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scarlet-fantasies · 3 years

Note

can I request when they cheat or if their the type to? thanks ^^

Hi anon,

yes of course, sorry it's been taking forever but on the bright side it's a long post. I don't think I'm good with angst but I did my best. I included a fuckboy version too.

-Scarlet

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prompt

Inbox is open

Cheating on their gf (hcs)

::Warning:: angst

::Description:: Just Eren and Zeke arguing and cheating on their gf.

General hcs (includes both)

I’m just gonna show you the dialogue for the most part for both brothers but I don’t think they are somewhat capable of cheating I think Eren might be if he thought the girl he had was easy. I see that Zeke might be more of a cheater than Eren cause Eren usually gets to clingy with his gf and meanwhile I think is all about the experience and playing around. But if we put them in the sense that they are fuckboys then Eren is more of a cheater.

Like hands down.

Zeke, on the other hand, is less of a cheater as a fuck boy he just kinda stays in the relationship or he just breaks up with you he doesn’t cheat as much. But I’m his regular state he’d cheat more. Idk it’s just what I see. Oh btw in a werewolf au, Zeke is the cheating type of boyfriend.

Anyways let’s get to the convos.

::Eren::

I picture that he came back from work and you two haven’t been married for long in this scene and maybe you might have a little toddler who’s asleep. Anyways you two are in the kitchen arguing. You were opening the cabinet still giving the silent treatment to Eren when he came clean with the truth which heart to hear.

“Y/n, I’ve been cheating on you.” He’d say looking down at tiles not knowing how to look at you.

You paused, before resuming back to everything. You’d bite your lip before saying, “Yeah I know.”

“That’s it you’re not mad?” He’d approach you not being able to understand.

You’d turn to Eren with your arms crossed, “No I’m not mad Eren. This just means I can do the same so there are no hard feelings.” You’d answer bitterly before turning your back to him again.

“Y/n. Please I love you.” He’d say apologetically resting a hand on your shoulder.

You’d turn to look at him again looking anger but only sighed. “Obviously if you cared you wouldn’t have started seeing someone else.”

He’d take your hand in his before looking up at you with sorrowful eyes. “Y/n I’m not seeing her anymore, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

You’d look at him unphased as you pulling your hand away from his. “You think that changes everything?”

“Look I know it doesn’t but I don’t want to see you like this.” He’d explain with a frown whilst you looked fed up with your husband’s affair.

“Do you love her?” You’d ask dryly.

“What? No!” He’d shake his head at your assumption.

“Don’t lie to me Eren!” You’d tell, now losing yourself bc he was lying right to you but you wanted to test him on his honesty.

“I swear—“

“Then why did you give her a ring?!” You’d argue.

“No, that’s not true. Look I just—I used to like her too. I’m not gonna lie.” He’d say regretful of actually feeling that way.

Eren could see how quickly your eyes flashed from angry to hurt.

“So, you l-love her?” You’d mumble loud enough for him to hear.

“. . . Y/n—please I didn’t know what to do.”

You’d snap hearing this, “Oh, really? Then let me make it simple for you. If you loved me, and then you started to love someone else, don’t choose me!”

“Y/n I’m sorry! But I do love you, I still love you and I always will! So please don’t leave.”

Hearing his words you’d while your tears away as you’d try to walk away only for him to follow.

You’d turn around to face him as he caught your arm, “Is that what you’re doing? Trying to make me h-hate you?” You’d ask tears streaming down your face as you waited for an answer.

“What? No.”

“Then why did you do it, Eren? W-why? We were h-happy!”

“I don’t know.” He’d frown while wiping the tears on your cheeks away.

“Am I not enough to you!? What is it my hair? My weight? My eyes?” You’d yell still crying.

“No, no, no.”

“Then what? What is it that I don’t have for you to do this!? Tell me! Why am not enough to you!?” You’d scream pushing him away from you.

“You are enough! I Just don’t know why I did it okay.”

“So that’s just it? You just didn’t care so you just went with her.”

“No that’s not—“

“Eren, if you weren’t ever interested then why did you pursue it? I don’t choose people easily and I don’t fall in and out of love easily. Okay?!”

