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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it’ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

#digimon #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

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spacewizardtrek · 3 years

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WARNING: This post will ruin you. Like Medusa; look at your peril.

But here is is. It’s the one you’ve all been waiting for.

Kirk bod appreciation #7: The RIDICULOUSLY BEAUTIFUL FACE. A highly technical and academic review.

This is a rather nebulous one. And not, on the face of it (pardon the pun) very philosophical, as it’s essentially about Kirk being stupidly pretty. This post probably will (it will) descend into just screaming and sobbing, but there will be, I promise, *some* meaningful insight into the meaning of ‘beauty’ and textual analysis of its role herein.

Beauty is subjective. But look at him. It’s not just being aesthetic, but it’s the *way* he’s aesthetic. Here I might repeat myself a bit, but stay with me. I may have mentioned before once hearing him described as ‘beautiful in the way women are often described as beautiful’. He is PRETTY. He is indeed often conveyed in the way the women stereotypically (not necessarily rightly) are on screen: perfect, smooth skin; soft, big eyes; luscious lips (his body is sensually curvaceous and furthermore it’s emphasised). He’s not androgynous though. He’s masculine. And yet I still sense what was meant in describing him as ‘beautiful in the way women are often described as beautiful’. He is a rather uncommon form of gender fuckery. He is a form of stereotype-subversion not commonly acknowledged. He seems to be everything at once, ALL THE GENDER; combines whichever traits he desires from those categories, and yet is undeniably a man and masculine whatever the ingredients. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE, one might wonder. The fact of the matter is, that it IS. And it teaches us something.

The FUCK. nO. You are not allowed to be that pretty, and you are NOT allowed to look at her like that. We’re trying to have a SENSIBLE DISCUSSION here.

Sorry, that was a non-sequitur / nothing to do with what we learn by Kirk’s embodiment; I was just ambushed by my own gif. Only the control of a Vulcan. ONLY that could possibly withstand this onslaught. And even that won’t hold up forever AS WE WELL KNOW

God.

This is going well, as you can tell.

OK. So, it’s claimed he has Eyes and Stupidly Long Weakness-Inducing Eyelashes. You know, from all that fanfic that goes on about ‘big, sparkling eyes’ and him fanning his ‘long, copper eyelashes’. I mean, yeah right, tropey mc tropeface -

IT’S TRUE. HE IS LITERALLY AN ANIME PRINCESS.

There are some moments where he just BLINKS and, how to describe it...how does a BLINK have that effect. It’s NOT ALLOWED.

...I’m sorry. It IS allowed. All of it. I am not shaming you your beauty. Never change, Jim. Never.

OK. I’m ok. 3 pics down, we can get through this -

Oh you are joking. Stop.

I don’t understand how anyone can be so beautiful. Life is a lie. Reality is fake -

- you did NOT just turn your big anime eyes on Spock. You do know this is why he ran away to PURGE ALL HIS EMOTIONS?

And for that matter, you know when Kirk looks his most beautiful? Literally WHEN HE’S LOOKING AT SPOCK. Spock talks some bollocks and Kirk just sparkles like a fucking angel:

Unbelievable. But utterly undeniable.

Sigh. Moving on.

Oh - someone once suggested I talk about The Lips. Lips are so wonderful aren’t they. So many wonderful things they can do.

And Kirk’s. They’re there in every picture: perfect, rosy, soft and madness-inducing. My advice is just...don’t think about them. But since I’ve been asked to draw attention to them, well, you’ve just sealed your fate. Scroll down at your peril.

I WARNED YOU.

I am pulling NO punches.

I’ve seen this great meme going around:

Excuse me though....CUTE?

That’s the understatement of the 23rd century.

Try impossibly beautiful, mind and body: heart of solid gold, soul deep in love with you. Those eyes and all their passion burned into your memories a thousand times over, along with - maybe, suggestibly, idk I’m extrapolating from all the goddamn tension - even the one unforgettable time he laid between lily-white sheets and gave himself to you; every gift of the mind, body and soul - and your ostensibly-forced Vulcan conditioning, that completely ignored how incompatible one part of you was with it, caused so much dissonance that you thought the only possible course of action for you both to survive was to BREAK UP, tear yourself from this beauty and love and sweetness to PURGE ALL EMOTIONS because nothing, nothing equipped you for this; you were set up specifically to fail, and fail hard in the face of transcendental love and beauty by those who rejected such things and didn’t understand you and could never imagine this for you and who instead of helping your beautiful neurodivergent brain flourish taught you to repress and caused you pain and shame and Gol was so hard and Kirk was so sad, so very sad and depressed and hurt and yet he couldn’t stop loving you with a bond so strong he called to you across the stars and Gol was all for naught yet you still didn’t know how to live like this, it was torture, torture until the mind meld with the living machine flashed your BIOS and you knew, love.exe was suddenly running with no errors and he came after you and held you and you held hands and, and -

*sobbing*

just...give me a moment

YOU WONDER WHAT THE SUBTEXT (FRIKKIN’ MAIN TEXT) OF STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE WAS ALL ABOUT???

The pain?? The angst?? The two logical entities seeking contact, love, THIS SIMPLE FEELING? That fucking moment when spock walks on the bridge and the only way he can control himself is to be SUPER Vulcan, while his love gazes at him with those EYES, fucking huge and glittering and hurt and loving?? Is it so much a mystery what memories these two are carrying, what’s behind the searing tension???????

Love him. Love him Spock. Take him in your arms and love him. He’s for you. All for you. Fucking hell guys. The fuck. This movie.

ok.

ok I can do this

CAN U NOT

those damn eyes I swear

It’s obviously not all just superficial physical beauty. What IS beauty? Narratively we do sometimes find this ‘prettiness’ enhanced and emphasized like the old vaseline lens to set the tone of a scene (he’s vulnerable and delicate, or someone’s indeed in love with him so we see their ‘lens’ on him); but it is somewhat intangible and nebulous and changeable. I don’t think aesthetic beauty, if one deems it so, on its own, would be enough for the likes of Spock (indeed, no woman could charm him thusly); it's about something deeper. It’s about who he is. Who he is inside: the beautiful AND the imperfect. How his good and bad - how his ‘all’ - chimes with Spock’s 'all’. The Enemy Within deals with this, and shows how Spock loves all of Kirk, wants him complete, with both his light and shadow. The beauty of all of us is this totality and variance, not one intangible quality.

I’ll bet Spock’s parents knew immediately. Can you imagine Sarek trying to be a total bitch over Kirk, having heard the rumours and just wanting to have one more thing to reject Spock over, immediately projecting onto Kirk as some blow-up pretty-boy and how Incredibly More Disappointing My Son Is for being Obviously In Love With Stupid Illogical Human Doll Face Bubble Butt Bimbo Captain, and Amanda’s like, stfu, let me remind you Kirk is actually a Fucking Amazing Highly Decorated Starship Captain who Saves Your Life and don’t you DARE resent him just because he’s got tits/ass/tum/lips that won’t quit and is obviously the freakin’ sun Spock orbits. Mr ‘I married a human but that was special because it was logical’ or some bullshit. How is Kirk an illogical choice? I mean literally, Spock is a Science Genius™ on the federation’s FLAGSHIP whose well-matched Genius Captain™ understands him, accepts him, brings the best out of him, helps him fulfil his whole potential and is in love with him in the deepest and purest way and will be his bonded soulmate for ALL OF TIME and that fucking sour-faced bih at the start of that ep, ffs.

Of course Amanda stays in touch with Kirk, adores the fuck out of him, sends him old Vulcan lit on t’hy’la bonds (yes sarek, a T’HY’LA bond, so revered freakin’ poets write about it) etc because frankly her son could do FAR FUCKING WORSE.

FAR. FUCKING. WORSE.

Don’t...just don’t slip the bod into the equation, the face is enough for one post. We’re all in therapy for this already, let’s not relapse.

Oh, what’s the use. I’m gonna die. This is it. This is like the Monty Python joke that is so funny it kills you. This man is lethal. I need to stop this thread and purge all my emotions

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

That’s it. I’m dead. You’re dead. We’re all dead.

I hope, however, seeing this post was worth it. See you at Gol everyone.

The Forbidden Texts, DO NOT READ:

Kirk bod appreciation #6: The Curves. The Front. The...chest. AND THE AMAZING GREEN WRAP

Kirk bod appreciation #5: The Paws

Kirk bod appreciation #4: The Curves. The Back. Poetry in motion.

Kirk bod appreciation #3: Season 3 (Part 1)

Kirk bod appreciation #2b: The Gluteus Maximus

Kirk bod appreciation #2a: The Gluteus Maximus

Kirk bod appreciation #1: The Tum

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hungarianbee · 3 years

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Way of the Witcher: bits of lore

Disclaimer: Post contains spoilers to the Witcher games These things may be canon-typical, but the following trigger warnings apply if you want to check out the cards: gore, monster dismemberment, needles, body horror, insects and spiders

“In a world plagued by horrors and monstrosities humanity desperately needed a new type of weapon to turn back the tide. Created by ingenious Alzur, witchers — professional monster slayers of exceptional strength, speed, and agility were tasked to end the threat once and for all. Organized into different schools they honed their craft and passed their knowledge onto novices in training. Some of them were destined to become the legendary heroes and protectors of humanity. Others — the very thing they were supposed to fight…”

Since the gwent expansion was anounced I followed it with rapt attention; every bit of lore is a gem in my eyes. I decided to write down my thoughts of the cards and lore pieces revealed in a post. Share that knowledge around, amirite?

The post references Gwent cards which were leaked (2020 november-december). The theme is mutation and everything that comes with it; namely sweet-sweet lore of the lesser known witcher schools: the Bears, Cats, Vipers and Griffins.

Tucker in, under the cut there is 4.5k analysis of each card that came out.

We’re starting with a theme, then work our way throught the 4 schools (each contain the following: a leader, a mentor, an adept, a general witcher, a specific job, an item, a school relevant monster, 2 known witchers and a location), then go through a Witcher 1 throwback, Salamandra, and round it with a few new monsters and neutral cards.

While I describe most of the cards concisely and all the known witchers and locations are on my blog, you might want to look the cards in their (small) glory: [DO IT HERE]

Sounds good? Here we go!

Edit: [this source is better]

The theme is mutation - be it monsters created by transmutation, witchers or salamadra

If that is true, there are monster cards that seemingly stand out: the Succubus and the Phooca

If we are to believe that they do connect to the mutation theme, then

(1) we can conclude that Phoocas (a rare, and more dangerous form of Nekkers; they can pull your head off by sheer force, watch out) are a natural mutation of the original species,

(2) but we’re still left with the Succubi (an inherently demonic creature). They might have chosen it because of its appearance: succubi have horns and goat-like legs. (Note: in the graphic novel “House of Glass” the succubus character has wings, but lacks hooves. In that sense, she could be mutated.)

Breaking it down into factions/schools (some of the cards can be paired up; these cards are interpreted together):

School of the Viper: starting with the vipers, because they are my favourite

Viper Witcher Mentor & Viper Witcher Adept: the flavour text says that the Viper mentors are exceptionally cold and ruthless, and that’s underlined by the story the art tells: the mentor busies himself with sharpening a blade, and in the background we can see the adept attempting to kill his best friend goat, as was ordered. The mentor watches this from the corner of his eye. Young Vipers are to kill their pets (which they nurtured for years) before becoming a fully-fledged witcher. The latter could mean that the boy depicted on the card hasn’t even gone through the Trial of Grasses.

Viper Witcher: On the card we see an unknown Viper crouching over a royalty he killed. I feel like this type of card is meant to represent what we think a general Witcher of said school would be like. Apparently Vipers just like to slay the nobility *shrug*. The flavour text informs us, that Vipers call their two swords “fangs”, and that their style consists of fast and furious attack aimed to overwhelm the enemy.

Viper Witcher Alchemist: Every school has a specialty; Vipers are proficient in potion or poison making. The right side of the alchemist’s face seems to have healed burn marks; a blown up concoction might have caused it.

Ivar Evil-Eye: So far there’s little to know about Ivar. He was either the Master of the Viper Keep, or the founder himself (gwent suggests the latter). He’s described as heavily scarred (facial scars suggests burns and slash marks too), and each of them has a terrible story to tell.

Warritt the All-Seeing: Warritt is a (newly introduced) Viper with heavy disfiguration to the upper part of his face: his eyes are sealed shut (possibly by burn marks, though his hair remains intact). The art shows Warritt drawing a modified version of the Supirre sign in the air to help with his loss of sight. As the wiki says: “Supirre is a Sign used for eavesdropping. Drawn on a solid surface, it allows the people near this surface to listen nearby conversations which would be normally inaudible due to the distance or background noise.” It was only used in Sapkowsky’s second volume of the Hussite trilogy (not yet translated to English), which is entirely separate from the Witcher novels.

Kolgrim: Fate laughed at this Viper. As a kid he was swapped by a weeper, saved by a witcher, than rejected by his own mother who believed that the fake child was the real one. Later, as a grown witcher Ivar instructed him to find a lost weapon diagram. On his journey he was accused - ironically - in White Orchard of kidnapping a child. Invoking a Temerian law, Kolgrim was told to cleanse their crypt (as seen on the card) then he can go. The truth is revealed in Witcher 3 - Kolgrim was beheaded by the villagers before he could even step into the crypt. To add insult to injury: the child was eaten by a drowner. The gwent card therefore shows the optimistic outcome: that Kolgrim reached the crypt and passed in battle. And what’s up with a crypt full of wraiths anyway? White Orchard is shady, guys. (Lil’ trivia: Kolgrim’s eyes are yellow-green.)

Vypper: Basically an overgrown snake that likes damp marshes (they even fight the local kikimores for territory). They only relate to the mutation theme by their nature - they resemble the “school’s animal”.

Gorthur Gvaed: The Bloodgate Keep is located in the chasms of the Tir Tochair mountains. It’s built so high were you to look down from the bridge leading into the keep, you would only see fog (one could wonder how the vipers trained in these conditions). The bridge is made so that you’d have to cross the lookout tower - it might have served as a check in spot. The post itself is circled by the stone coils of a snake; the top is open and has a huge lit bonfire in the middle for warmth-keeping and possibly signaling. Unluckily, it didn’t stop the Usurper’s army from destroying the keep.

Coated Weapons: They leaned heavily into the alchemy and assassin side of the school. Vipers coat their blades with an acidic liquid, so they can kill a man with a nick of it.

School of the Cat:

Cat Witcher Mentor & Cat Witcher Adept: On the adept card we can see a young Cat walking the tightrope blindfolded (they start with close to the ground and slowly increase the distance with time); the mentor is looking up at him. Like the Vipers, Cat mentors are nonchalant about risking the kids as seen from the flavour text: “If you fall, it’s over. Your nine lives are up, kid.” Furthermore, the background of the Cat Witcher Adept card shows the not yet destroyed Stygga Citadel. The Cat Witcher Mentor is in the same scene and we can see lots of potatoes and cabbages; cats definitely eat their veggies.

Cat Witcher: The card shows a Cat in the heat of battle mid-jump; his hood is up, blood is flying everywhere. The flavour text emphasizes that cats are known for their mad bloodlust, not stopping killing even after the enemy capitulated.

Cat Witcher Saboteur: A Cat perches next to the window, a smoking bomb in hand, eavesdropping on nobles. A rope is hung from somewhere out of the pic, possibly for a quick exit. Vesemir comments that these are many-a deeds the cats did that taint the reputation of witchers.

Gezras of Leyda: Gezras is a not yet known redheaded Cat witcher. Following the pattern he seems to be the founder of the Cat School. His flavour text shows that even back then (when the mutagens made Cats emotionless) they were inclined to dislike humans: “Take a contract from Aen Seidhe over a dh’oine any day, as you’re far less likely to receive a knife between the ribs in place of coin.”

Brehen: Now this cat embodies the Cat madness. He’s known as the Cat of Iello because he massacred everyone there. He was consequently shunned by all the schools, and he was even convinced that Vesemir put a kill order on his head. He met Geralt later in the 1240s on his way to claim the bounty for the princess. Thinking that Geralt was there to rob him of his chance of the bounty, Brehen took a priestess as hostage (this is what we see on the gwent card). Geralt managed to convince him to put away the blade, and they parted without crossing blades. When meeting with the striga he scoffed into her face that “she won’t be his first royal”. But his luck ran out. The Temerians buried him and fabricated the story of a cowardly witcher stealing their coin. I’m halfway convinced we see Brehen in the netflix series.

