this dimension or a parallel one. She was out of his league. He even had a sneaking suspicion that even her heartthrob childhood friend thought the same thing.

She shone so bright that those around her couldn't help but either be intimidated by her or want to be like her. A free spirit or muse that inspired others to become the best they could be.

How could anyone live up to such a strong personality? His answer was simple.

They needed to change themselves to keep up with the shining light that was Okamoto or else they'd end up being swallowed by the darkness of their own jealousy (feeling like Seiko was taking away their dignity and pride by merely existing and being better than them) or envy (wanting the awesomeness of the Amazon Queen for themselves).

The difference between envy and jealousy was that envy was about wanting something you didn't have.

So he was envious, not jealous, of Seiko.

With the way he was now, the woman that he loved the most in two worlds also elicited other emotions in him that made him feel ashamed of himself.

Whoever heard of a lover who was envious of his beloved for merely existing and being her awesome anyway?

Anyway, the stories his classmates wrote ranged from okay to amazing. Few were outright terrible. Sure, there were stories he couldn't care less about, but that was a matter of taste. All of them, from his point of view, put in a lot of effort in writing their amateur yet well-constructed stories.

The ones who could really make a story though, they were jaw-droppingly amazing.

It was hard to explain in words but if they were writing his thoughts down they'd come up with paragraphs of an engaging narrative far better than he could, as though capturing the human spirit in a few words the way a good image or picture was even better than a thousand or million words.

It particularly hurt his pride whenever they excelled in the tests, quizzes, seatwork, and homework given to them by Miss Kitamura while he himself floundered here and there despite getting high praise initially when he first joined the club.

There was also the fact that he could barely keep up with reading the litany of books that they were supposed to learn from when writing. Ironically, he joined the club mainly after finding out they included written exercises on top of merely reading and studying literature.

The ones that joined the club from the start, especially the second and third years, were used to the version of the club where they mostly talked about, analyzed, and reviewed books.

They also had an almost elitist feel to them when discussing the film versions of books. They had all sorts of complaints about how many films missed the point of the books or made unnecessary changes to them even as little ol' him knew most of his literature knowledge by their movie versions.

A third year girl in his class had actually giggled at one of his works and remarked to herself, "Heh. What is this? It reads like fan fiction."

She of course quickly apologized and said she didn't mean what she said in a bad way. And maybe she didn't. But the damage was done.

Regardless, he still persevered and took her criticism to heart. Took it like a challenge, even.

Like an "I'll show her!" kind of feeling in his chest. But only half of him thought that way. The other half instead thought, "What's the point in doing this and embarrassing myself further?"

His insecurity's voice just grew louder and louder still, drowning out his confidence's own pleas that sounded more and more like lies.

Regardless, he didn't give up writing even as that particularly ego-blowing critique had him miss a class or two of the Literature Club.

***

The continuation of the conversation between Tomoyuki and AU Seiko (or in her point of view, AU Tomoyuki and Seiko) when he revealed that he joined the Literature Club...

"Okay, you want to know why I joined the Literature Club? Why I thought that would impress you?" he asked in an unintentionally aggressive way.

"Yes. Why? Why do you think you need to impress me?" AU Seiko asked back, forgetting she was referring to her other self in his dimension.

"Why did you fall in love with Yamamoto Tomoyuki?" he also "answered" her question with his own question.

"Why? Well, because he's nice. Friendly. He's always there for me. He's loyal. I can trust him and he'd never betray me," she said before telling Tomoyuki, "Sure, you can be moody or overdramatic, but those are also things I like about you! This is why I can't stand the thought of you trying so hard to change yourself! You don't need to! The other Seiko will like you just the way you are!"

"But think about it. When did you fall in love with my other self?" asked Yamamoto with a sigh and in a tired monotone. "Wasn't it after Sugata dumped you for Minagata?"

"...."

"...I'm sorry for saying something so hurtful," he apologized to the void of silence before them as vast as the dimensional rift between their two worlds, struggling to find the right words to say and convey his motivations to her before she even attempted to end the call.

He hoped she'd hear him out.

"However, it's true. You wouldn't have even noticed my other self had Sugata ended up choosing you instead of Minagata. I don't want to be your consolation prize after failing to get Sugata. I want to be the best I could be so that you'd choose me over him. I want to shine as bright as you would, living life to the fullest like you. You're the essence of carpe diem. I want to be worthy of you because you're out of my league but that's not stopping me from wanting to be with you, or at least another you that I can actually reach. I don't want to be a lottery winner. I want to be a self-made man."

He took a deep breath, not realizing he'd been holding it in all this time as he poured his heart out to the silent Okamato, begging her to understand him and his actions.

After what seemed like forever, she said, "...Baka," before hanging up.

They didn't speak to each other for many days after that mini-argument.

However, they soon forgave and forgot afterwards, apologizing to each other for the mishap.

On one hand, they couldn't stay mad at each other forever.

On the other hand, the topic of Tomoyuki's new club membership and how he was using it to impress the Seiko of his world somehow never came up again.

Or maybe they both avoided it, like the elephant in the room.

***

Regardless, more weeks passed. Before the summer vacation came about, he kept on writing. Kept on creating. Kept on improving the best he could. Weeks turned to months.

He didn't feel like he had improved his writing ability all that much.

He tried out Kishotenketsu as Miss Kitamura taught it, but found his writing awkward and forced to read back since he had forever followed the apparently more western three-act structure instead.

He thought that that was the standard of composing stories, even to the point of seeing it in Japanese writing and folktales that in reality had used Kishotenketsu, Johakyu, Hadouken, Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku, or whatever.

He lagged behind classmates who were used to the Japanese writing style or read mostly Japanese literature.

Every now and again, he could write up a worthwhile short story or essay that even Miss Kitamura would praise him for by cheating the system and claiming it was using the similar three-act Johakyu structure.

However, for the most part his writing was riddled with errors, plot holes, plot contrivances, and inconsistent characterization that his fellow club members criticized to impunity.

Yes, they were tasked to critique each other's work to "learn from each other" every time.

Nevertheless, he persevered with the club work. Wishing to grow. Wanting to be better than what he was before. Needing to be like Seiko Okamoto, who kept pushing herself to higher boundaries so that she remained above and beyond those before her. Or better than she was yesterday.

But people didn't change that easily. His so-called talent could only take him so far.

He kept attending the club even as he saw his club classmates in the same year as he was or even several freshmen excel in weaving yarns far more complex than the simple ones he made that one of them had described as "fan fiction".

He remembered submitting many of his fresh new fountain of short stories and story ideas to the Drama Club when they held a contest for students from the Literature Club to submit such.

They were specifically looking for original manuscripts they could use for their next big play made by actual students instead of adapting existing plays from William Shakespeare or stories from Meiji Era novelists like Mori Ogai and Natsume Soseki.

Rather than pore through tomes of plays or just do Romeo and Juliet for the umpteenth time, they decided to use other resources available to them as an interclub activity. The reward? High grades, of course. Nothing monetary, they were only poor students.

Tomoyuki had several stories in mind that he could easily adapt into script form for the Drama Club to perform.

All of them were rejected one after another as either incomplete or badly written. None of them clicked with the Drama Club even as he scrambled for a plot or idea he'd come up with to turn into a play with stage directions and whatnot.

However, one of them came through and was optioned for use in the Drama Club.

The one he based off of the trailer of the "nonexistent" film Ran by his idol, Akira Kurosawa.

The one he "plagiarized" and turned into a manuscript.

He had AU Seiko send him screenshots of the movie and the more he saw, the more intrigued he got. She even relented and sent him a Wikipedia (her universe's version of Encyclopedia Britannica Online) article summarizing the plot of the movie.

He was so inspired by all this wealth of information about a movie that didn't exist in his universe that he submitted his condensed version of the screenplay (or stage play) of Ran to the Drama Club contest.

In his world, information about the unfinished Kurosawa film Ran was sparse and he only really had that trailer AU Seiko sent him to go by, but he managed to bug her to send him a synopsis of the story care of a series of website screenshots, which he saved on his computer and pored over as the basis for his submission.

He even got to see other clips and photos from the finished film, which "inspired" him to write his own version or "treatment" of the story.

He should've been happy for finally having his hard work pay off, but the only time he was able to win people over was through someone else's work. Akira Kurosawa's work, to be exact.

How pathetic could he get?

It was like having an artist trace the exact work and pose of another artist's work and claiming it to be his own because he made a few changes in coloring, posing, or facial expressions.

It was simply art theft. Or getting credit for something he didn't deserve to get credit for.

He blinked back tears that pelted his letter of congratulations like pebbles aimed at his back by bored bullies, the ink running and bleeding on the page like mascara from a crying whore.

What was he doing all this nonsense for anyway? What was the point? What would he get out of being in the Literature Club?

Seiko didn't even care about his writing improvements one way or another, right? Neither version of her did.

There were plenty of people in his club who were far superior to him when it came to writing that whittled away his passion for it. What was the point of writing a half-baked story when others could easily make the same story ten times better than him?

Or make original stories, at that?

Especially Miku, who could write anything from prose to poetry with a humorous tinge to it that made you question if she really did write her varied works (in a good way, not in a plagiarist way as in the case with him).

He then remembered why he did all this.

He did it to impress Seiko, who honestly couldn't care less about it and merely patted him on the back, saying, "Good for you!" when she learned he had joined a club.

At any rate, enough was enough. This farce had gone on for too long. He knew what he had to do.

***

Days after Yamamoto caught wind of the "good news" that his entry for the Drama Club's contest got selected as the winner...

"YOU'RE QUITTING THE LITERATURE CLUB?" screamed AU Seiko to the point of making the audio from Tomoyuki's phone crackle and pop, which surprised him.

"Yeah," he answered, taken aback by how extreme her reaction was to his "good" news.

Wasn't this what she wanted? Didn't she want him to quit the Literature Club and "stay the way he is" or something? Women didn't know what they wanted!

She was never a fan of him ending up in that stupid club anyway, so why did she sound so distressed now?

'I can never figure out women,' he thought. Even tomboys who acted boyish were still women deep down inside, with whimsical, impulsive minds to match even the girliest of girls.

Besides, none of what he did actually helped in impressing the Seiko in his world in the least. Okamoto still had eyes for Sugata and Sugata alone.

'W-Why, Yamamoto-kun...? Why are you quitting? You were doing so good! You were improving with your writing, a-and everyone...!'

Or that was what he imagined Miku would tell him. What he wished she'd say. However, she never said any of that. He didn't really improve his writing in the least.

Not even his so-called best friend could say such things with a straight face.

Not at this point anyway, in light of last month's events. They couldn't even keep eye contact with each other at this point. But that was an issue for another day.

Besides which, none of those things he wished had happened actually happened.

After a promising start and high marks from his club entrance exam, he had nothing to show for in his months with the club save for contempt from his fellow clubmates, disappointment from Miss Kitamura, and rejection after rejection from the Drama Club and their stupid scriptwriting contest.

All except for one entry that he couldn't really claim credit for. Not in good conscience.

Out of all the ideas he poured his heart and soul into, the one that got picked by the Drama Club was the one he barely worked on and wasn't truly his.

This reminded him of a rumor Machida told him about Go Nagai, the Godfather of Mecha Anime and the Super Robot genre. Legend had it that his magnum opus was Devilman and the one he made on a whim was Mazinger Z.

Wouldn't you know it? It was Mazinger Z that ultimately became popular.

Miku alleged that Go Nagai had abandoned all his popular manga including Mazinger in order to focus more on Devilman, only to go back to the well and make even more Mazinger sequels later on because of its popularity.

His passion was in Devilman but the demand was with Mazinger, so he as forced to write something he didn't feel like writing because of the demands of the audience. Just like how the only story that people loved from the Cherry Boy was something that didn't even originate from him.

