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stagefoureddiediaz · 8 months

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RWRB costume/ colour meta!

Ok, lets do this!!

Man have I missed writing costume/colour meta, so its good to have something to write about again! This took me far far longer than it should have - I kept getting distracted by the film while I was working on this - I'd go looking for a clip or to grab a still and end up just watching the film again 😂😂😂 but I've finished it and I hope you all enjoy it! Grab a beverage of your choice because this thing is a beast coming in at over 7000 words - I totally understand if you want to skip, but I have ADHD and do not know how to be concise 😂😂😂

Red white and royal blue employs several fun and interesting costume and colour theories (also made use of in the set design) to help tell the story of Alex and Henry. I’m not going to write a detailed meta for each costume - I just don’t have the time - but I am going to look at some costume/ colour details in focus, especially for Henry and Alex as well as highlighting other interesting choices! I also do not have the picture limit (I need more than 30!!!) to include every image I would like to, so if you want to see what I'm talking about, you might have to go check out the relevant scenes (I'll try to give you timestamps where I can!) I’ve kind of tried to do things chronologically, but I’ve left Alex and Henry to the end so if I don’t talk about them very much in the rest of this meta - that is why! putting it under a cut because its so long!

The royal Wedding

There are a couple of key themes here, the wedding party (consisting Lady Martha, Bea and Henry) have a distinct colour palette - dusty blue, dusty pink and Ivory, with the exception of Prince Phillip who is in his red Dress uniform - they’ve used a red uniform to make him stand out, convey that he is more important than the bride (what with his being in line for the throne and all that jazz) and hint at power - red is a power colour.

I’m not sure what royal orders the collar and riband that Henry is wearing are supposed to represent as they don’t belong to a specific British order - if I had to take a punt I’d say his red collar is meant to be a AU version of a Knight Grand Cross of the order of the bath but the one he’s wearing certainly isn’t a real order in the UK (it isn’t meant to be an order of the garter as that is the highest ranking order and Henry would then also be wearing the light blue riband we see on Prince Phillip) the royal blue riband with the red edging is more i line with the night grand cross of the order of Victoria, although in real life that riband should be for in the opposite direction. My feeling is that they wanted a red collar on Henry to play into the red as a symbol of power theme they’ve used on Prince Phillip, placing Henry as having the ‘power’ in his conversation with Alex (as he is on home turf) and the royal blue sash is a deliberate choice that I will talk about later when I focus in on Henry and I think its actually pretty significant as a choice. essentially the order insignia he is wearing are not real orders which is totally fine as this is essentially and au royal family!

We do have to talk about that wedding gown - not royal in the slightest - spaghetti straps and a low back would never be allowed for a royal bride, the dress is also too long on her (but that’s a different conversation about budgets and rental gowns so we’ll let it slide here!!) and her hair should also be fully up - not in the half up do she has going on! The colour is also wrong - she would have been tied to a very limited colour palette of white or ivory - no colour in a royal wedding gown, so the blush colour we see is a no go! I totally get why they did what they did with her gown in terms of colour and I’m fine with that choice (i’ll explain more in the next paragraph), I even get the fairytale princess look they were going for with that dress - but when you’re trying to portray a family so stuck in tradition and history etc, I can’t help but feel that they missed a trick to show her as buttoned up, conforming to the crown etc, especially as we never see her again!

At the reception we see pretty much everyone in colour of some description, with the exception on Alex and Nora who are both in black - this is why Lady Martha’s wedding dress is a pale blush pink colour rather than white. The only reason that the men aren’t in colour (if they’re not in dress uniform) is because they are wearing white tie for the formality of a royal wedding, otherwise I think we would’ve seen coloured ties or some such on them. This is intentional because the room has a general (muted) wash of colour which serves to highlight Alex and Nora, making them stand out and look like they don’t really belong.

Its a way of creating a them and us vibe and helps to establish the rivalry between Alex and Henry - we have a British scene, full of colourful clothing and the only identified foreigners are in black and white. We actually only see a black and white colour palette for the clothing of the Americans until Alex returns from his PR fix it trip to London after cakegate, while nearly all the Brits all were colour of some description - we can see this clearly in the hospital - all the children in colour, Henry in blues and - Henrys security in coloured ties while Amy is there totally in black.

Alex himself does wear navy blue but its a dark navy and that jacket is actually two tone - black and navy and its paired with black trousers in this scene - we see it again later - paired with taupe trousers which really helps to establish this idea of colour entering Alex's world once Henry is in it.

Sets

I’m going to pause on clothing here to quickly talk about the sets in the film and their colour palettes because they fall into three distinct categories;

We have the sage dusty greens, gold and bright reds of the British spaces - they have a regency and victorian air to them, all very traditional, opulent and royal in feel - they are the definition of a gilded cage and are ostentatious and Henry’s bedroom even fits into this mould (its very telling that we only see very limited physical intimacy between the two of them in this space - because its a space that neither of them truly fit or belong in) with its sagely green walls that echo the green walls of the state room the big royal family showdown occurs in.

Then we have the creams, taupes and beiges (with a bit of minty green for the walls of oval office) of the America spaces combined with the very intentional colour choice of that rusty orange (there is also the red room but that is a whole other conversation - I’ll go into it later).

The Rusty orange is such a colour choice, its rich and eye-catching. All colours have meanings associated with them - these can vary wildly depending on where and how they are used and have both positive and negative connotations.

Generally speaking, orange is an attention grabber - its energetic and stimulating, but it also conveys transformation and endurance. This orange has brown undertones which means we should also reference brown colour meanings when thinking about what the colour means on screen - brown is a safe colour and it is also strong and reliable, but it can also portray a sense of loneliness - that is something I think is a really interesting concept - we see Henry in Alex’s world (through the text chats as well as in the first blowjob scene) on the rusty orange sofas and one of the underlying major parts of who Henry is, he is enduring like the orange (and his royal status make him an attention grabber without needing to try) but there is that underlying sense of loneliness - yes he might’ve had a crush on Alex since the climate conference, but as soon as the air had been cleared between them during the PR trip Henry reached out and pursued Alex because he was lonely and wanted a friend - not knowing if it could ever be more than a friendship.

Then, finally we have the spaces Henry and Alex occupy - spaces which are just theirs to occupy - spaces when they are themselves - these are predominately yellow and blue spaces, with some deep colours such as the teal we see on the walls of Alex’s room and the red room.

I’ll go into more detail about all the yellow and blue in this film a bit later on in this meta, but to provide a comment on the red room - red is a colour of passion and love, but this shade of red they’ve chosen maintains that orange undertone we see in the rest of the American spaces.

I wrote a post on the choice of red calla lilies and how they are both a symbol of love and commitment, as well as a phallic symbol of sexuality, and I know Alexander Hamilton was on the wall in the book, but he is there not only because he was very likely bi, but also because he was the subject of what is known as the first political sex scandal - something our boys are essentially also themselves going to end up becoming!

Once Alex does return stateside we start to see colour begin to fill his world. This is a really interesting thematic choice - think how the wizard of Oz (a film very much associated with gay culture - ‘a friend of Dorothy’ was a slang code used by gay men to identify one another and there is obviously the rainbow connotation) begins in black and white and then transitions to colour as soon as Dorothy wakes up in Oz. This film is playing on that same trope/ concept - this is a story essentially told from Alex’s perspective, so Henry and his world is already in colour - its only when Alex enters that world and becomes entwined with it that colour starts to seep into his life - its done in a much more subtle way, but it is there - even during the text bantering they have going one while he is watching a film with Nora - it is a black and white film (‘Some Like it Hot’ - its self a film that helped open conversations about queer identity and the queer community at a time when the Hays code was still in operation and when Sodomy laws still existed in the US, but that is a whole other conversation and lots has been written about it before, its one of my favourite films and if you want to know more then head to your search engine of choice or hit up my inbox! It’s also a film our director Matthew Lopez adapted for the stage which is possibly partly why it was chosen for this scene- as a nod to his other work!)and they are both wearing grey while Henry is in colour (cream and blue - playing into the queer coded yellow blue theming) and sits on the bright orange sofa.

I cannot tell you how much I am in love with the Koi carp on Alex’s dressing room wall because the symbolism - the symbolism!!!!! Koi are seen as a symbol of strength, patience, perseverance, love and bravery they symbolise success through courage. Koi are known to swim against the current and overcome great obstacles - there is a Japanese proverb ‘Koi no Takinobori’ which translates as 'koi swim up waterfalls' and as the word Koi in Japanese also translates to mean love the proverb therefore means that love can go against the current and overcome great obstacles and if that isn’t the perfect metaphor for Alex and Henry’s relationship then I don’t know what is!!

I am obsessed and I adore the set designer for including that wallpaper in general, but especially in their text banter flirty developing relationship - the writing is essentially on the wall for where their relationship is going and how its going to unfold - they are literally Koi swimming agains the current and overcoming great obstacles to be together!!

Back to the costuming!

As I said previously - when Alex returns from the PR trip we start to see increasing amounts of colour and it starts with blue - Oscar is wearing a blue shirt - a colour we only see him in for that scene and then again at the end of the film - during election night. Its an important choice - Henry's colour is blue - its the colour we nearly always see him in some form of blue so for this to essentially be the first colour that appears in the clothing in Alex's world is telling in its own way - it is the beginning of the slow saturation of Henry in the world of Alex. Oscar is always in tan colour-ways apart from those two scenes and generally speaking we see him wearing Mexican tribal and geometric prints/patterns and cowboy boots - playing into his Mexican heritage, but also establishing him as Texan.

Miguel is clearly set out as the baddie to us all - head to toe in black all the time expect at the PM dinner - when he has to wear a white shirt because its etiquette - but they do make sure to give him black buttons on that shirt - which separates him from everyone else in dinner dress very clearly and keeps the undertone of untrustworthiness going.

The other thing to note is the grey fuzzy jacket he wears when being interviewed on the news. I’ve spoken before in my 911 meta’s about how the use of the grey fuzzy patterning is symbolic of confusion or obfuscation and that holds true here - Miguel is called out as being the one who hacked and leaked the emails by the presenter and he tries to bluff his way out - to obfuscate the truth.

We see the idea of green and jealousy play out a couple of times in the film - the flirty girl that tries to commandeer Alex and kisses him at the NYE party is wearing a very blatantly iridescent green dress which sets her apart from the rest of the crowd and then when the crowd drops low we also get the green lights on the DJ desk - while the scene is a play on the I saw you across a crowded room idea, there is also that undercurrent of jealousy - Henry is Jealous of Alex’s ease and that he cannot have him loudly and in the way he wants - highlighting that jealousy helps to build into Henrys later actions when he throws caution to the wind and kisses him under the tree.

Ellen Claremont has a narrow colour palette as well - we only see her in black in that first scene and in the ‘new Texas strategy’ arguement with Alex, after that her dominant colour is cream and we also see plenty of red which is a power choice - she wears it in scenes when she needs to convey power and status such as at the PM dinner or when she is shutting down his Texas strategy. The cream is the base colour for her - its a colour of elegance, sophistication, it is also a neutral colour - playing into her position as POTUS, but also when she wears it in one on one scenes with Alex, it is a sign of her being a mother rather than the POTUS.

Zahra tends to wear blacks with one blue/grey cashmere jumper and when we do get colour on her they are jewel tones - purple and teal. We also get some more grey fuzzy patterning - again playing into my previous statements - here it is very much about confusion rather than obfuscation - she only wears the fuzzy grey when she finds out about Alex and Henry and has her mind blown by the knowledge. Its a perfect costuming choice for this scene as it conveys so much about where her brain is - that her mind has been blown by this huge thing she as just become privy to and it helps make her facial expressions even louder!

Nora wears a full spectrum of colours, the stand ones are obviously the red bodice and trousers she wears for new years and the pink shirt she wears in the office when Alex is having a mini bi panic and figuring himself and his attraction to Henry out. Generally speaking a characters costumes are meant to be about them and their own character, however with a film like this, everything is a driving point for the two main characters and so, other characters costumes will, at key points be less about the character wearing them and more about driving the story of the mains forward - this is very much the case with Nora’s red outfit (and we have already talked about the green of the flirty girl at new years representing jealousy).The red is very very red, it is meant to stand out and is a nod to romance - for both herself with Pez and for Alex and Henry, but Red is also a colour associated with passion and sexuality as well as fire and heat - essentially it is a marker that things are about to kick into action on the romance scale - we are heading from friends to lovers.

The pink shirt plays into the same theme - its a continuation, but a cooling down - less about the heat and passion of a sexual encounter, and more about the concept of romance and relationships - because that is what the conversation is ultimately about in this scene. We have the bi flag background helping to visually tell us what the conversation is about, but we also need to have that subtle reminder that this is not about fire and passion it is about the potential for romance - for love - because if Alex is going to hook up with Henry, it isn’t going to be a hook up, it going to be real. We do of course see things heat back up in the red room (as they should), but ultimately that is the last of the fiery heat we see - from then on anything connected with Alex and Henrys relationship is much more steadfast - the blues and yellows I will talk about in a minute!

Lets talk signet rings!! We see them worn on the male members of the royal family - so King James, Phillip and Henry - as well as Alex when Henry gives him his ring. their use is telling and significant. James and Phillip both wear their signet ring on the little finger of the right hand, while Henry (and Alex) wears his on the little finger of the left hand. in a general sense one would usually wear a signet ring on the little ringer of the non dominant hand - so if you’re a lefty you wear it on the right hand and vice versa if your right handed. This is not what is being portrayed here - all three of them are naturally right handed (yes I did spend far too much time on google to find this out!!) which would in theory mean all of them should have their rings on the left little finger and yet only Henry does.

There is however another explanation - a ring worn on the right hand is symbolic of tradition conformity and rigidity and royalty (traditionally the monarch would wear a ring on the right hand and this was offered to subjects to kiss), wearing it on the dominant hand as a sign of power/ dominance. Henry and then Alex wear Henry’s ring on the left hand - the traditional hand that wedding bands are worn - because of the concept of the main artery running from the heart down the left arm and into the left hand, it is a symbol of love and life and connection to another person and is where the concept of the red string of fate comes from (which ties in nicely with Alex referring to the rope in his chest pulling him towards Henry). This all gains greater significance when Henry gives his ring to Alex and that he choses to also wear it on the left hand, its essentially a symbol of engagement and eternity - it is a sort of pre engagement I guess - and is a low key statement from Henry he is giving Henry Fox to someone for eternity - to Alex.