Gaetan: This boy broke into the fandom like a bulldozer. After the folks in Honorton cheated him of his pay and tried to kill him, Gaetan flew into rage and killed everyone there except Millie, a girl who reminded him of his sister. That’s the scene we see on the card. And then Geralt robs/kills him.

Saber-Tooth Tiger (Stealth): Another huge animal/monster related to the school. It’s story is this: “The prized possession of royal menagerie, until a commando of Scoia’tael assaulted the exhibition, released the beast, and set it upon its cruel masters. Since that day, it has acquired a selective taste for human flesh.” Another cat turning against humans.

Stygga Castle: An outside view of what we already saw on the Cat Witcher Adept card. It’s located on a cliff, and the sun shines into it just right (so that the Cats can bask in the light). The walls form a circle where they shelter the inner grounds, and a bigger tower emerges in the middle. The Castle could be reached by the thin bridge connecting it to the mainland, or by the cliffs (if one is brave enough).

Making a Bomb: Cats seem to have a specialty in bombs. Guess where Lambert got his interest from *winkwink*

School of the Griffin: lots of pairs in this one

Griffin Witcher Mentor & Griffin Witcher Adept: Compared to the other schools, this pairing is tame - the adept is climbing a tree to retrieve a crossbow bolt. We can see the mentor in the background. On the mentor card the adept waves down with the retrieved crossbow bolt in hand. It shows a kind of comradeship that’s not present in the other 3 schools. The flavour text emphasizes the importance of knowledge. Students are afforded to choose their final Trial: recite the entire Liber Tenebrum (Book of Shadows; one of Keldar’s favourite books) or steal a griffin’s egg. Noone’s chosen the former.

Griffin Witcher: The witcher is shown shooting down a griffin. According to the flavour text they prefer hunting with silver-tipped arrowheads instead of swords.

Archgriffin & Griffin Witcher Ranger: On the Griffin Ranger card we see the witcher crouching over track marks. On the archgriffin card he found the albino (or very old) monster, who’s already killed someone (probably a lumberjack, judging by the axe). According to the flavour text, Griffin Witchers are trained to be professional trackers; nothing can stop them to reach their prey. Even though archgriffins are considered the embodiment of courage, loyalty and fighting spirit, the gwent card corrects the notion that the Griffin Witcher were named after the monster. In truth, they got the name in honour of their founder’s mentor, a knight named Gryphon.

Erland of Larvik: Continuing the trend, Erland is the founder of the Griffin School (one of the two that are confirmed 100%). He’s from the first generation of witcher, mutated by Alzur himself. After the Order began fracturing he had a confrontation with Arnaghan (who’ll be the founder of the bear school). Arnaghad almost killed one of his brothers, slashed Erland across the face then parted ways with the Order and left Morgraig Castle with his own group. Seeing that the the remaining witchers couldn’t go on like that, he grabbed his 13 best friend and left to Kaer Seren, where (after purging it from spectres) he founded the Griffin School which focused on magic, preparedness and flexibility. His teaching emphasized knightly values (mimicking his long-dead mentor, a knight named Gryphon) in hopes that it would make future witchers’ life easier. It didn’t.

Coen & Keldar: The cards are mainly connected by background. Coen is finished killing what appears to be an albino arachas (but it’s definitely an insectoid), while Keldar’s taking notes. We can rightly assume that he’s updating their bestiary, since he’s one of the teachers/mentors who focus on gathering and sharing knowledge. Coen’s flexibility shows in the flavour text: “There is no such thing as a fair fight. Every advantage and every opportunity that arises is used in combat.” Not very knightly, is it?

Kaer Seren: The “Star Keep” Erland and his friends fled to. It was used by the Order’s mages to mutate witchers (that’s why it was haunted by spectres). It’s located at the edge of the Dragon mountains by the sea between Poviss and Kovir. It’s said to possess the great library, which later mages tried to get for themselves. They messed up: by bringing down an avalanche on the Keep, that knowledge was destroyed. The keep was badly damaged and many witchers died.

Target Practice: The Griffin School’s specialty is their precise aim - they “can split an apple in two from a hundred paces”.

School of the Bear:

Bear Witcher Mentor & Bear Witcher Adept: The adept card shows that young witcher are taught to catch fish by hand (just like their school relevant animal). On the mentor card the elder witcher leads a group of younglings in the mountains; possibly out to teach tracking. The cards are connected by flavour text. The young Bear witcher-would-be’s need to complete the Trial of the Mountain, which consists of them climbing Mount Gorgon (also known as the Devil Mountain; it is the highest peak of the Amell range) to retrieve a runestone. The Trial often ends with the kids frozen to death. The Bear Mentor card’s flavour confirms it: “If you’re unsure of the way, just keep a lookout for markers - the frozen corpses of would-be witchers.” This sounds ominous - don’t they collect their fallen?

Bear Witcher: Bears are solitary hunters as seen in the flavour text: “life alone can be tough”. The witcher in the pic just dismembered what looks like a ghoul (with a tail?).

Bear Witcher Quartermaster: This one I like. The Quartermaster is an amputee (missing one of his arms, which was taken by a bear; must have won that fight one-handed), yet they still found a job for him where he can be useful. His flavour text suggest he likes Mahakam mead.

Arnaghad: The founder of the Bear School, he never felt kinship with his fellow witchers. After attacking a witcher named Rhys over a contract, wounding him deeply from shoulder to waist, he returned to Morgraig, attacked Erland then left with his possé to found the Bear School - Haern Caduch - in the Amell Mountains. Later he almost died in a betrayal, which resulted in another schism and the foundation of the Viper School.

Gerd: Gerd’s a legendary witcher who fled to Skellige after allying with a Usurper instead of his daughter, who later issued a warrant for his arrest. He has a busy time in Skellige: first slaying a dragon, befriending the Jarl Torgeir, killing a bunch of sirens, losing so many weapon diagrams you wouldn’t believe, losing half his pay and silver sword on gwent, escaping Nilfgaard and managing to slay a striga, killing some of his pursuers, only to be caught up in the siege of Torgeir’s castle, where he died in the ruins. On the card he’s showing Bear-typical strength: he’s tearing apart a siren with his bear hands.

Junod of Belhaven: Junod had a dubious background, but was thought to be the child of a brave dwarf and a giantess. He’s a huge man, with a big bushy beard and bald head. His sobriquet is false; he took it after Ivo, because he liked the ring of it. He was known as a strict haggler and a bit of a gambler. In 1243 he took a contract in hopes of cash (he wanted to forge the Grandmaster Ursine Armour). The subterranean monster was said to live in the caverns. Junod drew bear signs and wrote a warning on the wall (this is the scene we see on the card). He was however ill-prepared; the beast turned out to be a shaelmaar (a type of relic Gaetan slew once) that killed him in that very cavern.

Dire Bear: Once again related to the school in question, the Dire Bear is stuck with so much weaponry that it looks like a walking armory. Lots of witchers must have tried to slay it, yet it still kicks - just like Bear Witchers, it’s resilient till the very end.

Haern Caduch: Built into the side of the Amell Mountains, it’s the coldest environment of all the schools. As with the other schools, the Bears were forced out of it due to folk riots. It was left in disrepair to be buried under snow and ice (as seen on the card). It’s name could be translated as “Piercing Whiskers”.

Armor Up: As Bear’s are more likely to stand in the way of attack than dodge, they need to wear a heavy armour at all times.

Salamandra:

Roland Bleinheim & Gellert Bleinheim: Witcher 1 characters. They are thought to be brothers, leading the Salamandra organization. As drug lords one heads the fisstech operation in Vizima’s sewers (Roland), the other in the swamps (Gellert). The flavour text pretty much matches: both of them wondering what the other one is doing.

Salamandra Mage: The art itself was already leaked in China around 2 years back, and there were a few theories. One of them was that the man depicted is Zerrikanian, and I think that’s correct. Both the facial tattoo, darker skin, thinly braided hair and fire magic points in that direction. Azar Javed (a known Salamandra fire mage) happens to be a Zerrikanian escapee too.

Salamandra Lackey: A girl with the Salamandra-stapled mask runs from a city guard. The flavour text says the following: “Lackeys are expected to perform their first five jobs for no pay, demonstrating their passion for the gig.” The organization monitors from the beginning that only those remain who are extremely loyal to their cause.

Fallen Rayla: A little background for those who are unfamiliar with her: Rayla of Lyria was a veteran of the Nilgaardian Wars. She harbours anti-nonhuman sentiments after she was captured by Scoia’taels and severely maimed. The Rayla we see on the card is a mutant - in Witcher 1 she was supposedly shot down by Scoia’tael, and Salamandra found her close to death, subjected her to mutation. She was killed by Geralt.

Salamander: The card shows a bright blue spotted salamander. It has two tails and heads (possibly grown together?). The Salamander is a symbol of the organization. Metaphorically speaking it could mean, that Salamandra thought of itself as something untouchable: “best to avoid petting them, as the salamander, when threatened, secretes a deadly toxin”.

Failed Experiment: The card - ironically - thrives when it’s poisoned. The “experiment” only resembles a human in shape. It’s clutching the table ends, as if trying to escape still. It’s fair to assume that they later dissected it: “even failed experiments can serve a purpose”.

Salamandra Abomination: A step further from the failed experiment - we see the results of pushing science’s boundaries. Only the skull is left intact, everything else of the body is covered with insectoid-like growths.

Stolen Mutagens: Gruesome organ harvesting. The witcher heart (?) glows, which is either an artistic decision (probable) or the mages sent magic into the body, and the mutagens light up (like angiographia). Three types of mutagens can be harvested: red (strength), blue (magic) or green (resilience). I headcanon that the amount they inject of the three types can vary - that’s how you get strength inclined witchers like the wolves (red), or big ass mothers like the bears (green).

Salamandra Hideout: There are multiple hideouts in Witcher 1 (outskirt of Visima, crypt in sewers and one in the trade quarters). The one depicted here is the fisstech lab in the sewers. It shows a dimly lit, cobwebbed room. There’s an elevation where a body lays on the table. The elevation’s floor is gridded, so the blood and other fluids can freely flow down into the sewer water, where many bodies are already discarded recklessly.

Neutral:

Alzur & Viy & Koshchey: Alzur was a charismatic mage and spell inventor, who created many horrible monsters, like the koshchey (with the spell: Alzur’s Double Cross) and the Viy (a huge centipede-like insectoid). He was also the one who did the lion’s share of work with the witcher’s mutation.

Cosimo Malaspina: Cosimo was the teacher of Alzur. He was known for his knowledge in hybridization and genetic modification. Him and Alzur were the true creators of the witchers sect. On the gwent card, three man are shown prodding at a mutated body. Cosimo (the old dude) is in the middle, Alzur might be the one on the left and that leaves Idarran on the right. His flavour text paints him as cold and clinical, someone without empathy: “Children keep asking him for gifts. He doesn’t know why, but it really helps with finding subjects for his experiments.”

Idarran of Ulivo & Idr & Wererat: Idarran was one of the contributers of the witcher experiments. He’s an expert in hybridization and genetic modification, whose teacher was Alzur. He was a pale kid who lived in the canals of Vizima and experimented on rats at the age of 5. He found beauty in gruesome creations, like the Wererat (a human-sized rat on roids) and the Idr (a big centipede-like insectoid). He’s disdained by Geralt for his many monsters.

Triangle within a Triangle: It’s a magic spell used to introduce a series of mutations and to greatly increase the mass of a given body. That way they can create huge monstrosities, like the koshchey. Adepts often confuse it with a pentagram which can lead to infernal disasters.

Selective mutation: The card shows a close up of a young man’s eyes - one mutated (catlike) one human. His skin shows his high toxicity level, ashen with prominent veins. He’s held down as alchemists prepare to inject a yellow concoction into the human eye. It’s possible that after the success of witchers the mages tried to recreate the changes in smaller scale, then unmake it in turn, unsuccessfully.

Witcher Student: This is not really a card, but I included it anyway. The card’s ability is - ironically - doomed, and to add insult to injury, its flavour text is the following well-known fact: “Four out of ten boys survive… at most.” It’s also a point for black humour that the gwent commentators added: the Trial of Grasses card boosts this unit significantly.

Berengar: He’s a Wolf School Witcher who blamed his school for denying him a normal life and consequently abandoned them. In Witcher 1 Geralt can decide to kill or spare him. In a letter he admits that he was a coward because he betrayed Kaer Morhen and worked with Salamadra in hope that they can undo his mutation. His card references a questline in Witcher 1, where he tried to reason with the vodyanoi (~lovecraftian fish people) to spare the village’s prize-winning cow, named Strawberry. This is non-canon; in the game Geralt takes over the quest to do this instead.

Leo: Another Witcher 1 character. He was an orphan taken in by Vesemir. He was a kind-hearted but hot-headed man, who had all the training but not the mutations and the experience - he never killed a man. The flavour text of his gwent card kind of mocks his death: “He would have caught the arrow if he only had some heads-up.” He’s burned on a pyre and his cenotaph can be found south of Kaer Morhen.

Geralt: Quen: The last classical sign that wasn’t yet a card. In the art, Geralt is wearing the Manticore armour

Snowdrop: She’s a not yet seen character; impish looking female bard with light blond hair (flowers braided on the side) who plays a medieval version of the fiddle to a rooster. There’s a horseshoe hanging from the hem of his pants. She’s also seen in the gwent: journey #3 launch trailer. She’s narrating that she was saved by Alzur. Alzur told her about his plans of creating witchers to fight the beasts of the Continent, and she admired him so much she spread his story (”let me tell you about the greatest sorceress to ever lived”). Their story will unveil in the next week, I’ll probably update accordingly. It’s also interesting that Alzur says in the gwent intro (regarding witchers): “Bards will toil to do justice to their feats.” As if his own successes and experiences will be mirrored in his creations. Projecting much?

Monsters:

Viy & Idr: both of them are centipede-like insectoids conjured by infamous mages (see: Alzur and Idarran)

Wererat: same can be said about this one. Idarran experimented on Vizima’s sewer rats since the age of 5. This human sized abomination was the end result.

Succubus: We already discussed how the “Succubus” doesn’t fit the theme. Other interesting thing is the surrounding of her - in the background we can see a skull full of some kinda of dark liquid; she’s also holding a goblet. I’m not saying she’s drinking blood, but if she does, it would shed some questions as succubi don’t need to drink blood at all.

Phooca: As nekkers’ rare big brother, phoocas are ogroids that have the strength to rip a man’s head off with their bear hands. According to the wiki, in Celtic folklore they are regarded as shapeshifting fairies.

Koshchey: A witcher 1 boss, koshcheys are spider-like abominations summoned by mages. The woman standing her ground in the picture is Visenna (Geralt’s druid mom). In the story she’s the one to kill the first koshchey ever created.

Spontaneous Evolution: Under the Red Moon the wolf mutated into an amalgamation of eyes and teeth. Malaspina possibly added something to the mix that proved unstable. The card’s name is kind of ironic - this change is not spontaneous (it was induced) but could be related to evolution (it would imply that this form is somehow advantageous to the current environment and helps adaptation). (Note: in my opinion spontaneous generation would be a better term: it’s the thought that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter.)

Hybrid: the card shows a two-headed wolf or dog. Pretty straight-forward.

Chimera: A creature created my Cosimo Malaspina. He combines the genes of a fiend and griffin, then added a trace of insectoid and wyvern. It kind of looks like a furred wyvern with antlers. Interestingly the frightener (an insectoid; a rare result of magical experiment) is also called a chimera.

Dol Dhu Lokke: a new monster lair location. The depending on how you translate “lokke” the Elder can be read as “black valley place” or “alluring black valley”. It’s so dangerous - housing many-a horrors - that even a witcher thinks twice before going near it.

Interesting tidbits

Coen has hair, which is weird because so far he was described in all sources as bald.

There used to be a card that was also called Viper Witcher, which is now referred to as “Kingslayer”

The Bear Witcher’s face was drawn after one of CDPR’s employee.

The Koshchey’s card title has a typo: “Koschchey”.

Easter eggs (mainly in flavour text)

The Spontaneous Evolution card references The Powerpuff Girls intro: “Professor Malaspina accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction - compound X.”

The Bear Witcher card might reference a song of Baloo from the Jungle Book (The Bare Necessities): “Life alone on the road can be tough - be sure to bring all the bare necessities.”

#my shit #the witcher #gwent #witcher meta #witcher lore #i worked really hard on this #i hope it shows lol #if y'all have any thoughts i'd be happy to hear about them #cross my heart i don't bite

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be-ready-when-i-say-go · 4 years

Text

Here’s a half formed thought about Calum going back to school at the same time as you during the crazy ass pandemic. Enjoy.

