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my-rose-tinted-glasses · 1 month

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My memory is terrible so I wanted to do a breakdown of my stuff every once in a while. Might be monthly, might be whenever I feel like it.

QL - Currently Watching

🇹🇭1000 Years Old [10/12] - This is dragging and I am incredibly bored.

🇹🇭23.5 [4/12] - This show is incredibly cute and I'm smiling through the whole thing. Aylin is my favourite and I'm hoping against hope for the teachers to become a couple. Make it happen gmmtv!

🇹🇭Deep Night [6/8] - The long shots are killing me but the story is moving fast. There's a surprising amount of good communication and the throuple is almost inevitable a this point.

🇰🇷Jazz for Two [6/8] - This is the first bl show where I read the source material before the show and I wish I hadn't. The changes that were made just don't make sense to me, because I don't see how it serves the story. But putting that aside, the story feels rushed and the pacing is weird. The second couple doesn't read believable with this time frame. Anyway I might edit this post when I watch the last 2 episodes. [EDIT] Completed. Final thoughts here. 🇯🇵Love is Better The Second Time Around [4/6] - Why must you do this again Japan? 6 episodes for this one? I'm not happy about this. This show is so good. I love how the mains communicate, not to mention they are beautiful to watch.

🇯🇵My Strawberry Film[7/8] - I have no idea what this show is about nor it seems does it. Do I care at this point? Nope, not really. Let it be over.

🇹🇭To Be Continued [6/8] - This is getting into The Promise territory and I'm not amused. Another one that is dragging and I like the second couple but they barely have any screen time. I'll finish it because there are only two episodes left but I'll be sprinting to the finish line.

🇹🇼Unknown [7/12] - It hurts so good. The songs were killing me this episode. I really liked the separation, I think it was necessary for them. Yuan seems more mature and it will be interesting to see how it changes the relationship.

QL - Finished

🇹🇭Cherry Magic Th – What a wonderful surprise this was. Tay and New are beautiful together and their chemistry was on point. I really liked how the source material was used here.

🇯🇵Cherry Magic Anime – It was quite faithful to the manga with only a couple of deviations and of course it didn't cover everything but I really enjoyed watching yet another version of these characters.

🇹🇭Dead Friend Forever – It was quite a ride. I specially enjoyed the communal watching of this one and all the theories as more people tuned in. Didn't love the ending but it was better than I thought. Still not over White though. 🇯🇵Although I Love You, and You? - Started great, the middle was meh, and by the end I wasn't invested enough in the couple so even though it ended happy, it didn't make up for the rest of it. 🇯🇵Perfect Propose - Great all the way through. I loved this characters a lot and still think it's amazing how well the time was used here. 🇯🇵Ossan's Love Returns - It's Japan at it's finest. Love, food, chaos, found family and cherry blossoms. What more can I ask for? 🇯🇵She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat - My heart grew.🖤

🇹🇼Anti Reset - This is one of the most frustrating shows I've watched in a while. This started off strange and most of the show doesn't seem to know what it wanted to say about the AI part of it. It drove crazy on a weekly basis. But I thought their chemistry was really good and they are just an adorable couple. These 4 VBL series [Stay By My Side, You Are Mine, Vip Only] were a mixed bag for me. I think Stay By My Side is my favourite overall.

🇨🇳The Spirealm - First of all, Ruan Lan Zhu is absolutely gorgeous and his outfits are always perfection. The visuals are really good. This was definitely not a cheap production. The sets for all the doors are incredible. Talking only about the game, I gotta say the second door was my favourite. The bromance toes the line, but I'm not surprised this was taken down. I think if they'd kiss it would be less obvious than some of their scenes. I'm not going to spoil the ending but if you're thinking about watching here's your warning. A bit after the halfway point it gets incredibly sad and the ending is just heart-breaking.

Dropped 🇹🇭A Secretly Love [3/10] 🇹🇭Kiseki Chapter 2 [2/6] Also haven't started Two Worlds because I'm waiting to know if I should bother. I'm experiencing a bit of Thai bl fatigue so we'll see.

Rose Watches OJBL

Takumi-kun 1: And The Spring Breeze Whispers (2007) - The editing is choppy as hell and it gets hard to understand the characters motivations. And the acting is not good. Yeah, not a fan of this one. Udagawachou de Matteteyo (2015) - This one is weird. I recently watched Life as a Girl so I admit that the comparison doesn't help this one at all. The idea is interesting but the execution is poor. There's a couple of scenes that are a bit hard to watch. In this particular story I think if we had a bit more insight to the characters motivations it would've helped me connect and feel more invested. In the end, for my particular goal it was fine I guess.

Other - Watched

🩷Tengu's Kitchen (2023) | Fudanshi Bartender no Tashinami (2022) Formula 17 (2004) | Mars: Zero no Kakumei (2024) | 🩷Joshi-teki Seikatsu (2018)

1 Year of Rose-Tinted Glasses

It's been a year of Rose this month. And it's been kinda great. It took me a while to get over my shyness here and I still feel intimidated but it's gotten better. The people in this space have been really kind to me and I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much for the space.

That's it for right now. As usual my ask box is open for gif requests and any other questions. Happy Easter to all who celebrate.

Have a good week💜

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muninnhuginn · 8 months

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Season Two Link Click Thoughts

I've put this below a cut because it gets long, but these are just my assorted thoughts on s2 in general. It's going to be waaaay more opinions than my usual speculationy kinda deal and contains spoilers for all of season two.

I hit character limit on my bullet points so I think that's my cue to leave it at that even though I have more thoughts honestly. I didn't even know that was a thing.

Pacing. I think pretty much everyone can agree that the pacing was... dubious. This series could have easily been shorter or had different meaningful content rather than repeated footage reuse for flashing back and overly extended fight scenes (episode 7? I think it was, was particularly egregious about this). I get there's presumably a fanbase for fight scenes and I won't contest that they were really nicely choreographed, but sometimes it felt like you'd take a break from actual events to spend ten minutes on a fight scene that didn't really... further anything else? I do enjoy recontextualisation and I recognise that that does require reusing some aspects of footage rather than entirely reanimating scenes when there's no need to, but at the same time, this is a series that is lowkey set up for binging. Flashing back so frequently when it's a series specifically engineered to make you binge it (hi constant cliffhangers) seems an odd recipe. I almost wonder how much of this was for production reasons, though maybe I'm overreaching here.

Linked to this is the overuse of cliffhangers. Season 1 had some cliffhangers, yeah, but it at least had breaks between arcs and more importantly, didn't repeatedly move the chronology of scenes purely to service an artificial cliffhanger.

Art and animation was mostly very nice. There were two episodes that did suffer art-wise (episodes three and eleven) with various off-model faces, but for the most part it was all pretty solid and I don't have any complaints about the animation. My favourite part of the art is still the almost rainbow outlines you get around objects. It made scenes like the Lu Guang speedboat one look gorgeous with the lights and colour on the water.

Mystery. Okay, so for all my qualms I genuinely think the mystery aspects were almost perfect. There were a couple of places I feel they somewhat 'cheated' but otherwise (the twin with the photo in the hospital doorway looking like tianxi in a close up shot. and then cxs/wj acting possessed in ep 6 but having their eyes appear normal at first and only having them changed the next episode. I'm fine with false negatives on the eyes when the audience isn't yet cued in on a possession, but in this case it looked like they were possessed up until the eyes showed otherwise)? Everything made total sense and tied together by the end. Even going into episode 12 we had a couple of gaps in scenes in Chen Bin and Liu Lan's death that I think it would be incredibly easy to overlook considering we "knew" what happened in them, but the hints were there in both cases that there was more to it and those hints paid off. Even Liu Xiao's identity worked just fine without the hat guy visual. All the hints were there about a younger favoured brother of the Liu family, Li Tianchen's new friend being a rich "Master Liu", him being abroad studying but stated as "soon to return" (which he then did). There are so many threads and they all tied together by the end such that even if I didn't always agree with the delivery, I do think this season is worthy of being called an excellent mystery.

Characters. So, okay, we introduced a whole host of new characters this time which was a choice. This sorta worked sorta didn't. The arcs of Qian Jin and the twins all tied together thematically and episode 9 was pretty explicit drawing the parallels together. However, we had characters like Qiao Ling not getting much new material at all despite a hopeful start with her scene about "wanting to be trusted".

Unfortunate implications (my head automatically goes to TV Tropes with this :V). Mainly surrounding the use of female characters as devices to propel the male characters. LTX is the most obvious instance (I shouldn't have to explain why), but Wang Juan was also treated as though she would be important and then largely shunted off to apply more pressure to XL; Liu Min's mum taking the hysterical role. On their own they may not be too bad, but I guess it's that it's combined with the stuff around Emma from s1 where the big 'twist' in the finale is killing her once there's a hope spot, and also added to how the mother in the Doudou episode is the one who's reverted to a younger age, whilst the dad is exhausted. Just a whole load of stuff that individually on their own don't necessarily mean anything but when put together forms a pattern I'm not super comfortable with? I do get the impression that show is well-meaning in terms of this stuff (QJ and LF especially point that way) but feel like it still fell down in a few places and could have done better with these aspects.

Lu Guang going back to save CXS confirmed. Admittedly I am incredibly biased to this type of plot, but I'm so glad they confirmed it. We haven't been given many specifics around when he went back from/to and I imagine we'll get more next season so I'm holding off judgement on all that for now (the paradox implications have me a bit worried but until we know more about the mechanics I can't judge). That said, I really liked the scene where it was comfirmed (the darkened shot of Lu Guang covered in blood my beloved) and am thinking that Qiao Ling having knowledge of Lu Guang's memories will mean she has to play a bigger role next season. There's no point in giving her that knowledge if it won't go somewhere. Relatedly, it seems like dying does pass on the powers and that's how we got LTX->QL and CXS->LG. It doesn't seem like Qiao Ling fully realises though if she has got Tianxi's powers (and it's been two months), but I suppose it's not exactly something you *would* realise if you didn't know what you were looking for or had previous experience with these powers.

I do genuinely think that this season was a case where the new characters were written around the existing ideas of the story and the themes which means they're interesting to analyse but I didn't feel like moments hit anywhere near as emotionally as season one? I think the parts where season two was able to approach season one's level of emotion were mainly around the twin's backstories. Meanwhile Qian Jin and Xiao Li's whole deal is interesting in theory but in practice I didn't have much reason to care for Xiao Li. Suffering to make the audience empathise only really "works" if there's more beyond that.

Lu Guang-Li Tianchen parallels make me sad. There are plenty of similarities in how they treat CXS and LTX respectively but I keep thinking of how their final choice in s2 is to either commit to preserving the past (Lu Guang with CXS) or to let go of the past (Li Tianchen with LTX and his mum). And how typically, clinging to the past is seen as a bad thing and letting it go a good thing. But in this case it's almost the opposite? I'm not saying it's healthy for Lu Guang to deny Cheng Xiaoshi's death, but I do think the story will eventually align behind him on this choice. And I think that Li Tianchen leaving the past behind in this case is more about trying to forget his trauma and in the process just digging himself deeper, deliberately choosing to forget the very person he fought to protect.

General s3 spec (keeping it brief). Li Tianchen confirmed that he obtained Liu Min's phone for Liu Xiao and it has info on it Liu Xiao needs but we still don't know what's on it beyond Qian Jin's comment about "family secrets". In terms of Liu Xiao himself, he didn't get much airtime but what he did have he made count. He mentioned about wanting to make "uncertainties into certainties" and the idea that there are "parallel lines". This pretty much sets him up against Lu Guang in terms of aim and seems to suggest our understanding of time travel mechanics is about to get a serious update next season. Also, the new "paranormal section of the police force" seems incredibly pointed. I don't really want it to get a huge focus honestly but with the way the scope has widened each season I don't think I'll get my wish.

#link click #link click spoilers #shiguang daili ren spoilers #long post #sorry I've just been sorta adding to this in a fugue state without checking any of the actual episodes for reference #so please forgive if my memory is blatantly lying to me. it does that.

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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 24 days

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Ranking the Warriors of other Worlds Death Battles:

//Recently, I ran a poll asking everyone in the audience what their favourite Death Battle to come out of the Warriors of Other World's arc was, and I'm grateful to all those who voted.

//So before I get into the purpose of this poll, I wanted to quickly announce the results of said poll, and go over the community ranking of the series. These are the fights from least popular to most popular with their final percentage of the votes.

9th Place: Seiko Vs Lizard - 1.3% Tied 8th Place: Peko Vs RHM & Sakura Vs Jonathan - 2.7% Tied 7th Place: Akane Vs Chie & Narumi Vs Toga - 4% 6th Place: Komaru Vs Katie - 5.3% 5th Place: Mukuro Vs Kayano - 6.7% 4th Place: Mikan Vs Fluttershy - 9.3% TIED 3RD PLACE: Junko Vs Monika & Kaede Vs Sara - 12% 2ND PLACE: Makoto Vs Phoenix - 16% 1ST PLACE: Hajime Vs Deku - 24%

//With all that being said, while I do appreciate the feedback, I do have my own personal takes on the matchups and how they actually turned out in the end. So I imagine people actually wanted to hear my thoughts and opinions.

//This arc ended up being even more successful than I thought it would, and that makes be pretty chuffed. I was excited for this, and based on the feedback, everyone else seems to like it a fair bit as well.

//So yeah, I will probably be doing this again in the future. I won't, or rather can't, say when exactly, but if this is a concept people can get behind, then there's no reason to end it here.

//That being said, while this is definitely a new style that I'm not used to, I definitely did my best with the writing of this fight, and having my friends IRL help me with the analyses was great. But there are some battles that turned out greater than others.

//So I'm gonna be ranking them, because I know some people really wanted to hear my own personal reflections and feedback on this event, and I'm more than happy to provide it. Going into it though, these are the criteria that I will be judging the final products on, and things to keep in mind.

This will mainly be judged on quality of the analysis, how deep it goes, and how good quality the fight turns out in the end.

Considering we remain unbiased to each fighter, the verdict does not wholly matter.

A lot of this will be judged on the matchup itself, how strong the connections are, and whether or not I would want to see it happen in the actual series.

This is my own personal opinion.

//Alright, without further ado, let's get ready for a RANKIIIING!

#12: PEKO VS RHM

//I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, this FUCKING SUCKED.

//So after I went back to polish and edit the original script to post on Tumblr, this fight and analysis ended up improving my opinion of it, and I don't HATE it anymore, but it still doesn't save it from being the worst matchup in this event by a long shot.

//First and foremost, the reason Right Hand Man ever ended up on Peko's list of combatants was honestly originally done as a joke. We found some loose connections, and decided that he could be a potentially interesting combatant to analyze if he DID win the vote.

//Which we were so damn wrong about.

//But he was by far the character on Peko's list of combatants that we were not only the least excited to do a battle for, but also the one that we least expected to win. But we figured out pretty quickly that he was picked due to the Henry Stickmin games being the most widely popular and well known at the time compared to Peko's other matchups.

//When I first ran the poll for people to vote for who wins this fight, it actually made me laugh to see Peko win the audience vote by a country mile, because to be perfectly frank, not only does this fight have the least amount of serious connections between the two fighters, but it's also the MOST one sided fight in the whole series.

//Sure, Mikan Vs Fluttershy was similarly one-sided against Mikan, but even Mikan Vs Fluttershy still has the benefit of the two characters being fundamentally similar in a way that gives them opportunity to interact.

//These two don't have that excuse because they have some of the most bare-bones personalities in their respective series. RHM is a one-dimensional jackass who's rude and hates everything, and there's no layers to him; not even a real name or a backstory. And while Survivor Peko definitely has grown from her canon iteration, she's still fundamentally a stone-faced warrior with little screen time to help improve upon that.

//And what makes it worse is that with that in mind, an analysis would mainly pertain to the characters unique abilities instead of their personalities and stories. But in that regard, RHM has so much to cover, and by comparison Peko has...NOTHING.

//She just has a sword, and if this was a battle between herself and another sword-user like Afro Samurai, it wouldn't be as much of a problem to cover it, since Afro also has limited weaponry. RHM however, is a machine of destruction with so many tools in his arsenal

//You'll notice that this is the shortest DB in the series because there's so little to actually cover and no way to drag it out in a way that's interesting. The saving grace is that the fight turned out to be alright in the end, but there was no way in a million years Peko was ever going to win this, and that upsets me immensely.

//I don't hold it against the voters obviously, since we were the ones who put the damn stick figure on the list in the first place, but this was not the right call in the end, and I regret it.

#11: MAKOTO VS PHOENIX

//Haha jokes on you muppets, I put your second favorite second from the bottom!

//Why? Well, no reason really! I just...kinda got bored of it?

//This fight has far more connections than Number 12, but still, it didn't turn out to be the spectacle I'd hoped it would be. It turned out to be really hard to portray Phoenix and Makoto in a hostile setting where they're at each other's throats and trying to kill each other. Upon reflection, I think this fight turned out ok, but it still could have been leagues better.

//If actual DB ever decided to do this, I imagine they'd do it better, but also they wouldn't use Survivor Makoto, so I doubt he would really win.

//The analysis was fine, but again, this being the first chapter in the series, it's really supposed to set a boundary of quality more than anything, and every episode that comes after it, save for Peko Vs RHM, just turned out to be so much better. And keeping both of them within character while also making them try to murder each other was far more difficult than it should have been.