However, that wasn't exactly it either. Tomoyuki's situation was only comparable to Go-sensei's if the Father of Mecha had plagiarized his idea for Mazinger Z elsewhere, which he didn't.

Tomoyuki's jaw clenched. Why did he have to remember something Machida told him now of all times?

Rejection after rejection from his Literature Club peers and the Drama Club itself had chipped away at his self-confidence. Going to the Literature Club stopped being fun and felt more like schoolwork.

Their critiques made him want to huddle underneath the nearest table like there was an earthquake drill and bunker down there till he died.

Like pinpricks to his heart. Or maybe more like multiple rabies shots to his fingers, since those supposedly hurt more.

It was death by a thousand cuts. The straw that broke the camel's back.

And that was indeed the last straw.

He had thought he could improve himself and become a better Tomoyuki by following his dreams, but maybe in the end he was deluding himself.

***

"Are you serious, Yamamoto?" asked the Drama Club president.

"...Yeah." Tomoyuki bowed down deep. "I'm really sorry for doing this. I didn't think it'd come this far."

"If you say so, then fine, I guess. But are you sure...?"

Although it made his insides want to crawl out of his mouth to become his "outsides" (as Yukari would joke), Yamamoto swallowed his pride and his aching heart back into this chest and came clean to the Drama Club regarding the truth behind the "Ran" manuscript.

Well, he came clean as much as possible without him ending up in a straightjacket and hauled off to the nearest mental institution. So he still (kind of) lied by omission.

Even though it was humiliating and could get him in trouble, he kindly told the Drama Club not to adapt his manuscript into one of their plays because he had plagiarized the idea wholesale from a failed movie script from renowned director Akira Kurosawa, which was actually all true to an extent.

He left out the part where he had gotten the idea from an AU version of his crush who lived in a dimension where Kurosawa's "Ran" was filmed to completion, contacting her through a extra-dimensional phone number he could only access through his cellphone.

He had suggested they just adapt the runner-up of their contest or something. There was no way they could adapt his story that was stolen from someone else. It was like adapting "Heidi" then claiming credit for it.

Besides which, he intended on quitting the Literature Club soon after anyway, so any positive increase in his grades for extracurricular activities that winning their contest would give him were all for naught.

He couldn't live down having his Ran "fan fiction" get adapted into a play not because of the brilliance of his writing but rather because of the brilliance of Akira Kurosawa.

He wanted no part of that. Luckily, his reputation was already in the crapper to begin with due to his "Rico Suave" shenanigans with Goto, Fubuki, and Machida when he was still a creepy freshman.

No harm, no foul, right? They'd allow him to save face this time around and just let him go?

Yeah, of course! Maybe the Drama Club would "forgive" him for "accidentally" stealing the ideas of a world-famous director and national treasure because he himself was a huge screw-up from the start anyway!

As he turned his back and began to walk away, the Drama Club President grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him around, and said, "Hey, wait a minute, Yamamoto! We're not yet finished here! We need to talk!"

'...Or maybe not.'

Ah, whatever. Let them drag his name in the mud. He could take it. Just like with Matsuda.

He was already used to being made into a clown.

***

Back to Tomoyuki sharing the "bad" news of him quitting the Literature Club to the AU version of the Amazon Queen...

"...You asked me what I love about you, right? Well, while we're on that subject, let me tell you what I hate about you instead!" said AU Seiko, her voice an octave higher, its volume rising like a TV set whose remote he'd accidentally sat on.

"Eh?" said Tomyuki, not sure of what to expect. What was this about? Why was she so upset?

"Why are you upset? Didn't you say before that being in the Literature Club isn't the way to impress Okamoto? Or impress you?"

"I wasn't sure if you were going to the Literature Club to run away from me! The other me! Like all the others! There, I said it!!"

"...What? What are you talking about, Seiko-chan?"

"I hate it... HATE IT... when people quit on me. When they couldn't even enjoy a game or even try to play their best because they keep comparing themselves to me! They keep being intimidated by me! That's what happened with Kazu-kun! He gave up on me and settled with Megu-chin! He told me the same thing you're telling me now! That I don't deserve him! How dare he decide that for me! Don't I have a say on who 'deserves' my presence or not?!"

Whoa. He didn't know what to say to that long rant.

Like before him, AU Seiko hit the nail right on the head. With a handy karate chop from her, even.

"Um," he began, gulping. He wanted to deny what she said about him, but gave up halfway through and instead said, "Okay."

Just like how he quit the Literature Club halfway through the school year.

He then asked defensively, "Well, what do you want, then? Unlike Kazu-kun, I gave up my dream. I stayed exactly the way you wanted me to be. Were you lying when you said you wanted me to stay the same like always?"

"No, I wasn't lying," she said. "What I told you came straight from the heart, Cherry Boy."

"Then why are you so angry that I decided to quit? You hate quitters yet you also hate it when people try to live up to your example of living life to the fullest every day! What do you want, Seiko?!"

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT, OKAY?!" she shouted back. "Is it too much to want both? Is it too much to want Kazu-kun to still want me and chase after me even as he started becoming more macho? He started shining by himself too? He stopped feeling like he's under my shadow like Megu-chin did, but when he did, that's when he left me!"

It was then that Tomoyuki realized something. Something that Megumi somewhat confirmed.

"Waaait. When Sugata left you for uh, Minagata-san, was he a crybaby? Emotional? Socially awkward?" He then cut to the chase. "Was he kind of like me?"

"...."

Her silence told him everything. His suspicions were correct.

This time, it was Tomoyuki who hit the nail right on the head. With a hammer, of course. He couldn't karate chop a nail like the Amazon Queen probably could. Probably.

"...Is that how shallow your love for AU Okamoto Seiko is? You're just going to quit the Literature Club like a little bitch? Or quit AU Seiko? You're not the man I fell in love with if that's the case," Seiko said to seemingly change the subject.

He then murmured, "Did you really fall in love with me, or a shadow of your ex-crush, Sugata Kazuhito?"

He couldn't help himself. Not because she called him a little bitch. More because he realized the reason why she fell for his other self.

She then hung up on him.

The woman he fell in love with more than the crush he had in the real world just rejected him. Told him that he wasn't the man she thought she knew.

What was he supposed to do now?

Should he stay the same way as AU Seiko's crush, AU Kazuhito, was?

Or should he pursue his passions to feel worthy of AU Seiko, despite her consternation and trauma from her Sugata abandoning her when he changed and grew?

He didn't know what to do at all.

***

Tomoyuki actually reached a compromise with the Drama Club president.

Because the president loved Kurosawa's "Ran" so much, or at least the Cherry Boy's treatment of it, they agreed to use the script on the condition that it was credited under Kurosawa instead of Yamamoto.

Tomoyuki decided to be a ghost writer for the treatment he made of "Ran" since he basically just copied an excerpt of the long film.

It was all described in his own words and all, but the whole idea and plot was Akira's, albeit an Akira from another dimension.

It was basically the writing equivalent of tracing an existing work and recoloring it, so they should give the credit where credit was due.

For good measure, Yamamoto handed all the materials, stills, storyboards, and synopsis to the president as well for extra research, claiming to have gathered them from sites filled with Kurosawa super fans.

He only held out on sending him the outright trailer for Ran, even though he could also lie and say that it was a fan trailer or something.

Regardless, everything ended up peachy. "All's well that ends well", as Shakespeare would say. Or write.

Right?

***

"Yo."

"Hey."

Tomoyuki and Seiko (the non-AU one) greeted each other casually at the hallway leading to the cafeteria.

"Miku-chin still isn't talking to you, is she?"

He shook his head, his mouth turning into a thin line in remembrance of last month's events. He didn't want to broach that topic right now though. He had other things in his mind.

"Did you quit the Literature Club to get away from her too? Miku-chin, I mean."

"No, nothing like that," he confessed. "It was more because of personal reasons, really. I just wasn't feeling that club."

She slung her arm over his shoulders. "Them's the breaks, I guess. If you want to quit then quit. There's no point in forcing yourself to do something that doesn't make you happy anymore, right?"

He nodded, inwardly amazed at how this Seiko was taking his news. It was like night and day. "I guess you're right."

"Hey, Cherry Boy. Have you ever heard of the Gracie Hunter?"

Yamamoto almost said yes but caught himself at the last second. He second-guessed his answer, realizing that he might've heard of Kazushi Sakuraba from AU Seiko instead of Seiko Seiko.

"Uh, who is that?" he feigned ignorance.

The Amazon Queen's eyes sparked joy in way he imagined AU Amazon Queen did when talking about something that excited her.

"His name is Sakuraba Kazushi. He's a pro-wrestler who decided to enter MMA and became a legend afterwards. He had an amazing run as an MMA fighter."

At the back of Tomoyuki's mind, he wondered how the Sakuraba of their universe differed from the Sakuraba of AU Seiko's world as the Seiko of his world kept talking about the Gracie Hunter's achievements.

Long story short, the "shoot wrestler" Kazushi Sakuraba earned the nickname "Gracie Hunter" by defeating all of the who's who of the Gracie Family, a Brazilian Family who developed Japanese jujutsu into their own more ground-based Brazilian jiu-jitsu style.

Jiu-jitsu took Brazil by storm due to the 790 Japanese immigrants that went there back in 1908 to fill in labor shortages in coffee plantations. Japanese culture permeated into the land, which led to Brazilians learning Japanese jujutsu.

Brazilian martial artist Helio Gracie, along with his brothers Carlos and George Gracie, founded the self-defense martial arts system known as Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, which was also known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

These badass martial artists went about their version of jujutsu in a different way than all other martial arts like aikido and karate, with them willing to actually fight people in the streets to showcase the practical applications of the self-defense martial arts system.

From what Tomoyuki understood from AU Okamoto's explanation, the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) tournament came about mostly as a method of showcasing Gracie Jiu-Jitsu as the ultimate martial art above all.

They also had Royce, the smallest brother of the Gracies, participate in the first UFC in order to show how their martial arts, not brute strength, was really the best around.

At least in AU Seiko's universe, Sakuraba beat Royler, Royce, Renzo, and Ryan Gracie one after the other. His one defeat by a Gracie, a rematch against Royce in K-1 Dynamite!!! USA in 2007, came about when Kazushi was past his prime and Royce tested positive for using steroids.

All the others fell against Sakuraba one after another. Royler was beaten by TKO (referee intervention while under the Kimura Lock) in the second round. His first match with Royce, the first-ever UFC Champion, also ended in TKO. He earned his "Gracie Hunter" moniker after that match.

Then there was Renzo, whose arm Sakuraba broke, resulting in a referee stoppage due to injury. Famously, Renzo refused to tap out to a submission like his father Helio before him (who never tapped out) and his brother Royler who went unconscious while under Kazushi's Kimura Lock.

Finally, Sakuraba fought an injured Ryan Gracie. Because of a shoulder injury, the bout was limited to a single 10-minute round. Kazushi won the round handily while avoiding attacks on the younger fighter's arm. Later, the Gracie Hunter argued that Ryan faked the injury in order to catch him off guard with a submission.

This amazing run was all done by a pro-wrestler, weirdly enough. In an industry known for predetermined matches, Kazushi showed that the unorthodox showmanship of professional wrestling could work against "real" martial arts like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

The irony was that the guy from the fake sport was able to beat tough guys who claimed their sport was the realest sport out there. In both universes of Tomoyuki and AU Seiko, at that.

'I wonder why Amazon Queen brought this up?' he thought to himself. Was she trying to cheer him up? Tell him that even though he wasn't that great of a writer, he shouldn't give up so easily or something?

He then brought up, "Did this Gracie Hunter MMA guy fight every last Gracie?"