Reader insert. No race or gender.

********************

You were always going back to school. When you ran into Calum last year--though it really wasn’t you running into Calum; he was doing his grocery shopping and you checked him out--you knew being a clerk at the grocery store wasn’t the end all be all for you.

What you had noticed over the couple of months is that whenever Calum seemed to be doing his grocery shopping, he always came through your line. It didn’t matter if you were the only line opened or on the weekends one of the several lines open, Calum was there. He started with small talk, asking you how your day was going. And you asked about his. He shocked you the first time he used your name. But you forgot that it was on your name tag. “Well if you know my name it’s only fair I know yours,” you teased.

“Calum,” he returned easily, taking the brown paper bags after you carefully packed them.

Sometimes you noticed his dog in the cart and asked about them. You learned his name is Duke and that he’s been affectionately dubbed Baby Grandpa by Calum. And eventually, though you hadn’t really meant to, you noticed things he bought frequently and whenever you happened across his path while walking to or from back break, you’d let him know if there was a sale going on.

And thought it was only just friendly chat while you were on the clock, you were out pumping gas on your way to lunch with your friends when you heard your name. As you turned, there was Calum, walking out of the gas station, waving as he pushed his sunglasses back to cover his eyes.

“Fancy meeting you here,” you laughed, waving in return. What you hadn’t expected as Calum walked across the lot to the pumps is that he would chat until the question of a date fell off from his lips. And sure Calum was attractive, and sure the conversation over the weeks while you checked out his items had turned a little flirty but you hadn’t expected that Calum felt anything remotely serious about you to ask you on a date.

But you accepted. And there you were able to talk over a nice picnic that excluded Duke, but at your explicit disappointment at not seeing the old dog, Calum promised that next time, he would make sure to include Duke. That picnic lead to a movie, which lead to dinner, which lead to a date shopping for Duke because of the upcoming holidays, which lead to dinner at his place, and then hanging out with his friends for a quick drink one night, which lead to movie nights at each others place.

And somewhere in all of it, you were dating Calum. He called when you had the closing shift at work to make sure you got home safely. Or if you spent the night, he’d make you breakfast, and he soothed your back as you hunched in front of your laptop to paid for applications for grad school. And he listened to the way you talked about knowing you couldn’t stay in this spot forever and he encouraged you go back to school. You could feel out that school was something that Calum was considering but he hadn’t been too serious about it. Not the band, the tours, the in the studio’s late--just never felt like he had the time.

Occasionally, you talked about some of the online courses you saw the schools had. But Calum hadn’t fully budged. By the time you got news about you going back to school, with funding, and sorting that news out with your job, Calum asked you if you thought he should give a crack at school. You told him the truth, that if he wanted to go for it, he should. And soon, things crumbled globally with the pandemic. And locked in the house most of the time, you dropped subtle and not so subtle hints that making those online classes might be closer and closer to coming true.

Now you’re here, sitting at the dining room table, your printed out readings and books scattered in front of you. Calum’s on the couch. His notes on the coffee table. You’re in class, listening to the lecture headphones in and you look over to Calum, his class ended just as yours started. His fingers are working over the keys.

He’s only in a couple of classes. And though you’re in one more class than him, there’s the added struggle of the work you do too. It’s administrative, but there’s meetings once a week and you still find yourself being offloaded onto with lots of small annoying data tracking tasks. It’s paying for school, so you do it with minimal complaints, but a few nonetheless.

You’re so lost watching Calum working that you don’t even realize that the class you’re in is preparing for small breakout rooms until someone calls your name. You blink and turn back to the screen. “Sorry, zoned out. We’re discussing the reading, yeah?”

Your group nods and you manage to get back on track until the end of your class. Just as you’re closing down the Zoom app, at least for the half hour before your meeting for work, Calum calls out. “Class done?”

You nod, popping out the earbuds. “Yeah. Got that meeting for work soon though.”

He hums, glancing up from the screen. He seems tired. Most of your nights both of you are up kinda late. Though, you make sure to turn it in early and practically drag Calum to bed a couple hours later. He’ll get caught up, work way too late into the night and then have to be up early for band meetings too. “Want me to fix dinner tonight then?”

“It’s my night. I can still do it.”

“You sure. I know you’ve got to fix that spreadsheet too and do your readings for the week.”

You shake your head. “I can still cook. Might even start during our meeting.”

Calum laughs, remembering the other times you turned off your camera and shuffled around the kitchen to cook in meetings or in classes too. “Nonsense. Almost done with this paper, so I’ll cook. But as an exchange, if you don’t mind, could you read over this? It’s only a response to a reading and it’s not super long or anything. But this instructor’s a fucking hardass.”

You nod. You’ve read over his papers before. Most of the times it’s just making sure he has correct citations and you might make a note about needing a thesis statement or needing more of his analysis between his evidence. But it’s not much that you ever feel like you need to mention on his papers. You’ve found, most often, what Calum needs is just someone to listen to his ideas so he can sort them out loud and then all you do is take down the notes of what he said. Listening to him talk about this philosophy class and Literature class is awe inspiring. He always has more questions than answers, but it’s those questions that always lead him to some pretty amazing places in his writing.

“Is this the professor that got on you about the spacing on that first paper?”

Calum nods, pushing the laptop to the coffee table on top of his notes. “Yes! Even you couldn’t see what was wrong, so I still don’t understand what they got on me about. And I formatted the second outline in the exact same way and didn’t get any points taken off, so I really don’t understand.”

“Well, it could’ve been Google Docs. When you downloaded it into Pages, the formatting might’ve gotten wonky? But even the Pages document looked fine, so I really don’t know what happened there. But you’re doing it all in Pages now and then exporting to a PDF when you submit correct?”

“Yeah, I am. Thanks for that tip though. I didn’t realize Pages wouldn’t work in the submission center.” His shuffle into the kitchen is paired by the click of Duke’s paws on the floor. Calum presses a quick kiss to the top of your head. “Spaghetti?”

Holding onto his forearm draped around your chest, you nod. “Spaghetti sounds lovely.”

“I saw you staring at me while you were in class,” he whispers close to your ear.

“What? You’re hot. Sue me.”

His chuckle is soft, a rumble in his chest that you feel through your back. “Most definitely can’t sue you over that. But don’t make me go in the office. I need you to pass these classes.”

“I appreciate the concern, dear. But I think I’m doing pretty good. Besides, I’m signed up for a random art history class. I can say you’re a piece of art I needed to analyze.”

The laughter’s not soft now, he full on giggles--a bit of it getting cut off as he inhales into the sound. “You’re ridiculous.” His lips are soft against your temple as he stands back up. “So spaghetti. Garlic bread is a must. Salad?”

“Ugh, I guess I do need veggies.”

“Yes, yes you do.” He continues into the kitchen, the clinking of pots hitting the isle’s of the stove and bowls, boxes, and jars setting onto the counter.

“How’s the other class going? You guys starting your novels yet?”

“19th Century Lit is well, 19th Century Lit.” Calum seemed intrigued by the Evil Children’s class you told him you saw. But it had filled by the time Calum got his work schedule sorted out. He turned to 19th Century Lit as his backup, and so far, it appeared to be going well. “We’re spending the first part on poetry. And that’s the most interesting. The rest of the books sound a little boring.”

You hum, nodding even though he can’t see you. “Hopefully the class picks up. I took a look at the spring classes. If you want to focus more on poetry there’s a Modern Poetry post 1930′s class.”

The glance is quick, but his brows are pulled upwards, in a slight intrigue. “I’d consider it for sure.”

The alarm on your phone goes off, letting you know you have ten minutes until the meeting. You turn back to your computer and start logging into the meeting. “You haven’t had an assignment for that class yet have you?”

“No. The midterm’s coming up soon though and I don’t even know how to begin to study for it.”

You pop one earbud in making sure your mic is muted. “You know I got you, babe.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got your classes too. I-I might stop by the professors office hours and ask for help.”

“That’s always a good idea. Do you know when they are?”

“Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s.” You know he doubled checked them because he probably wouldn’t have that readily available from the first day of classes. “Gonna go tomorrow.”

Popping up from the chair, you press a kiss to his cheek, as the pan sizzles just a little and the pot of water not showing signs of bubbles just yet. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Calum returns, pulling you fully into his chest for a swift kiss. “Now, go! You’ve got a meeting.”

“Meeting schmeeting. Would rather kiss you.” You kiss him one last time before ducking back into the chair and turning the camera on. You notice just faintly in the background Calum’s visible as he shuffles between pans and pots. Duke walks up to you, standing up to get attention.

“Oh, you know I can’t say no,” you mutter, setting him in your lap.

“Is that Duke?” your supervisor asks. He’s crashed a couple meetings before.

You unmute and hold him better for everyone to see. “Yeah. His pops is cooking us dinner and that lack of attention just won’t do.”

“Hey, you say that like I don’t love him,” Calum retorts, threatening the back of your head with a spatula. You giggle before muting yourself and place Duke back into your lap, digging up the word document you’ve started for all the meeting notes.

Your supervisor laughs. “Well I think he’s getting plenty of attention in the chat.” There are some more dings as people join the meeting. “Looks like we have everyone, so let’s begin.”

tagging @calumscalm because you might still be taking that exam, love.

and @5-secondsofcolor bc sunday reads bubs.

#calum hood #calum hood blurb #calum hood imagine #calum hood fanfic #calum hood fic #calum hood x reader insert #calum 5sos #5sos #5sos fanfic #5sos blurb #5sos imagine #calum hood fluff #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer fanfic #5 seconds of summer fic #5 seconds of summer imagine #h writes

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snowdice · 4 years

Text

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 22]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

The hope is to work on this for quite a bit today. Please come keep me company with asks if you feel so inclined.

Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

“We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

“Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of thick glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness. It was so caked on that Janus couldn’t even recognize him.

In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

“Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

“Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

“Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

“Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

“Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

“He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

“Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

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Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

“Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

“There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

“Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

“You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

“Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

“You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

“Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

“It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

“He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

“Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

“You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

“Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

“Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

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Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

“I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

“Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

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“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

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“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

“Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

“What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

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Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

“What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

“I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Patton smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

“It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Patton agreed, “but you did.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

When they got to the museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

#study break stories #not writing

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champion-of-thedas · 3 years

Text

The Negative Arc of Ennio Salieri

After this past chapter of Eating Alone, I’ve thought a lot about Don Salieri and how I’m interpreting and writing him. Just a warning but this is going to be a loooong post. I actually rewrote it because I thought it was too long, and it still is lol.

I’ll start with a quick explanation of the negative arc for those not into lit analysis. Feel free to ignore this paragraph if you’re already familiar. The negative arc tells the story of a character that ends the story in a worse place than where they started. I would argue that many Mafia stories have these (Vito Scaletta being the foremost one that comes to mind). There are three kinds of basic negative character arcs: the Disillusionment arc (I’d argue this one for Vito), the Fall arc, and the Corruption arc. I feel the Salieri goes through the fall arc, which goes as follows: character believes lie, character clings to lie, rejects new truth, believes stronger or worse lie.

Let’s talk about the truth and the lie of this tale. The lie that Salieri believes is that he is better than Morello, which he has three reasons for. Those qualifiers that he sets up for being ‘better than Morello’ are being a competent business man, a father to his men, and a pillar of the community. We, of course, know he is exactly like Morello when the chips come down to it, but this is the lie Ennio convinces himself with (and does so for others as well). There is a slow decline over the chapters where his humanity hinges on two touchstones: Frank Coletti and Marcu Morello. These events are what challenge the lie.

Let’s look at how the lie is established and how he is presented in the first part (referring to the five groups of four chapters between the diner book ends). He wants to help out Tommy by giving him a loan and tell Morello that he can’t hurt the regular people in Little Italy, projecting a certain ideology to Tommy and the rest of the trio gathered. After Tommy and Paulie burn down the parking lot, Salieri talks about how Morello’s anger will burn out his brain (words implying that he’s like a child). Then, Salieri gives his rules for the neighborhood: no swearing (a very parent like guideline), no drugs (pillar of the community), and be careful with the police (trying to show caution instead of aggression; also gives the impression of ‘local, mom and pop’ compared to big shot Morello). Next chapter he has Paulie and Sam show Tommy the ropes and gives explicit instructions not to be rough with anybody, although he probably was well aware that would happen anyway. Plausible deniability and showing how he “cares” for his community. Because we, the player, have very little evidence to contradict this notion, we are not aware of the lie that Salieri believes, but we do get to see the conviction with which he believes it.

The lie gets fleshed out with fair play. He is still concerned with his lie considering his conundrum with how to treat the other driver (Morello didn’t have the same concern and faced no consequences so either he has friends at the track too or that was never actually a problem), and he mentions how a lot of people in the neighborhood come to him for financial advice. The fact that he does this is meant to illustrate both his competency as a business man and the fact that the community trusts him. We skip ahead at to Better Get Used To It, and he is full of apparently righteous fury at the treatment of Sarah. He talks about how she is a daughter to him (father) and how people won’t protected by them and they’ll lose business, but if you stick around a minute you hear his rant about the hotel and how he feels like certain things are falling apart. Here and when they find out about Ghilotti in the next chapter, Salieri is furious, but it comes from his business sense. He is still concerned about the health of his organization, but it does foreshadow Salieri’s temper and ruthlessness when things don’t go his way. His behavior, especially when it comes to the hotel, indicates that he can be vengeful when the chips are down. Ultimately, this is still reinforcing the lie, but it allows us to see the cracks in it.

Here is when things start to get juicy and where Salieri chooses to cling to the truth. At the very beginning of part three, we get a long conversation with Frank. This is a meaty conversation, especially for the insight it gives into Salieri. Up until now, this kind of behavior has only been hinted at, never confirmed. We start off the next chapter with Frank mentioning that Salieri has been going over the books with him AGAIN. It’s a throwaway but becomes important later as it hints that Frank isn’t the person that botched that chapter’s job. His calm demeanor during the conversation is him still staying calm and business like but reflective. It is the opposite of the way someone would be expected to behave when they find out they’ve been betrayed. His contemplative nature and reflection on the dog, then calling his child self stupid, is him clinging to the truth. He’s saying, “I’m not that person anymore. I’ve grown.” Considering how Salieri (and even Tommy during the conversation with Norman) portray Morello as childish during conversations, establishing his maturity is important to Salieri. Tommy’s conversation with Frank has him talking about he is tired of waiting for Salieri to kill him, telling the player that if Salieri’s most trusted feels this way. The rest of part 3 is largely him continuing businesslike behavior (introducing Tommy to the safe cracker and the whole thing with Paulie and the whiskey deal), which is him trying to return to normal, like the whole thing with Frank never happened.

Then, the third intermezzo happens. So, a huge aspect of negative arcs is the fact that the character will have the opportunity to see the truth on multiple occasions and cling to their lie until the turning point occurs (which is different depending on the type of arc). Intermezzo 3 actually shows hints of it when we hear a very important line from Tommy: “And Salieri, he finally start talkin’ about gettin’ outta Morello’s shadow. Maybe buyin’ our own cops, our own politicians.” Salieri at this point, is continuing to act on the idea that he is better than Morello, but he’s moving himself to the point where he’ll be forced to see the truth. I won’t go further with this too much, but part four is just riddled with Salieri clinging to this idea that he’s better than Morello as time and time again things go wrong or they go right. His opportunities to see the truth come in the form of the violence he or his men inflict (in particular the occasion with Carlo) and the sheer amount of destruction that he orders. Note that the sheer violence of the war is staggering, and it starts because Salieri makes arguably a reckless move by putting a judge on the take without checking (at least checking well) if this person is on Morello’s take. Whether or not this would have happened with Frank, we wouldn’t know, but Salieri’s ambition starts one thing. Salieri might still not see the truth, but, if they couldn’t before, the player can. The biggest piece of foreshadowing in this part is the last line. “See you on the other side Marcu.”

