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unholyhelbig · 6 years

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Triple Treble Prompt - Chloe and Aubrey are vampires and have been together since as long as they can remember. But when they meet Beca, they can’t help but feel a connection and drawn to her. Both want to get closer to her, but there is two problems. One, Beca is best friends with Stacie Conrad, a hunter, and Jesse Swanson, a werewolf. Two, Beca doesn’t know that know the supernatural exists.

[A/N; I started watching the lost boys when I wrote this so part of me wanted to do the whole 80′s vampire thing. Anyway, this was a big prompt so I tried my best.]

Chloe drew in a careful breath, one that was easily calculated as she ran her thumb against the edge of the man’s jawline. Her touch wasn’t rushed or hungry, it wasn’t shifting as her hunger grew more. The scent was intoxicating, filling her lungs and burning her throat.

She let out a deep guttural growl, almost inhuman as she ran her tongue softly over the two puncture wounds she had created. She wasn’t messy anymore, not with her movements. It made the man shutter, his chest vibrating as he moaned himself. Not sure where to focus his pleasure as it mixed with pain.

“Chloe.” The sharp voice pulled the woman from her stupor. She shot her eyes open, not speaking, but inhaling with strength. “Get him out of here,”

She let out a groan, pulling back completely from the man. He had his back pressed against the wall, against the dry painted color that she despised in the first place. It was too plain for Chloe- but she knew her wife. She knew that too much would quell the blonde’s nerves. She could sacrifice a bit of color for her lover’s happiness. It was worth it.

“It’s a little innocent fun, Bree.” She said.

The stranger had irregular breathing, his hand moving up to the wound on his neck as he clasped it with the intent of dulling the sting. The pleasure was intoxicating and well worth the random “hook up” that that entailed. He flashed his coffee stare to the woman who had just interrupted the meeting, her equally as stoic eyes scanning over him with mal-intent.

“Beca is coming over,” She squared her shoulders.

Chloe’s expression dropped then, her squint moving to the third party in the room. “Alright, man, time for you to leave.”

“What I-“ he didn’t’ get much of a chance to speak, Chloe grasping his shoulder as Aubrey opened the door, getting a quick and quiet dose of the night summer air. She breathed in softly, getting hints of his blood in her inhale. It was sweet but corrupted by alcohol, drugs, maybe. “Will I see you again?”

“Probably not,” Chloe said bluntly, slamming the slab of wood behind him as he stumbled into the hallway. She wasn’t sure how long he would stay out there, or if he would walk away in his haze. But at this point, it didn’t matter much. He was just a light snack, after all.

Aubrey wrapped her arms around Chloe’s shoulders with practiced ease, pulling the woman closer with contempt. “Oh, now, you didn’t have to be so harsh.”

“And so what if I am?” she said, lifting her chin. She had a bit of rustic red by the edge of her lip, so soft that it was barely noticeable. Aubrey lifted her hand, smoothing her thumb over the area as Chloe leaned into her touch.

“You’ve made a mess.” She breathed out, raising her thumb to her tongue as she cleared the blood from the pad of her fingertip, savoring the metallic taste that always needed to be appeased. “I think we should order some pizza.”

Chloe made a face. The scent of dripping grease and gooey cheese made her stomach churn. She could swallow a bit of it, and make it look like she wasn’t fighting her resolve. What was really appealing was the delivery person, tired from a long night work and susceptible.

“Stop it,” Aubrey warned, always the sensible one “Beca is human, and she needs to eat. Needs to see us eat.”

The redhead nodded, not in defeat, but in understanding. This town was more aware of vampires than any other. The two women could get away with a bit here and there, but people that resided here at the local college had even darker pasts than they did. Hunters with intentions to kill, werewolves with death wishes, even witches that Chloe had learned to single-handedly piss off a few times.

“I’ll call it in.” Aubrey pulled away from her wife, hand lingering on her shoulder for a few moments before she resounded to walking towards the kitchen of their shared apartment. “You’re okay with pepperoni, right?”