"Hmmm? Oh right. He never fought Renzo Gracie. That was one of Renzo's greatest regrets, to not be able to fight and defeat the greatest thorn in the Gracie Family's side," informed Seiko.

"Wait, no. Wasn't it Rickson Gracie?" Tomoyuki corrected Okamoto absentmindedly, only to retract and say, "I may be mistaken though."

Seiko laughed. "Silly Cherry Boy. Rickson is the Gracie whose arm Sakuraba broke! Renzo is the one who never fought Sakuraba and claims he would've whupped his ass given the chance."

"Oh yeah. My bad," he said while mentally taking note that in their universe, it was Renzo who Sakuraba never fought and it was Rickson whose arm he broke when attempting to submit him with an armbar.

Seiko laughed in her tomboyish way, punching Yamamoto's arm with a smile. A sighing Tomoyuki gave her a wan smile in return. "You're not going to tell me that your remind me of Sakuraba or something, right? The guy sounds like a genius."

"Hmmm? Oh no, you're nothing like Sakuraba, Cherry Boy," said the Amazon Queen. "You quit your club. Sakuraba was a midcard wrestler who somehow showed everyone he's very skilled in actual shoot fighting!"

Tomoyuki chuckled at that. "I guess you're right."

The Non-AU Amazon Queen then said, "If Sakuraba had settled to being a midcard wrestler, he wouldn't be the legend he is today."

He asked, "Do you think less of me for quitting the club?"

She answered, "No. Like I said, you should do whatever you want. If you're really tired of going to that club, find some other passion. It's up to you to decide if the Literature Club is your passion or not."

***

A week or so later after quitting, Tomoyuki swallowed his pride once more and decided to rejoin the Literature Club.

He had finally found his resolve.

It was embarrassing to go back there and then act like a spoiled Prima Donna, quitting on the club only to come crawling back.

He also had to face Miku as well and start talking to her.

Thankfully, the members thought that the reason why he quit was because of the drama between him and the 2B Class Rep instead of him losing his nerve and confidence in his writing abilities.

They mostly engaged in small talk but it was a start.

He considered never returning to that club room in sheer embarrassment and shame, but then he realized that even if the plagiarized "Ran" script was his only shining beacon in his so far mediocre skill set, he still appreciated what the Drama Club president told him about it.

"I liked your version of the script. It wasn't bad. I understand that you took it from another source. Please let us use it. We'll credit you both and Akira Kurosawa, if you want."

It made him want to make a story of his own that didn't extensively crib or use plot points from one of Akira Kurosawa's masterpieces (even if it didn't exist in their universe).

He wanted to, for once, be praised for something he made. All his own. Through his own effort. No matter how long it took for him to shape and improve his current skill level.

His dream of becoming a writer wasn't dead. He wouldn't let it die so easily, or else it wasn't really his passion in the first place.

Like Kazuhito, he'd become a man worthy of the Amazon Queen in his own terms. So he'd stop letting his own insecurities sabotage what he and Seiko had.

He had wondered whether he was doing this for himself or for Seiko.

He realized he was moving towards bettering himself this for the both of them, and that was okay.

Their blossoming romance should bloom. They should move forward together instead of becoming toxic to one another.

So that they could shine together. So that they could both decide that they were "worthy" of each other's love.

Regardless, he left this text message to AU Seiko:

"I'm sorry for today. Stop letting others define you. Stop letting others dilute you. Don't be bullied or pressured into being less than you are. Promise you'll do that and I'll promise to do the same for myself."

It sounded contradictory but even though he didn't want to be defined by others (which included Seiko), he felt the way that he was right now could never find happiness with her.

The more he got to know her, the more he realized she was an untamable woman with infinite potential. You had to keep up with her. She shouldn't let herself go down your level. You had to go up hers. Otherwise, you were dragging her down.

Whoever her boyfriend was should step up to her level rather than force her to go down his.

He wanted to grow along with her. Or perhaps the "her" in his universe he could actually win over. His consolation prize because his true love was a world away.

He most of all wanted to be more than just a reflection or shadow of the AU Kazuhito that AU Seiko lost.

The crybaby childhood friend she had that also grew up and toughened himself up because (and Tomoyuki was merely speculating but) he also wanted to be worthy of the AU Amazon Queen.

Most importantly, he felt like he couldn't quit the Literature Club right now because of the germ of an idea developing in his mind.

His own story, not Kurosawa's, about lovers from different dimensions falling in love with each other and helping one another win over the hearts of their other selves.

He wanted to write his script to the letter until its final verse. Hopefully, he'd write a happy ending. In his script and in real life.

***

To Be Continued...

By the way, this chapter goes through a span of a few months, but the next chapter will go back to the same month when he first joined the Literature Club. Near the time he celebrated his birthday.

Also, shout out to Doki Doki Literature Club. Helluva game and helluva paradigm shift at the midpoint of the story (you know the one).

Hope everyone's looking forward to the Tanabata Festival.

Farewell, Abdiel

#keit-ai #keit愛 #tomoyuki x seiko #fictionpress.com #finds a way #a boy falls in love with a girl #unable to confess #deus ex machina

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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These Are the People Making Porn Out of Your Favorite Childhood Memories

This article appears in VICE Magazine's Stupid Issue, which is dedicated to the entertaining, goofy, and just plain dumb. It features stories celebrating ridiculous ideas, trends, and products; pieces arguing that unabashed stupidity can be a great part of life; and articles calling out the bad side of stupidity. Click HERE to subscribe to the print edition.

Missy Martinez is painted hot pink in places it doesn’t seem possible to get paint: edged up to almost the inside of her vulva, across her anus, and certainly everywhere that her scene partner Brenna Sparks has put her face so far. Right now, Martinez’s anime costume, which includes a soft mound the size of a large squash glued to the top of her head, is getting between her and Sparks’ clitoris. Her six-inch foam headpiece is slipping. But she perseveres.

Martinez is retired from porn now. She set aside her 10-year career in May 2019, one year after her debut as Vagin Buu, the pornified version of Dragon Ball Z’s Majin Buu.

“You can only do the sexy stepmom or babysitter—these contrived roles that are cookie-cutter—so much,” she said. “To not take porn so literally and seriously… Sex is supposed to be fun. If you’re not laughing while you’re having sex you’re doing it wrong.”

It looked like something someone might only do on a lost bet, but ultimately, Martinez asked for this. In fact, when Lee Roy Myers, the cofounder of the porn production studio WoodRocket, asked her to star in one of his freak-show-esque parodies, she leapt at the chance.

As a die-hard DBZ fan, she considered this a dream role, pink paint and all.

“When they were airbrushing my genitals, I was like, ‘Ohhh, no…,’” she said.

Martinez is not alone; everyone I spoke to who’s been subjected to a WoodRocket costume treatment or roped into Myers’ madness said they have that moment she described—the point of no return.

There’s a controversial theory among historians that parody porn brought about the French Revolution. Robert Darnton’s “pornographic interpretation” of the events of late 18th century France suggests that smutty literature depicting the monarchy in pornographic cartoons—as just as base and sex-crazed as the subjects they thumbed their noses at—emboldened the people to revolt.

“Sex is democratic,” the sex historian (and VICE contributor) Hallie Lieberman told me. “There’s a reason why we have the saying the emperor has no clothes: It reduces him to the same status as everyone else.”

But porn-as-parody goes back hundreds of years before the 18th century. An anonymous author in 16th century Italy published Ficheide, an erotic parody of Homer’s Illiad. Another erotic text of the Italian Renaissance, La Cazzaria, featured disembodied genitals satirizing political figures, and its relative virality (or as viral as something could be in the 1500s) sent its author, Antonio Vignali, running into exile. The 1748 novel Fanny Hill, regarded as the first example of English-prose pornography, is political parody. The Pearl, a monthly pornographic magazine published in London in the late 1800s, featured parodies and was itself a parody of a family magazine. The British authorities shut the magazine down after two years, citing obscenity laws.

In the early 20th century, small porno pamphlets called “Tijuana Bibles,” which peaked in popularity during the Great Depression, contained raunchy parodies of pop culture icons like Popeye, Superman, Lois Lane, and Wonder Woman getting into all sorts of hijinks. Fast-forward to the 90s and early 2000s, and everything in the porn world exploded with the advent of the VHS tape (and porn viewing from the comfort of one’s home), including parody films like Forrest Hump and Everybody Does Raymond.

“Class and sexuality are closely associated in our society, so things we deem respectable inherently have some kind of discretion when it comes to sex,” said Laura Helen Marks, a porn scholar and professor of English at Tulane University. “It can feel exciting and fun to watch the ‘low’ genre of pornography expose the perversions and hypocrisies of mainstream media… It feels like a momentary and satisfying leveling.”

Today, we have WoodRocket. The Vegas-based studio has made a name for itself in the last eight years in part by being pseudonymous with parody porn. If you hear about a new video featuring SpongeBob SquarePants or life-size Lego figurines fucking, you can bet it’s WoodRocket’s doing.

People have been using parody, satire, and sexuality to punch up at the systems and institutions that surround them for hundreds of years. Today, things are no different. Only now, we’re punching backward, at our own nostalgia.

In the late 90s, Myers was working in a video store. He’s worked a lot of jobs since then, from camera equipment guy to executive for a pay-per-view company. But he points back to that place and time in the video store as the earliest inspiration for his current work.

“I was in the store, and I was watching Edward Penishands, and he has these horrifying giant dildo arms, and it’s so ridiculous… It’s so gross, and weird, and funny, and I don’t know what parts were supposed to be intentionally funny or not,” Myers said of the film, directed by Paul Norman. “But it always stuck in my mind like, Oh, if I could do this, that would be amazing.”

For years, Myers worked roles he can only describe as “a job.” He’s never felt suited for the nine-to-five grind. But during programming and production gigs, he was making a lot of friends and connections in the adult industry. One of them was Scott Taylor, founder of a porn studio called New Sensations, who in 2008 was looking to take the studio in a comedic direction—and tasked Myers with making an erotic parody of the same nine-to-five grind he felt trapped in. Myers came up with The Office: An XXX Parody, the first of eight pop-culture television parodies he’d churn out for New Sensations that year.

“Fuck yeah, man, that sounds fucking ludicrous”

Things snowballed from there. By 2012, Myers had a front-row seat to the adult industry’s seismic shift from VHS tapes to DVDs and then to something else entirely. The internet was changing everything, and suddenly fewer and fewer people were willing to shell out money for smut. They could get it for free, on any number of tube sites filled with stolen clips and full films.

Instead of fighting against this unstoppable sea change, Myers and his industry partners started thinking of new ways to ride the wave of free internet content while still making enough profit to keep paying for cast, crew, and the lights. After years of hustling out dozens of porn parodies for other studios, Myers founded WoodRocket in 2012, with the goal of bringing comedic, silly porno to the mainstream—for free.

Myers is Canadian, and defines his directing style as “scary public access television,” with shows like The Hilarious House of Frightenstein influencing his low-budget, single-room sets and makeup that looks like it’s been applied by an overly enthusiastic high school theater student. WoodRocket launched its first film, SpongeKnob SquareNuts, in January 2013, with a press release complete with a “safe for work” trailer and a link to the full, X-rated film on WoodRocket.com.

From top to bottom: Aladdick, Dragon Boob Z, Mr. Rimjob's Neighborwood, The Loin King, Red Dead Erection.

This included a theme song that would toe the line of parody homage without crossing into copyright infringement. For that task, and most WoodRocket musical scores and lyrics, Myers has entrusted the Brooklyn-based sound designer David DeCeglie.

When Myers approached him to write the parody version of the iconic SpongeBob theme song, DeCiglie still remembers his response: “Fuck yeah, man, that sounds fucking ludicrous.”

And it was. Within an hour of the film’s release, the newly launched WoodRocket website crashed under the server load of people clicking to watch it.