The seeing the truth and rejecting it happens off screen. I’ve talked about what I think the turning point for Salieri and Tommy’s relationship is, and I feel like the rejection of the truth comes when Salieri finds out about Frank. In great contrast to all conceived previous behavior, Salieri has Frank and his entire family killed. During the first conversation with Frank, Salieri only specifies something should happen to Frank (and this is in contrast to the original game where he wanted to provide for the Collettis after Frank’s death). He has a moment where he could show mercy, leave Frank alone or just leave his family alone, and this is a direct hit to his lie, that he is better than Morello. At this point... Who does he have to be better than with Morello gone? He doesn’t have a person to compare himself to that makes him question his anger and he directs his wrath from there. Frank is a traitor, Morello is dead, Tommy is a traitor, Paulie is useless, and Sam is a soldier. He has no equal and no protégé. His lie is no longer that he is better than Morello. His new, worse like is that he is better than everyone, and this time it is not morally. He is in charge. Tommy talks about how Salieri acted like they “owned the whole damn town”, but it was really that he owned it. He didn’t have to bother with putting on airs after this. This is why the three stipulations dissolve. After election campaign, he loses some of the father to his men by deliberately leaving out information about the job and not worrying about the health of “his boys”. He’s bringing dope into the community, not worrying about his position as a pillar of it. The business sense stays only because it is his business that makes him better than other people. Even then, that goes a little bit out of the window when vengeance (because Sam never got information that Tommy and Paulie weren’t planning on cutting them in after the fact, either Sam or Salieri assumed) became more important and he decided to get rid of some of his most successful soldiers. We still see the truth in the end, that Ennio Salieri is exactly like Morello, but he was ultimately blind to it.

#long post #mafia remake #Mafia: Definitive Edition #mafia definitive edition #mafia de #mafia de fandom stuff #ennio salieri #analysis #I’m doing one for Vito after this when I have time

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flowerpowell · 4 years

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Unexpected (Drake x MC)

PART FIFTEEN

A/N: So... Dani and Liam kinda took over this chapter but I hope it’s okay. I promise it is getting somewhere! Also, sorry for the delay in posting, I had a hard time with writing anything. Also x2, this chapter may suck because I think I forgot how to write in English. Pardonne-moi.

Rating: PG

Word count: 2256

Tagging: @gardeningourmet @delightfullypinkglitter @desireepow-1986 @hopefulmoonobject @dcbbw @kingliam2019 @the-soot-sprite @thequeenofcronuts @badchoicesposts @burnsoslow @annekebbphotography @alesana45 @axwalker @walkerduchess @ao719 @texaskitten30 @lodberg @cordonianroyalty @emichelle @siriusxxvideos @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @samihatuli @choices-lurker @i-miss-trr @drxkewalker @nikkis1983 @innerpostmentality @msjr0119 @bascmve01 @mind-reader1 @edgiestwinter @drakesensworld @queenjilian @princessleac1 @saivilo @yukinagato2012 ♥

“Hey, can you please pass the charger?”

Dani looked up from her bed and wordlessly threw the charger at her sister.

“Thanks.”

“Are you going to call Drake?” She asked but already knew the answer. It had been a few weeks since Riley moved out from Drake’s cabin and moved into Dani’s hotel room. She said she talked with Drake but decided it was better for them to stay separate. She still visited him when it was his turn with Bartie.

“Nah, I’m just looking at furniture for my restaurant.”

“Riley...”

“Please, Dani, stop. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ri, it’s been weeks. You’ve seen the lab results, Drake didn’t do anything wrong, he was tricked!”

“I know. And this is why I shouldn’t be with him.”

“That makes no sense.” Dani shook her head.

Riley swallowed hard before blurting out, “we both will be safer that way.”

Dani turned to her and sat down on the bed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean... It’s better for us if we’re not together.”

“But--”

“I tried to love my parents but they didn’t care about me. I loved my grandma and she left me. I... liked Drake and he got drugged. I just... I need to accept the fact that I should be alone.”

“This is nonsense! Riley, people--”

“Dani, please. I made my decision. I just wish Drake would hate me already. It’d be easier for us.” She said quietly. Drake tried to talk to her, call her but she wouldn’t answer back. She expected him to give up but he never did. Never... until this week. It was Thursday and he hadn’t called for the whole week. Riley wasn’t sure if what she felt was a relief or a hearbreak.

Dani shook her head. She loved her sister but couldn’t understand her. The only thing she knew was that she couldn’t fix her sister’s relationship. She had to do it herself.

Dani had been meeting up with Liam for the past few weeks, trying to figure out the way to bring Drake and Riley together but nothing seemed to work. Nothing because Riley was too stubborn.

She looked at her phone and read a message from Liam.

“You’re smiling like an idiot. Is it Liam?” Riley asked and Dani looked at her sister innocently.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I need to go though. And I might pick up some coffee to wake me up,” she added.

“What’s up with you and coffee? You always hated it!”

“I never hated it, it just always made me feel like I was having a heart attack. But I’ve been so tired recently that coffee is the only thing that keeps me awake.”

“Man, you must be pretty stressed,” Riley murmured and went back to scrolling.

“Yeah, well, my sister is now living with me because she had an argument with her husband, my brother-in-law was drugged and my father is sending me to law school. I guess I am pretty stressed,” she answered and her eyes widened in horror. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound so passive aggressive. I’m just really tired.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t know about the law school. Why did you agree? You hate law!”

“Do you remember the last time I tried to disagree with father? This is why.”

“Dani... Maybe you should talk to him. And stop caring so much about everything. It only makes you sick!”

“Someone has to care,” Dani replied and. Riley sighed.

“You know... Not everything that’s weighing you down is yours to carry.”

Dani looked at her, surprised, but Riley was already focused on her phone. She shook her head and left the room.

~~~~

“I talked to Drake, he’s ready to give up,” Liam told Dani as they were drinking coffee. “He’s tired of not knowing why Riley is acting the way she is acting.”

“I know, I’d be pretty frustrated too. But he can’t give up. Riley... is a mess. She has many issues she needs to figure out but I’m sure she’ll finally realize she wants to be with Drake.”

Liam sighed, “I just hope it won’t be too late.”

He took empty mugs and put them back on the drawer. Dani walked up to Liam’s desk and looked at his laptop.

“Is that the footage from Savannah and Betrand’s disappearance?” she asked and chucked when Liam raised an eyebrow. “Riley told me everything.”

“Yes. The first one is what our police found and the second one was lost but Madeleine’s detective found it and she gave it to us.”

“Madeleine, huh. And it’s not fake?” Dani asked as she watched the two videos carefully.

“Nope. The footage is legit. No editing, no photoshop, no--”

“NAILS!”

“No nails?” Liam asked. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“No! I mean, look!” Dani took Liam’s hand and paused the video. “The first footage, they go in. Look at her nails,” she zoomed in a little. “Perfect manicure. Love the color though. I wish my father let me wear dark polish too.”

“Okay, manicure. What about it?”

“Look at the second video, the one taken an hour later. She has pretty much no polish on! Either her nails grow extremely fast or she chipped it or...”

“Or?”

“Or the video was taken much later. Like, about three, four weeks later. Which would kinda explain why both of them look a bit stiff.”

Liam swallowed hard as he felt dizzy. He sat down and looked at Dani. “How did you even notice that?”

“I work in a bank, remember? Noticing the details is a part of my job. Plus, I’m kinda obsessed with dark manicure.”

“You’re wonderful, you know that?” Liam asked before realized he said it out loud. Dani blushed.

“Yes, well, umm, so that means... they were kept somewhere. And are alive. Or at least were so the video could have been taken.”

“Seems like it,” Dani nodded.

“And if you say her manicure was around a month old, it’s the time between us finding out they are gone and Drake’s outburst at Madeleine in the court.”

Dani’s face lit up. “That’d make perfect sense, she recorded the video so Drake would stop suspecting they’re still in Karlington!”

“I need to call Drake.”

“And I’ll call Riley!”

A whole thirty minutes later, Drake was watching the footage with his fists clenched and anger written all over his face. Riley was seated in the other corner of the room, comparing pictures of Savannah’s hand that Liam quickly printed.

“I hate them. I HATE THEM!” Drake hit the table, spilling the tea from his mug. “I’m gonna make them pay for what they did to my sister. THIS BI--”

“Drake!” Liam raised his voice. “Please. I know you’re angry but--”

“Angry? Just angry? I am furious and I’m going to show this little spoiled brat what--”

“Drake! She can’t know we know or everything will get lost,” Liam explained and Drake sat down, breathing heavily. “We need more evidence. Her manicure is not really gonna be enough,” Dani added, offering him a fresh cup of tea.

“So what, I’m supposed to sit and do nothing?”

“Not nothing, just acting as if everything is normal so we can gather more evidence.”

“I can’t do that, my sister might still be alive and she’s in danger!”

“Oh my gosh, Drake, just sit your ass down and stop making a bigger mess!” Riley yelled, stunning everyone.

“Why are you so mad? What do you want from me?!” Drake asked, raising his voice Dani flinched.

“A divorce,” she answered, quietly this time.

“Great then, because that’s exactly what I want too. Who needs a wife who doesn’t even care about her husband being drugged. Liam, divorce us now.”

Liam’s eyes widened and he looked at Dani who only shook her head ‘no’.

“I-I can’t can’t,” he said and Dani showed him a thumb up.

“What do you mean you can’t? You said you’d annul our marriage!” Riley inquired.

Liam looked at Dani again, panicking, and Dani started showing him some strange gestures. He shook his head to let her know he didn’t understand but Riley noticed that and looked at her sister as well. Dani quickly stopped gesturing and looked up at the ceiling, pretending to be admiring it.

“Because... a new law has just been introduced!” Liam lied and nodded his head as if to make it more believeable. Riley narrowed her eyes.

“New law? About divorce?” Drake asked, confused.

“Yes, new divorce law. It says that the couple has to be married for at least a year before annuling their marriage. Sorry guys, my hands were tied.”

“Aren’t you the King?” Riley asked.

“Umm, yes but... but...”

“The referendum!” Dani cut in. “Liam couldn’t do much, the nobles voted him out!”

“Exactly!” Liam nodded.

Drake looked puzzled and Riley was looking between Liam and Dani.

“Right,” she said. “Anyway, I gotta go. Let me know if you find out something!”

“The in-depth analysis of the footage should be tomorrow,” Liam told her and she nodded in understanding before leaving.

“Well, I should be going too,” Drake said and started heading out.

“She still cares a lot about you, you know,” Dani said and Drake turned to her. He looked conflicted.

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“You two will be fine, I know it. Just give her time, please,” she asked and Drake nodded slowly, before exiting the office.

“That was close,” Liam whispered after a few minutes of silence.

“Too close. But good thinking with the new law!”

“Good thinking with the referendum! We make a good team, don’t we?” he smiled softly at her and she retured the gesture. He felt his heart skipping a beat a little.

Stop it. It’s not gonna happen, stop hoping for it like an idiot.

~~~~

“Are you sure you really can’t go?” Riley asked her sister for the tenth time that day.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I feel too sick,” Dani rasped. She was lying in her bed, feeling miserable.

“And this is not just an excuse so I’ll be there with Drake?” Riley raised an eyerbow.

“Liam will be there as well. I wanted to come, I promise. I just feel terrible.”

“Well... Okay. Feel better soon, then,” Riley hugged her sister and headed out, leaving Dani alone.

Dani groaned as she buried her face in the pillow. She was lying for a few hours, mindlessly watching funny videos of dogs online when someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” she answered, assuming it was either Riley or her parents.

“Hi.”

She sat straight immediately after hearing his voice. Seeing Liam there, in her hotel room, while being in her pajamas, was the last thing she expected to happen that day.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to cover herself with the comforter. Despite the fact that Liam had seen her naked before, she still felt weird about him seeing her like that.

“Riley told me you are sick so... I wanted to check on you,” he smiled at her sheepishly. “I also brought soup that my mom used to make for me and it always made me feel better.”

“Thank you, that’s so... thoughtful,” she smiled at him, trying to swallow a giant lump that was formed in her throat. There was a King in her hotel room. A King who just brought her a soup because she felt sick. And she was in her pajamas that had little Mickey mouse faces all over it.

While Dani was internally panicking, Liam took out the jar with the soup and heated it a little in the microwave.

“Be careful, it’s hot,” he warned her as she took the jar from his hands. He sat down next to her when she was eating the soup and filled her with everything he found out after the analysis. It felt almost strange. Nice but... strange. It felt cozy. It felt home. It felt dangerously good and Dani was scared.

At some point, Dani finished the soup and lay down for a bit and Liam joined her. They were lying on her bed together, on two different sides on her small bed, both silently looking at the ceiling, their index fingers intertwined.

No words were exchanged but the silence still felt good. And if only they could hear each other’s thoughts, they’d be surprised at how similar there were.

I know I’m not perfect, I know I made a lot of mistakes but please, let me stay in Cordonia with him. Let something happen so I can stay here with him. Give me a sign, anything. I can’t imagine not being here.

I’m so ungrateful, I know. I know I shouldn’t be asking for this but please. Please, make something happen so that she stays here. Anything so that we could be together. I know I probably don’t deserve this but I’ll do everything to make her happy. I can’t imagine being without her.

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dantays-inferno · 4 years

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Taylor Swift: Art Historian

All my art historian acquaintances might hate me for this title because their job is *incredibly* serious, but I don’t like most of them anyways.

Anyways, it is my belief that Taylor has incorporated many references to art and literature within reputation and Lover, particularly in the music videos for each album cycle. To the extent that I wonder if all this time she has secretly been getting her B.A. in English Lit...or she is making her way through all the Great Courses.

That is all to say...the music video Easter eggs aren’t merely cats and 13′s. Sometimes they are, I don’t know...diptychs of the Apocalypse.

Here is perhaps the most iconic (and brilliant, imo) image of the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video. Sear it into your memory before we proceed (if Taylor and Joseph Kahn haven’t already done it for you by producing a work of art so brilliant that you can’t stop watching on repeat.)

Okay, when I first saw the video, I thought, “That’s a play on some painting I can’t remember.” I tried to look for it when beginning my research for this blog, but I couldn’t find it for the life of me. Was I making it up? No, my co-author swore it was inspired by a painting. My mom did too. Finally we came up with this, Jan van Eyck’s The Last Judgment, painted in 1441 and 1442. It hangs at...the Metropolitan Museum of Art. AND it was profiled in the New York Times on Feb. 2, 2016, when the painting was part of a special exhibition at the Met. Of course, Taylor was gearing up to help host the Met Gala in the spring too.

The painting is a diptych, meaning it has two panels, so focus on the right panel.

I’ll zoom in for ya on a relevant section

Feel a bit familiar? Here’s a later painting inspired by this one that has even more of the same feel as the music video:

(This is Peter Paul Rubens’ The Last Judgment.)

Anyways, there are a couple other paintings I found by Rubens on the same topic with similar compositions...writhing bodies attempting to climb upwards but falling down instead.

(Also, I’m sorry you had to see those fairly disturbing images up close.)

At the top of the painting sits Christ overseeing the aforementioned judgment.

Here we see the cross that shows up in LWYMMD, plus the image of someone standing above mountain, almost blissfully unaware of the drama and turmoil going on beneath.

What gets more interesting is this figure in the middle of the painting, below Christ but above the hellscape.

So it’s an angel cutting down anyone who has been condemned to hell, preventing them from reaching the light of day and the love of Christ.

I freaked out when I noticed this angel because...

Exhibit #1: End Game music video

Exhibit #2: reputation magazine

The colors in this look the most similar to the angel in the painting, and the hair is even done the same. I have a theory that the different photos in the reputation magazine are different characters or people discussed in the song corresponding to that page in the other edition of the magazine.

She also is in the same pose as the figure on the top of Taylor Mountain.

Exhibit #3: Karlie Kloss walking in Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2008 show

Kloss named this as one of her favorite runway shows in an interview with British Vogue in 2019. She also shared that she lit her robe on fire by accident backstage, and put this particular dress on the wrong way round and had to switch it last minute. Feels like the kind of story you would tell at every party you went to.

So basically we have a rainbow angel who ruins people’s lives.

Alrighty. Let’s delve into why I think Taylor used this imagery. As a disclaimer, this is just my analysis, and you can take it or leave it. I’ve put hours of thought and research into this because I’m unemployed and in quarantine, so I’m not just pulling this out of my ass, but I’m also not Taylor, so nothing I say is gospel truth.

Analysis

My theory is that the figure at the top of Taylor Mountain is standing in for the roles that Christ and the archangel are playing in the painting. The figure--we’ll call her Rep--is essentially condemning all the Old Taylors to no longer see the light of day (or come to the phone.) The archangel in the van Eyck painting prevents people from ascending out of hell while Christ is presumably the one who condemned the people to hell and now stands above all, nonplussed.

But in an interesting twist, Rep stretches her arms out to crucify herself as she shouts, “bad dreams!” At this, the Old Taylors begin falling off the mountain, and we get the iconic “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” line. Not coincidentally, the other panel of the van Eyck painting depicts Jesus’ crucifixion.