#10: SAKURA VS JONATHAN

//The best part about this fight was that I genuinely wasn't expecting Sakura to win going into it. And the fact that she was the first actual fighter who won her battle made a lot of people very happy. Aside from that, there's not much to say here.

//It's a very standard fist fight between two beefy people. and honestly, I feel that Jonathan, as much as I love JoJo, was among the opponents I DIDN'T really want to cover.

//And while I know I said I wasn't taking the verdict into account, part of me is not wholly sure our judgement on this one was correct, and we were worried about facing backlash, but fortunately, everyone seemed to agree with our reasoning in the end.

//But other than that, while there is style, there's little substance. Analyzing both these characters was fine, but not something I remember being that exciting. Similarly to Peko Vs RHM, Jonathan is capable of so much with Hamon, and Sakura is just a regular fighter who turns out to be super duper powerful, but describing her techniques was a bit of a chore.

//What was nice was explaining how the functionalities of breathing work in a fight. That was pretty fun.

//But yeah, while I don't dislike this matchup at all, I still feel like both characters have far better matchups that can happen instead of each other.

#9: KAEDE VS SARA

//Given that she's hands down my favorite character, I was super disappointed with how Kaede's episode turned out.

//Part of it was because we were fully prepared for Kotone to end up winning the poll, but right at the VERY LAST SECOND, Sara swept it out from under her. So we ended up abandoning our planned script and instead rewrote about half of it to make up for it.

//That, and I unfortunately did not time this release well. This fight dropped IMMEDIATELY after Kaede achieved her latest and greatest feat in Survivor, and it made it clear to everybody that she had this one in the bag. Of course, that chapter and this fight were all pre-planned, so I can assure you that it's not unfair or cheating, and Kaede would have won regardless of whether she had taken down Himiko's robot or not. Even still, I do realize just how cheap it might seem from an outside perspective, and I acknowledge this, but trust me when I say that this was little more than poor planning on my part.

//But weirdly enough, what I enjoyed so much about this part wasn't analyzing Kaede. It was analyzing SARA.

//Going into it, we all knew that Kaede was going to win, because she's insanely powerful in DR Survivor, and against Sara, we never thought she was ever going to stack up.

//But our expectations were rather subverted when we started doing the analysis for her. While we were right in that Sara didn't have what it took to beat Kaede, we were pleasantly surprised by how much she DID have going for her, and how squaring up to the Ultimate Pianist turned out not to be such a pipe dream.

//One other issue I have with this part of the series is how much both characters analyses focused on their STORIES more than their capabilities in a fight, but again, like Peko, Kaede's lineup of abilities is rather straightforward and simple, and there wasn't any need to discuss the functionalities of the hacking gun, since Komaru Vs Katie already went very deep into that, and repeating it immediately afterwards was pointless.

//And as someone who loves writing Kaede, it became very difficult to have her and Sara interact in a way that was interesting without breaking character for either of them. The final result and the way they were both portrayed wasn't exactly what I wished for, even if it was...acceptable. It was just very hard to imagine how a fight would start out between them, given that both are very logical and try to assess a situation before deciding to leap into battle, so we were forced to get a little OOC.

//But while it could have been better, what we ended up putting together was pretty fun in the end, so it gets a little higher than some of the previous matchups.

#8: AKANE VS CHIE

//The reason why this fight ends up in the lower half of the countdown is because a lot of the actual fight is just Akane and Chie smacking each other. Chie uses her spells sparingly and there's not much substance to their actual duel.

//But the thing is that it's perfectly in character for both of them, so it's not really a good idea to change that aspect.

//Akane is already a character who I wasn't looking forward to analyzing, since while I don't HATE her, I certainly don't like her as much as ANYONE else in her home game. And a lot of it, for both of them, was going to pertain to their abilities more than their personality and history, since Akane is very one-dimensional, and Chie is a very standard character as well.

//But this was the first fight where I really felt like we were making something special, and again, while I said the verdict does not ultimately affect my ranking, this one is an exception, since I was VERY surprised that Akane pulled out the win.

//I'm GLAD. But surprised.

//Especially given how much people were underestimating Akane prior to the release of the fight, it was fun to see people react to Akane actually beating a character who comes from a series full of infinitely powerful magic users, since I, and everyone else, really underestimated how ridiculous Danganronpa scaling could be.

//And this was the fight that I think got a lot of people hooked on the concept, so I'm grateful that we ended up doing it. If either of these characters ever got into DB, which is quite unlikely, this is a matchup I would really like to see.

#7: MIKAN VS FLUTTERSHY

//Say hello to the thing that made me a Brony.

//Yeah, I had a LOT of fun with this one. I already knew that My Little Pony's lore ran deeper than it really should, especially with the latest DB season running Bill Cipher VS Discord, and I had guessed in advance that Fluttershy would somehow end up taking this.

//The fight is incredibly one-sided, even though neither Fluttershy, nor Mikan are really "fighters" per se. Given the fact that Fluttershy has access to so much powerful magic, there wasn't any way that Mikan could contend with it.

//Even so, the reason why this ended up being a rich man's version of Peko Vs RHM is that Mikan not only has so many more gadgets to work with, but both these characters have interesting, cute and well-made personalities that clash with each other PERFECTLY.

//Of every fight in this arc, this one is the one I feel has the most interaction potential. And in my mind, that tea party absolutely happened when Mikan broke out of that stone.

//When this fight won the poll, I wasn't particularly happy at first, and I still think Medic would have made for a more interesting fight, but I ended up falling in love with this one more than I meant to, especially with how much I learned about My Little Pony, and how much fun I had explaining the lore and scaling of Fluttershy.

#6: MUKURO VS KAYANO

//I had this one a lot lower originally, but when I went back to edit it and reread it, I fell in love with this one all over again.

//Danganronpa and Assassination Classroom have always been fundamentally similar stories, and not just because Monokuma and Korosensei are in similar positions in both.

//This fight was less of an argument between who would win between Mukuro Ikusaba and Kaede Kayano, and more of an argument between Danganronpa and Assassination Classroom, and which one has the more crazy scaling. And it was a BLAST.

//This is one of the few examples in this arc where both fighters are fundamentally similar and formidable warriors, in a way that I felt was akin to Black Widow VS Widowmaker, which to this day, is still one of my top DB episodes.

//And originally, this fight was going to be similar to that Assassin V Assassin fight, but factoring in Mukuro's Battle Trance and Kayano's tentacles, this was going to get anime as fuck at some point, and it did, and I really enjoyed it.

//Mukuro losing kind of sucked, but it didn't affect my enjoyment.

//And while I fully expected Reze to win the poll, given Chainsaw Man's popularity, I think that this is genuinely Mukuro's best potential matchup if she ever became a canon Death Battle character. And you know what? I'd actually like to see it.

#5: NARUMI VS TOGA

//So this was the first fight where I actually thought to myself, "yep, this one is my favourite."

//And as mentioned in the episode itself, we had FAR MORE trouble analyzing this fight than we thought, and we honestly didn't know if Narumi had it in her to beat Toga. It was only after hours of deliberating and getting all our facts together that we decided on a verdict.

//Toga being able to survive explosions that happened INSIDE her body as a result of her fight against Curious was the biggest outlier for us, and we read over everything that both these girls had done before we decided our final victor. And it was a fun ride throughout.

//Especially because I never quite realized just how many connections there were between Narumi and Toga, not even the fact that they're both yandere's for the main protagonist of their series.

//But the fun part was seeing how their own unique styles of fighting, which are REMARKABLY different, stacked up against each other. This fight will never happen, since Narumi Osone was never an official DR character, but if Survivor was canon, I'd love to see it. I've thought of some matchups for Narumi since, but Toga still retains her crown as the one with the most connections.

//Some of the later episodes dethroned it, obviously, but it's still one of my favourites, kicking off the top 5.

#4: JUNKO VS MONIKA

//I was really really worried that this finale was going to suck, and I'm super glad that it didn't. It was by far the most difficult matchup to write because we wanted to make it a spectacle, but were struggling on ways to do that.

//What made it so difficult was the analysis portion, not the fight, and the reason for that is because this is a composite version of Junko, which means we have to go over EVERYTHING she has across the whole series. And given the fact that Junko pops up in basically EVERY ONE of the series iterations, that's a LOT. Monika, in contrast, does not have NEARLY that much, so a lot of her analysis, at least in the beginning, details her origin story, then breaks down her powers and what she can do with it.

//And learning about the actual lore of how DDLC came to be in-universe was super fun actually.

//This was also probably the most even fight in the series, barring one particular fight that we'll get to next, for obvious reasons. Even if the setup is a little convoluted, it's not hard to imagine that someone like Monika could exist in the world of DR Survivor, especially given that there's already a chunky handful of AI characters in the main cast. And in the case of her and AI Junko, when they are at their best, they can both manipulate space and time in the digital world they live in to such an extent that stats practically mean nothing. The real fight comes down to which one of them is the more parasitic AI, just like in canon episode, Ultron VS Sigma.

//And that's what I think really sold this one for me - the fight, and the way it turned out. Junko was smarter, stronger, and generally had so many legs up on Monika that makes it almost impossible to beat her normally, but she didn't have the advantage in the ONE deciding factor that dictated this fight.

//And I think there's something really ironic about that, especially considering that's typically how Junko's plans fall apart in Danganronpa. The only reason that anyone ever beats her despite being so cartoonishly powerful is simply by never giving up, and exploiting the one weakness she has. Something that Monika does professionally.

//So while I do prefer Junko Vs Springtrap as a concept that I would like to see, this one turned out to be way more fun than I thought it would, and I'm glad we did it.

#3: KOMARU VS KATIE

//There's really not much to say about this one, it's just a fun time. But that's what you should expect when you put the goofiest protag herself against the protag of the Mitchell's Vs the Machines.

//Katie's analysis is one of the best in this series, and one of the most fun I had writing. Komaru's isn't AS good, but I still think both were solid sequences detailing the characters and their stories, even if in Komaru's case, it had to be cut a little to go over the important origin points.

//But the very obvious reason why this fight and its conclusion ended up being so good was obviously because of the verdict, and what we broke down in the conclusion. In that from the feats we see of them, Komaru and Katie are fighters on a near equal level, to the point where it's hard to know for sure which one of them could win if they did fight. Thus, it ended up as a draw.

//And I think that's a really solid way to conclude this thing. Both are (originally) gun-wielding teenage girls fighting against a robot apocalypse, with their stories throughout the entire series putting a heavy emphasis on family, and the importance of it. In a way, that makes these two perfect opponents for one another, and the way this fight ended up portraying that in the end was pretty fun to watch.

//And the interaction potential as a result leaves very little to be desired. Their personalities clash perfectly, as do their goofy little quirks and interactions, and the fight itself was also fun, especially with how it takes them across the city scape and forcing both of them to get creative, something they both excel at.

//Like I said, there's not much to say here. This one was just super fun and I like how it turned out.

#2: SEIKO VS LIZARD

//So you know how only like, one person voted this one as their favorite one? Yeah, fuck the rest of you, lol.

//This battle gets my verdict for biggest surprise of the series. Because this one turned out amazing and I didn't believe it would.

//I might have mentioned this before, but originally, the 10th battle in the original lineup was going to be Kuripa, but he was swapped out for Seiko last minute. This is because Kuripa still has some more insane feats on the way in future arcs when he makes his grand return, and I wanted to save his fight for a potential future season lineup.

//Seiko was a GREAT substitute though, especially with her fight against Kanade in the main series coming shortly before this. And weirdly, from both the analysis, to each characters similarities and stories, to how an actual fight between them would go, all of it FUCKS HARD!

//One thing you might have noticed with the lineup of this arc is I really really REALLY wanted to avoid putting any Marvel characters in the polls. The simple reason being that Marvel and DC are so drastically fucking overdone in Death Battle, and I didn't think anyone would want to see it in this because I know I certainly wouldn't.

//This however, turned out to be a GREAT exception. If Lizard ever got into Death Battle, there's quite a few opponents he could go up against; Man-Bat being his biggest contender IMO, but Seiko, I think, is an underrated alternative.

//The big thing that sells this fight for me is that it somehow succeeds at being both a Brains Vs Brawn battle, AS WELL AS a feral monster battle. As mentioned in the post-analysis, Seiko's genius with medicine is so potent, it's not impossible that she could have fashioned a cure for Connors, especially since unlike him, her bestial form still retains some of her humanity. But not only was Connors just too insanely powerful compared to her, he actually had the means to COUNTER this weakness!

//Connors winning was pretty obvious, considering Marvel scaling gets insane, and he was several hundred times more powerful than Seiko, but even so, this fight didn't feel totally lame and one-sided, likely because even though they take different forms, both characters had strikingly similar abilities and feats.

//And one thing everybody knew going into this that I'm so glad we were able to deliver for this was this fight needed to be VISCIOUS. It's basically the epitome of two mutant monsters trying to tear each other to shreds, very much like Beast VS Goliath or Sabrewulf VS Jon Talbein, and the sewer system made for an appropriate and gritty setting.

//This was certainly the most pleasant surprise of the series, and had it not been for one little thing, this would have EASILY been my favourite fight.

//That one thing being...

#1: HAJIME VS DEKU

//I mean...COME ON! How could it NOT be!?

//This is my most wanted Death Battle of all time, and it seems to be the most wanted for the voting audience as well, since it won the poll in an ABSOLUTE LANDSLIDE!

//And unlike the other top spots on the community poll, this is the one that we all actually agree on.

//Not just because Hajime would hands down be the best Danganronpa character to premiere in Death Battle (besides maybe Junko), but personally, Deku VS Asta, Deku's canon episode, left a lot to be desired. It feels like the team were trying to ham up the fact that they were finally getting Deku in Death Battle, but then put him against a super mediocre opponent with surface level connections

//The way THESE TWO contrast though? It runs a LOT DEEPER than that.

//Hajime and Deku's stories are basically the exact same. The only difference is the story beats and the outcome, with Deku's story being that of a rising hero, and Hajime's being a fallen hero. And as a massive fan of both Danganronpa and My Hero Academia, it was my duty to make certain that this one turned out the best it could be.

//Which is the reason why this is so goddamn long. In an actual Death Battle episode, a lot of this important info would be reserved for the black boxes, but since we don't have those, we went over BASICALLY EVERYTHING. And what helped with it is that both characters have deep lore, interesting personalities, awesome powers, and everything we could possibly need to rant on for ages without seeming contrived or bored.

//Essentially, it's the complete reverse of Peko VS RHM, where both characters have abundant content and character, as opposed to basically no content or character. Aside from that, there are three big reasons why this is my favourite one of the lot.

//Exhibit A: Symbol of Hope.

//Up until this point, I have never brought up the music tracks for these battles, simply because, like early DB, a lot of them aren't original music composed for the specific matchups, being either a random video game music track, fan song, or a commissioned matchup track by Brandon Yates, and some of them work better than others (personally hated the Mikan Vs Fluttershy one, but I legit had no other option when it came to a gritty, despairing track that also featured chipper-ass MLP.

//Symbol of Hope is one of the commissioned Brandon Yates tracks that wasn't made for an actual DB episode, but it's one of his best tracks ever. If I have anything to be concerned about, the lyrics of Symbol of Hope contrast quite heavily to the theme of the actual battle we presented, where in the song, Hajime and Deku seem to be at odds with one another, fighting for the same reasons, but are against each other because of their different philosophies. I think this is pretty realistic though, and it doesn't take away from the fact that I still love the track. Plus, it's pretty long, which is good because this fight is also pretty long.

//Exhibit B: Character interactions and dynamic.

//Speaking of which, in this battle, Deku and Hajime's dynamic in this episode is mainly inspired by All Might VS Might Guy, Goku VS Superman 3 and Saitama VS Popeye; kind of a mesh between the three. Throughout most of their fight, Deku's main goal isn't just to win the fight, but it's also to show Hajime the respect he deserves, and give him a battle to remember. Hajime, who doesn't take Deku seriously at first, going along with it for the sake of appealing to this kid, eventually starts to break out into a joyous sweat when Deku raises the stakes and starts fighting him on an equal level; something that Hajime has never gotten in his life since becoming an Ultimate Hope, not even from the likes of Fujimori or Komaeda, other Ultimate Hope's.

//Having Deku's optimism break through Hajime's apathy, even though it costs him the fight, turned out to be a heartwarming, fun ending, and a great way to end the semi-final match.

//And exhibit C: their powers and abilities.

//Analyzing the full potential of One For All and the full potential of the Ultimate Hope was AMAZING, especially given how much we needed to consider for the verdict. As we mentioned, and we stand by this, it's likely that Deku at his full potential is actually physically stronger than Ultimate Hope Hajime, even though his strength is supposed to be the peak of humanity.

//But even if that is the case, there's still the powers themselves to consider, Ultimate Luck being a VERY big caveat to take into account, but the fight we ended up coming up with showed off basically all their abilities and powers without being too weirdly contrived, and I absolutely dig it.

//If there are any issues with this, it's that the setting can be a little confusing, that much I am aware of. Halfway through the fight, it's revealed that Hajime and Deku are fighting in the Neo World because their power threatens to create potential world destruction if they clash, but since all these fights are taking place in a simulation already, it left a few people confused about the situation and...yeah I didn't really think that through, I'm sorry about that one.