Right, shall we talk about the yellow and blue theming that I keep mentioning. This specific theming, tends to be seen more in sets and lighting than costumes - although we do see it used in costuming too (looking at you Bea!!). For those not aware, there is a tendency to use yellow and blue colour-ways for queer story arcs - if you look at Heartstopper (esp s1) they have been using it to great effect , and it can be seen in other shows and films with queer character arcs to such as 911 (and Lonestar), as well as plenty of other mainstream media if you’re looking for it. I don’t know when or how it became a colour way associated with queer relationships - especially mlm relationships - I’ve not had the time to deep dive into that particular research spiral - but suffice to say we see it put to very very great effect here in Red White and Royal Blue - we only ever see it used as a colour way when it is regarding Alex and Henry and their romantic relationshipI’ve included some of the blue and yellow we see (couldn’t fit it all in - 30 pictures is apparently not enough!!!) surrounding Alex and Henry and there is plenty of it. The first time we see this yellow/blue theming come into play is at the turning point - when Henry opens up the lines of communication with his text message. Alex is in his room - the first time we’re seeing into his room - a room painted dark blue and full of yellow accents - the lamp on his desk and the unit to the side of the sofa, as well as the very yellow and blue painting we see above his bed (which was commissioned for the film and so the colour choice was very much deliberate). Just to show how prolific the yellow/blue colour way is here is a list of most of the occurrences - I've tried to include as many of them in the pictures as I can as well.

The copy of People is yellow and blue, the Jacket Alex wears for new year has gold and blue embroidery. The PM’s dinner has blue lighting with gold curtains and there are a lot of blue and yellow dresses being worn in the crowd when Alex is watching Henry. The cushion on the sofa behind Alex is yellow and blue. Then we get to the French hotel room and the Eiffel Tower - it is literally all yellow and blue - everything - even down to the blue (extra safe) condom packets. the New York hotel room is dark blue and gold another is a blue bottle of lube on the side (the condoms and lube are very much a deliberate colour choice - there are a million different colours you can buy both in so if the colour wasn’t important they could’ve chosen any, esp as fuchsia and red is the most common colour for both in the durex brand in the UK).

In England - Henry mostly occupies green spaces - in keeping with the royal theme I wrote about earlier - however the room he is most himself and most comfortable in is the music room/ library which is yellow and any time we see him in that space, he is wearing blue. It is telling that when the emails between Henry and Alex are hacked, his sanctuary is full of ‘old white men in suits’ and Henry cannot go in there - symbolic that who he is - his true self - has been violated and he is being forced into ‘royal coded’ spaces - back into his box as it were!

Back to costumes and he two blue hoodies. I’m gonna get a bit of hate for this, but the blue hoodie is actually two different hoodies! - they are slightly different shades of pale blue - Alex’s is much more dusty blue, while Henry’s is much more baby blue, they are also different cuts - Alex’s a traditional sleeve cut while Henry’s has a raglan sleeve cut (think baseball tee). There is the idea with these two hoodies that they are at different points in their journeys, but still connected and i love that we see them in them at really key points of crisis - they are a comfort blanket in a way - Alex wears his during is bi crisis and again when he's watching Miguel on the news and figures out who the hack was, while Henry wears his when he lets Alex in - when he opens up and unspokenly confesses his love for Alex, when he agreed to take the step and be brave - both are wearing these hoodies in moments when they need/want comfort the fact that they are wearing such similar hoodies speaks to the fact that in it is the other they want that comfort from (even if Alex doesn't actually realise it during his min bi crisis).

And now to our two mains - lets start with Henry.

Henry

The bulk of Henry’s wardrobe is double breasted suits - a key theme for the members of the royal family - not one else where’s them - its a fun costuming choice, cease generally speaking the double breasted suit isn’t in fashion at the moment - the film fit single breasted suits we see on the rest of the characters is. It's a very clear choice to create a them and us concept in a visual and telling way. the other thing to note about these db suits is that only Henry wears plain fabric - the ones we see on Phillip and James are pinstripe or woven stripe. I want to quickly mention the tie King James is wearing because of its very obvious pattern. it is the only loudly patterned tie in the entire film - all others are either, plain , striped or spotted. In the book Henry says that patterned ties are considered too political (i'm paraphrasing and can't find the actual quote!!) and here we have a king playing with politics wearing a patterned tie - I love tiny nods like this to the original source material that only those of us who love the book will pick up on - its just a tie to the ga!

Henry himself wears pinstripes - when he is at his most royal - so for example when he is taking part in the PR exercise post cakegate. His ties also fit into this theming - he almost exclusively wears striped ties excepting at a couple of key moments - when he’s undertaking skulduggery and the yellow one he wears for the election. at all other times he has stripes on his tie. the stripes get wider or skinnier depending on the situation - the wide ones tend to be for royal events while the skinnier stripes tend to be connected to Alex.

Another thing to note with Henry is the lack of black he wears - the only time is at the most royal of occasions - the wedding - all the rest of his suits are varying shades of blue or grey (and cream) even the tux he wears to the PM dinner is a dark navy with black lapel rather than black - it differentiates him from everyone else in the room (esp Miguel) and shows him as the object of Alex’s gaze. I also want to mention the royal blue theme we see on him - something I love Keith Madden for doing - Henry nearly always has something blue on him and a lot of the time (especially connected to times when he is doing something connected to his status as a royal) we see him wearing something royal blue - its why his riband at the wedding is royal blue rather than the lighter blue of the order of the garter - but we also see it in the royal blue socks we see him in several times, the royal blue pyjamas when the hack/leak comes to light and the blue shorts in Texas when he’s lying on the bed before he leaves to return to England. We also see him in a lot of blue shirts keeping that blue theme connected to him.

Then there is my most beloved check theory - (its a theory connected to 911 for those who don’t know my costume metas already) Check is connected to foreshadowing of trouble - Henry wears a check/plaid pattern at a couple of very very key moments - at the bar in Texas - when we see Alex realise his love is the forever kind, when he is back in England having broken his own heart in a misguided attempt to save Alex (gingham shirts in pink and blue) and then the suit he wears when he choses himself over the crown and steps out onto the balcony with Alex to greet the crowds has a subtle check pattern (not sure if you can see it its the pictures but if you watch the scene you should be able to) all of these are moments which foreshadow the upcoming or current trouble in his life.

Yellow roses - symbol of Texas being flipped - from Mexican to independent (and eventually becoming part of US) - symbol of the fact Texas is about to flip blue from red. Yellow roses are also a symbol of good luck more generally and the yellow tie is a great choice to suggest neutrality in the election scenes (at this point in time Henry still has royal status). We see Henry in a grey suit with this yellow tie - this only further highlights his escape from royal life - when he is un the US we do not see him wearing the navy blue suits we see him in in England - the only exception is the dark navy dinner jacket he wears to the PM dinner . In the US he wears either a grey suit or the cream/light blue suit we see him in when he visits the lake house and the light blue linen jacket we see him on his light back to the UK is the only single breasted jacket we ever see him in - I would have loved to have seen the grey suit at the end also have been single breasted, but I'm guessing budget constraints prevented that from happening, as it really would've highlighted the difference between Henry George Edward James Hanover-Stuart Fox and Henry Fox!

At the lake house we get a piece of costuming that I love - the slightly differing short lengths we see on Henry and Alex - it Alex’s shorts are always shorter than Henry’s - it maintains that sense of Henry be more closeted and buttoned up - the overhead shot of them on the pontoon shows it really clearly - the two of them have similar leg lengths which serves me well here to show this point - the shorts Henry is wearing are at least 3 inches longer (possibly more) than Alex's - it isn't just that one pair of shorts - all 3 pairs of Henry's shorts are longer - its a costuming choice thats s perfectly in keeping with their respective characters.

The final thing to talk bout is Henry’s rainbow turtle swim shorts - a cute nod to his being gay - especially as Alex is is his purple bi swim shorts. But there is also the fact that they are turtles. Turtles are a symbol of steadfastness, longevity, perseverance and transformation. they can also be seen as a symbol of everlasting love. there is also the concept of carrying the weight of the world - which is seen in its most explicit way in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels - where a giant turtle carries the world on its back. All of these metaphors and symbols perfectly fit Henry and his relationship with Alex - it is a symbol of the enduring nature of their love for each other, the perseverance we will see for them to overcome the obstacles thrown at them, the steadfastness of their love, as well the transformation we are seeing Henry go through - from closeted gay thinking he has to conform to the very rigid and dated ideals of his family - to the freer Henry we see in the US - the real Henry and the version of himself he so desperately wants to be but thinks he can’t - he has the weight of the world on his shoulders at that moment a la the disc world turtle.

Alex

Alex, obviously has the largest number of costumes, as well as the largest colour palette, but even that is pretty limited. In the same way we see Henry’s wardrobe go through a subtle transformation, we also see the same for Alex, almost in the opposite direction - while Henry’s wardrobe becomes freer, Alex’s becomes more grown up - more mature and conveys his growth as a person - becoming more certain in who he is. I’ve already written a fair amount throughs this meta about Alex’s costumes, so this section is a little shorter than Henry’s for that reason!

We get rebellious Alex to begin with - the leather jacket easily conveys this to us, its almost a universal symbol or rebellion in costuming speak at this point and one of the reasons I like its use here is that it very quickly sets him apart from everyone else in the film - yes its early on, but he is the most casually dressed character by a long way - and this jacket it the antithesis of the buttoned up penguin suit from the wedding - it emphasises how uncomfortable Alex was in that environment and as a result gives the heavy drinking we saw before the cake went flying purpose and visually sets him up as the lead and as a rule/ convention breaker. The same is true of the greyscale with leopard print Hawaiian shirt which is meant to contrast him dramatically with Henry, who is still stuck in that stuffy double breasted suit prison of convention and expectation to behave a certain way - the costuming does a big chunk of the work in giving us rebel v prince in those opening scenes. I actually like that they brought the leather jacket back for the drive to the lake house - it sets up Alex’s falling in love arc nicely - in that it allows the idea of rebellion to continue flowing through the story - Alex wanting to be outing proud in Austin and not grasping that that isn’t an option Henry at this moment in time and is a nod to his not really understanding the different places he and Henry are in when it comes to what being out means for them respectively.

I’ve already written about the black and white colour way we see him in until his PR stint when we start see colour appearing in his wardrobe. I’ve put the pictures roughly in chronological order because it helps to show his progression, but it also shows the increasing amount of blue in his wardrobe, especially in moments connected with Henry.

To pick out some of my favourites - the Mexican pattern shirt with the red cardigan is wonderful - we have the shirt hinting at Alex’s heritage - in blue with the chunky knit red cardigan - I’ve written above about the use offered as a colour of passion and how that passion ebbs and flows - this cardigan also plays into that idea - it is the first time their texting becomes flirty - even the text message is in a red bubble on screen. This idea carries on with the orange red tee he is wearing during the turkey conversation - I made a post about that outfit being the same colour way as the turkey in question and how to talk turkey means to talk honestly and openly with someone - the very thing we see in that scene.

I adore the subtle yellow and blue jacquard embroidered New years jacket - the moment our boys connect and we move further into the lovers part of the enemies-friends-lovers trope and it keeps the yellow/blue theming an active part of the storyline. - the contrast with Henry’s orange tie is a choice - while there is a lot of colour at the NYE party Alex blends into the background while Henry is quite literally tied into the orange theme we’ve already seen in the furniture and sets - orange stands out and now we the audience are being drawn into unconsciously making the same connection that Alex is making - Henry is lonely, but he is an enduring and attention grabbing part of Alex’s life - it only further reenforces the direction of Alex’s gaze - green wearing flirty girl who??

We have a fair amount of Alex and the bi colour ways and we subtly see it coming into play from more or less the moment they start messaging - the light purple tee and purple message boxes, flowing through to the women sufferage wall and the fact he is wearing blue and purple in that scene with Nora in pink to round out the there colours. then we have the blue and purple colour ways he wears at the lake house - bolder and brighter - contrasting with the more muted shades from before - showing that he has recognised and accepted that part of who he is - he’ now out and proud and his parent know about him. I’ve used the old subtle a lot, but this is yet another example of transformation and growth for a character done subtly through colour. We also see him bathed in bi lighting at the bar when he has his 'OH I feel forever about him' moment at the Texas bar - he is the only one in that whole scene lit in that way - Henry is blue lit, while there is a more general lighting scheme that is blue/red dominant for the bar as a whole.

On to Alex’s suits and ties - he seems to have 5 suits and a jacket (not including the formal wear - tux and tails) a black one, 2 navy blue ones (one with a woven pinstripe that he wears in Paris) a bright bluish grey one and a grey one along with the black and blue waffle jacket we see him wear both on the PR trip and at the Polo match. I am obsessed with the fact that when he is in England he wears the navy suits and jackets whereas in the US he wears the other colour s suits - in the same way we see Henry less buttoned up and wearing grey and lighter blues in the US, here we see Alex fitting into Henry’s world and the navy blue suit uniform of the Royal family - its a wonderful piece of costuming that tells so much of how each of them are fitting into the others worlds, especially wen the black and navy waffle one is only worn early on - it is the cross over garment!

The ties have a similar story to tell - we see him wearing 4 ties - a yellow one we see in the beginning in the news reel and never see him in again and then we get the lighter blue striped one at the polo match - the one most similar to the striped ones we see Henry wear - suggesting he is trying to fit into this new world - Henry’s world - that he’s been invited into - its somewhat jarring for his character and plays on the idea of trying too hard - its therefore telling we don’t see it happen again - we only see hi in a striped tie again at he end during election night and accompanied by the black suit we saw him in a couple of times on the campaign trail in Texas. the blue tie is the only other tie we see him wear and it nicely connects all the key moments he has while in his suit - key political moments - his speech at the DNC followed by his speech to the press after the email hack and when he is at Buckingham Palace facing up to the King.