Why is the crucifixion part significant beyond just being a perfect transition in the music video? First off, it obviously points to the younger Taylor being sacrificed unjustly. A theme of reputation and Lover seems to be remorse for losing Taylor’s sense of self and a desire to shift her focus from the trappings of fame to the people who truly care about her. Many people interpreted this song as Taylor announcing that she was a new “bad girl” Taylor, shunning sparkle guitars, unrequited love, and general girl-next-door vibes (which would be a shame because these are some of the best things in life.) But I think this video and album are more retrospective than active. That is to say that Taylor is realizing that she lost her old self in the years prior to reputation, and now she regrets that they can’t come to the phone.

Beyond that, I think the crucifixion moment in the video points to the idea of being a martyr--and not in a good way. This ties into my theory that all of the characters in the video that aren’t a specific Old Taylor (from Taylor’s music videos, tours) are actually meant to be Karlie Kloss. I have one other post about this on my blog now, and I intend to write more.

So let’s say it’s Karlie standing on the top of Taylor Mountain (and saying the old Taylor can’t come to the phone.) She essentially crucifies herself, making herself a martyr--someone who was killed unjustly. In my ongoing analysis of the album, I think this ties in to the song “So it Goes...” in which Taylor sings, “Come here dressed in black now / Scratches down your back now.” While this is generally interpreted to be a sexual scene, I think it depicts Karlie coming back to Taylor after the two have had a falling out, and acting like she is the victim in the relationship (black being a color of mourning) and that Taylor inflicted pain on her (scratches down her back.)

What’s more is that scratches down her back ties in with the crucifixion/martyrdom idea...Jesus was whipped/flogged before being crucified, which obviously leaves notable scars that would not look dissimilar to scratches. So basically Karlie is acting like a martyr and a victim in the relationship, when, according to Taylor in the LWYMMD video’s narrative, Karlie was the one who helped “kill” Taylor’s true self.

Plus, the video also implies that Karlie exploited her relationship with Taylor for fame and financial gain and became controlling and even tried to sabotage Taylor’s relationship with Tom by calling the paps on them. Sounds like a pretty toxic relationship, and people who are emotionally abusive often use the tactic of flipping the script on the person confronting them.

I know these are harsh accusations, but they’re in the video just beneath the surface concept of “look at all these controversies.” The more I delve into the album, the more I see that Taylor is trying to process her toxic relationship with Karlie even more than her breakup with Tom. (Sorry, no Joe.) I’ll be writing more posts to explain all this, but keep an open mind. I think Taylor hid a lot in reputation and Lover that we haven’t necessarily unearthed yet.

#taylor swift #reputation #look what you made me do #jan van eyck #peter paul rubens #swifties #taylor and karlie #kaylor

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btsandvmin · 5 years

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Vmin - Scenery, Promise and song connections

This is a really long Vmin analysis, because I feel like Jimin and Taehyung’s songs are connected. I’ve thought so for a long time about most of their solo songs, but now after Promise and Scenery I had to make a proper analysis about it.

I know making everything about shipping isn’t a good thing, but in this case I just can’t help but to speculate. As you will see in this post there are just so many things now that I have to ask myself if it could really all be a coincidence. I personally think they are trying to tie their songs together for one reason or another. This post is not meant to prove Vmin, but to analyze the possible connections between their songs.

I will talk about the things from Jimin and Taehyung’s solo songs that match, and how it’s really starting to feel like at least some of it might be on purpose and that their songs are meant to connect in some ways. I have written several posts on topics brought up in this analysis before, so there might be some repeated points, but that’s because I want all the relevant parts in one place, and not spread out. Some things are likely very farfetched, but I still chose to include them since it’s still possible that some of them could have been done on purpose.

Nothing I say is meant to take away from the songs or the hard work that was put into making them. I will talk about several other songs besides Scenery and Promise, as well as other things that I simply find very interesting from a Vmin shipper’s perspective.

I will also bring up a few lgbt+ references but those are not there because they are necessarily directly connected to Vmin and to prove anything about their sexualities, but rather to show examples of Big Hit and BTS using some references on purpose that seem to show support for the lgbt+ community.

This post is a little messy, because there are so many small things that cross reference each other, but I’ve tried to divide it into different parts to make it a bit easier and l hope it’s comprehensible.

I’ll talk about the lyrics, them wanting to make songs, outside connections between Vmin and their songs, as well as the interesting timeline and possible hints from the Promise and Scenery ”promotions”.

It’s also really long. Let’s start!

1. Lyrics

As I said I want to talk about Scenery and Promise, but I feel I have to go through a few other things first. I’ll start with some similar lyrics that I want to point out. It might all be coincidental, but I feel it’s worth brining up. What’s interesting here is that several of Taehyung’s and Jimin’s songs have a few lyrical connections. It could just be that they like similar phrases or topics, but you will likely see what I mean.

Because it’s not the first time Vmin’s songs have had matching lyrics or themes I want to go back and talk about Lie and Stigma first. I’ve talked about these songs before in my post “Vmin - The Sun, the Moon & The whole universe” but clearly the theory keeps getting bigger and changing as more things come out, so I want to mention it here again. Both are also songs that have some speculated lgbt+ themes, but we really have no way to know if that’s true. It could be about mental health, self image or a lot of other things, but it’s still worth considering.

Let’s start looking at the lyrics.

Lie: I’m still the same me The me from before is still here but The lie that’s gotten too big Is trying to swallow me up

Caught in a lie Find the me that was innocent I can’t free myself from this lie Give me back my laughter

Jimin sings about being unhappy and unable to escape his situation, something has happened that has forced him to feel like this and lie. This fits rather well with the “Love yourself” theme, and could be Jimin’s guilt about how he lies about who he really is.

Then looking at Stigma you also have these lines:

Stigma: Even if I try to hide it Or conceal it, it can’t be erased Are you calling me a sinner

That light, that light, please illuminate my sins Where I can’t turn back Please let me be punished Please forgive me for my sins

Taehyung’s song is in my opinion more likely to connect to lgbt+ themes, but it could still be something else as well. He is sorry about something, but he can’t change it.

Meaning that in both songs we have a theme of feeling like you have done something wrong and even though they want to be rid of these parts of themselves they are unable to change it. They are looking back at their past selves, but also realize that they can’t escape their current situation that is hurting them both. Tae talks about hiding parts of himself that won’t disappear, and Jimin struggles with living in a constant lie. These are lyrics that could have some lgbt implications. (Other BTS songs could also possibly have lgbt+ meanings, like Boy meets evil, but I’ll keep it to Vmin here.)

Assuming the songs are sung from their own perspective, let’s look at the lyrics that match more directly.

Lie: Tell me With your sweet smile Tell me Tell me like you’re whispering into my ears

Jimin is urging someone on to tell him something. And then in Stigma Tae on the other hand talks about telling someone something. He mentions both telling something, and being told something in Stigma.

Stigma: I’ve been hiding it I tell you something Just to leave it buried

Stop crying, tell me something Try saying to me, who had no courage

Why did you do that to me then

I’m sorry Forget it, what right do I have To tell you to do this, or that

It looks like they have both hurt someone and been hurt by someone. For Lie the song mentions the person, Jimin, suffering. In Stigma the lyrics talks about another person suffering because of Taehyung. Which means they have opposite perspectives in the lyrics that match.

Lie: I can’t free myself from this pain. Save the me who’s being punished

Stigma: Deeper, it’s just the heart that hurts every day. (You) who was punished in my stead

Later on in Serendipity Jimin talks about being saved, which relates back to his lyrics in Lie as a possible continuation.

Serendipity: You are my penicillium The one who saved me

The theme of Lie is also brought up again in Promise. This all matches well with the Love Yourself theme and BTS hiding parts of themselves behind “masks”, but even beyond the theme I still find the matching lyrics between all these songs quite interesting.

Promise: ”I say that it's all fine. The truth is that's a lie” and ”That's not what I truly think”

Then there is Serendipity and its connections to Singularity, mostly it’s the images that connect these songs (I’ll talk a little bit about it later on), but looking at the lyrics we have a few lines that could match up as well.

Singularity: In the dream I shortly went into Serendipity: This isn’t a dream

Singularity: “I don’t have a voice” and “I buried my voice for you” Serendipity: You can feel it even if you don’t say it

A small but interesting line that matches between Promise and Singularity that made me react was the line about throwing yourself away, because it feels a little bit more unusual to use this line.

Promise: Don't throw yourself away, oh, oh Singularity: If I shouldn’t have thrown myself away

This one might not really be anything, but since it’s about being warm and cold and also matches with going and footprints I felt it was worth considering either way.

Serendipity: I go to your flower. As if I’ve been waiting. We bloom till it gets cold Scenery: If you leave your footprints, I'll keep you warm

(The part about blooming until it gets cold from Serendipity also matches the images of Singularity quite well, but I feel this is likely not done on purpose.)

Moving on we can also see some similarities between Serendipity and 4 O’clock. Both songs were written by Namjoon (at least partly), so the similarities could have to do with his personal taste, but even so looking at the songs they both talk about the moon and the universe. The biggest reason for why I bring up 4 O’clock is because we know that they at least took some inspiration from the feeling that Taehyung got while waiting for Jimin in the park.

There is one line in the song that I also find interesting as it references a movie called Moonlight which is a famous lgbt+ movie.

4 o’clock: Just like that movie, like the line (from the movie) The entire world is blue inside the moonlight

And it’s hard to ignore that Scenery links back to the one specific moment in 4 O’clock that we know for a fact was at least to some degree inspired by Jimin.

Scenery: I'm putting my feelings in the park after the early morning moon This song is headed for you I hear the sound of film from the moon at night

In a way I feel like Scenery is the continuation of 4 o’clock with a few similar lines.

4 o’clock: I wrote a long, long letter to the moon. It would not be brighter than you. But I lit a small candle

Scenery: I'll collect a piece of moonlight and make a light

Taehyung seems to like these references with light and brightness a lot as he also uses it in Stigma.

Stigma: That light, that light, please illuminate my sins

But now I want to put the lyrics of Scenery and Promise next to each other. First the word light appears again, which works well with both 4 o’clock, Scenery and Promise.

Promise: I want you to be your light, baby. You should be your light Scenery: I'll collect a piece of moonlight and make a light

And the lines I’m sure most people reacted to were when Jimin and Taehyung uses the word “mine” in English which will make people notice it even more than if they had sung it in Korean, or if only one of them had used English. Especially since the songs were released so close to each other.

Promise: You're hurting too 'cause you're mine Scenery: I want to make you mine

Further in the start of Promise we have lines about Jimin being hurt as well. Which I interpret as Jimin in Promise is saying they are hurting each other because they are each other’s.

Promise: You probably don’t even know When you started hurting me

This could be a link back to Stigma and Lie again, with hurting and being punished/suffering because of each other and feeling guilty about who they are.

My own thoughts here are that in a lot of Vmin’s songs we can find some quite interesting lines that both bring up the same references and in some instances even work well as replies to each other.

On top of this we also know that Tae wrote a Christmas song that he wanted to sing with Jimin (but it got rejected) and in that song Taehyung also referenced brightness/light as well as stars. (And snow which he also uses in Scenery, but this is a Christmas song, so probably just a coincidence.)

Taehyung’s Christmas song: Happy Christmas, at the end of this Winter There’s Christmas meant for you and me Under the lighting, your smile makes the stars shine more Happy Christmas, at the end of white snow There’s you shining brighter than ever, feels smile Shy smile of yours, feels good.

So looking at the lyrics of these songs, we have possible connections between Lie, Stigma, 4 o’clock, Serendipity, Singularity, Promise and Scenery as well as Taehyung’s Christmas song. Now, I personally think that the fact that there are this many matches between their songs in is really interesting.

However, I am aware that songs like “Save me” and “I’m fine” could connect too, especially to Taehyung, but also because of Jimin’s lyrics in Lie about wanting to be saved and then in Promise where he says he is fine, but it’s a lie. Like I said, they match the theme of “Love yourself”. Perhaps there is an even bigger theory here that connect other members as well, and the things that come from Big Hit could have other intentions, and maybe Vmin just happen to represent certain things. But for this post at least I will obviously only be talking about Vmin.

I also have to recognize that there could be more meanings to the songs than just one. Like how we know that Promise is a song Jimin partly sings to himself, and partly to ARMY. Either way I just recommend looking up the lyrics and several theories on these other songs and how they connect in general, even outside of Vmin analysis. (We can easily drift into BTS Universe analysis here, especially with Tae and Namjoon’s connection to Save Me/I’m fine, so I’ll leave that now.) What I am essentially saying is that some connections can be because of the BU and might have less to do with Vmin themselves.

As a side note, all of these songs are also gender neutral, something that BTS have started to do more and more with their songs (just another sign of their lgbt+ friendliness).

There is also a possible reference to an lgbt+ book that Namjoon has been seen reading with Tae’s face from Singularity. This is not connected to Vmin, but I wanted to highlight the fact that BTS does seem to apply a lot of lgbt+ references to their stories and concepts. This is just one of many examples.

So now that we have talked about the lyrics and connections between the songs themselves I also have some other things I feel I want to acknowledge that makes this much more interesting in my opinion. Like I said, the lyrics and connections could all be coincidental, or just due to similar experiences or producer’s preference, or even as a part of BTS’s general stories and messages, but there are other reasons for me to connect Taehyung and Jimin’s songs.

The lyrics on their own are interesting, but hardly obvious enough to claim they are done to match on purpose. What I want to talk about next is in regards to things we have heard from Jimin and in particular Tae about writing songs that could strengthen the support for the theory that Vmin has written songs for or about each other.

2. About making songs

This point is basically some things they have expressed about making songs. In general I think it’s important to remember that Taehyung really seems to want to write songs for, or at the very least somehow connected to, Jimin.

We already have several moments of Taehyung expressing his want to include Jimin in some sense for his songs. I’ve already mentioned 4 o′clock, which Namjoon has confirmed two times is at least partly connected to Jimin. First in a fan café post when the song was first released. The post was later edited to remove the part about Jimin.

Then Namjoon mentions Jimin again in the behind the scenes making off the song, so we do know that Jimin was on Taehyung’s mind for at least certain parts of when he made the song.

Another example is when he talked about wanting to write a song and give it to Jimin during the dinner party for FESTA 2018. From what I can recall I don’t think Tae has mentioned any other member when he has been talking about making songs.

We also have it confirmed that Big Hit has denied Tae to sing one of his songs with Jimin as he originally wanted to because they didn’t think the lyrics were fit for two men to sing. Which probably has little to do with Vmin, but is non the less interesting. Tae talked about this in a vlive on the 5th October 2018, and it seems like he made the song for Christmas 2017. I recommend watching the full clip where he talks about it, but in short he seemed rather upset that he didn’t get to sing the song with Jimin and even though he said he liked the version with their producer Adora he still doesn’t want to release it. It was a bit odd for him to even talk about this in my opinion and at the very least it does show that the he would have no problem, and rather really seemed to want to sing such “romantic“ lyrics together with Jimin. (Read more on that in my post “Big Hit, BTS, Vmin and LGBT”)

I don’t have much from Jimin and nothing that specifically mentions Tae, but I will include this bonus mini analysis that could be relevant. In this clip from vlive “BTS 방탄소년단의 LETS SHARE THE HEART” Jimin gets asked what he would like to give to the person he loves as a gift. This was Christmas 2016, meaning it’s the year before when Tae said he made the Christmas song that he never got to sing with Jimin.

Looking at Jimin’s answer, he accidentally says “we” before he corrects himself to “I” (it might be an honest mistake since they are a group and usually make songs together, but still) and then says he would like to give the person he loves a song. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Tae listened and decided to do the same, no matter if his feelings are romantic or platonic.

Then a month later, Christmas came around… And guess what we got? Taehyung and Jimin released some small clips singing a Christmas song (their own rendition on the song “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” by Sam Smith an artist that Tae idolizes a lot who also happens to be gay). Jimin was teasing Tae in the clip changing the lyrics to “Taehyung-ah. Are you having fun?”

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It would not surprise me if this moment when Jimin said he wants to give a song as a gift to the person he loves lead to Taehyung’s idea to write songs for or about Jimin as well.

Like I said, Taehyung has now connected Jimin to his songwriting at three times. First for 4 o’clock which we learned about thanks to Namjoon, though the statement was later removed from his written post. Secondly when Jimin wanted a song, and begged Suga to give him one, only for Tae to declare that he would give Jimin a song. Thirdly with the Christmas song, which we know he wanted to record and sing with Jimin, but which got denied by the producer. So, I personally think that Tae has given us a lot of reason to see possible connections between Jimin and his songs.