“Y/n I’m sorry—“

“Sorry? Is that all you can say?! . . . You were the only person I ever cared for, I was faithful while you were sleeping with her. What did I ever do to deserve this?”

“Nothing!”

“Then why did you have to do this to me Eren? You had me, you were enough for me. You always used to say I was enough for you.”

“And you are.”

“I’m really not to sure about that. Because it looks like to me that that whore is enough to you.” You’d frown before walking away from him and not talking to him for the rest of the night.

Now as a fuck boi it would be a whole different story. And I picture you two have a daughter. And Eren has gotten better with you and things were looking up and all and bc he was picking himself up and he was going to be a better father and then he could see his daughter but he just blew it tbh. You went to see just him bc you wanted to tell him that he should see his baby bc he’s really improved and changed. but after seeing the hoe he was with you just had to have a fight.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“Out.”

“Y/n-“

“I—I just need some air, and maybe when I g-get back we can talk about this o-okay?”

“Where are you going?”

“To see my friends? The beach? I don’t know Eren?! Like as if you’d even care.”

“You’re not leaving.” He’d say approaching you as you were getting ready to leave.

“Get out of my way . . . Eren? Move.”

“No.”

“Eren stop it, move.” You’d argue being block by him. See this you hit his chest only for him to grab ahold of you.

“No, ugh let go of me! This is your fault Damn it!” You screamed at him whilst try to hit and kick him as he didn’t let you go. He wasn’t hurting you he was just preventing you from hitting him and leaving.

“Y/n stop, stop fighting me! Look, I didn’t do this to hurt you. She just came on to me.” He’d argue trying to hold you still as you look like you wanted to cry.

“Oh really, how many times is a woman going to come on to you Eren?! Huh?! How many?! How many more?!” It’s true it wasn’t the first time this happened but all those times you weren’t exactly with Eren. You were fighting with him for a good while bc he didn’t want to get help and support his kid.

“Shut up, you’re the one that left all those times!” He’d yell releasing you from his grip.

“I left for our child! Our daughter, Eren!” You cried a hand resting on your chest as you felt your heart as tears streamed down your face.

“Oh right the one you didn’t give me any custody to?” He’d point, being annoyed at the fact he could only see his daughter if you allowed it.

“You never wanted a baby and you made it clear so I never forced you to be a dad, okay?!”

“I never said I didn’t want her, I love her! Even if I haven’t seen her!” He’d shout hitting his fist on the counter, he hated it when you said he didn’t care, bc he actually did care.

“You are unstable Eren, I did it to keep her safe. What’s wrong with you? When I first met you, you were nothing like this. . . I remember when we first talked about kids you always used to say that you wanted a better life for them if we ever had any . . . What happened to that, Eren? Where’s the Eren I met? That I fell in love with—The one that didn’t cheat on me all the time?!” You’d scream, tears running down your face.

It hurt to hear this and hurt him even more than it was making you be like this. He wished he could take it all back. “Things are different now. Stop trying to change me into the man you want me to be.”

But still, you proceeded to rant.“All those nights I left you it was for her! So that she could have something, something better! And all you did was sleep with someone else just like your father!!” You’d yell pointing a finger at him.

“Don’t ever talk about him!” He’d shout. It’s true his father was a mess and treated Eren’s mom horrible and he never wanted to talk about it.

“Oh what? Did I touch a nerve?! Did I hurt you Eren?! Well, I can definitely tell you one thing, it never hurts as much as when a family is counting on you. I bet that’s what you’re mother felt all the time, didn’t she? If that’s the case then why hell do you keep doing it to me!?”

“Shut up, you don’t know what that was like!” Now he looked hurt.

“Look Eren, I’m sorry you had to go through that growing up! I’m sorry your father did that to your mother and that he wasn’t there for you. But you need to grow up and take responsibility! You screwed up and you left me alone when I needed you most, when our daughter needed you! If you cared even just the slightest you would’ve been there for us but instead, you decided to sleep around!”

“I do care! And I slept with girls bc we were on and off! I was angry I made a mistake when I did that. But I love you both! And you can’t tell me that’s not true because I want to Rehab for the both of you! I tried!”