The final ting to talk about is the khaki green shirt jacket - I cannot tell you how happy I was with this costuming choice (and not because it was screaming Eddie Diaz from 911 vibes) khaki is so associated with military - with the army - anti is the most perfect choice for this scene - army are about war - they go somewhere to fight - to storm the palace etc so to have Alex - who has never worn anything remotely like this before rock up to KP to fight for his relationship - for his love - is the perfect choice, its a subtle yet clever way of emphasising the Alex has chosen to fight for what he wants - for his relationship with Henry and what makes it more telling is that we only see him change out of it once Henry has explicitly stated that he will try to be brave and that he wants history to include his love for Alex. It is why we see Alex in the yellow and blue Mexican patterned jacket - he no longer needs fight for his love because he has won - this yellow/blue jacket is a piece of costume tied into pivotal moments - we see the jacket twice - when he wins his bid to get the Claremont campaign to focus on Texas and Ellen tells him he’s going to Texas, and again when he has won the day with Henry and they are back together - in some ways that makes this his victory jacket - victory in his own personal battles - battles that are central to who he is and his development and I think that’s petty neat!

Hopefully you've enjoyed this deep dive into the sets and costumes of the film - I've loved writing it and I can only hope its coherent! Feel free to hit me up with any questions or comments and likes and reblogs are love ❤️🤍💙 thank you for reading and until next time...

#this really is a monster post!!!#rwrb meta #red white and royal blue #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #rwrb movie #first prince #costume meta #set meta #meta #long post #kym costume meta #costume theory #colour theory #colour theory meta #kym writes meta

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satureja13 · 6 months

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Greg's Story - Part 4

Greg's whole story - including Prequels - starts -> here (It's highly recommended to read in chronological order 🐺)

Jack: "But why would he name the Super Soldier after me?" Noxee + Greg: "..." Saiwa: "Jack - you are the Super Soldier. That was 15 years ago." Jack: "That's ridiculous. You made this up, did you? This was a campfire story to scare me, right?" Noxee: "No, Jack."

Jack: "Ahhhhh"

And then he ran away. Why - on top of all things he already has to deal with - did they tell him this now? Now that he already is over the edge!

Noxee: "I'll check on him. Sai, please go back to the Bunker and wait for us."

Noxee found Jack at the Peak.

Jack: "You shouldn't have told me. And why now? I can't take anymore..." Noxee: "Therefore. Jack - you are going to have a hard time after leaving your Alpha. No one knows more about you than Greg does. And no one knows more about werewolves. He will help you through this."

Noxee: "Greg never wanted to tell you. I urged him to. He was distanced towards you - so no one would ever suspect anything - to protect you from the Council. But you need him now." 'Distanced'? - they despised each other!

Noxee: "Take your time. Greg will stay at the cabin until you made your decision. Let's go back to the Bunker and try to sleep a bit. I'm glad we told you. You're official my Baby now! Cause I'm your MOMMY!" (Noxee calls all of the Boys 'my BABIIIIES' ^^')

Omg she's right! Poor Jack. He had a crush on Noxee since the first day he met her... Noxee: "Come here my Baby." Maybe a Mommy is not so bad after all.

Back at the Bunker. Poor Jack collapsed on the sofa. Saiwa: "I know this must be so hard for you. But I think Noxee is right. You need someone who knows a bit more about this Alpha stuff than we do (and the fated mates stuff). Losing your Alpha will have serious consequences. Maybe it's Greg - a father - you gained after letting something go in the Otherworld? A father to help you through this?"

Saiwa: "Who knows what it's good for. The Council never suspected that you are the Super Soldier. They never expected that a beast like him saved you. They certainly thought he ate you! And you had a good childhood with Uncle Stefan. And he's rich! All this land belongs to him!"

Jack: "Hm. If he really were that rich - why would he have lived in that shack then? He doesn't even have his own house and lives here with Noxee." I love how easily Jack can be distracted :3 And he loves a good conspiracy!

From the Beginning ~ Underwater Love ~ Latest

The 'Disbandment of the Group' Chapter from the beginning -> here

#disbandment of the group #simlit #ts4 story #sims 4 #simblr #ts4 #sims 4 story #jack callahan #noxeema jackson #giga byte #saiwa #greg lunvik #moonwood mill #rufus' cabin #greg's story

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duhragonball · 8 months

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Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (2/5)

This line might just encapsulate the entire movie. "Yeah, sorry, folks. They made me the star of the movie this time, so it probably won't be as good. Why are you all cheering? Did Goku walk by or something?"

Last time, we set up the main villains of the story. Now, it's six months later, and we find Piccolo sparring with Pan near his house. Yeah, Piccolo has a house now. I remember when they revealed the house in an early promotion for the movie, and everyone was nuts about it. Piccolo has a house! What's inside? Look, he has a mailbox! What kind of mail does he get? What a time to be alive.

So Pan is three years old, according to this movie, so I think the idea here is that this is set just before the 25th Budokai and the finale of Dragon Ball Z. So Super Hero represents a turning point for the franchise. Up to now, every story told under the Dragon Ball Super brand has been set during the ten-year-gap between DBZ Episodes 288 and 289. But now we're at the end, which means the next movie, anime, or manga arc has to make a big decision:

A) Set the story after the 25th Budokai, and work around Goku's decision to train Uub at his home village.

B) Ignore the "End of Z" continuity altogether and just keep trucking along like it doesn't matter.

C) Just keep telling stories in the small time interval between Super Hero and the 25th Budokai and hope no one calls attention to it.

D) Jump back to the beginning of the ten-year-gap and tell stories out of chronological order.

I think A or B is the most likely option, since they wouldn't have jumped this far forward in time for Super Hero if they were worried about staying inside the ten-year-gap. I also suspect that they'll try to respect the "End of Z" lore, if only because they've mentioned Uub a few times in the DBS anime, and Uub actually had a cameo appearance in the manga.

But no matter what happens, Things Are Going To Be Very Different. In theory, Toei/Shueisha can do just about anything with the franchise now. They could kill Bulma, or give Majin Buu a whole new transformation. I guess they could try to steer the storyline towards the events depicted in Dragon Ball GT, but I'm pretty sure that ship sailed when they turned the Pilaf Gang into children. The point is that anything is on the table.

But back to the matter at hand. Pan's whole deal now is that she trains with Piccolo at his house every morning, then runs off to attend preschool until 1pm. Piccolo thinks she's showing great promise as a martial artist, even more than Gohan did when Piccolo first trained him, and Gohan was a year older back then. Pan thinks that qualifies her to learn how to shoot energy blasts like Goten and Trunks, but Piccolo says she has to master the fundamentals first, which means Pan has to learn how to fly, among other things.

This is Pan's character arc for the movie. She's not a major player in this story, but she still has an obstacle to overcome, and by the end of the movie, she succeeds. This is a big leap forward from the Pan we saw in GT, who remained static through the entire series. I guess she sort of learned a life lesson in the TV Special, but she was 110 in that story, so I think the implication is that GT Pan was a bossy twerp for a full century, which isn't exactly satisfying.

The weird thing is that we saw Pan fly all the time when she was a baby. In the DBS anime Baby Pan flew out into space, and she'd float around the house and such. I guess she forgot how to do it, or it got harder as she grew up and gained some weight.

Pan asks if it's true that her dad (Gohan) could be even stronger than her grandfather (Goku) if he tried. Piccolo says that used to be true but he isn't so sure anymore. Pan says she's never seen Gohan in action, and Piccolo explains that he hasn't had to fight, but if the need arises, Gohan will fight when necessary. Then he sends her off to preschool. A short time later, he gets a phone call from Pan's mom, Videl.

Okay, so let's unpack all of this. Piccolo has a cell phone, but he just leaves it in his house while he's training outside, because his Namekian hearing can pick up the ringtone from hundreds of yards away. Also, he holds it like a weirdo, dangling it from his fingers like he found it at a crime scene. Also, the case looks like a cartoon character. This is Penenko, an in-world fictional character that seems to be very popular. Its like a cross between a penguin and a cat, and it has a green tie like Yogi Bear, which I think is a classy touch.

As for Videl, she needs Piccolo to swing by the preschool this afternoon to pick up Pan. This is because Videl teaches a combat sports class, and they're having a tournament today, so she can't make it. As for Gohan, he's too busy working on a scientific presentation, and he hasn't come out of his study in days. Piccolo is annoyed with this, but he agrees to pick Pan up. Videl offers to buy him lunch, but he reminds her he doesn't eat food, so Videl considers buying him a Penenko plushie instead. Piccolo doesn't want one, though, because he already has a pile of them in his house. Presumably those plushies represent a whole bunch of past favors he's done for Gohan and Videl.

Okay, more importantly, let's talk about Videl. This is her only appearance in the movie, save for a still image in the closing credits where she comes home to find the house has been damaged. Still, this conversation tells us a lot about what Videl's been doing ever since she and Gohan got out of school. She's teaching a "combat sports class". This makes sense to me, as she must have given up the vigilante work around the time she was pregnant with Pan. But teaching students how to fight would be easier for her, since she could set her own schedule and arrange for the students to train independently when she's not available. It's the perfect career for the new mom with a talent for whippin' ass.

The thing is, Videl's not just any martial artist. She knows basic ki techniques, but besides that, she's the daughter of a world famous celebrity buttkicker, and she earned a reputation of her own as a crimefighter. So this can't just be any old "combat sports" class. I mean, they're participating in a tournament for goodness sakes.

So this is my Videl headcanon: She's teaching people to fight crime. And not just any crime, but the rocket-launcher-weilding maniacs she used to fight when she was in high school. Videl stepped away from that life to focus on her family, but she's still got one foot in that world. It started as a self-defense class for women, and then she decided she could show them more advanced techniques, until eventually she had a cool stable of badasses.

The tournament she's talking about isn't some fun little romp, although to her it would be, and it's barely beneath Piccolo's notice. But to everyone else, it's some kind of hardcore mixed-martial-arts event. Videl brings her students in and they're all wearing kick-ass uniforms to represent their school. What kind of uniforms? Here's a hint:

GTH. That's the name of Videl's dojo. The Go To Hell Combat Club, so-named because you have to go to hell to learn the combat style of Mr. Satan's daughter. Imagine going to some indy wrestling show and instead of wrestlers out comes a bunch of MMA guys all dressed like Pan from this movie. It probably looks cooler on grown adults, which is why Pan likes to wear it.

So what's Videl wearing when she leads her squad to the competition? Oh, we already know the answer to that question, because we saw her return home from the tournament.

I mean, it makes so much sense when you think about it. remember, we saw Videl wearing regular clothes when she called Piccolo. She must have changed into her Battle of Gods red-devil dress specifically for the tournament. She might have a different outfit for fighting, but this is what she wears when she's in the corner for her students. She's like a sexy ECW manager, which explains the red leather dress, black tights and white go-go boots. She's so over-the-top with this thing that it makes the Great Saiyawoman outfit look dull by comparison, because she's trying to get over this image of smash-mouth combat supremacy. It's the same reason Mr. Satan wears the cape.

This is a weird tangent, I know, but for so many years I've heard fans lament the way Videl was depicted in Dragon Ball Super, and they're absolutely right, but I'm a "yes and" kind of guy when it comes to this stuff. There's nothing wrong with having Videl be a housewife as long as it doesn't preclude some other, cooler lore from happening off-screen. And Super Hero seems to be holding out an olive branch to the fans. Yes, Videl has a life outside the home. She teaches martial arts, so she clearly hasn't given up fighting altogether. How and how much she fights is left to the viewers imagination, and I can imagine a lot.

Anyway, I need to commission some art of the GTH school looking cool. Videl's in the center of the group with a riding crop or something. Gohan's in the background with a snack tray. He made Chex Mix for the whole class because he's a sweetie.

Back to business, Piccolo decides to head for Gohan's house and confront him over this. He knows Gohan won't answer the door, so he just flies to the window of his study and scrapes the glass with his fingernail to get his attention. This fucking rules.

Gohan's working on a study of a newly discovered ant species that glows yellow when threatened, like a Super Saiyan. Piccolo isn't even a little impressed, but he agrees to pick Pan up from preschool anyway. He asks why Gohan never trains anymore, and Gohan gives the stock answer about how nothing bad will happen, and even if it does, Goku and Vegeta will surely deal with it. I mean, that is what happened in the last movie, but they cut it pretty close in Resurrection F. Piccolo uses his clothes-altering powers to make Gohan wear his old training outfit, but that's about all he does.

I don't really understand this constant back-and-forth about whether or not Gohan trains enough in DBS. Obviously, Gohan let himself go in Res F, and then Gohan asked Piccolo to train him again to get him back in fighting shape. Then they made it look like he'd slacked off again leading up to the Tournament of Power, except he did really, really well in that arc. And now it's like he's slacking off a third time.

I mean, there's time for that. We're talking about a five or six year period here. It just seems odd to me that no one mentions we've been through this cycle before. I think the disconnect is that Gohan trains, just not often enough to satisfy the likes of Piccolo or Vegeta. He'll stop training for months or years at a time, so that he can concentrate on his biology career, and then he whips himself into shape when he has the time. This movie pretty much confirms that pattern, but each time it comes up, the characters always act like we haven't been here before.

Gohan offers him another Penenko plushie as thanks for picking up Pan, and Piccolo insists that he never liked them. I think it is very likely that Gohan and Videl do this to him on purpose. I mean, Videl knew this tournament was coming up, and she could have made other arrangements, but this way Piccolo feels obligated to be involved with their family. If they just invited him over to things, he'd probably decline, but this way he feels like they need him and he can act all put-upon, but he still gets to spend more time with Pan and such. Also they might be trying to fix Piccolo up with Pan's teacher, but we'll get to that later.

So now Piccolo just has to get in as much training as he can until 1pm, right? Wrong, because as soon as he sits down to meditate, some new guy shows up and attacks him. He refuses to identify himself, but the Red Ribbon pack on his uniform pretty much gives it away. Plus, this guy has no ki signature, so he must be an android or cyborg like Gero's creations.

So they fight, and it doesn't go well for Piccolo. At one point he asks why he can see words appear whenever he gets his. I thought this was a cute fourth-wall-breaking joke, but in fact this new guy has a holographic projector that makes the comic book sound effects appear behind him.