Then, going on to my next point I want to talk about outside references that in different ways connect Vmin and their songs together. Some of these might be from Vmin themselves, but not all of them are. And it’s difficult to tell if they are made with purpose and if these other people would have insight into what the songs mean. Which means these references really vary in importance, but I decided to include them anyway.

3. Connections between songs and Vmin

Like I mentioned Singularity and Serendipity share a lot of similar (or rather mirrored) scenes. These two videos are linked in a way no other solo MV’s are, especially through symbolic contrasts like sun/moon, warm/cold, mask on/mask off, happy/sad etc.

Some of the scenes are so specific I personally think it’s definitely done on purpose. However this could just be an esthetic choice and might have nothing at all to do with them.

These connections are a bit different, since they are not made by Jimin and Tae themselves. Meaning they might not be relevant to Vmin’s relationship per say, but there is always the possibility that Big Hit as well are trying to make connections between Vmin in their MVs.

We know there has been a lot of other intentional Vmin moments in other MVs, so I’m unsure about the things from Big Hit, since it could have another reason behind it. But I don’t think we should ignore the possibility that Big Hit could be doing this to connect Tae and Jimin, especially since they have done it in other BTS songs as well.

We have Vmin with the character for “love” in Idol.

And there is the whole Yin and Yang theme that Big Hit has used them for.

We even have some interesting things from Spring Day, like their choreography having matching moves that link them.

If you are curious about more Vmin connections in Singularity, Serendipity and other songs you can read this post as well – “Taehyung and Jimin - Yin and Yang”

Another thing that is kind of connecting Vmin to Serendipity is this tweet by Hitman Bang PD where he used lyrics from Serendipity, though translated into English. In it he has linked a video of Jimin and Taehyung fooling around in their hotel room. The video is named “Nick name T-shirts (95z cam #1)” so it is connected to Vmin in that sense.

I wasn’t sure if I should include it, since I am pretty sure it’s just a reference to their collaboration with the Chainsmokers as he even tagged it with ChainsmokersxBTS. Their song is played in the clip with Jimin and Taehyung, so it’s likely not really supposed to be about Vmin at all.

But the fact that he used lines from Serendipity and not from Best of Me, which was the song they made together, was just interesting.

“It might be meant to be... Universe has moved.“

Probably nothing, but still a connection between Vmin and Serendipity.

Another one from Big Hit, which I admit is likely just done for fun and has probably little to do with Vmin, is from the 4th muster where Jimin places a calico cat next to Tae who is supposed to be a sleeping ARMY.

Again, these are from Big Hit so it’s likely these connections are of a different kind, but I decided to include them anyway. Something else to note is that Big Hit has on several occasions in their edited videos of BTS used 4 o’clock (and Spring Day) as background music several times during “Vmin moments”.

But one that is from Taehyung and Jimin themselves is that Tae made a customized phone case for Jimin saying “fungus” as a reference to the lyrics “You are my penicillium” in Serendipity.

Jimin even took a picture of the case specifically.

It was also speculated, though never confirmed that Tae and Jimin was out together on that day as they both posted photos from Brooklyn.

Also looking at the meaning behind the blue/green mold Jimin has given us is that “You are my savior, and I live because of you.”

It’s said in the making of the Serendipity MV and it’s meant to be about ARMY, but the message and the fact that Tae chose to make the fungus/blue mold reference in particular is still interesting to consider. Also, Jimin has in fact referred to Tae as his savior before (even though it’s likely too old to matter in connection to this post).

Going back in time again, I also found this really old translation of the famous Vmin tweets from October 8th 2014, but I honestly think the promise part might be incorrect because I can’t find it anywhere else.

V: "Together we made a promise, let’s not forget this night view jimin-ah! Let’s keep going for a long time. I only have you" JIMIN: "Let's keep going for the rest of our lives, my friend" - October 8 2014 @BTS_twt

Either way, even without the “promise” part being there in the actual text, the image of their linked hands and the night scenery does seem to fit the titles of their songs really well. So, just another small observation that might be purely accidental but otherwise is a possible throwback to one of the most iconic Vmin moments.

I also have to mention Docskim, because he was involved in making Lie, and now also with Tae’s Scenery. It’s possible he is close enough to the boys to know the meaning behind the songs.

Jumping back in time a little he posted a photo to his Instagram the same day Serendipity was released, which was exactly one year after Lie. And it also happened to be on “Vmin day”, which is September 5th, aka 95z day. On that day Docskim posted a picture of Jimin and Tae, with the comment “ Caught it a lie. My favorite kids.”

So that is another outside connection to be added between them and their songs. I don’t know why Docskim used that specific line from Lie, or why he referenced the song at all a full year later, but he did. It could of course just be promo to celebrate one year since Lie came out.

A tiny detail is that this was also the day that BTS changed their logo to the rainbow colored one for the Love yourself series. (Since it started with the release of Serendipity)

It might be nothing, but Docskim has mentioned Lie in relation to Vmin at another time, which makes me think it is deliberate. That post is since deleted.

I also think it’s an interesting detail that Docskim apparently wanted to post the making of Lie, but isn’t allowed. It’s probably not really vmin related, but it reminds me of Tae’s Christmas song not being allowed and that there are clearly rules made that limit what they all can do.

Now, as you see there are quite a few small things that have connected Vmin and their songs to each other in various ways. There are probably also a lot of small things that I could have missed here. I feel these are interesting but it’s difficult to know if they have any deeper meaning, or simply just happened to fit this narrative of mine and of Vmin’s songs already having some similarities.

But back to Promise and Scenery. The next part might get quite messy, because I wanted to bring up several things from the release and promos for the songs, as well as some interesting connections. I hope it will still make sense, because personally I feel this is what might tie everything together for real.

4. Scenery and Promise

There are a few aspects that link Promise and Scenery together outside of the songs themselves, and the first part is rather obvious. Let’s look at the covers for their songs, starting with Promise.

Taehyung has taken the photos for the cover of Promise. They also made sure to specifically mention Tae being the photographer.

It feels like they are drawing attention to it on purpose, but why is of course up for speculation and even though I feel this could point at their songs being related there could be millions of other reasons, or it’s all just by chance. But let’s take a look at Scenery.

Tae is in his own cover depicted with a camera and even has sounds of a camera in the beginning of Scenery. So the covers also match in a sense with one being in front of the camera and the other being behind it.

The song also has the sound of walking on snow, and what I believe is a train, which seems to be a clear connection to Spring Day. Besides this Tae also briefly talked about the sounds during the Fukuoka concert.

The scene from the movie that Tae is talking about is likely one where the protagonist yells “O-genki desu ka? Watashi wa genki desu.” (link here) Now this is probably the most farfetched possible reference of all that I’ll bring up. But since the meaning of these words are “Are you fine? I’m fine.” I felt it kind of matched with Jimin’s lyrics in Promise. The movie is also from 1995.

Of course we also know Tae directly referenced Spring Day on the cover, using a scene that reminds us of where Jimin is in the MV.

The themes of Spring and Winter that we could possibly see in these two cover photos would also fit rather well with their Yin and Yang personas that I have talked about before, as well as their parts in Spring Day, where one seems to be in winter and the other one in spring.

And let’s not forget the lyrics of Spring Day, though they are not about Vmin specifically, they still reference longing to be with someone, being hurt by someone and “you’re my best friend”. It’s just something more to consider since Taehyung has made some very clear parallels.

There are several more possible connections between Vmin in the Spring Day MV and choreography, or things like when Tae posted from the making and sang Jimin’s part of the song, but I’ll not go into more detail here.

Back to the Promise and Scenery timeline Taehyung also used a picture from the Spring Day location when he tweeted about Scenery’s release time.

A k-army apparently also noticed that the time for the release of the teaser photo with the picture from the scenery of Spring Day was related to 4 o’clock as the time when the tweet was sent 6:09 was the same as the date 4 o’clock was released.

Also the name of the train station in Spring Day was Iryeong/Ilyeong station, which translates to 1(il) and 0(yeong). Meaning they definitely do pay attention to details on purpose at some points, we just can’t know for sure when.

(Sadly I don’t know the original source, but shout out to vminforever95 on insta)

Now this might get a bit too much, but at this point I have to include it, even though it could potentially all be coincidence it just seems too fitting, I have to talk about the order and times etc. in relation to the release of these songs and some posts connected to the songs. I know this sounds a bit reaching, but BTS has used times when they post as references before, so I think it could very well apply here as well.

So, besides the cover for Promise being a picture by Taehyung, Jimin also released the song on the 31st of December, he seems to have waited almost purposely to release it just after midnight, meaning it was very close to Taehyung’s birthday.

The thing is that on Taehyung’s birthday, Jimin posted pictures of him and Taehyung which are taken on the same day as the cover of Promise. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence, but who knows. He also expressed his love for Taehyung of course, and even mentions the photos once again bringing attention to them.

“Happy birthday to our Taehyung You’ve worked hard this year too I wanted to post a derp photo but If I post it kekekeke you might not want to see me ever again kekekekeke Hyung loves you a lot ❤️🎂 #JIMIN #TaeTaeHappyBday”

And again, going into detail, the birthday post for Tae was posted at 12.31, so many thought Jimin accidentally posted it a minute late and that he originally wanted to match Tae’s birthday. But it’s possible it was posted to match with Promise in stead which was marked with the date.

Jimin tweeted one more time on Tae’s birthday, meaning the tweet right before Promise ended up being a vmin photo as well.

”Thank you to all the ARMYs who came today Also, I sincerely thank you for celebrating Taehyung(’s birthday) #JIMIN #TaeTaeHappyBday”

Then one month later when Scenery was about to come out, Jimin also decided to get active. First he was (accidentally or not) the first one to mention the song in his vlive.

Which he later also posted about on twitter, with plenty of purple hearts and I love yous. Basically Jimin promoted Scenery and his love for Taehyung all at once. If he spoiled it accidentally or not I don’t know, but the result was a lot of Vmin and even more of associations between them and their songs.

Taehyung also replied (did he also confirm their love? lol):

Another translation: “Whatever this kid said, it’s all true. Yeah, it’s correct. That’s what it was.” (Also be aware that I can’t guarantee that all translations in this post are ok since I sadly only know a few words in Korean)

Jimin seemed to enjoy it a lot, kept saying he loved Tae and used purple hearts. Also, again with the finger hearts for Taehyung.

“💜💜💜☺️☺️ Ah, already looking forward to it No, wait, I already was #JIMIN #TaehyungILoveYouYoureVeryPrecious”

All I am saying here is that even though Jimin obviously hypes up all of his members songs, there has in my own opinion been an unusual amount of connections and promotions for these two songs that link to Vmin in particular. It might just be me over thinking and it is just normal support for each other, but still, as a Vmin shipper I can’t help but react.

Another example for this is when Jimin was asked to sing a part of Promise and he asked Tae to make the dance for it. Again, just one more thing that made Vmin trend and drew attention to them and the song at the same time.

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Another moment that stood out like this to me is when Jimin talks about a promise he and Taehyung made during the Fukuoka concert. Just look at his reaction when he mentions Taehyung (though I admit he was also probably nervous about speaking Japanese).

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Taehyung even jumps in and mentions it being a promise specifically. Notice the audience reaction, they too have an association between Jimin’s song and this moment now. (The korean and Japanese words for promise are very similar, and you can even hear some in the crowd asking for Jimin to sing Promise before he starts talking.) Again, these things might mean nothing, but I am bringing them up because it could also be something, especially considering the amount of small things there are.

In relation to Scenery Docskim also posted “So the secret is out?” with a purple (the purple is another possible Vmin link, read more in my post Red + Blue = Vmin, but likely it’s just because it’s Taehyung) background referencing Jimin accidentally spoiling Tae’s song on vlive.

Tae also tweeted the little teaser of the song, and so did docskim.

But let me go back to the times and the dates a bit again.

On the 28th of January Jimin tweeted simply saying “10:13 o’clock” which is basically “Jimin o’clock” as it matches his birthday.

I have no idea if this actually connects, but since it’s time and Taehyung posted a teaser for Scenery marked with 10 o’clock pm two days later I felt I had to at least say it.

Then on that day just a few hours after the teaser, aka. the day of the release, we have Jimin tweeting a vmin selca, seemingly at random. (Even the caption is just a random sound effect “Ddo-ing”)

Once again drawing attention to Vmin and making them trend. And then the song itself right after which had a cover with Tae taking a photo, as I mentioned earlier.

But what is also interesting here is that the picture was taken in Amsterdam, which means it was possibly taken on Jimin’s birthday as that’s when they had the concert in Amsterdam. Which means both the covers of Promise and Scenery could possibly connect in some way to the other person’s birthday. And remember that Jimin in a way reminded the fandom of his birthday through his tweet with 10:13 a few days prior. Just a very interesting observation and something that I think could have been done on purpose.

Jimin was also first to react to the song, singing along to it in a video he also labeled with a purple heart.

I know Scenery is a proper original song by Tae, but earlier that month JK also released a cover and Suga had a song which he features on come out, and Jimin promoted these as well. But not as much and no hearts in sight. I mean I don’t think it is a big deal, but even so worth mentioning since I really feel the promotion from Jimin’s side in regards to Scenery has been a bit out of the ordinary.

And I also want to include JK’s (hilarious) reaction videos that he made, and not only lip-synched to Scenery, but also to Promise. It’s likely no deeper meaning behind it, but it still reminded ARMY of Promise that had already been out for a month and made yet another connection between the two songs.

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So these are the reasons why I personally feel Promise and Scenery, as well as other Vmin songs, are meant to be connected.

Now, I don’t know if all of this means something, or if so exactly what they want to say. But there are simply too many things at this point for me to just ignore it, even if a lot of it might be nothing, some really could be done with some kind of purpose in my opinion. Then what it could mean is up for interpretation because even if they truly are trying to connect these songs there could be many reasons why.

However, looking at everything brought up in this post, I personally think the fact that Tae wants to make a song for or about Jimin, all the small moments they have talked about themselves as well as the lyrics of the songs kind of matching together is what makes it all seem possible. Looking at everything one by one it really could be nothing, but the fact that so many things can be connected is really fascinating.

Even if I might be wrong about a lot in this post I still hope you all found this interesting. Also credit to the ones who made the tweets, analysis, videos and translations that I have used in this post. If you want something of yours removed let me know.

What are your thoughts? Please like, reblog and comment, I’m really curious to see what you all think. I hope you enjoyed reading. Thank you~!

#vmin #taehyung #jimin #vmin analysis #bts lyric analysis #jimin promise #taehyung scenery #promise and scenery #Vmin - Scenery Promise and song connections #btsandvmin #park jimin #kim taehyung #뷔민 #vmin is real

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twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

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FTWD 5x12: Ner Tamid - Analysis

Wow! This episode had so much in it! You know how sometimes I don't go over the minute details in the background because I feel like you guys already know them and they only serve to illustrate parallel? This was kind of the opposite. I will talk about the major parallels I saw, but the amount of small details was mind blowing and I think they're important.

***As always, spoilers abound for episode 5x12 below. Don't read until you’ve watched.***

We start with the image of the fire burning. It's a rope that's being lit by a match. We also see a chalice that has a Star of David on it. This is a rabbi in a mosque who is observing some Jewish worship. The first thing this reminded me of is the altar that Morgan built in Coda.

Of course, the rabbi’s sermon gets interrupted by walkers. I thought it was interesting that he put on a jacket. After all, it didn't look particularly cold outside.

They had him stop and put on a black jacket for no apparent reason. He was wearing a black jacket over a white shirt, so suddenly he was wearing black and white.

While outside, he sees a car with three walkers trying to get into it. My first thought was that there must be someone in it, and there was. He took down the first two walkers without too much trouble, but the third one ended up on top of him. Then the car door opens and Charlie steps out.

Okay, so many interesting clues in this sequence. We have the altar from Coda, the Star of David, the black and white colors, and the fact that there's a girl alive in the back of the car with walkers surrounding her.

Naturally, my first thought was that maybe Charlie is meant to be a proxy for Beth here. I think she is, and I've wondered before if maybe she's meant to be. There hasn't been anything super huge pointing to her being a Beth proxy thus far, but remember that she shot Nick. And it's not like Beth shot any main characters before she disappeared or anything, but even so, I thought there might be something to that. Ever since Charlie appeared, she's been sort of a background character. She's always around but they haven't spent a lot of time on her characterization. I thought maybe they were holding her in reserve for something. Given her role in this episode, she's definitely starting to look like a proxy.