//But yeah, that doesn't take away from how much I enjoyed this one, and it's easily my top pick for this arc.

-Mod

#danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #death battle #warriors of other worlds arc #ranking

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cherrysoulth · 1 year

Text

LOVE MAZE

🌹Story written for @sunkissedwriter as part of the BangtanWHQ Valentine’s Event “Picture Perfect” 🌹

I hope you can enjoy it ❤️

💕Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

✏️Genre/au: Supernatural, Vampire AU, Canon, Friends to Lovers, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to lovers, Angst

✏️Rating: PG 18+, explicit

📝Wordcount: 4756

⚠️Warnings: Mind games, blood, (almost) smut.

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Hii! Did you stumble across this work? Glad you're here 😊 Please, let me know your thoughts once you are finished. Feedback keeps me motivated to write 😁

This one-shot is inspired in What Hides in The Shadows series.

Note that English is not my first language, so please if you find grammar mistakes, let me know. :)

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It feels as if you never really met him as a child. As if those memories you have of his tender smile as you played in the swings at the park near your houses -neighbours since you could make use of memory- weren't real. As if the times he made an elephant out of pulling his arm skin in between his moles, had just been a product of your imagination. As if it was just something you once dreamed and then woke up to a much cruel reality.

The mirror in front of you reflected an image you never thought you would see. Your hands had stopped their work with the brush, as your eyes finally caught it for your brain to process. No longer oblivious to the artform enhancing your traits. No longer detached from the situation. No longer making you see your own face through the parts you were working on with the products, instead of the whole picture. You looked like you had travelled centuries back - to an era so different from today, you couldn't even fully grasp its perks- and you were stunning.

The mask you were meant to wear, hung at your left, at the edge of the triptych mirror, and you glanced at it once more, admiring its beautiful venetian style. It only covered the upper part of your demeanour, but you had painted that part too, as it's usual; matching colours with it. The gown you still had to put on, lyed flat over the bed, in that room. A guest room that appeared more like a presidential suit, if you were asked.

The thing was, that the place was, indeed, a hotel once but it was so long ago you wouldn't have known if not told so. The old fashioned building had survived generations in the host's family and was being used as a Manor for more than a century.

The whole building was taken care of thoroughly and any reforms ever made respected the main structure of the building. So you had been told by Taehyung, once you both were able to understand such things. The few times you had stayed, the building itself was the last of your interests. What it contained, however, was a subject of exploration for hours with him; hiding in the broom closets all the way up the stairs or in one of the many rooms, was your favourite game.

Now, you could only wonder what the cost of the room you had always wanted to stay in would have been if the business was open to the public. Victorian styled, originals, are not at the hand of just anyone in this century (not that they were before), especially with such preservation. They looked as if they were brand new, properly varnished and cleaned to keep them going. Like you had just travelled some centuries back, feeling like you were about to come across some viscount or duchess in the halls, on your way to the main hall.

Standing from the vanity you near the bed and undo the silk robe that hugs your body. The golden silk bodice underneath will be the perfect match for the dress in front of you. If someone is to see it.

There’s no expectations from you, or so you tell yourself. But for the gods if you haven’t been tormented by him even in your dreams for the past few months. Ever since you mocked his -what you thought was a joke- comment and fake-scenario about vampires, he seems to haunt you. And for some reason, it brought back feelings you thought you left behind as you became a fully grown adult, away from him.

Those dreams your hormonal teenage self once had about him, the once that made you unable to look him in the eye in the morning, were back with his adult form. Then, you would wake up grunting, not wanting his ministrations to stop, feeling your skin spoiled by his touch even when your eyes were fully open. Even his scent would linger in your memory for a moment or two before reality would fall over you like an ice cube. Then you would feel lonely, realising those things would not turn into reality. He would never be yours. For your friendship's sake.

However, that wasn't the only theme of them, and it was the times he would walk away from you or just stay within your grasp that made you feel under his spell. Those times you couldn't touch him and he would just look at you, were more shameful than the times he did touch you.

Your perfectly curled hair bounced once you shook your head to brush off the idea again. The dreams, yes, they were an obvious haunt from your subconscious since he did seem offended after your comment. You couldn’t quite tell it by his expression but there was a sort of shift, in his energy, that told you so. You thought maybe you had used the wrong tone, or maybe the whole sentence itself had been offensive towards his subject of enthusiasm. However your own mind decided to torment you for such a minimal instance, it was absurd to think he was, in fact, also hunting you in your awakened state. Any looks you had caught him giving you, had to be a casualty. It simply made no sense otherwise.

But, oh, how you wish they weren’t. Completely captivated by him, against your own wishes. It’s like he’s some sort of magnet and when he vibrates, he attracts everything around him. It really doesn’t only fall on his charms or how attractive and handsome he is. There’s something else you can’t quite grasp.

It is as you daydream of him again that you swear you can see his reflection through the corner of your eye. But again, when you look directly, the room remains as you last saw it. No signs of anyone else but you being there.

You sigh and take the dress against your chest, thoughtful. You should talk to him.

When you first saw him at the office, you almost choked.

You had been working for the abroad branch of the enterprise for two years and never once had you guessed he was your boss. The truth was, he was using a different name then, one that didn't relate him to his family.

You thought it was to make something for himself but it wasn’t until some time after the party that you understood the real reason why.

It felt paranoid but you could swear he was avoiding you.

You had recognised his frame a few times between the attendants, yet had no way to get near him to even thank him for the invitation. As if everyone around was working in unison to keep him out of reach: a waiter passing right in front of you when you were a few steps away from him, then he disappeared; someone talking to you when you spotted him again, to lose his track once you looked at the direction he was in just seconds before. It made you grow anxious somehow. Unfinished business has never sat well with you and your being doesn't really contain patience. Wanting to get your apology through and maybe have it accepted but being unable to fulfil that duty to yourself, it's unsettling.

The seventh time you spotted him, he raised his flute of rosy champagne to offer a toast and officially open the night festivities since all the guests had arrived.

There was a dance, one that you had been taught until memorising, at the office. But knowing how dancers had to pass around so everyone danced with everyone. Something switched on the dance steps and you felt like you had missed a step when you were two hands away from reaching Taehyung's. Your dancing partner spined you around and sent you to another dancer you had already linked fingers with. However the room looked organised, and no one would suspect at the first view that something had been changed. Except you definitely did. Was he trying to avoid you?

Then the time to start the game at the maze came and you felt apprehensive as you stepped in the back gardens.

It was just as extensive as you remembered it, not just an illusion of the much tinier being you once were. God, how many years had passed? It definitely felt like a lifetime ago.

In the dark, it was made to look worse than your memory recalled. At the naked eye, one couldn't really figure out its end with the low light the stars offered outside. There was something odd, maybe years finally catching up to that one space, its view seemed ghostly, full of shadows, and somehow supernatural. Cinism trying to kill the sort of dread it inspired, drawing a snarl in your face. Your best guess was it had been done to follow whatever theme the party was inspired by. Vampires, it seemed: for how some people even dared to put on fake fangs. Still, no matter how much you told yourself that, you felt unsettled.

When the rules of the game were announced out loud by your host, although it’s harmless nature, tension settled in your stomach. You were meant to try and find two victims inside the maze and bring their blood to him.

“By blood, dear guests, I mean two copies of this beautiful necklace…” he showed it in his hand letting the big ruby hang from its red silk cord next to the lampost at his side - since he was standing tall over the stone railing of the terrace-, “that I have in my hand,” he added dramatically. “Those who find them. Can keep them.” his singsong tone, somehow, accelerated your pulse again. A bunch of 'woes' were heard in the crowd but you chuckled, cynicism again making you look unimpressed.

His eyes seemed to settle on you for a second before he gave further instruction and everyone started to calmly go down the stairs, to the walkways leading to the tall walled labyrinth.

It was then, as you let everyone walk past you, seeing him get down and put his hands over the stones forming the classy structure, that you dared to approach again. He watched everyone lead their way to the many entrances.

“Miss, ______!” he said before even turning a bit to see you, startling you for a second. “I hope you are enjoying the party. You look lovely in that dress.” You could master a bow, lacking words to express yourself now that you were finally in his presence. “Won’t you join the competition? Is it the price not alluring enough?” he said and you could swear there was a felt offence in his words.

“No… I mean-Yes. Yes, the prize is more than interesting to go for but I was hoping to apologise for my words the other day I-'' you stuttered, so unlike yourself in his presence that you questioned for a moment if you were not just dreaming. Even with your crush on him, you had always been able to talk to him, easily.

“You don’t believe in vampires. I think it’s acceptable. I don’t think there’s anything to apologise for when you expressed your own opinion, _______. You know I always appreciate your honesty, ” he conceded. Yet you felt even more nervous. The sultriness in his tone felt like some sort of mocking he just let out with the most polite and single-meaning words. “Now, you must follow the crowd, or you might lose your chance!” he invites, expressing with his hand towards the stairs.

There’s no sane way to understand what happened at the party and still in your dress, you let yourself fall over the bed of your hotel. Unable to close your eyes, unable to put your mind to rest as all the memories of the night come back rushing to your brain. Still unable to understand fully what has happened. Your eyes are itchy with tears but your emotions don't seem to come to life to avoid them to fall or to make them do, all together.

Alone, you walked through the alleys of the maze, with an old looking lamp in your hand. The orange bulb illuminated just enough to be able to see your feet and two feet in front of you but not much more. And it was this solitude and lack of view that made you grow anxious by the second. At that point you were sure your muscles would be sore the next day, with how tense you felt yourself.

That, and the sudden fog that seemed to be sliding underneath the green walls that keep leading you to nowhere, made you want to step back and give up your chance of winning. Completely failing your personality again. Fog, in summer. Something felt wrong. As if someone was waiting at the next corner to give you a jumpscare. Yet when you turned slowly, ready to spook back, there was only more blackness in front of you.

You knew you should have come across someone by then, at least, with what you guessed had been a really long time walking through, it made sense. You could hear others talk but they seemed to be always far, as if they were moving with a kept distance. Never able to make sense of what they are saying but some seem to call each other playfully with singsong voices before they giggled. You wished you had someone with you.

Exasperation grew as you heard the whistle for a winner back in the terrace. It was far, you could tell, when the voices seemed to go quiet with the announcement. Then the chatter resumed. Exhausted, you took the wrong step as you turned your back to the house again, and stripped at the end of your dress, also scratching your knee. You hissed in pain and sat on the floor placing the lamp next to you in order to see the gravity of the injury.

It bled, not extremely, but you didn’t have anything to tend it with. As you used the inner fabric to brush off any dust from it, as an ultimate source, you realised the utter silence. Except for the decisive steps that come your way, as the fog started surrounding you in that area too, you couldn't even hear the cheering that had been going on back in the house a second ago.

“I heard you hiss,” said a lady as she came closer with her own lamp, out of the corner, “oh dear, are you ok?” she asked gently, once she finally saw you on the floor.

When she leaned down, however, to look at the wound, the light of the lamp reflected weirdly against her eyes and your first reaction was to back off from her.

She smirked, showing those fangs some of them were wearing. You were impressed, guessed they were custom made for how well they latched to their own. They looked natural, as if they were just coming out of her gums. Then, when she took a step further, although you didn't consciously perceive anything, adrenaline had its own hold and you were running in the opposite direction, hissing slightly as soon as you were out of reach. You heard her laugh humorously and say something about the necklace. Then you realised it. Putting your fingers over your collarbones, there it was, the collar left to find. Although you never remember having put it on or someone doing so.

Having put some distance between you and the treasure hunter, you tried to be cautious and move with stealth. Suddenly, a hand closed over your mouth, causing a muffled shriek, and pulled you towards one of the walls before two men walked through the parallel passage. Then you realised they would have seen you at that corner.

When you turned your face there he was: Taehyung. His long digits still against your lips as he shushed you silently putting a finger over his lips. He used that same hand to turn off your light. It took you a long few seconds to adjust to the natural light. Then you understood. The lights were meant to blind, not to help follow the lead. When he made sure no one was around he shushed you silently again and you nodded before he freed your mouth to speak. However, the hand that he had used to disable the device, surrounded your waist, demanding how far you could get from him; keeping your back against his chest.

Not having been this close to him in years, you started to be aware of how warm and formed his body was. His scent filled your nostrils and sent a whole rush of sensations through your nervous system.

His breath felt warm on your neck and against your best judgement, your body responded pressing closer to him. He let out a low grunt that set your hairs on end and made your hands close over the fabric of his arms -where you grabbed for balance-. Your knees felt weak and you knew you would give in if he decided to follow the need you felt in his pants against your asscheeks. Although your first instinct was to rub it, you took the smart decision and pulled away.

Face to face, his eyes looked at you differently and his breath was shallow. He didn’t look at you as he normally would, he looked worked up, as if he was going to jump on top of you at any second. Again, your body was on its own and responded with arousal, making you clench around nothing. He sniffed the air for a second and a low grunt escaped through his closed mouth as he closed his eyes. Shaken, you took a step back in hopes to meet a surface to take hold onto, maybe looking for something to distract you or simply a place to grasp reality. Your back met the other wall but nothing came with it.

He seemed to regain his composure, if only to stand tall and look at you from above, as he advanced the distance between your bodies. His forehead meets yours before he brushes his nose with yours, making you close your eyes to the tender gesture. "I still wonder when we stopped being close…" he mutters and his face moves down to sneak under your nose. His lips are soft, gentle and barely a brush before he is pressing his body impossibly close to you again; growling as he demands for you to open your lips with his. At this point, conscience be damned.

He makes you moan the moment his tongue explores the depths of your mouth and the way he grinds against you with a whine, pools your panties instantly. Then you feel the pain of a needle against your lower lip and gasp, making him separate from you, eyes looking at it. You feel the taste of metal instantly.

“I think I missed a couple of points when talking about vampires the other day…” he says, licking your blood at the end of his fang. His tone is neutral but the way he cages your body against the wall now feels suffocating. His face snaking at your side, in what you perceive as an approach to talk against your ear, making your skin crawl. “I am one.” His voice is so quiet you wouldn’t have heard him if he wasn’t this close.

This time, your answer takes a second to come out and you hear the crack in your voice; even though your rational mind is calling all of the charade 'straight up bullshit', something he'll break out of character and start laughing about. “Sure. You are funny, Taehyung-aah. Are you going to bite me then?”

He stays neutral as you expose your neck mockingly, against your best judgement. “Yes.”

He didn't even give you the time to assimilate his tone when his fangs buried in your throat at the left. The reaction to it, came to you like a mix of feelings above the pain itself. The pain somehow, unbelievably, rested as a distant sensation. Fear was what predominated. Intense and piercing through you, dense in your veins while your body tried to go on fight mode. Which you found to be useless under his grasp. So strong it only instigated a second rush of fear, fully understanding the risk to your life. But there was also a strong feeling of irrationality, when you first tried to understand the situation. Never in a million years would you have thought you would be bitten by another human. Let alone your childhood best friend.

The feeling of betrayal came next. Invited and allegedly safe under your old friend's protection who had become the perpetrator. Sadness, for the one hidden feeling of admiration you had for who was now attacking you. A sense of being profaned, violated, used against your will which led to the tears and a first sob.

By then, he had already let you go, looking at you with those eyes that shone sky blue in the darkness. Even more shinny with the tears that pooled his waterline while drying the remains of the essence of your vitality from his lips with his sleeve.

Then you ran. Without giving a second glance, frantic, missing the silent silhouettes lurking in the shadows that soon would appear to scare you and make you change your directions until you were out of the labyrinth.

Nothing mattered more than to put distance between you and him; passing the manor through a side path.

The train is busy at this time of the day but being between this many people, although making you feel at a chance of anonymity, doesn’t allow you to fully perceive who may be watching and that just keeps you on alert. Still unable to sleep.

You feel somehow drowsy and things around you change speed without warning, sometimes they happen really fast and others so slow you can capture details that you would have never done before. The smells too, come at you overwhelmingly and your stomach won't stop turning. You think it’s probably the insomnia and your body finally connecting to give results for the exhaustion. But…

It feels strange.

Your body should be looking for another source of energy, such as food. Yet you are not exactly hungry. Just really, really thirsty.

You don’t even remember how you got home. It’s all in a blurr. Or straight up erased from your memory. One thing is clear, Taehyung hasn't followed you.

But he has left a message. The audacity.

-When you are ready, come to the Manor. Stay safe.-

Taehyung

You chuckle as you reread it, letting your body fall over the fluff of your bed. Finally safe in the open space of your studio apartment. The naked walls and the simplicity of your undeclared, temporary place, have never felt more comfortable. Then your breath falters and a low sob escapes your mouth before you cover it. Tears follow and you finally give in to your sorrow. How could he do this to you?

Your fingers reach for the place where you have a plaster. It doesn't hurt anymore.

It feels like you have slept for years. Your mouth feels cottoned but although you follow your morning routine, at 1 a.m. that it is, your water intake doesn’t seem to satiate you.

Five days since his attack and the only thing you have been doing is squirm in pain during the day and feel like your whole body is breaking at night. Sleeping hasn’t sorted anything and finally you understand you might have caught a disease from the bite.

You tell yourself you will go to the doctor first thing in the morning. Just a little bit of sleep until the sun comes out.

Your eyes remain drawing invisible lines in the ceiling.

