#this is a pure tribute to the best person in my family

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // part five

summary: all the stars aligned, and it was you.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 2.7k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, r is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: this one got me y'all i won't lie-

series masterlist // playlist

"Is everything okay? You look upset." You ask Coryo, mere moments after he joined your side of waiting tributes and mentors to tour the arena. How had you seen it so quickly? He curses himself mentally for making his distress so obvious.

For you, it was how pale he looked. All the colour had been drained from his face, and you doubted that was from him running up to you to catch up. He looked too fit to be sick just from running. The crease in his brow and bloodshot eyes certainly didn't help, either.

"Nothing." He replies quickly as the line starts to move. "How are you doing today?"

"Well." You nod, allowing the shift in topic. You wouldn't want to press him, you just didn't want whatever he is upset about to be because of you. "I have been reading. It helps."

"Oh, good. I'm glad." He hums, looking down at you for the first time.

"Thank you, again. I hope it wasn't too much of a hassle to get."

"Not at all." He shakes his head, returning your ever-present smile as best as he can within an hour of witnessing the possible death of another one of his classmates. Truth is, it was hard to get Romeo and Juliet for you. It wasn't commonplace in the Capitol, clearly, and he only knew one person, more broadly, one family who had ever so much as set foot in the Districts.

"Coriolanus! What a pleasure! Please, come in." Sejanus's mother greets him at the door, stepping out of the way and gesturing for him to enter.

"Mrs. Plinth, how are you?" He asks politely, stepping in and wiping his shoes on the doormat.

"I'm good! Yourself?"

"Good." He nods.

"Come eat, I just finished up some baking." She walks back into the home, and he follows suit. He's shocked when he's led into the kitchen, and she pats a stool at the kitchen island for him to sit. "Would you like some tea?" She offers, already cutting a slice of pie for him. It was still steaming. Still warm. His stomach growled just at the sight as he sat down. Typically one wouldn't host guests in your kitchen, but she was District. Old habits die hard, he supposed.

"Please." Coryo smiles at her gratefully.

"How is your mentorship going?" She asks, and he can tell by her refusal to make eye contact that it's purely to make conversation. She likely shared some perspectives with her son, but she was too mature to state such unpopular opinions in a way her son was not. "Sejanus told me you got paired with the girl from District Twelve. He really likes her. Said she's very smart. Very kind."

"She is. She's lovely." Coryo nods as she slides a plate in front of him, handing him a fork moments later. "I think it's going well."

"It's such a shame..." She mutters, clicking her tongue and shaking her head as she puts the tea on the kettle on the burner in between them. "Anyway," She catches herself, moving on quickly. "What can we do for you? Shall I call for my son?"

"Y/N is the reason I'm here, actually." He replies, ignoring her comment. Admittedly, when it came to you, he agreed with Mrs. Plinth and her son. It is such a shame.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I would like to get her a copy of her favourite book. I was hoping you might have it, I've never heard of it before."

"We have a library." She nods. "I can certainly take a look, what is it called?"

"It's very, very old, so no worries if you don't have it, but it's called 'Romeo and Juliet'." He tells her, eyes gleaming with hope. If they didn't have it, he wasn't sure what he would do.

"Oh! That is familiar to me." She smiles. "I haven't read it since I was your age, but I'm sure we still have it kicking around here somewhere. Do you mind keeping an eye on the tea while I take a look?"

"Of course." Coryo nods, wanting nothing less than to make his own tea as a guest in someone's home, but he has to do what he must to get you that book.

As soon as she wipes her hands on her apron and walks out of the kitchen, he hears her voice again. "Sejanus! Your friend is here!"

Internally, he rolls his eyes. He didn't want to see his classmate, but he was in his home. Maybe Sejanus would handle his tea, at least. He took this opportunity to start eating the warm pie in front of him, he hated people seeing him eat, but he was making all kinds of sacrifices today. Maybe he should ask if he could take a piece for you.

"Oh. Coryo." Sejanus says, walking into the kitchen. "What brings you?"

"Y/N." He replies. "I'd like to get a book for her. Your mother says she has it."

"Ah." Sejanus hums, slotting himself into the seat next to Coryo. So much for the tea. "What book?"

"Romeo and Juliet. It's her favourite." Coryo explains. "She's going to do a monologue from it in her interview."

"At least she'll talk to you." Sejanus sighs. "Marcus won't even look at me."

"Well, Y/N is nicer than most." Coryo says, much more eager to talk about you than Sejanus and his problems.

"She's something, huh?" Sejanus smiles, taking the bait.

"Yes. Very intelligent."

"I think it will be easy for her to get donations. Even if people don't know what she's talking about." Sejanus elaborates. "She's pleasant to look at, and the people here are so shallow that that might be the only thing that matters."

Pleasant, to Coriolanus, was an understatement. Surely, you were the most beautiful thing the Districts had to offer. That didn't mean that Sejanus or anyone should be valuing you based on that, though. Your mind was just a bonus. It would work wonders in humanizing you to the people of the Capitol. It had certainly worked on him.

"I hope it's more than that." He replies, and truth be told, it's a lie. He doesn't want anyone to look at you the way he does, but if it meant people sending money so he could save your life, so be it.

"I do too, but it's doubtful. Regardless, she'll do well. You'll have lots of donations to work with." Sejanus says, attempting to comfort his friend's worries. "My ma will convince my father to send some for her. I heard them talking about it, she wants to help you."

"Is that not a conflict of interest?"

"Maybe." Sejanus shrugs. "They can't donate to Marcus, obviously, but Ma really likes her. Asks about her every day. She's rooting for both of them. The problem is they can't both win."

Coryo would take it. One hundred percent he would take it, but it makes his heart crack even more.

"Here! Here it is!" His mother calls out as she returns to the kitchen, excitedly placing the book on the counter next to Coryo, patting the top of it.

"Thank you, Mrs. Plinth." He sighs in relief, picking up the old book in his hands.

"Please, call me Ma. We're so far past formalities." She grins, leaning against the counter across from them as the tea starts to whistle. Coryo would sooner die than call her 'Ma', but once again, he would do just about anything for you at this point. "I hope she enjoys it."

"I'll get it back to you before the games." Coryo promises.

Her smile fades to a sad one as she pours out the tea into a mug for him. "Yes, well, feel free to hold onto it as long as you need to, dear. I have more books than I could read in a lifetime."

"I did promise her I would read it." He matches her sentiment. "So I'll get into it after the games. I doubt I'll have any free time until then."

"Keep it. It's yours." She smiles.

"Thank you." He says again, flipping briefly through some of the pages. It was old, practically falling apart in his hands, but he knew you would take good care of it. And after you, he would do the same.

"I hid it with the blanket." You tell him. "I sure hope it doesn't rain..." You mumble, looking behind you to check how clear the sky currently is. So far, the book would be safe.

You're careful, hesitant even as you approach the turnstiles ahead of you. You wish that it wouldn't speak when you walk through it, but you know it will as you watch every other tribute ahead of you push through the metal gate.

"Enjoy the show!" You wince at the words, then you're on the other side. That wasn't so bad, but the statement echoes endlessly in your mind, bouncing off every other thought you've had today as you carry on into the open arena, allowing the other tributes and mentors to enter behind the two of you as a camera is shoved in your face and you smile, giving it a small wave.

"Well, hello there." You grin, looking past the camera to the man holding it. "How are you today?"

You don't get an answer as one of the mentors is yanking him away to point the camera at someone else. As you look around, instinctively, you step closer to Coryo's side as you gaze around the arena. "Gosh, It sure is... small." You mutter, swallowing the lump in your throat as reality comes crashing down on you in the dark space.

He grabs your hand.

Coriolanus has always thought the arena was huge. From his memories at the top of the stands, it did look big, but down here, on the floor, it did feel a lot smaller. Especially when he forced himself to imagine that it would be him who would be killed in this very room, not even a week from today.

There was nowhere to hide, he knew that, but now, the idea scared him. What would you do? He doesn't even have any good advice to give you.

You jump as the door slams shut behind you, turning quickly to look. Even Coryo looks scared, and you pull yourself closer to him. Had they lied to you? Were the games starting today? You didn't want to say goodbye yet. To the world, your family, to Coriolanus. You weren't ready- but would you ever be?

That's when the windows start to slide open above you, letting the light back in.

"Welcome to the arena for the Tenth Annual Hunger Games. Tributes, mentors, you have fifteen minutes to survey the space and discuss strategy." The voice over the loudspeakers is reassuring to you, but you know that's only temporary.

Coryo stays silent as he looks around. Clearly, you were ahead of him, though, already pulling on his hand in the direction of some of the other tributes. He only slightly resisted, confused as to what was happening, but he would let you have this ounce of freedom to do what you pleased.

"Hi!" You smile hopefully at Marcus as he's standing with Sejanus. "I think we're supposed to be forming alliances. I trust you, Marcus."

Your candidness almost shocks Coryo, but he quickly realizes what you're doing. You have almost no shot without somewhere to hide, so your best bet is to find allies. He didn't want you to do this, but now he sees few other options. He makes brief eye contact with Sejanus as Marcus ignores you, just walking away. Coryo starts scanning the rest of the tributes, suddenly focussed on who would be your best strategic option.

"Hey." Coryo whispers, leaning in to whisper in your ear. "If you want allies, talk to them." He points over to Reaper and Dill. He could see that Reaper was strong, and Dill was clearly a liability. You could slot right into the middle as far as skillsets go; he could defend you and she was no threat.

"Okay. Come on." You nod, dropping his hand to head toward them. Coryo looked around on the way, trying to see what other mentors were doing. What he was supposed to be doing, but most of them were just talking to each other, others only to their tribute. There was no right action, but what the two of you were doing was different. That was good.

"Dill, Reaper!" You smile as you get closer, giving a slight wave. Immediately, Reaper is looking past you and glaring at your mentor, tucking Dill behind his back and shaking his head. "Oh." You stop, looking between the two of them and the glare that Coryo is matching. "Never mind, then. I'll leave you to it."

Coryo is already trying to find another option for you, it wasn't looking good. You turn back to him, sighing before plastering a smile on your face, trying not to look too discouraged. "Okay, well..." You look around. "Oh! Lamina. She's lovely." You grab his hand again, but he stays in place as he watches the interaction she's having with Coral and the team she's already forming as they're actively casting Lamina out in favour of the boy from her District.

"Coryo?"

"Not her. Them." He explains, pointing them out to you.

"Oh, I don't know..." You're hesitant, and he understands why, but that's not an option. Without Reaper, numbers would be your biggest safety.

"Safety in numbers." He mumbles, overriding your reluctance and starting to walk their way, pulling you with him.

"Oh, okay. Yeah." You agree, subconsciously cowering behind him. "Actually, Coryo, I'm really not comf-" You speak up, trying to stop his crusade before you're jumping from the sound of an explosion above you.

You both freeze, looking up as the ceiling begins to collapse down on you, more blasts making your ears ring.

Quickly, Coryo is changing directions, running in the opposite direction and pushing you ahead of him as you follow your feet, sprinting toward the light at the door over the shaking ground. You don't last long, stumbling over some already fallen debris and falling. "We gotta go, we gotta go- Y/N, get up!" Coryo is ahead of you now, and you can hardly hear his yelling even though he's right in your face, pulling you back to your feet.

Just as you regain your footing side-by-side, Coryo is the next to fall. As he takes you down with him with the grip on your wrist, you quickly realize it's because a beam fell on his back as the two of you stumbled forward. The flames spreading to the back of his red uniform were the first thing to clue you in.

In your panic and heavy breathing, you can still see his lips moving. You're already trying to pull the bars off of him when he first even gets the chance to scream for help. You groan, inaudible even to you over the commotion as you put all your weight into pulling it back, hoping he's not already severely burned, but you're sure he is as the flames burn the metal rod in your hand.

Your grip slips and you fall back into another piece of the fallen ceiling that surrounded you, apparently sharp as a protruding piece of metal pierces your upper arm. You yelp, looking down as the blood begins to pour from the wound, but you ignore it to keep trying to free your mentor. Then, you're being pulled back by your dress. "The gate is open! The gate is open, come on!" It's Marcus, and by the time you even turn to look at him he's running toward the open door, motioning for you to follow. He gives up quickly as two of the other tributes follow. You don't even hear the gunshots that knock them down. He's trying to escape. You could escape.

You hesitate, looking back down at the boy in front of you who you can see is choking to try and breathe. Someone else slides in at your side as you continue to pull, but they're pushing you back. "Y/N! Run!" Sejanus shouts in your face, quickly removing his hands from you to grab the beam where you were just holding it. "I've got him- Go!"

"My honest, best advice?" Your conversation from the other day immediately comes to mind. "Figure out a way to escape."

You frantically look between the door and the boys in front of you, trying to decide. You have to decide right now. Right now, right now, right-

It's an easy decision. You grab the hot bars again and start pulling with every bit of strength you can muster.

taglist: @soulessjourney, @keziahcore, @that-veela-girl, @motorsport, @dreamyysouls, @rockstarbfs, @Lanadelrey3, @rawrmameh, @3zae-zae3, @babyspice6, @pastel0rchid, @maysileeewrites, @articxari, @Urfavpouge, @Multivitaminfy, @baybieruth, @kitscutie, @annaelise, @serrendiipty, @fratboyharrysgf0201, @totallynotkaibiased, @stelleduarte, @klplynn, @secretsicanthideanymore, @bejeweledreverie, @fals3-g0d, @drewsandsebastianswife, @niicole-87, @queenofshinigamis, @innercreationflower, @nallasstuff, @spring-goddess1, @baybieruth, @lovelyxtom, @throughgoeshxmilton, @enwonie, @scorpiolystoned, @iovemoonyy, @kodzuvk, @soupasoup, @eedwardss, @thatmarvelchick19, @wearemadeofstardust0, @regulusblackcore, @kbakery , @qardasngan, @omgsuperstarg, @kuroosbby001, @puredreamagination, @fantasticchaosthing, @coolcatyarb, @yokolesbianism,

if your user has a strikethrough i wasn't able to tag you! i'm so sorry!

#tbosas #tbosas fic #tbosas x reader #coriolanus snow #hunger games #thg #thg fanfic #thg series #the hunger games #thg fanfiction #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus x you #coriolanus fanfiction #coryo x reader #coryo snow #snow x reader #snow lands on top

[jasmineiros]

I wasn't going to post this here due to the somewhat sensitive subject of idolization of celebrities and I actually already vented on Instagram stories, but once the dam breaks out it's useless to even try to contain it. And the only thing that is flooding my mind now is rage.

I already hated millionaires, but after Taylor Swift came to Brazil to that freaking circus people called a concert, I hated them even more.

In case you're not aware, Brazil is dealing incredibly badly with the climate crisis. In Rio they hit the temperature of 60°C (100F, but the sensation was of 140F). It was the highest temperature registered SO FAR. A mix of this unbearable heat and the fact that the staff managing the production of concert used certain materials such as god-damned metal to cover certain structures made several people to get severe burns and 23-year-old die of a heart attack.

Now, that's where the irony comes.