The rabbi introduces himself Rabbi Jacob Kessner and says the mosque is called Temple B’nai Israel. Charlie says she saw the light in his church, and that's what drew her toward him. He tells her it's not a light. It's Ner Tamid (title of episode). It's the flame of truth or of God and God lead her to him. Then, it looks like the light is flickering and about to go out and he says that flame of truth needs new batteries.

Holy TD symbolism, Batman! First of all, Battery Theory. And there's a big emphasis on batteries throughout this episode. Of course, all that started at Grady because we saw so many batteries that were dying. Also remember that Norman said that Beth was Daryl's light in the darkness and to see that light go out was very sad. Now, in this episode, we have an emphasis on a perpetually burning light that's never supposed to go out. Sounds like a Beth parallel to me.

Another interesting detail: the rabbi keeps referring to God as a “she.” At first, I thought maybe he was referring to the flame as a “she.” And maybe he was. But he did it more than once. I can tell you that’s a little weird. A very traditional Jewish rabbi, as this guy seems to have been, would not think of God as a woman. The god of the Old Testament, whom they worship, is and was always male. So why would he do this? Whether he’s meant to be referring to God or the flame, it feels like a hint from the writers about who the flame or Christ figure in the show is, you know?

Back with Sarah, Dwight, and the rest of the group, we see the armored truck roll over a walker’s head.

After that, the rest of the cars in the convoy also went over the walker and smash it to bits. It just reminded me of Consumed. When Daryl and Carol were following the cop car into Atlanta to look for Beth, we very obviously saw them smash a walker head in the same way.

When the convoy stops to set up camp, they use rolls of chain-link to guard against walkers. It just reminded me of the prison. We also saw Charlie and the rabbi killing walkers on the fence around his synagogue. So lots of callbacks to the prison.

When the caravan stops to rest, they us a circular setup for their camp with the tanker in the center. It's a smart way to set up camp against walkers and other enemies, but the circle is also interesting. A couple of things I think this could be.

We’ve talked before about how Morgan’s symbol of the X inside the circle, which we saw in Coda, could possibly be a lamp sign or the symbol for the positive charge of the battery, which is also often symbolized by an X or cross inside a circle. This looks at the negative charge the battery. The minus sign inside a circle. And given that there's a big emphasis on batteries here, I think that's interesting. I may be developing more of a theory about this, but I'll leave it for another time.

Charlie refers to the Light of Truth a lamp once or twice. Which, to be fair, it is. It’s not an actual flame, but rather a light, which can be plugged into a batter, in the shape of a flame. So it works in a literal sense. But also, Lamp Theory.

The other thing I couldn't help but think of is that when we first met the hipsters (Jadis’s people), they encircled Rick's group and we got a bird’s eye shot of them in a circle. I think this is probably part of that same symbolism.

We heard a few 8s in this episode. When talking about going to get gas, Sarah said it would be “tank town at 0800,” which was her way of saying they were going to get gas at eight. Of course they didn't, because they realized Charlie was missing.

Then the rabbi said it took him eight years at Yeshiva to understand what Charlie had already figured out. I looked it up and Yeshiva is a Jewish university. I’m really side-eyeing that. He’s referencing 8 years of education. Remember that there was an 8 beside Beth in Tyreese’s death hallucination and now we’re 8 years post-Coda.

The Rabbi was talking about how God had led her to him and he said, "maybe there's something you need here." So, more of the “something you need” theme.

It occurred to me that the inside of the synagogue looked a little bit like Ezekiel's theater in the kingdom. Because it’s q synagogue with pews, it also naturally looks a little bit like Father Gabriel's church. And of course there’s the church Glenn and Enid went into in 6a.

The rabbi also explained the resurrection in a way that had a very strong parallel to what Herschel told Rick in S2. While on the highway in the finale, waiting for the others to find them, Herschel said he'd always believed in the resurrection of the dead, but what was going on with the walkers wasn't exactly what he had in mind. The rabbi said something very similar. That he used to tell his congregation that eventually the dead would reunite with their bodies and be resurrected, but he thought he only got it halfway right. So, a major call back to Herschel and S2.

He also said tradition was very important. This is definitely true from what I understand of Jewish culture. They're very ardent about their traditions. I also took it to perhaps be a line the writers might be aiming toward us and the symbolism in general. As if to say that precedent in the show is very important.

We had more emphasis on the battery because he was on his last battery and it started to go out. In order to keep the lights going, he needed to find new batteries. Definitely feels like a theme to me. Obviously, the light equals hope and you need batteries, apparently, to keep that hope burning. These are all things we saw heavily around Beth and Grady.

The rabbi goes to another building and finds that it's full of walkers, who are escaping. My first thought upon seeing building is that it looked like a lot like the school from S5. The same school the Termites camped out in front of. Many of Father Gabriel's congregation (as walkers) were in it, which is why he broke out of his church in Coda and went there. It was in that scene that we saw him look at a bible and one of the pages said Bethel on it.

So this rabbi definitely has heavy parallels to Father Gabriel in S5. He is alone in his synagogue and his congregation is dead. They been imprisoned in a building some distance away from his church.

When he goes looking for them, there's a circular driveway in front of the building. So that circle theme appears again. We also see red flowers. I'm thinking the red flowers, just like the color red, equals death. I was reminded of the poem, In Flanders Fields, which is a famous poem about red poppies growing where men in war died. Just goes to show that his congregation was dead, even though they hadn't revealed that to us yet in the show.

Upon seeing this, my first question was whether the rabbi locked his congregation in there, just as Gabriel locked his congregation out. We don’t find out what happened until about three quarters of the way through the episode. This rabbi didn't have as much culpability as FG did. He didn't actively sentence his congregation to death. We do find out that he was having a crisis of faith — much like FG in S5 — and that he abandoned his flock to go try and figure out his own psychological crisis.

When he returned, they’d been locked in that building already. So, he abandoned them and then they died. But he did not orchestrate their deaths in quite the same way FG did with his flock. Still, the parallels are there.

I think this is important is because 1) We saw this around FG in S5 while Grady was happening. So even though Beth never met FG, it was definitely happening around her storyline. And 2) FG is now a walking embodiment of Sirius symbolism.

John and June come to pick up Charlie and the bring a battery for the rabbi. They emphasized the number 36 by having June say there were 36 people in the convoy. The rabbi then said that some people believe there were 36 righteous people in the world at any given time. There are a few ways you could read this. 6x03 is Glenn’s death fake out episode. 3x06 doesn’t especially stand out to me. Series number 36 was 4x01. You know, where Beth came front and center?

Meanwhile, back at camp, Sarah and Dwight sit atop a trailer, keeping watch together and drinking beer. Dwight says the beer is pretty good, and Sarah says, "Seriously?" There’s the Sirius reference for this episode. Pretty much every episode of this season has had one.

The two of them have a casual conversation, but I found it kind of interesting. Sarah asked Dwight how long he'd been on his own, and he didn’t know. He said he lost track of time. So, he doesn't even know how long he's been gone from DC. Interesting, as they’re kind of playing with time again. Then Sarah says, "but your gal kept going, the idea of her?" Definitely something that could be applied to Daryl. Dwight answered that the walkers kept him going too. He said he used to watch them, wandering who knows how far, not knowing where they'd come from and where they were going. Just a lot of things about traveling long distances and being on journeys that I feel it could apply to Beth.

Meanwhile, Dwight keeps looking through blue binoculars. So there's that pesky blue color again and the binoculars theme. He’s also sitting on a blue cooler (@frangipanilove’s blue coolers theories) and there is a red/green diamond pattern on his shirt (Beth = Queen of Diamonds).

Back in the synagogue, we also find out the rabbi makes his own wine. He says he has a “green thumb.” Of course, the wine he makes is probably much different than moonshine, but the concept is the same. He's making his own booze.

While John and June are there, the rest of the rabbi’s congregation break out of the building through the glass (Breaking Glass Theory) and the synagogue is suddenly surrounded by walkers.

Then we have some ladders! After posting my ladder theory this last week, I was excited to see this. They were trying to find a way down to go help the convoy because Logan's people had found them and they were on the run. John uses a ladder and slams it into a car windshield, breaking it. He and June descend and use the ladder as a bridge between cars to try to get across the lot without actually having to walk among the walkers or kill them. Think about that. They’re using LADDERS as BRIDGES across CARS to get through a WALKER HORDE.

They nearly make it, but in the final leg of their journey, one of the fences falls — not unlike the church falling in 6x07 and letting walkers into Alexandria, and they know they can’t make it out.

Charlie had one of Beth's lines here. Yet another way to show that she's a Beth proxy. When the rabbi tells her that it's okay, she says, "It's not okay, it's not okay." Beth said that twice a Grady as well. In fact, it was one of the last things she said before being shot, in reference to Noah staying behind.

John also used the phrase “exhibit A." He’s talking about how she wasn’t necessarily wrong to do what she did. She kept them all moving to avoid exactly the situation they were in: surrounded by walkers and trapped on top of a car. He says their “current circumstances are exhibit A.” So this is the A theory. I have more to say about this, but just keep it in mind for today.

In order to save John and June, who were then trapped into the car, and get all them out of there, the rabbi blew a horn—a Jewish horn called a shofar—to lure the walkers into the church.

A couple of things about this. 1) The home is not unlike the wolf horn blown in 6x02, which also led the walker horde toward it, and led to Glenn’s death fake out sequence. 2) What follows in this episode is exactly what happened with Father Gabriel’s church in Coda. They lure the walkers into the synagogue and then trap them inside by barring the front doors.

It works, but the church/synagogue are lost. And once again, the last time we saw this was in CODA.

By the way, a shofar is made from the horn of a ram. We saw a ram one very prominent time before: in 5b when Aaron and Daryl were trying to capture buttons, Aaron tripped over one and nearly got bitten by a walker. So it’s a symbol they’ve used before.

In the end, the battery dies, the light goes out, and the Rabbi goes with them.

Meanwhile, Logan’s men chase Sarah and Dwight and the convoy for quite a while. Once they have them cornered (Sarah’s truck runs out of gas) they just drive away. It seems, at first, because Logan’s guys saw John and June in Al’s SWAT truck coming to the rescue, but Dwight still thinks it’s weird. He says these guys don’t do anything unless it’s on purpose. (Clue about the symbols in the show perhaps?)

Turns out, Dwight’s a smart dude when he wants to be. Somehow, probably from watching the Al’s tapes that he took from the vault last episode, he’s figured out where the oil fields are. He purposely had his guys chase Dwight’s group away so he could go steal the oil without them trying to stop him. The episode ends with him arriving at a place called Lonesome Quarry, where apparently the oil is.

That’s super interesting to me. I need to think on this some more and maybe I’ll address it again later on, but it’s interesting that it’s a quarry. That actually gave me a bit of a lightbulb moment. I started thinking about the quart from 6a. The group started Operation Lead the Walkers Away from there in 6x01 and it led to Glenn’s death fake out in 6x03. If you recall, there were even semis and tanker trucks in that quarry. The operation started a day early because on of them fell off a ledge, which allowed the walkers a way out of the quarry, so they had to start the operation earlier than expected.

So I’m wondering if that was a foreshadow to this, or if they’re at least purposely paralleling the two. Remember there was a death fake out involved in that. Both the beginning of a death fake out, and the end where Glenn was revealed to be alive. So I’m very curious to see where this will go.

Looking at the trailer for next week’s episode, where Logan will obviously make a play for the oil, there are things that look a LOT like 6a. Like this.

It’s Logan, probably running from Sarah in her truck. But it just LOOKS a lot like Rich running during 6a.

And then we see people approaching on horseback.

No idea who they are as the picture is intentionally blurry in the trailer, but probably new characters. Helicopter people? Highwaymen? Also reminds me of the horse from the TWD S10 trailer.

So again, no idea who it is, but I’m excited to find out.

So what are my major takeaways from this episode? We saw a lot of callbacks to the prison and to Father Gabriel’s story line in particular. Those are things that were happening in S4/S5 around Beth. Another religious dude with a crisis of faith. Losing his synagogue, like losing FG’s church, along with the alter, were both specifically seen in Coda.

Then there’s the eternal light and it’s ties to Beth, and the fact that the rabbi keeps referring to it and/or God as “she.” And finally, something big will probably go down over this fight for the oil. So a good episode. Leaves us with lots of questions, but I enjoyed it.

I’ll stop there for today. I have a lot more to say. Not about the episode specifically (a few things about it, though) but a lot of what I saw here symbolically made me start thinking or rethinking some of our theories. I suppose I just have some musings about where this may be going and how things might connect. So, pretty much predictions post. I’ll post more thoughts throughout the coming week. How did everyone else like this episode?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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bitchcakegreen · 6 years

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A View from Behind the Camera - GoT Episode 6 x 9 - Tent scene

Hi everyone! First let me start by saying I’m so sorry for not posting in such a long time. It’s been crazy busy in Bitchcake land and I am just now able to take a bit of time for myself. A quick reminder for those that are new to the blog, I write posts/metas from a director’s standpoint. I analyze camera angles and actor choices that lead to the overall subtext of the scene. I have over 25 years of experience as a theatrical professional. So without further adieu let’s just jump into the directorial analysis of the tent scene from The Battle of the Bastard episode. I know some of you have been waiting for this one.

We actually open scene with Jon’s VO (voiceover) at the tail end of the previous scene. We have Ramsey and his crew riding back to Winterfell with the Castle in the distance. We hear Jon say “If he was smart he would stay inside the walls of Winterfell and wait us out..” This happens before we ever see the war council. It’s edited this way to really underscore significance of Ramsey’s hold on Winterfell and The North at this time. Immediately after the line and the final swell of music we smash cut to the war council hovered over a map on a table. Sansa is screen left, seated, but never out of view. Jon is screen right, standing. They are bookending the scene. A random Northern, likely house Mormont, is next Sansa and Davos is next to Jon. The scene is light via��‘candlelight’ which allows Sapochnik to play with shadows when he’s building his shots.

The shot holds steady for the next bit of dialogue until we get to Jon’s line about Ramsey’s weakness. On that we get a medium close-up of Sansa. She lowers her head away from the occupants of the table on Jon’s line “It’s his weakness too” But not before we see that she is displeased with the comment. Sophie has been directed to play disappointment and frustration in this spot. It showcases that Sansa is annoyed that Jon doesn’t ask her about Ramsey - something she will bring up later in the scene. We see Sophie directed to play a lot of her emotions close to the vest, never really letting people see what she’s thinking or how she truly feels - except for Jon. With him she doesn’t hide. That is honestly an incredibly telling bit of direction. With him she doesn’t have to hold back.

Now we go back to the War Council around the map but this time we are in the POV of Sansa. This gives us a different perspective of the men around the table and it also informs the audience that Tormund is there. This is the first time we see him in the scene.

Next we move to a shot of Tormund, at table level, between Jon and Davos’s arms.

Next we get a bit of humor, as much humor as GoT will allow us, with the men discussing strategy and Tormund not understanding military terms. This a series of shots back and forth between Jon and Davos and a confused Tormund.

After this interchange we once again have a single shot of Jon and Davos this morphs into a traveling shot as Jon straightens up and moves toward Tormund, examining the map as he goes. This sets us up for another close up of Sansa. The way the actors are now blocked around the space we have an a coupling of Jon and Sansa although it happens off screen. Sansa is to one side of Tormund when Jon crosses he effectively ‘moves’ Tormund out of the direct line up with Sansa. Davos speaks and we get a close up of Sansa once more. This time she is focused on Davos who is offscreen. It’s a relatively fast closeup and likely used to give the viewers a split second idea of what Sansa is feeling at this moment.

This is followed by a shot between Jon and Tormund’s shoulders as Davos continues to talk strategy. Tormund leans in and asks Jon if he actually thought Rasmey would fight him. Jon’s line is ‘No, but I wanted to make him angry.” On angry we get another medium closeup of Sansa. She raises her eyes to Jon, but sits stock still. It’s a great acting choice.

Next we move to a shot off of what would be the random extra House Mormont guardsman’s elbow to Jon and Tormund. It’s important to point out that the director has given everyone the note to not notice anything about Sansa at this point. She is effectively invisible to the men at this point. This will come into play later on in the scene and also later on in the seasons. Her visibility shifts but we will discuss that as we come to it. We have a bit more back and forth before the men exit the scene leaving Jon and Sansa alone.