The mysterious attacker only refers to himself as a super hero, and after he blows up the butte Piccolo is on, he flies back to his base, thinking Piccolo is vaporized. But Piccolo escaped unseen, and he decides to trail this guy and find out who he's working for.

This leads Piccolo to a secret base inside what I believe is a crater. It looks like the crater is full of lakewater, but it's actually a holographic illusion. Piccolo finds a goon in his size and swipes his uniform.

Inside, he finds the bad guy command center, where the new android reports to Magenta and Hedo. Piccolo learns that his name is Gamma, and there's actually two of them. Hedo already watched Gamma 2's attack on Piccolo via a remote feed from 2's eyes, and his only feedback is that 2 should have done a cool pose after killing Piccolo. Gamma 1 is more concerned that Piccolo might have survived because 2 was too sloppy to check for a body.

Sure enough, 1 reviews the footage and discovers evidence that Piccolo escaped. And since Magenta insisted that the Gamma's wear RR patches on their costumes, there's a real risk that Gamma 2 tipped their hand to the enemy. Gamma 2 isn't worried, though, because he still overpowered Piccolo, and the end goal is to defeat Dragon Team, so if this escalates the conflict, then so much the better.

And that pretty much sums up the Gammas' characters. They both play the superhero role they were designed to resemble, but 1 is more cautious and responsible, while 2 is more carefree and funloving. Earlier in the film, we see pictures of Hedo at some sort of autograph signing, and there's a character who looks almost exactly like the Gammas there, so I assume he designed his androids to look just like that character. Hedo doesn't seem too concerned with originality.

Carmine agrees with Gamma 1's concern. Their enemies have the combined power of Goku, Vegeta and Majin Buu, not to mention Mr. Satan. Apparently, the Red Ribbon Army still isn't clear on how powerful he is. If they find out about the Red Ribbon too soon, it could jeopardize everything, no matter how powerful the Gammas might be.

Hedo disagrees. Once he collects enough combat data from 1 and 2, he can simply upgrade them and create even more Gammas until they have enough power to tip the scales.

Apparently, Hedo doesn't think it would take very long to get more Gamma's manufactured, which is why they have these two booths already set up. This makes me wonder if Gamma 3 and 4 are already in there, just waiting for Hedo to activate them.

As for Magenta, all he wants to talk about is Hedo's other project-- Cell Max. This leads to a heated discussion over the value of the project.

Basically, Magenta considers Cell to be Gero's greatest creation, and while the RPC has Gero's notes on how to make Cell, they were too complex for anyone to reproduce the experiement. This isn't much of a surprise, since Gero never finished Cell the first time. When Gero learned that it would take decades to complete the work, he turned it over to his computer and moved on to working on his other plans. That computer never finished, because Krillin and Trunks destroyed it and the embryonic Cell back in DBZ Episode 145. However Magenta got the data on Cell, it must have been sent to him before then, but it would have only represented the earliest stages of the project. No wonder his own scientists couldn't get very far with it.

The only reason Magenta even considers it worth pursuing is because a completed Cell showed up to menace the world. Magenta thinks that Gero must have pulled it off somehow. What he doesn't know is that this Cell came from an alternate future where Gero's computer had time to complete the project. So Magenta knows what the finished Cell is capable of, but he doesn't have a complete recipe to make a new one.

But Dr. Hedo is even smarter than Gero, which is why Magneta hired him. The Gammas are fine machines and all, but what Magenta was really hoping for was that Hedo could take the notes on Cell and figure out how to build a new and improved model. And to his credit, Hedo was able to do that, but not completely. He created Cell Max's body and made him far more powerful than the original Cell, but he's still not done because his brain takes a long time to develop. I don't know if this is like a programming thing or Cell Max needs time for his brain matter to grow complex enough to support his mission.

At any rate, Magenta just wants to turn Cell Max loose right now, because he's so high on the prospect of unleashing such a powerful weapon. But Hedo warns him that they won't be able to control Cell Max the way he is now. If they activate him now, Cell Max might easily run wild and destroy the world, which defeats the purpose of using him in the first place.

Hedo's argument is that they don't even need Cell Max, so instead of wasting time on him, they should focus on the Gammas, who are more than powerful enough to carry out Magenta's plans. They can defeat Dragon Team, then the rest of the world will fall to the Red Ribbon Army, and then Magenta can reveal Cell Max to show off his power to the world. Magneta seems to buy into that idea, at least for now.

The thing is, we really don't know how long it would take for Hedo to finish Cell Max. It took Gero's computer decades to finish the original Cell, so maybe most of that time was spent developing his brain, and yet that Cell never did follow his programming completely. So maybe Cell Max would be uncontrollable too, no matter how much Hedo tinkered with him.

Then again, Hedo built the Gammas in just six months, so he's demonstrably smarter than Gero ever was. It's possible that he could finish Cell Max's brain in a matter of weeks and make him fully obedient. He just doesn't want to spend the time because it's busy work and Max doesn't look like a super hero, so he's not very motivated to complete the project. It kind of makes you wonder what Hedo could have accomplished if he'd given it his full attention.

Needless to say, all of this freaks Piccolo out, so he excuses himself and finds a quiet spot to make a phone call to Bulma. She tells him Vegeta has been away for three weeks now, training on Beerus' planet. And Goku went along with him, so they're both unavailable. Piccolo asks her if she can use that device Whis gave her to call him, and she says she'll see if she can reach them that way.

I just want to pause here to admire Bulma's yellow jumpsuit. This is definitely one of her hottest looks, perhaps because it's so workmanlike and unsexy. She just makes it look cool because she's Bulma. She just got done welding a quantum computer to a ham radio or something.

In the meantime, Piccolo leaves the RR base to go to Korin's Tower and get some senzu beans. He's still in the mindset that Goku and Vegeta will be the ones to take care of things, but he has to do as much as he can in the meantime to improve their chances.

As he flies through the holographic lake, we get a nice exterior shot of the base. So yeah, it does look like a couple of craters, although I'm not sure what the use was in disguising the inside when you can see all this stuff built up around the outside. I guess they have some sort of phony mining operation set up if anyone snoops around.

And that'll about do it for now. I've still got a couple of image spots for this post, so let's show off the photos on Gohan's desk. Pretty cool.

And here's a cool shot of Cell, since he came up in conversation.

#dragon ball #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #dragon ball super #dragon ball super super hero #piccolo #pan #son pan #gohan #videl #magenta #carmine #dr hedo #gamma 1 #gamma 2 #gth 4-life

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bi-bard · 1 year

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Taylor Swift Songs That Would Describe a Relationship with Evan "Buck" Buckley - Evan "Buck" Buckley Imagine [9-1-1]

Title: Taylor Swift Songs That Would Describe a Relationship with Evan "Buck" Buckley

Pairing: Evan "Buck" Buckley X Reader

Word Count: 1,556 words

Warning(s): mention of bad parents/past heartbreak

Author's Note: I had a chunk of this written before I decided to write this in the format that it's currently in. You can find that under 'Lover'.

**Not intentionally written in chronological order**

-------------------

Lover

We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January This is our place, we make the rules And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?

Buck and I moving in together was a big move.

A move that he and I had both spent our fair share of time worrying about.

However, it seemed like every person seemed convinced that it was always a question of when and not if.

I only truly agreed when I placed the last of our stuff down on the floor of our new place. I looked over at Buck, standing in the kitchen area, surrounded by a variety of boxes and it all clicked.

This was it.

This was exactly what I wanted. What I needed.

Almost as soon as we were unpacked, there were plans for a housewarming party. I spent the whole day before making sure that everything was ready while Buck was on his shift.

And then, that morning happened.

I woke up after Buck.

He had his arm wrapped around my torso. He was almost laying on me when I woke up enough to properly look at him.

"Morning," I said, grinning at how he was already staring at me.

"Morning," he replied, leaning forward to press his lips to mine. "Ready for today?"

"Doesn't feel like it," I admitted. "It all still feels a little surreal."

He nodded as he leaned closer to me. "Tell me about it."

"I have an idea," I muttered as Buck hid his face in my neck.

"What is that," he asked.

"We cancel..."

He started chuckling immediately. I started chuckling too, but I tried to keep talking.

"Hear me out! We cancel the party and spend the day in bed," I explained. "I am prepared to make it worth your while."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Is that right?"

The tone in his voice immediately let me know that I had made a very poor choice in my wording. "I have made a mistake... I didn't mean... I meant that I was going to make those pancakes that you like."

"Oh," he mumbled. "Yeah, I completely misread that."

"I kinda figured that one out," I replied.

There was a long pause before Buck spoke up again, "We can't just cancel-"

"Why not," I whined, tilting my head back like a grumpy child.

"Because you went through all that work yesterday," he leaned to peck my lips between every few words, "with the cooking... and cleaning... and unpacking... what kind of partner... would I be... if I let you... not see the result of efforts?"

"You can't just kiss me as a distraction so you get your way," I muttered.

"Oh, it's not me getting my way," he chuckled. "I would never choose a party over spending all day in bed with you. I am saving us the consequences of us canceling last minute."

"Is there someone that would be angry?"

"There are many people who would never let me hear the end of it."

I slowly nodded. "Fine."

"Good."

"You're making the bed this morning. I earned the first shower."

"Deal," he leaned down and kissed me gently. "God, I love you."

"I love you too," I said as my fingers found their place in the hair on the back of his head.

I could imagine spending forever just like this.

long story short

Pushed from the precipice Clung to the nearest lips Long story short, it was the wrong guy Now I'm all about you

I had never been in a place as tense as my car when I pulled up to Buck's place.

Neither one of us made an effort to move or speak or anything. We both sat in silence, existing uncomfortably.

It had been that way through the whole drive.

Buck's parents had insisted on meeting me. I knew about them. I knew everything about them. Buck had told me everything in a hushed voice as we laid in bed together. I don't think I had held him as tightly as I did on the first night that he started to truly open up to me.

When they had made their "offer", which was more like a demand than anything else, I told Buck that I would take his lead. If he didn't want to meet with them, then that would be fine with me. I had no interest in forcing anything.

He decided to try. In the end, we all want our parents to accept and love us. Even when we know that they aren't capable of it.

It took me a while to finally take a deep breath and speak up, "We don't need to talk about it if you don't want to. But, I need you to know-"

"I get it," he cut me off. I furrowed my eyebrows. He looked at me. "After hearing it all from them, you're realizing that all of this was a mistake. I get it."

"That's not what I was going to say at all," I replied. "I was going to say that we don't have to talk about it, but I need you to know that I am here. I... I don't care about what those people had to say. At all. Because I trust you."

He looked away again, jaw clenched.

I reached over and turned his face back to mine. My heart broke at the sight of tears filling his eyes. "You have never given me one reason to not completely trust you. I think you're amazing, Buck. I can see who you became despite those people and whatever else has happened in your past. I see a man who is so unbelievably kind and loving and has made me feel more special than I ever thought that I deserved."

I caught one of his tears with my thumb.

I took another deep breath, "I love you, Buck. I really fucking love you and I will continue repeating it as many times as you want to hear it."

I hadn't said it out loud yet. But I thought about it every day. Every time I woke up next to him or when he texted me or when he would look at me with that smug grin on his face. I had known that I loved him long before I could force the words off of my tongue.

He reached up and grabbed my hand, moving to kiss my palm. I grinned at him.

"I love you too," he muttered.

I leaned over the center console and pressed my lips to his.

He was truly everything to me. And I had no plans to let him go. No matter what.

Begin Again

And you throw your head back laughing like a little kid I think it's strange that you think I'm funny 'cause he never did I've been spending the last eight months Thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end But on a Wednesday in a café, I watched it begin again

I had met Buck a few times before we ended up going to dinner together.

I wish I knew who encouraged him to ask me out. I really wanted to thank them.

I expected it to be awkward when we first sat down, but it wasn't. It was like our conversation was on autopilot. Talking with Buck was just so natural.

We laughed and told stories like we had done it a million times before.

It was a connection that I had longed for throughout so much of my life. It all felt like a Disney movie. It may not have been love at first sight, but it was close.

In the middle of our conversation, I caught Buck seeming kind of lost in thought. He was just kind of staring at me.

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Are you okay?"

Buck blinked a few times. "Uh, yeah, yeah."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, sorry," he chuckled, looking down for a moment.

We continued our conversation like the moment hadn't happened. I couldn't stop thinking about it. The look alone had made me nervous. Not in an uncomfortable way, but in a way that made me realize that this date may have been a bigger moment than I would ever fully know.

I didn't see that same look on Buck's face until much later that night. We were walking back to my car. I had started rambling about something that my parents used to do all the time.

I noticed the look when I turned to look at him as we made it to my car.

My words stopped as I felt my face warming up. "Sorry, I... I kind of started rambling there."

He blinked a few times just like he had earlier. "No, no... it's... it's fine."

"Okay," I mumbled. "Um, well, this is my car. Maybe we could do this again?"

"Yeah, I'd... I'd like that," he replied.

"Good," I replied.

There was a small pause before I leaned over and kissed Buck's cheek.

"Goodnight, Buck," I grinned before going around to get in my car.

"Goodnight," I heard him say as I stepped away.

I would have given anything to understand how important that night was going to be in the long run.

-------------------

Navigation Guide

What I Write For

Some Original Characters

#evan buckley imagine #evan buckley fanfiction #evan buckley x reader #evan buck buckley x reader #evan buck buckley fanfiction #evan buck buckley imagine #9 1 1 x reader #9 1 1 fanfiction #9 1 1 imagine #imagine #fanfiction #x reader #911 imagine #911 fanfiction #911 x reader

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echoweaver · 4 months

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Like a bunch of others have said, I have been nervous about making a simblr gratitude post because I'll almost certainly leave someone out, and that hurts. I guess I'll start with the disclaimer:

I read everyone I follow. I can't read every post, but I don't keep anyone on my dash who I haven't made a conscious decision to put there. If you've seen a like or a comment from me, I'm reading you, and I'm doing it because I like what you post.

And I appreciate a lot of simblrs I don't follow too. I've had to choose not to follow several who I'd like to follow, simply because of the above -- I read the folks I follow, and I can't let my follow list get too big for me to handle.

I also have a long list of story tags I follow specifically for stories that have a chronology that matters. I use XKit Rewritten on my browser to keep a list of unread posts by tag so that I don't miss posts from long-running stories.

