#HOWEVER I don’t think he would seek out theater on his own | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

goginaporter · 2 years

Text

gina is not ricky’s second, or even third, choice. she is his first.

I have seen a lot of comments, especially as this season has unfolded, that gina isn’t ricky’s first choice, or that he would choose nini over gina given the chance, etc. this isn’t true. the show establishes through many scenes and moments in each season that those statements are false. when we first see ricky and gina connect, it’s as “outsiders” who get each other, as ricky says. I might have to make a separate meta on the relevance of how ricky describes each of them and what it means for their characterization, but I digress. they are able to connect over this shared status. it is important to note that ricky also decided to stop pursuing nini + respect her boundaries at the end of 104/in 105. this does not mean he was seeking to replace nini’s presence in his life, just that rekindling a romantic relationship with her was not in the cards for him anymore at that point in the season. anyways, ricky and gina become close and quickly form a tight bond. many people claim that gina served as a rebound for ricky in these episodes but the show makes very clear what rebounds look like for ricky. he says in 101 that “he talked about nini the whole time” when he was hanging out with various girls that summer. throughout the course of rina’s s1 friendship, nini is not brought up at all until the finale and it’s all but guaranteed gina is never coming back, but we’ll get into that. a complaint nini brings up in the breakup scene in 2.08 is that she feels like she is nini of “ricky & nini” rather than being her own person. I think that the ricky we saw in s1 with gina was ricky as his own person, as opposed to ricky of “ricky & nini” and he displayed significant growth during this time.

gina’s leaving in 1.07 plays an important role in the idea of choice. after hanging up with her mom, she walks into ashlyn’s kitchen to gather her things, where ricky is waiting for her. he tells her “I’ll call you?” not willing to let her go. however, gina knows ricky struggles with people leaving him + she knows the pain of being left. because of her care for him, she does not want him to feel this pain. she tells him, “honestly, you heard what happened. I don’t think there’s any point in calling me anymore, do you?” and leaves. ricky is obviously not satisfied with this answer and rushes after her, leaving the party. before he leaves, he runs into nini, who tries to reach out and connect with him, which would’ve been everything to 1a ricky. however, he brushes her off and presumably runs after gina. I would argue that this is one of the only moments where a choice between nini and gina is presented to ricky and he chooses gina. obviously, there is a lot more nuance at play than that, but it is an interesting moment nonetheless. anyways, this entire encounter is the first moment that gina removes herself as an option. she does not want ricky to miss her or struggle to let her go.

this doesn’t stop ricky, and in the next episode, we see him frantically texting gina even as they stand in their burned down theater. he is worried about her and wants to continue contact, even in the face of the possibility (guarantee at that point) that they would never see each other again. yet again, gina not responding to his messages is another boundary she sets up to make the loss of their friendship easier on ricky. in her mind, it hurts less for him for her to cut him off than for them to try to hold on to a long distance friendship. she does respond to his messages later on in the episode, which I personally think is tied to ej getting her the plane ticket and her seeing this as a chance to give ricky a proper goodbye. however, at this point, it has been well established that gina a) does not want ricky to worry over her, even if it hurts both of them, him in the short term (she thinks) and her in the long term and b) is not coming back. this is the crux of this argument. ricky cannot make a choice between someone who does not want to be chosen to save them from hurt + presumably cannot be there physically. at this point, there is no choice between gina and nini because gina has removed herself as an option.

gina returns to east high on opening night and the first time that ricky sees her is on stage. he is awestruck and rushes backstage to get the opportunity to talk to her. when they see each other, it’s a combination of nerves and awkwardness and relief. the first thing he says is “still can’t believe you’re actually back,” to which gina replies, “one night only. don’t blink, you’ll miss me.” this again establishes the fleeting nature of her return. in one of the only uses of a confessional in this episode, the camera cuts to ricky, where he says that it’s tough seeing gina again. in a short time, she became one of his closest friends (and something more that they never addressed). in fact, he says it feels like she “never left.” he says a lot more, but ends with saying something is different. this scene serves two purposes: showing the impact that gina has had on ricky’s life and showing that he’s regressed into “who he always was,” a ricky where the only option is nini, and gina’s leaving is the catalyst for that. I can talk a lot more about the implications of this scene and the other talk that they have in the s1 finale but I want to talk about the flashback that we see in 2.06.

by the end of the night, ricky has confessed his love for nini. unbidden by the need to choose, he leans into what feels safe and comfortable and accomplishes in what he set out to do at the beginning of the season. interestingly enough, this moment is directly juxtaposed by gina entering the room just seconds after nini leaves to say her goodbyes to ricky. I think the most important line in the scene is when gina says, “I wouldn't quit on us if I wasn't moving away. so now, I’m gonna give you a really tight hug and then I’m gonna walk away with my head held high.” tears are in both of their eyes (and mine) as they hug and the scene ends. I think the wording here is so important. gina cares about ricky and wants to let him know that her walking out of his life is not by choice. again, lack of choice in this situation! it’s also interesting to note that the scene ends with the hug, not with gina leaving.

this is getting scarily long so I just want to add one thing from s3. ricky tells jet, after helping gina set up a promposal for ej, that he can’t believe he let Color War slip through his fingers (obviously meaning gina). ricky regrets not being able to choose gina in the past, and every action he’s done in this season has been him putting gina first, choosing her first in everything. he’s been robbed of this choice in the past and refuses to let that happen again.

#ricky bowen #gina porter #ricky x gina #rina #hsmtmts #rina hsmtmts #gina x ricky #gina porter x ricky bowen #ricky bowen is in love with gina porter #i don't know what's scarier #the length of this #or the fact that I didn't say everything i needed to say #ricky has been so selfless this season #and this is driven by his love for gina #which is also selfless #he never wants to make her feel like she isn't a priority #he loves her so much #okay done with tags #rina endgame

209 notes · View notes

jaymarlowgirlinnovators · 1 year

Text

Fun Home - Book Report

What Girl Icon does this book represent?

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is an autobiographical, coming of age story that maps out Allison Bechdel’s journey to self acceptance. Throughout the book, Allison describes in incredible detail her relationship with her parents. Throughout the book, she feels as if she doesn’t have someone to help guide her through her most important adolescent years. She has many questions and feels there is no one to answer them. With her father specifically, she immerses herself in books because that’s what he is interested in.

Does the book's narrative serve to add a new voice to the theme of adolescent transformation previously absent from the literary genre?

I think that the message of this book is one that we have seen in many works of literature, HOWEVER, the execution was transformative.

How would you describe the rite of passage aspects of the story?

There are many moments that are relatable in this book. Her parents clearly cannot stand each other and her mother needs a sounding board. She eclipses Alison on many occasions such as revealing her father’s affair when she decides to come out. When parents don’t love each other the way we think that they should, it can be very isolating. A part that stood out to me was when Alison felt that her father valued their furniture more than her.

What aspects of Girl Power does this book explore?

Be who you are and don’t judge others for perhaps taking a different path. Alison has always felt different. She wants to dress differently and wear her hair differently than other girls. She fights her father wanting to put barrettes in her hair just because he feels that is what girls should do. She confesses that she has always wanted to dress like a boy and is determined throughout the book to explore those feelings. Determination is a prominent theme in this book. It’s clear that Alison doesn’t get the support she needs at home, so she turns to books and outside experiences to fill in those cracks. Although I think she sees her mother seeking pleasure in theater to fill her void, Alison wants to take things a step further and ask the tough questions and deal with the answers that she is given. For her father, she is a pillar of strength. As he navigates his own journey, he sees her as the only one to have intellectual conversations with.

What is break-through about the book (design, representation, diversity, etc)?

I found the layout of the book really exciting. I was never a comic reader as a kid so it took me a second to get into the flow, but once I did, I finished in a flash. Making this a visual outlet allows us to take Allison’s emotional journey with her. We see throughout that her parents aren’t looking at her when she speaks. Seeing their nonchalant reactions to her forces us to root for her to find a community that will see her. Another element to note is the representation of the female body. From Allison questioning the changes her body is going through to her appreciation of her college girlfriends body, I feel the representation is done in a tasteful way.

Is there a film, TV or theatrical version of this story? Does it live up to the book?

I unfortunately did not see the musical when it was on broadway, but I remember seeing a lot of the clips and Tony Award performances. What is so special about this performance is that even today, I rewatched it and can pinpoint many moments of my childhood where I felt different and didn’t know what to do with that information. As a musical theater actor, I connect with music more than any other artform so I think that the musical can elevate the meaning of the book to those who operate in a similar fashion.

0 notes

sxlver-sweet · 3 years

Note

Dazai would breed you at the bathroom stall, changing room of a dress shop, anywhere but the bed to make it more interesting. And then ask you : "Where was it that you got pregnant bella?"

- anon 👀

Just dropping here and asking for a short drabble bestie....

thank you sm for clarifying what you want from me. i be struggling sometimes. this was definitely longer than a drabble, though😭 also, welcome, new anon!! i’m glad you’re here <3

dazai is a WHORE, let me tell you.

but, only truly for his sweet, little girlfriend who he’s been frequently fantasizing about knocking up and completely claiming as his own. don’t get me wrong, though. he knows that you’re his. it’s crystal clear in the way you haul him into bed every night and tangle your limbs with his so that he can’t escape, in the swirly, illustrious initials of his name adorning the golden anklet he’d gifted to you for your one-year anniversary that you hardly ever leave the house without, and in the way you seek him out when you’ve had a rough day so that you can faceplant into his chest and gripe about everything that had gone wrong.

still, he couldn’t help but yearn to seal the deal. he desired more from you—something that, unbeknownst to him, has crossed your own mind more times than you can count. he wanted to watch your stomach swell with his seed and poke fun at you when you struggle to roll out of bed, to fondle and kiss all over your tits once they’re heavy with milk and far more sensitive to his touch than they’ve ever been, to simply tend to his pregnant wife.

so, he made it happen. he accompanied you into boutique fitting rooms under the guise of you needing his “expert” opinion on fashion, only to have your clothes pooling on the floor and you caged against the wall with his hand clapped over your parted lips and his stiffened cock stuffing your pussy in seven minutes’ time. he’d made it his personal mission to breed you, to fill you so full that by the time he’s finally pulling out, you’re overflowing and dripping down your legs in nacreous rivulets. whenever your legs caved, he held you up. whenever you whined that you couldn’t take it and wept into his palm, he pacified you with a slower pace and praises cooed into your ear, yet he never ceased his movements entirely, hellbent on fucking his load as far into your cunt as possible.

it became a common occurrence for him to breed you in as many places as possible, save for the bed, where he’d been taught is the most romantic place to conceive a child. maybe he enjoyed teasing you about how easily you let him slut you out in even the most scandalous places, or maybe he merely wanted to spice things up as much as possible. whatever the case may be, he avoided the bedroom entirely. you never really minded, though. as long as he was satisfying you, you didn’t really see any reason to object to him bundling you into a bathroom stall and fiddling with your belt or him pressing your face into the leather backseat of your own car as he railed you in the middle of a movie theater parking lot. time and time again, he filled you up over and over, damn near ruining your cervix from how many times he’d battered and bullied it with the leaking tip of his cock in his urge to get you pregnant.

you’d be a fool to be surprised when you’re rewarded with a positive pregnancy test. however, you’d be even more of an imbecile to not expect the tilting of dazai’s lips into an impish smirk and the stooping of his head to make direct eye contact with you. mf would have the gall—the absolutely audacity—to hum quizzically, eyes glimmering with faux innocence as he asks you, “how ever do you think that could have happened, bella? i only came in you a few times, didn’t i?” if you try to interject or rebuke his statement, he’ll press onward as if you hadn’t even opened your mouth. “so, when do you think it took, hm? maybe the bathroom stall—or, maybe the dressing room. i think it was the dressing room.”

#bungou stray dogs smut #bsd smut #dazai osamu smut #dazai smut #osamu dazai smut #$bsd.unfiltered #🍬arba’s aphrodisiacs🍬#[candlelight.reverie] <3 #[darling.👀]

581 notes · View notes

hafanforever · 3 years

Photo

It’s Good to Be Bad

I’ve described in previous analyses that I have a strong affinity for villains in fiction, including those by Disney. But like any fan of Disney, there are villains that I love and ones that I deeply detest with every bone in my body. So for my last analysis of the year, I will discuss my five most favorite and five least favorite Disney animated villains, though I also want to list a couple of other characters as honorable mentions to explain why I like or hate them.

The reasons I have for liking my favorite villains are simple, if not somewhat shallow, because I don’t exactly have deep reasons for liking them. Regardless of how evil, sadistic, cruel, and ruthless they are, I like them primarily because they are funny or charismatic. But it’s so much easier for me to list why I hate my least favorite villains, which is largely attributed the kinds of traits they display (most of which I cannot stand in people), their motives for being evil, and how they carry out their evil deeds while showing their evil natures.