After hearing the news, the best Taylor could ever do was posting a stories saying "how sorry she was and she was so young and she was so beautiful and blablabla" but also very vehemently reinforcing that "due to her grief she wasn't going to say anything about it during the show". I mean, a person who technically loved her, had to get donations to travel across the country and literally died because of this god-damned concert and you can't even make a tiny, small tribute for her. She didn't even mention her name in the stories, which was Ana Clara, btw.

She or the staff never reached out to the family to ask if they needed anything, even though they absolutely had the means to do it. Several years ago, when a Rihanna fan was murdered, she personally paid for the expenses of the funeral, because the family couldn't afford it.

And it gets worse.

She cancelled her next performances due to the climate issues. Being herself is the biggest celebrity CO2e polluter of this year so far. And she got back to the US. In a fucking private jet.

I mean, this combo couldn't be more unbelievable. She not only completely dehumanized an incredibly painful and serious situation, as she, with the 1% of magnates that literally rule this planet, is simply the root cause of the imminent destruction of this planet but it doesn't matter, as long as she still has money being shoved into that white ass of hers.

Or maybe I'm being naive, maybe it's our fault, after all, monkeys are meant to the zoo, not to be in the presence of an untouchable, perfect and almighty nature force such as she, since apparently she can't even breathe the same air we do by just using a freaking common airplane, like a sensitive and sane person would.

The fact that she will just run out and make other concerts with that same innocent angel aura, even though she displays a borderline psychopath behavior, like she still was the 16-year-old girl writing songs about her break ups is absolutely unbelievable to me.

This is just so similar to when that cryptofascist piece of trash of Aurora decided it would be just a good idea to make a shallow and generic discourse about love and acceptance and how everyone is being cancelled nowadays when a member of her band posted and gestured dog whistle supremacy symbols on more than one occasion.

Honestly I wish I could feel anything else right now, but the only thing I can still manage to internalize and express is pure hate.

#yara.txt #taylor swift #anti taylor swift #anti swifties #swifties dni #anti capitalism

[flastar13]

In an au where Coriolanus is president and looking for his ex-girlfriend:

Coriolanus running to hug Lucy Gray: Lucy Gray❤️ my love, where were you?

Lucy Gray tied to a chair after being taken from her idyllic home in the woods by violent peacekeepers: What do you want now, you narcissistic, murderous asshole🤬?

Coriolanus😭: Why do you treat me like this my singing bird, I just want you to love me?

Lucy Gray😡: You tried to hunt me in that forest as if I were an animal, you betrayed your best friend causing his execution and let's not forget the countless atrocities your government commits.

Coriolanus😧😃: That was because you dared to end me through snake mail🐍, Sejanus was for the welfare of the nation😇, the same as the other sacrifices I had to make, so as your president 😎 I demand your gratitude and affection.

Lucy Gray 🤬: Fuck you Coriolanus, I would never share a zoo cage with you again.

Coriolanus 🥺: You're rejecting me, well I'll have to send multicolored adult snakes the size of a person to the next tributes of district 12 again. Do you remember them are the same ones that I threw your handkerchief to so that they would become familiar with your sweet scent? That's why I had to be a peacemaker in that horrible district.

Lucy Gray😰: Coryo... They're just kids... You can't do that...

Coriolanus🤔: What would sweet Maude Ivory be if she were harvested? Or Del Covey if a mysterious bomb went off in her house?

Lucy Gray😡: Don't mess around like my family, BITCH.

Coriolanus😌: What if all the mines in the 12th district are closed along with the black market? After all we count on District 5 for power.

Lucy Gray😭: Coriolanus please stop, they are innocent people and the 12th district was never my home, I was just trapped there by the war.

Coriolanus😈: And do not think that I will allow you to abandon me again, I will throw you in a cell in the prison of the presidential mansion in front of a huge television screen where you will see how people suffer because of you, until you are begging to be my girlfriend again.

Lucy Gray: You're married!

Coriolanus😒: Yes with Livia but I haven't seen her since our arranged wedding. So if you come back with me I'll give you all the first lady rooms and let you sing in the Pluribus culb, but if you need more time to think about it I respect that and I'll cut the food budget for District 12.

Lucy Gray 😭: It's okay Coriolanus I'll do what you want but don't hurt anyone.

Coriolanus👿: Is that all you have to tell me after so many years? After I send my best men away from the cover of civilization? After poisoning the entire cabinet to find you? After putting aside my busy schedule to see you? Officer execute order 66 in the district...!

Lucy Gray 😭🥺: Wait Coryo my love, I love you, you are a sweet cake with cream and as pure as freshly fallen snow Do you want to be my boyfriend again?

Coriolanus 😢: That was so sweet but it's not enough 👿 officer execute...

Lucy Gray 😫: I'm yours, only yours!

Coriolanus 😳: Really? I own you?

Lucy Gray 😭😫: If Coryo you are my owner, I belong to you just as you belong to me, it is written in the stars. Do you remember?

Coriolanus😍: Yes! 😏 Prove it.

Lucy Gray gives him the most passionate kiss of her life.

Coriolanus😍: Perfect my love (He proceeds to untie her but places a golden slave collar around her neck that will warn her if she leaves the presidential mansion without permission) now let's take a bath together like in the old days and then we go to my room to get catch up on my bed, then you have to prepare for your interview with Lucky Flickerman for your return and your duties as a mentor to the District 12 tributes.

Lucy Gray proceeds to cry uncontrollably as Coriolanus hugs her, comforts her, and inadvertently injects her with some kind of aphrodisiac.

#ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the hunger games #coriolanus snow #lucy gray baird #coriolanus x lucy gray #president snow

[drunkonmilktea]

What about class 1-A with a class mate with the same personality as Angie yonaga or toko fukawa.

✿✞✡︎✞✿

I was kinda shocked that three people requested for Angie, but I’m not complaining because I love Angie. Sorry this couldn’t be longer and I apologize for the long wait.

Quirk — Arts and Crafts: The user can create life and objects by painting or sculpting them. (Think of Abilene and Painter Kirby for reference.)

Class 1-A having a classmate with the same personality and talent as ᗩᑎᘜIᗴ YOᑎᗩᘜᗩ

[ᖇᗴᗩᗪᗴᖇ]: You would be wise to stop preaching such sacrilege. Atua may curse your bloodline for over three generations.

[Bakugo]: I’ve cursed out tons of members of my family! Bring it on!

You were a brand new foreign exchange student. Iida wanted to lecture you because you lacked the regular school uniform, but let it slide as he didn’t want to offend you if your clothes held any cultural significance.

The class was thankful for having someone so cheerful join the class. With the newfound stress of the Sports Festival and having the other classes hate them for being attacked, it alleviated some of their worries.

Sure the Atua stuff perplexed them a bit, but wanting to appear welcoming they didn’t question it too much.

It was mix bag when it came to academics. There were times where you’d be absent on the account of your god telling you to prepare a tribute of some kind.

[Kaminari]: I thought Atua was a peaceful god?

[ᖇᗴᗩᗪᗴᖇ]: He’s peaceful when he wants to be. Today he chooses violence.

When it comes to combat you aren’t one to be trifled with. Turning a one-on-one into a someone getting jumped by a flying cloud with an eyeball and a dog with three heads.

Midoriya was not too fond on giving up some of his blood, but you were almost able to get Todoroki to agree.

Momo and Iida try to be respectful but they have a hard time accepting the way you convert try and enlighten people. Iida will interfere when you start getting a little too close for other student’s comfort.

Kaminari is one of the few who (usually) stay after you preach about your god and enjoys showing off some his own drawings. Since Atua favors the boy, he is allowed to watch while you paint. Together both of you were to make some scarily realistic wax figures of some of your classmates.

[ᖇᗴᗩᗪᗴᖇ]: Kaminari, do you think I made Bakugo’s heads too big?

[Kaminari]: Seems fine. It looks as big and scary as the real deal.

While a lot of your classmates were creeped out they couldn’t argue about how well made them were.

[Kirishima]: My muscles could be a little bigger…

Most couldn’t argue. . .

Spreading the word of your god around school wasn’t always the best. Monoma was very vocal and quick to shoot you down in hopes of destroying you and your faith.

Your class and class b try their best to keep you both separated. Sometimes they fear for Monoma’s safety.

[Asahina]: Everyone’s going to the pool for some fun! Don’t be late!

Even though your classmates find you odd and scary at times, they never exclude you from the fun. They know (more so hope) that your intentions are pure. Their your friends and while they may not be true followers to Atua, they are important to you.

#bnha headcanons #class 1a headcanons #bnha #class 1a x gn reader #angie yonaga #danganronpa #danganronpa angie #my hero academia x reader #my hero academia #my hero academia headcanons #x male reader #my hero academia x male reader #my hero academia x gender neutral reader

[lmanburg]

WHY THE DREAM SMP STORY-LINE FELL OFF 100% TRUE FACTS

okaayyy so because it's FINALLY over and its been like nearly two years since significant plot things happened I'd like to talk about the Dream SMP story and my personal theory as to why its narratives and storytelling got progressively worse and/or lost harmony

I think it's because there were two distinctly different styles of "plot" being used at the same time. Or in other words, not everyone was on the same page about the focus of the plot and how the narrative moves.

I think some players were writing with a "character" plot in mind, while others were writing for an "event" plot.

Okay so to understand what I'm saying first we have to identify what the fuck a "character" plot and an "event" plot means.

A "character" plot, in the way I'm using it, means a plot that progresses because of a character's decisions, emotions, and personal growth. The plot moves because of how the character moves, and events occur around the character and the consequences of their actions. An "event" plot can be considered the opposite. The plot progresses as events progress, and the characters react to those events.

I'll try my best to give examples for these but y'know writing is subjective and all that. You can think of a character plot like a character study, like that one Classic Novel "Catcher in the Rye". The "events" of the story are dependent on the main character and his personality. Holden goes through the narrative, commenting on the world around him, moving through the setting, and we see how he slowly comes to terms with growing up and all that. There isn't much conflict, and certainly no conflict that he doesn't initiate himself. Boom. Character Plot.

Versus an Event Plot would be like the Iliad, mythology, or action movies. In mythology there is some character development, but mostly the story follows events that are removed from the agency of the characters. Heracles gets cursed with madness by Hera and kills his family, Theseus is sent by a king as a tribute to the monster, hell even Oedipus was fated to do ...all of that. His whole plot line was about how trying to escape the events laid out for him only fulfilled the events either way. Characters and their actions are defined purely by the events around them.

Sometimes plots can be a combination of two, but you wont have these two opposites at the same time. In Percy Jackson, the titular character goes through character development, but at the end of the day most of the plot happens around and to him, not the other way around. Versus in The Great Gatsby, events play a key role in how the story progresses, but all of the events are effects of character choices and development. You can't have both the events rule the characters and the characters rule the events. At best you can find a happy medium.

OKAY I hope that made sense. Now to apply all that nerd shit to the DreamSMP.

I think the reason the DSMP fell off is because major players, like Wilbur and Tommy, thought of the Plot as a "character plot", and nearly everyone else thought they were in an "event plot".

Characters like cWilbur and cTommy were certainly beholden to events out of their control, but most of their personal story followed their inner worlds, how they reacted to the world around them, and how they changed. Wilbur is a pretty obvious representation of a character story, as most of his plot-line centers around his ambition, paranoia, and mental health. Pogtopia is a good example of this but so is "the Wilbur Van" story-line. Sure, capital e Events happen in "the Wilbur Van", but most of them are a result of Wilbur's decisions, and they follow his development as a character.

cTommy also functions as a "Character" plot and let me argue why. Sure, exile "happens" to cTommy, but the horrors of exile are really how Tommy changes as a person because of it. He reflects on his relationship with others and himself during exile,and concludes that he really is alone, really is worthless. That's the plot of exile. Not just "Tommy is stuck away from New L'manburg", but "Tommy is changing for the worse in exile". And after the exile, a lot of events are a result of his decisions! His decision to hide with Technoblade, his decision to choose Tubbo, you get the point. The story-line around Tommy is very dependent on his growth as a character and how he reacts to the world around him.

Now. This was all well and good while ccWilbur and ccTommy were the ones (sort of) guiding the story progress. However, once the Tommy vs Dream conflict was resolved, and cTommy took a step back to let other characters lead, its pretty clear to see how the narrative became disjointed. Because while Wilbur and Tommy operated with their characters in mind, other players operated with the Events of the Server in mind.

I think the easiest example and the one with the most actual fucking plot would be cTechnoblade. Techno as a character reacts to events that happen to him, and the story focus isn't on how Technoblade's character will change, its on how the character will face the New Event that's happening. The butcher army happens to Techno, and he reacts. Tommy's betrayal happens to Techno, and he reacts. And sure he created the syndicate, but really they were waiting for something to happen to the syndicate so they could react. Technoblade's function isn't to progress the story, rather to react to the story, to survive through it. And to clarify, while this style of storytelling may not be for me, it's not inherently bad. However, I think it becomes detrimental when characters with this function overlap with characters who are meant to be introspective. Because the story of cTechnoblade is not effected by his inner world as a character, the inner worlds of other characters won't effect him either. Thats why cTommy & cTubbo's trauma, and cNiki & cRanboo's relationship with dream get trivialized and undermined, because those plot-lines literally cannot inform Techno's plot-line, it's not how he functions as a character.

And that makes me sound like I'm blaming cTechno, and by extension ccTechnoblade, for the servers problems, but I'm really not. I think every other player on that server fell for the same trap of assuming the Dream SMP was an events server.

At the risk of coming off as a massive bitch, I think post Disc Finale there was a glaring amount of "characters waiting around for things to happen". With the egg plot-line, everyone established that "yeah I know what the egg is and I either hate it/love it/don't care", but after that initial encounter, most characters were waiting for it to do something.

And if you're just waiting around for the world to do something, that's fucking boring. I think maybe the only content creator who realized this was Quackity, because after the disc finale cQuackity was one of the first characters to Start Doing Shit. And coincidentally, cQuackity's narrative is one of the final interesting stories from the DSMP, and it's very character driven.

And when you consider that so many people were treating the DSMP as "events happen and I react", then the communication issues make a lot more sense. Players couldn't just make their own story-line, because that's not how they thought the story worked.

And like, I can't exactly blame everyone for thinking like that, since ccWilbur was the one who wrote the script for Manburg and lead the plot. But still, how do you expect to tell an interesting story if all you're doing is reacting to someone else's??

Anyways. I don't know how to end this because like I could analyze the downfall of Every Single Character through this lens, even cTommy, but that'd be way too long and also nobody wants to read that. Have a good day and I wish you well on your DSMP recovery journey. Adiós!

#dsmp meta #dsmp #dsmp critical #uhhh idk #cctechnoblade critical #i guess not really #that tag makes me want to punch myself in the face i promise i love tehcnoblade so much im geuniely tearig up rn thinking about him #i told my siblings i would make a tumblr post about this #well here it is and it makes no damn sense. sorry.

[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: Best Films of 2022

Welcome to 2023! Of course we can't start off this new year in cinema without taking a look back at the best films of the 2022. As always, I have compiled a list of the films that I personally loved and especially the ones that moved me. This year was particularly surprising and I can't wait to share it with y’all. Now you may not agree with me on some of them and that's okay. All film is subjective and you can have your opinions, but these are mine. If you want a more detailed review of each film listed, then simply click the title of each film. So, lets get to it!