You look at your kitchen counters as you sit on the floor against the oven, now warm with a veggie lasagna cooking in it. You have eaten so much in the last few hours and meet the bathroom just as many that you are straight up in shock.

At this point, you are pretty sure you are dying. There’s no way your body can process this way, not so fast, not healthily. It’s impossible.

The oven bell rings.

You wake up under your bed. The only place that seems to bring some comfort to your pounding head as the day goes by. Photophobia sucks! If you didn’t know better you would have read your conditions as a hangover.

Then, as you come out of your hiding spot, sun finally giving you reds to see through the window, you realise what’s happening. Or has happened.

You decide, under the bed is where you want to live from now on. Looking at the front with bulged eyes, shutting down your thoughts in a way you have never been able to before.

“Thank you, miss!” says the man at the other side of the counter as you walk out with your bag.

Through the streets you see nobody, your target is fixated, only one face in your vision camp and two boxes of ammo to fill his bloody body with. The train awaits.

You are surprised to find the manor apparently empty. The silence is so extreme you can hear your own inner sounds. You hate it. The whole thing.

Being so perceptive makes you sensitive to any changes and you can even hear the cockroaches walking underneath the floor now. It's disgusting. But extremely useful.

You can hear their heartbeats. Come out, come out, wherever you are… You aim against one of the doors with your semi-automatic handgun and shoot. All the heartbeats around you accelerate but no one makes a sound. All, except for one.

The one you can hear going down the main stairs calmly, without even a change of breath.

When his perfectly suited body appears at the turn of the stares you aim at him but he still doesn't change his neutral expression. His heart does not respond. It angers you.

But when you aim at his leg and try to pull the trigger, the order dies in your nervous system.

You fight internally for it to happen but the only thing that does is your hand and body shaking through the effort.

"It's useless," he points out, still neutral.

"What have you done to me!?" you protest, still making efforts.

"You can't hurt your maker, ______."

The anger now blinds you, the lack of control over your emotions is now just your day to day. It guides your soul. Pins you to states that you would have binned easily in the past. The gun meets the floor and before he can blink you are over him.

Your fangs bury in his throat and you swallow, clearly intended. If I can't kill you, the blood loss will. But he remains calm. He lets you. You know he could stop you. Hell if you don't. But he just stays still as you take a first swallow.

With it, everything in you seems to find peace and sense, as if the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. But one single feeling remains, sadness. A grieve you have never experienced before. Aware that no matter what you do next, those two kids that were friends in the past, no longer exist.

Only a second swallow is bearable, or the need to cry only allows so much, and you let him go. Letting your forehead meet his shoulder you cry uncontrollable grabbing on his jacket like your life depends on it.

"You know now, don't you?" he questions.

"I do." you say pained.

Then the Shadow Nights happened and by the end you felt like there was no humanity left in you.

Broken. Frozen in time, somewhere within you; crying for your crimes

The water stains in red as you keep your head low under the rain shower. Your uncontrollable sobs echo against the dark grey tiles but when his hand rests on your shoulder you don't pull away.

"I know there's nothing I can say that will make it better… " he whispers but that only angered you.

"Then don't," you spit back and you feel his arms surround your body.

"I love you," he mutters against your nape.

"I love you too."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you enjoyed this. Let me know your thoughts and reblog to let it spread 😊 See you soon! ~

#bts au fic #bts angst #taehyung au #taehyung x reader #taehyung x you #taehyung x oc #taehyung vampire

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georgieluz · 10 months

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i'm 3 days late but i'm finally answering @lamialamia

so my overall thoughts of the pacific are that i really enjoyed it (is enjoyed the right word? can you really enjoy the significant trauma of watching episodes 4-7 back to back and losing your three favourite characters all in one go? i don't think you can) but i did love a lot of things about it! the cinematography and production was outstanding. i knew it would be, but the way they shot the whole show was really something special! those battle scenes being shot like a very well made horror flick really did something to me. one thing i really wish we got more of was time with the men. i feel like we didn't get deep enough into their characters and personalities, outside of the main three ofc, especially after being told a lot more about certain men and what they were really like outside of how the show portrayed them (eddie jones and his guitar deserved better!!!!!)

but despite that, i still became hopelessly attached to a good few of them. stupidly, ack ack became the love of my life and now i'm probably ruined for life, so that's nice. thanks for that, life. i actually adore eddie jones and obviously, as we all know, i'm way past feral for hoosier over there. i think when i rewatch the show, i'll gain a lot more appreciation for other characters too (though i do already love most of them). i really liked the inclusion of lena's story, she became one of my favourite characters at the end. i was less into leckie's mostly fake love story but i understand they did it for narrative purposes and to sort of give his actions when he was acting up a trigger point.

my favourite thing from the series was definitely ack ack. and eddie. i don't know what it is about those two but they just awoke something in me and now i can't let go. i desperately needed more scenes of them but every ack ack scene gave me something electric so he's probably my favourite thing about the series. i also really liked how close leckie's unit was, they didn't have a thousand scenes or anything massive, but there was something incredibly comforting about the lightheartedness they gave each other that covered the traumatic experience they were all going through. i truly believe those dear vera letters and leckie reading them to his boys were a tool for them all to process what they were seeing but in a way where it could still be passive and not too heavy. i would have liked to have seen more scenes of them all, maybe in place of some of the melbourne romance stuff, but i get why it was the way it was. i appreciated that the show didn't shy away from the absolute horrors of war and even though it only covered things briefly most of the time, it definitely hit a lot of the different nuances involved and i think it did it in a subtle enough way that it actually settles into your brain permanently.

most trauma? i think we all know the answer to that since i've been crying about it since my episode 7 liveblog. honestly, i'm just pretending that episode 7 never happened and all is fine in the world. but i also think that watching eugene's arc killed a part of me inside, it kinda broke me watching him go from this innocent kid who was desperate to serve to being utterly disenchanted and disillusioned with his purpose and everything he thought he knew and believed. his story kinda cracked open my heart in a way i wasn't ready for.

sunshine and happiness.. ack ack being the most wholesome captain ever and basically just taking up residence in my heart. but also i really enjoyed gene and sidney's friendship, they didn't really have many scenes together but it made me happy that despite them never being able to see the world the same again after everything they went through, they both made it home and they had each other. also, i don't even know why, but burgie became one of my favourite characters so that part where he hugged his dad and his brother after getting off the train made me fucking sob with relief. i don't know why but it hit me real hard and i know that's not exactly sunshine and happiness but he made it home and he married his australian sweetheart and he was my favourite in the interview sections and so i just felt this overwhelming amount of relief and happiness for him.

we don't talk about the ass flash

#julian finally watches the pacific

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writethelifeyouwant · 1 year

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2022 Writing Wrapped

Wow. What a year.

2022 has been a fucking ride, honestly more bumpy than smooth for me, but it’s had some amazing high points and almost all of them are connected to this website and my amazing community of readers. I’m lucky to call so many of you my friends and please know that I wouldn’t be here or be the person I am today without the love and support of each and every one of you. I’ve gained a whopping 300 more followers on Tumblr this year, putting me at over 1,300, and the number of my amazing website members has held steady and picked up a few new faces as well, so thank you all for sticking through this year with me, and thank you to all the new faces!

On my website, the most popular story was:

This was a surprise! Despite this being an older story (posted in May 2021), this page was the 4th most viewed on my website in 2022! It only got beat by the Homepage, the M&C page, and the Post Library 🤯 I guess we all needed to fantasise about Sam making us blackout orgasm high this year! (Honestly, same).

Your favourite new story was:

I’m so so glad that I got to write this series this year. I’ve had the idea for ages and it was great to finally get it down on paper. The twists and turns made it so fun to drip feed to all of you week over week, and I hope you didn’t hate me by the end of it 😆 I also owe a massive thank you to my beta, Jen @jld71, who was a fantastic resource and friend throughout this whole process, and the story wouldn’t be what it became without her!

My favourite thing I wrote was:

This mini series was so much fun to write! I had a great time exploring these characters and writing for Walker / Duke was a really interesting challenge. I also loved the Reader character in this fic, she’s the kind of woman I wish I could be. Total badass, confident in herself and her goals, but still completely susceptible to the charms of one Jared Padalecki – had to keep it realistic 😂 This story was a member exclusive, so if you'd like to read it, go visit my website!

2023 - What's Next?

I’ve got some really exciting stories I’m working on for 2023 that I think you’re all going to love! My posting schedule over the past few months has been pretty erratic–I’m sure you’ve noticed–and it’s one of my aims to set more achievable targets for myself this year so I don’t stress myself out and create problems where there are none. I obviously did not hit the target I set for myself in January of writing 50,000 words a month. Unfortunately, life and my mental health got in the way, as they always have a habit of doing, but I’m still really proud of how much I did manage to write this year! I still managed to write 70,000 more words than I did last year, and 370,000 words is basically 4 whole novels!

The other reason I am reducing my posting schedule in 2023 is that I officially launched my new small business–Bite Me Nail Art–in October this year and I am working on growing this dream full-time! Now that I’m balancing two small businesses that I run entirely by myself, I need to work smarter and put a lot of effort in behind the scenes doing planning, site maintenance, and promotion on top of the actual content creation and product production, which is the part that all of you see. So, this year I’m planning to keep my posting to twice a week so I can make sure the content you’re getting is still of the quality you’re expecting and something I’m happy to be putting my name on.

Tuesdays will remain my series update days, and mini-series and one-shots will post on Saturdays. The next series coming up will be:

There are going to be a few changes to my website tiers as well but I'll make a separate post about that!

And with that… Happy New Year! I hope everyone has a great night and next year gives you a chance to write the life you want to live.

#2022 wrapped #2022 #2023 #writethelifeyouwant #writing stats #word count #wordpress #website

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wri0thesley · 1 year

Note

Just to address the time period of interview! Since Louis was cast as a black man it was changed partially accommodate that aspect of the story. The writers didn’t want to tell a slave tale and I can’t exactly blame them there. Personally, I think the new show really tells a compelling and interesting story with a LOT of grace, skill and nuance. But it’s very very different from the book so if you’re looking for a one-for-one copy you’ll be disappointed and this definitely won’t be for you. Anne Rice did have a hand in the production though before her passing so a lot of these changes have her blessing!

i did do a little searching to see why! i've actually been following the show's trajectory for a long time (we were SO close to a bryan fuller helmed the vampire chronicles series, can you IMAGINE), but i kind of fell by the wayside after anne rice's death. i know her son is SUPER involved, though!

(cw: spoilers if u havent read tvc and intend to, talk of things that happen in series including rape and incest, purity culture fandom stuff).

i am not generally a 'this adaptation has to be incredibly accurate to the book or it sucks' type person , but for me the time period is so inextricrably linked to the characterisation of the series that so much change feels like an almost entirely different plot! in the early 1900s, by the time claudia and louis have pulled off their attempt to kill lestat some 40+ years later after they've existed as a family unit, surely the sea voyage they undertake is a Very Different Beast! it looks like lestat's birth date stays the same, so the whole subplot of him bringing his dying father to live with louis is basically gone too (and lestat is an anti-hero, certainly (and the villain in interview, in as far as we can trust louis as a narrator) which i think definitely removes some humanity and sympathy from lestat. lestat has got to be over 100 years old by the time this interview takes place, which is . . . oof lestat, you never learn do you. idiot [affectionate].

i hope it does well, if only because the vampire lestat is my favourite book in the whole series and nicolas (lestat's first love, and the reason he's originally attracted to louis at all - because louis reminds him of him) is one of my favourite characters of all time (as is gabrielle, lestat's mother), and so far the only adaptation that has them both done well is the musical and i want to see them in a mainstream adaptation that doesnt flop horribly!!! i'm just sad anon fgbkjngkfjn. and also because of the beautiful costume porn i'm missing out on. some of the claudia costumes i've seen production shots of hurt me in my Soul.

also (this one is solely on me), i've already seen people doing things like running zines that have a wholly uncomfortable purity culture fandom thing going on. and tvc is NOT a series conducive to that mindset. lestat is in a bizarre incestuous kind of relationship with gabrielle, his mother (and with this adaptation out and out saying 'vampires can have sex', really interested to see how that's handled). lestat is canonically a rapist (and yeah even after that we are still to love and adore him for more and more books). armand's backstory is . . . whoo. the vampire chronicles is hardly a Niche Interest, but i can already foresee a lot of discomfort if indeed the show does well enough to get as far as books like body thief!

but mostly the vampire chronicles means a lot to me (it's the reason i decided to go into musical theatre, and i'd never have made most decisions in my life without reading it), so such a drastic change makes me feel a little sad! i will get over it fgbnkjjngf. just taking a moment to mourn! the movie still remains beautifully costumed and imo one of the best book-to-movie adaptations made, despite the changes it made (rip louis' brother, didnt make it to the big screen), at least!

and, ofc, we always have lestat the musical.

#nat.txt #sorry for special interest posting

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beneditahipolito · 1 month

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Reflecting on Production Work

1- How does your product use or challenge conventions, and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Throughout the brainstorming of the initial "One-Sided Romance" I explored a much more dramatic view than what became my final product. However, even with this change of emotions, I still used conventions such as, low lighting, in order to convey an emotional atmosphere that depicts the sadness of the main character (Beth), successfully transmitting the same feeling to the viewer. As for the "Marriage Story", one aspect I believed was necessary to allow the understanding of each characters' response/reaction was the focus on their faces, be it a close-up shot on different body parts like in the beginning of the product, or the mid-shots where the facial expressions were clearly seen.

When it comes to looking at the conventions I analysed for the HBO series "Euphoria", none of them were trialed in the final product, in fact, the acting was almost the complete opposite. In the scene chosen to take inspiration from, I mentioned that both Nate and Cassie are as much aggressive throughout the argument as the couple of the "Marriage Story" and I believe, since the breakup was between a group of friends and not a couple, that the acting should be calmer/more serene since the overall emotion depicted in the film opening is saudade, meaning "longing" in Portuguese.

In terms of representing social groups, the final product mainly depicts what an average friend group in this generation goes through when it comes to friendship struggles, which can be a very relatable topic for many today. One aspect that I would have wanted to explore if there was a further development of the film opening is the concept of "girlhood", one of the biggest focus points in the Barbie movie for example, further tangling and detangling the audience in the narrative.

2- How does your project engage with audiences, and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

Since the very beginning of the production, I always knew that my target audience would definitely be late teens and early twenties, since the characters themselves are around the same age and also due to the fact that romance and drama are some of the favourite genres of this generation. These age groups were my guidelines as I chose not only the actresses based on them but also the two songs that play throughout the whole product. If there were any trailers made for a potential "Lost Connection" film, the song "Somebody Else" by the 1975 would be playing throughout, getting the attention of the same age group mentioned before since the band is currently trading and getting a lot of attention from audiences. One other choice I would like to mention is the fact that I attempted to film short clips and scenes throughout the whole product since the current generation has a low attention span and montages of a few clips are more entertaining to them than longer ones, especially if they do not contain music. And so, I believe the mixture of different editing and aesthetically pleasing choices were perfect for captivating the right audience. As for more developed ideas for distribution processes for my production, I would display sentences, which come close to heart to the audience, on the posters. One example could even be "Why don't you call back your old best friend from high school?"

3- How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

As I take a look at some of my very first preliminary tasks, I notice the difference in technique when it comes to the depicting of emotions. Back in the beginning of the portfolio, most of my photographs had no sense of framing, I had not learned enough about the effect of close-up, mid-close-up shots and many more. How these can emphasise or minimize the emotion of a character. When I compare them to the final product, I can confidently affirm that my skills improved significantly, not only technically but also creatively. Throughout all the tasks, I was able to develop so many ideas that let me to drastic changes and a final outcome which I am extremely proud of.

When it comes to problems during production, there were not any that significantly affected the process as a whole, and if there were any issues, those were taken advantage of and used with a twist in the editing process. One example is the droplets of rain on the camera lens in the initial sequence of scenes outside. The actress and I faced obstacles such as heavy wind and rain. I did my best to improve the sound by normalising the wind noise and lowering it as well, as for the rain droplets on the lens, I let those be since they actually ended up adding even more of a present perspective from the audience, allowing them to be even more immerse in the narrative. Another small issue would be the lack of skills the cast had. All of the characters had no experience at all in acting, and so I attempted to limit the dialogue and let the gestures and facial expressions take on the storyline, which ended up being a great success.

Finally, one skill I believe would not improve would be my editing abilities. As presented in the beginning of the portfolio, around 5 years ago I began my journey in video editing, starting with softwares such as Video Star and Adobe After Effects which ended up giving me numerous tools to take advantage of in the future, which was not in this production. However, I was wrong. Yes, the transitions I used to spend hours on were very impressive, on the other hand, being able to play around with sound and colour were challenging tasks in the editing process of the final product. I can proudly say, once again, that I was surprised to see my skills improve in this area as well.

4- How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project?

One of the items I was deeply grateful to be able to use throughout the production of the film opening was my own camera. The Canon G7x is a small portable/pocket camera which is extremely versatile even with its size. The feature which helped me the most was the already built-in contrast filter which saved me loads of time during the editing process. Its size also helped me achieve camera movements such as handheld as stable, with the help of a tripod.

Secondly, I am also extremely grateful to have softwares like DaVinci Resolve for free to be able to produce my project in maximum quality (4K) and with professional tools which I had previously learned with Adobe After Effects. I was able to play around with audio settings as well, to make it seem like the music was coming from the earphones of the main character or as a part of the film itself.