This essay has turned into a longer one than I anticipated, so I am adding the “Keep reading” feature. Before I begin, I want to thank my dear buddy and soul sis @minervadeannabond for coming up with this title. Here is yet again another analysis of mine for you to enjoy, sis! 😁😄😉❤️

Most Favorites

Scar - Since The Lion King was the very first Disney film I ever saw in theaters as a child, and the first one I remember well from my childhood, many of my favorites Disney things come from it, including Scar being my #1 favorite Disney villain. Yes, he is a sadistic, tyrannical, narcissistic, cold-blooded murderer, but I think it is because of his cunning, smooth, elegant, charismatic nature and how pivotal he is to the story, particularly with how much he turns out to be a dark reflection of Simba, is why I love him so much. Furthermore, his song “Be Prepared” is my favorite villain song and among my favorite Disney songs of all, further showing how much The Lion King has given me Disney favorites since I was a child. 😁

Hades - Another one I remember well from my childhood, Hades is undoubtedly one of the funniest villains from the Disney animated canon. Although he is as cruel, evil, ruthless, and sadistic as any Disney villain, Hades is also so fast-talking, sleazy, sarcastic, cheeky, and hilarious that it makes it hard for me to take him seriously as a menacing villain. And while he constantly goes into fiery rages and blows his hot-headed top when furious, these help make Hades far more a comical, rather than scary, figure. Heck, when I was a kid, I always laughed, rather than got scared, whenever he unleashed one of his temper tantrums (except when he blows up at Meg with “I OWN YOU!!!”). And James Woods’s performance, especially since he ad-libbed many lines, helps make Hades such an unforgettable and memorable, if not lovable, character. So yeah, Hades’s wisecracking, talkative personality made him a memorable villain for me as a child, and I’ve loved him for it ever since. 😆😂

Ursula - Much like Hades, Ursula is sleazy, scheming, and cunning, yet wisecracking and comical at the same time. Besides her dry sense of humor, Ursula’s eccentricity, flamboyance, and elegance have always been the traits that drew me to her, and Pat Carrolll’s performance of the character is pure excellence. 😉

Maleficent - Despite being an incarnation of pure evil, including with her self-proclaimed title as The Mistress of All Evil, to me, Maleficent is by far the coolest, most badass Disney animated villain of all! 😆👍🏻 Yes, she curses Aurora with no true motive whatsoever, and she’s sadistic, ruthless, blasphemous, and murderous, but her display of her ill temper and dark magic just makes her totally awesome, most especially when she zaps her minions for their stupidity and incompetence upon learning they were only looking for a baby during their 16-year search for Aurora. 😁

Ratigan - Again, Disney has an evil, murderous, sadistic villain in Ratigan, but I love him because he is very collected, calculating, sophisticated, and charismatic, not to mention Vincent Price delivers such a great vocal performance as the character. 😉 What I also love about Ratigan is the moment when he undergoes what is known as a villainous breakdown, which is when a villain snaps and goes utterly crazy. During the film, Ratigan has some moments of losing his cool, but just as quickly manages to become calm and regain his composure. However, upon seeing Basil and Olivia escape from him inside Big Ben, along with Basil having having foiled his earlier scheme to kill the queen and take over England, Ratigan finally snaps, turning from a formal, sophisticated, composed rat to a highly feral, aggressive, savage one. It is the moment when Ratigan reveals the monster within and looks like a true rat, with an aggressive expression, hunched back, elongated claws, and running on all fours. The fact that Ratigan’s breakdown juxtaposes what kind of rat he was for the majority of the film is why his villainous breakdown is my favorite of any Disney villain.

Most Hated

Gaston - I have stated this before in “Bride and Prejudice”, but I pick Gaston as my #1 choice as my least favorite Disney animated villain. And it’s not just because of his extreme vanity, egotism, chauvinism, and arrogance, which are the very traits I hate in people, but because of his inferior, sexist, misogynistic views of women. Gaston is THE walking definition of toxic masculinity, the fictional example of the worst kind of man, the epitome of what men should NEVER be! 😡😡😡 He thinks men are the superior gender and that women are inferior to men, with their only purposes being to serve men and be their sex objects. And since I am a feminist who believes in gender equality, I dislike men who have low, sexist opinions of women, and Gaston fits the profile of what I think is the worst example of such a man. I could go on and on explaining just why I loathe this monster of a man with all my heart, but you can just read the aforementioned analysis to find out more.

Lady Tremaine - If it weren’t for Gaston being my #1 pick because of his extreme sexism and misogyny, I would pick Lady Tremaine. She comes such a close second because her motivations for abusing, oppressing, and being so cruel to Cinderella are petty and stupid, ESPECIALLY because Cinderella never even did anything to deserve such treatment from her in the first place! 😠😡 Lady Tremaine hates Cinderella and is very jealous of her purely because Cinderella so much better-looking and kinder than her own daughters and herself. So they abuse her and make her their servant to make her miserable and unattractive so that they can look better than her instead. Additionally, Lady Tremaine has a deep-rooted obsession to be above Cinderella at all costs that she resorts to lying, manipulation, trickery, and cheating in order to stay above. I particularly loathe it when she manipulates her daughters into tearing up Cinderella’s dress just so that she can appear fair and keep her word regarding her side of the bargain (she says ”if you can find something suitable to wear”, and once it’s wrecked, it’s no longer suitable) while simultaneously making sure she doesn’t have to keep her promise since she never wants Cinderella to go in the first place. All that being said, do these sound like justifiable excuses for hating a completely innocent woman? I DON’T THINK SO!!! 😡😡😡

Claude Frollo - Now if weren’t for BOTH Gaston and Lady Tremaine coming first, Claude Frollo would come on top as well! 😡😡😡 Frollo is without a doubt in my mind the most evil villain in the Disney animated canon. Unlike most Disney villains, he is COMPLETELY devoid of any likable or redeemable traits, making me have nothing but feelings of pure hatred for him. Ruthless, cruel, blasphemous, racist, and evil to his core, Frollo holds a deep-seated hatred for the gypsies and seeks to eradicate them from Paris, making him not only murderous, but genocidal, especially since he seeks to kill them simply out of his own racism, supremacy, and superiority. Throughout the years in his quest to eliminate the gypsies, Frollo murders Quasimodo’s mother by violently kicking her, causing her to fall and hit her head on the stone steps of Notre Dame, then tries to burn Esmeralda at the stake, declaring that she must be killed because she has been practicing witchcraft. After killing the mother, Frollo even attempts to drown baby Quasimodo simply because of his deformity. What makes Frollo even more evil besides doing his deeds is that he is a judge with control over the city, yet he proves himself to be corrupt and hypocritical by violating the laws to accomplish his dark, sinister deeds. Perhaps what makes Frollo the most evil villain of all is that he is in complete denial about how evil he really is. He has a delusional belief that he is a good, religious man doing God’s work by trying to purge the world of evil, when all he really does is twist his “faith” and hypocritically use it for his own evil purposes. What’s worse is that Frollo never once takes an ounce of responsibility for his crimes; he makes excuses to justify his actions, painting himself as guiltless and his victims as the only ones at fault. So with Frollo being such a blasphemous, hypocritical, racist, genocidal, murderous, corrupt judge who never believes he is doing anything wrong and always lays blame on the victims of his misdeeds, I can’t say there is a single thing about him that I like, and I’m happy he met his death in a fiery blaze! 😡🔥

Mother Gothel - A character I see as being an amalgam of Gaston, Lady Tremaine, and Frollo, the reasons why I hate all three of these villains are also found in Gothel: vanity, narcissism, oppression, mental abuse, trickery, manipulation, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and flat-out cruelty. First of all, Gothel’s vanity, narcissism, and obsession with her own beauty makes her extremely insufferable and annoying, not to mention the fact that she hoarded the flower to herself for hundreds of years just to stay alive shows how incredibly selfish and possessive she is. And due to her selfishness, she kidnaps Rapunzel, hides her in a tower, lies to her about the outside world, and continually mentally abuses, manipulates, oppresses, mocks, and belittles her just to ensure that Rapunzel will never leave the tower and the flower’s magic in her hair will keep her (Gothel) alive and young forever. On par with her narcissism, Gothel is shown to be a very spoiled, childish, immature woman who seeks to always have things her way and throws tantrums or other emotional outbursts when she doesn’t get her way or what she wants, especially the very moment she wants it. Furthermore, Gothel possesses a martyr, or victim, complex, which is shown perfectly when victimizes herself and places all the blame on Rapunzel whenever any sort of conflict befalls their lives and relationship, especially when they argue. So with all these flaws in mind, like Gaston, Lady Tremaine, and Frollo, I can’t find any good reason to like Gothel at all. “Mother Knows Best”? More like “Gothel Knows Worst”! 😠😡

Governor Ratcliffe - I said above that I hate Gaston because of his bigoted, low views of women, and prejudice is the main reason why I hate Governor Ratcliffe. However, his prejudice is in the form of racism, the kind of bigotry that I hate the most. Ratcliffe displays this attitude towards the Native Americans, considering them savages and seeing himself as better than them all because of his race, which makes him a white supremacist. Besides his supremacy and superiority regarding his race, Ratcliffe is intensely greedy and selfish since he wants to keep any riches found for himself and believes that the Virginia land and anything he finds on it is his for the taking. In relation to his bigotry, he is also quite delusional and self-righteous, which makes him believe that any theory he has is right and he refuses to believe otherwise or listen to reason. For example, Ratcliffe dismisses Wiggins’ correct assumptions on why the Indians attacked the settlers and John’s claim that there is no gold in the lands after Pocahontas tells him this. The hatred I hold for Ratcliffe is significantly less than the other four listed here, but the reasons I gave are virtually like those I gave for Frollo, so I’m confident with Ratcliffe and his place on my list.

Bonus Mentions

Hans - Hans is a villain that I place in the middle between my most loved and most hated villains, because I love him for WHAT he is as a villain while I simultaneously hate him for WHO he is as a character. I have said it to friends and some of my other analyses before, but one of the reasons why I love Frozen is because it took many of the traditional fairy tale elements and tropes used in their preceding films, and turned them upside down. So rather than having another prince as the heroic male lead in this film, Frozen twisted that trope around by making him the villain instead. And when Hans finally reveals his true nature, you realize that he has fooled not only Anna and the other characters who interacted with him, but first-time viewers as well! So while I love Hans for being a villain who keeps his true nature under wraps for the majority of the film and almost gets away with his crimes because of it, I also hate him because of how cold, cruel, callous, ruthless, and sadistic he really is. When he reveals his true nature and explains his plan to Anna, he mocks her intelligence, naïveté, and desperation for love while explaining just how easy it was for him to deceive and manipulate her into being a pawn in his plan to take over Arendelle. Throughout the whole scene, Hans smiles wickedly and sadistically, clearly showing the delight he is getting from tormenting Anna and watching her suffer while he explains his scheme and extinguishes all light sources to accelerate her death. It’s also easy to see his sadism when he announces his plan to murder Elsa, and that he will get even greater joy out of carrying out the act itself (which we see when Hans smiles widely while swinging his sword over Elsa’s head as he tries to kill her on the fjord).

Chi-Fu - While he is not a true villain, and not even evil at all, Chi-Fu is a very detestable character, one whose guts I hate completely because he has the same traits that make me hate Gaston: arrogance, conceit, egotism, bigotry, superiority, and misogyny. Prejudice against women is a main theme in Mulan, and Chi-Fu is the one man whose prejudiced opinions never change. While Shang and Mulan’s fellow soldiers initially hold views that women are beneath men, they learn to change them after Mulan proves herself a capable warrior in the army (even after her disguise is revealed), most especially when she helps save China from Shan Yu’s reign of terror. Despite the majority of his bigotry being aimed at women, Chi-Fu is also detestable because he shows it towards nearly everyone else, except the Emperor. As the second-in-command to the Emperor, Chi-Fu sees himself superior to almost everyone else around him, which enhances his pompous, elitist, arrogant attitude. Because of all these antagonistic traits, I loathe Chi-Fu while I don’t hate Shan Yu at all, even though the latter is truly pure evil and genocidal! 😠😡 It just goes to show that some people who are neither necessarily good nor bad can be even more contemptible that the most malevolent, murderous people.

218 notes · View notes

d-criss-news · 3 years

Text

Darren Criss and Este Haim’s Friendship Takes Center Stage on That Thing I Do

On their new podcast, the musician-actors are picking the brains of fellow creatives about the passions that fuel and define them.

Darren Criss and Este Haim may have named their podcast That Thing I Do after the mid-’90s movie close to their hearts—That Thing You Do!, about the rise and fall of a fictional rock band—but there’s another film that seemed to loom just as large when creating their show.

“I think we’re like, slightly obsessed with the Sliding Doors moment,” Haim told Vanity Fair, referencing the 1998 rom-com that follows Gwyneth Paltrow’s character down two divergent timelines. “If you’re so incredibly passionate about multiple things, what is the thing? What is the event? Was there an event that made you kind of pivot and just go left instead of going right at that fork in the road?”

That pivotal crossroads is just one of the topics that Criss and Haim are eager to delve into on their show. Produced by Cadence13, That Thing I Do is a friendship-fueled quest to understand the passions, past and present, that have shaped the careers of other multi-hyphenate artists (Criss is an actor with a background in music, and Haim is a musician with roots in theater). In addition to lengthy, intimate conversations with celebrities including Carly Rae Jepsen, Evan Rachel Wood, and Reggie Watts, That Thing I Do mines Criss and Haim’s insatiable curiosity for all things creative to produce episodes that are as unpredictable as they are delightful.

As hosts, Criss and Haim tear through each episode like tornados: Accents are adopted, sentences are sung, and movie references and inside jokes fly hard and fast. Criss is a verbose, hyperkinetic storyteller, quick with a self-deprecating comment or quippy aside, and Haim is eager and unselfconscious, with a palpable enthusiasm for every guest and every possible subject. It quickly becomes clear that this is one of those friendships where the participants seem to more or less share a brain; where one can riff off the other, seemingly in perpetuity, about any number of topics without ever getting bored. And when a pair of celebrities find themselves so simpatico—especially a duo as funny and game as these two—what are they supposed to do? Not start a podcast?