You’d shake your head left and right as you cried. “Then why did you stop, Eren? If you love us don’t stop. All we want is for you to get better and come home. I’m not saying you need to be with me but just be there for our daughter Eren. Be better than your dad. Get out of this whole and come home.”

“I’m sorry, Y/n. I don’t wanna stop for you both, I don’t want to keep making mistakes but even if I change I can’t be a good father to her.”

“Yes you can, she needs you and I’m here. So please don’t make any more mistakes.” You’d frown looking at him, your hands cupping his face as he looked to be on the verge of tears.

“You don’t need to apologize to me, apologize to our daughter when you get better.” You’d continue as you wiped a tear away from his cheek.

“You know this is why I love you.” He’d say embracing you into a hug.

“I-I love you too.” You cried, hoping that he’d come home at one point.

Okay, so this one needed better? Idk but you get the point.

::Zeke::

You two were happy, nothing was going wrong or anything.

But of course, there had to be ups and downs in life.

You just didn’t expect to be something as horrible as this.

I feel like in a modern au setting, Zeke’s biggest problem is that he doesn’t believe in commitment and he isn’t a big fan of it. Like it’s hard for him to care a lot tbh.

Like he’s dated a fair amount of women but he just moves on quite quickly.

So yes he’s cheated before and he’s always the one to break up, but now it was your turn.

Also I feel like he might be the type to have you walk in on him.

“You wanted to see me today, you miss me that much?” He’d smile approaching you about to give you a kiss on the lips.

You’d doge his kiss, looking up at him with a stressed expression. “I called you over because were over, Zeke.”

His brows arched at this, “Babe, what’s wrong?”

You shook your head before mustering up the courage to not get angry. “Do you think I’m delusional?”

“What, no.”

“Why did you do it then?!”

“What are you talking about?!”

“Zeke, I saw you. You told me you had to cancel but you were kissing her on your motorcycle like it was no big deal . . .”

“Y/n-”

“H-how do you even just!?--How do you go on not feeling guilty, at all?” You’d ask, your voice was soft and your eyes glassy.

It was hard to believe it was all happening and truly wished it was just some nightmare but it wasn’t.

“Y/n I told you I’m not big on commitment.” He’d frown looking down feeling horrible, mostly bc of how you were taking this.

“I know that! But damn it, you could’ve just broken up with me at least!”

“I didn’t want to--”

“I don’t wanna be kept in the dark! You hurt me more by not telling me.”

“Y/n, listen to me—“

You shook your head not wanting to hear his explanation for hurting you. “Don’t you think I have the right to know if you’ve moved on at least?! . . .”

“Hey, hey, look at me. I feel guilty every day I wronged you.”

“S-Stop lying! You could’ve talked to me, or even by the phone or by text! Why’d you have to go and rip my heart out?!”

“I don’t know! I don’t know why I can’t just stay with someone Y/n, I never feel complete!”

“So then when I asked you you were lying just so I’d stay with you.”

“No, I didn’t lie-“

“Zeke!”

“Look, you are very good to me and I don’t deserve that and I’ve said that. We’ve talked about this c’mon.”

“I know we have, but that doesn’t justify anything that you did. I don’t care that you moved on, Zeke. What matters is that you didn’t have the decency to tell me.” You’d say wiping a few tears away.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t always work!”

So yeah I think it would end there and I don’t see them going back and working things out.

Tbh once you break up with someone it’s kind of. a deal by that point.

Don’t take my advice but I just don’t believe in going back with your ex. Like most of the time there was a reason you broke up, so stay that way.

But I mean some circumstances are different.

Here is another convo, I picture this convo more if he’s a werewolf and your human. Cause yeah that’s just a thing and I see it, so here we go.

“Zeke—“

“I told you not to stay with me, Y/n. Now you have a reason to go.”

“Oh so is that how you intend to push me away, because I’m good to you, you just have to throw it away.”

“I’m not throwing you away Y/n! I’m giving you a better shot at life, where you can walk out that door right now! With no strings attached.”

“So you don’t even care that you did it?”

“I can’t change who I am, I’ve told you that. And you were okay with it. So why is it so important for you to change that?!”