All of these aspects provided by my technology choices allowed me to achieve aspects which were previously mentioned and aimed for.

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britesparc · 4 months

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Weekend Top Ten #618

Top Ten Things 2023

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but another year has been and gone. Now we’re in the far-flung future of 2024; that’s after Blade Runner but before Demolition Man, if you’re keeping score.

Anyway, looking back, it was a funny old year. I managed to score the longest-term contract I’ve ever had since going freelance, which was nice. One of my kids went to secondary school. There were a bunch of wars. But what about pop-culturally? Because this is the point when I list my favourite things that happened that weren’t, you know, actually serious or important.

Even looking at “arts and entertainment”, it was still a bit of a weird year. In terms of film and TV, the various strikes hugely impacted everything, grinding productions to a halt, disrupting release schedules, and really having an almost Covid-like influence on the next couple of years. And even at the cinema, there was an almost-universal downswing in box office, surprising many and leading to tons of films – from Mission: Impossible to Indiana Jones to almost every superhero movie – underperforming; the counterpoint, of course, was Barbenheimer, of which more later.

In videogames, there were a ton of future classics – almost all of which I didn’t play – marking 2023 out as a potential banner year alongside, say, 2007 (Mario Galaxy, Halo 3, Portal, etc). However, the whole industry was rocked by repeated mass layoffs, making it hard to celebrate.

But – hey! – there genuinely was a lot of cool stuff. I do feel a bit weird that some of the things I was really looking forward to – the new series of Ghosts, the Transformers reboot – I still haven’t gotten around to checking out yet (but my comics are on their way!). So with no further ado other than a belated “Happy New Year”, here are my favourite (non-important, non-real-life) things that happened in 2023.

Tune in next time, when despite the year being about one-twenty-fourth over already, I highlight what I’m looking forward to in 2024!

Doctor Who Returns to Glory: I don’t want to get too down on the Chibnall era, but it’s fair to say that my love for Doctor Who had waned somewhat in recent years. However, it returned to form in a huge, huge fashion, once more under the stewardship of Russel T. Davies. The three-part anniversary specials, with David Tennant and Catherine Tate unleashing their amazing chemistry again, were a delight; then we got the effortlessly cool Fifteenth Doctor in the form of Ncuti Gatwa. The Christmas special was as fast-paced and charming as you’d expect. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about TV in a long time, and it was absolutely the best thing all year.

Barbenheimer: I spoke briefly about the disappointing box office this year, but two films that bucked the trend were Barbie and Oppenheimer. The second of these films is a dark, introspective, mesmerising look at a man and a moment in history; it’s terrific but I think we were already expecting something very good from Nolan, so it wasn’t so much of a surprise. Barbie, on the other hand, was a revelation, not just funny and light but also incredibly deep and thoughtful and about stuff. Plus it had one of the performances of the year and a terrific musical number. Together these films lifted each other up, becoming a zeitgeist juggernaut and just demolishing the competition. And they’re both great! Really, really great!

Things That Technically Came Out in 2023: when talking about films, though, my favourite is the exquisitely beautiful and magisterially produced The Fabelmans. It’s not just a heartbreaking introspection on one family falling apart despite there being a lot of love around, but it’s also in its own way a love letter to cinema and a deconstruction of the artist. And it has my favourite final shot of, well, maybe any film I’ve ever seen. Now, this film actually came out in 2022 in America, but we got it in 2023, so it counts. Similarly, on TV, the incredibly good – funny and heartfelt – Our Flag Means Death was a delayed arrival on these shores. So three cheers for things that still, technically, came out this year!

Great Gaming Remakes: end-of-year gaming lists are going to be wanging on about Baldur’s Gate 3 or Tears of the Kingdom or something. However, I can’t deny that for me the gaming highlights were expertly re-released old games. GoldenEye 007 finally – finally! – made its way onto modern consoles, and remains a masterpiece. And then Quake II arrived in one of the most impressive remasterings I’ve ever seen, with options galore to fiddle and tweak. Both of these games retain their excellent gameplay and have manged to still look good despite the passage of time. Also a shout-out to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition which made its way to the Xbox this year, and is also great.

The Underdog MCU: if you were to read almost anything about the Marvel Cinematic Universe this year, it would be about how it’s a busted flush, on the way out, and how everyone is overcome with superhero fatigue. Now, for a start, I don’t think superhero fatigue is a problem; almost every mainstream, big-budget blockbuster suffered this year. But the MCU was the big dog so to see, say, The Marvels return a frankly shocking box office would naturally generate headlines. Despite this, though, I think Marvel had a really good year. Quantumania was a fun adventure movie whose biggest failing was that it tried to be too different from the low-key films that preceded it; The Marvels was a frankly excellent buddy-movie with some inventive action and three great leads; Loki provided the best finale Marvel has done and might be their best work on TV; and Guardians Vol. 3 is just a mini masterpiece. Yes, Secret Invasion was catastrophically disappointing, but I’m really happy with the overall quality at the moment.

A Great Year for Animation: it really was another terrific year for animated movies. Elemental – another alleged box office disappointment – was a tender and attractive romcom, even if it didn’t set the world on fire. Puss-in-Boots: The Last Wish was gorgeous and hilarious and really a lot better than it needed to be. Across the Spider-Verse added a healthy dollop of maturity and complexity to the gonzo wackiness of the first film. And there were loads of cool films dropping on streaming too. This is just the tip of the animated iceberg! It was a great year!

Happy Birthday Disney: speaking of animation, Disney celebrated their 100th birthday. It was quite nice following along and seeing the little teases and releases. The highlight was the new short film, Once Upon a Studio, which was hagiographic and back-slappy but also a nerd’s delight, spotting tiny cameos and in-jokes. It culminated in Wish which – I’m gonna be honest – I’ve not seen yet, but it’s still really nice how they built a big animated movie around aspects of their cultural history.

Microsoft and Activision Providing Drama: I’m not sure how much we should celebrate an enormous company hoovering up another enormous company, but the ongoing saga of Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard dominated gaming discourse across the year. It feels like this saga has been rumbling on forever, and it had enough twists, turns, roadbumps, and 180s to fill a streaming drama series. Ultimately it landed where I think most of us expected – with Microsoft now owning one of the largest publishers on the planet, albeit with a few interesting concessions. I’m not too fussed about getting Call of Duty on Game Pass, but I do hope the acquisition will allow for a healthier workplace culture at Activision, as well as more variety in the games they produce.

The Beatles Released a New Song: I’m gonna keep this one very simple, but in a year dominated by pop music – I mean, let’s be honest, it was really the year of Taylor Swift, even if the song that stuck around my brain the longest was Bad Idea Right? by Olivia Rodrigo – but The Beatles released a new song. The Beatles! A new song! Kinda! All, like, high-tech and cut up and smoothed out, with a video by Peter Jackson! I mean, really.

A Great Year for Indie Games: so yes, finally, I talk about new games – ones I played, too! Because for all the huge, Starfield stuff that dominated headlines, for me the best games were probably the much smaller ones. This is one of the things I love about Game Pass; trying out these littler titles that I don’t know I’d have rolled the dice on otherwise. So we have Venba, Cocoon, Thirsty Suitors, Sea of Stars, Jusant… all terrific, idiosyncratic titles without mega-budgets. Also quick shout-out to Star Trek: Resurgence, which won’t set the world on fire but does feel like you’re playing an episode of The Next Generation.

#top ten #2023 #end of year #happy new year #review of the year 2023 #review of the year #barbenheimer #xbox #doctor who #the beatles #mcu

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j4gm · 3 years

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TOGETHER AGAIN SPOILERS

A thread of lore, Easter eggs, episode connections, and background details from Adventure Time: Distant Lands: Together Again! Let me know if I missed anything! This is adapted from my original Twitter thread.

Keep reading ⬇️⬇️⬇️

1. I was expecting them to perhaps do a classic style title sequence for this episode, but I wasn't expecting them to straight up use the original title sequence. The only difference is this final screen saying "Distant Lands".

2. The background of the title cards is also the hill from the title sequence.

3. The ice cream having "50 flavours" and having an image of an enlightened soul is an obvious reference to the 50th Dead World as we see it later in the episode.

4. Continuing with the metaphor, the dirt in the ice cream could be a parallel to the fact that Jake's Nirvana actually wasn't perfect, because his inaction was allowing for injustice to perpetuate.

5. This whole scene feels immediately slightly off. Finn has his Scarlet sword and is out on a classic Ice King adventure, but he speaks in his grown voice and all the slang feels much more forced than it did in the real season one. Turns out this was deliberate.

6. The snow golem speaks with a baby voice like it did in the pilot episode, even though in canon it has a deeper voice. This further hints that something is not quite right.

7. The first major break in continuity is these snow golems resembling Uncle Gumbald and Peace Master, who Finn didn't meet until later in his life.

8. LSP sitting on Finn's head like this is reminiscent of Pen Ward's piece for the 2018 Ble crew zine.

9. Finn being given the choice of helping somebody but ending up helping everybody reminds me of "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain". It's the kind of resolution that wouldn't happen so much in the late seasons of the show, which helps make this scene feel even further out of place.

10. Jake is half frozen by Ice King in pretty much the exact same way as he was in "Prisoners of Love", and even has a very similar line.

11. The Snail is seen here. The crew have said that the Snail has been deliberately left out of previous Distant Lands specials, so its placement here is another very deliberate hint that this whole sequence is "trying too hard" to be like the early seasons.

12. The book "Mind Games" appears a couple of times, as seen in several previous episodes of Adventure Time. The first is as Finn is approaching the library in his dream. It also appears as one of the items in Finn's backpack later.

13. Jake is hurt when Finn fist bumps him with his metal arm, revealing that this scene is not real. This is also a callback to the title sequences of "Islands" and "Elements".

14. A whole bunch of familiar skeletons are seen in the bird's nest: Dirt Beer Guy, Abracadaniel, Me-Mow, Lemongrab, Mr. Pig, and the Snail again. This doesn't necessarily mean that all these characters are dead, since this scene is just a hallucination.

15. Old Man Finn! He's still got the chest tattoo of Jake, and this time we know that Jake is dead, so the theory that Jake died before "Obsidian" seems pretty likely. He looks similar to his old man design from "Puhoy", with the same facial hair.

16. There are several cameos of familiar characters who apparently died at the same time as Finn. The first is this duck, who previously appeared in "Ocarina".

17. The second is Donny, from the episode... uh, "Donny".

18. This goblin guy is an unnamed background character from “The Silent King”.

19. This old lady first appeared in "The Enchiridion", way back in season one. Old ladies are a species in the Land of Ooo, so I guess she wasn't actually very old back then, given she just about outlived Finn.

20. This is the cobbler who first appears in "His Hero". Amazing that he lived so long given all the trouble he got into in that episode.

21. Land of the Dead! This place was first seen in season two's "Death in Bloom", and now we are finally learning its actual purpose. It's a sort of gateway and hub to all of the other dead worlds.

22. There are some more minor cameos at the gates: a house person from "Donny", a soft person from "Gut Grinder", and a wood person from "When Wedding Bells Thaw". And, of course, the gate guardian himself from “Death in Bloom”.

23. Finn completely ignores the gate guardian in the same way he did in Death in Bloom. This also has the convenient effect of not having to reveal how Finn died, leaving it up to the audience's imagination.

24. Mr. Fox! We already knew he would die at some point because BMO had his skull in the finale.

25. Finn has his design from the first Distant Lands poster in this scene. Turns out it's young Finn in old Finn's clothes. But they gave him a shirt in the poster so you wouldn't be able to see the tattoo.

26. The clapping that Finn does while he's looking for Jake is a callback to "James Baxter the Horse", when Jake tells Finn to listen for that same rhythm if they are killed and need to find each other in the afterlife.

27. Mr. Fox talks about a "past life quotient", suggesting that there might be some kind of limit to how many times somebody can reincarnate. Finn's reincarnations are also seen in this scene; a callback to "The Vault", and confirmation that reincarnations share the same soul.

28. Boobafina, the goose who Mr. Fox was in love with in his debut episode “Storytelling”, apparently reincarnated into a tugboat. We've already seen that objects can have souls in the episode "Ghost Fly".

29. Finn is initially assigned to the 37th Dead World, which is the same one that Jake went to when he died in "Sons of Mars". We can only guess at what the other numbers on the ticket mean ;)

30. Tiffany! Despite several lucky escapes throughout his life, Tiffany has finally died. I like the use of this imagery to express Finn's conflicted feelings about him.

31. The 50th Dead World has long been established as the "highest" dead world, and the one synonymous with Heaven within Adventure Time's universe. It was first mentioned in "Ghost Princess" back in season three.

32. It's unclear what happens to souls which are destroyed within the dead worlds. It is a similar question to asking what happened to the ghosts that were killed in "Ghost Fly".

33. Death doesn't speak at all in Together Again because his voice actor, Miguel Ferrer, passed away in 2017 long before production began.

34. Finn phases through New Death when he tries to attack him, just like what happened way back in "Death in Bloom".

35. The 30th Dead World contains Tree Trunks as well as many of her love interests; Mr. Pig, her alien husband from "High Strangeness", Danny and Randy who first appeared in "Apple Wedding", and several more who we don't recognise, including at least one who presents as a woman.

36. Literally yelled when these two showed up. Joshua calls Finn a crybaby, which is a callback to "Dad's Dungeon".

37. The wall of weapons in Joshua and Margaret's house includes the iconic Demon Blood Sword, which was broken in "Play Date", as well as Margaret's auto-loading crossbow from "Joshua & Margaret Investigations".

38. Jermaine is sidelined a few times through the episode, in reference to his attitude in "Jermaine" where he feels that Finn and Jake were always their parents' favourites. I would have hoped things would be a bit better by now.

39. Fern gets name dropped while Finn and Jake are reuniting. A shame he doesn't actually show up in the episode.

40. In this scene, Finn says "What time is it?" This is a very subtle reference to the 2010 cartoon "Adventure Time".

41. In a couple of shots during this fight scene it looks like Jake might have a tattoo. It seems like it only becomes visible when he stretches out his arm.

42. New Death's amulet in this scene resembles parts of the Lich's cape, foreshadowing his influence on New Death.

43. There are several more cameos in the 50th Dead World: Booshy from "High Strangeness", one of the Marshmallow Kids from "Scamps", and Ghost Princess and Clarence, who were seen ascending to the 50th Dead World in "Ghost Princess".

44. Finn didn't interact with Booshy in "High Strangeness", but it seems they must have met at some point before they both died because Finn knows his name.

45. It seems like people in the 1st Dead World are slowly melted away until they become part of the landscape. Nasty.

46. Lots more cameos in this scene: a gnome from "Power Animal", a gnome from "The Enchiridion", a Bath Boy from "The Vault", Blagertha from "Love Games", Maja the Sky Witch, a troll from "Dungeon", Chocoberry, Choose Goose, Wyatt, a spiky person from "Gut Grinder", and possibly more.

47. Tiffany's insults are consistently nonsensical and amazing, as they were in the original series.

48. The Candy Kingdom looks extremely different. Peppermint Butler is wearing the crown so he might be in charge now, which is supported by the kingdom's very magical-looking augmentations. It’s not clear whether Finn and Jake were expecting to find Princess Bubblegum or Peppermint Butler, since both have the initials “PB” and both could be going by the title of “Princess”. Perhaps Peps and Bubblegum share the princess duties now that PB is living with Marceline more of the time.

49. Peppermint Butler has a "Boss" mug, although it's not the same colour as the one from "Obsidian".

50. Jake's ghost has the same design as he did when BMO killed him in "Ghost Fly". I also absolutely love Finn's ghost. This scene establishes that ghosts are just visitors to the mortal plane from the dead worlds.

51. Life has only appeared in animated shorts before now. Namely, "The Gift That Reaps Giving" which establishes her relationship with Death, and "Frog Seasons: Winter". This episode gives her a concrete place within Adventure Time's pantheon: she is in charge of reincarnation.

52. A translation of Life’s angry French dialogue by Shado: “After all I did for that boy. After all I did for him. No, it's not possible. It's not possible no, that... that makes me so mad but it's not possible.”

53. We finally have in-universe confirmation that Shoko's tiger is a previous life of Jake. This was previously confirmed by one of the writers, but wasn't canon until now.

54. I feel like Finn pulled off Shoko's look even better than Shoko did. I wonder whether Finn has gained the memories of his past lives now that he’s dead.

55. No Easter egg here, just want to appreciate this image.

56. There is an elemental symbol on the wall here, as seen in "Jelly Beans Have Power".

57. Tiffany's dramatic internal monologue is a recurring gag, as is his habit of nearly dying from falling into holes.

58. The Jake suit makes a cameo in the fight against New Death. It was last seen in the episode "Reboot”.

59. Finn's backpack contains a few familiar items: the t-shirt with the pocket from "It Came from the Nightosphere", Finn's underwear from "Little Dude" and other episodes, and a copy of Mind Games as I've already mentioned.

60. The Lich's Hand is present in the background of Death's... death scene. This is probably the unseen "friend" who New Death keeps talking about.

61. The Lich's menacing monologues often begin with a single command. Previously they have included "Fall" and "Stop". This time, the command is "Burn".