That was more or less Haim’s thinking, after she and Criss started logging lengthy FaceTime calls during the pandemic that she increasingly felt would be entertaining to a wider audience. Criss, however, was more reluctant to start recording their conversations: “I said no so many times,” he said. “I really felt like I didn’t have time. But Este wore me down.”“I am pretty relentless when I want to do something,” said Haim, grinning. Haim, one-third of the eponymous rock band Haim, experienced her own “Sliding Doors moment” in her late teens, when after years of theater and dance training, she chose to attend the University of California, Los Angeles, for ethnomusicology, instead of pursuing drama programs at Carnegie Mellon or New York University. Over 10 years later, with a slew of Grammy nominations under her belt, music videos directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and a life spent performing alongside sisters Danielle and Alana, there’s no question that Haim loves what she does, and takes it seriously. “I try to work at my craft every single day,” said Haim. “So at least I have that. I definitely try to stay creative every single day. If it’s not me writing lyrics, it’s me, you know, singing ideas into my iPhone.” But she’s still open about a “hunger” for acting and dance that she feels is still important to nourish, however and whenever she can. She reminisces about taking an improv class at the Upright Citizens Brigade in 2017, and her love of the Suzuki and Viewpoints methods of acting, both movement-based techniques that draw on an extreme awareness of the body. She claims she still interrogates actor friends about their experiences working in avant-garde theater (she charmingly calls these conversations “offline podcasts”).

Haim’s passion when talking about physical theater surprises even Criss: “We’ve talked a lot about stuff, but we’ve never really talked about [Suzuki],” he said. “I want to talk about that in the podcast, because we get to learn new stuff about each other every week.”

That real-time revelation speaks directly to Criss and Haim’s goal with That Thing I Do—to create a space where artists can speak to all parts of themselves, and bring previously unknown or underappreciated areas of passion and skill to light. “One of the things that I always love finding out about artists who I think are so incredible in one field is that there’s usually a seed somewhere else that is just as potent,” said Criss, citing recent interviews with Thundercat, in which the musician revealed his background in visual art, and Maya Rudolph, who majored in photography at University of California, Santa Cruz, before becoming a Saturday Night Live all-star, as prime examples. “Having an artistic spirit is by its nature very amorphous. It usually comes with a lot of roots that go other places.”

That interconnectivity of talents is something that Criss, an Emmy– and Golden Globe Award–winning actor (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story) deeply relates to. As he describes it, each thread of his creative expression is inextricably linked to the other: “When I’m acting, I’m composing music, the way that dialogue is put together has rhythm, cadence, speed, tone, pitch,” he said. “There’s things that are very musical and compositional about the way that you deliver dialogue. So to me, it’s all kind of the same stuff. It’s all one body of water that can take different shapes.”

That’s not to say he hasn’t wondered what his life might have been like had he prioritized one of his skills over another at a certain time, imagining his own Sliding Doors plotline. “I often wonder what would have happened if, when I was 22 and I was getting attention from major labels and acting wasn’t happening, music was happening—would I have been a Shawn Mendestype?” said Criss. “But I don’t mind the expense that I’ve paid in not doing those one things, like, volumetrically. I now have a collection of a lot of things that have lower visibility, but higher passion and gratification.”

To that point, That Thing I Do doesn’t dwell too much on the could-have-beens and what-ifs, as tempting a thought exercise as it may be. He and Haim are more interested in finding the common threads between their own experiences and that of other creatives, and seeking the “why” behind the artistic choices their peers have made. Haim also reveals a less lofty, ulterior motive behind the pod: “This was also our evil plan to make new friends.”

And while both multi-hyphenates may have just added yet another commitment to their already very full plates, both appear energized by their newfound vocation as hosts—and to have a dedicated space to simply shoot the shit with each other. “I think we’re just getting started,” said Criss. “And I think Este would say the same.”

#darren criss #este haim #vanity fair #that thing i do podcast #that thing i do #press #august 2021

42 notes · View notes

piedpiperslists · 3 years

Text

Taehyung One Shots (XI)

* s - contains smut

Games by @btssmutgalore s wc~7.8 / roommates au Summary: Your roommate Taehyung wants to try something new, and he hopes you would be willing to help.

Good Luck Charm by @gukyi wc~11k / friends to lovers, roommates au Summary: Kim Taehyung has nearly everything he’s ever dreamed of: an apartment in New York city, a lead role in an off-broadway play, and a best friend to share it with. But even still, there’s one thing missing—love. And when he goes on the hunt for it, he dots every I and crosses every t, leaves no stone unturned, but forgets to look at the person who could ever love him the most: you.

Whiteout by @secretmischief s wc~10k / brother's best friend Summary: You and your brothers best friend attempt to throw Jungkook a fun, weekend-long birthday celebration at a cabin you rented. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned. You find yourself stranded with no power, and all of your feelings, alone with Taehyung.

Leave Your Name Part 2 by @craztextae s wc~4.7k / established relationship Summary: You get word that Taehyung was grinding up with a girl in the club. The problem is you’re his girlfriend and now you are dead set on retribution.

For Heartache by @sketchguk wc~4.1k / strangers au Summary: Craigslist is a weird place to buy used furniture. It’s an even weirder place to find love. But after a missed connection at stop & shop and a few drunken decisions on the loneliest night of the year, it only makes sense to seek some comfort from strangers on the internet.

Maybe Baby Retreat by @jimlingss s wc~12.7k / established relationship Summary: In an attempt to conceive, Taehyung discovers a five day retreat dedicated to help with the impregnation process but you’re fairly certain that the entire thing is a scam.

Carnal Cupidity by @kittae s wc~9k / alpha werewolf!Taehyung, established relationship, PWP Summary: Things are a little tense in your relationship with your boyfriend, an alpha wolf and leader of his own pack. After another fight, you’ve had just about enough and decide to take matters into your own hands when his heat approaches. Your methods, however, prove to be more effective than intended…

Of Cliches and Romcom Tropes by @vanaera wc~10.1k / college au Summary: You find yourself literally living a classic Romcom trope by being the nerdy introvert in love with her unexpected friend, Kim Taehyung, your university’s golden theater boy and campus heartthrob. It only turns more disgustingly cliché when you learn he part-times as a prince actor in the same carnival where you work as a ticket booth attendant. Trusting on the clichés you’ve watched in numerous Romcom films, you embark on a plan to get your crush to like you back this Halloween.

Turpentine by @satnin-darling wc~10.1k / art dealer!Taehyung Summary: Taehyung was an art dealer and she, an artist. They knew each other before, just as they were both at the peak of their careers. But they both fell from grace. She disappeared while Taehyung tried to get by. Then, there was an opportunity for Taehyung to get it all back. So their paths cross again on a small island. In the sleepy fishing town, in a barn by the cliff-side, surrounded by art, fresh produce, and morning fog, they remember who they were and meet in the middle.

Tiptoed His Way by @aureumjeon s wc~6.4k / college au, roommates au Summary: Taehyung found himself locked out of your shared home and there were only two options to successfully get inside. (1) Wake you up from your sleep and face the wrath that’ll follow, (2) Think like a burglar and enter through your window. (Un)fortunately for him, he picks the latter.

#kth list #taehyung oneshot

16 notes · View notes

whitehotharlots · 3 years

Text

The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc.

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism.

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable.

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself.

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing.

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse.

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back.

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure.

27 notes · View notes

theanimeview · 3 years

Text

Hazbin Hotel's Double Plot: Charlie and Angel Dust - Or - Why Charlie and Angel Dust are Both Main Characters (And I love one more than the other)

By: Peggy Sue Wood | @peggyseditorial

Welcome to Storytelling Class, everyone. Now, who remembered to brush up on their Shakespeare? No one? Not to worry, Prof. Peggy (not official... yet) is going to explain it all anyway with a bunch of unnecessary questions she plans to answer for you. Ready?

Here's a question: What is a double plot?

It's a more common occurrence in storytelling than you may think and is sometimes mistaken for subplot though the two are not the same. Shakespeare used double plots in several of his works, though King Lear is the most common example. We generally call a double plot structure that which takes two stories with combined plotlines. The two stories could stand alone but are purposefully combined to depict complex situations mirroring each other, often to comment upon or reinterpret events that transpire in other dramatic situations. "Often this takes the form of relatively minor characters and plotlines doubling events and situations from the 'main' dramatic narrative" (Reinke 1, LINK). The main characters of the "second" plot are often supporting characters in the "main" story and vice-versa, meaning that the main characters in the "main" story may act as supporting characters in the "second" plot.

Subplots have entirely different focuses that ultimately guide the main plot, such as on a hero's quest, the hero's party must split into groups to find different items for a magical spell. Following the group that went away from the party in different chapters is an example of a subplot, as this is a subordinate "plots" that serve the progression of the main one. A good indicator of a double plot instead of a subplot is figuring out whether or not the two plots could stand alone.

John Lithgow, far left, with Clarke Peters in the Shakespeare in the Park production of "King Lear" at the Delacorte Theater. Credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Using King Lear as an example, our "main" plot features King Lear as the main character of his tragedy, and the "second" plot features Lord Gloucester in a tragedy mirroring King Lear's story. In both plots, the main characters suffer from their past choices. A more modern example would be that of Netflix's Russian Doll, in which we follow two distinctive main characters suffering from, and traversing, a similar path. We can define them as double plots because splitting the two stories in each work to create separate works with connected characters would still work. (Essentially, the two stories of each work can stand alone--we don't need to know what is happening to Lord Gloucester to get what is going on in King Lear's story. It helps to know that Lord Gloucester's story, but it is not required to understand Lear's story since what will be important to Lear’s plot will be revealed to Lear’s character later on.)

Another example of a double plot structure in a modern work would be that of Hazbin Hotel--let's discuss.

We often define a plot by three things. First, the main character; second, the question that said character needs to answer; and, third, the problem(s) that led them to seek an answer to the asked question. In a double plot, you have to answer the first and third questions twice, which we can easily do with Hazbin Hotel.

Let's start with Question 1. Who is/are the main character(s)? I've stated that it is Charlie and Angel Dust, but why? Two reasons. The first is how each character is introduced, and the second is that they are both asking the same question, though with different reasons behind it.

In the Prologue/Chapter 1 of the Hazbin Hotel comic, the first character we are introduced to is Angel Dust. He is our introduction into this fictional world, and his story follows the hero's journey narrative making him one of the main characters and defining his story as at least one, if not the main, plot in our double plot structure. Charlie is one of the two main characters for the same reasons. She also appears in that first chapter near the end (just like King Lear, who comes in after Lord Gloucester's introduction), and is beginning a hero's journey of her own. Both their stories ask the same question but have different reasons for seeking the answer.

Beginning with Angel Dust, we see that his story starts in a comfort zone--that zone being a criminal lifestyle shown with him trying to make a deal with some demonic mafioso-looking dudes. We soon find out that he's actually acting out despite appearing comfortable in this kind of situation because he what? Wants something, that's right (I knew you were a smart cookie).

When the deal with the mafia-demons doesn't go so well, we see him thrown into a familiar though much worse situation with his abuser and pimp, Valentino. This is our introduction to the main problems in Angel's current life, the issues that are making him want something outside of his comfort zone. To get what he wants, Angel must enter an unfamiliar, perhaps dangerous, territory and adapt to it until he achieves the goal or fails trying, and the person that provides the opportunity for entering the unfamiliar world, the Hazbin Hotel, is Charlie.

With Charlie's introduction at the end of chapter one, we begin seeing her hero's journey unfold. At present (her meeting Angel Dust), she is seen in her comfort zone. She's in a chauffeured limo with her bodyguard girlfriend, comfortably giving money to Angel Dust and acting as a somewhat naive and rather hopeful princess you might find in any fairytale story. She wants something but has yet to enter the unfamiliar situation (at least until episode 1, where Alistar steps in but that's not important right now). This closes the comic, but perfectly sets up the double plot narrative moving forward, thus helping to identify our two main characters.

What fully defines them as the main characters, my second reason for claiming both Angel Dust and Charlie to be one, is that second question we have for defining plot (the question that the main character needs to answer).

Charlie says that the goal, or question she seeks to answer, is whether or not a sinner can be redeemed once they find themselves in Hell; however, I would argue that the real question is whether or not salvation (preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss) is possible for Hell's population. Charlie's "redemption" is instead a method to seek the answer to the question rather than the question itself.

I argue this because that seems to be the end-goal Charlie is seeking for the citizens of Hell--salvation from being slaughtered on an annual basis. It is also the goal of Angel Dust, who seeks to be saved from his current life through his own hands or by someone else (though he doesn't seem to believe that someone else would help him without costing him something in return). For those of you wondering, Angel seems to be seeking an escape from many things, such as needing to trade sexual favors to his landlord because Valentino doesn't pay him well, an escape from hunger, and potentially other physical dangers.

The two are both seeking answers to this question but going about it in somewhat different ways.

In a recent video by Diregentleman, Why Angel Dust Should Be The Protagonist In Hazbin Hotel (it's brilliant, btw--a highly recommended watch if you have the time because most all his points are great), he argues that because Angel's story is more compelling and interesting, he should be the main character and while I agree that Angel's story is more compelling to myself as a viewer (just as I felt Lord Gloucester's story was far better than King Lear's parts), I still think Charlie's story worth the focus it is given in tandem with Angel Dust's.

WITH THAT CONCLUDED, I want to talk about my favorite character, Angel Dust! The lesson is over--let's nerd out.

I have been thinking about this A LOT since Episode 1 came out, and when "Addict" dropped, I was pumped. In October of last year, I uploaded the first draft for the review into the Google file our team shares but had been writing said draft for a long while already, and watching Diregentleman's video pushed me over the edge to scrap the planned post that should have gone up at 7 AM this morning and instead re-write and post this. Because as much as I loath spiders--I LOVE Angel Dust.

Gosh, where do I begin….