“I’m not trying to change you, I can’t even control you. If you’re changing, that’s because it’s your doing. Even tho I know that you weren’t committed, I can’t force you to change!”

“Then why did you stay?!”

“Because I cared; because you didn’t hurt me, I loved you and I had hope. But after what you’ve done it makes it so much harder to even look at you. And I’m not talking about what you’ve done to others in past, I’m talking about right now, what you did to me. You cheated on me, not just because you don’t care but in hopes of pushing me away. Is that it, or am I wrong?”

He’d look at you with his cold eyes before answering, “. . . No.”

“So then, we’re done here.” You’d say before walking out the door, just like he wanted you to. Although it seemed he wanted the exact opposite this moment and he most definitely wasn’t getting what he wanted.

You two may or may not patch things up I feel undecided on this one.

As a fuckboy he also doesn’t believe in being committed and he doesn’t care.

He’s probably heavily on drugs and hasn’t been in love ever since he was a teen.

Now he just doesn’t want to know anything about real relationships.

“God, you make a big deal out of everything.” He’d say annoyed.

“Oh really?!” You’d snap.

“Yeah, what’s the big deal anyway? We weren’t even on speaking terms.”

“Zeke, just because we fight doesn’t give you the right to do any of this.”

He’d look at you only to answer with a smart remark. “Huh, but you have the right to leave whenever you want?”

You’d narrow your eyes in confusion and sadness, “I’m not bound to you, and neither are you. So if you want to end this, then fine. Let’s end it.”

“You are such a drama queen.” He’d shake his head completely ignoring you as he was about to light a cigarette.

You to snatched the object from his hand before tossing it afar. “So that’s just how it is, women are always crazy right!? Men, always have the right when she’s crazy don’t they?!”

“You need to relax it was just a fling.” He’d say looking at you in what seemed to be an annoyance.

“No! I will not relax about your meaningless flings. Do you know what it’s like to hope or wait on someone who’s slacking in rehab?!” You’d scream, being fed up with him.

“If you’re so disappointed about my choices why don’t you get a new boyfriend!?” He’d argue.

“Maybe I will then!” You’d hold back your tears.

“Fine!”

“Fine!” You’d yell before leaving him.

After this convo you would just be sad that he didn’t stop you and that he didn’t care, even just a little.

::Previous Post::

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astrovian · 3 years

Audio

Richard Armitage interviews Harlan Coben for the Win audiobook (released 18/03/21)

Full transcript under cut

RA: Hi, I’m Richard Armitage. I played Adam Price in the Netflix series The Stranger, which was adapted from Harlan Coben’s novel of the same name. With me is the man himself, Harlan Coben, number one New York Times bestseller, the author of over thirty novels, including the one you’ve just listened to. I’m delighted to be talking to Harlan about his book, Win.

Okay Harlan, thanks for taking the time to chat about your audiobook and thanks for sending me a copy of the book. Um, it was so nice I ended up wrapping it up and giving it to my brother for Christmas.

HC: *laugh* You’re supposed to read it first, but okay, thanks Richard.

RA: No, I got the electronic version so uh, so I’ve had a good read. Congratulations, a great story. Brilliant, brilliant central character. I mean the first question I’m gonna ask is – because people listening to this have just been listening to the audiobook – are you, um, a big audiobook listener yourself?

HC: I – I go through stages, um, because my mind wanders, I sometimes have trouble focusing. But when I’m in a car, um, that’s most of the time that I’m- that I really love to use the audiobooks because it does make the ride just fly by. However, I’ve set up my life that I don’t have to commute to work every day, so I don’t have it steadily – it’s usually when I’m doing a nice long ride, I get a really good audiobook and time just flies by.

RA: And have you- have you got any favourite audiobooks that you’ve listened to recently, or any podcasts or what is it that floats your boat?

HC: You know, it’s funny. I still remember when I was a working man, way back when, when audiobooks were really first starting out and we had them on cassette tapes, I listened to the entire Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, um, it was about thirty hours long, going back and forth to work for almost a month. And I still have memories of that experience, and it’s probably, well god, it’s probably 1990 I did that, 1989, something like that.