The runaway success of the studio’s first original parody was doubly shocking, because Squarenuts was the “most fucked-up thing to date, at the time,” that Myers and his crew had made. The construction of the giant square costume was the work of Tom Devlin, who’s been involved with WoodRocket since the beginning. The directive from Myers, Devlin told me, was to make it look kind of like Pizza the Hutt from Spaceballs. In other words, like an actor is trapped inside a repulsive homemade costume that swallowed him whole. The result was a poly-foam fabrication glued onto a box.

“It was just… creepy.” Devlin said. “It was really hard for him to move around, and really hard for him to perform. But it just adds to the weirdness and uncomfortability of the parody.”

“He looked like a monster,” Myers said, of SpongeKnob. “And, you know, it was funny—or at least, we found it funny—and people either loved it or hated it. But they watched it.”

Devlin and Myers share a similar ethos: Don’t think too much about how the performers will perform. Just make the costumes and see what they do in them.

“Sometimes it’s not about whether or not the actors can be comfortable. It’s about what is the silliest thing we can put out there,” Devlin said. And at this point in the studio’s reputation, a performer signing up for a WoodRocket shoot knows what they’re getting into.

Rizzo Ford’s role as “Dikachu” in Strokémon XXX is unforgettable. She looks like one of Dr. Seuss’ cartoon mice if it ran into traffic. Her head hangs a little. She hunches forward. The mass of foam latex and thick yellow and black paint molded to her head and nose is forcing her to breathe through her mouth and keep her eyes partially shut.

“Dikachu! Dikachu, Dikachu,” she squawks. She and “Fisty,” whose pubic hair is shaved and dyed into a neon orange landing strip to match her anime-orange hair, are together going down on “Gash,” played by Tyler Nixon. As I watch the video online, I’m legitimately concerned about her ability to come up for air.

“I feel like comedy and porn should go hand in hand,” Ford told me. “Sex is silly. We make silly noises with our mouths and bodies. I think that by having comedic porn it normalizes things that might make us embarrassed if they were to happen with a new sexual partner.”

Ford not only survived this shoot, but would do it again “in a heartbeat” even after taking multiple showers and soaking in a tub to get all that makeup off.

“He’s not going to stop being Super Mario because his flying raccoon dick is out"

There’s really no preparing oneself for the process of a WoodRocket costume and makeup session.

Just ask Will Tile, who answered a casting call to be a WoodRocket extra in 2018, for Red Dead Erection. Just a few months prior, he was a virgin in the adult industry, looking for a new way to make a living. He’s since played a cop in Dick Hard (the Die Hard parody) and a lip-syncing genie in Aladdick, released May 2019.

When he got to the set of Aladdick, Myers told him to head to makeup. “I’m thinking they’re just gonna like, spruce me up,” he recalled. Instead, he spent half an hour getting spray-painted bright blue from the waist up.

Tile thought he could get into porn and be “one of those big scary black male performers,” nondescript beyond a stereotypical male performer, virtually anonymous at his level. But after Aladdick, things changed. “That’s when everything went to hell. That’s when everything went straight to shit,” he said.

Now he can’t walk onto most sets without someone pointing out that he was the genie. Or a cop. Or Simba. Or a reptilian creature from Ten-Inch Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Tile’s mom has even seen him painted blue and half-naked in a porno.

Tile is an ex-Marine, a former wildland firefighter, and an EMT-in-training, so his family is accustomed to worrying about him. Now they can rest easy knowing he’s perfectly healthy and happy, playing a cop with a glued-on mustache or a raunchy blue genie.

“For two years they had to worry about me coming home in a box, if I came home at all. And then when I took the wildland job, it was like, ‘Is he gonna get burnt up, or fall off a cliff and die?’” he said. “Now they’re like, ‘Oh, porn? Yeah, that’s fine.’”

Tommy Pistol’s erect penis juts out from a green spandex bodysuit. He’s moaning from inside a fully enclosed alien mask, while April O’Neil and Lauren Phillips—two glittery trespassers who look like they’ve wandered out of a Burning Man camp onto Area 51—caress each other and his body, laid flat on a surgical table. He waggles the long, floppy fingertips of his bodysuit in pleasure.

Pistol’s been friends with Myers since 2010, when they met during production of a Sex and the City parody for New Sensations. He’s played a variety of roles for the company since then, and somehow keeps ending up playing characters that involve poking his boner through the most unsexy full-body costumes.

Having convincingly good sex for the camera is a feat of athleticism even on a normal set. Having sex while in character as a childhood memory is a whole other thing.

“If you came to see Super Mario fucking the princess then you’re going to see Super Mario fucking the princess,” Pistol said. “He’s not going to stop being Super Mario because his flying raccoon dick is out.”

Lance Hart, who played “Mr. Rogers” in the studio’s most recent film, Mr. Rimjob’s Neighborwood, said that even this mindfuck of a role was easier than wearing a heavy BDSM mask or leather apron, as he’s had to do in other movies.

“It’s definitely a little weird when something felt really good and I needed to moan but also pretend to be Mister Rogers, but I’m kind of into it,” Hart said.

Adding to the ego-death exercise of wearing a glued-on mustache and painting one’s butthole neon, WoodRocket’s studio is in Las Vegas, where to film, they have to cut off the noisy air conditioning. Full body paint, elaborate costumes, and hours of rigorous sex when it’s over a hundred degrees has made for some interesting moments.

“With this job, it can’t just all be buttholes and elbows. You can actually get to do the good stuff"

“I’m pumping away, and I can feel myself about to pass out,” Tile said, recalling his role as Simba in The Loin King, where he and Kira Noir wore thick, fuzzy lion hats and gloves during their sex scene. “I’m like, I’m about to pass out on set. This is how I go out.” He didn’t, and made it through to the cut, and said he would still do it all again.

Holly Myers recently started stepping in to direct films for WoodRocket. With Holly behind the camera, the movies are no less hilarious, and she still takes a lot of care to make performers comfortable and safe.

“Generally, I try to keep the mood on set light and positive,” she said. “We are already asking them to put themselves in front of a camera to have sex—already a brave step—then going beyond and asking them to do it in a potentially uncomfortable costume, while staying in character.”

During Martinez’s headpiece-impaired performance of Vajin Buu, they stopped and reshot new takes at least five times when the paint and glue started slipping. She said, “It’s like, ‘Cut, OK, same intensity, aaand go!’ when I was in the middle of an orgasm or leading right up to it.” It’s challenging, not just physically, but mentally.

“We always know it’s not going to be easy, no matter how much you adjust things,” Myers said. [Porn] is not like real sex, it’s opening up and making sure the camera and lights get in there… I’ve heard it described as fucking around a corner.”

But it might also just take a special kind of performer to work through the giggles, and the discomfort, and the sweaty paint. Pistol said he feels like sex in these costumes comes “weirdly natural” to him. “It honestly keeps me sane after doing this for so many years,” he said. “Laughter is my therapy… I understand jerking off at home while laughing out loud isn’t for everyone. But comedy porn breaks down barriers.”

At this point (or likely, a lot earlier), you may be wondering who gets off to this stuff? Is there an audience craving a sexualized Mister Rogers? Are there people out there who are horny for a grotesque Pikachu, or a nightmare simulacrum of SpongeBob with a hard-on?

That question is flawed from the start. First of all, yes, undoubtedly, there are people who seek out WoodRocket because they’ve always had a Lego fetish or the like. But humor has always been a part of porn. Sex is fun and, often, funny.

“Humor and porn share a lot of similarities,” Lieberman, the porn historian, said. “The end goal of both is an involuntary physical reaction: an orgasm or a laugh. We watch comedy and we watch porn to experience pleasure.”

To laugh along with the people in porn can be a subversive act, said Marks, the porn scholar. “Within the context of a sex-negative, censorious society, pornographic material is politically antagonistic—unavoidably so and regardless of intention—and this frequently means poking fun.”

For the performers themselves, doing a parody shoot can be a release they don’t get in other studios. For Tile, having WoodRocket as his first studio experience showed him a different way of performing—one that most people don’t associate with porn. “With this job, it can’t just all be buttholes and elbows,” he said. “You can actually get to do the good stuff.”

I’ve seen a lot of the buttholes and elbows and painted labia that WoodRocket has put into the world, but there’s still one work of theirs that I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch. Mr. Rimjob’s Neighborwood opens with Hart lip-syncing, “Welcome to my neighborhood, where we’ll ruin your childhood,” and I fear it would be true. I loved Mister Rogers as a kid.

There was a moment during production of Mr. Rimjob, Myers told me, when he did hesitate. The man has likely ruined hundreds of childhoods with his releases, and this was the one that gave him pause.

“As we started getting closer to making it, it was the first one where I started to feel a little regret,” he said. “I grew up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I was a PBS kid in the late 70s and early 80s… but, I thought I could do it in a way that it’s not really him, it’s spoofing the genre as much as it’s spoofing the ‘land of make believe…’ I don't think it’s insensitive to him being who he was as a person.”

It turns out there are only three things Myers said he’ll never touch in future WoodRocket productions: anything that’s intentionally punching down, anything where the characters doing the fucking aren’t clearly over 18, and any more Donald Trump stuff. He’s “so tired of that,” he said. Everything else is fair game.

“We have to find a balance,” Myers said. “Actually, I don’t know if there is a balance. But we had to find a balance between porn and whatever that was. And so we, in the process, created our own balance, and it’s something different to everybody.

“So some people will love it. Some people hate it. Some will be disgusted by it. But I think everybody can agree that we’ve ruined everyone’s childhood.”

These Are the People Making Porn Out of Your Favorite Childhood Memories syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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atundratoadstool · 7 years

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A Brief Account of Why Vampires Are Romanian (or Rather A Not-At-All Brief Account of How They Actually Aren’t)

So, in the 1720s-30s, some villagers in Vojvodina (which is now a part of Serbia but was then a part of the Hapsburg Empire’s Kingdom of Hungary) had what they perceived to be some vampire-related problems and some Austrian military doctors came by and documented their decisions to solve these vampire-related problems by digging up dead bodies and attempting to violently de-vampirize them via beheadings and stakings and other sundry forms of mutilation. Some of this documentation came to be published in newspapers and periodicals across the rest of Europe, and suddenly the rest of Europe was all like “Whoa! Vampires are a thing!” and they found said vampires terribly interesting and promptly wrote political satire about the parasitic upper classes metaphorically sucking the blood of their underlings. As one does.

Eventually, in 1746, a French priest named Augustin Calmet wrote a big treatise on demons and ghosts and all manner of other spooky stuff, in which he included a lengthy discussion of vampires. He called it Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et al., which you will probably observe as not containing any reference to Vojvodina or Serbia at all. Like pretty much everyone else writing about these events, Calmet just categorized the experiences of the Serbian villagers as being a thing that happened in Hungary because technically they did happen in what was Hungary at the time even if they didn’t involve any Hungarian folk beliefs.

And so for the next century and a half, vampires were Hungarian. While Lord Ruthven (”The Vampyre,” 1819) is something of a fluke, given that he’s just Lord Byron if he were an immortal hemophage, a very sizable chunk of the vampires that you actually see throughout the nineteenth century’s literary vampire tradition are debauched Hungarian nobles. You might not recognize names like Alinska (La Vampire ou la Vierge de Hongrie, 1825), Marfa Sergeyevna (“The Vampire,” 1841), Marian Gregoryi (La Vampire, 1875), or Count Vardalek ("The True Story of a Vampire,” 1894), but they are all Hungarian vampires, and they probably all irritated the actual Hungarians of the day who tried very hard to explain that -no- they didn’t actually have any vampire myths (apparently Arnold Ipolyi was cheesed off about this as early as 1854).