62. Jake uses the word "boingloings", which is a callback all the way to "Hitman" in the third season.

63. Jake's blue shape-shifter form from "Abstract" appears very briefly during his fight with Finn.

64. Finn's lumpy space person form also makes an appearance. This design was last seen all the way back in the second episode of the entire show, "Trouble in Lumpy Space".

65. Jake steps on the Lich's hand in a very similar way to how he stepped on Ash in "Memory of a Memory", which is itself a Monty Python reference.

66. The credits include a dedication to a few AT cast and crew who have passed away. Polly Lou Livingston was the voice of Tree Trunks. Miguel Ferrer was the voice of Death. Michel Lyman and Maureen Mlynarczyk were both sheet timers on the original series. Rest in peace.

67. The message that Finn and Jake write out on the ouija board is "BUTT", which Peppermint Butler takes as a distress signal. This message is also used as a distress signal by the Hot Dog Knights in "The Limit".

68. Peppermint Butler's reversed dialogue from the scene where he makes contact with Finn and Jake is "Kee-Oth Rama Pancake", the spell from “Dad's Dungeon” for banishing demons.

69. That appears to be President Porpoise with all of Tree Trunks’ other lovers.

70. In this scene, Life is humming part of "Lonely Bones", the song which Death tried to record for her in her debut short "The Gift That Reaps Giving". It's hard to notice because it's so brief.

71. Finn and Jake's cover is blown while in the Land of the Dead because Jake loudly farts, which also happened in "Death in Bloom".

72. The place where Mr. Fox explains the perception mechanics of the afterlife is the exact same location as the River of Forgetfulness from "Death in Bloom", which, as it turns out, was imaginary.

These are sort of out of order at the end because I was adding stuff to the Twitter thread as it got discovered. That’s all for now!

#adventure time #together again #finn the human #jake the dog #lorepost

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colourful-void · 3 years

Text

Supporting Satoshi - an examination and comparison of JN36 and XY121

Part One: Snowballs do not cure depression but it was worth a shot

You know that episode of Pokemon where a gym leader beats Satoshi in a battle so hard that one of his pokemon gets mildly hurt (though there's no long term effects) and because of it he becomes depressed, closing himself off from his friends before someone comes along to pull him out of that mental state, and also severe weather phenomena is involved and a reflection of a persons mental state? Or rather, the two episodes?

So when I was watching Journeys, I noticed an episode that had a similar-- but distinctly different-- plot to an xy episode I had seen before. And what was particularly interesting was that while I couldn't stand the xy episode, the journeys episode was one of my favourites. I won't drag this out for you guys, I love the journeys episode and re watch it a LOT and the xy episode sort of just leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. and don't go claiming its solely ship bias, because i saw the xy episode first and disliked it then.

This will analyze both of these episodes, comparing them against each other. Specifically within the context of how Goh and Serena both help Satoshi through a similar situation There will be some discussion of AmourShipping and Satogou in this analysis. I'm going to be a bit negative regarding Serena's actions and the potential "romantic" weight of them here, but I want to be clear that I Do Not dislike Serena as a character. Personally, I wish the writers had given her more room to grow outside of her romantic interests, but I do not hate Serena as a character. I do, however, disagree with her actions in this episode. Please don't take this out of context and dont be ship fighting in the comments, it's boring. This is a comparison of These Two Episodes, not of Goh and Serena and their respective ships as a whole.

This part mainly focuses on the xy episode and the second will focus mainly on the journeys. It's only divided into parts because of the tumblr post limit.

(If you like the xy episode or hate the journeys episode, awesome! having your own opinions is great. these are mine though, so i hope you'll listen to them)

With that out of the way, let's start. And I'm going to use mostly japanese names here because I'm taking screencaps from the subbed japanese copies.

The set up for each of these episodes is eerily similar as pointed out in the gag at the start.

Xy has a bit more set up before the episode in question though, with the initial loss and retreat into the forest by Satoshi taking place the episode before. The episode opens up proper with Satoshi taking time to breathe to himself, alone in the forest.

Emphasis is placed on him taking a deep breath, aided by the visuals showing them (thanks cold air) and the silence of the rest of the soundscape, with the only other sounds being the wind and some bird pokemon, plus some falling snow.

Journeys Satoshi starts off in a better mental state than Xy, with the episode starting off with him jogging along with his pokemon.

However, we can still see that he's been affected by the last battle he lost, against Saitou, as he's putting a lot of effort into training and doing better.

Which, doesn't go well for him, as he loses his next two battles as well, and drops in the World Championship ranking as a result

And he's pretty upset about it too. Same thing as over in xy. In both cases, a respective friend/love interest notes that Satoshi is upset and expresses concern.

He's got support from his friends in both situations! But that support comes across in very different ways.

But, to understand how that support manages to affect Satoshi, we need to understand the problem at play.

Now, I wanna make something clear here. Satoshi's problem is not that he is a sore loser. I'm not arguing that's not a contributing factor, or that he's not upset about the loss (particularly in the world championships), He's still bitter about the lost part, but the root of the problem is not losing, he's been shown to be fine with losing (if not a bit more motivated to win now) in prior episodes.

Satoshi's problem is that his pokemon are getting hurt. Satoshi's problem is that his pokemon are getting hurt, because they're losing battles. Satoshi's problem is that his pokemon are losing battles because he's not training them well enough. And to clarify, that's not my viewpoint, it's his. Satoshi's problem is that he's not good enough for himself, and he feels that that's something he has to fix on his own.

So how do we help him?

Our weather event in question is introduced in separate points in the episodes, but I'll cover them both now.

In xy, it's this snowstorm, which conveniently becomes a problem directly after Serena returns to the Pokemon Centre.

In journeys, it's a sandstorm! That's in near direct contrast to a snowstorm! Incredible.

Heading back to xy Satoshi, things aren't going great in the forest. Luckily, Serena's run off to find him.

I think it's of note here that Serena runs off with the best intentions, she wants to help Satoshi, plain and simple. It just sort of goes wrong along the way.

It's worth noting that Xy Satoshi tries to bring himself out of being sad by the tried and true method of "stop being sad"

Despite telling himself this, he doesn't get anywhere. Which makes sense, because it's not getting the the root of the problem. It's not even addressing it at all. He's just trying to 'be better', which isn't even a battle strategy. However, it is something I can see him saying, so this isn't a critique of Satoshi's thought process, but me pointing out that this isn't really effective. Which is supported by the narrative, because again, he doesn't get anywhere, he doesn't even move.

I can't show it in screencaps but the lights in Satoshi's eyes are shaking here, something that they consistently do throughout the series when he's feeling a particularly strong emotion. Keep that in mind. It couples well with another trait of his, and that's his hat!

And by that I mean how he hides his eyes with the brim of it when upset, something he does exactly as Serena shows up and calls out to him. Now, he's not upset that Serena is here. He's upset about the pokemon stuff still. He's trying to hide the fact that he's upset from Serena.

Serena starts off with her speech well, trying to appeal to Satoshi to let her in and talk things out. And maybe it's because he wasn't ready for it yet, or because of the way she phrases it (a lot of 'i' and 'me' language which can be helpful but can also come across as though she's making it about her. not her intent i don't think, but a possible interpretation.), it's not her fault for how Satoshi reacts regardless.

But how Satoshi reacts is not good.

Now it's really interesting to note that before this, Serena was standing while Satoshi was sitting, putting her above him in terms of active power, when it comes to how the shot is presented, but when Satoshi stands up, the camera tilts with the movement so that they're on equal level. Neat!

And Serena yells in return, scolding Satoshi for not talking about it. Not the best move, since pushing someone to talk about something that's upsetting them isn't really productive, but she's trying here and she's frustrated.

Satoshi continues to withdraw and self isolate, claiming it is his problem and that he wants to be left be. Now, this is the mindset of a clearly upset person and isolation may not be the best option, but he did make the explicit request to be left alone here.

He's clearly upset as he turns away from Serena's eye and slumps over a little.

And then Serena throws a snowball at him.

Angry as he is, you can see Satoshi's expression change when he sees Serena's reaction.

Serena tells Satoshi that she's not like the Satoshi she knows, who is always full of energy and positive and a leader, and a bunch of other positive traits. The problem here, is that Serena's looking at an idealized version of Satoshi. And while the intent here was probably meant to be something more like "you have so many wonderful traits about you I know you can do this", coupled with the snowballs and the phrasing, it seems as though Serena is scolding Satoshi for being sad.

Or rather, being angry with him for not living up to her idealized version of him, and not wanting him to express any negitave emotions.

Which is sort of a really bad mindset.

The snowballs continue, never once does Satoshi fight back. In fact, he stops arguing entirely after the first one. Serena knocks him off his feet and tells him he's not being himself, before running off. (In the english dub, Serena claims that Satoshi isn't being "the real satoshi" and then demands that the real Satoshi be "given back", so it could be worse)

Satoshi decides to literally run his problems away, because it will help him reach some kind of conclusion, and immediately trips and falls down a large hill. No, I'm not making that up. Something like this just isn't like him. He's just gotta stop being sad!

Now personally, I really disagree with the idea that "being upset" isn't "like a person". That's because based off of my own experiences, I know it can be really damaging to hold the mindset that any negative emotions you feel aren't a part of you and that you shouldn't be upset because you're usually a positive and happy person. Not the case with every person, but I personally really have a problem with shows telling children that they just shouldn't be upset instead of processing their emotions in a meaningful way. (The journeys episode doesn't do an outstanding job of it either, but this is a bit of a tangent anyway. A show that does do this right is "OK KO! Let's be Heroes" which actually deals with this problem in greater depth and does a fantastic job of it.)

But the snowball scene ends here. Now I'll get back to Journeys in a moment, but since Serena has finished her part of the comparison for the most part, I'm going to summarize a bit more of the xy episode.

Satoshi decides to literally run his problems away, because it will help him reach some kind of conclusion, and immediately trips and falls down a large hill. No, I'm not making that up.

The snowstorm kicks in, Serena get back annoyed, then similarly groans and yells, and the whole xy gang + pokemon go running off in search of Satoshi. Pikachu appears the most concerned.

Now Serena tells the others she lost her cool and said something horrible to Satoshi, but explains its because Satoshi is someone she admires. Cool motive, I get it, still kinda bad.

and in the end, it's not Serena's words that get he message across to Satoshi. The solution to this problem was Satoshi finding a way to reaffirm his abilities and instinct.

In the xy episode, he helps some pokemon out of the tree, and when his very cool frog friend shows up, they're able to work together with their bond to save this one from falling off a cliff.

Here's the point. Satoshi learns by doing, by actions. He needs to see first hand that there are ways of getting past his problems, and that it's worth having the courage to keep going. The lesson is about valuing pokemon as equals and partners, and specifically that trying to be better as the trainer alone isn't going to help.

This is essentially where this plot line ends, team rocket is there for a bit as well but as much as i love them they're not relevant here, and some fun stuff with the league, love it not important right now its like 3am and I'm not sleeping until this is finished so we gotta keep things moving.

This was no doubt Serena's intent to get a similar point, but she goes about it the wrong way. She tries to convey this with words, as conversation and motivational words have helped her in the past (Elle's words of praise stick with her, Satoshi's words from when they were kids, etc). It's a good idea, but their different ways of learning and growing from a similar situation are incompatible, and that's why things don't work out in Serena's favour. There's also still the problem of "pulling yourself together" not being helpful in this case.

There's also a very similar line in this scene to the one at the end of the journeys episode, as Satoshi says to his frog that they should start over from scratch. It's essentially the same phrase with different wording. It's great. The Storm ends as he realizes this as well! Wonderful in terms of pathetic fallacy.

The gang all reunites, its nice. Satoshi thanks Serena for what she said after apologizing to everyone, which contradicts what he said earlier but I've already established that I dislike this message here so I won't go over it too much. I guess he's right in a literal sense in that in response to her words he went and ran until he tripped off a cliff but the emotional growth here was because of his own actions (and the frogs), not Serena's. Sorry Serena, you'll get em next time.

So. What about Goh?

Well...

(Part Two here on account of image limit!!)

#pokemon #anipoke #pokeani #pokemon analysis #pokemon xy #pokemon xyz #trainer ash #trainer serena #trainer goh #i dont wanna use the amourshipping tag to put negtivity in it that seems mean #analysis #this was written in the 2-3am area but the next part was written 12 hours later so thats a neat fact #long post

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extremelyblackandwhite · 3 years

Text

cardigan

pairing: mob!bucky barnes x reader

warnings: violence

a/n: this is a limited three part series based on three of my favourite songs from taylor swift’s 2020 life saving albums; cardigan, willow and invisible string. this one is cardigan, hope you enjoy xx

WILLOW

She clutched onto her worn out brown leather bag as she stepped inside the her father’s precinct. There wasn’t much that looked different from when she was a little girl, the tables still stood on the same messy layout which made no sense, the officers still didn’t look up whenever someone came in and the whole room smelled like stale coffee and burnt bread. The only difference was that the once endless room now felt small, nauseating, confining, a place where she didn’t want to be.

- Y/N. - her father’s voice rang through the small room, making her look up to where he was standing. Captain William, or dad if she was lucky enough to call him as such, was an intimidating presence even after all these years yet after her mother’s death it was him who was left of her family. - Come in.

Her shoes felt heavy as she stepped inside his office, two more officers standing inside as she walked with her father. He closed the door, nodding his head which was a tell tale for everyone to sit down. She sat at the end of the dark green couch, away from the other two officers who were looking her up and down as if she were a prey.

- I told you she would be perfect. Inconspicuous, he wouldn’t even think she’s undercover.

- She’s not the type of woman Barnes go for.

- She doesn’t need to be the type of woman he goes for, she needs to be the one who works in his bar and listens to their plans.

Her father had told her about James Barnes. They had been trying to get him in for minor offences yet nothing seemed to pan out. The force knew they could never apprehend him for the crimes he knew he had committed but if they could get him in for something small: weapon charge, drug charge, something. For that to happen they needed someone to be in their circle and unluckily for them, Barnes and his men knew everyone who worked in the force but they didn’t know her. In return for her working in his bar, the force would pay her tuition fees as well as any books she needed.

“It won’t be hard” was what her father had told her but as they dropped her at the bar she couldn’t help but freeze at the door. They were expecting her, she had gotten the job yet she couldn’t find herself walking inside. In any other situation she would’ve rushed past it, it wasn’t the place she would like to be in. Her hand grasped the bar of the door, pushing it open. The nightclub looked vastly desert with squeaky clean floors and bright lighting which showed the dark aesthetic of every single owned Barnes club in town. She didn’t know the man but she knew his style, dark, sleek, leather, sensual even, enough to make people feel sexual whenever they walked into his club. Yet, in broad daylight it was merely an abandoned establishment with one a table with a few hangover men still nursing a bottle of beer each, waiting for 7 PM for the club to come back to life.

She stood out like a sore thumb, dressed in brown tones. A loose gingham black dress over a brown turtle neck covered and low black Mary Janes. Her eyes roamed the room, looking for someone to speak to but someone found her first. A tall man, probably pushing fifty, toothpick hanging from his lips and dirty rag on his left hand. She felt short, cowering under the gaze of the man.

- You're the new girl, or what? - he questioned, thick Brooklyn accent yet Y/N didn’t dare reply, instead nodding at him. - Do you have a name?

- Y/N.

- Y/N, that’s nice. I’m Bobby, I’m the bar supervisor. You wanna talk to anyone? You talk only to me and you’ll do well.

She nodded her head quickly, almost like a bobble head figure, following him behind to bar. Now Y/N knew about bars or at least what they did in them, she just wasn’t expecting to see the huge amount of spirits, wines, and beers behind her. She was almost sure if someone robbed the club, they’d be better off with the booze than the money in the cash register. The man, Bobby, ran through the basics, showing here with the cleaning products were, where some more complicated cocktail mixtures were written, how the washing machine worked and how crucial it was to constantly collect glasses from the bar and put them in there. She held a small reporter notepad, pen scribbling down messy wiggles which she wouldn’t be able to understand later on but it was still worth it. She could memorise it, she was a university student after all hence her memory for cocktails shouldn’t be hard. Everything was so polished, meticulously placed, almost too organised for a bar; the bottles placed onto glass shelves which light from under, placed almost the same measure apart in a sea of expensive beverages.

- Don’t serve any drinks to people who haven’t presented a payment form. If the boss comes in, serve him whiskey on the rocks. Glenlivet, no other brands.

- I’ve never seen the boss.

- You’ll know.

She was left there watching as more staff came in, the sun going down at the same time. “Just breathe, Y/N” she remembered her father’s words, she could do it, she could do it. How hard could it possible be to be a bartender? Just breathe, Y/N. She can do it, she can help his father, she can do this and then no longer have to worry about how many hours she would have to do at that little mean shop which had taken more of her than she gave them. She could be a regular university student, she just needed to breathe.

The purple, blue lights started to light the sunlight coloured bar as people started to queue up outside for a chance to get inside one of the most famous bars in town. She could faintly remember hearing her friends talking about how exclusive it was but as she looked out the window and at the queue she could finally understand it. As the doors opened and people started flocking in, suddenly she was serving drinks left and write, vodka and other shoots drenching her dress and apron as she messily tried to serve everyone at the bar screaming at her to hurry up. She kept running around like a crazy person, dragging bottles and bottles and pouring drinks which kept overfilling and dropping onto the floor. People kept yelling at her “hey sugar, how long does it take you to bring me some vodka?” but one man who was sitting still, gaze glued onto her while a cigarette hanged from the middle of his lips. She cowered under his gaze returning to hand a tray of jello shots to some girls.