Angel has been beaten down to the point that his character is a tad bit all over the place. Is he the villain? Sort of? At least, he comes off as one since he's not working very hard to fulfill his end of the bargain with Charlie and since he is a demon--but he also has qualities that are very much fitting the "redemption" Charlie is aiming for without any prompting. In fact, it's what made him so likable to me before the music video release of "Addict"--which just made me love him more. What do I mean?

Well, in the first episode, we see him just coming back from prostituting himself--a job he appears to be forced to do by Valentino (one of the big-bads of Viziepop's Hell):

Valentino: Did you get my money, Angie Baby?

Angle: I'm wittha John now [sic]. I don't get why this needed to happen so soon after the extermination tho, Boss

Valentino: Just do it. No sass k sugar.

Angle: yes Val

He then buys drugs, which get stolen only to see a large piece of a building fall onto the would-be thief. Is he worried about the thief? No. Angel is only concerned with the drugs. Immediately after that, he joins a turf war with a friend of his, Cherri Bomb, and participates in wrecking what remains of the city from the previous night's purging (when Angels descend upon Hell and kill off a bunch of Hell's populous).

Cherri is his friend, and it is at this moment, we see his first redeeming quality in the animated pilot--a self-sacrificing protective nature for a friend. How? You may ask, well, Angel is shown saving Cherri. It happens when Angel sees a weapon pointed at them, something that Cherri doesn't notice. He pushes her out of the way, unsure of what may happen, thereby allowing himself to be captured (or potentially injured) instead of her.

That's self-sacrificing and is generally considered a "righteous" quality.

It's not like she could be killed--they're already dead and, from what we've learned, the already dead demons of Hell can only be killed by weapons the angels use or that which is made of the material angels use during the culling period that just ended the night before. The egg creature is not using one of these weapons at this moment, meaning that Cherri is not in danger of death, only injury.

Despite knowing that Cherri would ultimately be fine, Angel pushes her out of the way and takes the injury risk. (If he suspected that the weapon might kill her, then even more kudos to him here as that means he threw his life before his friend's.) This moment shows that Angel does value life outside of himself, which doesn't immediately come across when we meet him given the crushed thief moment we had prior.

This act of self-sacrificing, which is generally considered a virtue, shows that he has potential to change.

Expanding from this, we see him empathizing with Charlie and expressing a moment of guilt. The scene happens after Angel, Charlie, and Vaggy return to the hotel. Angel is presented with the opportunity to "change" (offer an apology to Charlie that he actually means), an opportunity he doesn't take, but the fact that he's considering it when he previously felt no guilt for his actions shows that he is capable of it.

Once Alistar comes into play, we see more of Angel's potential to change. For example, Angel is shown holding Vaggy back from attacking Alistar, which could be read in two ways. Either he holds her back because he doesn't want Alistar to leave (unlikely that Alistar would leave over Vaggy's attack), or Angel is preventing Vaggy from running at Alistar and potentially getting hurt, a very strong possibility that we learn through Vaggy's comment about how powerful the Radio Demon is and how he's grappled bigger demons on a larger scale to take over parts of the underworld.

If we're to believe the story elements pictured in the music video of "Addict," then Angel is in a horrible spot. He's being abused and treated like a working slave to Valentino with little hope of escape on his own and few options to reach out to for help (if one can even ask for help openly in Hell given the place and the people).

While Charlie is nice, shown by her giving Angel money and helping him avoid having to sell himself on the street that night for Valentino in the Prologue/Chapter 1 of the comic, she too has expectations for him or does it with an ulterior motive in mind. He's a big name in Hell, and she wants him for her program. While it may not be intentional, Charlie asking him to try the program in exchange for money sends the same message Angel points out during the offer: Nothing is free--even kindness, particularly from the Princess of Hell. No matter how cute and lovable she appears...

Charlie's story is less compelling, and it's not simply because she comes from a place of privilege, as I've heard some say. I mean, I love lots of stories with the rich and powerful, and if the many seasons of Dynasty can stand as an example--so do a lot of over people. Charlie's story is less compelling because we can't relate to her choices given the situation we see her in or the problems she's facing. For example, she has great political power that goes completely unused. She's a princess of hell, obviously not struggling too much since she's chauffeured around and seen atop a tall--safe--tower overlooking the purged city below in Episode 1. She isn't in a bad situation, from what we can tell, not the same way Angel Dust is, at least. Her problems are more like a passion project from what we've seen so far, and we don't know why she is motivated to make this redemption program work outside of wanting to help her people. But if she wants to help people, why the hotel?

She has power as a princess that she could use to help correct injustices in her kingdom, such as attempting to put an end to the turf-wards since it seems that the demons fighting for territory still follow and respect the royals and nobility to some degree. But, instead, she's created a program to change people into what she thinks is Heaven's ideal--a thing that may stop the culling by allowing demons to transition out into what? Angels? Spirits? Who knows. Regardless, it's a small-scale venture that doesn't attempt to use the influence she's been given to make sincere changes in the kingdom. Instead, she uses it to get publicity on a news station, and even that is a weak attempt. I mean, if she was doing this right, that new-caster shouldn't have been able to make a single nasty comment towards her during the whole process. I mean, I doubt the newscast would have said a thing had her parents been up there, which shows that she's walked all over and that she's let it happen.

My point is that Charlie's story doesn't yet make sense. It's harder for us, the audience, to put ourselves in her shoes than it is with Angel Dust, and that's why I love him more than other characters, and certainly more than his double plot counterpart, Charlie.

I look forward to seeing more of this series going forward and hope that Episode 2 comes out soon!

#angel dust #charlie #hazbin hotel #king lear #lord gloucester #shakespeare #double plot #hero journey #hero's journey #hero #protagonist #lit #literature lesson #literature #storytelling #angel #analysis

63 notes · View notes

dexi-green · 3 years

Text

Okay so wrap up thoughts for ep. 4:

Where is Zemo? Do not let this man loose. Also bless marvel for releasing the longer cut of Zemo dancing earlier 🙏🏽

We love the Dora. However I wonder if the arm thing was a gag or if it’s going to come back. I could definitely see Buck having some questions and beginning to wonder whether they actually freed them or just put him under Wakanda’s control with a longer leash. He obviously has reason to be skeptical about people’s intention with him (see; how Zemo used him) I can definitely imagine them explaining that it was impossible to wipe out the WS controls but rather they just changed them and just never intended to use them, making him a sort of unintentional sleeper agent White Wolf for Wakanda. He is clearly very thankful and grateful to them, and is very close to the Dora, especially Ayo, so I could see that distrust being a good future character arc. But I stand by that with T’Challa in charge they would never seek to take advantage of Buck in that way. Also I was never a HUGE fan of Stan’s acting, I felt he got too hyped up for just brooding, like he was good but not Oscar worthy as some on here tried to say (you can just say you think he’s hot, you don’t have to lie about his acting to justify your adoration of him and watching his whole filmography, it’s okay I promise), but that scene at the beginning was actually amazing. I love the change between fear to relief and realization. Chef’s kiss.

As I mentioned several times, I love that this show is carefully exploring warring ideals, and actually saying them pretty plainly. It’s giving me what Civil War could’ve been. In Civil War there was just too many blatant misunderstandings and things that could’ve been cleared up if the Avenger’s didn’t share one (1) brain cell and it somehow ended up with Peter Parker who had homework to do. In this show, the ideals come from very understandable different perspectives, different lives lived. I know I want a conversation, but that alone won’t truly solve this like it would’ve in Civil War. It comes from very real criticism of our very real govt and society which I thinks helps cement this so much more in reality in a way that isn’t boring to watch like some other comic things that try to be gritty and realistic. The only part that has taken me out so far was the so very subtle cop scene in the second episode, which leads me into my next point

ISAIAH BRADLEY! Loop his story back in, let’s get some backstory and information and all that good stuff. Obviously Isaiah has made it pretty dang clear he wants nothing to do with any of this but obviously that’s not gonna happen, and it’ll be a tremendous waste of an absolute amazing and groundbreaking story to just bring Eli in at the end in some shoehorned way or something. Isaiah needs to be a part of whatever solution this story/season comes to. I’ve seen a theory floating around about either Isaiah being Wakandan (either like killmonger with one or both of his parents being from Wakanda, or more distantly) or perhaps Erskine’s secret ingredient for his serum was derived from the heart shaped herb (which would’ve made Cap White Panther 😬) which I think would be an interesting way to completely tie in Wakanda but perhaps a little unnecessary, specifically the first theory, we don’t need every future black person in the MCU to be secretly Wakandan. I just need his story to be more prominent then it has so far. It’s very important and not something that should just be a basically D grade side plot at this point.

I feel like we have shifted away from much focus on Sam. But I feel like the focus has pulled more on Zemo, Karli, Walker and Buck. Like Sam is doing what he needs but we aren’t getting as much insight into him as we did in the first episode. Which is why I think I liked his talk so much with Karli. We went back to his history of counseling and got to see how it uses it, how he calms down a situation, and his own insight into Karli’s ideals, he agrees but wants to go about it in a different way. We have constantly seen him offering help to others, but hasn’t really received much in return. I feel like now every time the shield comes up it’s just Bucky being all pissy that Sam gave it away which really turns me off his character. Sam already explained that maybe he made a mistake, but also Buck is so set in his way and his ideation of Steve that he can’t for a second consider Sam’s side. Like at this point it’s getting kind of annoying how Buck is being with Sam about it. I want more insight into Sam’s feelings about Steve, and Cap, and all that. Hopefully these last couple episodes with shift the focus back. At this point I feel I know more about Karli and John as people than I do Sam and that’s not great considering the title of the show. This was one of my earliest concerns for the series when it was announced, that it was going to focus too much on Bucky who has had his story almost front and center for almost all of the Cap films, they almost all in some part revolve around Bucky. Perhaps I need to rewatch and there has been some bits of Sam’s I haven’t appreciated enough, but it feels unbalanced, not in favor of him.

Sharon is being sketchy I fear. I do kind of like the idea that she is the power broker, but it’s hard to wrap my head around her threatening Karli like she has been. I mean she obviously has changed a lot, but if she is the power broker her motives have to be something different than what she is trying to lead people to believe. I think what’s more possible is her working for the power broker or perhaps working for/as the power broker as a cover for Fury or some other person/organization. She’s worked undercover for Fury before, she is obviously loyal to him, which might’ve changed since she talks to much about being abandoned by everyone, but I don’t know. It’s obvious something else is going on with her character, and while I love if she had just pivoted to this crime lord role, I just think of her speech at Peggy’s funeral and her loyalty to Cap and Fury in TWS. It’s possible she flipped on a dime like that because everything done to her and what she’s been through, and it may be too predictable for her to have the exact same storyline as TWS but who knows... that or she’s a skrull, always a possibility, can’t be too careful.

John Walker is clearly becoming the actual Anti-Cap. They are getting storybeats to line up. A ‘good’ soldier, turned propaganda tool, turned govt lap dog, serumed up, best friend dies, then what? Switched on by society? I love the moment with him and the flag smasher. It brought me back to when I was in the theater watching Civil War and I swore Steve was going to chop Tony’s head off with the shield. Steve just smashes the arc reactor of course, but John straight up murders this guy. And people are watching, the world is, people were recording. Definitely some purposeful similarities to our very real recording of police brutality irl. Which makes me think what will the govt response be? Will they spin it and try to get him out of this (which will feel really...weird? With the trial going on rn) or maybe will they abandon him completely and leave him high and dry? Hopefully we will see whoever the current MCU president is (prolly maybe Thaddeus Ross??) speak on it as well as the flag smashers and GRC. Walker is obviously not a good person at heart. I theorized before that he had already been given the serum, which clearly isn’t true so he has just taken it but there is something about his background that needs to be revealed. It has to be more than just “‘we did bad stuff while we were deployed” like... yeah it has a profound and damaging effect on people, but I feel like when he was talking to Hoskins it felt like they were remembering what went down slightly differently. I don’t know why, I’ll have to rewatch the scene. Either way, I think there is some stuff we still don’t know about Walker, something so terrible about him that made the serum change him like that. He was already clearly on edge, feeling insecure about people not giving him the respect he thought he deserved just from putting on the suit and carrying the shield, feeling that same imposter syndrome Sam did/does, and his pride was clearly DECIMATED by the Dora. He has this seeming obsession with super soldiers... he’s just giving weirdo vibes.

One thing I noted is that I think this series is taking apart Steve/Cap and spreading him out over several different people, and having them all pick at and dissect what makes/made Captain America the symbol he was, and what happens when you dig a little deeper. Karli seems to be the embodiment of the kindness/concern for others. She is fighting for the people, to protect them, as Cap was. But she is not holding back and is willing to put everything on the line, but where Cap was putting himself in the line of fire to protect people, Karli is putting others. Buck may be the classic idealism and Steve himself, I’m not 100 sure, but he seems to embody the kind of idea that people need something to put hope in, something to lean on, the idea of true good. He always brings up what the shield means and represents, doesn’t ever actually get specific though which is interesting. This may be because Bucky has a hard time separating Steve from Cap, since he saw the two grow up, when he talks about the shield and Cap he IS talking about Steve, there is no symbol or hidden meaning, just the Steve he knew. He conflates it all together. So I guess he represents whether or not the classic ideals can survive, the idea of hope, and Young Steve. Sam I think could be change. Where change is unwavering, like Cap’s fight for freedom never changed, but also where it is inevitable, in Steve and Cap’s place in a time that isn’t their own. How the idea of Captain America needs to be updated for modern times, or whether it should be thrown out altogether. I don’t know this is all ramblings. I though I had something but it’s almost 5am 😩

I believe we have 2 more episodes left so it’ll being interesting to see what they do with it. Fingers crossed 🤞

#tfatws spoilers #tfatws #tfatws liveblog #marvel #mcu #captain America #Bucky Barnes #Sam Wilson #Zemo #dora milaje #Karli morgenthau #Sharon carter #agent 13 #powerbroker #spoilers #episode 4

23 notes · View notes

bigfan-fanfic · 3 years

Text

High School Musical feels to me like a very gay narrative, and doing a close reading reveals this fact. Long post ahead, with analysis of lyrics and story beats that contribute to a queer reading of the story

Basically, Troy is the repressed gay who hides in the closet, and Gabriella is the outcast nerd who is just discovering the gay, never knowing before then how she doesn't fit in. She talks about how she has been outcast before, because she was different. While in and of itself this is not particularly specific to the queer experience, Gabriella’s journey of becoming comfortable in her skin is prevalent to the story and a queer reading of HSM. Likewise, Troy’s growth in his confidence to do what he wants even though it’s easier and more comfortable to bow to societal pressure is also queer in its telling.