“Sure,” Chloe nodded, glancing around. She had made a mess, knocking the magazines off the glass end tables- the potted plant by the door had tipped over. Pitch dirt rushed across the tan tile. She squatted down, piling the catalogs into a neat little pile. Her mind wandered, not to the pizza, or the man that she had just possibly scarred for life. But the woman who was intended to walk through the doors at any moment.

Chloe had been with Aubrey for years, centuries even. She loved her wife, more than anything, she loved her. They were a perfect balance for each other; one a bit reckless, the other calm and collected, if not neurotic. Neither had intended to become so captivated with a small DJ from Barden University. In fact, they didn’t’ plan on staying in Atlanta much at all- a small pit stops a few years ago when Aubrey grew some infatuation with the world of Acapella of all things. Chloe didn’t’ judge, she even enjoyed it a bit herself. But life? It was complicated.

Both women had undeniable feelings for Beca Mitchell, and both had denied it for quite some time.

“Did she say why she was stopping by?” Chloe called out, rising to her feet with a small groan. Her bones weren’t working in her favor tonight. Did it matter? Chloe thought to herself. She didn’t’ need an excuse to see Beca.

“Mm,” Aubrey hummed, leaning against the doorframe of the dining room as she held the phone in one hand. She had called in the pizza order, dressed in a cozy beige cardigan. She looked comfortable, Chloe wanted to pull her into her arms. “She sounded upset like we might finally need to utilize that ice cream in the freezer.”

“Huh,” Chloe knit her eyebrows together, leaning down to scoop the mix of soil into the clay pot. It left a dark residue against the side of her palm. She wanted to run it over her jeans, to get the grimy layer away from her pale skin. But it wouldn’t do her much good at this point. “You think it’s about Jesse?”

Aubrey let out a huff at the name. She despised his kind, not men, but the wolf-like nature that was wicked into his soul. Of course, she was civil, and so was he. They all had secrets to keep, people, to cloak. Jesse had taken up home in the small town of Barden just like they had- she just wished he didn’t feel the need to claim Beca as his own, something she denied to the very core. Not interested, not feeling that spark. She had told them that, all three of them at different times.

“Oh, I’m sure it is.”

“Guess we’ll find out.”

Chloe reached over and pulled the door open by the brass handle. It was cold against the skin of her palm. Beca was standing with her knuckles raised to the wooden surface like she was about to knock before she got the chance. Her face was shaded by the dull color of the moon as it leaked through the walk-way opening. That familiar scent of vanilla mixed cruelly with the spring air. She looked gorgeous, face contorted into one of wonderment.

“How do you always do that?” She squeaked out, eyes scanning over both girls. They were red, Chloe noticed. “How do you know I’m going to knock on the door?”

“I didn’t, I thought you were the pizza guy,” Chloe said, a bit of a smile on her face.

“You’ve been crying.” Aubrey could have been a little blunter about it, tugging softly at her wife’s shoulder pulling her away from the entrance. “Come in.”

Beca didn’t’ have to be told twice. She ducked her head slightly as she entered the small apartment. Her eyes flicked to the bit of dirt by the edge of welcome mat- barely catching a glance at the tinted color of Chloe’s hand. She always felt so safe here- so welcomed.

Aubrey pulled the girl into her embrace as Chloe shut the door behind her. Beca melted into the touch, Aubrey almost a whole head taller than her. The brunette cuddled into her chest, gripping that cotton cardigan like it was a life preserver. Beca sniffed. The ever-badass crumbling under her own emotion.

“What happened, sweetie?” Aubrey had wrapped her arms around Beca, holding her head close to her chest as she rested her chin on it. She gave Chloe a struggled look, not one of desperation, but one of concern.

“I don’t think you would believe me if I told you.” She laughed bitterly, making Aubrey hold her tighter. It seemed to thaw Chloe’s demeanor.

This was different- usually, the three of them got this close when they had one too many. When the alcohol warmed their veins and pushed them closer. Beca would always leave guilty the next morning, balancing her feelings of sleeping with the two girls with her desire to do more.

“Try us,” Chloe said, shoving her hands in her pockets, it earned her a tender stare from dusk-filled eyes. They blinked a few times before closing completely. Beca drew in a careful sigh.