OK, that said, and in no particular order...

@anamoon63 I have enjoyed the heck out of Alan Wilson's wild life. You're one of the reasons I'm poking at TS4 now. I also have gotten attached to Dale Cho and Kelly. They have so much personality.

@treason-and-plot I was intimidated by the complexity of your story for quite a while before I really started to dig in, but I couldn't stay away. You have so many characters! And so many plot threads! And they all weave together into a tangle of personalities that feel all too real.

@kimmiessimmies I'm still just getting to know your characters, but they're so vivid. As I've said in the comments, I really appreciate that Sadie and her entourage are mostly emotionally mature people who are working through their problems in reasonable ways. Characters don't have to be shallow or dumb to find themselves in drama, but it's a challenge to write mature ones.

@bearphase I got sucked in by Clem. Orange has got to be one of, if not the most challenging NSB generation, and you aced it. I've been invested ever since.

@rebouks You sucked a character all the way to rock bottom, and then he climbed out with hope and integrity and took everyone nearby out with him. I'm still not sure how you made such a dark story so warm and friendly.

@zosa95 I always smile when your characters show up on my dash. You're a warm presence in the community and a good storyteller. And your screenshots somehow manage to be extra endearing.

@greenplumbboblover I've never seen someone try to tell a soap opera of all of Sunset Valley. I'm getting a fresh look at characters who almost never get the spotlight. It's so much fun.

@mosneakers What can I say? I'd snatch Coraleye away from her boy if I had a chance.

@danjaley I can only imagine the kind of work that goes into the McCarrics. Reading their story makes me feel like a fly on the wall of real moments of a Scottish landed farmer's life. I've also snatched up a lot of your cc for my own projects.

@declaration-of-dramas You have such a beautifully staged historical setting, and your characters are so wild. I miss Lady Prilly, but this new story you're telling in San Pineda has already caught me.

@natolesims Your NSB has so much personality. Grey is a lot of fun. I hope we'll see Tiana soon. Ella's story really gripped me, and Tiana's was shaping up to be just as intense. Plus, your Disney simalikes are spot on.

@oasislandingresident You're a big reason why I discovered I like longer lifespans! I fell into the all-to-common trap of assuming everything had to be generational. You can discover very different stories when you give sims more space to live.

@pudding-parade You make some of the prettiest sims I have ever seen. I've downloaded about half a dozen worlds from your world reviews, and I'm not even sure what I'm going to do with them.

@queeniecook I can't wait to meet Vera and Caleb's baby. You've got us all in suspense. Your story is such a fun combination of adventure, intrigue, and domesticity. Also, so many pregnancy photo shoots. 😆

@nocturnalazure Last on this list but not least, I think your story is the first one I found on tumblr that I became a passionate fan of. I honestly think in another universe it would be a great TV adventure drama. I jump whenever I see something new on the tteot tag. Thanks for the story.

Thanks to everyone, and to the folks I've forgotten and will feel guilty about later. 😅

#echoweaver #sims #simblr gratitude day

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toyota-supra · 4 months

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My Top 10 Favorite Games I Played In 2023

In chronological order. It's a long one.

Titanfall 2

I've been told to play this for years now, though for most of those I did not really know why, as it never seemed like my kind of game. But, ever since I started really getting into mecha sometime in 2022, I decided to finally give it a try. I'm very glad I did. Titanfall 2 is a criminally short First Person Shooter with a very fun mech/pilot dynamic, really good mechanics of movement and combat for both, and some of my favorite level design of any game I've played in a long while. The platforming is crazy good! The mechanics are tight as hell! The mech is awesome! I recommend Titanfall 2 for literally anyone reading this.

Mega Man Zero

The Zero series is the one that most called to me in the Mega Man franchise every time I looked these games over, and I was right in that judgement. While I couldn't say if I was going to appreciate most of the GBA era action platformer difficulty or not, it was clear from Zero's more agile movement and bite-sized missions with very memorization-heavy bosses that I would enjoy it. And I did enjoy it a lot! Most of the bosses kicked my ass but it was an absolute blast to finally learn their patterns enough to defeat them. The problem is, I went out of my way to not get any of the game's health upgrades or energy tanks, making the final boss so hard for me that after days and days of attempts I gave up. Not beating Mega Man Zero is probably my biggest regret of the year lmao

Fate/Stay Night

Honestly, what do I even say? You can see my Saber icon, right? Fate is a franchise I never bothered to get close to, knowing of its name only through vague images and names of more popular characters (not even from FGO, just in general), and from later on getting to know that Fate/Grand Order was the game it is I felt like it wasn't for me at all and who cares. So when I learned what the original VN was actually about I felt stupid. How could something so fitting to my tastes have gone under my radar for so long...? Despite not being much of a reader in general, F/SN is a very long game that feels like it's just as short as you need it to be. The prose flows so well, every single character is lovable in many ways, and there's so much passion written into them and the situations they're in that it's one of the most smooth-flowing VNs I've read (which granted are not many) even though it's around the high 6 digit wordcounts. I love this game dearly.

Stranger of Paradise - Final Fantasy Origin

I wanted to play this game since the first few trailers! How cruel was it that, not only did I not have a powerful enough machine at the time, but the game wasn't even on Steam until the year after release? Final Fantasy Origin is the game it presents itself to be. There's something about it that's so special to a certain kind of person (which I happen to be one of) and that falls flat for everyone else. The combat and its many Weapons, Jobs and Skills to use are just fantastic in how nice they feel, and I really do like the type of story Stranger tells. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm close to it. I like to describe Stranger of Paradise as everything good about PS2 and PS3 games in a modern title.

Pseudoregalia

An old feeling from a new friend. Pseudoregalia is everything I like in 3D Platforming, and a little bit of what I don't. If you've ever looked at a single gif or video of Super Mario 64 and thought, "this looks pretty fun to play," you should be playing Pseudoregalia. If you like goat ladies with big butts, I can't say I understand if that would sell you on a game or not, but it is a feature everyone mentions. I wrote on this game already, so please do check that out and get it. It's one of the three titles of this list that came out this year, and I have not heard enough people talk about it.

Armored Core VI - Fires of Rubicon

My favorite in this list, which is funny because I don't know what to say about it at all. Armored Core is a series I've been studying up on from the outside for a while, and the announcement for this title was my reason to finally dive in. Unfortunately, I did not get past playing the first mission of AC1 a few times and booting up AC3 once. But I will get to it eventually! Fires of Rubicon is one hell of an action game, that I adored for every single one of my (currently) 67 hours of play. Going through the campaign with builds a little too busted for the AI most of the time was my dishonorable focus of the experience, but there's a lot else to do for every kind of person. The amount of freedom you have for messing with your builds for either single or multiplayer is not to be underestimated. Though it could be better. Here's hoping there will be a game that is.

Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition Remix

I played this game as a kid so much that the main menu and its theme are scarred into my mind, yet this whole time I had no idea what the game was actually like due to the fact that most of my playtime was doing a few races and just cruising around. Once you dive into trying to finish the story, MC3 is a much different experience. One that frustrated me so much, I got actually ill from the stress. Please take breaks, gamers! Your health is more important than finishing an 18 year old game! Still, I did eventually do it. Midnight Club 3's handling model and gameplay structure are really impressive in comparison to the much more popular Need for Speed series, and I have to admit I did enjoy the game a lot. It's just a lot harder than it ever needed to be. I'll probably never forget this game, and that's not really a good or bad thing. Just, advice from me, if it gets too hard, maybe switch to sports bikes. Buy that Ducati.

Test Drive Unlimited

Another car game, but this one I have the least to say about of any on this list. I had played TDU on PS2 multiple times before and thought it was awesome. The atmosphere and immersion of this game are unrivaled by any racing game to this day. But playing the PC version with a steering wheel and pedals made everything so much more incredible. I played the Platinum mod, which adds hundreds more cars and fixes a lot of issues with the original game (but not all of them; the game was still really rough and I hate how much the resolution is a pain to change). Overall, one of my favorite experiences with a steering wheel controller so far. Otherwise, a pretty good game if you like driving.

Super Mario Sunshine

An old friend, and a new feeling. I don't play 3D platformers as much as I wish I did, because they're really not part of my main priorities looking for games lately, but every time I play a Mario game, it's like I found love again. It was not the first time I played Super Mario Sunshine, as I had collected a dozen or so Sprites years before, but playing the whole game in I think two weeks during the latter half of the year was such an incredible experience. Unless for some reason you play it on the Switch, Sunshine is a game that loves you as much as you love it. And you do love it, right? I know I do. I'd love to play this game many other times in the future. Granted, that applies to every game here, I just wanted to say it out loud for this one.

Lethal Company

A fairly recent release! Having played it with many groups of people by now, both modded and vanilla, I think Lethal Company is probably one of my favorite multiplayer experiences ever. It is scary and hilarious, but also just really really good, to a level that surprised me for my quality standards of co-op (horror) games. Lethal Company turns friends into improvised horror movie actors and it's incredible. I'm almost at 30 hours played and will likely get to 40 at minimum. It's also pretty cheap and likely runs well on all sorts of machines, so consider checking this one out too.

Honorable Mentions

Witch on the Holy Night and Story of Seasons - Friends of Mineral Town are games I am adoring and could definitely go on this list, hadn't I started them both quite late into December. Maybe next year I'll give them a shoutout!

#video games

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bettsfic · 9 months

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possibly dumb question but… what exactly is structural editing and how do you do it? i assume it’s shifting the order of stuff around in a draft but how do you do that to end up with a cohesive story that flows in the end? it sounds very daunting!

not a dumb question at all!

structure is, at its core, the organization of a story. for the most part, stories are organized chronologically. we are given information in the order of time passing, and often at the same time the narrator experiences it.

if your story is chronological, structural editing will mostly involve major turning points for the story, ensuring that your tension (even if it is a very loose tension) is escalating. for the most part, writers focus on the escalation of external events while drafting, but the internal escalation sometimes needs to be reorganized or totally re-envisioned. your narrator's epiphany lands after the sequence of events that would prompt that epiphany. i know i have a terrible habit of making my characters realize important things far too early, and in revisions i have to move that realization later, which, yes, involves cutting and pasting and changing the order of things, but also affects the narration based on what the character does not yet know, and sometimes even the action of the story.

so it's cyclical logic in that way, which is why revision can be so hard and frustrating: if you change the character's inner growth, that may affect their actions in the story. if you change their actions in the story, it may affect the rate of their inner growth.

an example is the fanfiction italicized "oh." in other words, the moment your narrator realizes their feelings for their romantic interest. let's say in drafting, you put it in the climax. the narrator spends the story grappling with their feelings, then realizing them, acting on them, and then the romance culminates in a confession and/or a kiss and/or sex, and the story ends.

but how would their behavior change if "oh" was the inciting incident of the story? if they figure it out during the exposition, or maybe even before the story begins, and spend the rest of the story pining, with some other conflict keeping them from expressing their feelings?

very often my developmental edits for people involve something like, "your resolution is the inciting incident of the story you're really trying to tell," which no one ever wants to hear. but it's a good practice when pre-writing to ask yourself if the end of the story you're trying to write is actually the end of the backstory.

drafting (or what i sometimes call the discovery stage) is the order in which your story arrives on the page, and revision is working with what you've written to figure out the order of what must be known. one of the hardest parts of writing is figuring out what your reader needs to know and when they need to know it in order to have the contextual information and emotional priming of what happens thereafter.

although i do very much love when weird shit happens that makes me go ??? and *then* i'm given context in a form of a reveal, or what i call an illuminating moment that casts light on the previous events of the story. many people mistake this for a "twist," which is when the story sets up an expectation and subverts it meaningfully.

of course, you're not obligated to write chronologically. in fact i don't anymore. i prefer framing devices, long backstories, multiple timelines, and alternating points of view that sometimes overlap in time and space. a lot of writing advice will tell you these things are bad. they're not. they're just hard to pull off, because it requires an extra step: telling yourself the story in the order it comes in, figuring out the cause and effect sequence, fixing the cause and effect sequence, and then figuring out the order you want the information to be revealed in beyond the constraining device of time. never let anyone discourage you from experimenting with structure. it can be fun and challenging as both a writer and a reader.

tl;dr: structural or developmental revision is the process of putting your story in the order of the clearest escalating tension and stakes, both internally and externally, with an eye on the organization of the information revealed in the story as the reader would experience it.

#writing advice #structure

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alexandraisyes · 1 month

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this is so silly, I didn't know you shipped the eclipse trio!! Do you still ship them after Solar's death?

Omg an ask! *Dances*

Yes, we do!

Adding a cut because I'm gonna talk about Highly Unconventional (The series "The Deal" belongs to) and there are light spoilers regarding the story as far as our creative process goes. As well as talking about future plot ideas.

In Highly Unconventional we're actually planning to have Total Eclipse (the ship name Turbo and I affectionately have dubbed them as) either in the third or fourth book. Hopefully not the fourth, because if we get to 1k+ pages I think that Turbo will have an aneurysm.

Trying not to spoil too much, but that is going to be a thing haha. There are certain canon events that we plan to cover in the fic from the show. Those who have read the fic know that we're not as far along in the timeline due to the timeline being a bit skewed.

To recap, KC and Moon separated before the twins went to antagonize Sun. The 'villain family' lives in an apartment complex downtown ("who in their right mind went oh yes seems legit" thank you that one commenter for that quote). The twins obviously never died, (RIP Sun's cats in their place), etc.

There's a handful of milestones that we do have planned tho! Eclipse's death, Ruin coming into the picture, Moon's death, Eclipse coming back (he always comes back), Eclipse getting yeeted outta the picture again, Ruin's betrayal/Solar's death. . . that's all I'm gonna say because I don't want to give away too much on how we're going to handle writing things, haha (not necessarily written in chronological order).

Thankfully "The Months in Between" is going to be pretty chill, there's only a couple major milestones we're going to touch on for that fic because it's supposed to be about Sun's mental health arc, and repairing the twin's relationships with their currently disowned family. But in the third installment, name pending, it's gonna get back into that hardcore shit hehe. And then we'll be having some total eclipse popping into the picture AS IT SHOULD.