Now, while you might not have read any of those obscure vampire texts I rattled off, you probably do recognize names like “Carmilla” and “Dracula.” But wait, what’s that you say? Dracula!? Isn’t Dracula supposed to be Romanian? Isn’t he Vlad the Impaler, vovoide of Wallachia (AKA old school Romania)? Doesn’t he live in Transylvania, which is in Romania?

Well, here’s where things get interesting.1 First off, back in 1897, when Dracula was published, Transylvania was -you guessed it- in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, and like Vojvodina, people just tended to round Transylvania up to being “some part of Hungary” even if the vast majority of people living there were Romanian. Romania existed, but at the time Dracula was published, it had only been an independent state for fifteen years and Transylvania most decidedly was not in it. Bram Stoker, who never went to Transylvania in the first place and did most of his research via really condescending/racist travelogues, constructed the fictional Transylvania within Dracula by copy-pasting in bits and pieces of books that were not only about Transylvania, but about Hungary and the area near the Carpathians in general, nabbing whatever he could find that sounded cool so long as it was nebulously in the region he was describing.

And one cool thing he found? From one book, titled An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, we know that he took notes about a historical Wallachian voivode whose name was given as “Dracula.” This book doesn’t, however, mention much else; it certainly doesn’t mention any of those completely metal stories about a guy impaling people or nailing turbans to emissaries’ heads; it doesn’t even use the words “Vlad” or “Impale” anywhere near this Dracula’s name; and the whole story of this Dracula (and his father, also a Dracula) takes up all of three pages. Don’t believe me? Go check. Right here. Through the miracle of GoogleBooks, you can experience the entirety of Bram Stoker’s known sources on Vlad III in the next minute or so.

So yeah... there’s not much there. It is seriously not outside the realm of possibility that Dracula is called “Dracula” because Bram thought it was a pretty cool name that he erroneously thought to mean “devil.” As for the tiny snippet of historical context that got shoved into the book (that part where the Count mentions somebody who “crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground" and had an “unworthy brother”) this definitely does refer to the itsy bitsy, super small blurb on Vlad III that’s in Wilkinson, but it’s not in any way clear that Dracula is actually meant to be identified with this personage. I could go into more as to why this is so murky, but it’s something that has already been hashed out in sort of awkwardly excruciating detail here by Hans de Roos.2 The short version is that there’s a historical “Dracula” mentioned in the text who clearly isn’t Vlad, who doesn’t seem to have a real world equivalent, and who makes an awful lot of sense to read as being the Count.

In any event, we have a bunch of stuff that points to the Count being yet another Hungarian or Hungarian-coded evil vampire nobleman, and some of this stuff isn’t all that subtle... like Dracula literally telling Jonathan Harker that he is a member of a Hungarian ethnic group. The Count also makes a point of mentioning his use of Hungarian linguistic conventions and, if you look in the novel’s original typescript, you can see that the woman with the stolen child was supposed to have referred to her persecutor as “Hungarian” rather than “monster” at one point in the drafting process. Even with all this rather blatant evidence that Stoker was working within the "Hungary=vampires” paradigm, however, Drac’s Hungarianess still isn’t 100% neat and tidy. It can’t be. Stoker’s culturally insensitive collage of whatever spiffy-sounding factoids he could find about an ethnically diverse region with incredibly complex, intertwining Romanian and Hungarian histories just does not result in a well wrought Hungarian character, and we’re left with a confused hodgepodge of Romanian and Hungarian elements. The thing is, though, that said hodgepodge just so happened to become the most famous vampire of all time.

So what happens post-Dracula? Once the stage play and film take off, people start to take elements introduced in Dracula, even ones that didn’t have any precursors in literature or folklore, and decide that these are 100% ironclad things that real vampires™ do. Suddenly vampires all lack reflections; they cringe at crosses; they need to be invited into your home; and they all suddenly live in Transylvania. Also, TWO WORLD WARS HAPPEN, and at the end of them, Transylvania is actually in Romania, and as Dracula increasingly becomes a topic that nerds and academics and academic nerds like to nerd out about, some people examine the sad little dribblings of history Stoker dropped in the text and get the impression that maybe Dracula is supposed to be Vlad III.3 This was a pretty understandable thing to do, given that most people in those days didn’t have access to all the neato primary sources relating to Dracula that I mentioned somewhere above in describing how dinky the Vlad III evidence actually is.4 It makes sense to seize onto tantalizing historical hints within the text and assume that they might be a part of something grander, and eventually Harry Ludham’s completely bibliography- and source-free biography of Stoker lent the claim some additional credence by giving it out as a completely source-free fact.

What really got things going, however, was Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu’s 1972 In Search of Dracula, which really really really really tried to sell the Dracula is Vlad III angle and succeeded tremendously, all while describing the authors’ investigation into Vlad as it played out in their own visits to historical sites in Romania. The book, in addition to telling everyone very firmly and enthusiastically that Vlad III was totally Dracula, went to the trouble of explaining that its readers could and should totally go to Romania and see all sorts of rad Dracula things there, all while giving some cringey advice on how not to alert the locals as to the fact that they were weird vampire novel enthusiasts who wanted to gawk at historical sites’ relating to one of the country’s cultural heroes because some Irishman ostensibly wrote a book about him biting people. While I’ve come to regard as unnecessarily mean-spirited some of the later scholarship pointing out how crap McNally and Florescu’s scholarship was, their scholarship really hasn’t held up well, and by the time other scholars started noticing, the notion that Dracula=Vlad and Romania=vampires had become pretty firmly entrenched. By the late 90s, there were several books, movies, and even very legitimate and influential scholarly articles working from the premise that Stoker had had Vlad III in mind as the Count and wanted him to be a uniquely Romanian character, and owing to Bram’s strange, patchwork fiction of Transylvania, there were -in fact- a lot of Romanian elements within the text to support this idea. Vampires, which used to be Hungarian before Dracula, and who are even Hungarian in Dracula, eventually became Romanian because Dracula became such a landmark vampire text that people began to take Stoker’s weird blend of cultural elements as evidence of both Dracula’s and vampires’ Romanianess.

So even if all that has since been debunked on paper, this nevertheless sort of brings us to where we are now. Obviously, there's a lot of changes in the depiction, perception, and reception of vampires that have occurred in the past twenty years, but we're still at this weird place where most westerners generally think of vampires as belonging to a country that doesn't actually have a folkloric vampire tradition... and the reason that we think that is directly related to the fact that for the better part of two centuries most westerners thought that they belonged to another country that doesn't actually have a folkloric vampire tradition.5 It’s honestly all pretty zany, and while I sort of thought that I’d have a wise, profound, or otherwise satisfying end to this stupid long ramble about how weird vampires' shifting geographic location is, I don’t really... other than -as always- nobody should really be a tool about vampires. This is not only because one shouldn’t be a tool in general but because there’s a non-zero chance that whatever deep-held truths you hold regarding them have been wrong since before you were born, and it is not impossible that you will live to see the day when somebody totally insists that a supernatural entity you’ve never heard of just lives in your place now and your fave historical figure always was one.

1. Or where they get interesting if you haven’t heard me give this spiel before. It’s that time of year, kids. | 2. Hans is a really nice/chill guy even if I don’t agree with all of his analyses in that document. You might recognize him as the individual who recently brought us the majestic pinnacle of high weirdness that is the recent translation of Powers of Darkness. | 3. Interestingly enough, it might be that the first person to do much with this was Dracula’s first Turkish adapter, who re-imagined Dracula in 1928 as a story about a marauding occidental foreigner from the West coming to get the decent, upstanding citizens of Istanbul... but that’s another story. | 4. They also didn’t have GoogleBooks and thinking of that reality makes me very very sad. :( | 5. Romanian folklore has strigoi, which sometimes are dead and sometimes drink blood, but are really more akin to evil ghost-wizards than vampires from what I’ve heard. Hungarian folklore has the lidérc, which also goes blood-drinking sometimes, but is apparently sort of more like a succubus that is also a chicken... I think. I do know that pretty much every article I've read (Florescu excepted) and account I've heard from Romanians and Hungarians on the topic of what people typically conceive of as vampires has been roughly "No, we don't actually have those. Plz stop." I'm of neither Romanian, Hungarian, nor Slavic extraction, however, so I'm more than willing to be corrected.

#Bram Stoker #Dracula #Vlad III #vampires #long post #liveblogging Dracula 2017 #This got more and more unwieldy over the day - I sort of thought of deleting it by the tme I got to 3 footnotes...#...but then I was 3 footnotes in - and I felt like I might as well finish #:P

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spellboundebook · 7 years

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Author's Note: Please let me know what you think! I'm trying to world build and let you into the minds of the characters. Hope it's working! On with the show:

Theodora’s heels clicked on the ground as she walked to her first class for the week. She adjusted her jacket for the fifth time since she left home. Theo hated these damned uniforms. The only thing she could class up a bit was the skirt, which she rolled up to show off her long legs. The jackets had no shape and were bulky. The color purple was tired, and who in the galaxy wore ties anymore! The only thing she hated more was talking to her mother.

“Theodora you should have seen it, who he brought to the Brenidears’ wedding. The girl was like a disease. An eyesore on the whole ceremony,” her Mother, a woman who looked a lot like an older version of Theo, said as she did her nails on the screen of Theo’s mobile.

“Maybe he loves her, Mother. You can’t help who you fall in love with,” Theo said distractedly, pulling up her notes for class on the screen in a parallel tab. This task required little brain function and she could multitask. The notes, on the other hand, she hadn't looked at all weekend, and class was in fifteen minutes.

“Yes,” the older blue-haired woman said looking down her nose at the polish on her finger tips, “That's all well and good until she leaves him and takes half of his inheritance.” Her daughter didn't answer with a snide comment and that made her look up, “Theodora are you listening to me? What could you possibly be doing?”

“I'm studying my notes for class. I haven't—” Theo started.

“You know if it's too hard darling, you can come back home”, Theo rolled her eyes, “Your father had to let go some of the gardening staff the other day. The yard was looking rather dull.”

“Just like this conversation…” Theo said under her breath, but her mother heard it.

“Theodora, are you behaving yourself? We don't want any more of those...incidents. If you can’t control yourself, I will bring you out of that place —”

“Everything is fine mother. I have to go to class now, love you. Bye!” Theo hung up before her Mother could get another awful word in. Theo shoved the phone into her bag, also giving up on her literature notes. Who the hell cared about some dead alien Shakespeare, who died millions of years ago on some planet light years away?

Mona closed her notes as well, though with less frustration as she had studied for 3 hours the night before. She sat patiently for class to begin, as the other students mingled and laughed amongst their groups of friends. Two boys played catch with a fusion ball, throwing it about the classroom. The salmon colored one with long tentacle-like hair told the other with antlers to go long, and he threw it. The antlered boy caught the fusion ball, but not before he landed in Monaedi’s lap. They looked at each other mortified.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you there…” the boy got up quickly, snorting when he looked at his friend who looked just as amused. Mona would have replied but caught a sight of blue hair in the corner of her eye. When she saw Theo, she could feel a wave of embarrassment from this past weekend creeping up from her subconscious, but she pushed it back down. Monaedi looked away. If she didn’t look she could pretend the whole thing didn’t exist, and then everything could go back to normal. But she couldn’t keep away for much longer. Mona’s eyes were like magnets that kept being drawn back to the girl. She settled with stealing glances at Theo as she came into the room. Maybe she won’t notice at me, she thought. And Monaedi got her wish, as Theo didn’t even seem to notice her. And Mona didn’t know why, but she was more than slightly disappointed by this.

Theo walked into the class looking irked with the whole Xili Planetary System. She did not want to be here; he was here. Theo noticed him before he did her, so she went to go find her seat without properly greeting him. The tentacle haired boy did eventually notice his girlfriend. His face went from cocky amusement to downcast with just a hint of fear. He walked up to the elfish girl. Theo didn’t acknowledge him, as she put her bag on the table and started taking out her things.