“Jesse told me,” Her voice cracked “that he wasn’t… isn’t human.”

Chloe had to stifle a laugh, Aubrey warning her with a dark squint. Of course, Jesse wasn’t human, they could smell it a mile away. They weren’t either, a beating heart not really in their biopsy. Beca didn’t know that, though. Whatever had possessed Jesse to evade to this fact now.

“The funny thing is,” Beca pulled away slightly, Aubrey shifted her arms, holding the girl into place by the elbows. Not forcing her but letting her know that she was there to steady her if need be. “I believe him.”

“If he’s not human, then what is he?” Aubrey asked with sincerity. It wasn’t’ the reaction that Beca had expected. She expected the goddess of a woman to laugh in her face unironically. Instead, she sat there- worry in her feathers as Chloe moved to lean against the back of the couch.

“He didn’t’ say.” She pressed her lips together, sniffing. “Just that I couldn’t be around him tonight, that it was for my own good… and that,” her nose scrunched up.

“That what, Bec’s?” She asked. Chloe pressed her fingers to her chin, staring down at the floor, she hadn’t expected to have this conversation tonight. Or ever, if she could help it.

“That I shouldn’t trust you.” Beca was timid with her words. Flashing her stare between Chloe and Aubrey. Chloe moved her stare up, it was darker than Beca had ever seen before.

Something about Jesse’s words infuriated the girl. It was one thing to question his own self-control over the human girl, but this was them. They knew their limits and their cravings. Chloe had never once had the desire to sink her teeth into Beca, and from the long talks that she and her wife shared, neither did Aubrey.

There were a lot of things Beca didn’t’ know about them, too many to count. But the biggest had been their refusal to show their primal nature. Something Jesse had well forced out of the closet at this point. If they didn’t’ utter a word now, if they kept their secrets, Beca would start to notice. Start to question that nagging seed that was planted in her mind.

Aubrey knew it was time, returning the same stare back to the woman that she had met back in 1918.

“Yet, you chose to come here?” Chloe asked, bemused.

“I had nowhere else to go.” She said.

Chloe ran her tongue over her bottom lip. She wasn’t sure of herself. She wasn’t sure she could have this conversation again. The same conversation where the counterpart would storm out and question life for a few days. She didn’t’ know if she could wait a few days for Beca though- to feel her touch.

“We need to talk,” Chloe spoke.

Beca surprisingly didn’t pull away from Aubrey. She didn’t’ push closer to her either. Instead, she breathed in. “He was right, wasn’t he?”

“No, he wasn’t.” Aubrey lifted her fingers, brushing a strand of brown hair away from Beca’s sweat coated forehead. “You have nothing to fear from us.”

“But you’re not…” Beca held her breath, eyes flashing towards the ground.

“Human?” Chloe lifted her eyebrows, remembering the placid taste of blood that coated her tongue mere moments ago. The way just being near Beca did the same. How her energy charged off the both of them in thick waves. “No, no we’re not.”

#beca mitchell #chloe beale #aubrey posen #triple treble #pitch perfect #fanfiction #ask #request

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dialogue-with-varyu · 7 years

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SUPERNATURAL THE ANIMATION: A Dissection of Dean’s Failed Characterization & Design (PART 1 - The Technicals)

I have a lot on my chest about the anime that I couldn’t really get into in both of my last posts since the topic of what makes the anime series so cringe-worthy is a very intricate one, making the explanation of it all become a SERIES OF ESSAYS. So please read my previous installments before getting into this one because I will be referencing those a lot:

SUPERNATURAL THE ANIMATION: A THESIS OVERVIEW ON JAPANESE ANIME PRODUCTION & CHARACTER DESIGN

SUPERNATURAL THE ANIMATION: THE IMPORTANCE COLOR DESIGN BRINGS TO VISUAL TONE

But anyway, let’s talk about Dean. I’m gonna talk about Dean.

I will talk about Dean because Sam was portrayed pretty okay in the anime and it’s really Dean’s characterization that strikes a chord with a lot of fans of the original Supernatural series. (However I will consider a separate Sam essay to those in favor of it.)