In "Start of Something New,” they both have that realization that this thing they're feeling is so right for them, they feel a belonging. :It feels so right/to be here with you” and “I feel in my heart/the start of something new” seems less to me an anthem for love at first sight and more simply the recognition of this feeling of attraction to someone - and despite Troy and Gabriella being ostensibly cishet, the combination of this song and the use of drama/the arts as a stand in for homosexuality in this reading make it feel as though both are nervous but excited in discovering their queerness - another interesting thing is that each of the love songs in HSM are gender neutral, and thus play the same if sung by two people of the same gender as by a hetero couple.

This moment is a growth for Gabriella’s queer journey - prior to the song, she is nervous and afraid to socialize, but afterwards she is open and excited to discuss with Troy their experience and be friendly. Troy is a little more closed-off, foreshadowing his journey of trying to stay in the closet - he makes a point of saying how this was something he’s never done before and is not a typical part of his character.

They meet later, and Gabriella's a little more confident, although not technically "out" yet - she doesn’t hide her interest in the “singing thing” and though she doesn’t want to be seen as the Freaky Math Girl, she does have no qualms about showing off her intelligence in class. Basically, despite this being a new territory for her, she is more comfortable in her skin. Troy, meanwhile, basically thinks about his gay experience but hides back in the comfortable closet, returning to being a jock’s jock and ridiculing Ryan and Sharpay, the story’s flamboyant representations of the “out” gays.

Ryan and Sharpay are interesting villains, and they read to me as what might be termed the LGBT+ gatekeepers, since we have drama/the arts as our allegorical stand-in for the queer community. Ryan and Sharpay are unapologetically gay, but they are also used to the ostracism they recieve and thus as a reaction, they have become fiercely protective of their safe space - Sharpay’s fear of the musical being taken over here reads as the worry of LGBT spaces being co-opted and appropriated by cishet people and thus returning them to marginalization.

The song "What I've Been Looking For" is a big jazzy pop number for out gays Ryan and Sharpay, further referencing their absolute comfort in who they are. However, when Troy and Gabriella sing it, it's a soft romantic ballad because they're still on the journey to discovery of their queerness. The lyrics are really gay in "thought I was alone/with no one to hold/but you were always there beside me" - the song is about finding a love when you thought you never could, and if that doesn't scream gay I don't know what does. Despite Kelsi’s insistence that Troy and Gabriella’s way is how it is “supposed” to be sung, the song works just as well as a hopeful romantic tune about the future as it does a celebration of finding acceptance of any kind, even platonic. Again there’s a reference to “this feeling like no other” - this song follows up “Start of Something New” as a continuation of the journey to self-acceptance, and speaks of finding comfort in the experience of meeting those like oneself - “I never had someone/that knows me like you do/they way you do.”

“Get’cha Head in the Game” is here to show the environment Troy lives in - he’s being constantly pressured, and the song is fast paced and imperative. It also provides a contrast in lyric theme, referring to the “head” instead of feelings and heart. Troy’s tonal shift in the middle of the song where he sings about his heart feels like now that he’s had this gay experience and knows this truth about himself, he can’t go back fully into the closet.

The posting of the callback list feels very much to me like Troy and Gabriella being publically outed as queer. When Troy and Gabriella are "outed," there is a reaction of support and others "coming out" in solidarity, but those voices are shouted down by those seeking not to upset the status quo. The song is chaotic and loud, with walls being broken down and students from different groups merging - Chad mentions later in dialogue that the social hierarchy is breaking down. Interestingly enough, despite the general tone of the song being disapproving and admonishing, everybody joins in the dance and shows support, until Sharpay literally shouts everybody down. This kinda feels to me like saying that the majority of people would be accepting and tolerant, except for a minority of vocal voices who dominate the conversation and push their agenda of hatred.

Homophobic Chad manipulates Troy back into the closet to protect the status quo, and a heartbroken Gabriella sings about how she "thought [he was her] fairy tale," and that really says to me like a gay thinking they've found a relationship only to be heartbroken by realizing the person was straight or too closeted to continue on. She “confused [her] feelings with the truth” and thought “[he] felt it too,” but luckily the ensuing fallout of Gabriella and Troy forced apart and into their respective closets makes their straight friends realize their horrible mistake and do their best to repent, becoming “allies” to them.

“Bop To the Top” is just a fun number, again showcasing Ryan and Sharpay as confident in who they are. However, the interesting part is that Ryan and Sharpay’s world is breaking down around them as well, just as it is for the straight people. Sharpay snaps at Zeke because she can’t quite comprehend this guy from the straight side reaching out to befriend someone of the queer set, and her walls go up. In her own way, she’s trying to restore order as well - however instead of forcing Troy and Gabriella apart, she instead tries to make it so they must prove their commitment to one side or the other - making it so that their activities with their friends take place at the same time as the callback - basically a choice between their closets or the queer community, but with the help of their allies, Troy and Gabriella bring everything crashing together - though the straight majority floods the theater, they do so in support of the community she has protected. At this moment, Gabriella and Troy have overcome the external queer-phobia.

And then the big emotional number at the audition, "Breaking Free," really feels gay to me, in that the song is about the world trying to tear this couple apart but with their faith in each other and themselves, they can rise to new heights. The verses each feel like an anthem to a queer experience in fighting against societal pressure and having confidence in who you are. “The world can see us/in a way that’s different than who we are” is about the pressure to conform to gender and sexuality norms, “but your faith, it gives me strength/strength to believe” they can break free and be themselves. In particular the bridge where they sing "more than you/more than me/not a want/but a need" gives me "born this way" vibes and describes the need to be who you are even when others might not understand. And yet, even in all of this, they are supported and tolerated - the audience dances in the seats and claps to the beat and supports them.

And then "We're All In This Together" is of course the fantasy of tolerance and overcoming bigotry within and without the LGBT community, where everyone is singing together in harmony, where there is nothing but acceptance of the differences that make us all special and unique, with the recognition that we are all human.

#just my thoughts #my two cents #my thoughts #high school musical #super long post

21 notes · View notes

zoe-b-raiden · 3 years

Text

// ALRIGHT FUCKERS you guys showed interest and now I will proceed to dump my chaotic AU thoughts on your heads.

~~~~~ ToA Dance AU ~~~~~

Disclaimer: This was originally intended to be just a Zouxie AU. I make a lot of those in my head. But that quickly spiraled out of hand when @nikibogwater wanted the Found Family w/ Nari to be a thing and I said “Well damn, it’s not like I have a million and five things I’m already writing, why the hell not?” And so here we are. Anyways, this will be me spewing random bullshit until I figure out what’s going on.

Douxie: The adopted son of Merlin who taught him piano and violin to eventually become a part of the orchestra, turned performance dancer of his own volition and interest. Generally good at what he does in the performance arts but knows nothing of modern dance.

Archie: Douxie’s incredibly intelligent and frighteningly understanding ESA who goes with his partner everywhere and is often seen in the crowd or on the stage of a performance (this doesn’t matter but he has an adorable set of cat neck-ties and bows to match Douxie)

Zoe: Member of The Coven, a modern dance group. Originally a ballet dancer, she left the formal and strict teachings behind at a young age to pursue something more free and rebellious.

Merlin: Conductor and manager of Camelot Dance Co. Renowned for his teaching ability and prowess. Particularly dislikes any dancers/music that doesn’t follow traditional or classical styles (i.e. modern dancing.).

Arthur: Owner of Camelot Dance Co., once ran it with his wife Guenivere before she got caught and met an untimely end in Darklander gangwar conflict nearby.

Morgana: Cover conductor under Merlin, talented in music and like the older sister to Douxie. Understanding and a bit serious.

Bellroc: Head manager of Arcane Industries, a company that actively searches out real estate to purchase and turn into business districts for profit. Serious and dedicated to their job, believing this is the right course of action for progression into the future.

Skrael: Bellroc’s right hand and co-manager, shares many of the same beliefs with them.

Nari: Essentially the younger sibling to Bellroc and Skrael, who is mostly along for the ride and does not understand the damages being done in the beginning. Rather neglected and forgotten about by the other two. A little naive but caring and understanding and dedicated to doing the right thing. Eventually leaves Arcane Industries and secretly lives with Douxie and Archie, out of fear that Arthur and Merlin would retaliate.

Bular and Gunmar: members of the Darklander gang, violent and angry with Arthur for taking property and businesses from them and leaving them at a significant economic and social disadvantage.

I do not really know yet where the teens/kids (in the show they are older here) quite fit in but: Jim and Toby own a restaurant, Claire has a theater troupe, Aja and Krel are refugees from another country and are musicians, Steve....? Maybe he’s part of a boxing program? honestly don’t know, the rest of them I haven’t worried too much about yet.

~~~~~ Background/Plot ~~~~~

For all the years Douxie has practiced music and dance under Merlin’s instruction, it’s been mostly the same. Learning something new, practice, mastering it, and performing. This all changes, however, when Arcane Industries, a monopolizing company seeking to make profit at whatever cost, begins to stake out new territory in ?

Zoe’s rented studio used for The Coven is bought from it’s owner by Arcane Industries, putting them out of a usable place for practice. Arthur’s grand dance institute is the only place left to turn. When Zoe and her troupe arrive it’s understandable chaos even when she asks to rent a space from them and share the stage at times.

Merlin vehemently disagrees, claiming that modern dance will ruin their rigid style and dirty their name. Zoe points out that Camelot Dance is next in line unless they can make enough to keep themselves from being bought out. Morgana proposes letting The Coven rent out a few studio rooms in exchange for participating in a large upcoming performance that they were lacking the members for and splitting profits. Arthur reluctantly agrees to it and Zoe accepts.

It’s not long before various internal conflicts come up and heads are butted, on top of the ongoing disaster of a production. Douxie and Zoe are chosen to be the leads of the performance, much to Zoe’s initial irritation. Douxie’s just kind of happy to have a dance partner at all.

Eventually things change a bit and feelings are recognized between Douxie and Zoe, yada yada I’m still cooking that all up lol. It’s stupidly fluffy and fun.

Once Nari shows up, he begins to teach her formal dance and she loves it. It’s actually a return to her roots; Bellroc, Skrael, and herself came from a wealthy family that were mainly dancers only a couple generations ago. Bellroc and Skrael learn of Nari’s betrayal and join forces with the Darklanders to get her back and secure the deeds to Arthur’s property at the same time. Morgana has a corruption plot here but I don’t know what I’m doing with that yet.

~~~~ Misc ~~~~~

Not entirely sure where the plot of Trollhunters comes in, but so far I’ve got:

Gunmar, Bular, and the Gumm-Gumms form the gang that got Guen killed and have it out for Arthur-- who owns multiple businesses and properties formerly belonging to the Darklanders --that they want back. Notorious for having tattoos of trollish figures.

Arthur requests that Merlin and Morgana do something about this issue because he fears for their collective safety, and hence a small fighting force, the Trollhunters, are formed to defend them. Something happens with all that but I’m not entirely sure yet.

~~~~~

Is this a metaphor for capitalism being really bad? Maybe, I wasn’t aiming for it but hey that’s cool with me. Bellroc and Skrael get a redemption arc, I’m not sure what that entails but they do because I said so. Clearly a lot of plot work to go and I’ll change things up as I work on it.

If any of y’all have input please be my guest because this is a beast that I’ve been thinking about all day and I’m sure there’s things or potential connections I’m missing that would be neat.

And by all means please feel free to get involved in this mess.

#{when movements become revelations of the dance of destinies ~ Dancing AU}#{fic ramblings}#toa dance au #{{alright whew that's off my shoulders lol}}#{{please enjoy lol}}#{{i am also so so open to working with the trollhunters gang because I don't know what's going on with that besides the fact they are adults #{{have to be old enough to own businesses and fight in gangwars yknow}}

27 notes · View notes

tominostuff · 4 years

Text

Oshii Mamoru x Anno Hideaki Char’s Counterattack Fan Club Book

Published: January 1993

Just the first 3 pages as a teaser lol

Influence

Anno: As a creator, I like CCA because you can hear Mr. Tomino’s very genuine voice in it. But Mr. Oshii, you tend to dislike doing that. You try to sugarcoat your true intentions and hide it deep within. So, it’s unexpected that someone like you enjoyed CCA.

Oshii: Well, isn’t it just that? As you said, Mr. Tomino’s raw voice is all out in the open.

Anno: Yes. It’s very direct. I think sensitive people may even harbor hatred for it.

Oshii: (Kazunori) Itou-kun apparently stopped watching 5 minutes in. When he heard the first “heavenly punishment” line, he couldn’t follow along anymore and stopped (laughs). Since he used to be at Sunrise, he probably sees more.