“Hey, Theo…” He said quietly standing next to her. He took a small step closer, then thought better of it. He waited for a response, but one never came. In almost a whisper he tried again, “I haven’t seen you since the other night. Where have you been?”

“Mal’qier, I’ve been in my room. The whole weekend. You would’ve known that if you bothered to come by,” Theo slammed the book on the tabletop, which made him flinch. He looked around the classroom; people were starting to stare.

“Please do not make a scene,” Mal’qier hissed through gritted teeth, “Your mother would disapprove.” He was right, her mother would disapprove of her acting out in public. But she didn’t care about that. She did care about a familiar surge of energy brewing inside her; that she needed to keep under control. She took a deep breath and then turned to stare him dead in the face.

“You want to tell my mother on me, again, go ahead if that makes you feel better. Undermine me, like you did the other night,” her words were quiet but biting. She stared into his eyes, and if looks could kill… Mal’qier looked down, she could recognize the anguish on his face, even if others couldn’t. Theo started to feel sorry for him.

“I am sorry,” he said, barely audible. She knew he was. And she knew why he acted the way he did. It was expected of him. And to him, and to their whole crowd, appearance was everything. She just wished he would go against the grain sometimes...Then again, she was still with him, and what did that say about her.

“I know,” she said. Her voice softening. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t still pissed, “I’m still mad at you though.”

“I totally understand!” he said, but as things would be alright he brightened a bit, “I got you something.” He took something out of his pocket and then unfolded his hands. In his palms lay a phoenix flower. The little crystal bud bloomed in front of her eyes into a full grown flower. It had translucent petals tinted with beautiful colors that reflected along the walls of the classroom. it was the most beautiful thing Theodora, and anyone in the classroom ,had ever seen. She couldn’t help it. Theo kissed him pushing into his arms. It would have almost knocked him over, but he was strong enough to catch her.

The class hooted and hollered, at the two. Monaedi watched with the others but stayed silent. She felt heat rise into her face as the corner of her lips dipped into a slight frown. Someone cleared their throat over the commotion and everyone turned to see their reptilian teacher, Professor Thana, standing at the front of the class.

“Ms. Theodora, Mr. Mal’qier could you please sit down,” the professor said looking down her rimmed glasses. She used a scaly, yet old hand to adjust them on her face.

“Sorry professor, but who could resist,” she says gesturing toward Mal’qier. That gets some laughs and entertained gasps out of the class.

“Who indeed,” the reptile replied sarcastically rolling her eyes, getting a few chuckles of her own. While she prepared the board, Theo and Mal’quier sat down. As Theo did she caught Mona’s eyes. It wasn’t more than second, but Mona’s dark eyes shattered the facade and left Theo vulnerable like she never felt before. After a moment Monaedi turned back to face the board and Theo followed suit.

“Let us begin. We will continue with Twelfth Night, beginning with the Fool’s line: ‘Present mirth hath present laughter; What’s to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty,— Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty’. What do you think Master William meant by this verse,” she asked the class. They stayed silent, “Anyone?” Monaedi wrote down ‘Live in the moment’ in the margins of the text. She glanced around, no one looked willing to answer. I'll give it three seconds ,if no one raises their hand, I will. 1...2...—”

“How about you Miss Theodora, since you're so full of kisses today,” Professor Thana asked.

“I haven't the faintest idea Professor,” she said slightly annoyed, but more nervous than anything. She really should have looked at her notes.

“It's plain as day, right here in your text. Break it down line by line. We will wait.”

“He’s saying...we are only really given the moment that we are in right now...so his love shouldn’t wait to kiss him back. It sounds like a make the most of it type thing?” she finally got it all out. Professor Thana gazed at Theo for a second, a wisp of a smile on her lips.

“Very good. Now...” their professor continues the lesson. Theo let out a small breath she didn’t know she was holding. A small smiled crossed her face, she did it. She glanced around, but no one seemed to care so she settled back into her seat looking forward. Her sight lands in front of her on the back of Monaedi’s head where it stayed for the rest of the lecture.

At the end of class Theo told her boyfriend she would meet up with him later, and when he left she walked up to Mona who was packing her things away.

“Mona!” Theo greeted her, with as much cheer she could muster up.

“..Oh, hi Theodora...,” she says pushing her glasses back up her nose. Her eyes not really reaching Theo’s green ones.

“How are you? You kind of left suddenly.”

“...Yeah, sorry about that...”

“It's fine,” Theo waved her off. She looked around and saw other students looking towards the two of them; they eyed the two girls suspiciously. Theo paused to let the other exit the classroom, leaving her and Mona alone. She cleared her throat.

“So about the other night..um..I just wanted to make sure... You're not going to tell anyone are you?” Monaedi blinked at her. Not knowing which part she was referring to. The incident with the boys, or what she did to them, or how she did it. No other response came so Theo continued, “Do you like chufu? I know a nice restaurant—I can take you out—”

To be continued...

#spellbound #songoftheclouds #PoetPardy #poetryportal #writers creed #writerscreed #writers on tumblr #tumblr writers #tumblr writing community #lgbt writers #lgbt webcomic #wlw stories #wlwoc #wlw characters #wlw positivity

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howlsmovinglibrary · 7 years

Text

All of the question tags!!

Damn, it seems that this is what happens when you run out of phone data and are away from wifi for a while. The 11 questions tags take over.

Imma gonna answer every tag that I can find in this one long post, and sweet jesus I’m not tagging anyone in this particular chain, for fear of starting some kind of infinite loop that eventually becomes sentient and takes over the world.

So, time to seriously overshare!!

From @books-are-portals

1. Favourite mythological being (of any kind)?

It’s a tie between dragons and unicorns, and you know what that means…..FIGHT!

2. Least favourite drink?

I hate coke/diet coke/pepsi/cola. I’m quite intolerant to caffeine in large doses, so the last time I drank a glass of coke, at like 4pm in the afternoon probably about 8 years ago, it kept me away until 3am D:

3. What book(s) do you recommend for everyone?

The Wicked and the Divine comics. It’s hella diverse, the art is amazing, and it’s about insanely powerful magical pop star gods. EVERYONE SHOULD READ.

4. Can you touch the tip of your nose with your tongue?

No – I have both an incredibly small nose and a very stubby tongue.

5. Least favourite book protagonist?

Ummm, bar all the protagonists from classics that I could endlessly moan on about all day and all night (I’m looking at you, Pamela), I’m going to say Zoey from The House of Night series, for all her toxic slut shaming, double standards, and just generally horribly written narrative voice (‘bullpoopy’ is a word that will forever be branded on my mind).

6. What TV show/film makes you happy?

Brooklyn Nine Nine is my go-to happy tv show, Spirited Away/Howl’s Moving Castle are the film equivalent.

7. Favourite trope?

Anything where a platonic friendship (particularly between two women) gets prioritised above a romantic relationship.

8. What piece of fictional technology would you like to have?

An alethiometer from HDM – it tells you the truth, but not enough to stop you from being in control of your own fate (the beauty of a book about free will, I guess.)

9. Finish sentence: I didn’t get enough sleep last night because…

…my back aches from lugging all my books to storage.

10. Favourite food to eat when you’re feeling down?

To be honest, it’s probably toast (with peanut butter if it’s been a really bad day).

11. Can you knit?

I can, but I can’t knit well. If you want a scarf, I can, in theory, do that. Anything that isn’t just one uniform band of the same stitch and I am not the person for the job.

********

From @heretherebebooks

1. Have you ever fallen out of love with a book? Why?

There are a lot of standard answers: ACOTAR, Twilight, etc. but my most recent is Borderline by Mishell Baker – I really like books with ‘unlikeable’ protagonists so I gave this a very high rating on first review, but I didn’t realise how damaging this representation of BPD is until I read multiple own voices reviews on the subject.

2. What’s the strangest book-related dream you’ve ever had?

I have a lot of book dreams which feature me as the protagonist in my favourite fantasy novels, but then when I try to use magic to defend myself my brain goes ‘but Emma, magic doesn’t exist’ and so I’m suddenly facing down a demon hoard with no powers whatsoever.

3. Have you read a book that you didn’t really appreciate until later on?

Ash by Malinda Lo is the main one for this, because I didn’t appreciate that Ash is not supposed to get with the unbelievably hot fairy prince…until I reread five years later and saw that the hot fairy prince is a dick.

4. What book would you like to see a musical adaptation of? (Bonus: any ideas for song titles?)

To be honest, I just want Starkid to do a ‘A Very Potter Musical’ version of Cursed Child and watch the fanfiction of the fanfiction.

5. Have you ever thrown a book across the room? What was it?

Ms Marvel Volume 4 (my ship was sunk…for now, anyway).

6. What book cover do you absolutely hate? How would you redesign it?

The Falconer and Dark Days Club UK covers are just super tacky – I’d take the Falconer US covers, and replace the Dark Days standard ‘pretty woman in fragile looking pose’ covers with either ‘plain looking woman fighting a fuck tonne of demons’ or just ‘fuck tonne of demons’, which is what the story is about anyway.

7. Have you ever cosplayed a character? Who?

I’m read this question at a con while dressed as Newt Scamander, so…. (last year I was Violet from the Rat Queen comics).

8. What’s the last book that made you want to scream from the rooftop?

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (the thing I screamed was “MURDER. IN. SPAAAACEEE!” when my housemate asked me what it was about, although I was not on a rooftop at the time.)

9. What’s your favourite subgenre?

My new favourite is ‘geeky contemporary’, bonus points if it’s ‘geek convention contemporary’ (Queens of Geek, Geekerella, Unconventional)

10. If you could bring an author back to life to write one more book, who would it be?

I think Angela Carter could write one hell of a feminist YA fairy tale retelling, so I’m gonna bring her back.

11. Mug full of tea on your bed - yay or nay?

I just….I don’t live life this dangerously xD

*********

From @bookcub:

1. Who was the last character you related to and what were they from?

Luca from The Burning City by Amanda Foody – he was basically the reason I kept reading that book, which otherwise wasn’t really my cup of tea, despite being a perfectly good book. He was the love interest, and was explicitly demiromantic. Although I’m not entirely sure where I place on the ace spectrum, and also felt that his portrayal was a little bit too cut and dry – with no sexual attraction until the MC shows up and then all the sexual attraction immediately at once with not really any grey area – his indifferent attitude towards sex as a general concept until those feelings latch onto a specific person, and his hesitation surrounding how to handle a relationship when it’s not something he’s has to consider before that point, were both very relatable for me. It certainly fitted my experience a little better than Tash Hearts Tolstoy.

2. What’s your favorite genre of music?

Hmmm…there’s a wide range but I guess singer songwriter covers it? I care more about a song’s lyrics than what genre it’s in.

3. Which tags on tumblr do you follow and why?

*whispers* I still don’t really understand how following tags works…..(someone plz explain)

4. Do you have any book related jewelry?

I have a necklace of an owl delivering a Hogwarts letter, and Howl’s earrings from the Ghibli movie.

5. Thoughts on booklr being dead?

I think the parts of booklr that were active a few years ago might be dead, but that’s just one specific group of people and they’ve probably moved on for a reason. Given it’s only in the last year or so that I’m getting notes and making friends, if booklr truly is dead then it seems that I’m either a necromancer, or having one hell of a party in the graveyard.

6. What are some of your favorite picture books from when you were a kid?

We’re Going On a Bear Hunt is the classic (my parents used to sing it to me to get me to go on hikes). When I could read for myself, Varjak Paw.

7. What’s the first book you remember reading or being read to you?

My dad read me the first and half of the second Harry Potter books on the Eurostar train from London to Disneyland Paris.