She continued to work until the last person was out of the bar but the man remained calmly leaned against the bar, the flame of his cigarette dying down. She tried to avoid him, pretending to clean the spot over and over again but the man merely scoffed, rubbing the butt of the cigarette against the ash tray.

- You’re terrible. - he spoke out, voice raspy. - Who hired you?

- That’s nothing to do with you. - Y/N turned around to place back the bottles onto the shelves.

- Are you the owner?

- No. - she placed the bottles on the shelf, hands shaking.

- Then it is something to do with me. - the air seemed to be punched out of her lungs, as her grip tightened around the neck of the bottle she was holding. She refused to turn around and look at him, understanding what it implied. Instead she just looked at herself in the glass wall. Just breathe, Y/N. - Can I get a ...

- Glenlivet. - she rose herself on her tippy toes, interrupting him mid sentence. Grabbing from ice from under the bar, she added it to the glass, topping it with the expensive whiskey before placing it under a black square napkin. She continued to wipe down the counter until Bobby came back from the storage unit with more alcohol.

- You can go now, Y/N. I’ll see you at 7. - Bobby dismissed her and almost like thunder, she bolted off, not even stopping and allowing him to question why their boss was sitting at the bar.

Clutching her bag against her chest she started walking up to campus. She had done it, or at least managed to do something yet get no information her father wanted. That is unless her father wanted to know James Barnes’ drink of choice which she was pretty sure he didn’t want to know. Reaching her flat, she turned the key around, opening the door to see her friend Wanda waiting in the couch.

- You’re alive. - she mocked, turning the TV on. - Once again, tell me why you said yes to working in a mob bar ...

- It’s not a mob bar, Wanda.

- It is a bar owned by a mob boss who has been blamed on several murders. It is a mob bar.

- I’m just a bartender, nothing is gonna happen.

- Can you tell me again why you’re doing this? Your father is the reason why you were raised by John Hughes’ movies.

- Okay, Wanda, you made your point. - Y/N took her jacket off, hanging it onto one of the hooks in the door.

- I’m buying you pepper spray.

- Pepper spray is illegal, Wan.

- So is the bar you’re working.

- Okay. I’ll be careful, don’t worry. I’ll go to sleep now.

Wanda continued to ramble about her working where she was but there was really nothing she could do other than continue. All she had to do was breathe and listen and the department would pay for her tuition for the rest of her degree. Small price to pay for a much bigger price.

As another day started, the routine started once again with her awaking up and running into class with Wanda complained about her brother followed by spending the rest of her free time until her shift began. Walking back to the bar she was telling herself once more that she would be just fine and that Wanda slipping a knife inside her bag was only her overreacting. Stepping inside the same building, Bobby was setting some shoot glasses on the counter.

- Y/N. - he acknowledged her. - Glad to see you’re still here.

- Wouldn’t be anywhere else. - she placed her bag and jacket under the bar and tied her apron around her waist. - Busy day?

- Fridays are the busiest. All the university kids. Let me know if you need a hand.

- I’m sure I’ll be okay.

Once again, wrong. She was not okay and as everyone found themselves flocking to the bar she was already running around like a crazy person, holding two bottles on each hand as people. The lights were blinding, shining on her as she served and slide more drinks onto the bar counter and to the waitresses who’d give her snide remarks whenever she took too long. Her hands were numb from the ice already yet her face was warm from moving side to side. At least, Mr. Barnes wasn’t around and that was already something she could be thankful for. She knew she had to eventually speak to him if she wanted to ever hear anything or maybe she wouldn’t have; she was good at being invisible, maybe she could just overhear something without having to ever speak with him.

- Hey, sugar, where’s my drink? - a sluggish voice came from the bar and Y/N ignored it. Bobby told her, if anyone sounds or looks drunk to cut them off that “Mr. Barnes doesn’t need drunk people being roudy in his bar”. She continued to serve the group of girls celebrating passing an exam until the man moved over to them. - Hey, I asked where is my drink?

- Sorry, you’re cut off. - she shrugged, grabbing some glass onto a plastic bucket so Bobby could put them in the washing machine.

- What the fuck? C’mon give me my drink.

- No. - Y/N just ignored it, turning around to put the bottles back onto the shelves.

- Well then be useful and show me your tits. - the man scoffed as if it was the best joke in the world. Y/N turned around, speechless at what he had said before grabbing an half empty drink from the bar and throwing it at him which surprised the man just as much. - You bitch!

- What’s the problem here? - fuck. Of course he had to show up. Mr. Barnes made his way towards them, holding that same powerful yet frightening stance as the strobing lights painted his face. His eyes were on her, waiting for her to say something but Y/N was mostly frozen. That was it, she was about to get shot, or worse, lose a finger or a leg or an arm. Oh god, how could she take exams without an arm?

- Your bartender isn’t serving me. - he pointed at her as if he were a 5 year old.

- Really? - Barnes stood slightly behind him and all she could see in a glimpse second was his metal arm, reflecting the strobing lights, come up to the nape of the man’s neck before he slammed his face against the glass topping of the bar counter. Y/N was startled by this, jumping back against the wall of drinks. - Get the fuck out of my bar.

The man ran off, bloody nose, like a scared wounded animal leaving Y/N only to stare at him. Her mind rushed miles an hour, wondering if he had done that to someone what he would do to her. She should’ve taken the pepper spray from Wanda.

- Get back to work. - he left her with that, turning around and getting lost in the sea of people dancing.

- Hey ... - Bobby touched her arm, waking her from her own mind. She looked at her hands; good she still had both hands. - Go take a break, wash the glasses, I’ll do the bartending for a while.

- I’m fine, Bobby.

- I know. I just want you to go do something else. - Y/N nodded, not wanting to disobey anyone yet she couldn’t help but be glad she would be in the back where the big washing machine was for most of the pint glasses and other oddly shaped cups. After all, Mr. Barnes wouldn’t be hanging in the kitchen.

She pushed her hair away from her face and put on the big pink gloves and started to wash the glasses and plates from some small appetisers they sold until closing time started to near. Once the bar was cut off, she joined Bobby to clean the always messy bar and make it look as precise as it looked every single day. Another day survived, no limbs lost.

- That was a good one, Y/N. See you tomorrow. - Bobby bid her farewell as he exited through the door. Y/N stayed behind, moping the floor behind the mar which was mostly a pool of mixed drinks that she always somehow managed to overfill and drop onto the floor on her way to serve them. As she continued to mop, the person who she didn’t want to see sat at the bar and without much thinking, she served him his drink of choice.

- I ... hm ... I have to go, I have to walk home and my flatmate is waiting for me.

- You’re walking home with your flatmate?

- No, she’s waiting for me at the flat. - Y/N grabbed her cardigan, putting it on which immediately brought her a nostalgic warmth.

- I’ll drive you.

- Oh .. no, Mr. Barnes. It is not necessary, I’ve walked home before, I know the way.

- And I know the type of men who walk around my bar. - he downed the whiskey as if it were water. - Come on.

Oh god, I’m going to sleep with the fishes. He’s gonna kill me in his car. Y/N thought to herself as she followed him to the back of the bar where he had parked his car. Of course it was a good car, a new model black Audi with sleek matte black leathered seats which looked more expensive than everything together at the bar. She wondered how much money he made. Her father hadn’t told her much about him and all she knew was merely gossip. He opened the door for her which she took as a sign to get inside the car. Once in, she noticed how awfully warm it was, he probably had the heating on so she took off her cardigan, shoving it in front of her feet as he entered the car.

- Where am I dropping you?

- The student campus, south building

- You’re a student? - he asked as the motor roared, signalling the start of the car. - Why you working here then?

- It pays well. My mother paid for my first years but I still have my third one and a possible masters.

- Why not ask mum for the rest of the money then?

- Well she’s dead. - she said, not taking the eyes off the road. - Her inheritance lasted as long as it could but tuition is expensive.

- I’m sorry. - he tried to sneak a look at her but gave up, instead keeping his eyes on the road. - You’re a terrible bartender.

- You’ve said that one time already, I’ve heard it. If I’m so terrible why don’t you fire me?

- Bobby likes you. Says you’re a quick learner. Yet again, he likes every single wide eyed Disney Princess girl who works behind the bar. I give you a month or two before you quit or get knocked up.

- I’m not gonna quit and I’m not gonna get knocked up either.

- Got a boyfriend?

- No.

- Husband? Friends with benefits?

- I don’t have the time so if you want to get rid of me you’ll have to fire me.

- I don’t fire people. - she saw her building come closer and closer from the car window. - Is it that one?

- Yes. - she grabbed her bag, eager to leave the car before anything could happen.

- Hey, you got a black dress? - he asked as she exited the car and she nodded yes. - Good, bring it to work tomorrow.

She mumbled an okay as the car drove away. God, she was alive. Good. All she wanted now was to return to her home and in a few minutes she was back in her living room where Wanda and her twin brother Pietro were waiting for her. Of course waiting meant watching Shark Tank and discussing how bad all the inventions were.

- How was work in hell? - Wanda didn’t even look at her, eyes glued to the TV while she stuffed popcorn in her mouth.

- I didn’t need to use the knife you snuck into my bag, thank you.

- You snuck a knife onto her back? - Pietro looked dumbfound at his sister who immediately snapped back with a response.

- She’s working for James Barnes, she needs to carry a knife block and she’s lucky I only put a steak knife. - Wanda turned around in the couch. - Hey where’s your cardigan? I swear you left with it.

- Shit. - Y/N looked around. - Fuck, I’ve left it in his car.

- Whose car?

- Mr. Barnes’. He gave me a ride and I took my cardigan off because the car was so warm. Fuck. I’ll never see it again.

- Why were you in his car, are you crazy? - now Wanda was interested. Clearly her best friend’s lack of judgment was more interesting than the poor soul trying to pitch a tuna can opener shaped like a tuna to a bunch of executives.

- He gave me a ride ... oh and do you have a black dress?

- I do. - Pietro said gaining an odd look from the two girls. - What? Girls love me and I love them. Stuff get’s left behind. What can I say?

- You’re disgusting. - Wanda rolled her eyes.

taglist: @lookiamtrying @mariamermaid @sebastianstansqueen @unmagically

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan/reader #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan/you #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan/y/n #sebastian stan x y/n #bucky barnes #bucky/reader #bucky/you #bucky/y/n #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky imagine #mob boss!bucky #mob!bucky

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venteamocha · 3 years

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Hello! Sometimes I see you post stuff from IF blogs and I've recently started playing some IF games, which I've enjoyed so far. Do you have any IF stories you'd recommend in particular? I'm not attached to any particular genre and I don't need romance or a self-insert main character, (though I'm not opposed to either). Though, it's a definite plus if it's LGBTQ+ inclusive! I'm not really sure what the "cornerstones" are of IF so I'll take any and all recommendations haha

Oh god, I play so many IFs. So many. And it’s not even close to all of them, but I’m trying!!

Tbh IFs without romance seems to be very rare, I think because when I think IF I think Choice of Games, and those pretty much always have romance in them. At least, the most well known ones do. But a well done one without romance would be nice too!

Okay, this is a list of my favourites! They’re all LGBT+ inclusive, and most have gender selectable love interests, or at least ones that change gender depending on the gender and sexuality combination you pick. In no particular order, of course. Behind a cut because I’m gonna give them each a mini review. Because I haven’t done that yet.

(There are so many.)

Mind Blind: I absolutely love our big brother Nick, I love how witty and sharp so much of the dialogue is, I love how the MC clearly has a rather large handicap, but is still such an important person to so many people and not looked down on in the slightest. And when they are, we all know it’s because that person is a jerk! They’re not defined by what they aren’t, but what they are, and that’s a great message.

Shepherds of Haven: Part of why I love this one so much is I just love fantasy settings and this one just pulls it off so well. The cast is full of amazing characters, and I gotta say I die inside pretty regularly for not being able to afford the patreon content, lol. The author puts so much amazing stuff on there, and gives us so much great content in the game and through answers on tumblr, and you can tell this whole thing is just the best thing ever to them, and that makes it the best ever for us readers too!

The Wayhaven Chronicles: I’d be shot if I didn’t mention this one, the series that literally killed dashingdon when the book 3 demo dropped!! Again, another author that cares a lot and does their best to do right by their fans. We’ve been given drip after drip of these amazing characters backstories, and I just cannot wait for more! It’s definitely very romance centered, but the overall plotlines are also very good, and I have to say that no matter who I romance, I just feel like the group as a whole is a family. And that’s wonderful.

Speaker: I really like the lore. I really like the lore. I can’t wait until we get more of the overall plotline. Mostly I want my Speaker to get in deep trouble so Seb, Li and Seer (best sister ever) go off and beat the shit out of whatever is causing it. This probably says something about me, but what can I say, I thrive on angst and inflicting near death injuries on my OCs. Sometimes I even kill them, although all of this is offtopic. Or is it? I guess we’ll find out, although I doubt we’ll actually be able to kill off Speaker. And yes, I am definitely playing the Seb & Li poly route. I love them both so much.

Wilhelmina: I love vampires, ok? Ok? And this one is based off Dracula!! The OG!! And you can choose Drac’s gender!! Shit, sign me up forever!! Yeah, she might be literally killing my bff, torturing my fiancé and low key fucking with my mind, but vampires are hot!! Let me live! Or not. But yeah, this is a really well done retelling of the Dracula novel and I like how well it works as an IF. Did I mention I like vampires?? Especially when they get all monstery?? (This one has an MC with a set gender, as it’s based on an already existing literary figure. Mina can have a same sex relationship with dracula, if you make drac a female, or with Lucy, a female love interest.)

More Things in Heaven and Earth: Hi Nell!! First off, I gotta uncover a deep shame of mine. My family literally has a Shakespeare heirloom collection. As in, my greatgrandfather passed down through the family a collection of Shakespeare that was published in 1911. In ye olde englishe. I tried to read it when I was like 10 and was like what language is this?? What the fuck? What the fuck??? And ended up reading As You Like It, a bit of Romeo and Juliet, and a little of Hamlet. Didn’t touch the rest of it. I only got into the other stories through trashy ya reimaginings. That said, this retelling of Hamlet inspired me to go read the whole of the original and now I have a lot of fears for these characters that I’m so much more attached to, oh god I hope my Ophelia has a happy ending. I hope Hamlet himself has a happy ending. The dialogue is so well done, everyone is engaging, and yeah it made me finish an old af book when nothing else did. (This one also has an MC with a set gender, female, for the same reason. However, there are two gender variable love interests, so you can very much play a bi or gay Ophelia if you so choose.)

Guenevere: I love King Arthur. All the myths. I have so many books based on the King Arthur mythos, oh dear god. I love pretty much every version of it. All the movie and tv shows too! I just can’t get enough of those knights. I could go on for paragraphs about how courtly love worked and how all the different social castes were, but I’ll try not to. This series lets you customize Guen as a character to an amazing degree, considering that she’s also based on an actual literary figure like the other two I mentioned above. It really feels like she becomes your own character, and yet she still exists within this world very very well. I worry quite a bit that the author might have bit off more than they can chew with the current book they’re working on, what I’ve seen of it looks absolutely massive in scale. What is out so far is a wonderful read though, full of drama and laughter and lots of chances to make the story your own.

Bastard of Camelot: Yep! Another King Arthur series! Sue me! This one lets you set Mordred’s gender though, so it’s more inclusive in that way. It is very interesting to play as one of the “bad guys” of the King Arthur mythos. You can play them as straight up evil, as good, or you know, a bit of column a and a bit of column b. Or they can just be a rude little shit. It’s got dragons too! You get a dragon pet! Dragons are cool. It can be a bit tough to play sometimes, since a lot of people dislike Mordred quite a lot because of prejudices. Hopefully this will change a bit later in the series if you’ve been a fairly good person up to that point. Gotta say though, as a warning, that Mordred is a product of incest. It’s not glossed over, and it does cause a lot of problems for them in the story.

God of the Red Mountain: I just love that this inspired me to read more chinese mythology tbh. There is just so much here! And it’s just such a good read. I wish I was better at describing things. The MC being a spirit that you can define, the whole setting, most of the love interests also being spirits, the massive amount of history and culture and lore, how it all fits together. It is such a well done story. I really wish it got more attention than it does. I still miss Big Sister. I still can’t wait to find out more about the foxes, and how we can heal our MC.

The Nameless: Another one that lets you play as something otherworldly. I love the lore behind this one, and I love all of the cast I’ve met. I kind of like that our MC isn’t loved right off the bat, that we’ll have to win over all of our love interests and even the other npcs. I’m up for the challenge! Everything I’ve read on the tumblr for these characters just makes me love them all more tbh. I love how much they’ve written for all of them! Most of all though, I love Oisein. All the art of them is just *chef kiss* and their personality is magical.

A Mage Reborn: This is a really recent one but!! Wow, it’s really well done! That cliffhanger!! Oof!! Not many books literally start with killing your MC off! That takes guts! I told the author this already, but I love the way they formatted this, the way it starts with the end, so to speak, and then fills it all out. It just made everything feel so poignant, how MC is literally looking back at all these moments in time in the last minutes they have before they die. Shit. That’s powerful. And there’s gonna be more??? Can’t wait for that angst. Give me that drama. Of course I picked the one who had me killed, that’s just how I am!