RA: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean I’ve got a- I’ve got a few journeys up and back from Manchester this year, we’re about to start working on Stay Close, so I’ll happily – I’m happy to take any recommendations of any good books, so maybe I’ll listen to Bonfire of the Vanitites.

HC: Well I tell ya, a lot of people – first of all, it’s a brilliant book, it’s maybe a bit dated, but I doubt that, um. I think Richard, I get more people telling me to listen to any book that you read.

RA: *laugh*

HC: I said, “Hey, I spend a lot of time with this guy, I’m about to do my second television show that stars Richard Armitage. No one I think has starred in two shows that I’ve done ever, so I get a lot of him anyway.” *laugh*

RA: You don’t need my voice in your head when you’re driving, that’s – that’s torture.

HC: That’s right, I’ll be hearing notes on, on scripts in my head if I hear you going. For those who don’t know who are listening, y’know, Richard starred in The Stranger, um, and now is going to be starring in Stay Close, uh, based off two of my novels which I’m sure you can get on audiobook.

RA: And on that note, what um, you’ve had so many adaptations now that have moved from page to screen – what is it like when you go through that process? When you’re – ‘cause you’re very hands on in the way that you kind of collaborate with not just the actors, but with the producers and y’know, the writers. I mean, you’re – you’re writing it yourself. Um, what is it like through, through that whole process, from starting to developing to seeing it kind of realised on screen?

HC: I think the key for me is not to be slavishly devoted to the novel. I think that’s a mistake that a lot of people who are trying to make an adaptation make. So, I go into it, ‘what is the best TV series we can make?’, if it’s true to the book, great. If it’s not true to the book, also great. Um, so I move my stories to various countries, we’ve changed characters around, we’ve changed motivations. Because they’re two very different mediums – a book is a book, and a TV series is a TV series. They should not be the same. One is a visual medium, one is not. Even, even um, audiobooks are slightly different um, than what you read. And they should be. Um, y’know, there’s a performance involved.

Also, because I’ve spent most of my life alone in a room coming up with writing a book, um, where I am just everything – I’m writer, director, actor, key grip. I don’t even know what a key grip is, but I’m that. Um, it’s really nice to collaborate. So um, you’ve worked with me, I hope you agree – I like to collaborate, I like to hear the opinions of other people and um, I really enjoy that aspect of it. I look at it like I’m – like I get to be captain of a World Cup football team, rather than being a tennis player where I’m standing there on my own, which is what happens with a novel.

RA: Yeah, and actually it’s the same when I get to narrate an audiobook, like you say – you get to be director, you get to be the cinematographer to an extent ‘cause you’re setting the scene, but one thing that I’ve – I really appreciated about working with you was having read your, your books and sometimes you’ll pass by a character that is useful to the, to the narrative that you’re telling, but when that comes to developed for TV or film you’ll take a bit more time to investigate that character, and you’re very open to treading those paths, which makes for a very kind of dense narrative with the screenwriter.

HC: Well that’s what I think we’re trying to do. If you think about The Stranger, um, y’know in the book the Stranger is a sort of nerdy teenage male.

RA: Mm-hmm.

HC: And that just – we even tried out some people, and that just didn’t work. And it was really my idea – and I don’t say it in a bragging way, I say it as a way to show how open we all are – to change the character from being male to being female. And once I saw Hannah John-Kamen do it, then I pictured her in a room with you in that first great scene in the bar, um, or at the club when she tells you the big secret, it just worked. Um, you have to be willing to, to sort of stretch your imagination all over again and re-think your story. Which is also fun.

RA: Yeah, and also I suppose because y’know, as much as we love a faithful adaptation of a novel, um what you don’t wanna do is just deliver the novel in screenplay. You want to, for everyone that has read it it’s a new and exciting surprise, and for everyone that hasn’t it’s, y’know, it’s gonna be the same. So, um, it’s nice to kind of have a, to have your audience ready for people who have read a lot of your work, and there were, y’know, a guaranteed audience of people that had, had looked at The Stranger but what you gave them was something really surprising.

HC: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. And Stay Close, there’s a change in the ending to that which will hopefully shock everybody but especially the people who have already read the book, who will smugly think they know exactly what’s going on.