I make the joke a lot that Eclipse could only ever care (not really love because he's a sociopath) about himself, and I've already written one fic on Eclipse/Ruin so we (Turbo and I) thought why the hell not. I think that our readers will be pleasantly (or maybe horrifically) surprised by how we plan on tackling everything revolving around Solar's death in the fic. . .

Especially because they're all going to be together by the time it happens.

Sorry for rambling, haha. Can you tell I never get asks in my inbox? Lmfao

#alex talks #answered ask #The Deal tsams #tsams #total eclipse ship #eclipse trio #tsams ships #tsams fic #potential spoilers

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tsukimefuku · 2 months

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The morning after is still last night

After last night, you and Higuruma share a brief pillow talk.

Tags: Jujutsu Kaisen, mentions of sex, Higuruma x f!reader, this is fluff.

WC: 800

This is part of my "Jujutsu Partners Canon Divergence AU", a sequence of short stories and random drabbles for a Nanami x f!reader x Higuruma fanfic I'll eventually write (eventually). This is the sequence to "The man who played with fire", link here. To see the ever-growing list of one-shots, please visit my masterlist :)

Disclaimer: they’re NOT written and posted in chronological order of events. To see where this story fits in the timeline, please check the masterlist mentioned above.

Higuruma was awakened by the faint stream of light that bled through the curtains and projected onto his face delicately. He was coming to his senses slowly, and realized he was still naked under the bedsheets. Looking by his side, he saw you laying down with your back facing him. He smiled discreetly, realizing you had spent the night — Higuruma was unsure if you’d do so, given you were prone to avoidance, overall.

Examining your back solely with his eyes, he noticed a prominent scar right in the middle, over your spine. It was oval-shaped, and it extended in a straight line to the right side of your back, stopping abruptly. It seemed to have been done by a blade of some sort. Before he realized, his fingers were caressing over it, pulling you gently awake.

“Hey,” you cooed, rolling on your side to face him, “good morning.”

“Good morning.” Higuruma answered, gazing at you before putting his hand over your cheek. “It seems you slept here.”

You smiled at him, putting your hand over his. “I didn’t feel like going back home in the middle of the night.” You also wanted to spend some more time with Higuruma, but spared that detail. You were starting to feel somewhat guilty, like you had used him the night prior. No need to dig this deeper, you thought.

“I’m glad you stayed. I wish I had something to offer for breakfast, but I’m not the great domestic type of person. There isn’t anything in my fridge other than yesterday’s beer.” He answered, blatantly not embarrassed at all.

You chuckled lightly. “There might be an old lemon half. You never know, Higuruma.”

His expression became slightly saddened. “I know the sun is already out, but last night isn’t over until we’re out of bed.”

You dragged your body towards his, stopping a few inches apart, and looked him in the eyes. His gaze was lovely, and you were both nearly whispering, as if to keep the fragile little bubble of this moment intact. “Okay, Hiromi.”

Higuruma instantly smiled, and closed the gap between the two of you, planting a soft kiss on your forehead. “That’s more like it.”

You put your thumb on his chin and guided his face to look at you, sighing deeply. “I can’t stay. And I don’t think we should do this again.” You felt like you’d be only using him, even if you had a thing for Higuruma. You just failed to realize just how deep that “thing” was becoming.

He sighed back, because he realized you were doing that again. Fleeing to avoid touching on sensitive subjects. “I know you can’t stay, but I’d like to discuss that second part before you left.”

“What do you want to discuss?”

“I want to know why we shouldn’t have sex again.” He was a pretty straightforward and honest kind of guy, even if it meant saying the uncomfortable unsaid most of the time.

“Well, I feel like I’d be using you for self satisfaction, and I think you’re a friend I wouldn’t want to drive away by treating you like man candy.” You replied, earnestly.

“Then don’t.” He answered. “Treat me like man candy, I mean. Except if I ask for it.”

You chuckled and covered your face at his antics. “Hiromi, oh my God.”

“I mean it! We’re adults, and the lifespan of a jujutsu sorcerer isn’t that long from what I could tell, anyway. It doesn’t mean this will taint our friendship, as you pointed out, and we can always talk about it if things get strange in a bad way.” He negotiated with you. This was so much different from being lectured that you couldn’t help but feel glad to be sharing this moment with Higuruma.

You stayed quiet, studying his features as he awaited for a response, and your gaze wound up resting on his lips for a while, something he noticed. He approached you carefully, brushing his lips to yours, and it instantly made your heart race. You could hear each pump in the back of your ears, as you pressed your lips against his quickly, pulling apart before you both could get entangled together again for round two, after you explicitly told him you shouldn’t.

“Can I think about it?” You asked.

“Of course. But please, do think about it, and don’t just take time to stall on an answer.” Higuruma replied, ash colored eyes piercing through you.

“Oh, stalling to not give you an answer about something uncomfortable or compromising? That definitely doesn’t sound like me.” You answered, mockingly. You were aware of your intimacy issues.

He smiled and pressed his forehead against yours. “ I’m a lawyer, I’m quite familiar with buying time to avoid consequences.”

“Consequences, huh?” You asked, rolling to the opposite side of the bed. “Come on, Hiromi. Time to start the day.”

Defeated, he rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling, as your feet touched the cold morning floor.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk fanfic #higuruma hiromi #hiromi x reader #higuruma angst #higuruma x reader #jjk imagines #jjk fluff

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arceespinkgun · 10 days

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Jazz in "The Magnificent Six!" Character Analysis

When I completed my read of the Marvel UK Transformers comics, I was blown away by a text story in one of the annuals: "The Magnificent Six!" Not only is it the darkest this continuity ever got in my opinion, but it also recontextualized the personalities and behaviors of the main characters who appear in it, putting all their previous appearances in a different light. This was especially affecting since this story comes right near the end of the entire continuity, so that's years' worth of material that it made me reassess.

"The Magnificent Six!" follows Jazz, Prowl, Wheeljack, Inferno, and Sunstreaker, and how war has changed them. It recounts their experience with attempting to free a neutral town from Decepticon control and how the whole situation goes horribly wrong due to situations largely out of their control, while also exploring the impacts of survivor's guilt. In the present, Optimus unknowingly sends them on a mission to that same place and they are forced to confront and work through their trauma. There's a summary of the events in chronological order here or see the story as it's meant to be read, with multiple perspectives and flashbacks throughout, on 🏴‍☠️ websites just by searching, "transformers UK annual read online" and selecting the second-to-final annual.

Content warning: this story includes sadistic torture on top of its other dark themes, and I'll have to make reference to the disturbing content.

In this post, I want to break down how this story made me see Jazz—one of my favorite transformers—differently, and why I think this is such an interesting and effective backstory for him. Something to note about "The Magnificent Six!" is that despite Prowl having been the leader of the titular team, Jazz is the central focus. He gets a flashback to himself, Megadeath (the Decepticon leader they face in the story, particularly sadistic and zealous even for Decepticons) attacks him first, he is the one to tell the whole truth of what happened to Silverbolt, and his words close out the story.

Hint: the Autobot you don't recognize who's standing on the hill is the one who didn't survive

Jazz's Characterization

Jazz's characterization in the rest of this continuity is similar to the way he is in the Sunbow cartoon... at least, on the surface it is. He loves Earth culture, especially music and dancing! He's really good at improvising! He tries to be positive when he talks to people! But he can also be kind of hard to read. There are some less obvious things about Jazz's character as well. There's another annual story I've posted in full that seems to indicate that while being pleasant on the surface, Jazz internally judges the people around him. He gets antsy when he's stuck in one place too long.

And at his core, he seems to want to just soak in the sights and appreciate life quietly without war or other people around.

Jazz meets a deer!

Jazz is very eager to try diplomacy as a strategy, and in an early story, secures a fuel source this way.

I bet Jazz learned about capitalism by listening to "Material Girl"

However, while Jazz is depicted excitedly absorbing human culture, he doesn't necessarily feel like he understands humans or that he's understood in turn. While he interacts with humans, there is often a distance in those interactions.

Jazz was sometimes drawn with triangular eyes under his visor that make him look old and depressed

Jazz also sometimes comes across as being deadened to violence. I remember in one annual comic, he shoots at Starscream and ends up killing a human villain Starscream had abducted, and Jazz never thinks about or talks about it afterward.

In one of his early interactions with humans, he also didn't seem to register that preventing Sparkplug and Buster from running out of the Ark with a flamethrower might hurt them in any way.

A calm also applies to when violence is inflicted upon him: in the Target: 2006 story arc, when he's captured and tortured by Galvatron, he's very calm throughout until the end, when he just laughs at the turn of events.

I love that Galvatron gives a long speech about his origin and fight against Unicron and Jazz's reaction was just to be like, all right, guess that's one less thing I have to worry about LMAO

Speaking of Galvatron, in this continuity, there's an alternate universe in which Unicron ate Cybertron and Galvatron was conquering Earth for him. In that reality, Jazz ended up as one of only three survivors (Jazz, Prowl, and Inferno... hey, also all members of the Magnificent Six lol) and when he was about to face Galvatron in a last stand he believed was suicidal, his dialogue revealed a lot about his character.

All of these traits I've mentioned will be explored in "The Magnificent Six!"

Jazz in "The Magnificent Six!"

In the opening of the story we Jazz from a unique perspective. The first notable thing is that we learn who he was back before Optimus Prime became a leader. Jazz was a freedom fighter who went around liberating territory from Decepticon rule. Not only that, but because this first flashback begins from the perspective of a Decepticon guard (Steamhammer, said to have been a killer even before the War), we get a rare glimpse into what the Decepticon perspective on Jazz was back then. It sounds like he was one of the most dreaded and hated of the Autobots!

And the reputation appears to be well-earned. Jazz in the past here seems noticeably different in personality—he comes across as hot-headed and more of a leader. Notice how unsure the supposed leader of this team, Prowl, comes across in this flashback, in which he instead looks to Jazz for approval.

Later, when we see Jazz's flashback, we get further context into his character, and suddenly his love of other cultures and their media is so bittersweet. In this flashback, he's running over the events in his mind, trying to figure out when everything went wrong. Ultimately, he blames himself for nearly laughing at the offensive joke Sunstreaker told to try and lighten the mood after the citizens' museum was bombed—Jazz believes that's when everything fell apart. So of course he'd be so focused on culture!

And of course he doesn't speak his mind! His guilt would prevent him from doing so.

Especially given the consequences. For people who haven't read the story, note that I'm going to describe the darkest part now. We get to look into Jazz's mind as he's being tortured, melting to death. Laughing maniacally is his response to being pushed past the brink of despair.

This is notable because as shown above, when he's captured and tortured by Galvatron millions of years later, he has this exact same reaction!

Essentially, in retaliation for the seven days the team was able to fend off the Decepticons, Megadeath had them tortured for seven days. That included the melting scene. But he only inflicted physical pain upon five of the six—one, Stampede, a beastformer, he left untouched, but forced to watch as his friends were broken mentally and physically. Then, he gave the five disassociating team members to the count of ten to prevent him from executing Stampede in front of them, knowing they were too mentally damaged to even move, making them feel consumed with guilt.

And as if that wasn't enough, he then told them he'd left a nuclear bomb beneath the town they'd tried so hard to save, and they couldn't find it in time before it blew up. They then ran away in shame and feigned amnesia for millions of years.

I recount all this horrific shit because it explains a lot about Jazz as a character. He is a very pleasant person, and is extremely popular—in Target: 2006 a mind-controlled Jazz takes out all the Autobots just because nobody wanted to lay a finger on him!—but he almost never confides emotionally in anyone and has very few close bonds. I believe the loss of his teammate and the way Megadeath twisted the knife gives a lot of insight into why this is—Jazz of course feels the burden of responsibility and works hard to do good, but how could he bear to let people in after all of that? Especially when he blames an expression of pure emotion on all of those traumatic things happening to so many innocent people?

Prowl and Silverbolt

I also want to touch on two of Jazz's dynamics with other characters, ones that are relevant to "The Magnificent Six!"

As can be seen in some of the excerpts above, Prowl is another important character in the story. While many of the most dramatic beats center Jazz, Prowl also gets some of the spotlight. At the end of the story, when the Autobots find the inner strength to face Megadeath again after talking openly about their traumatic past, everyone beats Megadeath nearly to death. However, Prowl finds it within himself to resist a killing blow, because to kill an unarmed opponent is morally wrong. And while this story closes with Jazz's words, it's Prowl who prompts them.

When I say that Jazz has very few close bonds, Prowl is actually one of those few, probably the most significant one. While reading through the comics I did notice that Jazz shows noticeably more concern for and closeness with Prowl than he does with others (see issues #266 and #268) and also gets uncharacteristically angry with and argues with him in issue #42 (though this doesn't shake their ability to work together—which I feel is also notable). That being said, I didn't think anything of this for quite a while. I had also noticed that Prowl seems to really respect Jazz and defer to him, but I also didn't think that was important because like... who wouldn't respect Jazz? But with the additional context of "The Magnificent Six!" I feel as if this is significant due to the shared trauma and their initial reputation.

It's actually very rare to see Jazz be physically close with anybody

This leads me to Silverbolt. Silverbolt is also a significant character in "The Magnificent Six!" because he's the only person sent on the mission who wasn't part of the original team. In fact, he was created on Earth! Because of this, he's the one who pushes hard for the other Autobots to open up about what is keeping them paralyzed with trauma and shame. You can see how he goads Wheeljack and it spurs Jazz into finally seeing that they have to face the truth because it's been eating away at them for millions of years.

Silverbolt's presence is also what causes Prowl to remember Autobot morality and resist the urge to just kill Megadeath.

Silverbolt's perspective on opening up to others is informed by his experiences with his fellow Aerialbots, who are as young as he is. Throughout this continuity, Silverbolt spent a lot of time struggling and causing erratic behavior when combined with his teammates, because he kept trying to hide his fear of heights from everyone. But he remembers in "The Magnificent Six!" that he was met with more support than he'd ever had before once he did face the truth.

Silverbolt is a big proponent of therapy!