So [whether or not you like the movie] is probably decided by what kind of reaction you’d have to hearing lines like 修正 “correction” or 粛清 “purge” or 天誅 “heavenly punishment.” Since there’s bound to be many people who have a dislike towards words like that. Especially older people react towards “purge” and “correction.” For the pre-war faction, “correction” meant military lynching and for people after the 70s, “correction” means demonstrator/political radicals or controlled lynching. There’s also the Red Army (JRA) issue as well.

If it were a movie, they may have not been bothered by it but since it’s an animation. There is a gap between the raw human intentions and the drawn world. And that actually makes a bigger impact. So for people who dislike seeing undiluted emotions show up on screen, they just can’t do it.

Anno: I wasn’t bothered by it.

Oshii: I think you and I were making things during the awkward off season of animation. People like Miya-san (Miyazaki Hayao) who were swept along by Toei and made animations for kids versus people who were pursuing movies and ended up in an anime studio...our generation of people is the in-between, so we understand both sides. We are caught between both the part that’s making shows for kids and the part that wants to make movies that we are personally satisfied with. So, depending on where you place the center of balance, you end up making a completely different thing.

On one hand, I felt that this movie could only be accepted by people like that. The older folk just thought it was bad. People in the anime industry especially. And for younger folk, they don’t know how to process an undiluted political world like that one. Despite all of this, the theaters were pretty full. And that’s probably due to the influence of Gundam.

It was around the same time as Patlabor. Even though Mr. Tomino did whatever he wanted in Gundam, and I worked on Patlabor with the same Shochiku, when the high ups at Shochiku came to the press release for the previous Patlabor installment, they just said “I didn’t understand anything” and left. “Nothing made sense.” They were grumbling, “but robot anime originally was like this” as they went home. Which I think was thanks to Gundam (laughs).

Even so, I was impressed that a script like CCA was greenlit. How could they release something like that. Probably because they weren’t watching it very seriously. Everyone is so enchanted by the surface-level space war aspect that there’s very few people who accurately grasp Mr. Tomino’s intentions.

Anno: I didn’t understand it the first time I watched it.

Oshii: The idea itself is not anything exceptional. It doesn’t come up to the surface but… to exaggerate, this is about present day, but as a phenomenon, in Japan maybe after the 70s? Among the political ideas that collapsed in the 60s was a type of retaliation ideology….. There’s a bit of nihilism in it, but basically there existed a political thought that placed its basis on the idea that “humans are no good.” However, that never made its way into the mainstream and much less in a world like animation, the center of popular culture, the fact that it showed up so suddenly was a surprise. It was almost pure literature.

To want to retaliate against humanity or to want to correct humanity… truth be told, I also had similar thoughts. For example, the upcoming Patlabor has a bit of that in it. There’s a desire to seek revenge against a kind of deceptive inquisitiveness of this generation. However, I’m hesitant about being too direct about it (laughs)... more like I personally, am not a fan of being so direct…. And to go so far as to start saying the intellectuals that, the masses this. That part of the dialogue was probably an exact reflection of Mr. Tomino’s beliefs. As a method of expression, I would never do something like declaring my true beliefs during the movie.

Just, the one thing I don’t get is why he suddenly did something like that. I actually haven’t watched the Gundam series too seriously so when I saw that, it seemed out of the blue. Perhaps he had laid the foundations for it earlier but I actually haven’t watched anything since Zeta Gundam. Watched the first Gundam and then suddenly CCA. So I don’t know what happened in this gap but it probably wasn’t anything sudden, it was probably always present.

Anno: Yes. I think he spit out everything he had accumulated, or more like, he put an end to things.

Ideologies

Oshii: When you’re working on anime, you’re required to be different from an ordinary movie director. Even though it may look like we’re doing whatever we please, there are some things that we just can’t do. In a live action, even if it’s a bit explicit it may not be a huge problem… but with anime, there’s the first psychological barrier of the people who have to draw it. And when you think about it, the first person who did those things was Mr. Tomino. Like the child who fires in front of his mother. Or the boy or girl, I forget, that got their head blown off along with their helmet.

When I saw Ideon, I believe it was when I was working on The Wonderful Adventures of Nils at Pierrot, it gave me such a shock. And it became the topic of discussion among directors at the studio. We wondered if it was okay to make something like that. My mentor, Mr. Tori (Hisayuki Toriumi), was someone who would do rather sadistic things. Like, Gatchaman was horrible. People would get hung with chains and beaten with a whip or Joe the Condor would get his face stepped on and messed up. He’s done pretty controversial things over the years. However, he never was as raw. After all, we had passed the era where such direct expression is allowed.

There were a few taboos that were said to exist in anime, the destruction of bodies being one of them, but the bigger one that existed was probably, “politics.” To express your own political beliefs in the anime you were creating. I don’t mean things like post-war democracy or Tezuka Osamu’s humanism, etc, but radical revolutionary ideas, betrayed ressentiment (concept of resentment or hostility related to 19th century thinkers like Friedrich Neitzche), feelings of grudge, etc. have no place in anime. No one explicitly says it but as you spend time at the studio, you naturally begin to realize that’s the limit. If you want to do it, you have to change its shape. So like in Urusei Yatsura or Patlabor, I had to disguise it as a type of metaphor or a running joke. So even if you’re allowed to have a miniature battle for authority in a school setting… well, originally, even that was going too far, I was told many things by different people… it wasn’t like anyone said anything openly but no one thought to do it in the first place. The reason why is because everyone thought animation was the wrong place to be testing such ideas, who’s going to want to watch something like that.

Back when Toei made Future War 198x, circulation boards went around and the Toei Animation Company labor union went on strike and all that, but inside, there were a lot of debates happening. Especially among directors wondering how they should take it all. Regardless of the fact that the age of the average anime watcher was increasing due to the anime boom, where exactly do we place the limit? Is it okay for us to try things that an ordinary live action director might do? For the generation of directors above us, these questions existed in a more tangible form. Whenever there was destruction of bodies or kiss scenes, like Mr. Tori did once in Gatchaman, every time something like that would happen on screen, production companies would file complaints or the TV stations would complain, and there would be this back and forth. Even so, there were people who wanted to depict these things. But in other words, that was it. The complaints were only on the artistic level. What that person did in CCA is leagues beyond that.

The philosophies or policies or themes, those things aren’t in there because the movie needs it, no, the ideology is first and foremost (laughs). It’s probably forgiven because it’s underneath the umbrella of Gundam but even so, I was surprised that they could go that far.

And, I was surprised a second time when there was no reaction to it. I spoke about this with Anno over the phone but, there’s no talk about it, good or bad. Why is there no reaction to such a radical outburst? There were probably a few entries to some anime magazines, I’ve seen a few of them myself, but in the end they were just the usual debates about war in Gundam.

In that way, it was as I expected. By “as expected” I mean, even if one speaks of such ideals in animation, who is going to see it, and how? This is a problem that I’m always facing myself because the stories that I want to create aren’t reaching the audience that I desire. And that’s probably because it’s anime. If it were live action, you could just leave it alone and a bunch of critics would come along and say what they want. Even if it’s just some boring police drama, they’d dig up all this nonsense to write. Conversely, [CCA] didn’t receive attention because it was anime. Because it was anime, the ideas presented in it were overlooked. To Mr. Tomino, that was probably extremely regrettable. Because I am always experiencing similar things. The anime isn’t reaching the people who are supposed to see it. That is what I felt from it.

Anno: Anime as a method of expression is very infantile. Especially facial expressions, angry faces have raised eyebrows, crying faces have tears in their eyes, blurry pupils means they are crying; if a foreigner saw this, I don’t think they’d understand. Japanese people are trained to understand to some extent so they know “oh they’re crying right now.”

However, whether the character is crying because they are happy or because they are sad, cannot be understood through just the art, without dialogue and the whole package. So, whether hands go flying or blood is shed, at the end of day, they’re all cell humans. Even if they speak, it's just 3 frames of mouths going open and close. I think the sincere attitude of trying to go so far through such childish means of expression and in the even more remote region of robot anime is amazing. I don’t think there were any directors like this until now.

Oshii: Yeah, there weren’t. I didn’t think he would take it that far. Although, I had sensed that vibe from Gundam itself. The structure of war depicted in it probably made that kind of thing possible. I don’t know how much he had pre-planned while he was creating the initial settings for the show but… it’s probably something similar to Patlabor where you start realizing “oh this is possible too” as you go. But, I kind of understand why it came out of a robot anime. With gag anime or home drama, school stories, these things would definitely be caught in a check at some stage. It’s probably due to the very combative world of robot anime, which depicts war, that kind of thing was passed (laughs).

Anno: That’s right. It was probably only possible because it had its beginnings as “just an ad for robot toys.”

Resignation

Oshii: Back when Urusei just finished airing, I met Mr. Yasuhiko at a magazine interview. It was right when the manga, Todonotsumari, was serializing in Animage. The first thing that person said was, “Animators like the ones depicted in [that manga] don’t exist. The anime studio environment that you are creating there is the furthest from an anime studio in reality. It’s what doesn’t exist the most. Why do you do this?” That’s when I sensed a bit of the resignation or frustration that generation of uncles hold towards animation. To put it bluntly, it's a type of inferiority complex.

I, too, was told that when I entered Tatsunoko. “In the end it’s just an ad for toys. So don’t put too much effort into it. If you don’t keep it at a minimum, you’ll only feel disappointed at the end. If you become too serious about making a masterpiece or making a film, you won’t make it in this industry.” I got a lot of that. Whether they were sakuga directors, animators, producers, bosses. From different people, in different ways, I was told many things. To summarize, that’s pretty much what they’d tell me. “The anime job is not a place for that.”

I’m generalizing but the generation above us started from a place of resignation. Like the background artist who couldn’t feed themselves off of oil paintings or the animator who couldn’t become a mangaka, it’s not nice to say but the industry was full of people who drifted into it. It was that kind of world. But there were good sides to it being that kind of world. No one would comment on what other people were doing.

Like, I was told at the beginning, “Don’t criticize other people’s work.” And not only did this apply to people in my own studio but I also wasn’t allowed to say this and that about what Toei was doing. From the start I was still in the mindset of a film bro so I’d complain “what is that?” but I was told off not only by older directors but also by directors my own age. Was it Mashimo Koichi? (laughs). “It’s easy to spot as many faults as you’d like in other people’s work. So there’s an infinite number of criticisms you can make. The only thing that matters is what you yourself creates.” To that I said, “I don’t think so. I have the ability to state why boring things are boring with logic to back it up so I should be allowed to. If we don’t say these things out loud, nothing will change. In exchange, I don’t care how badly my work gets criticized.” That’s a very normal thing. Bar fights are constant in the movie industry. “Why doesn’t it work in the same way in the anime industry?” is how I felt.

So, until I met Miya-san I was always frustrated. Meeting Miya-san was the first time…. cause that person is the same way. He says whatever he wants about other people’s work…just as I thought, this kind of person does exist. Even as we argue, even as we lovingly tear each other’s work apart, we are still together. I think that’s a very important skill as a director and even beyond that, I was perplexed as to why this wasn’t allowed in the anime industry.

The one thought I always held within all of this was that, before the sponsors or stations or whatever, the anime industry carved out territory for itself and didn’t try to leave it. So when the industry was forced to the forefront with the anime boom, the previously anonymous animators and directors suddenly found themselves in the limelight. And with that, all of the inferiority complexes came flooding out in a warped way.

For example, Mr. Yasuhiko’s Crusher Joe is unnecessarily cruel. Like small animals getting turned into meat clumps with a machine gun. Or patricide or siblings killing each other. Everything that had been suppressed until now came flooding out in a very warped way. Endlessly mass producing worthless children’s media that's neither good or bad would turn one’s literary consciousness inwards. So when you’re finally able to put work out there under your own name, all of that came out. Basically what I’m saying is that the balance is off. How far can you take things, from where should you start dialing back; everyone has their own parameters based on their unique method of expression. But they let everything out, completely ignoring these parameters.

When I saw this, I was full of complicated feelings. “Why do you guys have to have such a complex towards making animation?” I hated it so much because the generation below me doesn’t really have these taboos or warped perceptions.

Anno: They really don’t.

Crime of Conscience

Oshii: On the other hand, there are many things that you can do in anime that wouldn’t be allowed in Japanese movies. Ideas that would be stamped into the rejection pile for a Japanese movie can be expressed to a certain degree in anime….is what people discovered. One way to put it is, if you take “the way anime is viewed” in a societal sense and work within those means, then anything is possible…..or at least I felt (laughs). It’s only useful up to a certain point of course. Using a tactic of pushing and retreating to mix things up while creating a proper product on the other end was how I was doing my job. At the time. Even now I feel I work in a similar way but it’s different. We become wary and don’t do it like that. We’d try to cheat things by having it take place in an alternate universe. Or if you’re trying to depict a rebellion, don’t draw it from the rebel side but from the police side instead (laughs).

Even today, although it takes a different form, the idea that animation is for kids still persists. Showing nude bodies, and not cute things like shower scenes or skirt flipping, but in the context of lovers or affairs, passionate love or a world where politics are spoken about so clearly, is going to be rejected. But if you add “somewhere out in outer space,” sometimes it slips past the radar and gets greenlit.

However, I think Mr. Tomino knew what he was doing.

Anno: I think so too.

Oshii: When I saw it, I thought “he did this on purpose.” There’s probably parts that I understand because I am also a creator. It was well balanced. There was none of the off-balanceness of Mr. Yasuhiko. Of course, what lies underneath is the same. At the foundation is this inner warped hatred towards animation movies. On the other hand, he understands that he’s just an anime person and can't express things well when he’s separate from anime. That kind of thing, however, was pretty well controlled when it came to Char’s Counterattack. Therefore, there is no doubt that it was a crime of conscience.