RA: *laugh* And me, probably. I haven’t read it yet. Um, so when you’re writing – I’m gonna double up on this question now, so when you’re writing, do you write in silence? Do you have any music playing in the background or are you – do you have like a, a kind of sacred writing space?

HC: Um, my routine is not to have a routine. Uh I, I do whatever works until it stops working and then I change up. It’s like I’m riding a horse really fast, and then the horse dies so I gotta find a new horse. So most writers will tell you ‘yes, I use this space, I do it at this time’. Um in the days before Covid, I would go to different coffee shops all the time, I would try out different… any place. Y’know, my favourite example is the end of – when I was writing The Stranger, um with about three weeks left to finish it, I had to take an Uber for the first time. This was a number of years ago. I had to take an Uber in New York City, and I felt really guilty about spending the money on an Uber and trying to justify it, so I was sitting in the back of the Uber and I was writing down notes, and I start writing really well. So for three weeks, I took Ubers wherever I went just so I could finish the book *laugh*

RA: ‘Cause that was the magic formula.

HC: Yeah, that worked! Then that stops working and then I have to find the new, a new place. So my routine is not to have a routine. If you’re trying to write out there, the key to anything is ‘does it make me write more?’ – if the answer is yes, it’s good. If the answer is no, it’s bad. It really is that simple.

RA: I’m gonna make a note of that for when I start writing myself. Um, do you – do you speak any of your characters out loud, your dialogue or your prose passages, do you say it out loud?

HC: The very last stage um, of editing. Okay first of all, no writer gets it right the first time. I know a million writers, I don’t know any writer who doesn’t re-write and re-write a lot. Well, I know one but he’s the guy none of us wanna hang out with, you know what I mean?

RA: *laugh*

HC: So um, the last stage that I do, and it’s usually after I’ve done all the editing with my editor and everything like that, we’re ready to go. I will sit in a room and I read the entire novel out loud to myself. Um, because what happens is, it’s a little bit like a musical score. Where you can – if you read it out loud, I can detect false notes that I may have missed along the way. Um, I can hear them. So the last step is that. I rarely y’know, I’m not – I’m not crazy, I’m not sitting there maybe talking out loud to myself, I’m maybe testing out lines by doing that, and I do that a lot when I’m helping with the screenplays on our shows. But um, for the most part that’s how I do it.

RA: So, in that case, would you ever narrate one of your own audiobooks?

HC: I did narrate one, uh, many years ago called Promise Me. What had happened is we had - my Myron Bolitar series we did seven with the same reader and he retired. I hadn’t written um, I didn’t write Myron for about five or six years it was. And so they said, ‘hey, why don’t you do it?’ which was a huge mistake in many ways. One, I’m not a professional. But two, the people who were fans of Myron Bolitar liked the first guy, and it felt to them liked they had tuned into their favourite TV show and every actor had changed.

RA: *laugh*

HC: It’s really difficult to re-do or start a series, uh, when people know the- the old reader. So um, I also figure- it was also, Richard you know this of course, so for people who don’t know, it’s a lot of work. I’m a guy from New Jersey. I speak very quickly, which does not go over well in audio. I don’t do voices. I would have to sit with a pillow on my stomach because uh, my stomach would sometimes grumble and that would be picked up- *laugh*

RA: Oh, yeah!

HC: By the microphone. And it took me um, a week to record it because – and I don’t know if this is still the case – but back then, the abridged version wasn’t just a cut up version of the unabridged, I had to do a whole different reading for it. So um, it was – it was a lot of work. Um, and it’s a skill that I’m not sure I’m best to do.

RA: Yeah, it does take a lot of stamina. I mean what’s interesting is, having gotten to know you, and when I, when I now read your work, I can hear your delivery, I can hear your voice. And there’s humour in the dialogue, and there’s humour in the as well, and I – it’s an instant ‘in’ for me, so I – ‘cause, ‘cause often I read and I speak aloud when I’m reading alone in the dark, I say things out loud but I think people approach it differently. But I definitely hear your voice in, in these characters. And I think particularly in Windsor Horne Lockwood.