"The Magnificent Six!" is what I consider to be the conclusion to a series of comics known as the Earthforce branch of the Marvel UK run, and Jazz, Silverbolt, and Prowl were all members of the Earthforce together, as were the other Autobots on the mission. But I feel Silverbolt being the one to drive the plot forward is particularly significant due to a thematic connection. Previously I mentioned a fight that Jazz and Prowl got into, which happened early in the UK run—Prowl and his supporters called on Optimus Prime to use the Matrix to give life to Autobot super soldiers and just crush the Decepticons in order to prevent more casualties. Jazz and his supporters said that would be immoral and that there was no way they'd have enough fuel for those super soldiers when they barely had enough for themselves.

Optimus was incredibly distraught by this argument but came down firmly on the side of not using the Matrix for such things. ...At least, for a little bit, until he reconsidered after Megatron reemerged. Optimus went back on his original decision and made the Aerialbots. Perhaps Optimus's guilt over using the Matrix in this fashion caused him to be exceedingly harsh toward the young bots multiple times throughout this continuity, seemingly having little faith in their abilities.

I think there's something especially resonant about one of the people who was created as a result of that disagreement being the one who ended up giving them the support they needed to face their own traumatic past.

BFFs share laughter as a coping strategy for dealing with the most painful moments in life!

Conclusion

While I get the sense that this may change, particularly with the new Skybound comics featuring Jazz and showing more of his friendship with Cliffjumper which has its source in the Sunbow cartoon, I don't feel like we've ever had this much of a window into Jazz's past and such a deep look at his personality and relationships. I don't think that any future content needs to be this dark, but I hope that as much attention is given to Jazz in the future! As it is, I think this is some of the most compelling material Jazz ever had.

#transformers g1 #transformers marvel #maccadam #Jazz #Prowl #Silverbolt #my analysis #long post #I mean it this is long #and yet this is somehow only scratching the surface LMAO

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theminecraftbee · 1 year

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magical girl scar au (mostly) explained

this is an au based on an amalgamation of magical girl tropes! think more on the sailor moon side than madoka, although there are a lot of fairly dark elements to the story as well (which is like... perfectly in line with 'sailor moon' but some people think madoka invented 'magical girl story but it's dark' so i'm putting this here).

in it, scar accidentally lets a bunch of magical spirits out of a jar. that jar's guardian, a mysterious cat named jellie, tells him that she is going to make him a magical girl so he can find the spirits, fight them down from possessing people, and put them back in the jar, using the power of the fact the wishing star is approaching earth!

this starts out as a simple monster-of-the-week affair, but quickly grows more complicated as not only is there clearly a bit more going on than just 'spirits escaped a jar', but there's clearly some organized force conspiring against them. more than that, there's this other magical girl, calling herself backbird. for some reason, she fights against scar, and even on the side of the spirits, sometimes. scar KNOWS there has to be more to her, but...

plus, he still has his day job at the greenhouse. at least his coworkers are normal about all of this. grian hasn't even said anything about how many times scar's dipped in the middle of a shift!

and then things continue to get even more complicated from there.

so, putting this out here now, the BEST way to get the details is probably just to go through the tag, linked here in chronological order (this doesn't work on the mobile app i think sorry use the web browser). however given that its been MONTHS and there are. so many pages in this tag because every time i talk about this au i don't shut up about it... here's a really long post explaining a bunch of stuff that's in this au! under the cut so you don't have to like, deal with it being all over your dash. warning: this is long.

basic premise stuff:

scar is a very pink magical girl who. i think i never came up with a name for him. he fights with jellie's help. even transformed he has a wheelchair; that wheelchair changes into the form of various animals for mobility when he attacks. he has a magic bow that is his main weapon and is the person who can most easily de-possess someone when they're possessed by a spirit using those attacks.h early story he's a bit traditionally "pink magical girl" but he starts to come into his own more over the story. becomes a very powerful mage. later we learn he wasn't jellie's first choice, which is part of why things start spiraling out of control. she doesn't regret it.

grian is blackbird. scar does not know this, and grian does not know scar is his enemy while transformed. grian became blackbird on meeting the spirit of freedom shortly after the spirits escaped and, instead of becoming fully possessed, striking a deal, which unlocked his potential as a mage enough to become fully a magical girl. he is then found by the shadow organization, which, due to the fact that grian at the start of this fic is extremely isolated, he ALSO is forced to strike a deal with for his protection. his ultimate goal is actually full freedom for the spirits and the spread of magic, but his means to that end are... let's say "not good"... and he sees himself as a villain.

spirits are the magical representation of abstract concepts. on their own they don't have thoughts and feelings; prolonged exposure to humans, however, can give them those. (this is not a fact scar knows for at least half the story.) on their own, they seek out people who are somewhat like themselves and possess those people, turning them into monsters who have powers that are on-theme with the concept they represent. (for example, a spirit of fear would have powers based around fears, and a spirit of sleepiness would make everyone tired.) scar can fight these monsters, tire them out, and force the spirit to stop possessing a person, allowing him to capture them once more so they stop causing trouble.

the shadow organization is a cult-like organization that has existed since the time magic was common in the world; they believe that while magic should come back, it should only be harnessed in the hands of the few that would "use it correctly". there are actually several splinters of this organization, some of which are more benign than others, but most forms of the organization are scar's enemy, since they wish to use the spirits for their own illicit gain. they also have ties to parts of the government, where they often study what magic remains in the world in exchange for resources. these are the Mysterious Bad Guys, except that throughout the plot, we meet people like doc or etho or wels, who are perhaps... not as much of bad guys. let alone grian's situation...

while in the past the battle between the shadow organization and whoever jellie chooses tended to remain secret, this is one of the first times it has happened with modern technology, and ALSO scar broke the jar before jellie could choose someone, so neither side was actually prepared. as a result, a big element of this au is how these various magical conflicts interact with the public and the people in the main city setting, public opinion on our vigilante heroes, and the increasing realization that this whole magic situation is more complicated than either side makes it out to be.

the ultimate end of the au does have the spirits somewhat under control and magic free to the public after a near-apocalypse, as well as (most) of the shadow organization defeated, and the world adjusts to having magic under the wishing star anew. however the story theoretically takes a long time to get there, with it building from early-story "monster of the week" shenanigans and bringing in more plot elements over time.

here is an approximate timeline of what arcs happen when.

team scar:

scar is as above. he's the defacto leader. he becomes a celebrity in his own right. it's all very stressful.

cub is scar's longtime friend and roommate. he clocks that scar is a magical girl fairly early and insists on helping scar. for a good while, however, cub can't transform himself, and doesn't have any specific magical gifts. instead, he uses his wits and also his concealed carry permit to help scar fight. this comes to a head when he's possessed by the spirit of chaos, and afterwards manages to make a deal with the spirit himself, allowing him to transform. he has very mixed feelings about a lot of this and is protective over scar. his possession actually comes from him being very pent-up due to the fact that he cares a LOT about scar and keeps on having to be the voice of paranoid reason instead of the chaotic asshole he wants to be, so when a chaos spirit possesses him, despite the fact he knows all the warning signs very well, he just falls into it. later, cub befriending this spirit is when team scar starts to REALLY realize that there's more to everything than just "fight spirits stop evil organization".

bdubs is a civilian at first. however, as the plot progresses, civilians with great magical potential start unlocking magical gifts, and bdubs's is that he gets visions in his dreams. horribly annoyed that he can't sleep anymore, he decides to start trying to interfere with team scar, who he initially blames. however once he has a prophetic dream showing them having a terrible fate, he starts giving them anonymous tips instead, before storming in to help them as their "man in the chair" type archetype. eventually, he transforms on his own due to his magical potential and joins the team after saving their lives. idk what else to say about him, bdubs is bdubs.

jellie is something adjacent to a spirit. she got the name from scar; she thinks its silly and cute. she was created by the Last Mage long ago to keep an eye on the jar of spirits and prevent magic from escaping into the world; she's actually quite lonely, as scar is one of the first mages she's ever had who treats her like a friend and a valuable member of the team. while she definitely nags, she ultimately cares deeply for scar and the others.

spirits/magic:

so, spirits! already explained how they work; they're sort of like clow cards in cardcaptor or akuma in miraculous, though, if you need design thoughts. (clow cards and youma sailor moon were my main inspirations but the akuma comparison is not wrong.)

long ago, in the distant past, everyone had the ability to use magic as powered by the wishing star. however, due to the way mages used this power and the fact that no magic is truly free, it caused the creation of spirits. the spirits wreaked havoc on the world, so using the wishing star and his abilities, the Last Mage created jellie to guard the spirits before using his power to seal away the spirits, sacrificing himself and also locking away most magic from the world forever. however, sometimes the wishing star gets particularly close to the planet and a few spirits escape, which is why jellie has the ability to temporarily awaken a mage who is the most like the Last Mage to prevent magic from truly leaking into the land again.

a group of former mages, incensed at the loss of their power and believing the real issue with magic being in the world was that the Wrong Kinds Of People could use it, created the shadow organization, intending to use magic to take power for themselves.

spirits being freed, jellie making a new mage, and the shadow organization fighting to try to take power for themselves continued in a cycle through history. additionally, as organized governments formed, they often hired members of the shadow organization to work out the remnants of that ancient magical civilization. while the existence of this cycle/magic isn't really known anymore, it's also not NOT known. aka: there's DEFINITELY some alternate history here that i haven't worked out.

scar is NOT a mage like the first mage; he's just like, a guy. however, in the process of helping save jellie, who he saw as an innocent cat, from some jerks, while she was trying to find who she would make her next mage, he broke the jar. left with no options and an awareness that scar was her only choice, jellie picked a mage early, and she made it scar. this initial small act of breaking the cycle is a large part of why everything gets out of hand - none of the ancient powers-that-be are fully in place for another round, and the people selected for the war this time are all people who have their own agendas and are less likely to continue to perpetuate it.

as the wishing star grows near and the longer the spirits are freed, more people realize their own magical potential. most people who can do magic can only do one or two little things unassisted; oftentimes they don't have control over this. these cantrips can still be a problem. very rarely, there are people who can awaken as magical girls, but they are pretty much incapable of doing this on their own; they need a push.

however, a spirit and a human can form a pact where that spirit boosts a human's magical potential, allowing them to become a magical girl. this is ALMOST LIKE a spirit possessing someone, except the human remains in control of themselves (mostly). over time, however, a human who is in a pact like this may retain the ability to be a magical girl on their own. this is also dangerous, though, as the higher a mage's magical potential, the more disastrous the consequences should they actually become possessed, and the more destructive the resulting monster will be.

magical girls are typically hard to possess though since they're very magically realized.

the shadow organization has tools and weaponry that can affect magic and magic-users, and are studying it. this is part of what grian's role is later on; the shadow organization seeks to replace him, since literally everyone in that arrangement knows grian has his own agenda. that ends... badly... but it's part of what happens.

human weaponry CAN help but also like, sometimes you're bringing a tank to fight godzilla, you know? in order to get someone un-possessed once they go full monster, you almost always need a mage who knows what they're doing.

civilians/the public:

scar makes no effort to hide magical girl fights and this is the digital era, baby! the existence of a magical girl fighting monsters becomes public knowledge very quickly, and is also part of why scar keeps his identity secret for most of the au - it won't end well if everyone knows who he is.

attitudes towards the magical girls changes throughout the au; some people blame team scar for the fact the attacks are happening at all, some people adore team scar and treat them as celebrities, and some people, to grian's horror, even think blackbird is pretty cool, in a "well i'm gonna root for the villain now to be edgy" kind of way. depending on at what point we're at in the story, how many people are in what categories changes.

there's an early arc i'm emotionally attached to where the city is sent like, a branch of the military to help the monster problem. at first scar is really grateful for the help (cub trusts less), but they collaboration breaks down, partially because the shadow organization is involved, partially in the "the government doesn't trust these magical girls" way, and scar and cub are forced to fight their way out. it's one of the low points of their public relations and is a complete debacle.

stress is mayor and ends up deciding to throw her lot behind the magical girls even despite this later and it's a risky political move that pays off locally; typically, locals are FAR more likely to be trusting of team scar, due to being far more likely to know at least one person who wouldn't be alive if it weren't for them.

a support group exists for victims of possessions/people who know victims of possessions. this is where a number of side characters, like team zit, all meet and interact with the plot after they have been possessed. cub joins this group at one point as well. the support group in my head is the focus of most of the "civilian-centric" episodes, as is a few various reporters who interview the main gang.

some other notable civilian characters include pearl, who knew impulse online and moved into town after the monster attacks started because she heard an old friend she lost touch with after A Childhood Incident might be living nearby. she investigates despite being pretty directly told "you're going to get killed".

there's a whole Bit with mumbo where he's like, this background character who CONSTANTLY GETS POSSESSED and it's sort of like, in my head there's a running gag in the theoretical tv show that is this au where the gang starts the episode rescuing mumbo again.

team zit all originally met in online chat groups but only met each other in person through the support group, after each individually having various bad encounters with spirits.

also shoutout to the joke that hawkeye is an in-universe superhero who scar tries to name himself after that no one lets him do because Copyright.

xisuma is a very oblivious man who owns the flower shop that scar and grian work at for their day jobs; he notices scar and grian constantly taking suspicious time off but just like, assumes they're secretly superspies, which is so close and yet so far.

grian/the shadow organization:

grian's arc focuses on him STARTING OUT as a villain, but over time and also being worn down by scar, realizing he can take a different path. he is a VERY TYPICAL dark magical girl trope in this way. scar realizes who he is before grian realizes who scar is, but doesn't say anything. over time, grian changes from a villain to more of like... a rival, and then, after the king of monsters arc, in which grian is captured by the shadow organization and allows the spirit of freedom to fully possess him and has to be rescued, a very late-game ally. he's a fun one because he has like, a halo of knives and a very dark magical girl woe is me vibe, it's fun.

doc is a member of the shadow organization who, on interacting with members of the outside world like ren more, starts to realize what he's doing is wrong and attempt to protect people a little from the shadow organization's machinations. he gets in trouble for this, but grian helps him get out later, and he helps the final assault.

etho is a low-level grunt in the shadow organization who is very deliberately bad at his job. he befriends bdubs, just 'cause, and bdubs ends up having a whole arc of being paranoid on realizing etho is a member of the shadow organization and seems to KNOW and, oh god, are they all in danger? they aren't. etho is just etho.

wels is also a member of the shadow organization on a lower rank (possibly in a splinter group) and, unlike etho, his arc is a much more seriously "okay so he grew up in this organization basically brainwashing him and is slowly Getting Out but what does he do with that". that's wels's thing.

the shadow organization is meant to be an amalgamation of The Enemy in magical girl shows. a number of MEMBERS are decent but the actual leadership/top of the organization is The Shadowy Enemy. hence why they're always referred to as the shadow organization.

and for NOW those are the major details i think you need? i THINK? let me know if there's other stuff you think i should have included in this!