Jackass Forever: In my youth, the show and films brought so many laughs, cringes and sickening feelings as these professional idiots would do the most outrages stunts that captivated my generation. When it was announced that they would return once again to bring more outrageous comedy and stunts, I was genuinely excited and scared for them. From beginning to end, the Jackass team did an hilarious and amazing job at delivering another outstanding adventure. It was great that they introduced a possible new generation of professional idiots and I'm curious to see where they go from here. It all ends with a loving, hilarious and heartfelt tribute to Ryan Dunn that was perfect. He was truly loved by the Jackass Family and fans.

Violent Night: I'm a sucker for a film that has a great amount of Christmas cheer and a great portrayal of Santa Claus. If you told me that there is a Die Hard styled Christmas film where "Scrooge" is a version of Hans Gruber and Santa is the John McClane, then I'm there opening night. This film delivered on that promise in gory and explosive creative ways. Not only did it deliver on the action, but it had such a warm feeling of a child's pure belief in Saint Nick and it was the driving force of the film. David Harbour was an amazing Santa and I loved that he went into the history of the legendary character. John Leguizamo was awesome as "Scrooge" and their scenes were great together. It will forever be on my list of must watch during the Christmas season.

Barbarian: Its such rich concept that I'm surprised it really took this long for a film about a nightmare scenario in an AirBnb. When it comes to films and especially horror films, I tend to stay away from the trailers because they reveal TOO MUCH of the creepy moments. I took a shot in the dark with this one and I'm so glad that the first trailer gave you no real idea of what the film was about and that's why I felt this film was so refreshing. I was genuinely surprised by the palpable tension of the plot, the makeup effects, social commentary and much more. The characters were excellent, but Georgina Campbell was was a true standout in a brilliant performance.

Bullet Train: The premise of the film is very much Snatch and Smokin' Aces and that was a positive in my book because even though that style is great, many have abused it over the years. This film learns from those films and takes you on one of the most smartest, funniest and exciting rides of the year. The entire cast was stellar and the action in the film was the icing on top of this wonderfully crafted dish. Bryan Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson stole the film as a dynamic duo that I would love to see a prequel spinoff about their characters. The amount of set up and pay off was elegantly handled in the most creative ways and I loved that each assassin was so distinct. I can't gush enough about how much I loved this film.

The Whale: Brendan Frasier, Sadie Sink and Hong Chau. Do I really need to say more?! This film was a fascinating and heartbreaking story that had amazing performances from the whole cast but the 3 aforementioned, destroy you in so many ways. Aside from his charming and fun personality, I knew Brendan had the dramatic power in him all these years and like most, the right story was waiting for him to sink his teeth in and he went all in. It truly was a powerful film about reconciling and reconnecting with family that was haunting and shouldn't be missed.

The Batman: Out of all the live action adaptations of easily the most beloved hero, Batman hasn't had a film that served Gotham and himself in his early years. This film did all of that and something that I've been waiting to see done on the big screen for decades. We finally get to see Batman portrayed in a true detective story. Robert Pattinson gets to play with a younger Bruce Wayne that's only 2 years into his vigilante lifestyle as Batman and the secrets that he finds out about his family and even Alfred, were so compelling and brilliantly designed. I loved that we got a look into the psychology of Bruce being a recluse and not yet creating that billionaire persona for the public. Jim Gordon was awesome in this film and I loved Jeffery Wrights chemistry the most with Robert. Zoe Kravitz was an excellent Catwoman and I loved her origin story. Paul Dano was a fantastic modern version of The Riddler that was heavily inspired by David Fincher's Seven and the online streamer generation of today. Colin Farrell was the MVP though as the best on screen version of The Penguin. There is so much to love and so much that they got right in this film and I cannot wait to explore this version of Gotham more. Michael Giachinno's score is as iconic as Danny Elfman's 1989 Batman score as it invokes the terror Batman brings to the hearts of criminals.

The Northman: What can I say about this film that hasn't been said already? Its the perfect and most accurate Viking film I've ever scene. The tone, the brutality, spirituality and story twists were all amazing. This was probably one of the most gorgeous films of the year as the lighting of every scene was magnificent and the fights scenes weren't overly stylized. It may be a simple story of vengeance, but it does have an emotional core that surprised me. In the end, I felt my blood pulse through my body from the sound design of the film and especially the final fight scene. This was a Viking masterpiece as the first trailer that was released promised it to be.

Top Gun: Maverick: Very few films get a sequel almost 30 years later that are of this quality. What's even more rare is that a film held out from being released onto a streaming platform and fought to be released in the theater. This film was one of those that was set to be released before the pandemic and was in limbo for so long after the pandemic. It deserved to be seen in the theater and what an experience. The sound design in this film was amazingly thunderous and visually it was everything that the late Tony Scott established in the original and director Joseph Kosinski carried on. This was actually a fantastic story about passing on the torch, family, friendship and the evolution of Maverick himself as he deals with the sacrifices he has made to protect Goose's son from following his dad's path. Tom Cruise shows why he is still an excellent actor and not just the action hero. Jennifer Connolly was stellar and Miles Teller nearly stole the film from Tom. Even though the final mission is straight out of Star Wars, this was definitely one of the best sequels ever made.

The Woman King: Talk about a film that was highly anticipated and one that rarely sold me just with 1 image. From the moment I saw the first image of Viola Davis as Nanisca, I knew this was gonna be amazing and I didn't even bother watching any trailers. This was an African epic that is based on true events even though some of it is altered for the film which if you think Braveheart was a completely accurate portrayal of William Wallace, then you may want to actually pick up a history book. This film didn't shy away from the horrible things tribes did in the slave trade and I liked that. It was also a coming of age story for the Nawi played wonderfully by Thuso Mbedu. Lashana Lynch deserves so much praise as being one of my favorite and charismatic characters in the film, Izogie. John Boyega finally gets to play someone of royalty and as the young King Ghezo, he exemplifies why he is one of the best actors out there today. The score by the great Terence Blanchard was so moving and powerful in the battle scenes and the best in the more emotional scenes as Nanisca reveals her past. There were so many juicy layers to this film and it was a joy to have witnessed it.

And we've come to the moment you've all been waiting for ladies and gentlemen. This is by far the best film of the year it must be seen by all for it features a story that everyone will feel to their core. The best film of 2022 is.....................

Everything, Everywhere All at Once: Right now the trend to do a multiversal style film or franchise is slowly becoming popular, but I doubt any of them will have the same amount of heart and depth as this film had. Michelle Yeoh has always been a powerhouse performer that has shown grace, strength and intelligence over an amazing career. Evelyn Quan Wang has got to be her most complex character yet as she portrays a mother that is struggling to keep her family business together while trying to figure how to connect with her daughter. Once we're introduced to the alternate universe versions of herself through her husband played by the great returning actor Ke Huy Quan, that's when the toppings of the proverbial bagel start to be revealed and it is a wild ride from beginning to end. Stephanie Hsu was great as Evelyn's daughter Joy and she rocked the house as the antagonistic universal threat named Jobu Tupaki. Her views on the universe, society and life were all valid and hit you hard. At the heart of all the madness, this film was truly about a daughter crying out to be heard and understood by her sometimes blind mother. It was a heart wrenching story of communication and understanding between a parent and their child that was beautiful and down right perfection. Does it get weird? Absolutely, but there is always a brilliant point to it.

And that is my list of the best films of 2022! I hope you enjoyed it and let me know what your favorite films of the year were or if you agree with my list in the comments below. Let's see what great stories 2023 has to offer. Thanks for reading!

#best films of 2022 #michelle yeoh #viola davis #brad pitt #bryan tyree henry #david harbour #john leguizamo #georgina campbell #Alexander Skarsgard

[random-user753]

hello my dear 💙 what's your absolute favorite part of season three of tbb so far? maybe top three favorite parts?

and of course yours truly is always open to asks

Hi & thanks for the ask 😃😃😃

This question isn't that easy because some episodes so far were absolutely mixed bags… so I'm going to rate each episode and will conclude with a ranking of the best of them.

Therefore, long post inbound!

03x01 - Confined: 5/5

This episode set the mood for the entire season perfectly and showed nicely how cold and uncaring the Empire is - compared to Tantiss, Kamino is almost homely. (Tantiss really mirrors Kamino, doesn't it?) Also the juxtapose between Omega and Crosshair in all their differences was set in scene nicely and brought forth their incredible chemistry which is definitely one of the highlights in this season. Personally, I adore as well the clock-symbolism of the centrifuge machine thanks to its ability to create an undercurrent of tension.

03x02 - Paths Unknown: 2/5

Yes, probably a bit hard rating but the slither vine wasn't that good. The young clones are adorable side-characters and were put to good use by making a connection to the main conflict (being a family vs being soldiers). Themewise this episode was good, but plot-wise not so much - like mentioned before, Wrecker and Hunter haven't got much synergy to carry a scene or even a whole episode together. In this episode I missed Tech dearly - not only because of the data extraction part, but as a character who lets everyone around him shine and who asks questions which creates a certain tension in the team as well a lot of funny moments.

03x03 - Shadows of Tantiss: 5/5

This episode as well was pure joy for me: Omega and Cross working together to escape was superbly done - the one works to get them out, the other one keeps the spirits up during the escape. 😍 Also, Batcher as back-up was nicely done! But equally I like that Omega and Cross only escaped because Nala Se gave them the means and Hemlock didn't wanted to risk killing Omega - the plausibility was well done in this episode. And introducing the Vault was artfully done as well!

03x04 - A Different Approach: 5/5

Like in every episode with the main focus on Cross&Omega I enjoyed this as well - it showed nicely how much Omega has learned but that she isn't ready to face the big bad universe on her own. Also the slimy officer was a fun minor antagonist and got a very deserving end! (Which reminds me: Only the first episode is an episode without any big monster…) The sole flaw was that they cut the reunion too early and didn't bother to explain Hunters and Wreckers frowns… yep, I'm still salty because of that.

03x05 - The Return: 4/5

Oh boy, here I'm torn between 3/5 and 4/5. Ultimately, I went for 4/5 because all the small moments were done good: Echo as the teams moderator, Cross getting his armor back, AZI and the target practice, hinting Omegas conflicted feelings regarding the other clones in Tantiss, the vulture symbolism, paying a tribute to Mayday, Phees cameo. The big flaw - like you repeatedly pointed out - is the handling of the conflict between Crosshair and Hunter: The build-up was nice, but they chickend out of the portrayal with introducing the ice wyrm (pray tell, what's the difference to the Krayt Dragons on Tatooine?)

03x06 - Infiltration: 3/5

This gets a 3 out of 5 - even though it wasn't a bad episode. I just dislike how overpowered CX-2 is albeit his mirroring of the Bad Batch as whole is an awesome concept. Also why did the writers decided to bench Echo out of all the characters?? The conflict between Cross and Rexs squad was done nicely, as well the chilling nature of the CXs - but I wished that they had done more than hinting what happened to Cross. There's only so long you can push the can down the street. Another point of criticism that arises from the latest episode is that withholding information is kind off OOC for Crosshair, especially when Omegas life is on the line and that Rex doesn't know what a M-count is, is pretty ridiclious. (And a boring conflict as well!)

03x07 - Extraction: 3/5

Same as Episode 6: The fight Crosshair vs the CX-2 was well set up and nicely done but they should have spilled the beans further about what happened (just my opinion). But hats off for the continued portrayal of Crosshairs handshaking and the consequences it produced. (And I love the scene "I'm much worse" sooo much 😍) I think the conflict Wolffe vs Rex was underutilized and they got too easily away… therefore 3 stars.

03x08 - Bad Territory : 2/5

Two stars solely for the Omega and Crosshair-moments; the rest of the episode was far too long and too plot-less for my taste. One would think that after all this time the boys would have learned how to broker a better deal than that. Also, the writers could have illustrated Hunters senses better because now I don't know what's supposed to be so special about them…

03x09 - The Harbinger: 1/5

Def my least favorite episode - y'know why.

03x10 - Identity Crisis: 5/5

This episode was unexpected, but very welcome - the deep dive into Emeries POV is very well done. Especially the showing of her emotions and the growing doubts were depicted perfectly and the kidnapping of Bayrn (the baby Tarlafar) was heartbreaking as well as the other kids. It's just like Kamino all over again except these kids know exactly what they have lost.

03x11 - Point of No Return: 4/5

Omega giving herself up was so very in character as well fitting into her emotional conflict in this episode; the invasion of Pabu was peak imperial villainness. Also Hunter hijacking the ship and Cross fighting with the troopers felt very in character and apropriate regarding the high stakes. But somehow, I couldn't enjoy this episode completely… still searching for the why. Maybe it just hit too close to my heart with the destruction of the Marauder or maybe the stealth of CX-2 was overdone…

03x12 - Juggernaut: 4/5

Once again a case between 3/5 and 4/5 - in the end, 4/5 won because: - amazing Phee-piloting - Rampart as absolutely petty b*tch - the remaining batch working flawlessly together - Hemlock playing mind games with Omega Flaws imo are Cross giving up information far too late and the copy-paste from The Believer…

Final ranking is therefore: ✨✨✨

🥇Shadows of Tantiss

🥈A Different Approach

🥉Confined & Identity Crisis

🏅 Honorable mention: Point of No Return for the perfect heartfelt drama

Sorry that it got so long but once again thanks for your questions & I can't wait to discuss this list in more detail with you 😃

#asks #tbb spoilers #tbb season 3 #my personal opinion #nobody has to agree #a bit salt

[fatrocka64]

I have made a mistake in my life and I will fix it ASAP

I made I realization that my ex staff member who left my group home agency. Wouldn't be capable of any type of dark thoughts and fantasies. However I have been thinking about Redemption for her since she has never done anything bad to the Furries. She just wanted some space from them before she can join them but I would rather make sure that she would be ready to accept the furry fandom because I just thought there would be a 2nd Chance for her. The reason why I kept saying that she was like Dahmer was because of pure separation anxiety and fear that she might done something macarbe behind my back but those myths have been dropped and I will use a different name for this urban legend I made but I have decided to not involve her identity with this character anymore, I made her own fursona as a villain character in a story arc that I had when she was absent and distancing herself from the furries but needed a long term break from hearing about it so she can actually have a better understanding of the furry fandom, however I was thinking about getting her baptized for the furry fandom to cleanse her dark thoughts and fantasies into more lighthearted personality and to support me in the best and flexible way possible. I want to apologize for all the bad things that I said about her and make better decisions and delivering excellent solutions for the future and to have a more supportive environment. I thought that she was discriminatory against the furry fandom but now I think that she deserves a good redemption arc.. I'll be going to Furnal Equinox in March of 2024. And be showcasing my Creed Fluff fursuit head. I do apologize for all the Dahmer talk that I have been doing, maybe I have done it too much and had a lightbulb in my head and then I stopped connecting the girl to the actions of Dahmer but have made her a alternative universe version of her without her real name, she was a major villain character in the universe of my artwork, but I'll let having some key details changed so I can avoid any controversy surrounding her appearance. She might have to have a break from family drama and go on a nice vacation somewhere in Japan, but I should think that I would have her a chance for her to experience the furry fandom despite the things she had done in her power..

I have made some changes to this character but I haven't revealed her yet due to her appearance.