But I haven’t really seen a lot of people put into words about makes them feel the way they do. So what’s the problem with Dean?

Refresher:

While I understand this distinction, I think that we can all agree that the overall interpretation of Dean suck balls and I’d like to argue that:

rather than misinterpreting Dean’s character, the writers were more focused on one of Dean’s major facades and ran with it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First, I’d like to address the elephant in the room: Why an anime series?

Why did Supernatural garner enough attention to GET an anime series? What is so special about Supernatural AND anime that a large group of creatives and investors were willing to marry the two?

Honestly, that question is big enough for another essay on it’s own. But the bottom line is:

Anime is watched for the melodrama.

Nuance and subtitles are more akin to live action film since the culture around the different intricacies of a story have larger factors that contribute to it. (i.e, it doesn’t matter what’s written because an actor may just ad-lib it, Murphey’s Law, etc.)

So basically, when you have an animated show what you see is what you get by convention. There really is no use arguing over what is canon and what is not because, unlike an actor, decisions and change of mind can’t be attributed in the moment when it comes to character performance. People are more likely to question the mindset of a decision behind a scene when it’s animated more often than leaving it to the death of the author.

But it’s because of this that anime often has namely traits of exaggeration: screaming characters crying about their passion in the heat of battle, long ass internal monologues, “-dere” archetypes, the works.

Which means that anime characters are usually walking talking hyperbolic symbols. (Whether or not you enjoy this is usually the deciding factor between anime fans and those who are not.)

And this ties directly into Dean.

Because Dean in the anime series is an exaggeration of himself from the original show.

Rather, an exaggeration of one specific facade:

The facade Dean pulls up in season one episode 1. The fake Dean that tends to overcompensate his insecurities with bravado.

WHY this scene in particular is one that actually makes sense.

Mostly because this scene IS a if not THE root scene that cemented Dean Winchester’s starting point launching endless possibilities of character traits to be explored for seasons to come. It’s a highly impacted scene that’s very memorable, both in it’s first impressions and as a point of reference for his development.

I infer that the writers of the anime series saw this and built upon their own impressions of it. Namely, they saw this facade and thought this was the True Dean Winchester. (Which, to those who have watched past season 2, know is very far from the truth.)

So how did they write Dean Winchester?

Dean Winchester is perceived to be like a generic anime bad boy

(I say “perceived” since by all means the Supernatural anime is a reinterpretation with very deliberate changes.)

What I’m talking about are those “thug” type bullies in every school centered anime show.

And while I make the claim that the writers may have built off of the scene from the pilot in painting a picture of Dean’s character in their heads, I’m also led to believe that this decision to have Dean come off as a “thug” is less of a conscious choice...

...and more of a conventional one.

Because nothing fits Fake Bravado Dean like Generic Anime Thug Dude when it comes to a script laden with anime-like tropes.

(To make a more compelling dissection of the writer’s true interpretation of Dean SPECIFICALLY would require me to rewatch and analyze ALL of the anime’s original standalone episodes.

...for the sake of brevity and the fact that I don’t want to rewatch any of the anime’s episodes in it’s entirety because I can’t stand even 5 seconds of this animated drivel I Am Not Going to Do That unless a lot of people ask about it or if people just wanna see me suffer.)

But okay, it’s sort of weird to gauge the errors of Dean’s characterization when this anime series nearly follows the original show’s 1st and 2nd season’s storylines verbatim.

Now that I think about it, it’s even weirder to be so allergic to an interpretation of a character when the source material is being 99.9% faithfully adapted--especially with the same lines and set up. So what gives?

What makes anime Dean’s characterization so off from the original to a drastic degree?

The “mischaracterization” is greatly tied into Dean’s character design and the way he emotes--which affects him greatly on the narrative of the anime series as a whole.

I already criticized the character designs in the lack of coherence in color design as well as execution narratively, but the latter still stands to be a huge major problem since it does just that.

Affect the narrative.

Which means it also affects the characters and the themes.

Which ties back again to Dean being perceived as an anime thug.

And I know this because Dean makes the same goddamn faces as an anime thug.