These are all just the COG type games, there are a few twine games with graphics I’d throw on here, but the list is long enough as it is and they feel like they’re in a different category to me. Maybe it’s just me?

#if #if recs #rivi's recs #interactive fiction #there are more than these that i like too!#these are just the ones i feel the strongest about #and as i said these don't include the itchio twine ones #there are amazing ones there too but that feels like it should be a separate post?#i'd put links but i think it won't show up anywhere if i do #because tumblr is A Site #i can pass them on though if needed

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zeldasayer · 4 years

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I transcribed and translated Pedro’s interview from GQ Germany for all of us. I tried translating as good as possible but bear with me, English is not my mother tongue. By @sixties-loser

Pedro Pascal, the star from “Game of Thrones”, “Wonder Woman” and “The Mandalorian” talks about becoming an adult, film, fashion, corona – and a painful surgery in the exclusive GQ interview.

It seems almost eerie how empty the streets of LA are in the sunshine. Meanwhile a new normality seems to be coming to Europe, most people in L.A. are still cutting their own hair. Many have not seen their friends for half a year. The pandemic is out of control. The reaction towards it too. Inviting someone into their garden for a “distance drink” can cause the same distress as suggesting to switch spouses.

Therefore, it was particularly surprising that Pedro Pascal immediately accepted. He accepted the drink, not to switch spouses. He is one of the rising stars and newcomers this year – if it wasn’t for corona sending the whole film industry into a forced vacation, there would most likely not have been time for said drink. After having his skull crushed in “Game of Thrones” followed the lead role as a DEA agent hunting Pablo Escobar in “Narcos” in 2015 and now he is stepping towards big Hollywood films. From the 1st of October onwards the Chilean-born actor will be starring in the blockbuster “Wonder Woman 1984”. Moreover, the second season of the “Star Wars”-series “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ starring him as the lead is going to air in October this year – but he will be underneath a helmet. Well, we all are under a helmet in 2020 in one way or another. We want to meet the man who a few years ago still worked as a waiter in New York, whose parents were political refugees who found asylum in Denmark and settled in Texas and whose son one day signed up for a theatre group in High School.

Then, the cancellation! While we were in the middle of fixing up the house and the garden for the drink with Pedro and organizing the fashion shoot, which was not easy considering the safety measures in L.A., his management called with an unfortunate message: Pedro – no, not sick with corona – had to get emergency surgery because of a damaged tooth and was lying in bed with a swollen face that was hindering him from speaking and taking pictures. The sun is shining onto empty streets. And our empty garden.

A few days later he nonetheless arrived at our front door without a swollen face but still with threads in his mouth. He was not chauffeured by a limo-service but he came with his own car – he even picked up his make-up artist. He is helping her carrying all of her utensils into the house and declares: “I’ve got time today!”. What a celebrity! It seemed like we did not want to ask him how he made it to the A-List of Hollywood but he wanted to ask us how we made it to the A-list. Pedro Pascal! Yes, what kind of a celebrity?

Pedro Pascal: Sorry for messing with your plans. The surgery was an emergency.

GQ: Really? We were wondering whether the swelling wasn’t the product of a secret visit to the plastic-surgeon. Apparently, they are drowning in work because of the quarantine in Hollywood.

PP: I have to disappoint you. A few days before our appointment I was rushing to the hospital with a fractured tooth and the worst pain in my entire life – a hospital in which treats people with severe cases of corona. I was unable to reach any dentist! Right in front of the parking lot a specialist called me back. The pain was hell despite the ten injections I got. The doctor said I was not an exception because a lot of people are grinding their teeth because of all the stress.

GQ: What are you most afraid of at the moment?

PP: How the government is handling the pandemic is worrying me more than the virus itself. This shortage of intelligent management of the crisis is a moral shame. The leadership crisis in this country is turning us all into orphans – destitute and abandoned.

GQ: How did you spend your time over the last few months?

PP: I spent it with frozen pizza and sweatpants in Venice Beach. I live in a rear house that’s in a family’s garden. Actually, there are a lot of good takeout places nearby but for some reason I just love pepperoni pizza from the supermarket.

GQ: That does not really sound like movie star-lifestyle. What does it feel like being suddenly stopped from top speed to zero?

PP: Regarding what is going on around the world one should hold back one’s own mental turmoil. I would be lying if I was saying that I am not disappointed. The whole team put a lot of heart and work into the production of “Wonder Woman 1984”. We had a lot of fun on set. I wished to travel around the world and introduce the film with the same lively energy.

GQ: You come from a politically engaged, socialist family that fled from the Pinochet-regime in Chile. What do you remember from that time?

PP: My sister and I were born in Chile but I was only nine months old when we first found asylum in Denmark. From there we quickly came to San Antonio in Texas where my dad started working as a doctor at the university clinic.

GQ: Texas is not known as a socialist utopia. How did you assimilate?

PP: San Antonio is not a Cowboy-town but very diverse with big Asian, black and Latino communities. I remember it as a romantic place, culturally open. The culture shock only came as we later moved to range county in California. There the atmosphere was suddenly white, preppy and conservative.

GQ: How were you received in California?

PP: I’m still ashamed of the fact that I did not correct my classmates when they kept on calling me Peter. I am Pedro. Even if I didn’t grow up in Chile the country and the language are still a part of me. I was very unhappy in that environment. However, I was fortunately able to go to another school close to Long Beach where I felt more comfortable. Through the theater group at that school I found my way.

GQ: Were you able to visit Chile as a child?

PP: Yes, when my parents made it to the list of expatriates that were able to travel to Chile without consequences. First, there was a big family reunion and then my sister and I stayed there for a few months with relatives while my parents went back to Texas. They likely needed a break from us. They got us when they were very young, had a buzzing social life and my mother was obtaining a PhD in psychology.

GQ: Was your mother a typical young psychologist who wanted to apply her theoretical knowledge at home?

PP: You mean, whether I was her guinea pig? For sure! I remember strange tests and sittings that were disguised as games where someone was watching me react to different toys. I cannot have been older than six but I was already aware of the dynamic. My favourite thing was being questioned about my dreams. That was a wonderful opportunity to come up with fantastic stories.

GQ: Was that your first performance?

PP: Of course! My mother worried about my strong imagination because I was living in my own fantasy world rather than reality. I hated going to school. I was always categorized as the troublemaker. At one point, the topics at school became more interesting and my grades also went up. There are so many kids that are unnecessarily diagnosed with learning disabilities without considering that school can be abhorrent. Why is it so accepted to be bored in class when there are so many stimulating ways to convey knowledge?

GQ: Considering al that has happened this summer around the world: Do you believe that we can seriously demand social change now?

PP: I Hope so. After lockdown, the first time I went out was to protest for “Black Lives Matter” on the streets. The energy was peaceful and hopeful until the police provoked severe conflicts. Nevertheless, we cannot run from problems like we used to this time and we cannot distract ourselves from them either. It seems like the pressure of the pandemic led to a new clarity: We cannot go on this way.

GQ: The “Wonder Woman 1984” Trailer revives the optimism of the 1980’s. From today’s point of view, it seems almost nostalgic.

PP: That’s right. You really are happy for two hours. The director Patty Jenkins created a film full of positive messages. We shot in Washington D.C., then in London and Spain – this sounds like I am talking of a past time.

GQ: Do you miss traveling?

PP: I’m just now realizing the privilege of just packing up one’s stuff and being able to fly anywhere. An American passport used to guarantee unlimited travel. And that’s why it the small radius of our lives is actually unimaginable. Over the last years I often retreated for a break after shootings because I was constantly on the move and overstimulated. My friends were already complaining I had become too comfortable. We all took social contact for granted and are only realizing now how dependent we actually are on human contact. Over the last weeks I often longingly thought about all the parties and dinner invitations I declined.

GQ: In L.A. people spend more time at home or nature than in other metropolises that are more geared towards public life. Could this city become your second home after New York?

PP: My Real Home are my friends. I have been a nomad since I was little and I do not have a place where I have put down roots. Up until not long ago my physical home was a place in between departure and arrival. Therefore, it was something I did not want to complicate through the accumulation of stuff. On the contrary: Without having read Marie Kondo’s book I have freed myself from excess baggage over the last few years and I lived relatively minimally.

GQ: Is there nothing you collect or something you just can’t throw away?

PP: Books! I even still have the literature I read when I was a teenager and when I was in college. Recently, I stumbled upon a box full of old theatre manuscripts and materials from my time at the New York University. I also cannot part from art easily, just like I cannot part from lamps or old photos. On the other hand, I can easily get rid of furniture and clothes.

GQ: Do you remember roles that were really only completely defined through the costume?

PP: Yes, I am particularly thinking about “Game of Thrones”. At that time I understood for the first time what it meant to be supported by a look. This is thanks to the costume designer Michele Clapton. She created very feminine robes and brocade coats for my character that nevertheless looked masculine when worn and I felt very sexy in them. Of course, Lindy Hemmings power-suits and Jan Swells bleached hairstyle for the tycoon-villain in “Wonder Woman 1984” were very important as well. At first I did not really see myself in the role because the cuts and colors of the 80s do not really fit my body. I’m more the 70s type.

GQ: Do you incorporate those inspirations into your personal wardrobe?

PP: In my free time I choose comfort over a cool look these days. Sometimes I miss the times when I expressed myself through a certain style. It is hard to imagine that I went to Raves as a teenage in the 90s; I was a real club kid with ridiculous outfits: overalls, balloon pants, football shirts and a top hat, like in Dr.Seuss’s “Cat in a Hat”. Later in New York I was hanging out with a group of people that felt it was very important to have a certain style. The fact that I am basically only wearing sweatpants everyday is actually tragic.

GQ: whoever plays roles in comic book adaptations becomes a bodybuilder and eats ten chicken breasts a day. You don’t?

PP:My body would not agree with that. It is hard enough to stay in shape normally. When you’re in your mid-forties you have to live with a lot more discipline. Up until before my tooth-incident I worked out with a trainer in my garden multiple times a week to keep the quarantine body in check.

GQ: Apart from the personal trainer, are you in a steady relationship?

PP: I am not ready for that yet. Maybe at some point I will be but until then I’ll let it be. I can’t even offer you absurd corona dating stories.

GQ: What would annoy you the most if you were your own roommate?

PP: I can be quite controlling. I have to conjure all my humanity to prevent myself from going through my entire film collection. When I don’t want something I cannot keep it to myself or be passive-aggressive, I always have to take it to the frontlines. Other than that, I tend to have tunnel view: when I am not feeling well I cannot imagine to ever feel better again. I have trouble relativizing my emotions or to wave off problems. Method-acting would really not be for me. This is why I try to only work on projects that feel good, where there is mutual support and encouragement.

GQ: When we were trying on the clothes earlier you spoke of a lack of self-confidence. How does that get along with a career like yours?

PP: Isn’t it interesting how these characteristics and circumstamces relate? Self-worth comes from inside but it is also influenced by what society values because we often internalise the public gaze. I have lived in New York for 20 years, I studied there and made a living by working as a waiter until my mid-thirties because the theatre and film jobs I got did not pay the bills. There were so many times I was almost there. The disappointment of having missed the perfect role or opportunity by a hair’s width can be crushing. When should you give up and what is plan B? That is a question that is not only on many actors‘s minds but also on many others minds who struggle for a living – no matter how much potential they have or how close they seem to be to the top. We are seeing now how our narrow definition of success destroys society. At the same time, we are realizing that where we come from and the color of our skin still decide whether we can exist with dignity.

GQ: What are the positive aspects of a relatively late success as leading-man?

PP: I feel like I can decide over my own life without the pressure of having to accept projects or to have to present a certain identity on social media. This is for sure also because I am a man. Regardless of age, Women have to try harder to stand out.

GQ: Life always consists of risk management – now more than usual. For what would you risk losing something?

PP: Generally, when you never risk something you might never get ahead. That is for friendship, love, work and creativity. I have to be ready to take risks for the things that really matter to you.

#pedro pascal #THANK YOU MY LOVE!#submission

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anchorshots · 3 years

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...that sure was an ending! as disappointing as sotsu has been... it’s been fun, keeping up with everyone’s reactions and theory crafting and even just throwing my own thoughts into the ring. i’m definitely gonna miss higurashi thursdays, even if the product in question was... well, not the best quality?

the stuff i loved about the ending:

that gorgeous rendition of you playing at the end

the beauty of springtime hinamizawa (those cherry trees, oh my god???)

okonogi looking smug as hell because he's off to start a food distribution company and get in with the ushiromiya family

smol eua was very smol

SATOSHI WOKE UP HOLY SHIT

SHION GOT SCREENTIME HOLY SHIT

the message from the club that it’s okay if friends grow apart and don’t see each other all the time; they’re still friends at the end of the day, no matter where life takes them.

the stuff i didn’t love:

... a lot, honestly, but a lot of my issues with the last episode have to do with my issues with sotsu as a whole? so much of it just felt... rushed and kind of unearned? i think a lot of my feelings can be summed up as “cool ideas, awful execution”.

this could’ve been really good, but either r07 yeeted the ball down like 34 flights of stairs when it came to giving passione his outline, or they did while adapting it. something went wrong there, and i think the push to market sotsugyou as newcomer friendly shot the entire project in the foot; we spend so much time retreading old ground that the new material barely has time to breathe and stand on its own, and any newcomers were just told “you really wanna go back and read the vn/read the manga/watch the anime before starting gou” anyways, so like... why bother with that?

in any case, i really like what tomato akase’s been doing with the gou manga, so i have higher hopes for higurashi jun. hopefully its conclusion will be less of a trainwreck than sotsu! as it is, unless jun pulls off some gotdam miracles, i... am still not considering this canon to OUR matsuribayashi. maybe some other matsuribayashi fragment had all this happen, but the one we saw in the original series? nope. (there are happy st lucia timelines in mei, after all, so like... yeah.)

i think that’s all i really have to say, but i’ve rambled a bit more under the cut just... i dunno, to clear my head and process what i watched?

i was all for redeeming satoko in the end, but... one (1) round of looper thunderdome, a dbz/touhou inspired miko battle, then punching the heck out of each other in the river... does not feel like enough from what they’ve shown us?

if they’d built up to this moment more in the answer arcs by showing more of satoko’s hesitation, her guilt, any horror at what she’s doing to her friends, her desperately assuring herself that none of this will matter when rika finally, finally stays and they can all be happy... then led up to the tatariakashi breakdown and teppei murder where she kills off all of those conflicting feelings to win the game as quickly as possible so all of this can stop... i dunno, i feel like it’d be easier to stomach her being forgiven without question? like, the teppei and sea of fragments scenes were clearly meant to convey she’s been feeling like this the entire time- but when we actually saw satoko on her own, we got one scene of her being sad she pushed rena into murder, then it was all mustache twirling villainy from there on out until teppei?

or, hell, i’d have taken seeing her having to account for unexpected problems in her plans and adapt on the fly more. like... the biggest problems she encountered apart from the teppei guilt situation were to do with mion taking longer to go off the deep end ( requiring needling on her end to push mion into a more fragile state where she’d act out ), then having no idea whether mion had killed rika or not once the tragedy was kicked off. apart from that... there was nothing? she was totally in control the whole time? everything went according to plan 95% of the time? i get it, i get it, certainty(tm), but certainty isn’t an instant win button. certainty is perseverance. certainty is overcoming every single setback thrown at you and clawing your way to the top in the face of adversity. hard work and an iron will go rewarded. you know... takano’s entire thing?

also... uh... how’d they get yeeted back into the original matsuribayashi fragment from the miko battle fragment? and... after the advice session from the club, did they just off themselves to do it over and go their separate ways properly? or can they just hop at will now without dying? huh???????????

lambda 100% split off from satoko in the ending, though, that’s for sure. i guess time is wonky in the sea of fragments, or as someone on reddit put it, lambda existing before bern was misdirection???

i guess my big question is where exactly bern split off from rika. saikoroshi was supposed to be the big split, but sotsugyou being where lambda split - and rika’s actions throughout the series, as well as their parting words - suggests that bern was still in there somewhere. maybe it was an incomplete split in saikoroshi, then sotsugyou finished it off? i dunno.

also what the hell was that final eua-hanyuu battle. like, you go hanyuu, but... it was so anticlimactic, she deserved better.

also kind of sad we didn’t get to see the satoshi-satoko and shion reunion but like,,, that makes sense. he just just woke up, boy’s not stepping out of that clinic for a while yet. still, i wish they’d done his scene first with irie in the room, then while irie was idk, stepping out to get something he needed, saw takano and tomitake come in and said something about how happy satoko would be to hear this... i dunno. just to allude to the fact that satoko has more in her life than rika. nii-nii’s back! once he’s confirmed safe to be around, she’ll be able to come see him! shion can, too!

god. i just. s i g h.

it just sucks seeing my favourite series of all time treated so carelessly. maaaan...

i don’t think i hate sotsugyou. it had great ideas, but its flaws... hoo boy, they were flaaaaaaaws.

#pepper.txt #higurashi gou #higurashi sotsu #higurashi spoilers #man... MAN...#im gonna miss higu thursdays but MAAAAAAAAAAN...

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