I will make a upload of this fursona as a small tribute... Hopefully she can forgive me for the things that I ever said about her...

Love - Fatrocka64

I give you all the compassion and sympathy for anything that you had to deal with.

But I seem to be having emotional disturbances because I keep losing sleep at night and a overactive imagination.. but hopefully I will feel better soon. Take care..

#furry fandom #redemption #redemption arc #change of heart

[marjaystuff]

Interview with Amanda Flower

Because I Could Not Stop for Death and I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died by Amanda Flower has her venturing into historical mysteries.  These books have a unique portrayal of the famous American writer Emily Dickinson.  Emily along with her maid, Willa, become sleuths and help to solve murders. But a bonus is having readers getting glimpses of how Emily thinks and what the culture of mid-19th century was like. 

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea to use Emily Dickinson?

Amanda Flower: Each book’s title will be the first line from one of her famous poems. In the first book, the poem was about a carriage ride with a horse.  In this novel, a horse is very central to the story. The second book has flies surrounding the found body, which is related to the poem I used. I pay tribute to the poems, but do not follow it verbatim. Her poems are imagery and vague with multiple meanings. She never wrote clearly. 

EC:  Why Emily Dickinson?

AF:  Her poems are mysterious. I have been a huge Emily Dickinson fan since I was 15 years old.  I wanted to write a historical novel with another version, so I decided to write a mystery with her.  Last year it won the Agatha for best historical mystery and a final for one of the Edgar Awards. The real characters beside Emily were the maid Margaret O’ Brian. I added a maid assistant, Willa to tell the story in the same manner that Sherlock Holmes had Watson.  I also chose that period of her life, in 1855, where Emily and her sister came to Washington because her father was a member of the House of Representatives. This time was about six years before she went into hiding for the rest of her life as a recluse. She did not get any acclaims for her writing when she was alive.

EC:  Why the reference to slavery?

AF:  In the 1850s America was in turmoil over slavery. I knew I had to include this issue, or it would be a disservice.  It divided everyone. The Underground Railroad went through many small towns close to where I live in Ohio. One of my jobs was leading Underground Railroad tours through the town that I worked in. I spoke about the people who lived there and those who tried to escape. 

EC:  How would you describe Emily’s personality in your book?

AF:  This is my best interpretation of the real Emily. She likes to investigate, a good judge of character, ignores societal class, and is loyal. She is also bold, caring, curious, confident, and blunt. She was probably her father’s favorite because he gave her special treatment.  She enjoyed wandering around and instead of not telling her to stop bought her a dog for protection. The dog is real and so his name Carlo, a character in Jane Eyre. He lived for seventeen years, which is unusual for a pure bred, Newfoundland.  One of the theories is that Emily became a recluse after he passed away. Her dad would buy contemporary fiction books and leave them around the house for her to just happen to find. The family gave her room to be different, a genius aspect.

EC:  How would you describe the real maid, Margaret?

AF:  Kind, protective, tough, and can be hard-nosed. I made her gruff with Willa.

EC:  How would you describe Willa?

AF:  Nervous for her brother’s safety, compassionate, strong, determined, loyal, and broken. In the first book she is more timid. She is determined to find out what happened to her brother, Henry.  As the series goes on, she is very protective and loyal to Emily. She understands more social standing than Emily. Willa is very aware of the class distinction and sees the servants as being invisible.  Emily tries to treat her as an equal.

EC:  What is the difference between the sisters, Vinnie, and Emily?

AF:  Vinnie acts like an older sister even though Emily is the older sister. At the end of their life, she took care of Emily. Vinnie is more into societal norms. She carries the weight on her shoulders. Vinnie is a cat person, while Emily is a dog person who hated cats. The cats probably annoyed her dog.  Emily did write about disliking cats. 

EC:  What about Henry?

AF:  Henry is an idealist.  He wanted to take from the rich and give to the poor.  He had a happy and carefree personality. He knew Willa’s upmost goal was to protect him.  He is also kind, with a nose for trouble, and caring.

EC:  The second book in the series, I Heard a Fly Buzz When I died, highlights Ralph Waldo Emerson-why?

AF:  Through my research I found he stayed with Emily’s brother at their estate. Plus, I really like his works and wanted to include him in the series. He was the peak of American literature during that time. He encouraged young authors to write in an ‘American voice.’ After a lifetime of acclaim, he felt pretty good about himself. He is very aloof and is distant from others.

EC:  Why the plagiarism angle? AF: It was harder back then to prove.  Many authors self-published back then and it was hard to prove that someone else wrote it so it would have been easy to plagiarize. It is still a problem today.  Writers would think about this problem. Although they do have a certain way of phrasing.  Emerson had a very strong voice, very authoritative and confident. He wrote essays and non-fiction. The victim in the story was a social climber who tried to put his name on other’s works. 

EC:  Louisa May Alcott and Emily contrasted each other as writers?

AF:  I put her in the story because she was about the same age as Emily and lived nearby. It was possible they could have met although no evidence. I also wanted to contrast her with Emily.  Some authors like Emily did it for the sake of art and her own personal thoughts, while others like Alcott did it for the sake of supporting her family and was driven.  Emily feared fame and did not try to get published more. Personally, I write for both reasons. I put in the author’s notes how ‘Emily wrote for the expression of art; Louisa wrote for the money.’ 

EC:  Louisa May Alcott was also in the story-what was her voice?

AF: She is very confident, opinionated, with fun banter.  Anyone who read Little Women would recognize these qualities in her main character, Jo. She is blunt, straight forward, and wrote for the money because she is super pragmatic. Growing up her family did not have money because her dad believed in living simply. She broke barriers by being a female who used her own name and became popular. When she started writing she used pen names. But with Little Women she wrote under her own name and this book changed the life of herself and her family. 

EC:  Next books?

AF:  The third one in the series might be the last one. It is titled I Died for Beauty and will come out in early 2025.  The plot setting has the 1857 blizzard with a deep freeze in New England. A young Irish couple die in a fire at their house. Emily and Willa try to figure out what really happened.

The next book coming out in February is titled Crime and Cherry Pits, a cozy.  In March my first Katherine Wright mystery will be released titled To Slip the Bonds of Earth about a murder.

The Candy Shop mystery will be out in October next year.  The Matchmaker mystery comes out the following year.  Each main character will have a book coming out every other year. 

THANK YOU!!

[mcbridemcdonald73]

The Family is revealed The Family and Pastor Chris Oyakhilome

A Wonderous Lineage The Man Of God, Reverend Chris Oyakhilome has millions of followers. Christ Embassy a Christian family that is a source of love, hope and encouragement. They are like all family members who are supportive in the sense that they are close in many different ways. Pastor Chris Biography There are around 140 Christ Embassy branches in five continents. Of all the branches of Christ Embassy on five continents most frequent query is "Who are the members of Pastor Chris Oyakhilome's family?" The Most Fantastic Parents Elder T.E Oyakhilome his father was one of the founders and the leaders of the Assemblies of God Church in Benin City. His first son, Pastor Chris was truly inspired by his father. Growing up in a household that espouses a pure Christian message is a real blessing. We can feel the pride that his father felt as his son began to spread the Gospel message of Jesus Christ being our Savior. The work of his father is certain to have had a profound impact on the young Chris Oyakhilome. He embarked on his first crusade at the youthful age of nine. https://cofi.online/ Chris Oyakhilome is a faithful follower of the law of respecting your parents. Pastor Chris has paid tribute to his father by leading prayer groups at University and giving sermons in front of millions. Pastor Chris honored his mother Angelina who turned 80 with a celebration in Benin. As the "quintessential matriarch," she is revered and loved by her beauty and fairness. She is a wonderful grandmother, mother, and mother-in-law who has impressed her love of God on her son. Super Siblings Tim Oyakhilome and Angelina had two more children. Reverend Ken is the brother of Pastor Chris. Pastor Chris Biography As the most revered pastor of the Christ Embassy's Houston Texas branch He has imparted wisdom to many and made an enormous impact on their lives. He is also a member in good standing of Christ Embassy Central Executive Council. Pastor Chris Family Katty Worghiren, Pastor Chris's sister, is director of LoveWorld Music & Arts Ministry. She was a dazzling choir member when she first joined. Some of the most popular LoveWorld songs are a result of her songwriting abilities. She also wrote the anthem "I Believe in Nigeria". Katty is the author of the final and most touching sections of the Believers LoveWorld Anthem. She also includes the following words to highlight the significance of the Christian family. "Believer's LoveWorld we are one big family My sister I also have a brother named you. Believers' LoveWorld" As many of the members of Christ Embassy know, for Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, this is a personal family and an international family. The involvement of his family in the mission of the church and the teachings of the Gospel teachings is truly inspiring. As 1 Timothy 5: 1-2 recounts: Treat men younger than you would if they were your brothers and older women like were your mother. It is important to treat older women with the same respect that you would treat your younger sister. " Two Outstanding Daughters Pastor Chris got married to Anita, and they had two gorgeous daughters. His ex-wife Anita might not have wanted to keep their union but they are still very happy with their lovely daughters Carissa and Charlene. Both currently reside in London. Pastor Chris's daughter Sharon is a rising Gospel celebrity. She was inspired to compose the song "Holy Spirit", which is an ode to her profound Christian devotion. She is also an inspiring leader of the Global Youth Leaders Forum. Pastor Chris Phillip Frimpong and her recent wedding were among the most breathtaking in Africa. In a poignant Instagram blog post, she captured her love. "YES! "YES!" to my best friend. The most amazing and my absolute most beloved person...I am so so blessed I would say yes over and over I am in love with you ." It was beautiful and significant. Charlene is her sister. was her primary bridesmaid. It's impossible to not be moved by Pastor Chris Oyakhilomes love.

Family members with greater talent Pastor Chris Oyakhilome is one of the world's most prominent leaders. He utilizes his skills and talents to motivate young people to trust in the Word. As a businessman, and the director of Carel Films Enterprise, he can spread the Good News using modern communication mediums. He has created more than 100 Christian music videos or animated films. He had already won the American Academy of Animations Award three times before the age of twenty. He also won the of the prestigious Walt Disney Award, and a nominee for the Future African Leaders Award FALA. His true genius lies in helping others see the possibility of their talents. In the family of Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, the teachings of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are an integral aspect of their lives and the accomplishments. We can see they are deeply rooted in God’s work. These family members know, as the Man of God declares: "The Gospel, Jesus Christ, is the power God uses to redeem sinners from their sins and to give them the life of righteousness. His righteousness is displayed through the Gospel em> We wish that his family's success in their forever and eternal mission to spread Jesus Christ's Gospel.

#Pastor Chris #Pastor Chris Biography #Pastor Chris Family #Pastor Chris Oyakhilome

[f1]

Tost knew Vettel would become a real big driver in 2007 as he pays tribute to his former racer

Ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel announced that he would be retiring from the sport at the end of the current campaign, and his former boss Franz Tost has become the latest member of the F1 paddock to pay tribute to the four-time world champion. Tost was the Team Principal of Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) when Vettel joined the team in 2007 and oversaw the German’s first sensational victory at Monza in 2008. Tost says he always knew the then-BMW affiliated driver would be a world champion. “The questions he asked were really good for a young driver and his big advantages were, first of all, he was 100% committed to Formula 1, or to motorsports in general in those days, because it was not only in BMW, but it was also in Formula 3, and in other categories,” said Tost. READ MORE: ORAL HISTORY: The inside story of Sebastian Vettel’s first Formula 1 point on debut in the 2007 US GP "And in Formula 1, when he came then to us, he brought in fresh blood, new ideas, he was very demanding and asking many questions. He went into details, which is very important, and he was always in a good mood, although we had at the beginning some problems with the car, but he pushed the team forward, and as a result, he won, together with Scuderia Toro Rosso in those days, the race in Monza." Vettel sealed his and Toro Rosso's (now AlphaTauri) first win at Monza in 2008 He continued: “It was his first race [win] it was the first race win for Scuderia Toro Rosso. And, you know, his way of working, it was clear for me that he would become a real big driver. And he won then four world championships. "But I was convinced that he can become world champion in Formula 1, if he is in the correct time, with the correct team. And this was the case with Red Bull Racing and then later with Ferrari he was very successful, he won many races also for Scuderia Ferrari. EXCLUSIVE: ‘It was obviously pretty tense’ – Webber looks back on his rivalry with ex-team mate Vettel "And now he decided to stop Formula 1. We will miss him. I personally, of course, because we met a couple of times and he is a fantastic character, always open, and he was simply very, very successful… And I wish him and his family all the best for the future.” Alan Permane recalled how difficult it was for Lotus to get close to Vettel at Austin in 2013 Also paying tribute to the 53-time Grand Prix winner was Alpine Sporting Director Alan Permane, who paid tribute to the “fierce” on-track competitor and the “pure gentleman” off the track. “We've come across him on the track and he’s fierce, of course,” said Permane. “And I think if we just look back [to the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix], we spent 70 laps, or I spent 70 laps, on the edge of my seat with him behind Esteban [Ocon], knowing that if Esteban put a wheel out or a foot wrong, Seb would have been there to pounce. READ MORE: The man behind the racer – Lawrence Barretto on getting to know the real Sebastian Vettel “So, we have ultimate respect for him. I remember… in 2013, we had a really nice car, it was regularly on the podium, in the Lotus guise, and we even gave Red Bull a race a couple of times. “We managed to get in front of Mark [Webber], we managed to get a second place, I think in Suzuka and I think in Austin, but we couldn't get anywhere near Sebastian, at all. And I think he was at the top of his game then, of course. So yeah, ultimate respect… out of the car he's a pure gentleman.” via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com

#F1 #Tost knew Vettel would become a ‘real big driver’ in 2007 as he pays tribute to his former racer #Formula 1

[ruleandkillrp]

// ACCESS GRANTED: RHEA CARDAIREL. ALEXA DEMIE. EIGHTEEN. CAPITOL TRIBUTE.

What was their childhood like? ( Home, family, etc. )

It’s always been about making the best cupcakes in the residential building. The Cardairels were nothing if not the sweetest, most considerate of neighbors. There was no competition to Mrs. Cardairel’s radiant smile, a stay-at-home mother of four perfect children, manner-driven and always in white. Mr. Cardairel and his wise silences delivered a “have a good day” to remember, too, just as he was leaving, early AM for his office, bank-related job.

Rhea, the youngest, has been brought up to those principles. The corners of her mouth hurt. She ironed every shirt to the point it burned. Buying the most exquisite flowers for friends on their birthday despite not coming from money — not the same way people in the Capitol usually did. Buying flowers even without an occasion, just to cheer someone up. Volunteering for charitable organizations — it looked good on her spotless record, but she also needed everybody to clap for her kindness. Flavia and Willa were the same. Even Aidan, as much of a mess as he was, adhered to the cult of suffocating niceness.

How do they feel about the Games?

Silence has always been the way to go about the Games. Never once did they discuss them. They were playing in the house, because the neighbors couldn’t walk in on them with their television shut down for the occasion, but no one was paying attention. Nice people cannot condone the Hunger Games, but nice people believe in their President. There is a paradox in there somewhere, a paradox Rhea was taught to never question. Ignorance, when needed, was blissful. She did not want to rebel against their shortcomings; their hearts were still all pure.