#magical girl scar #a bee fic #<- only KIND OF but honestly at this point maybe it counts #i'm realizing just HOW MUCH STUFF got written for this au now. wow okay

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bunmuffin · 1 year

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How does you're au work?

The Security and Staff AU is based around four characters: Sun, Moon, Staff-san, and Security-san. Sun and Moon were originally theater animatronics, performing for kids in the pizzaplex's theater, before being reprogrammed to Daycare Attendants (based off of the FNAF books). Staff-san is the daycare staff and Security-san is the nighttime security guard. When Sun and Moon were reprogrammed to DCA it was up to Staff and Security to teach them the ropes of their new job (Staff-san teaching Sun and Moon how to take care of the kids and Security-san teaching Moon how to patrol the pizzaplex at night). They then work together with each other from then on out. When it comes to the glitch, Moon gets the glitch when they get reprogrammed into the DCA. Between Moon and Sun, Moon's coding is the one that changes the most. As performers, Sun played the hero/protagonist, always 'coming to the rescue from the evil Moon', making kids smile and happy; while Moon played the villain/antagonist, always coming up with a new 'evil scheme', making kids scared or sad, etc. Although he's always been a little gremlin, he had never harmed a kid and he knew if he scared them too much he'd let Sun out to cheer them up. He was kinda like a Disney villain, evil but still kid friendly (he also had some banger villain songs). Moon goes from scaring the kids to caring for the kids and this drastic change in coding is what causes the glitch. The glitch doesn't effect him immediately, its very slow progressing, like a disease, until it fully takes control over him. Certain outside forces can cause the glitch to become stronger or weaker. Instead of writing this AU out like on AO3 (cause I'm terrible at writing) I've been drawing the storyline out and posting them here. Since I just started this, I'm still in the earlier stages of the story where Sun and Moon are still trying to get use to their new jobs and work partners, and Moon's glitch hasn't fully taken effect yet (which is why in most of my comics so far Moon has been on the softer side). Although every now and then I'll get a small off-shoot comic idea or someone sends in an ask that fits better with a post-incident Moon and I'll post those comics as well. I know that probably makes things a lot more confusing to read and I'll probably make a google doc or something with the comics in chronological order, but there is a quick way to tell what stage Moon is in with his glitch based off of his eye color. I made a small little thing here (Phases of the Moon) that is just a brief overview of Moon's character development (I do plan on making one for Sun too). His eye color tells you where in the story this takes place: Blue Irises: Pre-glitch/Theater days Red Irises: Glitched/Pre-incident Red eyes: Fully glitched/The incident/Triggered One black One red: Glitched/Post-incident

#if anyone has any other questions about the AU feel free to send in an ask #security and staff au #fnaf moon #fnaf sun #security breach daycare attendant #fnaf security breach

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bi-bard · 1 year

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Taylor Swift Songs That Would Describe a Relationship with Joel Miller - Joel Miller Imagine [HBO's The Last of Us]

Title: Taylor Swift Songs That Would Describe a Relationship with Joel Miller

Pairing: Joel Miller X Reader

Word Count: 2,441 words

Warning(s): fear of commitment, argument, mention of fight

Author's Note: I'm think there's a pattern of me using "cowboy like me" for stories involving Pedro Pascal characters.

Also, just a quick reminder that I write for a gender-neutral reader, so no matter the plot line, anyone can enjoy this.

**Not intentionally written in chronological order**

----------------------

Daylight

I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you I've been sleeping so long in a twenty-year dark night And now I see daylight, I only see daylight

It had all been a bit of a blur.

One moment, I was walking with Joel. We were talking about the jobs we had been assigned. Relaxed and calm and as close to normal as we could get in the current world.

The next moment, my memories get lost in a huge jumble of yelling and fighting and fear. It was all such a mess. A terrifying mess.

My next clear moment was dragging Joel down the road with me. I didn't stop moving until we had gotten inside and the door was locked.

"I'm so sorry," I mumbled as Joel sat at my dining table.

It had been my fault. At least, partially.

It was all a long and very messy story.

Joel knew the whole thing. I think that's why he was so fast to entertain the whole fight.

Not that I ever wanted him involved. In all honesty, my life would have been so much easier without ever thinking about any of my life before the outbreak... as backwards as that sounds.

"Not your fault," he muttered, looking down at his knuckles.

"Except it is," I moved to sit in the chair next to him. "This wouldn't have happened if you never met me or if I just kept my fucking mouth shut. Now, you're hurt and fuck knows what we're gonna have to deal with now. Shit, I should've been smarter about this-"

"Stop it," he cut me off. "You did nothing wrong. Your ex having his head stuck up his ass is nowhere near your fault."

I let out a sigh as my eyes closed. I shook my head before pushing myself up. I grabbed my little first-aid kit and made my way back to the table.

I grabbed his hand.

"Why'd you do that," I asked. "Nothing good can come from shit like that."

"I doubt he would've let me walk away without getting a few blows in."

I did my best to clean the small cuts along his hand.

He didn't speak up again until I was wrapping the bandage around his hand.

"Y'know...," he started and trailed off. I looked back at him. "Never mind. It's nothing."

"Tell me," I pushed.

Maybe some part of me knew what he was going to say. Maybe I was desperate to hear it out loud. I would like to think that this is why I pushed him to say it out loud.

He let out a small sigh as he seemingly weighed the consequences of his actions.

"There's something else," I continued as I placed his bandaged hand on the table. "You just told me. Why did you do it?"

"Because I love you," he admitted.

I had to bite my lip to keep my smile from getting obnoxiously big.

We had been together for a while now. We had gotten through many days in the hell that was the modern world today. But in all that time, those words hadn't found a place in our lives.

I felt like a teenager again for a few moments.

"Did you get stuck like that-"

I reached forward and smacked his arm in response. He grinned at me.

"I love you too," I said after a pause.

He looked down at the table to hide his smile.

I reached over and placed my hand on his.

For just a moment, it felt like real peace was more than just a far-off dream.

The Way I Loved You

Breaking down and coming undone It's a roller coaster kind of rush And I never knew I could feel that much And that's the way I loved you

It was all such a mess of a situation.

I had never planned on interacting with Joel again after we had separated. I knew that it would've been unrealistic to try to never see him again, but I could always turn the other way and leave.

Now, I was being forced into a situation where the only person I could interact with was Joel.

It was like the universe was attempting to play some stupid practical joke on me and I was failing to see the punchline.

I followed Joel and Ellie back to Joel's place. The only thing we could do at the time was wait for the time to pass.

I dropped my bag on the floor next to the couch before plopping on the seat that pretty much used to be designated as mine. I tried to keep an eye on Ellie without making it seem like I was staring. She went to sit by the window while Joel sat right next to me.

"Kid," I spoke up. She looked at me. "You should get some rest now. You aren't gonna get much of it later."

"Where," she asked.

I pointed behind me. "Mattress in the back."

"She's not sleeping on my bed," Joel interjected.

"I don't wanna sleep on his bed," she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. "He probably stinks."

I rolled my eyes before grabbing the spare blanket and throwing it to her. "To prevent the spread of germs... and protect against the smell. Now go."

She walked into the back without another word.

I sighed and relaxed into the couch.

"You should take your own advice," Joel muttered after a minute or two. I shook my head. "I'm serious, (Y/n)."

"I am just fine," I looked at him. "Never needed much sleep to function anyway."

He ran his hand over his face. "Always so damn stubborn."

"Can we not start this," I asked. "We've got enough to worry about without biting each other's heads off."

He sighed and looked away.

"You used to appreciate my stubbornness, anyway," I added.

I heard him chuckle. I felt a small grin pulling at the corner of my lips.

"You think we can do this?"

"Don't know," he shrugged. "I doubt we have much of a choice. Just gotta be ready to go."

I nodded. "You're scared, aren't you?"

"Scared? No. Annoyed."

"It's okay if you are," I said. "That's not a bad thing. It's just human."

He looked over at me. "Don't assume that you know how my mind works."

"For fuck's sake," I mumbled. It was my turn to run my hand over my face. "I just asked if we could avoid doing this. I was trying to comfort you. Be helpful. You have no reason to snap at me like that."

"No reason?"

"Yeah, no reason."

"What about you leaving?"

My jaw clenched. "You told me to go."

"You made no attempt to stay."

"I made an attempt every fucking day," I snapped before quickly lowering my voice, glancing back to make sure Ellie wasn't shifting around. "I fucking loved you, Joel. I fought to hold onto you with everything I had. You got scared and threw me out. After everything you promised me, after everything we did."

He didn't reply as I deflated into the couch cushion.

"Don't try to claim that I didn't try to hold on. I still feel like I'm clinging onto any part of you that I can find."

I looked out the window to the sun. I wanted to focus on anything else.

I missed him. God knows that I had missed Joel. Every day. Waking up without him was awful. Having to turn around and walk away because it was all I could do to keep myself from crumbling was hell. I just wanted what we had back.

"(Y/n)," he muttered.

I closed my eyes for a moment, not turning my head.

I felt the couch shift as he moved.

His hand touched my leg. "Please, look at me."

I turned my head back to him.

There was a pause.

One where we were sitting in silence, watching each other's reactions.

Joel seemed to hesitate for a moment before he leaned forward.

I froze for a moment as he kissed me. It was such a soft moment, yet it completely overwhelmed me. I had missed him so much that it hurt. That wasn't new. I had known about that pain for a long time now.

But what I didn't know was the way that the pain could be numbed. It was like a warmth spread through my chest, pushing away any pain, even if it was just for a little while.

I slowly kissed him back, feeling muscle memory take over as my hands reached out to touch his sides. Too long. It had been far too long since I experienced something as monumental as this moment.

I leaned back slowly, only moving far enough away to speak, "I love you."

He paused for a moment. I watched his eyes scan every part of my face. I couldn't tell if he was trying to see if I was lying or if he was trying to confirm that I wasn't some illusion his mind had created.

"I love you too," he muttered after a bit. I smiled at him.

His forehead rested against mine. We just sat there for a little while.

Through all of the chaos and the bullshit, I knew that I would always want him.

I just needed to keep a hold of him.

cowboy like me

And the skeletons in both our closets Plotted hard to fuck this up And the old men that I've swindled Really did believe I was the one And the ladies lunching have their stories about When you passed through town But that was all before I locked it down

Neither one of us planned to have that conversation that night.

It was late. Really late.

It was one of the first times that I had stayed with him for the night.

It was nice. Being around him usually was. But no matter how nice it was, I could not get myself to fall asleep.

It wasn't a new thing for me to not feel comfortable falling asleep. I didn't expect lying next to Joel to change that.

I let out a sigh as I rolled over.

My head ended up on Joel's chest as I let one of my arms fall over his torso. I didn't even realize that I had brushed a scar until he flinched. I pulled my hand away, moving my head so I could look at him.

"You okay," I asked.

"Yeah," he muttered.

"Did I hit a fresh wound or something?"

"No," he shook his head. "You just have cold hands."

"Never bothered you before."

He chuckled.

I sat up and looked at him. "Are you sure that you're okay?"

He sighed. "(Y/n)..."

"I'm just worried about you."

He didn't respond.

He made no effort to stop me as I reached forward and moved the blanket off of him. I furrowed my eyebrows at him as I tried to figure out what I had bothered.

It took me a second, but I eventually moved my hand to lightly touch a scar on his side. He tensed.

"Sorry," I muttered. I pulled my hand away. "What... What's it from?"

I felt like I was watching the scales tip in his mind. Pros and cons changing the balance.

"I'll... I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours," I offered.

He reached out and touched my leg. I placed my hand on his.

"Deal?"

He nodded. "Deal."

I grinned and shifted to get comfortable.

That's when I first found out about Sarah. He told me everything about the day of the outbreak. The panic and the crash and the soldier. I held his hand through all of it. I felt a need to commit every sentence he spoke to memory. I needed to know this all because that was the only way I would be able to properly help him.

"Your turn," he muttered after a moment of silence.

I blinked at him a few times before slowly nodding. "Right."

I took a deep breath. I felt him tapping his fingers against my hand.

"You... are not gonna like this sentence," I started. His eyebrows furrowed. "Technically... I am... married."

"What-"

"Let me get through the story first," I stopped him. "It was a while ago now. I... I was convinced that we were in love. The day that the outbreak happened, we had been inside all day. Our neighbor had broken in... he was infected. I just remember the angry look on his face. It made me sick.

"My husband and I took off. We drove for a while. I can barely remember where we were even trying to get to. I just remember ditching the car in the traffic and taking off on foot.

"We... We got cornered by one of the infected. There was this hole in the ceiling of this building. He climbed up first and I couldn't get up there and instead of helping me up... he thanked me for saving him and took off."

There was a pause between us.

"He sounds like an ass," Joel commented. I chuckled. "How did you get out?"

"I found this old bat. A solid one. I had never fought anything, really. I yelled when I hit the thing over the head. Screamed. I kept thinking about how that person had a family and friends and how many of them could be dead. After that, I hid away until I could safely get to a QZ."

Joel nodded. "Did you ever find out what happened to your husband?"

I shook my head. "And I don't want to. I hate to wish death on someone, but... he kinda did that to me... to my face, so... I hope he got his ass kicked."

"So, you're only married..."

"Because the government's been a little too busy to figure out divorce court right now," I shrugged. "And I have no desire to track the bastard down again."

"Good," he mumbled.

I furrowed my eyebrows.

"If you stuck with that guy, then we would've never happened," he explained.

"I see."

Joel pushed himself to sit up.

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you any of this before," I said.

"Can't say that I'm too upset," he replied.

He slowly leaned over and pressed his lips to mine. I slowly kissed him back, grinning against his lips.

Maybe, just maybe, there was something that I could let myself hold onto in this shitty world.

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