HC: That’s so interesting because Win, I think of my heroes that I’ve had, Win is probably the least like me. I mean um, when you think about Adam-

RA: *laughing* You have to say that! You have to say that because he’s such a badly behaved person, isn’t he?

HC: *laughing* Yeah! ‘Cause I usually like to think of myself as more of like Adam in The Stranger, who you played, or some of the other characters that – the ‘I’m a father or four’ or those kind of guys. What I love about getting into Win of course is that Win is something of an anti-hero. Um, he sort of says and does things that are not necessarily prudent or appropriate, and he can get away with that. Um, so I really loved – I loved getting in his head, it was really an interesting experience. But on the surface anyway, he’s probably the least like me of any uh, main character that I’ve ever written.

RA: Yeah, I mean I- I relate to that totally. It’s a little bit like- it’s probably a side of you, you daren’t investigate, but- but when you get the chance to do it in a fiction um, you can tap into those things that we’re not allowed to do or say in your, in your regular day. But um, where did that character spring from? What was the seed that germinated into his story do you think?

HC: Rarely is this the case, but um, Win is actually – y’know, he’s the sidekick in my Myron Bolitar series but um, when I first created him I based him off my best friend in college roommate, who has a name equally obnoxious as Windsor Horne Lockwood the Third-

RA: *laugh*

HC: Very good looking, blonde guy who used to say before he would go out to parties when we were in college, he would look in the mirror and say, “It must suck to be ugly”. And so I took him and I tweaked him and made him more dangerous, uh and that’s how I, I kind of came up with Win.

RA: And does this person know that you’ve based this character on him?

HC: Oh yes! In fact, some people know who he is, he uses it. He’s still a-

RA: Oh, really?

HC: Owner of all these fancy golf clubs, he’s president of one of the most famous golf clubs, um, in the world right now. He looks the part. In fact, he one time came to one of my books signings years ago and um, he’s sitting in the back, and I tell people the story of how I created Win, and I say, “I’m not gonna tell you who, but Win is actually in this room right now”. It took the crowd about four seconds to figure out who he was, and he had a longer line to sign books that I did *laugh*

RA: Amazing. I mean I have to say, it’s- you, you start reading the story and thinking, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna like this guy’ but he really grows on you, warts and all. I wonder how many people are gonna go into Saks on Fifth Avenue and go looking for the vault.

HC: *laugh* Yeah, no, I made that up. But there is place in Saks-

RA: I know, so brilliant!

HC: -but the rest of it is completely made up, this involves an app that you’ll read about when you- hopefully when you, when you read book. But yeah, it was fun to do an anti-hero where he makes decisions and does things that you don’t like, and yet you still wanna hang around with him. I always think the key to a fascinating character is not um, that he’s likeable necessarily, but that you wanna spend time with him. Not that he’s a nice guy, but if you were at a bar and you could sit with somebody and have a conversation with them and learn about their life, would this be a person you’d wanna do that with? And that’s sort of the test whenever I do a character. And Win, I think, passes that with flying colours. There are people who love Win and wanna be just like him and there are people who loathe him! But everybody, or I hope many people, are fascinated by him and his life.

RA: Well, also you’ve given him such an incredible kind of tool kit, like a skill set. I mean, I think everybody would look at that character and wish they could do the things he does, maybe not in the way that he does them, but I mean he’s- he’s exactly the kind of character that you’d hone in on, certainly from an acting point of view. I look at that and if I was, y’know, like fifteen years younger, I’d be leaping on that character to play. Which is, it means – it means he’s sort of relatable or aspirational in a kind of anti-hero way.

HC: I’ve heard this a lot, and I think it’s one of the most flattering things that I hear from my actor friends – I think everybody would want to play Win. I mean, I think the- it’s an interesting challenge, um, for a lot of actors. More so than even Myron Bolitar who is my lead series character. Um, everybody kind of wants to play win and kind of wonders who would play Win. Uh, and I take that as a – as a compliment.

RA: Are we gonna see more of him? Is he ge- are you writing more stories for him?