For that, Rhea doesn’t take the Games as seriously as she should have. She doesn’t think of the blood. Then she took all that tesserae in secret, just to throw it all away -- when she filled the bowl, indirectly, with notes of her name, over and over, it wasn’t suicide. It was a cry for attention. It was so that everybody would feel sorry for her. The applause and her victim pose, both immaculate. Rhea didn’t think it through, but her short sight does nothing but temporary wonders for her ego.

What is their district token & who gave it to them?

It’s a cheesy gold necklace spelling out her name in cursive. Every one of her family members has one -- either necklace or bracelet -- and it’s nothing if not a leash around their throats, but she wears it proudly nonetheless.

What is their personality? How do they act around other tributes and mentors?

Rhea is predictably nice, but never meek. Her niceness has crazy impulses of ‘I’d give my life to help you’ just to prove the point of how extraordinarily kind she is. It’s not an act, even though she is not genuine about it. In her mind, it’s not deceit, because she believes every compulsive compliment, every painfully long smile.

Where she cracks is for attention. As the youngest child, she never quite had her time to shine. By the time she could think for herself, everything else was already done: Willa and her violin performances, Aidan and his gloriously complex mind, always top of the class without even trying, and Flavia, who did professional modelling. There was never something just for Rhea, and the option to ask for attention was never there, either, so she had to steal it.

There is something incredibly naive to how she took all that tesserae just to hear her name being shouted on stage in front of everybody. She is not going to confess to it -- in her mind, it doesn’t even exist. In her mind, she’s nothing but the victim of a cruel system, ready to die flawless and missed, or come out victorious, hopefully getting no blood on her hands.

It goes without saying that the way she treats people is gentle, considerate, full of praise and sweetened words. She makes it less obnoxious by genuinely believing in it, but that Capitol accent does ruin some of her good intentions.

Three strengths and three weaknesses:

(+) resilient

(+) principled

(+) nice

(-) attention-seeking

(-) delusional

(-) naive

PLAYED BY: RALUCA

#accepted #rhea #130 #hunger games rp #thg rpg

[ness-de-luna]

✨IT’S NEXT✨ Fashion Film for @fleshmagmx Pride Issue #EverybodyInDaHouse 🌈🌈🌈 • BEAUTY: Quality of a person, animal or thing capable of provoking sensory, intellectual or spiritual pleasure in whoever contemplates or listens to them. • We take as a reference the 90's, the birth of top models; making a tribute of 8 of the most iconic campaigns with 4 women who are currently redefining aesthetics, beauty standards, gender and showing that fashion is that fantasy that WE CAN ALL WEAR,VIBRATE,DREAM!🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️✨ These is our way of celebrating love, 🖤freedom, 🌈equality, 🙃diversity 🤪😜😝and respect 🤨of being what you always dream of being!!🥳🥰🥹 . Thanks to all the fabulous team. I am totally happy, they are inspiring people who really love their work and are passionate about it. Thank you for making this possible . Salinas, 🙏🏻 you are a true professional, you are on my list of the most, 🔝thank you very much! many! My Girls I can only tell you that you are a pure beauty and that nothing stops you than the world of yours and that I love you with all my heart and that the soul has no gender, race or color. the soul is pure and you are purebred Amazons. I adore them!!! ✨✨✨✨Manny you saved us thanks for coming to the rescue and doing your magic with us 🪄🦄 Mr. Gaar You have made one of my dreams come true now the nightmares are beginning 😈🙏🏻I love it thanks for adding Rocío too, welcome to the family. Izma carnala you know I love you thank you for always dreaming. For always throwing myself forward for so much. we did it!!! 💖to the best fashion assistant I could have without leaving aside my beautiful Chantal. My Mom 💖 thank you for being a clinical eye and for your time and for your walk with me in this rainbow I LOVE YOU MOM💟 . #Director• @imalexgaar #theFantasticFour • @maria.ponce.n @danielfurlonggg @valentina_msolis @gamagram.mx #StylingByHouseOfDeLuna+#CreativeDirector• @nessdeluna #MakeUpArtist • @izazuetabeauty #Hairdresser • @mannymarciall #Manicurist • @anguianochantal #fashionassistant • @maria.ana.bueno #videoassistant • @rociosolloa.mua #studio • @foro_916 • #pride #gay #queer #trans #fashion #equality #loveislove (en Mexico City) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfKyap0DI5d/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#everybodyindahouse #director #thefantasticfour #stylingbyhouseofdeluna #creativedirector #makeupartist #hairdresser #manicurist #fashionassistant #videoassistant #studio #pride #gay #queer #trans #fashion #equality #loveislove

[jade-green-butterfly]

🎅❣️❣️...Alright~! =OwO= One of my most favourite and magical times of the year, is here once again! 8D ✨🎄 It's good to see things are gradually getting back to normal, let's just hope we can keep on the right track with a little bit of faith and not lose heart~💞 UvU

Now then, in tribute to the brand new Trolls Holiday Special - 'Holiday In Harmony' (which I'm really hyped about and LOVED every minute of it!! 💖) I was inspired to draw me and Cooper in a loving festive moment together, having been invited to take part in Poppy's Secret Gift Swap and being one another's secret person (much to our surprise and delight~💓) For...'loving sigh'...~💕 U//w//U What I'd give to be Cooper's secret person in the Secret Gift Swap...~💗😍🎁 That'd be such a wonderful feeling, making him the perfect gift with all my love put into it and I can so see Cooper wondering with all his might of what would be the perfect gift for me, but ends up getting wrapped up in ribbons and bows, bless him...only to discover that he, himself was the perfect gift all along, for I say so myself with so much meaning and all my heart, much to everyone else's adoration at the pure wholesome moment, and Cooper's complete surprise and joyful happiness~💝🌈✨🎁✨🌈💝 ;///U///;

I have said this before and I will say it again - Cooper will always be the perfect gift in my eyes, for he's all I ever wanted and needed, and has brought me so much light and happiness during these past rough times...and I want it to never end~💘🌟💘 I have so much to thank my beloved Cooper for and I will keep on loving him forevermore~💕 💗 😇 💗 💕  I also have to say, it's been a while since I drew Coossy, Trolls Movie style and I am super chuffed how I've managed to capture the style once again, especially with Cooper~ ✌ :3 This has to be one of my best takes on him yet! 😍 And it feels good to draw my Christmas outfit again too, even added a little more detail on it~ =^.^= I would also like to thank my dear Lophornis on deviantART for part of the inspiration too with her adorable Secret Santa piece, featuring Hickory! ;D

Hope you all like too, peeps!👍✨ And Cooper, his family and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas & Happy (Troll) Holidays~💝🎄🎁❄️💚 *mega-cuddles* So do enjoy all you can, my lovelies~💞 As always, stay safe, stay strong and from me, to all of you...~ 

🎅🎄❄️Merry Christmas 2021 & A Happy New Year~!❄️🎄🎅 =^o^=

*~Reblogs are also deeply appreciated as well, so please do reblog as well as like! Thank-you kindly!~*

Cooper (c) Trolls/Trolls World Tour/TrollsTopia/DreamWorks Animation

Trollsona Jussy/Justina Butterfly (c) @jade-green-butterfly​​ (Me~!)

#dreamworks trolls #trolls world tour #trolls trollstopia #trolls holiday in harmony #canonxoc #self-insert x canon #trolls oc #trollsona #trollsona jussy #justina butterfly #jussy #cooper #jussyxcooper #jussy x cooper #coossy #my otp #secret gift swap #the perfect gift #true love #merry christmas 2021 #christmas 2021 #with lots of love from jussy xxx. <33 #jade-green-butterfly

[twoflipstwotwists]

Becky Downie has missed out on an Olympics before. In a 13-year gymnastics career, which has seen her win 14 major medals, she felt the heartbreak of watching a home Games from the sidelines in 2012. But this time is different, she says.

On Monday, her shock omission from the Tokyo 2020 team was announced, and she now says she can “never forget” the turmoil she endured from British Gymnastics during the selection process.  She also hints that her treatment was influenced by her decision to speak out at the culture of abuse within gymnastics, suggesting she was “made to feel not welcome” at the sport’s training hub at Lilleshall after going public.

In an exclusive interview with Telegraph Sport, Downie describes the last few weeks as "the hardest of her life". She had thought things could not get worse than 2020: Olympic postponement, the fallout after she joined whistleblowers to speak publicly about what she described as "normalised" abusive training environments, and her father's time in intensive care battling Covid-19.

But last month tragedy struck when her brother Josh, 24, died suddenly from an undiagnosed heart condition while playing cricket. It was news Downie says "you never imagine receiving". To make things worse, she received the devastating call on the eve of the final Olympic team trial, while apart from her family at a hotel in Cardiff.

"I got a knock on the door after midnight, and my first thought was it must be drug testers," Downie says of that night. "I was half asleep, completely dazed. The coaches came in and when they told me [that Josh had died], I thought, am I actually dreaming this? There are really no words to really describe it. There were a lot of tears. It was the longest journey of my life, getting back to be with my family in Nottingham."

Sat in her living room in Nottingham now, Downie still has a look of disbelief on her face as she describes the events of the last few weeks. Condolence cards are placed around the room to mark how raw and recent her family's grief remains. Mounting more pain on top of that seems unimaginable, but the blows have kept coming.

Just two months ago, she was on top of the world after executing what she believes is a world leading uneven bars routine. At 29, she felt in the form of her life. When she posted a video of her routine online, major champions were applauding her in the comments, even the legendary Nadia Comaneci. Downie believes the routine put her in contention for a gold medal.

But last Friday her appeal was denied, and British Gymnastics confirmed she would not go to Tokyo. It is less than two years since she won a stunning silver medal at the World Championships - a competition that counted as a trial for the Olympic squad - but somehow she has failed to make even the three reserve spots for Tokyo. Though Downie has wished all of the gymnasts selected the best, she remains baffled by her exclusion - especially because she “met all the criteria” and her trials scores put her top of the rankings in bars.

British Gymnastics have defended the decision, saying they are focusing on medals in the team event, and that Downie's specialism in bars posed a "risk" to this strategy. But it has caused uproar, with a petition calling for an independent review of the selection process receiving 25,000 signatures in the last five days. Beyond selection though, Downie says what hurts the most is the way she believes the decision was made and how she was treated in the process.

After missing the final trial due to bereavement, Downie and sister Ellie were given another opportunity by British Gymnastics to compete for their spot on the team 10 days later. Though Ellie elected not to do so, Downie made the brave decision to take up the offer.

"I know that Josh would want me to, he wouldn't want me not to try," she says. What followed though, was a process where she alleges British Gymnastics lacked "any element of compassion".

They did not allow her to compete at her home gym in Nottingham or at the national centre at Lilleshall. British Gymnastics then rejected a venue she and her coach proposed and instead suggested she return to Cardiff - a six-hour round trip from her home and the very place she had learned of her brother's passing.

"That's the part that hurt me most. I refused. Why would I want to go back there? I don’t think that should have been asked of me at all."

Another venue was confirmed instead, and though British Gymnastics emphasised their intention to replicate as closely as possible the environment that the other gymnasts had competed in in Cardiff - for the benefit of fairness - Downie says it was her that was put at the disadvantage.

New obstacles included British Gymnastics failing to book her training slot at the chosen venue - a basic thing that all of the athletes had for their trial - which saw her make a 90-minute trip and have to plead with the Leisure Centre to remain open. She also had an existing dispute with the governing body because they refused to allow her to use equipment at the trial which more closely resembled that being used in Tokyo. As a bars specialist, this meant she couldn't perform her highest difficulty routine. "It's like telling Lewis Hamilton to get in a Ferrari and drive - in a sport of small margins, and high performance, equipment is always a factor."

Actually competing in the trial, while still reeling from the death of her brother, was "the hardest thing I ever had to do", and she describes national coaches walking past her wordlessly while she “sobbed uncontrollably”. But afterwards, she and Ellie walked out of the gym with "not a doubt in our mind" that she had done enough.

"If I can perform in that environment, which was harder than any Olympic final would ever be, I’m really proud," she says.

But, according to British Gymnastics, it was not enough. Knowing now that the team event was the priority in selection, she believes her exclusion from the team was already a foregone conclusion before her trial.

British Gymnastics "categorically" denies the suggestion that the trial was a "tick box" exercise, and say they trust that selection was decided purely on merit, but Downie is unconvinced. To add insult to injury, she was given a 48-hour deadline to appeal the decision, falling on the day of her brother's funeral.

"It makes me feel sick that they treated me like that," she says. "It hurts me to know the things I had to miss. Picking the flowers for the funeral whilst I was away trialling, a tribute for my brother at his cricket club, which happened when I wasn’t even given a proper training slot. I missed that, for what? There’s so much that was hurtful.

"I'll never forget that. And no amount of apologies will ever make that okay."

Downie and her sister were two of the only current British gymnasts to speak out about abuse in the sport last year, which triggered an independent review commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England. When she was left out of the squad on Monday, lobbying group Gymnasts for Change called it a "sinister warning" being sent by British Gymnastics to whistleblowers.

Does Downie think this outcome is a result of her speaking out? "It's very hard to say... But I definitely know that there has been a big behavioural shift towards me and Ellie, since that point, from certain individuals, decision makers. We’ve gone down to Lilleshall and been made to feel not welcome.

"I have been told by a person of significant importance - in the national team environment - that a lot of coaches do not agree with what we've done. Maybe I did open my mouth a year too soon, I'm not sure. If this is the sacrifice [an Olympics] then this is the sacrifice, change needs to happen. I’m proud of what I did and I don’t regret it."

Tokyo was meant to be her final bow, but now Downie has spent her first week in months out of the gym.

Downie is adamant though that she is not done with gymnastics. Despite the heartache and hurt caused, her love for the sport remains strong.

"It’s hard for me to think, can I be selected for a team ever again? I do know I want to carry on, because I want to show that routine. I haven’t done two years of work to sit on the sofa. There’s a World Championships this year. They certainly don’t have control over my final chapter. I know I want to compete again on my terms."

But the dream of Olympic gold is gone: "I genuinely believe that we could have done it. I think I had a shot at being the first female Olympic champion Britain has had in gymnastics."

#becky downie #ellie downie #bg deserves to burn

[shihalyfie]

The different aspects of Miyako’s personality and character arc

Miyako is a character where there’s just a lot going on with her in general, and asking different people to summarize Miyako in one phrase could feasibly get you some very different answers -- “the computer nerd girl”, or “the one who keeps talking about boys”, or “the one who panics all of the time”, or whatnot. Given that there’s so much to unpack at once even from her base profile, ironing out the full extent of her character arc can get a bit tricky, and there’s a lot going on with it. So, given that: Who is Miyako, anyway?

Miyako’s background and personality

Miyako is a character that I think is best understood by understanding what kind of person she is, and the personality and mentality she goes into the story of 02 with.