Jon sits, ale in hand, and has been directed to be weary and rub his brow for some relief. Sansa is still in her place on the opposite side of the tent. Now what is interesting to point out is that the map of Winterfell and the battlefield is between them. Essentially Ramsey separates them. We get an extreme closeup of Jon’s profile as Sansa walks into the shot. She is in full light and he is only partially visible and only partially lit. She is in command in this shot.

Kit’s delivery of ‘For what they’re worth’ tells the audience that he has been directed to not realize that Sansa is about to question his decisions in terms of Ramsey. We have a medium shot of Sansa as she says ‘You sit around making plans to defeat a man you don’t now...” Halfway through we get a closeup of Jon, from the angle of the table, stopping in surprise from drinking his mead by her comment and the forceful tone in her voice. Sophie is not yelling yet, she is sharp and to the point. She is trying to make him see things from a different angle.

We cut back to Sansa as she continue her lines. When she gets to “I know how he likes to hurt people” we have a quick cut back to Jon, this time from table level from the angle of Sansa’s palm most likely. He visibly responses to this, most likely calling back to the things he knows she’s endured. It’s a split second shot much like Sansa’s earlier one at the top of the scene. Once more back to Sansa as she goes on. “Did it ever once occur to you I might have some insight?” On the word insight we cut back to Jon. Kit has been directed to realize she is right. He could use her knowledge of the enemy and he didn’t think of it earlier.

Now we come to the real meat of the scene. This is a series of back and forth shots between Jon and Sansa as the tension builds. That’s the very reason Sapochnik utilizes the ‘tennis match’ style of shots inside of simply giving us a wide shot of the couple as the fight. A wide shot would be static, uninteresting to watch even as the fight builds. But the back and forth adds tension to the view. The audience is placed in the other characters shoes as the gauge their scene partner’s reaction.

Somethings to note about the interplay. Sansa’s line ‘He plays with people. He’s been doing it all his life. He’s far better at it then you” frustrates Jon. Because it’s true and he knows it. Jon is a great fighter and swordsman. Ramsey is cunning and conniving. Sansa knows this. She tells Jon that he doesn’t know Ramsey. Jon’s line ‘Alright tell me. How should we get Rickon back?” is his way of saying he knows what she is saying is true.

The next shot of Sophie we get is a medium close up with a hold. She has been directed to pause and compose herself before she continues. What she has to say next is not easy. They will never get Rickon back.

As the scene builds so does the tension we start to get even more extreme with the close-ups. We are given some great reactionary lines that the actors really use to perfection. On “He wants you to make a mistake” Kit is directed to cross to Sophie on his answering line. This puts them face to face and only inches apart.

Not the best screencap but it gives you an idea of how close they are together at this point.

At this point they are yelling at each other. Sansa is no longer the silent observer she was at the top of the scene. Jon is not used to people talking to him like this least of all Sansa. I have seen some metas that say Sansa is frightened of Jon in this scene and frankly I don’t see that. Sophie never once plays fear. The huffing and puffing between them is anger and frustration and frankly sexual tension. They aren’t really listening to each other and that is what leads each building line. In addition to that we do have the underlying sexual tension between them. I said it. I meant it. And now I’ll tell you how the direction and the acting prove it. Most likely Kit and Sophie have been directed push sexual tension into the scene as the anger builds. You can see it in the movements of their bodies and how they focus their attention on each other on the back and forth. There is a difference between arguing with someone and wanting to angry fuck someone. Each type of portrayal needs different acting choices. There is a split second at the end of the fighting where Sophie is attempting to compose herself, heavy breathing and sighs, where she actually focuses downward. It’s quick but it’s there. She may be focusing on his chest or she may be focusing on his lips. This is pure acting choice. It is unlikely that the director would give her this note. This is most likely an organic acting reaction.

What’s really powerful about the scene is not the visuals. It is the direction to the acting choices. The ‘fight’ is all on the acting ability of Sophie and Kit.

Finally there is a moment of silence where we only hear their ragging breathing. That’s how passionate the fight got. The silence lasts five seconds. Remember from earlier blogs that five seconds is an eternity in film time. A pause this long is significant and would have been a specific directorial note. Jon composes himself and says his line. We stay with Jon for a moment but we can see that Sophie has turned and is heading out of the scene. We have a POV switch to an extreme close up of Sophie at the tent entrance. She meets Kit’s eyes (Or where his eyes would be if he was standing in the shot) and delivers the “I’m not going back there” line. There is a brief pause to emphasize the “Do you understand me?” We have a switch to a medium shot of Jon as he answers her. “I promise”

POV switch back to Sansa for a closeup on “No one can protect me. No one can protect anyone” She has been directed to deliver these lines so straightforward and almost glib. It’s telling to have these lines said to Jon here. In Sansa’s scene with Brienne from earlier in the season she says “Jon will protect me” Here she no longer believes those words, if she ever believed that at all. Sansa exits the scene and we have a close up of Jon. He has been directed to be so torn and terrified by her statement. He believes he can protect and he knows that she is all he has left (that he knows of) and he doesn’t want to lose her. This reaction is what lead him into his scene with Melisandre...which we will talk about next time.

You can pinpoint the minute his heart breaks. Jon turns and rests his hands on the table, we pan back to a shot of map. The shot of the stones gives the audience just another glimpse of how outmatched Jon is manpower-wise. Cut to next scene.

Well there you have it. The tent scene. I’m sorry it was such a long one and once again I’m sorry it took so long for me to post.

Next up is a quickie. The scene between Jon and Melisandre. See you all next time!

#jon and sansa #Jon x Sansa #jonsa #jonsa crack #jonsa is here #directorial analysis #Female directors #jonsa is coming #actually jonsa #jonsa is endgame

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simplyselicia · 6 years

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BTS Analysis Part 4: Fake Love

Hey! I’m so in love with the new album. Heavy rotation 24/7. As you can tell, this is the fourth installment of my analysis series. I’ve stated in the past to keep in mind I’m not much of a theorist, I’m just really talking about things I noticed and what certain symbolism might mean. I will link the Part 3 about Singularity post here since I’ll probably reference back to it:

BTS Analysis Part 3: Singularity

This is my first comeback as an ARMY, so when I tell you I was so hype that it hurt I am telling the truth. I am so beyond blown away, I’m not sure if any of this is about to make sense. This gif explains what was going on in my mind while watching Fake Love.

First, I’ll talk about Fake Love Teaser 1. In the teaser we got call backs to Wings and the Love Yourself Highlight Reels. The boys come in to exchange their fears for a positive so to say. If I had to take an educated guess, based on album notes I’d say Yoongi handed in a piano key. That would leave our intertwined characters. We don’t what Jin was given, if anything. We don’t know what V exchanged. Jungkook never gave over anything, but received a key in return.

When I went back to the highlight reels to research part of the narration really stuck out to me: “Looking back, I had known all along that underneath the glittering world before my eyes lay my deception, that everything was to collapse with a breath of wind. I turned away, I’d side stepped, simply closed my eyes. Afraid I was, afraid to be loved for who I am.”

Fake Love opens with our Smeraldo flower being protected. Very Beauty and the Beast. This is the untold truth that Jin has been asked about. Jin is alone in the room with this untold truth, looking through the window. We see him closing the curtain, and this is followed with doors being shut on Jungkook, leaving him in darkness. Could Jin trying to be shut him out of the truth? Is Jungkook sacrificing himself to be like the child of Omelas? I personally don’t think that Jin knows that Jungkook is looking into his window.

I’m not sure what else we’ll see, but I think it’s safe to say that Jungkook has entered Jin and V’s tangled web.

I love the background of this scene. It reflects the choreography, it brings me back to BS&T, AND kind of looks like a variant of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil”. They consistently cover their eyes, mouth, or ears during the choreography in the music video. It’s a quick and easy way to convey the mental anguish and struggle within the song. There are a couple other choreography cues that I will refer to later.

I’d like to get the color theory part of my explanation out of the way here. If you look at the scenes, they range from a plain almost sepia look to a psychedelic technicolor adjacent style. I think this is because we are passing the euphoric fated love of DNA and into the breaking point in Fake Love. The vibrant colors evoke a feeling of being in a dreamlike wonderland while the faded pastels/sepia tones give specific points of focus. We are being guided into their inner darkness. There is a lot to say for muted tones reflecting the mental state of the characters in a film. What comes to mind for me are films like: “Girl, Interrupted”, “Taxi Driver”, and “Fight Club”. Please note, all these examples have a plot that revolve around psychological themes.

Going back to the first teaser, I’ll explain why I don’t think Jin is aware that Jungkook was watching him through one of his windows. When Jungkook got to the magic shop (styled as a confessional if you noticed) it wasn’t by his choice. He is the only member that really seems to be pushed in. He also doesn’t have anything to exchange on him, but he is given a key. Keys are a symbol of of opening and closing things of course. It can be used to lock something away or set something free. Keys also give us a feeling of security.

However, looking past the keys for a second I wanted to pose the question of if this seems a little like a nod to Pandora’s box to anyone else? Pandora’s box is a Greek myth that essentially has grown to mean getting into a situation that involves big and unexpected troubles. Older more detailed texts explain it as Pandora opening a jar that released sickness, death, and many other evils into the world. Pandora tried to quickly close the jar, but when she did so the only thing she kept in the jar was a flicker of hope. It was meant to be a way to explain why bad things happen in the world. Jungkook had no idea what troubles he is going to see moving forward. Is the key the last bit of hope to uncovering the truth and setting everyone free? Since he came empty handed will he be the traded object for everyone else to gain peace?

Alright, from here we start diving deeper into the member’s individual fears. We’ve seen Jin trying to change the outcome of member’s story lines in Euphoria by looking through windows. I think this scene reflects Jin’s fear that some of these things might remain out of his control. There is only so much tampering that can be done, and not only is it stressful to not know if what you’ve changed is right, it’s hard to predict if your moves will make everything fall apart. In the center of it all, is the untold truth. Would it have been easier to face this truth if it was going to come to this anyway?

RM’s scene contains rings and a mirror. The mirror comes from his song Reflection and writing “you need to survive” on the glass. The rings clearly resemble the hand grips that you would see passengers holding onto when standing on a bus. He is still caught between his old self, and the attraction to the girl on the bus in the Love Yourself Highlight Reel. It doesn’t matter how much he likes her. If he can’t accept himself, then it won’t last. The cinematography of Fake Love also flips between of nice parallel lines and then “dutch angles”. A dutch angle is a technique of tilting the camera so none of the angles in the scene are parallel with the bottom of the screen and is used to show psychological unrest/heavy tension in a scene.

J-Hope is locked in a room full of childish carnival themed props. If you go back in his story line you will find that his mother abandoned him as a child, only leaving him with a Snickers bar. As the music video goes on, we see Snickers bars falling coming through around where the key hole would be and eventually filling up most of the room. That is a very traumatic experience and of course it would result in some type of fear of abandonment. I’ve seen most people saying that the fake love for J-Hope is from his mother, and I think that’s very interesting. Side note that doesn’t really have much to do with anything in particular, but we’ve really entered a time where carnival gear like this is really haunting. Part of that for me is because I always relate carnivals to “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe. Although maybe I actually have something there. As with Poe’s short story, there’s no way to know if Jungkook isn’t leading himself to his own doom. Our setting certainly is one of a type of madness after all. Okay, off this tangent, I’m just a Poe fan.

Jungkook has moved on from J-Hope’s scene to Jimin. We can see that he’s in the studio from the Love Yourself Highlight Reel. If you look even closer, the wall he’s in front of is his paradise picture of the trees. I also thought it was interesting that Jimin is interacting with a sink here. I looked up the symbolism for this one, and in dreams it is said that sinks show how our feelings are retained and turned on and off. A bathroom sink in particular signifies a personal desire to be more intimate and revealing of yourself. I spoke about the symbolism of water in Part 3 for Singularity. If we pair those ideas with the sink symbolism, essentially his emotions have been pent up for too long and will come rushing forward in an overwhelming way. I also recognize that this nods back to the time where Jimin was by himself in the bathtub or in the fish tank in the case of the Japanese version of songs. I also talked about in my Part 2 for Euphoria how he’s been left on his own in the hospital. Jimin has no feeling of freedom there, and the person he was closest to (J-Hope) has also left now.

Jungkook rises from this scene, and once again he and Jin’s movements mirror each other like they did in Euphoria. We also get a glimpse of the object Jin was protecting that held the Smeraldo flower. The flower has turned to sand. Sand is often a symbol meaning the passage of time, but it can also mean eventual destruction or elude to moments that are easily wiped away. Have we already seen the untold truth? Does it mean that everything is already falling apart? Maybe it’s a reference to Jin’s ability to alter things and that this too is just a moment that will be wiped away and changed?

I’d also like to note that the closer Jungkook gets to his destination, the harder it is for him. This is a case of dutch angles being used to build tension in a scene. I also want to take a moment to note the pattern on the floor. This pattern is definitely from the DNA MV just based on the color choices and style. We see it in the hallway Jungkook runs down, and on the floor in Jimin and J-Hope’s sections of Fake Love.

From there we are brought into V’s scene. He is in this sort of tunnel hallway that is full of phones and empty pictures frames on the walls, but the back wall says “save me”. I saw somewhere that black picture frames symbolize an obsession of being perfect or a fear of not being perfect. I just think that’s an interesting tidbit of info, not sure it really sways the story line in any direction nor gives us much we didn’t already expect.

V is holding a phone, which calls back (pun intended, please insert a windshield wiper laugh here) to the moment that he was trying to get a hold of RM who couldn’t answer the phone. The hallway is then lit up by the phones twinkling all around him. I’m guessing this is just exaggerating his fear of the call not going through by showing all the phones malfunctioning.

It might be a reach, but I want to point out that these types of archways remind me of trains, as does the railing to the sides. In Spring Day, V was shown first at the train station.

I want to bring up Jimin a little here as well. Since the boys are exchanging their fears for something positive in the magic shop, I didn’t quite understand why Jimin got the umbrella. I know it shows up in the Highlight Reels, but that didn’t feel to me like a hopeful moment. No matter what Jimin does, he is always getting wet, and the umbrella has never protected him from water/his emotions. I honestly expected him to get a phone because that’s what he used to record J-Hope and the other girl’s practices to recreate the dances. It’s even mentioned in his album notes. Does it mean that no matter the outcome, Jimin is always at a disadvantage? Let me know what you think.

There is a moment where we cut back to RM, and Jungkook is on the other side of the mirror mimicking his movements. This isn’t the first time Jungkook acted as a mirror, in the choreography he also follows J-Hope’s movements during his segment. This will eventually bring us to Suga. In his scene, he has a piano and a guitar in the room. The piano dates back through Wings, and the guitar has to do with the girl that gave him the lollipop. There is a lot about piano between Jungkook and Suga’s notes, and of course their story lines are intertwined throughout the music videos. There comes a point where Suga sets fire to his hotel room, but in Euphoria Jin sent Jungkook to save him.

Fire is often linked to power and passion. Fire has the ability to cause both destruction and transformation. Much like water, it’s symbolism is pretty straight forward.

Now we’re at the part I wanted to bring up the choreography again. I talked about this for the Singularity analysis, and I see it here as well. The movements they are making are very much like puppetry. The arm movements when they step out side to side with their hands down is certainly like they are being controlled by string. I think it’s interesting that Jin is in the center here and they move according to his hand movements on either side of him as well.

Jungkook is almost at his destination now, this room is very peaceful despite the events that have been going on. I’ll bring up here that the only members that have had contact/reference with sand in this MV are Jin, V, and Jungkook. I’d like to expand the idea that sand is also a symbol that might mean the foundation you stand on is unstable. The basis of the way you think etc might not be set in reality, and something that you have buried in your subconscious is moving forward. The smeraldo has already turned to sand, but when Jungkook lets it spill from his hand there are remnants of the petals in the shadows on the wall.

I call this part opening The Chamber of Secrets (I mean he probably knows parseltongue, he is the golden maknae). This is the point where everything begins to come foward: water, fire, snickers (lol).

He enters the room with the hooded figure, who is standing in front of 6 coat racks (a nod to Singularity I’m sure). From there, we’re left unknowing what decisions will be made.

I think it’s clear enough to see that a tie of some kind has been broken. We’ve certainly gone from the members lacing all of their hands together in DNA to perform a wave to falling apart. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

BTS Analysis Part 1: Spring Day

BTS Analysis Part 2: Euphoria

BTS Analysis Part 3: Singularity

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