8. What’s your favorite dystopian novel and why?

Hmmm, I’m not really a fan of dystopias all that much (more of a fantasy person), but I really like the Wolf by Wolf series, which I think counts due to it being alt. history, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The first because a) it has fantasy elements, and b) A* character development over the duology. The second because it was the first ‘literary’ book I read for school and enjoyed, and because the TV show has been one of my favourite things this year.

9. Where do you get/buy most of your books?

Truthfully, Amazon. I’m trying to do better now that I’m no longer strapped for cash.

10. Favorite animal?

Cats. Fluffy, smooshy faced cats in particular ^^.

11. What book release are you anxious for (one you know the release date for) (yeah that means not Doors or Stone)

It’s a toss-up between The Stone Sky by NK. Jemisin (which is out like, next week!!), Provenance by Ann Leckie, and Warcross by Marie Lu.

**********

From @accidentalspaceexplorer:

1. What do you think of science fiction?

I think it is good when written well, where the focus on world building doesn’t leave the characters one dimensional. Unfortunately I also think it is coded masculine in a number of ways - the focus on a ‘logical, technological’ world rather than ‘illogical’ femme coded magic - which means that sometimes I find it quite an frustrating and alienating genre.

2. What’s one of your pet peeves?

Mansplaining. Currently there’s this really horrible man at my book club who keeps trying to explain narrative to me and I’m like, dude, I’m an English Literature graduate.

3. If you could pick one magic system to exist in real life, what would it be?

Oh, fuck. There’s so many that would be amazing, but I think the main I always gravitate back to is Elemental magic a la the Avatar universe, because that was the first type of magic system I fell in love with.

4. What is your favorite tree?

Cherry blossom

5. Do you have any plants around the house?

I do not own any personally, but my housemate has like fifteen spider plants to which I like to think I am a caring godmother figure.

6. What is the book with the weirdest premise that you’ve read and would recommend?

The Jane Austen Project - time travellers go back to Regency era Britain to befriend Austen and try to steal one of her lost manuscripts.

7. Have you loved books for as long as you can remember, or was there a particular event that sparked you becoming a reader?

As long as I can remember - I remember giving a presentation in class about how I was going to be any author at age 9.

8. What is your favorite recipe?

Lemon meringue cake - cake, lemon curd, a fuck tonne of meringue, what’s not to love?

9. Do you reread books? If not, why not? If so, what’s one that you reread again and again?

Yes. Always reread. My three main ones are The Dark Days Club, Uprooted, and (of course) Howl’s Moving Castle.

10. What’s your favorite weather?

Cold sunshine in winter.

11. Do you read every day?

Pretty much (I read on my lunch break at work).

I think that’s every outstanding question answered - sorry if I’ve missed anyone!

#11 question tag #some would say 'too many questions' tag #about me #some would say 'too much' about me

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hermanwatts · 4 years

Text

Sensor Sweep: Viking Bikers From Hell, Lovecraft & Hemingway, Hadon of Ancient Opar

T.V. (Bare Bone E-zine): But Milius’ mark on Sutter’s creative process may go far beyond simple story and dialogue. A more concrete clue lies in Milius’ end credits when Miami Vice scenes and the superimposed B-movie episode title “Viking Bikers from Hell,” pseudonymously written in 1987 by Milius, flash across the screen with other clips from his filmography. Though Sons of Anarchy is stylistically, tonally, and philosophically different from Milius’ episode, it is not a leap to see how it put the gas in the tank of Sutter’s imagination.

Horror (DMR Books): One of Lovecraft’s earliest stories written as an adult is “Dagon.” After his ship is sunk by German U-boats, a castaway finds himself on an unknown island. There he encounters the title creature. This story is one of Lovecraft’s earliest and one of his lesser ones; however it still has elements of genuine terror.

Games (Walker’s Retreat): Ghost of Tsushima is out now. In case you missed it, it’s this: Yep, a game set during the Mongol invasion of Japan. Gameplay is very reminiscent of the well-regarded Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch blended with the more recent Assassin’s Creed games. Yes, playing in Japanese with subtitles is an option, as is playing in Black & White for the Full Kurosawa effect. This has the Death Cult in games mad, especially when Japanese outlets have been positive about this game. The meme below summarizes aptly.

Fiction (Rough Edges): A while back, I read SON OF GRENDEL, a novella that’s a prequel to this full-length novel. Now I’ve read BATTLE FOR THE WASTELANDS, and it’s a fine post-apocalyptic yarn, just as I expected based on my enjoyment of the novella. It’s the future, of course, after some disaster that has left vestiges of what people call the Old World. The countries, states, and cities that we know are gone, but firearms technology remains (although at a much lower level for the most part) and dirigibles are still around.

RPG (RPG Pundit): The newest issue is out, and RPGPundit Presents #102: The Woodsman is a very short issue, but it’s also only 99 cents! In it, I present a brand new character class for Lion & Dragon, that can also be used in other OSR games: the Woodsman! This is essentially a non-magical ranger-style class, based on Medieval-Authentic concepts of what a Woodsman was and did. If you want to play a native English (or Welsh) character who has ability in hunting, trapping and wilderness lore, this is the way to go!

Lost Race (Cirsova): In Hadon of Ancient Opar he presents a tale of the Ice Age in Africa. Some readers will not care for the earthy, rough sexuality which still has the power to shock and disturb, despite the passage of decades. Willy Ley’s “Chad Sea” and “Congo Lake” (Engineer’s Dreams, 1954) are present here as Mediterranean-like basins, while cities of a Jakob Bachofen-type matriarchy (Mother Right, 1861) flourish all around. Hadon, a sports champ/gladiator, is to become king but is instead sent on a deadly mission, and we’re off into whitest Africa, with Rider Haggard’s characters Laleela and Paga appearing alongside the Hercules-like Kwasin and the mysterious “grey-eyed god” Sahhindar.

Writing (Wasteland & Sky): We’ve talked many times about the awful state of art right now in the modern world, but we haven’t offered much in the way of solutions aside from the obvious: just keep trucking. Today that changes as I introduce to you my newest book due out at the end of this month: The Pulp Mindset!

RPG (The Other Side): Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (AS&SH) is more closely aligned with “Advanced Era” D&D, but its feel for me has always been more OD&D, though over the last few years I have been treating it as another flavor of Basic. I have mentioned in the past that I see AS&SH as a good combination of B/X and AD&D rules. Essentially it is what we were playing back in the early 80s.

Writing (Pulprev): Updated Call for Submissions: Pulp on Pulp. Misha Burnett and I are working on a free collection of essays for writers. Titled Pulp on Pulp, this collection offers practical advice on creating fun, fast-paced fiction. This collection is aimed specifically at writers who want to create pulp-style fiction, though writers from other genres may learn something new from this collection. This project is a labour of love, allowing writers to share everything they have learned.

Fiction (Tentaculii): Ernest Hemingway published his first novel in 1926, just as Lovecraft was writing “The Call of Cthulhu”. Over time Lovecraft’s star dimmed away almost to nothing, while Hemingway struck the world like a meteorite. So much so, that Robert Bloch once remarked that it was difficult to conceive that Lovecraft had actually been living and working in the same era as Hemingway. Another protege, J. Vernon Shea, also observed that… “Part of the reason for Lovecraft’s unpopularity with the literary critics of his day lay in the fact that mainstream literature, following Sherwood Anderson’s and Hemingway’s leads, was turning more and more toward simple sentences and action–packed narration”.

Non-fiction (Marzaat): In “Slaves of the Death Spider: Colin Wilson and Existentialist Science Fiction”, Stableford talks about Wilson’s Spider World series in a way that convinces me there’s probably not much of merit in them. He finds them not that original – specifically derivative of Star Wars and Murray Leinster’s “Mad Planet”. He finds it ironic that Wilson, who once accused science fiction of being fairy tales for adults who have not outgrown fairy tales, has written, inspired by his occult interests, a story that seems to suggest, a la L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, that mankind’s salvation will come. In short, Stableford says Wilson neither delivers a new plot or anything conceptually satisfying.

Fiction (Jon Mollison): Celebrate your independence from authors that hate you, the good, the beautiful, and the true. You should pick up your copy of The Penultimate Men today, and I’ll tell you why. or starters, it includes a new Morty and Kyrus story from Schuyler Hernstrom. If you have read any Hernstrom, you already know his entry is worth the price of admission alone. In addition to that story, you get Jeffro Johnson’s inimitable break-down of the post-apocalyptic genre, a pair of tales from my own pen, and something you’ve never seen before.

Art (DMR Books): The artist, John Byrne, turned seventy today. I would reckon most DMR Books fans know him from his work on superhero comics like The X-Men and The Fantastic Four. However, Byrne has a long history of drawing heroic fantasy characters. Back in 1971, barely in his twenties, Byrne wrote and drew his first published comics story which was published by the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary. The protagonist of the comic was called “The Death’s-Head Knight” and the plot was firmly within heroic fantasy parameters. Check it out here.

Pulp Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): I read “The Black Gargoyle”. It was the cover story for the March 1934 issue of Weird Tales. It is available in the collection of the same name. Set on Borneo, the unnamed narrator and his companion, Martin Gow, are traveling upriver to join a museum expedition. They stop to rest at an outpost run by a man named Gomez. Gomez is an evil man, the very stereotype of the white oppressor. Gomez has given them a hut in which there are several skulls and a shrunken head on a shelf above the beds. Also staying in another hut are a man and his wife.

Pulp Fiction (Pulp Net): I have posted previously on the prolific H. Bedford-Jones (1887-1949), who is considered the “King of the Pulps,” having written over 800 short stories, 200 novels, and more. While he had several series of works with single characters, many of his longest series were instead around certain themes. Kind of fictionalized histories or docu-dramas. Many of these were done for Blue Book, one of the “Big 4” of pulps. The longest of these series was his “Ships and Men” series that ran for 34 parts from January 1937 to November 1939.

Fiction (Superversive SF): Probably the best known of the series, THE BLACK CAULDRON follows the Companions as they seek to stop Arawn from acquiring more cauldron born. It is very different from the Disney movie version. The silent, stalking soldiers cannot be slain but weaken the further they get from the land of the dead. The companions have a mission—steal the cauldron and destroy it. That’s not as easy as it sounds. However, the one who jumps in must know it will cost his life. One of Prince Gwydion’s main allies turns traitor, and one of Taran’s new companions is out for his own glory.

Culture Wars/RPG (Grey Hawk Grognard): Sometime over the last couple of days, Wizards of the Coast decided to put up the following disclaimer on all D&D products earlier than 5th edition, plus a few 5E items as well. Setting aside the typos and grammatical errors of this hastily-done disclaimer, I can’t say I’m surprised that Wizards of the Coast has decided to bend the knee to the SJW crowd.

Fiction (Pulp Serenade): Robert Silverberg’s criminal past has been coming to light—and I, for one, am thrilled, just as readers were undoubtedly thrilled decades ago. In 2011, Stark House Press republished two of the sci-fi master’s earliest novels, Gang Girl (1959) and Sex Bum (1963), both of which originally appeared under the pseudonym Don Elliott. These are from the heyday of smut paperbacks, a time when rising talent (like Silverberg, Donald Westlake, and Lawrence Block) were cutting their teeth on T-and-A-tastic yarns, honing their writing skills and getting paid for it.

Sensor Sweep: Viking Bikers From Hell, Lovecraft & Hemingway, Hadon of Ancient Opar published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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There’s a reason movies employ costume designers, why celebrities hire stylists, and why you changed outfits no fewer than three times before your last promising first date — fashion choices broadcast nuanced details about a person’s identity and personality.

The same, of course, holds true for fictional characters in novels. The choices that authors make about apparel and accessories can bring a character to life, or they can push fiction into fantasy. Remember when Carrie Bradshaw picked apart Jack Berger’s novel because he dressed his character in a then-unfashionable scrunchie? Select the right pieces and your character will feel real; select the wrong ones and readers won’t believe a word.