An interesting background story behind Miyako’s creation is that she’s based off a real person -- more accurately, a certain assistant producer on the series (whose identity has remained undisclosed, presumably for privacy reasons) was used as a reference for her behavior and actions. Although Adventure and 02 have a philosophy of portraying realistic human behavior in general, this level of specificity is a unique designation to have, and series director Kakudou Hiroyuki has referred to this a few times over the years -- it seems she’s the only of the Tokyo Chosen Children to have such a concrete single-person reference, and it’s also the reason her blood type of AB and star sign Gemini were given in 02 episode 25 (the other kids don’t have mentioned birthdays or blood types to prevent personality restrictions via horoscoping, but a real person having Miyako’s personality, star sign, and blood type wouldn’t make that as much of an issue). Even Volcano Ota himself confirmed Miyako’s resemblance to her upon hearing it after the fact! Indeed, a lot of 02 fans (especially adults) have admitted that Miyako’s probably one of the most relatable people in the cast, namely because her gushing about things she likes and panicking at things that overwhelm her is...well, a bit too uncomfortably on-point at times.

(And especially since so much about Miyako’s character has to do with how happy she makes everyone around her, it’s not too hard to imagine that the staff was so fond of her real-life inspiration that they wanted to pay tribute to her in such a way...)

Still, Miyako is a fictional character, one with her own backstory and interactions in 02′s story, and said backstory is such: she comes from a family that runs a convenience store in Odaiba, and is the youngest of a family of four siblings. Running a convenience store on a small island means that Miyako has probably seen a lot of the island’s residents, and her family also has various levels of connections to the other kids’ families (her older sisters Momoe and Chizuru are friends of Daisuke’s sister Jun, and Chizuru is Yamato’s classmate). Moreover, she’s befriended her nine-year-old neighbor (one who otherwise has trouble socializing with his peers) to the point of regularly going over to do computer repairs for his family. She’s also worked in the computer club under Koushirou, and even before the series has started, she looks up to him and adores him in a way not entirely unlike how Daisuke looks up to Taichi -- and although it’s unclear whether or not she started after the beginning of 02, 02 episode 29 reveals that she helps Yamato with his band.

The pattern here is that Miyako is extremely sociable, and one who actively pokes her nose into nearly everything so she can help out. This makes her a very different sort of Mom Friend from Sora -- both of them are Crest of Love holders for good reason, but in Sora’s case, she was compulsively going out of her way to help other people to the point of exhaustion, and her character arc was about trying to find a way to detach herself from obligations and do something for herself. Miyako is the complete opposite -- she’s the kind of extrovert who actively enjoys poking her head into other people’s business, picking up a bunch of peripheral hobbies so she can do something useful for everyone and go I’M HELPING!! If you actually look closely at those hobbies of “computer programming and hacking”, “hardware tinkering”, and “sound engineering”, other than vaguely being related to computers, they are completely different skillsets, and every single one of them is one Miyako’s depicted employing in order to help someone else out. (Koushirou is never really depicted as having super amazingly high technical skill and most of his unique talent comes from being a thorough analyst, but in contrast, while Miyako is established as being good at even hacking in Diablomon Strikes Back, she doesn’t really seem to have a huge propensity for deep analytical thought.) It’s hard to tell if she has any personal preference for any of them as much as she basically turned herself into a jack-of-all-trades so she could do whatever job was necessary for someone else.

If we’re to believe the official 02 site, Miyako’s been a bit pampered by her family -- as the youngest of four siblings, she’s the “baby of the family”, who hasn’t had to live with a ton of responsibility for others. This means that, much like Mimi, she seems to have been raised surrounded by a ton of affection, which is why she herself is such an openly affectionate person who’s open-minded towards trying all sorts of things, and why she’s used to wanting to help others by actively throwing herself into situations -- but it also means that, being the youngest of a family who is now in the situation of being the oldest in a new group, she ends up in Jou’s situation of suddenly being faced with the pressure of the concept of proper responsibility for others.

As far as Miyako’s general personality goes, she is constantly overflowing with affection and cheer and a desire to dote on everyone -- but the flip side is that she’s also aggressive. She has zero sense of restraint. (If you ever get around to listening to the Japanese version of 02, Natsuki Rio’s performance is energetic and over-the-top in almost every way imaginable to the point that you get the impression of Miyako as someone who doesn’t easily run out of batteries -- at least, until things start getting really serious.) When she loves something, she’ll gush about it as if there were hearts floating around her (and, depending on the level of closeness, even jump in and physically hug them), and she has no qualms against physically manhandling if she feels she needs to, and if she dislikes something, she will make it very clear (including yelling very loudly about it). You could argue that she’s actually closer to the archetype of the brash shounen protagonist than Daisuke himself is!

In fact, Miyako and Daisuke have very similar temperaments -- pure-hearted, but also rough around the edges -- but can be distinguished by the fact that while Daisuke is actually deferential and somewhat lacking in assertion, Miyako is actually aggressive, and while Daisuke’s “honesty about his feelings” is mainly because he’s too simple-minded to be any good at hiding anything, Miyako’s honesty is because she has no brain-to-mouth filter, and everything she’s thinking comes out of her mouth before she can control it -- in other words, Miyako has a huge case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. She doesn’t want to be insensitive, but it keeps coming out of her mouth before she can control it -- and even worse, her emotions are prone to taking control of her, and she is very prone to getting overwhelmed and collapsing into a massive panic.

If you think about the two archetypes of “girl who takes care of everyone” and “aggressive action girl”, Miyako has a tendency towards both at once, and moreover there’s an extra nail in it -- most “action girls” in the latter category would be portrayed as badass, put-together characters with a cool personality, but Miyako is a mess. She’s prone to panicking, all over the place, and her tendency to get in-your-face is not exactly in the most dignified manner. And as a result, a huge part of her character arc (as we will be going more into detail about below) is that she’s aware of this and doesn’t like this about herself -- because she doesn’t want to be insensitive or rude, and in fact she wants to be someone who can better help and take care of others, but, in her mind, her own personality keeps getting in the way.

Miyako in 02

After fully becoming a Chosen Child in 02 episode 2, it only takes one more episode for Miyako to bring food for everyone, as if to say “Right! I’m going to be working with everyone now! All of you are now my new best friends!” (”Bringing food for people” is one of Miyako’s many ways of showing love, given that she returns from Kyoto in 02 episode 34 and immediately hands off souvenir yatsuhashi to Koushirou.) And with that, Miyako settles into the archetype of the group’s “mood maker” -- someone whose role is to keep everyone in emotionally high spirits by influencing everyone with cheer and energy. 02 episode 5 features the debut of her famous “Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let’s roll!” catchphrase -- this and her other famous “Bingo!” catchphrase establish her as the only of the Tokyo Chosen Children to have a catchphrase (at least, in the Japanese version). Because catchphrases are fun.

As much as everyone (especially Daisuke) is a bit blindsided by her behavior at first, they eventually come to embrace the positive effect she has on all of them -- Daisuke very genuinely asks her for “the usual cheer” in 02 episode 10, and, all the way in 02 episode 22, this is such an agreed-on and established role that they’ll still wait on her to do the honors even when they’re in a hurry. So in other words, it didn’t take long for Miyako to go out of her way to shower everyone with cheer, and it didn’t take long for everyone to answer to that cheer and appreciate her for it.

The flip side of this, however, is that Miyako doesn’t start off being very emotionally equipped to handle this -- right off the bat in 02 episode 2, she says that she’s not inclined for fighting, and in 02 episode 4, she refers to it as being “like an adventure game”. That is to say, she’s not at the point where she’s able to handle the full gravity of what she’s just involved herself with (Daisuke reminds her that she’d panicked earlier, but she just blows it off). She’s handling it so cheerfully now because the series is still in its early stages, when she can enter and exit the Digital World at will, and she’s capable of treating it like this.

So when the stakes do get higher, she’s the first one to take the stress hard. As mentioned before, she’s the youngest in her family, now recast as the oldest in this group -- but unlike Jou, who consciously knew this fact and took stress onto himself because of the responsibility this entailed, Miyako seems to repeatedly forget that she’s the oldest in this group, and the events of 02 episodes 9-10 (when Agumon is kidnapped) cause her to break down from stress and have to take a time-out. (Which everyone allows her to do, because this is not a series where people are pressured to fight if they’re not emotionally ready for it.) Miyako comes to terms with the fact that the stakes are going to keep escalating, and she can’t just gloss over everything with cheer -- and she does manage to pull herself enough to bring Yamato into the fray at the end of the episode, but this continues to be a recurring theme for the rest of her character arc.

While we’re discussing these early parts of the series, one thing I want to briefly address is the part where Miyako infamously calls a lot of people hot. (Although, not as many as the fanbase would love to make you think; it’s only four people in total.) This tends to get her pinned as some kind of flirt whose head is only filled with being hot for people, but while she’s certainly a bit on the shallow end at this point of the series -- dealing with that being what this character arc is about, after all -- this trait of hers tends to get exaggerated by a lot of people in the audience as if she’s completely lacking in common sense. Miyako’s ridiculous (and we love her for it), but she does have some degree of grip on herself! Context is important here -- she might show a crush on someone, but at no point in the series itself does Miyako show any indication of seriously thinking of full-on dating.

For Miyako, who’s accustomed to just blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, commenting on someone being hot is like commenting on the weather -- she means it as a compliment, but there’s no evidence she thinks she has a chance with any of them, let alone wanting to try dating. This is especially when you take into account her self-esteem issues that we learn about later in the series, and also...well, the fact she’s only twelve. (Remember: even Daisuke’s thing for Hikari comes out as a lot of unfocused affection, and it’s unlikely he’s seriously considered the concept of following that up with a serious relationship -- any serious prospects of romance or dating are not going to be on the table for these kids for a while.) Miyako has also been accused by some of being abysmally shallow for still complimenting Ken’s looks in 02 episode 9 (after it’s already apparent he’s the Kaiser), but although she certainly is a bit shallow at this point of the series, she’s not that lacking in common sense; Iori got in on it too in this scene, and both of them were doing it to tease Daisuke more than they seriously wanted to compliment the Kaiser all that much. So in essence, it’s just “Miyako has eyes” -- she still completely agrees he’s their enemy and she’s not going to judge him any better for his looks, but she also doesn’t see this as a reason to lie about the fact she thinks he’s visually good-looking, especially if it’s to tease Daisuke about it.

In any case, 02 episode 14 digs a lot more into Miyako’s stance on herself regarding others -- in 02 episode 6, Miyako met Mimi for the first time, and latched onto her for their similar dispositions and her looking up to Mimi for being beautiful, amazing, and cool (and she should, because she’s right). 02 episode 14 adds another layer to this, however, when Miyako spends the duration negatively comparing herself to Mimi. At first it starts off as simply just shallow jealousy for Michael giving Mimi more attention, but as the situation with Digitamamon escalates, Miyako spends a prolonged period of time trying to figure out Mimi’s behavior of pure-heartedly choosing to trust Digitamamon despite everything, against Miyako’s insistence that Digitamamon’s behavior proves that he was untrustworthy the whole time.

Mimi and Miyako’s stances are both on extremes here -- Mimi’s pacifistic tendencies are causing her to let her get beaten up by Digitamamon despite the fact that “appealing to people’s hearts” has never really been demonstrated as a good way to get Evil Rings off (to be fair, this is probably the first time they’ve made an attempt at this with a Digimon that can still talk coherently with it on), but Miyako’s acting as if this retroactively proves him to be untrustworthy even though she knows that the Evil Rings are tantamount to brainwashing. Nevertheless, Miyako acknowledges that her own stance was borne out of her being shallow and judgmental, especially since the discussion between Mimi and Digitamamon brings out a question about the meaning of the “true self”.

Miyako, at this point, is confronting everything that’s bad about herself -- that she’s shallow and not as much of a “good person” as Mimi is. But the Crest of Purity -- once meaning “lack of malice” back when it applied to Mimi in Adventure -- now has a secondary meaning of “not lying to oneself” (the dub translation of “Sincerity” is not actually that off in this sense), and it also means that Miyako is not going to get anywhere pretending or forcing herself to be someone she’s not. The secondary Digimental arc has a recurring theme of understanding that there are still things you need to learn and improve on in order to do better, and this is Miyako’s version of it -- she will have to acknowledge all of the bad parts of herself before she can get anywhere and become a kind person like Mimi is -- and, indeed, becoming less shallow and judgmental and not jumping to conclusions, and learning to reach out to more substantial cores of the problem, ends up becoming a major part of her character arc in the latter half of the series.

This episode also implies one more thing, even if she doesn’t realize it yet at this moment: the path to her becoming a less shallow and more considerate person is not going to involve trying to force herself to be like Mimi, but rather in a way that’s closer to her “true self”.

Miyako’s first major turning point is in 02 episode 18, an episode that’s said to have such a profound impact on her that even Natsuki Rio testified to having to alter her Miyako performance thereafter.

Back in 02 episode 10, Miyako first started to realize that this whole experience of fighting as a Chosen Child was a lot more stressful than it seemed at first, and reacted badly to it. Here, the ante gets upped even more -- the kids decide to make use of their summer break and organize a Digital World stakeout, and, eventually, Hikari accidentally becomes indirectly responsible for tipping Miyako over the deep end by making an implication that they need more “determination” to the point of refusing to leave until they’ve beaten the Kaiser. (Remember that Hikari can be terrifyingly assertive as long as it’s not something to do with herself.) For Miyako, who’s never had the same experience of being in the Digital World for a prolonged period of time the same way the Adventure group has, this is terrifying, and she tries to “get herself together” over the night -- only to completely overshoot it and go into the complete other extreme. As much as this ends up being one of Miyako’s peak hilarity moments, it’s most certainly representative of her being under a huge amount of pressure and stress, and it’s effectively her “peak worst” moment -- which results in Hawkmon ending up having to cover for her, and getting injured in the process, and Miyako immediately realizing how badly she’d messed up.

Miyako is thus forced to face a major consequence of her behavior: if she doesn’t manage to figure out a way to get herself under control, other people will be hurt, and as someone who wants to do her best for other people, that’s one of the worst possible outcomes for her. 

In addition, it’s also important to point out Hikari’s role in this. The Jogress arcs have yet to set in, but the series still gives you a little preview of what’s to come eventually, such as the insight we get about Daisuke and Ken’s initial attitudes towards each other in 02 episode 8, and Iori later personally witnessing (and being very disturbed by) Takeru losing his composure in 02 episode 19. In this case, we see a bit of what Miyako and Hikari’s opposing personalities can offer for each other (especially since the later 02 episode 31 more heavily involves Miyako returning the favor in the other direction) -- Hikari correctly identifies exactly what it was that set Miyako off, takes responsibility for it, and even decides to make sure Miyako and Hawkmon get proper alone time so that they can figure things out. In general, everyone in the 02 team is understanding of Miyako’s antics and doesn’t hold any of it against her because she’s doing her best, but right now, Hikari may be the only person in this group who can actually proactively do something about it, because Daisuke’s not assertive enough to step in, Takeru has a tendency to dodge things whenever they get awkward, and Iori’s holding himself back too much for the sake of manners (especially in the presence of Miyako, who’s the oldest one in this group). But while Hikari does have an emotional repression problem, she’s perfectly capable of holding herself together and putting her foot down when it comes to other people, and because of this, she’s the one who’s able to understand what exactly is going on with Miyako, and how to adjust the situation around her to make things easier for her.