However, even if it was on purpose, I still think the film was too blunt. I thought it would be better to disguise it a little more, dress it up a little more, camouflage it, and wear a covering, something.

Anno: On the contrary, I thought that’s what made it so masculine or cool.

Oshii: It’s dangerous. Danger is not about being socially sanctioned, criticized, or denounced, but rather straightforward words suggesting revolution, intellectuals this and that, and correcting or imposing sanctions on humankind… if you are not careful about it, the intentions may be flipped on you. In other words, you run the risk of becoming a gag. Political language is rather delicate, isn’t it? If you do it too much, like those violent student protesters who often appear in TV dramas, it becomes a comedy act that’s so ugly you can’t even call it a parody. That’s why, in Urusei Yatsura, Megane, the plot device guy, was doing everything exaggeratedly as a running joke. That's because I thought that if I didn't do it that way, it wouldn't pass, and I, personally, wanted to see it. There was a part of me that felt detached. And that was funny in itself. The fact remains that even to me, that era, while there were some painful parts, I also felt that it was humorous. Some parts are nostalgic, and some parts make me feel even disgusted. I found some salvation in letting everything out through a plot device character like Megane. That kind of thing, if you do it seriously, it's just painful.

In short, political language is pretty delicate…. Going back to the phrase “heavenly punishment.” I’m positive that there’s people who laughed at that phrase. Because we’re talking “heavenly punishment” in a space environment. What he’s doing is describing the “February 26 Incident” verbatim but the world he’s created is a future battlefield in outer space. There’s an immense gap. The younger generation may not care about it, though. I've always felt that kind of thing from Sunrise. There is something off about them. It seems that there are people who strangely want to enumerate dead languages.

My scariest thought is that there’s probably people who laughed at CCA. That they found it comical. The fact these imperial loyalist type characters are living out the “one person one kill” kind of world in outer space. I avoided writing these kinds of stories for this exact reason. ‘Cause at some point, someone is going to laugh. Like the drama, “Hyokin Tribe” from back in the day. You write the drama very seriously and in the end, it all flips on its head. It’s the generation where (serious) things are seen in a cynical manner. I am conscious of the enemy waiting, ready to turn everything into laughs. Especially when it comes to anime, anything is possible so you take it very seriously until the very end where it’s all comedy. The moment that becomes obvious, everything you’ve accumulated becomes invalid. So I prefer it the other way around, to create the mood, “this is a lie, it’s all jokes,” and then reveal that it was actually my true intention all along. I feel that it’s more effective to build up the jokes and then bring it into the real world at the end. In short, you can’t be seen through this way. If you ask me, the modern movie goer is rather twisted. A naive audience doesn’t exist. Within that, however, many anime viewers are among the exceptionally naive. They get impressed right away. As if they’re prepared to be impressed. Compared to the average viewer, anime watchers are easy to deceive, to the point where I go, “why are you so naive?” They easily go along with your tricks. They are waiting, ready to go along with anything you offer them. It’s the same mentality as the people who come to anime events and go, “since I’m already here, I am prepared to get my money’s worth by laughing at everything, even the parts that aren’t funny, and have a good time with everyone.” From a customer’s point of view, it’s such a naive mindset….maybe even going past naive into sly territory. Speaking broadly about movies in general, half-baked drama, half-baked crying or overly sentimental things doesn’t work on audiences nowadays. Rather, they are looking for ways to laugh at it.

Ever since that TV drama, "Stewardess Monogatari", I've been endlessly wary of such things. The goal is to make people laugh, not be laughed at. The movie is useless unless we (the creators) hold on to the hegemony.

Oshii: So when I saw CCA, I thought, there are definitely people out there who got together to drink and laugh out loud while watching this movie. And those who didn’t, said they couldn’t bear to watch it and stopped watching. Since they immediately develop a dislike for it. And the people who watched it seriously are hardcore robot fans, or Gundam fans…… they probably watched it very passionately (laughs). When you remove all of that, the message is clear. It’s completely anachronistic….. well, rather than anachronistic, I think what he’s doing is to a certain extent effective. It’s similar to what I was doing last year (Patlabor 2?).....he's speaking very sincerely, but depending on what kind of world and audiences see this movie, it will become a very unfortunate movie.

Anno: I think that movie is so one-sided though. I can’t imagine he had the audience in mind while he was making it.

Oshii: Well there was a sense of agitation, “there’s no way you’ll understand!”

Anno: I get that sense from the fighting spirit of the film.

Oshii: Because humans are somewhat beyond saving, even if you look at history, we haven’t done anything good. Probably even in the next century, whether humans go out into space, humans will repeat the same stupidity, getting everything and everyone involved and ruining it. That’s why he said, if God isn’t going to do it, I will.

Tsuge (Patlabor) and Char were thinking the same thing, basically wanting to impose punishment. It’s the story of a terrorist who, even if they don’t manage to impose that punishment, can reveal the naked truth just for a moment. It's the world that Miya-san hates most (laughs).

Miyazaki Hayao

Anno: But there’s probably a part of Miya-san that actually wants to write that kind of story.

Oshii: Somewhere yes. Take Nausicaa for example, within that world called “Nausicaa” there are characters with that sort of “scent.” Even that person (Miyazaki) has his own variations of this. It’s just that he has internalized that making it a reality would be a bad thing.

Anno: But his true feelings are Lepka (Future Boy Conan) or somewhere around there.

Oshii: Yes his real thoughts are somewhere different. That’s because that person is very strategic about what he puts out into the world and how. And it’s not necessary for the work to align with his truth.

Anno: Speaking of revealing one’s truth, I had expectations for Porco Rosso but what part of that was true, damn it (laughs).

Oshii: His truth was in there. But not of observations on humanity or the world, his truths about his personal life was the only thing in it. Especially surrounding troubles with women (laughs). And of course, only people who know him personally would understand such a thing. In that sense, it goes far beyond the craftiness of Patlabor; Porco Rosso is way more sly. He let everything out in that film and even left excuses for himself.

When you take off the pig mask, Miya-san is underneath. If he truly wanted to create a world that’s so unheard of and positive like that, why did the pig need to wear a trenchcoat and smoke? They just need to be going oink oink. It would’ve been a much more fun anime that way. If he wanted to make an anime that’ll make the kids happy, then there’s no need to make it so hard boiled, they should’ve just been oinking….cause pigs don’t need to speak. The pig goes oink oink, and is for some reason is good at piloting a plane. Then it would’ve been so much fun. But it’s not like that. And the reason it's not is because he wanted to show his truth….more like, he wanted to dispel his own sorrows through making this film. The audiences had it okay but his staff who had to go along with this are so pitiful. That’s the true pig curse. I bet they couldn’t stand it. Because they’re Miya-san’s excuse.

#cca doujin #hideaki anno #mamoru oshii #finish someday #translations #interview

51 notes · View notes

eerythingisshaka · 4 years

Text

Manhattan’s Finest

First Part

[Dr. Manhattan x Black Reader]

Word Count: 2.4K

The crowd erupts after the final song from the play ‘It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Dr. Manhattan!’ Whistles and cheers fill the auditorium as the performers take a bow, receiving gifts from loved ones in the audience.

You cheer along with them all, having enjoyed the play more than you expected to. A friend of yours was supposed to come along but flaked out at the last minute. It’s fine, at $95 a ticket, you would’ve loved to have used their ticket on dinner instead but life is shit.

You wait for the auditorium to clear out before you get going yourself. It is much better not walking over people and pushing into each other as much as possible. When you make it outside, the muggy air makes you instantly miss the air conditioning inside the theater. Another $95 for a cool breeze would be worth it.

“(y/n)”

You look to your left seeing a man in a suit with a blue mask. His skin is also tinted blue, somewhere between winterfresh gum and blue raspberry jolly ranchers.

“Hi? Oh, are you one of the performers?!” you ask excitedly, running up to him, but being taken aback by how tall he is. “You were awesome up there. There were a couple Manhattans but were you the one that sang ‘Blue is the Blood that Runs Cold’? Because man, I have never heard a vibrato like that. It was very impressive.”

“I am not a performer in this production,” he says flatly.

You cock your head to the side, observing his manner. “But...then why all the blue? And did I introduce myself, because I don’t remember telling you.”

“You do, later on in the evening.”

You blink a couple times. “I’m going home to bed after your play. How could I be talking to you?”

“As I said, I am not a performer or member of staff on this production. And I am sorry that you cannot afford the dinner with your unrequited love tonight who is making love to his superior right now, but in time it will-”

“Whoa, what the hell did you just say? His boss? And what do you mean? I don’t love him!”

Unshifting, he continues, “I believe love can exist even in one sided instances. I am finding myself in that position right now by the end of the week.”

You take a step towards him and then to the side, watching him follow your movement. “Ok, I just had to make sure you have eyes under there. You’re stiff as hell.”

He gives a small chuckle that makes you laugh nervously. “Heh, what’s funny?”

“That is what you say to me when we take the train back to your place. You enjoy public displays of affection, both innocent and explicit.”

You groan with disgust. “I haven’t done shit like that a day in my life. How dare you!”

“You do not, because of fear and weak men. You’ve gone all your life thus far picking unattainable partners because you do not see yourself worthy of the ones that truly excite you.”

You cross your arms, growing all the more impatient. “Who are you?”

“I am Dr. Manhattan.”

“PFFFFF! HAHAHA!” You laugh out loud, causing passersby to stare. “You are too much!”

He scoffs, making you question him again. “If I tell you, you will become physical.”

“Try me, nothing is wilder than saying you are Dr. Manhattan.”

“That phrase you said ‘you are too much’, is something you say during the heat of passion as I penetrate you in the foyer of your home.”

Hearing this makes your blood boil, feeling disrespected is something you refuse to tolerate. You push your hands against his chest hard; he barely flinches, instead lowering his head.

“You’re a perverted bastard is what you are! Take that fucking mask off coward, so I know whose ass I’m finna beat.”

“I cannot remove my mask. It would draw too much attention.”

“HA! But telling a random woman that she’s gonna be stroking your dick by midnight isn’t attention seeking?”

“11:38 pm.”

“What?” you ask exasperatedly.

“11:38 pm, not midnight. It is 10:15 now, with a 20 minute walk to the station and another 20 minute wait after just missing your train added to your travel time, it will be 11:38 pm.”

“I AM DONE HERE! Have a shitty night!” You walk away, looking back just once. “And no one really likes Dr. Manhattan except for his huge dick which I am sure you are lacking!” Your heels clack down the sidewalk furiously with the snap of your heel. Steam practically rises off of your body as you think back to the imbecile who couldn’t keep it in his pants. You come up to an intersection and check your phone, which sparks the thought of how he knew about your name and your date bailing and if there was any truth to why he stood you up.

“Is it better for you that I prove myself to be Dr. Manhattan?”

You jump a little too close to the curb, steadying yourself on a nearby pole. “You aren’t him, just shut up about it.”

“But you are curious, aren’t you?”

You look blankly at the road, running over what he said to you before again. “What’s his name?”

“Whose?”

You roll your eyes. “If you are Dr. Manhattan, you would know who I am talking about.”

“I do, I just...need to hear you ask it,” he says.

The cross signal goes on and you begin to strut across. “Oh, is there going to be a rip in the space time continuum if I don’t do things exactly as you predict?”

“They are not predictions but current events. This is already the past.”

You look back at him walking next to you and it unnerves you how he is able to keep up with your hurried stride like a swan on water. He doesn’t sound anxious or out of breath and his body has no bounce even when he steps.

You stop in a quiet part of the street, taking out your phone to turn on the flashlight, beaming it in his face. “What is my date’s name?”

“Crawford. You like that name very much, like Redford or Ashford.”

You pause for a second in silence. “What does he do for a living?”

“Marketing, not unlike yourself. He is up for a promotion but his relationship with his superior is making him feel insecure about his worthiness of moving up in his company however he is in love with her.”

Your heart caves in a little at the word love. You didn’t think an office fling would come to that, so soon.

“He shared many things with you, vulnerably. They were truthful, so you should not regret those moments. However, opening yourself up to him has only led to your heartbreak sooner.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask softly, feeling tears swell up in your eyes.

He takes a beat before continuing. “You took his vulnerability as a sign of trust and therefore evidence that he loves you but because of his strife, you thought it would take time. However, he was only using you for his own gain. You gave him advice that you thought would make him see you as the object of his affection but it instead pushed him further into her arms.”

You scoff, making a tear jump down your cheek. You turn the phone light off, trying your best to hide your emotion. “I still don’t believe you.”

You pull up your friend’s phone number and dial him. The trill of the call ringing in your ear is painful, so you hang up and text him.

“That will be regrettable tomorrow.”

“Yeah I know. Dr. Manhattan doesn’t have to tell me that for it to be true.” You walk down the street at a slower pace, allowing him to walk next to you without resistance.

“Ok. Manhattan, huh? I’m (y/n).”

“I know,” he says lightly.

“Of course you do. So even though you aren’t from the play, you do know what the play is about right? They didn’t say anything original that everybody doesn’t already think.”

“I find people’s fixation on my purpose to be distracting. When the world has developed exponentially over the decades and yet resists change in its most basic forms should be infuriating enough to not dwell on me.”

You tweak your mouth, impressed by his analysis. “I can’t fault you for that. But a blue guy from space with powers is an interesting subject. And you’re usually taller right?”

“I don’t need the attention from that,” he says.

“But blue skin isn’t distracting?” you quip.

“I don’t choose forms on a whim. There has to be purpose.”

“So what purpose do you have here with me? Or am I a stepping stone to somewhere else, because that is a popular feature of mine,” you say deflated.

“You are a beacon of positive energy, which is attractive to most. But not everyone deserves it.”