Scrunchies aside, stylistic choices have turned so many moments from capital-L Literature into memorable scenes. In Gone With the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara whipped up an iconic gown out of green curtains during the poverty-stricken days of Reconstruction, when she couldn’t afford to purchase a dress. In Jane Eyre, the protagonist refuses to wear the brightly colored silk and satin gowns Mr. Rochester offers her in favor of the drab dresses she feels are more appropriate for her position as a governess. In The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood immediately divulges by page three that she rushed over to Bloomingdale’s on her lunch break to purchase black patent leather shoes with a matching belt and handbag to prepare for her summer of working at a magazine in New York — that’s how important her accessories are to her. And who can forget The Great Gatsby’s Jay manically tossing up shirts, or American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman reciting a list of designers and brand names with the reverence usually reserved for church?

If these scenes seem particularly vivid to you, it might be because each of these classics has been adapted onscreen, as so many best-sellers are (including two of the books below). That creates further opportunity for these looks to come to life.

I asked the authors of five buzzy novels to select one important look they’ve created for a specific character and dissect what the ensemble means to the character. How does she choose to dress herself, and what does that signify about who she is? The outfits themselves vary wildly from a disheveled 1940s ostrich feather ball gown to a worn-out Lilly Pulitzer tank top, but each author emphasized the same point: Their choices were intentional. Nothing was accidental or poorly thought-out. One author went on an online shopping frenzy to dress her character for a wedding; another even brought in an outside stylist to ensure the clothes were up to date.

The next time you pick up a novel, pay special attention to what each character wears — every outfit is a road map of their values, tastes, history, and insecurities. Below, five authors reveal how they use fashion as a tool in fiction.

Half the fun of zipping through the rollicking family drama of Crazy Rich Asians is the fashion. Kevin Kwan makes it clear that among certain circles in upper-crust Asian society, you’re only worth as much as the labels you choose to wear — and the tackiest thing you can do is to dress above your station. “When I write all my characters, I really imagine from head to toe every single thing they’re wearing,” Kwan says. “If I didn’t already know the piece, I would scour the internet, looking at collections and creating outfits for the characters.”

Astrid Leong in her VBH earrings.

Crazy Rich Asians follows Rachel Chu, an American-born professor, who travels to Asia to meet her boyfriend Nick Young’s astronomically wealthy family for the first time. Astrid Leong is Nick’s beloved cousin; she’s a stay-at-home wife and mother, as well as a fashion icon among the elite. She flies to Paris every season for custom couture and had a close friendship with Yves Saint Laurent (RIP), but she’s not afraid to wear a dress off the rack from Zara … as long as it’s styled just so with museum-quality Etruscan bangles.

“Astrid is very much inspired by one person,” Kwan says; he tried to recreate her style for the book. “Astrid sees dressing as her only form of artistic expression. She lives in this very cloistered world where she has to put the right foot forward at all times. Fashion, for her, is a way of being rebellious, and it’s a way of asserting her own creative expression into her life.”

Kwan discovered this Alexis Mabille white peasant blouse back in 2010 and was inspired to dress Astrid in it for a Friday night dinner at her grandmother’s house, where a more relaxed outfit would make sense. She’s dressed down in order to detract attention from her new VBH earrings — a splurge that would make her slightly less wealthy husband uncomfortable. “She pairs the earrings with something that’s just kind of more fun and casual so the earrings look like costume jewelry,” Kwan notes.

While writing the next books in the trilogy, China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems, Kwan turned to Cleo Davis-Urman, now the Fashion Director of Saks Fifth Avenue, to source apparel and accessories for his characters. “I was so frantically busy trying to meet my deadlines that her help in keeping up to date on the latest fashions was invaluable,” he says.

Crazy Rich Asians hit theaters this summer, with costumes by Mary Vogt (her past projects include Hocus Pocus and Men in Black). Kwan says that Vogt often mirrored exact outfits from the book, like Araminta Lee’s gold jumpsuit at her bachelorette party and the beige linen suit Nick wears to greet Rachel at Tyersall Park for the first time.

Social Creature is what would happen if an overgrown Eloise at the Plaza had a wardrobe full of stained vintage dresses and an eccentric pack of friends — and if she wound up dead. The glamorous thriller follows Louise Wilson, a mousy underachiever whose life changes overnight when she meets Lavinia Williams, a madcap bombshell who frolics at the opera, trades witty barbs at secret bookstores, and dances at a stand-in for the McKittrick Hotel.

“My vision for Lavinia is the little kid who goes into her parents’ wardrobe and comes out wearing everything,” Tara Isabella Burton (a staff writer at Vox) says. She swathes herself in vintage from the 1920s through the ’50s, but she doesn’t have the self-care skills required to preserve her delicate clothes. “She definitely leaves her clothes rumpled in a pile on her floor when she stumbles home drunk. She does not fold things neatly. She is constantly drinking and spilling shit,” Burton adds. From afar, thanks to her class privilege and sheer force of personality, Lavinia succeeds in looking like an effortless sylph. But up close, she’s a mess.

Lavinia with her gorgeous dress caught on a door.

She comes from a wealthy family and veers wildly between using her money to attract and keep friends and feeling self-conscious about her background. She’s likely to spend hundreds at a curated vintage store but lie and say she found a dress at a thrift shop for $5. “It’s very much in the Upper East Side, WASP-y vein to downplay and be like, ‘Oh, this old thing? It was on sale! Of course I didn’t pay for it!’” says Burton.

The first time readers meet Lavinia, she flies into the brownstone she shares with her teen sister, Cordelia, at 6 am. Louise, Cordelia’s SAT tutor, has been up all night waiting for Lavinia to come home to pay her. Lavinia accidentally slams the door on the ostrich feather hem of her 1940s ball gown and sheds feathers everywhere she walks, like an injured bird. Louise is able to mend the dress for her, which sparks the beginning of their dangerously codependent friendship.

At the New York launch party for Social Creature, Burton wore a similar ostrich feather gown in pale pink. She says she didn’t intend to match Lavinia but liked that the gown “felt very Social Creature.” She also Sharpied on a “More Poetry!!!” arm tattoo, like the ones Louise and Lavinia get together in the book. At the party, Burton’s fake tattoo smudged off onto her dress, and she dabbed out the stain with a wet napkin. Unlike her character, she could take care of her vintage duds.

Imagine this: You get stuck in an elevator with your dream guy. He invites you to be his plus one to his ex’s wedding, less than 48 hours away. That’s the meet-cute that kicks off The Wedding Date. To dress Alexa Monroe and the other characters in the book, Jasmine Guillory thought carefully about how their wardrobes would function practically in their lives.

Alexa in her red dress.

Alexa is the chief of staff for the mayor of Berkeley, and her wardrobe is mostly work clothes. She opts for colorful shift dresses and blazers from department stores; she’s a little preppy and likes J.Crew. She’d love to wear a Theory suit, but she’s busty, so blazers don’t always fit her the way she’d hope. For the past few weddings she’s attended, she’s either been a bridesmaid or done Rent the Runway, so she has to scramble for something to wear. She summons her best friend Maddie, a stylist, for a day of shopping.

“I did a lot of mock online shopping for what Alexa would wear to this wedding,” Guillory says. “I wanted her to feel like the star version of herself, like she has a glow about her the whole night.” Guillory — or Maddie — ultimately selects a red fit-and-flare cocktail dress with a low neckline. The cut of the dress was intentional; Guillory wanted Alexa to be able to wear it without Spanx underneath, in case she happened to later undress in front of her wedding date, Drew Nichols. Instead, she would be able to wear the dress with a pretty, sexy bra and panty set.

For Alexa, the dress inspires a serious confidence boost. “Normally, she would think, ‘Oh, a guy like this would not be interested in me,’” Guillory explains. “But with that dress on, she feels like Cinderella. … It’s kind of a magic dress and a magic night, so she might as well flirt with the hot guy. Why not?”

High school freshman Chloe Sayers can fit in with anyone in her small New Hampshire town: She looks like a popular kid, dreams of life as an artist, and is best friends with misfit Jon Bronson, who’s secretly in love with her. Jon is kidnapped, only to mysteriously return four years later with no recollection of what has happened and with strange powers that threaten those around him. Meanwhile, in Providence, Rhode Island, Detective Charles “Eggs” DeBenedictus is investigating a string of seemingly healthy young people who keep dropping dead. The genre-bending novel follows their three separate but interconnected lives.

Chloe in her casual hometown outfit.

More than a decade later, Chloe is a hotshot New York artist whose portraits of Jon have made her a star. She’s been deeply uncomfortable dressing up ever since her high school prom, when she wore a revealing dress she didn’t like. Typically, she’s in paint-splattered cutoffs and big, old T-shirts — easy pieces to throw on when she’s making art. She’s keenly aware that setting and context matter: When she’s back home in New Hampshire, god forbid she dress up and offend people’s casual sensibilities; when she’s out in New York with her Entourage-loving financier fiancé, she knows to dress for his newly urban tastes, even though he’s from her small New England hometown too. “She wishes she didn’t care so much, but she does,” Caroline Kepnes explains.

The morning after her big engagement party in her hometown, Chloe is getting dressed to reunite with Jon. At first, she chooses a little pink dress, but she knows her fiancé’s family would sneer and call her overdressed. Instead, she throws on an old Lilly Pulitzer tank top and denim cutoffs. Her fiancé’s sister-in-law sneers, anyway. “Chloe doesn’t wear Lilly in New York,” Kepnes explains. “She wears it in Nashua to fuck with her would-be sisters-in-law who read Lilly as, ‘So you think you’re better than me, huh?’”

As a teenager, in the wake of Jon’s disappearance, Kepnes says Chloe’s “whole identity was constantly nitpicked and torn apart, so she’s more relaxed. She’s like, ‘No matter what I do, they’re going to say something, so I’m just going to wear what I wear.’” Depending on whom you ask, a classically printed Lilly tank top is either obnoxiously preppy or sweetly nostalgic; for Chloe, in this moment, it’s a form of expression and rebellion.

Lara Jean Song Covey is the 16-year-old protagonist of Jenny Han’s trilogy To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (the Netflix adaptation came out this August). A true romantic, she writes letters to every boy she’s ever had feelings for and stashes them away in a teal hatbox given to her by her late mother. When the letters accidentally get sent to each boy in question, well, Lara Jean’s life quickly gets pretty interesting.

Lara Jean in her iconic knee socks and cardigan.

“Her look is 1960s retro meets 1990s meets Asian streetwear,” Han says. “It’s aspirationally romantic schoolgirl, and as an introverted person, it’s her way to express herself.” Lara Jean draws inspiration from Asian fashion blogs, wears clothes that her aunt sends her from Korea, and likes to shop at vintage stores. Han referenced the movie Clueless and Korean fast fashion from sites like Stylenanda to develop Lara Jean’s style. She gave her three recurring style signatures: a hair bow, a heart-shaped locket, and knee socks.

The socks have become such a fixture among fans, Han says, that readers often wear them to book signings as a tribute to the character. “Her style came together in a way that made sense to me because of her romantic nature, her fascination with the past, and her idea of what love looks like,” she says.

This outfit is something Lara Jean wears for a regular day at school. It also appears in the final scene in the movie. “I had extensive conversations with the producers in regard to Lara Jean’s style,” Han says. “I sent them mood boards.” This particular silhouette — a button-down with a short skirt — is used frequently.

Ultimately, Lara Jean’s look is also somewhat influenced by Han’s personal tastes. “It’s very similar to my style,” she says.

Original Source -> How do you choose an outfit for a fictional character? 5 authors explain.

via The Conservative Brief

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