Miyako and Hawkmon have a proper heart-to-heart, and we see more of Miyako’s self-hating tendencies going on here -- she refers exactly to her problems with impulse control, and even labels herself a “bad partner” as a result. But Hawkmon reassures her that she’s fine the way she is, and it ties into how a larger theme of her character arc will involve her learning to find better ways to channel the qualities she already has, rather than trying to force herself to be someone she’s not.

Once the Kaiser is defeated, the second half of the series is where we start to see Miyako’s growth start to really kick in. In 02 episode 24, there’s a short blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene where Miyako suddenly takes Daisuke and puts him in charge of taking care of the Punimon. Why is this important? Because two episodes prior, Daisuke had been running around in circles like an idiot due to having been third wheeled by Takeru and Hikari, and the moment Daisuke started exhibiting similar signs this time, Miyako personally stepped in and gave him a job to do -- and her actions of keeping an eye on them and her conversation with Takeru and Hikari indicate that she did it exactly because she figured that he would like it. Or, in other words, Miyako correctly identified Daisuke’s need for validation and purpose, and became the first person to proactively do something to address it -- Hikari and Takeru had generally been dodging it awkwardly for the duration of the series, which had only really been making it worse, and, in the absence of another crisis to take care of or someone like Ken to fill the void in Daisuke’s life, Miyako was able to properly figure out exactly what he needed at the moment as a stopgap, and thus is starting to settle into her proper role of understanding what others need in terms of emotional support and actively working to address it.

Since the second half of 02 is dedicated to Ken slowly establishing his place in the group, 02 episode 25 is dedicated to Miyako tussling with her conflicted feelings on the situation -- she’s just as open-minded and pure-hearted as Daisuke is, but the one thing that’s bothering her is that she’s a little more doubtful than he is in regards to whether Ken’s heart is really in the right place with all of this. She says, outright, that she believes he’s learned his lesson -- in a way far more firm than Takeru, Hikari, and Iori are about it -- but that one thing about him having potentially killed Thunderballmon in cold blood doesn’t fit the optimistic image she’d like to have of him.

Daisuke is more practical-minded than she is and is more willing to accept that there might have been a good reason -- especially since he himself starts to consider in this very episode that killing an enemy may be necessary if it’s the only way to prevent more victims -- but Miyako is more emotionally oriented and just can’t accept the idea of doing this at all. Both the internal debate over accepting Ken and the internal debate over having to potentially do a kill tear her apart over the course of this episode, and Miyako finds herself constantly waffling back and forth between the two positions. It’s not just her expressing minor doubt; she actually agonizes over this for the duration of the night and the next day, to the point she even considers asking him about it (and eventually can’t bring herself to).

It’s also made a prominent point that Miyako’s prior attraction to Ken in 02 episode 8 was not the reason she wanted to be optimistic about him -- remember, back in 02 episode 14, she completely admitted that she judges people by appearances, but at this point she’s well past that! Miyako takes this entire issue of whether Ken should be considered a friend very seriously, and that’s why it torments her so much over the course of the episode.

Eventually, all is resolved (at least, for the time being) when it turns out that Ken has been dealing with non-sentient Dark Tower Digimon, and Miyako takes this as sufficient evidence that Ken has changed -- the morality debate about killing comes back in full force in 02 episode 43, and Ken himself ends up just as shaken about it, so the important part is that she understands that he’s trustworthy and wants to put faith in him. Attention is also given to Miyako deciding she’ll now call him by given name (”Ken-kun”) from now on -- even Daisuke himself won’t start calling him “Ken” regularly until 02 episode 39, but Miyako starts slowly inserting given-name basis for Ken into her vocabulary from this point on until she finally commits to it fully in 02 episode 30. This is a proactive and conscious act on Miyako’s part that she actively wants to get to know him better and consider him a close friend, and it’s because of this that she ends up one of the only people who never gets habituated into surname basis with him by the time everyone’s come to properly befriend him.

So, at this point: Within only one episode (and, in-universe, one day), Daisuke and Miyako landed on the same page with their ideological stance towards Ken. They’re both open-minded and forward-thinking, and have an interest in becoming his friend (the next person to show active and open goodwill towards him, Hikari, won’t do so for another 9 episodes). However, despite their surface temperaments being somewhat similar, they have some differences in their priorities and way of approaching things, and it means that each of them ends up reaching out to Ken in ways that the other isn’t as good at. Daisuke, being the very practical and simple-minded sort who doesn’t overthink things or get caught in arbitrary philosophy, is the one who most proactively reaches out to Ken and most famously connects with him the most due to Ken very badly needing guidance in how to move on forward and stop getting fixated on his past. Miyako, on the other hand, being very much the type to consciously think about things (to the point of sometimes thinking about too many things at once) and focus on “how do I most show my support for someone right now?”, puts her priorities on checking on Ken’s current emotional state and actively attempting to glean his feelings and position. 02 being a series about relationships and what people can provide for each other, this ends up reflecting on their roles in the group as a whole -- Daisuke becomes the person who can pull everyone forward in determining the best thing to do, whereas Miyako fills in the parts his rough-around-the-edges demeanor doesn’t quite cover in terms of supporting everyone emotionally and keeping them together.

And thus, Miyako resolves to “wait” until the day Ken will join them -- that is to say, she takes the stance that Ken deserves proper space and to come on his own terms. It’s an interesting inversion of the usual roles you’d expect from Daisuke and Miyako at this point -- and, again, since 02 is about relationships, “each character’s approach towards the new kid and how it impacts them” reflects a lot about their own characters. For Daisuke and Miyako, who were open-minded towards Ken early in the game, you can already see the impact on them -- the necessity of reaching out to Ken causes the normally deferential Daisuke to become more proactive and put his foot down, whereas the normally uncontrollably in-your-face Miyako comes to understand when something needs to be handled delicately and starts getting a better grasp on the concept of restraint.

Which means that Miyako’s actions regarding Ken in the following episodes are significantly more passive than Daisuke’s are, but it’s clear that she’s still supportive. Moreover, it’s also important to establish that she and Daisuke aren’t fighting about this or anything -- Miyako does want Ken to come around eventually, so she doesn’t stop the more proactive Daisuke from reaching out to Ken in an important way, but she instead exerts her position in ways such as joining in with the others reminding him that Ken might have gotten a bit emotionally overwhelmed by the Jogress (and thus that it’s understandable that he might need some time to parse this before pushing the issue further). The way Miyako words this statement so casually can easily be a distraction from the fact that she is completely correct -- as we see later, Ken did emotionally freak out the moment the incident was resolved and had to go home to think about this. Scatterbrained as Miyako may seem, as the series proceeds, it turns out that she has a natural propensity for empathy that means she’s capable of making perfectly correct readings of the situation, even without her thinking that hard about it.

Not that she’s correct all of the time, though. 02 episode 30 has her attempt to get Ken and Iori to hopefully be a little less tense around each other end in complete disaster (although to be fair to her, it’s not like she and Daisuke were particularly forceful about it, it’s just that their plan was so poorly set up that it was too easy to read the motive behind, and it’s ultimately thrown off because -- as Daisuke correctly points out -- the two are being really childish about it.) But in response, Miyako takes direct action and responsibility to fix the situation when Ken continues to refuse to help despite how badly the situation is escalating, and when she finally reaches him, she gets frustrated at the fact he’s being so stubborn, smacks him, and personally drags him back over. Miyako cared a lot about this, she had wanted Ken and Iori to get along for no reason of personal benefit to herself but more because she cared that much about the group’s dynamic and friendship, and she’d held herself back so much because she was worried about him, but here he’s taking all of that and still giving them all the cold shoulder when everyone is in grave danger, and all of that frustration causes her to break down at once.

And note Ken’s reaction -- he’d been holding off on the grounds that he was being a burden on everyone’s friendship, but he sees Miyako distraught and upset and calling him an idiot (i.e. his whole pretense of not hurting others has clearly not worked here), and his “idiot...?” comes out flustered and off-guard, and he shows no resentment towards her thereafter and comes quietly with no protest, even holding a hand to the place she’d smacked him as if mulling in agreement that he deserved that. So, again: Even when Miyako is coming to all of these conclusions in a haphazard manner, it doesn’t change the fact that her readings of these situations are often completely correct.

02 episode 31 is another landmark episode in which we get a lot of insight into Miyako’s current feelings regarding herself in comparison to others, and what she’s trying to achieve at this point in the series. Daisuke makes an offhand remark at the beginning of the episode about Hikari being more “kind” than Miyako (”kind” having a double meaning of “gentle” in Japanese, so Daisuke’s mainly referring to Miyako being such a rough and belligerent person). The way Miyako takes this statement indicates that Daisuke had accidentally just hit a very deep-seated complex within her -- Miyako had never liked the fact she was aggressive and belligerent and in-your-face (remember, back in 02 episode 14, she was constantly negatively comparing herself to Mimi for not being as good of a person as her, and now this has extended to Hikari, who “keeps so much inside”.). As the crisis in the episode escalates, Miyako continues to fall victim to her foot-in-mouth syndrome, saying things and instantly regretting it, because she sees herself as making the situation worse -- and especially when it comes to a situation also involving Ken, whom she’s actively trying to reach out to right now. Her frustration at the fact she can’t see what Ken and Hikari see is because, unable to understand what they’re talking about or what their feelings are, she’s basically a sitting duck who can’t do anything while things are getting worse for them.

Which ultimately results in Miyako completely losing her marbles and Hikari having to smack her out of it -- again, recall that in 02 episode 18, it was shown that Hikari is one of the few people who has enough assertiveness to be able to rein in Miyako’s behavior, and even outright admits that Miyako is a bit of a handful. Miyako, as it seems, had been carrying a complex that Hikari had been thinking of her badly for all of this -- but Hikari then proceeds to reveal the flip side of all of this: she’s also conversely jealous of Miyako for being able to express herself so clearly and easily, because she herself is the type who compulsively represses her own feelings about herself, which is why nobody had been able to properly reach out to her for the duration of Adventure and 02.

For someone who had spent so much time considering herself a “bad person” and a “worse person” in comparison to people like Mimi and Hikari, that someone considers her qualities outright enviable is a huge deal -- it’s not that Miyako’s an objectively worse person than all of the other people who aren’t as rough or in-your-face, but rather, that those qualities can bring out positive things in their own way. And, immediately after that, we see one of those things -- she makes Hikari laugh, thanks to her antics. Of course, it involves Miyako being a bit all over the place and making a lot of mistakes, but even she admits “I guess it is funny.”

And there’s another thing to this, too: Miyako continues to end up with foot-in-mouth as she casually refers to things like the Evil Ring and Ken being the Kaiser with zero fanfare, before realizing seconds after that she probably shouldn’t be doing that in front of him, but, once again, even without her realizing, her evaluation is not incorrect -- although the fact he’s extremely out of it doesn’t make that clear quite yet in this episode, Ken is not the kind of person who’s touchy about acknowledging that he was the Kaiser, and, by his own statement in 02 episode 23, his stance is that he wants to “accept everything about it”, take responsibility, and move on. So here we are with Miyako, who just casually tossed that statement out like it was no big deal, has accepted his past with no lingering grudge against him, and even made a casual evaluation about him presumably having the same resilience he had as the Kaiser, which, again, is completely accurate. All of this is exactly the kind of attitude that Ken needs to be surrounded by right now, and Miyako had just touched on this without even thinking that hard about it, and also is still making it clear she doesn’t want him to feel bad about it...

And so, the episode’s climax has Miyako finally attaining the solution to the question of reaching out to Hikari, the one that nobody had been able to successfully accomplish throughout Hikari’s childhood of never expressing herself properly and the majority of Adventure and 02: to get Hikari to stop being so passive and accepting her inevitable fate because she doesn’t want to burden others, someone as aggressive as her will need to reach her and yank her out, and hit all of the exact points about understanding that someone will be there for her and that she should not accept this defeatist mentality. Hikari is unusually, unhealthily passive, and Miyako, being outwardly aggressive and someone who never hesitates to be blunt about things, is the best person to yank her out of this; it was never a sign of her being a “bad person”, just something she needed to channel in the right direction.

At the end of the episode, we’re also reminded once again that this is a series about relationships, so this kind of growth is important to everyone’s relationships with others as well -- thanks to Miyako’s efforts, Hikari is finally able to speak honestly with Takeru in contrast to her way of leaving off in silence with him at the end of 02 episode 13, and Miyako herself is happy that she’s finally gotten to have a better understanding of both Hikari, whom she herself had been unsure about the position of earlier, and Ken, whom she’d been worried she hadn’t been reaching out to in the right way.

While Ken was out of it during said episode and unable to coherently respond, we do get confirmation that he himself has hopped on the train of respecting Miyako’s intent well enough that he doesn’t hold anything over her -- during 02 episode 33, a mere three episodes after she’d personally slapped him in the face and two episodes after he’d practically seen her at her emotional worst, he still takes it upon himself to personally deliver Poromon to Kyoto and trust her to handle the rest. This isn’t that particularly interesting by itself, but moreso in terms of the context this is in -- this is a point where Ken’s still at awkward arm’s length with a lot of the team (including even Daisuke, in some ways), and he’s seen Miyako do all of the above messy things only not too long ago, but he still is comfortable enough around her and trusting enough in her abilities that he’s okay with casually approaching her and saying “you got this.” So it’s working, all things considered!

We also learn that Miyako had trusted Koushirou with Poromon during her trip to Kyoto, which says a lot about the fact she trusts her senior that much -- and, on a meta level, seems there specifically to facilitate the existence of the above scene (it would have been very easy to save time by just having Poromon accompany Miyako from the get-go and ending Ken’s involvement in the episode at his conversation with Koushirou...).

The following episodes also meanwhile establish that Miyako’s relationship with Hikari has been improving a lot -- with Miyako now actually understanding what Hikari needs, she’s much more proactive in reaching out to Hikari, and it’s even said directly by Iori in 02 episode 36 that their relationship seems to have gotten much better now. And, once again, Miyako’s antics are depicted as making people laugh -- note her and Hawkmon’s over-the-top advertisement performance doing so for everyone in the vicinity.

Which is also reinforced, again, in 02 episode 38, when this even spreads to Ken himself, in a moment that’s said to be particularly unusual and portrayed as one of the first times Ken has been able to be truly carefree in a long time. Again, the point here is: Miyako’s “all-over-the-place” nature brings joy to other people, and that “she makes people laugh” is continually reinforced as a symbol of this over the course of the second half of the series.

Beyond that, the visit to Ken’s house kicks off with Miyako noticing the picture of Osamu and asking about it, to the point she’s shown leaning over and staring at it for quite a while -- Koushirou had allegedly informed her about it earlier, and a whole point is made that she’s the one very prominently wanting to understand more about Ken and his background.

Also, Miyako reminds us all that she still does think Ken is attractive, but it’s a huge contrast to her behavior from back in 02 episode 8, when she knew nothing about him except that he was some celebrity genius boy -- she got completely worked up about it, moped about it for a whole day, and even dragged the fixation into the next day when she started aggressively confronting Daisuke about it, but we’re here 30 episodes later with Miyako actually considering him an important friend that she respects the feelings of, and she simply casually tosses out the statement of him being cute in her usual “like it’s commenting on the weather” manner, with no extra weirdness about it.