(In this case I’ll be referencing Space Dandy since I can’t find generic anime examples of side characters that embody this profile despite this stereotype and it’s mannerisms invading vast amounts of shows. However anyone who has seen enough anime will know what I’m talking about. And again, the “look” given by the artistic nuances/techniques of the character design of the anime series is not very original.)

You know what, as an aside I’m just going to throw in the fact that Space Dandy’s “look” is very similar to to the spn anime down to the BL shadows in which Dandy is compared with Redline

And that Jessica is totally generically designed

Anyway, this extends further than Dean’s facial expressions alone.

It extends to his wardrobe which totally starts to unhinge Dean’s persona. oddly enough.

So here’s a round of nit-picking

Why in god’s name is Dean wearing sunglasses indoors? He already went through an entire spiel about ineffectiveness at night

and it’s not like having it indoors makes it any less ridiculous. And yes, he does wear them again in later seasons both unironically and ironically

But these cues of character insight (that people have written far better meta for) is in the context of later seasons and I highly doubt the anime production team could’ve predicted any of this so I’m just going to have a giant ????? over this.

Back to this awful screenshot again.

But seriously, anyone shirtless in the snow deserves to die of hypothermia.

Dean is the last person to feel comfortable with minimal clothing due to years of sexual harassment/assault from CREATURES more often than not

Even more so whenever Dean is naked, it’s used more for vulnerability over titillation:

I hate this stupid screenshot.

It is awful, why? Because anime characters rarely stray from their trope mannerisms unless the story calls for it, or the animators dedicate some time to create impressive sakuga for novelty’s sake. If Dean has body language like this now, that mean’s he’s likely going to exhibit it again no matter what the context is in terms of story or character.

Leading to this abomination.

I know what you are doing. I get it. I KNOW.

I KNOW YOU’RE DRAWING DEAN THIS WAY BECAUSE APPARENTLY TO YOU DEAN IS AN ANIME THUG WHICH MEANS ANIME THUGS EXHIBIT THIS KIND OF UNCARING BODY LANGUAGE BUT NEED WE FORGET THAT DEAN LOVES HIS CAR MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF

HAVING HIS SHOES AGAINST THE SEAT OR ANYWHERE NEAR THE LEATHER IS THE SAME AS DEFECATING ON IT. ARE YOU SERIOUS RN??? THAT’S LIKE THE ONE THING DEAN WINCHESTER IS ALL ABOUT AND IS SOMETHING THAT SHOULD NOT BE FORGOTTEN ESPECIALLY WHEN IT CAME TO DEVELOPMENTS OF DEMON!DEAN

This...this shit I can’t forgive. This is so absent-minded it physically hurts me. I can’t be the only one bothered by this.

Addendum: I don’t even really care if that’s NOT the impala (in this episode of the anime Sam and Dean were thrown into the backseat of a police car.) I still don’t think Dean would EVER exhibit this sort of body language in any car.

It also still doesn’t excuse the lack of variety in Dean’s emoting and body language as a whole. You could do so much storytelling in his body language (since Jensen Ackles is a master at that) but they instead chose to stick with a template of a character and never strayed from it.

But...I digress.

Incidentally of all places Yuri!! On Ice has closer character designs of Sam and Dean that for some virulent reason exists (Also incidentally, if you so much as breathe the title of YOI you will be immediately blocked I am not joking around. Don’t test me.)

As does Yami Shibai

So it’s not like a competent/more modern design tailored to anime is impossible.

It is very possible. So if you have your defense that the character designs of the spn anime are inherently horrible BECAUSE it’s supposed to “look anime” you’re probably just suffering from media illiteracy.

However, again, I made claim that the “style” of the Supernatural anime character designs are not what make it fail.

It’s the execution of nuances that killed it--both visually and narratively. And I still stand by that.

To form examples, that means more design redraws!!!

However, the redraws this time around will have it’s own separate post since the inner working of what can make or break a design will be discussed and demonstrated there.

SEE YOU IN PART 2!!!

#whelvenwings #supernatural the animation #supernatural #spn meta #spn anime

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