“So you are going to mentor me?”

“I am going to love you, and you will love me. In time.”

You throw your hands in the air in frustration. “How can you when you don’t know me!”

“But I do,” he says, stopping at the entrance of the train station, to open the door for you.

“Fine. Dog’s name.”

“Shrek.”

“Favorite movie?”

“The Color Purple.”

“Third grade teacher’s name?”

“Mr. Rideau, and I believe you had a crush on him.”

“NO! I did not!” You walk past him in a huff, completely embarrassed that he outed your interest in your teacher in public like that. You trot down the stairs, expecting your train to arrive in a minute but instead you see that very train pulling off as your hop off the last step.

“Dammit!” You collect your composure and plop down on a bench to await the next arrival. Dr. Manhattan slinks next to you.

You check him out in your peripheral, looking behind your shoulder. “You should really not be blue waiting on the train. No one here knows about the show so you stick out like a sore thumb.”

Dr. Manhattan looks slowly at his hands, before turning to you. “I could change, if you like.”

You sigh. “If I had a dollar for every man who told me that.” Looking straight into the black holes of his mask is unnerving to you, feeling a chill run down your spine makes you shiver.

“It’s probably for the best, because this is freaking me out.”

“What would you like for me to look like?”

You shrug. “I can just build you piece by piece?”

He nods. “Essentially.”

You look Manhattan up and down in a complete loss. “I don’t have time for details. When I think of a man I just want them tall, big pockets and a bigger dick.” This sparks a thought in your mind, making you slide slightly closer to him. “Ok, I know you not about that musical or rumors, but is it true about…” You point toward his lap inconspicuously.

“That I am well endowed? Ah well, those measures are up to the individual. You may see for yourself if you like.”

Your body rears back in surprise. “That’s probably what you were looking for this whole time! You’re ridiculous.”

Dr. Manhattan sits unphased. “I won’t force you to, but I know you will. I mentioned it before. I know this is a fantasy of yours, despite my person being involved.”

“So I can just rub on your dick and it means nothing for you? That’s almost disappointing...but this night has already been wild, so feeling up a stranger ain’t far off.” You look around the practically empty station, taking your hand slowly up his thigh until you felt something solid and girthy.

“You’re stiff as hell!” you exclaim, quickly taking your hand back.

“It is a normal state in which I remain in this form.”

“And it’s blue just like you huh?”

“Correct.”

You shake your head. “I don’t think I have it in me to look, so I’ll take your word for it.”

An announcement comes on saying your train is arriving soon. You check your phone; it’s 10:54pm.

“Listen. There’s no way I can sit with you blue on this damn train. So what do you do, hocus pocus into a Black man?”

“It helps to have a reference in mind,” he says.

“You think for a beat before taking out your phone and looking through Instagram. “If I show you a picture, will that do?”

“Of course. I can emulate imagery.”

You look through your feed as quick as you can pulling up the profile, and your favorite picture.

“Him. Can you change into him?”

His face leans into your phone for a moment. In the time it takes for you to blink, a blue light flashes and before you is the man from your feed. The rush of air from the train kicks particles in your eyes, and you rub them for relief and proof that this isn’t a dream. But in front of you is the likeness.

“This is dangerous,” you say, trying to pick your jaw off the ground. He looks around and at his hands, adjusts his suit, then looks at you.

“Is this better?”

You hold your mouth gasping. “You even sound like him! A little stiffer, but very much like him,”

His complexion in person is just as clear as his photos with deep brown hue that has nary a blemish. Strong jaw cloaked in a close trimmed beard that frames the exterior of his wide, chunky lips. He blinks at you with a gaze of innocence and naivete.

You remember to breathe and answer, “Yes. It’s much much better.” The ding of the train alerting its departure snaps you back to reality, grabbing his hand to make it through the closing doors just in time.

You find two empty seats in the back, sitting next to the window. You sit next to him nervously, playing with your hands as the train rumbles down the tracks. You look out over the city passing you both and catch his reflection in the window staring at you. His eyes look happy.

“What?” you ask quietly, looking back at him.

#dr manhattan fic #shakafic #watchmen fic

52 notes · View notes

rhydianww · 3 years

Text

Of Snake Girls and Other Enigmas

Rhydian was mortified. Never had he faced betrayal like this in his young life, and by his own body no less. That horrible redheaded witch had absolutely no business rubbing against him the way she had, intentional or not. If she had settled for a moment to understand the situation, all of this embarrassment could have been avoided. Rhydian’s body had responded to the stimulation as one could expect someone with a penis would, but what hurt the most was that it had felt quite good. For a fleeting moment at least, before Rhydian had made the connection between what that feeling was and what he knew would be the result. No one besides himself had ever touched him there, certainly not rubbed their boobs against it. The valley of flesh between her breasts, and the very edge of the white lace that could be seen from the unbuttoned collar of her shirt had burned itself into Rhydian’s mind. Alabaster, upon cream, upon ivory. It sat behind his eyelids in wait for Rhydian causing the boy to dread even blinking. He did not like Maggie Stonefyre, not one bit. Even after all that had happened in the tower when they were supposed to be trying to devise a decent wart remover, his feelings for her hadn’t changed. That was a most difficult part in all of this for the young slytherin; He could explain away the way his body had reacted to her as basic biology, even if he loathed it having occurred, but why would the image of how her chest had pressed against him not leave his mind? It was maddening. He didn’t even find her fit, and she hadn’t much to fill out that ivory lace number she’d had on either. Yet the image haunted him.

He began to tell himself the event was so embarrassing it must have traumatized him. Yes, that must be it. But in his core, Rhydian knew that wasn’t true. He didn’t know why, but he knew it hadn’t been that. This whole thing with Maggie had caused the Slytherin’s usually foul mood to spiral even more. He was angry at her, at his body, at his mind, at the world. He was too embarrassed to even seek out Maggie to work on their project again in the following days, which wasn’t like Rhydian at all. He was much more of a get it done now so I don’t have to deal with it later type of person. But he was pushing off having to see her again, he had been avoiding her in the corridors, in the great hall, he’d even spent the last potions class faking sick in his Tante’s office just so he wouldn’t have to sit next to her. It would have been fine if they weren’t lab partners, but he knew if he went to class all he’d be able to smell was black tea and violets, and then of course all he’d be able to think about would be. . .

“Watch it, Weasley.”

Rhydian stumbled slightly, unprepared for the shoulder check. He blinked dazedly, having been deep in his own anxiety soaked musings. He hadn’t meant to walk into anyone. But as his eyes met those of his assailant, he was pulled form his thoughts. Garret Hubbler. With darker bags beneath his eyes than usual and the shortest fuse he’d had in months, Rhydian gave no warning, simply pushing his headphones off his ears before swinging. The Slytherin’s fist made hard contact with Hubbler’s mouth. The bloke’s teeth pressed against what used to be the fragile skin pulled across Rhydian’s knuckles. However, it long been thickened with short fat lines of scar tissue from previous skirmishes. The slytherin did not hold back, the frustration he had been feeling in his life in the past few days had reached it’s limit it seemed, and now such feelings were eager for the release violence brought. Hubbler, who Rhydian had cut up with multiple times before, was quick to respond, sufficiently distracting Rhydian for the first time in days from his unwanted thoughts. However he had not been prepared for Rhydian’s ferocity, nor the strength that had come with his most recent growth spurt.

The slytherin didn’t relent until a professor was pulling him off of Hubbler, who was groaning on the hard stone floor. Rhydian remembered what Maggie had told him Hubbler had said about her mothers and gave him one more swift kick in the ribs since the professor had his arms before Rhydian was being heaved against the wall, away from Hubbler and told he was in a world of trouble. Rhydian didn’t respond, simply gritting his teeth. He didn’t care at the moment, it had felt good to take out his frustration on that idiot and he didn’t regret it. What Rhydian didn’t realize till later though was that the Professor that had pulled him off Hubbler was none other than professor Mendes, the arithmancy professor which was the only thing Rhydian regretted about his actions, wishing it had been another teacher to catch him. Mendes was known as a well liked teacher among the students. He was kind and understanding, but the thing about him was that he was the professor in charge of the Nugget Musical Theater Group, a club started by Rhydian’s own eldest sister and named after her chicken. Rhydian who had no interest in joining such a thing, had been avoiding Mendes as much as he could because of it. However for every student Mendes punished, they always got the same thing; helping out with the musical. Rhydian groaned later on that day as he received punishment from Professor Mendes.

“A month of detentions, Weasley. To be served helping the Nugget Club.”

“Can’t I do some arithmancy work?” Rhydian begged. Mendes continued to smile but shook his head.

“I rather kiss a dementor.” He groaned.

“Buck up, if you’re anything like your sister, you might like it.” Mendes encouraged. Rhydian doubted it however, him and Addie couldn’t be more different if they tried.

Either way, Rhydian ended up after classes on Tuesday dragging his feet into the rehearsal room behind Mendes. Owena was already excited, having been so since he told her what had happened. She had joined the group her first year, and this Rhydian understood. She could sing, dance, act, Owena was made for the stage, he however. . .well he had never seen Black Sabath play show tunes so why would he?

“Yay, your here! You’ll love it, it’s so fun, so fun!” Owena cheered as she spotted her brother. They looked nothing alike, Owena and Rhydian, he much better matching their eldest sister. He was tall and thin, dressed in black, with messy dark hair. Owena, who was short and sturdy, was dressed in a yellow, flower patterned dress, her long red wavy hair pulled back from her cheerful face with a matching head band. Yet she lit up to see her brother, happy to see him participating in something social even if by force.

But while Rhydian expected to see Owena, he hadn’t been planning on Maggie and the sight of her stopped him in his tracks.

9 notes · View notes

fe-semi-decent-scenarios · 4 years

Text

FE3H Love Language Series: Golden Deer Edition

[What love language would each character dominantly express?]

{Note: These are all my personal head-cannons so...take them as you will? This is just something I did for fun lol}

Claude: Words of Affirmation & Acts of Service

Claude is an extremely busy person. He doesn’t have as much time to invest in relationships as he would like, so in turn he is much more upfront with his feelings. If he likes someone, he’ll tease them, and if he notices they need a helping hand then he will offer it (if the task won’t negatively affect him or his people). He takes it upon himself to be the optimism in their lives that he knows is needed. He may be the conniving type that knows how to play his cards, but when he cares there is a noticeable difference between obligatory actions and tasks he wants to help with

Lorenz: Words of Affirmation & Giving Gifts

As we all know, Lorenz’s manner of speech is very…’posh’. The compliments he gives flood out like water to where they lose their charm. Some call them empty words, he calls them flamboyant honesty. The man does not lie unless necessary, so his compliments are genuine (though may be followed with constructive criticism). When Lorenz cares for someone his words become more specific as his observations pile up. He’ll send the occasional gift of something he thinks they’ll like, and it would be from his own desires, not to secure future connections.

Raphael: Physical Touch

Raphael is not confident in his words, but he is in his muscles. If he likes someone then they’ll always be in proximity for hugs and hair ruffles. When they’re nearby he’ll be like the negative electron to their positive. Small things such as sitting next to them at meals, pats on the back, side-hugs, etc. are all in the package. He doesn’t care about PDA one bit and won’t deter at any stares or comments from other people.

Ignatz: Words of Affirmation & Quality time

Ignatz is a natural smooth talker. He honestly doesn’t even try to come up with compliments, they just slip out. The way he speaks his mind when his guard lowers is downright charming. The man is a suave artist both on the canvas and in conversation. If Ignatz has someone that he cares about he will naturally want to spend time with them. On free days he’ll seek their company, choose to sketch by their side instead of alone, ask to study together etc. The more time he spends, the more comfortable he becomes; and the more comfortable he is, the more he voices his thoughts

Lysithea: Acts of Service

Flattery is not her strong suit. While she may not be socially inept, Lysithea struggles with showing affection just as anyone else would. With a cage of tone protecting her heart she won’t allow herself to lay herself bare. However, she doesn’t shy away when she is needed. If Lysithea likes someone she will actively invest herself in their affairs – not something she does for many. If they require aid, she will offer it, but not for mundane tasks. Time is precious after all.

Marianne: Quality Time

Boundaries are something Marianne cannot grasp well. She knows where her own comfort zone is and understands it’s much more reserved than the average person. She want’s to be a good partner/friend/etc. to those that she cares about but pushing herself beyond her own limits is a struggle. If Marianne likes someone, she’ll try to fill that gap with time. She’ll ask them to accompany her for a stroll, or to the library. While she’d much rather people not get involved with her due to ‘reasons,’ she knows that pushing people away entirely is not the answer.

Hilda: Giving Gifts & Physical Touch

Hilda enjoys giving presents just as much as receiving them. Well, okay maybe not that much. A cookie here, a scarf there; she’ll act like she’s pawning them off, but she does put thought into what she gives. It’s only natural to want to give nice things to the people you care about, but to Hilda it’s more. Not much is expected of her and that’s how she likes it. They won’t be disappointed in a present if they don’t expect it…so she plays the gifts off like nothing. She tries to tone back her natural pull to them as well, but somehow, she’ll always end up at their side.

Leonie: Acts of Service & Quality Time

Growing up family-oriented and goal seeking left Leonie with a sense of appreciation for people. When she cares about someone, she’ll give them her time, and offers to do things with/for them. She’s not materialistic and never accepts anything in return unless it’s enforced. With anyone else she’ll eagerly cash in favors since she’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. However, her acts are different for those she cares for. They’re not work to her because she enjoys the time and effort put into it. Leonie thinks that the best way to show your support and affection is to simply be with the person you feel that way towards

Up next? : Blue Lions coming soon to a theater near you

134 notes · View notes