We close up some of the threads of Miyako's character arcs when Miyako herself is forced to confront the possibility of fighting an enemy to the kill in 02 episode 44, and Silphymon is eventually forced to kill LadyDevimon to save Miyako's life. Miyako’s emotional reaction is given the most attention here, since she herself had fixated so much on the horror of potentially killing Golemon back in 02 episode 25 -- in fact, everything Miyako does in this episode is about her emotional empathy and empathy for others, in that she rails on LadyDevimon for being a “coward” who hurts other people. Eventually, it’s once again the assertive Hikari who’s able to get her back on her feet by putting it in a way she can understand -- they were not doing it out of a callous and cruel intent to kill, but to save the exact victims that Miyako herself wanted to prevent.

And, even to the very end of the series, Miyako continues to channel her proactivity into emotional awareness first and foremost -- 02 episode 46 has her take the lead in the Dark Seed roundtable, and it’s implied that she’s doing this mainly because she knows this is a very personal issue for Ken to have to witness. In contrast to the way she frantically started spitting out potentially insensitive things in front of Ken in 02 episode 31, here, she outright says that she doesn’t want to make him feel bad about this (and, fortunately, he understands perfectly well that she’s trying). Even all the way to the very end in 02 episode 50, she’s the one who first brings up the question of the issue, because of how emotionally invested she got into this and her high level of awareness as to how deeply this impacted Ken.

In 02 episode 49, BelialVamdemon presents everyone in the team with a potential deep-seated desire that none of them want to admit, and in the case of Miyako’s, it ends up being a rather tame thing in comparison to Iori and Takeru’s more severe family issues, Hikari’s desire for WORLD PEACE!!, and Ken’s complicated feelings about punishment and forgiveness. In Miyako’s dream world, she’s just eating cake, and it says a lot about the fact that were it not for the fact that she overthinks things and often gets easily stressed, she’s fundamentally fairly free of deep-seated issues in a way not entirely dissimilar to Daisuke’s simple and pure-hearted way of life.

The thing that causes Miyako’s issue is often misinterpreted to be about her selfishly wanting everything to herself, or the idea she’s fighting for attention with her siblings, but Hawkmon actually says what the real problem is in direct words: her crowded family is “noisy”. Or in other words -- Miyako, being the overly empathetic type and someone who easily succumbs to stress, is just really overwhelmed and stressed because of everything around her.

An interesting thing about Miyako’s “illusion” is that it’s the only one that in itself starts making its victim feel lonely and sad even before it’s taken away or dispelled -- Takeru and Iori had to have their happy images pulled away from them, Hikari had to have Tailmon clarify that everything is fake, and Ken had to have Wormmon personally chase the image of his brother away. But in the case of Miyako, all Hawkmon has to do is ask if she’s happy right now, and she’s quick to admit that she’s not. It’s just that everything was stressful and overwhelming and there was so much to deal with all of the time, and for once she wanted to be able to enjoy a little peace, but she loves her family and she loves everyone around her and she doesn’t want to be alone, and she’d rather have them back even if it’s stressful. Miyako’s love for others is so strong that even an illusion supposedly made to cater to her won’t make her happy if everyone’s gone.

Miyako also takes the moment to realize that for all Hawkmon’s been going out of his way to be steadfast and loyal to her, she hasn’t been doing enough to understand her own partner in turn, and there’s still a lot more she can do in terms of thinking of others.

Miyako after 02

As per Spring 2003, once Miyako graduates elementary school and moves to middle school, she continues trying to be helpful to her juniors -- she joins the computer club and once again ends up under Koushirou, and now outright makes music for Yamato’s band (some creative differences aside). It’s also interesting to note her attitude towards her other friends when she tries to recruit them into her music unit -- she snarks at everyone right up until she gets to Ken, who declines politely, and in exchange, she just can't bring herself to be mean to him and simply apologizes for asking too much. It’s ambiguous whether this is because she’s still trying to have a heightened level of consideration around him (this is still only four months after 02′s finish, after all), but it seems she’s still concerned about the idea of handling him overly roughly, and is able to exercise a proper level of restraint about him.

Which brings us all the way to Kizuna, a whole eight years later where we have to fill in a lot of blanks about what’s been happening in the meantime, but the official website establishes that she’s now pursuing a degree in computer programming at an engineering university, and is now on study abroad in Spain (implied to be Barcelona, given details in both the movie itself and the drama CD). Pretty ambitious stuff!...or at least that’s the first impression one would get, until it turns out that she’s getting her flighty personality enabled by the local culture. As we learn in the drama CD, she’s absolutely taking the time to milk this entire situation so she can play around -- and, in accordance with how she was established to be an important factor in bringing Hikari out of her shell, it’s rubbing off on Hikari, too.

In addition, Miyako is still working under Koushirou despite their educational careers having completely diverged, this time as his assistant in terms of managing the Chosen Child community. Interestingly, her specific job seems to be consultation, and people come to her for “advice and stuff” -- meaning that it’s very likely that a lot of new Chosen Children who are having a hard time adjusting to life with a partner are coming to her for practical and emotional advice, and she’s still continuing to channel her ability to be emotionally aware and supportive of others.

That is to say, until she gets a mysterious request from a certain Menoa Bellucci. We learn later that Menoa’s motive was to obtain the list of international Chosen Children, meaning that she most definitely was not approaching Miyako for emotional help, and with that, Miyako decides that she doesn’t want to do this and dumps it on her seniors...

...but then picks it back up with zero hesitation the moment her friends present her that exact same job, and not only is it just “zero hesitation”, Ken even comments on how “fast” she arrived to do so! (This was also before Iori came up with the plan to infiltrate Menoa’s office; there wasn’t any indication Miyako’s computer abilities would be particularly necessary at the time.) On top of that, the drama CD gives us full context as to why she was so willing to dump this on her seniors in the first place -- she had wanted to see her friends so badly that she practically invented D-3 gate exploitation so she could hang out with her friends despite technically being in another country, and even wanted to invite them to come visit her, and eventually they’d all made an organized plan to meet up in New York. In other words, her loyalty to her friends is still stronger than anything else -- remember, she’s the kind of person who was picking up tons of jobs specifically so she could help her friends in the first place.

On that note, Ken’s ability to be casual with everyone besides Daisuke has noticeably improved, and that’s especially prominent with Miyako, whom he proactively converses with in a way that wouldn’t have happened back in 02, and, likewise, in contrast to the sense of distance she’d still been maintaining with him back during the final arc of 02 and Spring 2003, she has no qualms about handling him as casually as she would anyone else.

Which eventually leads us to...

This is a recurring theme on this blog, but every so often I have to draw the distinction between creative concepts “in meta” (i.e. the way the audience will read it, in relation to franchise standards and other real-life factors) and said concepts “in-universe” (i.e. with audience factors completely removed, whether there’s a presumable logical reason for these events happening in-universe, and whether this is reasonable behavior to expect out of the characters). This blog is largely dedicated to the latter, but the reason why I have to keep drawing this distinction in the first place is that I get the impression that the staff behind Adventure and 02 really did not pay much mind to the former part as part of their dedication to the latter. And, I mean, part of the reason I respect the writing of Adventure and 02 so much is how uncompromising they were in terms of not really pandering to what a fanbase might expect, which allowed the story to retain a lot of creative integrity that it wouldn’t have otherwise.

But every so often you get something like this that makes me want to just bang my head on the table and scream, I swear, I get what you guys were going for, but I am begging you, please think a little harder about how people are going to read this!! In general, I do think there’s something that’s not very good about disregarding your audience completely, because if you’re trying to say important things and those things are going directly over your audience’s heads (this is a kids’ show, for goodness’s sake), you can’t call that good communication, and it’s not like you can blame the audience for getting blindsided or being upset, and this is before we get into what they just dropped on the global audience that was presumably full of young girls interested in STEM fields who were hoping to see them go all the way with that, or the feelings of those who are bothered that one character has to be singled out to be defined solely by her relationship to others, and I mean -- to be fair, with a character like Miyako and the tons of things going on with her, there was probably no outcome they could come up with that wouldn’t be reinforcing some negative stereotype (believe it or not, there are people who have conversely mentioned identifying deeply with Miyako’s personal story and the meaning of this ending to them, and have also expressed discomfort about some of the comments the fanbase has made over the years), but at the same time, holy hell, they really went for the one that immediately looks the worst on its face...

...That aside, I will reiterate that this is a blog and analysis meant for that latter category of “analyzing things in-universe”, and making good-faith assumptions that there was a reason for everything (and, I’ll be quite honest, reading everything the staff has said about the characters, including Miyako, there is no indication that they didn’t treat every single one of them with love and zero intention to curse any of them into a horrible fate). We can debate whether this was a good or bad choice in the context of real life, or how much they really should have thought this through more or considered alternative ways to do this, in another place and time (it’s been done by many other people, myself included, in the last 20 years, and it will most certainly continue after this, and probably should continue). It’s not like I’m necessarily giving my blessing to every single creative decision in Adventure or 02 in running this blog, it’s more of the attitude of “now that this decision was in the series, can we figure out what that was intended to mean?”, and that’s going to apply to this one too. And so, we’ll proceed with the analysis.

In any case, here’s the first thing to start with, which may surprise some people to learn: at no point in the epilogue is the word “housewife” ever used to refer to Miyako. The only words that Takeru uses to describe her are: that she is married to Ken and is a mother of three. Not only that, post-02 materials that have referred to the epilogue and Miyako’s part in it have also avoided using that word -- the Character Complete File and the Animation Chronicle only reiterate the same points of “married to Ken” and “mother of three children”, and practically go out of their way to avoid insinuating that being a stay-at-home housewife is the main focus of her life right now. It would have been so easy to say it outright if they’d wanted to, but they didn’t, and they consistently don’t, to the point the omission is almost suspicious. And, indeed, if you want to believe the Character Complete File, Miyako is not a full-time housewife and is simply not working at the time of the epilogue due to maternity leave because the third child had recently been born. So it’s completely within the realm of possibility that she’s still working! In that case, why is something that could easily be a big deal left ambiguous like this?

If you look at the way the epilogue presents its information, there’s a certain pattern: what information is emphasized and what information is given little attention or omitted has very little to do with “how curious the audience would be about it”, but rather “how relevant it is”; just because a certain piece of information is omitted doesn’t mean it necessarily isn’t true. For example, Sora; she’s married to Yamato, but despite how much the audience would probably consider that as vital information, it’s left for you to infer from the visuals and an oblique comment that Sora’s daughter is a “dependable older sister”, and even the question of whether Sora did succeed her mother in flower arrangement is left up in the air despite that also probably being a question the audience is curious about (and in fact, a few flower branches are clearly visible in the front, implying very heavily that, whatever happened, she’s at least still maintaining her roots with her family instead of violently cutting it all off). But we do learn about the fact that she went into fashion design, which is something that’s not an expectation that was placed by her family but rather something she presumably decided on herself. Hence, presumably why that’s the part emphasized, and moreso than her marriage to Yamato -- said marriage is of course an important part of her life, but it’s not as prominent as the fact that she has her own independent career, especially since her entire character arc was about doing things that she wanted for herself instead of doing things for others. That is to say, compared to their own individual ambitions, Sora and Yamato’s love life is “an important part, but not the important part.” This is especially when you add the context that Takeru is delivering abridged single-sentence “catch-up” descriptions of his friends on their behalf (possibly to the world, if this is part of his novel), and so, it begs the question: what would each of these characters want to be most remembered for accomplishing?

(And if you think I’m being tinfoil hat about this, remember that a constant theme with this blog I’m running is that “being annoyingly subtle and relying on ridiculously oblique messaging” like this permeates the entirety of 02 in general, and it’s definitely not the only time they’ve used this kind of technique to communicate details that are too consistent and on-the-nose to be passed off as coincidence. As far as assuming that this series follows rational storytelling logic goes, we are far past that point, and in ways that extend far beyond this epilogue.)

So we look back at Miyako, and the hobbies she’d indulged in and what purpose they were for, and her personality, and the fact that the main point of her character arc was about her complex that she would never be a good enough person who could properly emotionally reach out and take care of others -- in some ways, her arc was the opposite of Sora’s, in that while Sora’s was about not being as beholden to others, Miyako’s was about how to become someone who can better support others -- and once we apply the above question, there lies the answer to why the priority and emphasis given to her future in the epilogue is “Miyako is the kind of person who prioritizes taking care of and supporting her loved ones more than anything else.”

This is especially because (in an epilogue with not very many lines, so every bit of information becomes vital) the lines we see Miyako and her family exchange are representative of a lot of what that character arc was about. According to her son, Miyako is still her panicky and emotionally messy self, even when in the role of the matriarch of a large family who’s responsible for taking care of all of them. She did not ever become the ideal “gentle” and “mature” kind of person that she considered Mimi and Hikari to be and negatively compared herself to. However, her family responds by cheerfully laughing, which is -- most likely not coincidentally -- the same thing that was shown to be the positive flip side of Miyako’s over-the-top personality back in 02 episodes 31, 36, and 38, in that it brings joy and cheer to others.

If you do want to take the Character Complete File’s statement at face value, the fact that she’s on self-imposed maternity leave means that it’s very likely she wasn’t on a salaried job and was instead freelancing, or at least was involved with something that didn’t require constant commitment. Considering the fact she’s consistently portrayed as an impatient sort who gets bored easily, she probably would prefer something more flexible like freelancing or at least not being tied to a single thing; even looking back at her completely disparate hobbies back when she was a kid, when she was basically jack-of-all-trades-ing to fit whatever people needed her for, she never really came off as someone who could commit very easily to a single form of work, but what she did have commitment to was other people, especially her friends and family. If you (or, perhaps, Takeru) were to ask her during the time of the epilogue “what are you up to right now?”, it’s not really that hard to believe that gushing about her lovely family would come before everything else; not to say that everyone else here (especially her own husband) isn’t presumably devoted to their own families, but Miyako’s the type to have that much higher sense of pride in what she does for those she cares about than she would have particular attachment to any kind of work. Look at her behavior during Kizuna; she’s pursuing a degree in computer programming and thus is still aiming to be a busybody with a high level of skill, but when given a job by a stranger, she immediately dumps it off on her seniors so she can be with her friends, then happily accepts that same job again when the same friends present it back to her.

So, in other words, the conclusion is: the biggest priority and most important thing to Miyako in regards to her future is that she finally became someone who could properly support others around her, even in spite of her personality that would suggest otherwise.

In addition, the fact that she has three children might initially come off as a little in-your-face or overkill, but remember that Miyako came from a family with four siblings, and 02 episode 49 had her say outright that she does treasure that – or, in other words, being part of a big family surrounded by affection and love is something she considers to be a valuable part of her life (especially since the age gaps between the three children imply a reasonable likelihood of actual family planning, moreso than even Miyako’s own).

Incidentally, this is just a bit of a personal note, but one might notice that I’ve also never actually used the word “housewife” to refer to the epilogue’s depiction of Miyako in the course of writing for this blog, because of how little evidence we have that she is one – being on temporary maternity leave still being a very viable and, given the post-02 materials we now have, arguably heavily likely interpretation, it’s not like you’d necessarily call someone a housewife if their break from work is only temporary, even if they’re a freelancer. Given the above circumstances, perhaps something like “family matriarch” would be more accurate…

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