HC: My guess is the answer’s yes. I plan each book as it comes, so I never know until I’ve started. Is it gonna be a stand alone? Is it going to be a Myron Bolitar? Is it gonna be a young adult? Mickey Bolitar is now going to be a Win, and I don’t know until I – each book, y’know when I finish a book, I’m like a boxer who’s just gone fifteen rounds and can’t even lift my, my arms anymore, I gave it everything I had, I can’t even imagine fighting again or writing another novel. So I don’t know is the answer. Probably? I do wanna see Win again, separately or at least back with Myron, so I do think we will see Win again. But the book I’m writing right now is a sequel to The Boy From the Woods, which is the book that came out in 2020, so that’s what I’m writing now. Will I return to Win? Maybe. Maybe. We’ll see how- we’ll also see how people react. Not that I would work necessarily off of commercial interest, but it people really love this book, y’know, we don’t live in vacuum, that would probably somewhat influence what I do.

RA: Right. I mean, because so many of your- your books are being developed and being snapped up to be turned into film or television – I mean, Myron Bolitar is, is a recurring series waiting to happen, and then you’ve got your spin off of Win – I, I- I wonder if, y’know when your first ever, uh novel, did you write with kind of cinema television in your head? Is that something that as modern storytellers we can even avoid? Um, did you ever dream that these would ever turn into sort of film and TV?

HC: Well, everybody dreams, but there’s sort of two answers to it. The first answer is when I’m writing a book, I never ever, ever, not for one second do I think ‘Ooh, this would make a really good movie’ or ‘Ooh, this would make a really good TV series’ because that’s the kiss of death for a book. It really is. It’s, it’s- it’s just a disastrous thought, and if you’re out there writing really don’t try it, because it’s, it’s a big mistake. At the same time, to be realistic and honest, I grew up watching TV. Who didn’t? That’s my – I mean this is what we grew up with. To pretend you’re only influences – y’know you ask a writer ‘What’s your influences?’ “Oh, Shakespeare and Proust and Yeats” – come on. You watched TV growing up. And so that’s an influence on how you tell a story. To deny that is silly. So writers today do think in terms of cinema more just because they grew up with it. Where writers of a different generation did not, so they wouldn’t have that influence.

RA: Yeah, I mean I- I think this all the time – it’s impossible to even de-program your brain not to imagine scenarios in terms of cinema. I mean I- I often think about sort of Victorian novelists that didn’t have y’know TV, and their trying to describe something that they’ve never seen or experienced. And we have references for so many things – I mean it’s almost impossible not to, we’re- we are and will always be influenced by one or the other, especially in the written word. But I- I find that it means that you can kind of uh, put aside the investigation and just get on with the storytelling. And maybe go even a little bit further. It’s like instant access. Y’know, I know exactly the world that you’re talking about when you’re y’know at the beginning of Win, but- but y’know at the same time I felt there was something very Agatha Christie like about the um, the backstory of uh, of this book, I really liked the fact that there was a historic event that was really informing what was happening right now.

HC: Well, y’know when I start a book, there’s- I’m always- I have a bunch of ideas and I’m trying to think which ones are going to go in the story, and it ends up being several. So for example, in this book, I wanted – I’ve always wanted to do an art heist. Y’know, like the Gardner Museum Heist, where they still haven’t found the paintings that were stolen, the Vermeers and the Picassos that were stolen in that particular – I can’t remember if it’s Picasso now, I know it was a Vermeer – um, stolen in that- that, heist in Boston years ago, I wanted to write a book about 60’s radicals – the Weather Underground and what would happen to people who were involved in that so many years later. I also wanted to write something about a kind of Patty Hearst-type character who was a famous kidnapping here in the 70s. So those were like three of the things that I wanted to like – to delve into. And I ended up delving into all three *laugh* which sometimes happens.

Oh, and the last one I wanted to do – I always wanted to do um, a hoarder that was actually someone famous. There was actually um, something of a case of this in New York City where somebody died who was living in a top floor of an Upper West Side building, and it ended up being the missing son – not really missing, but had just kind of gone off the rails – of a very famous American war hero. And so, I took all of these aspects, which would seem to make three or four different novels, and I make it into one novel if I can. It’s not that different from – again, I’m referencing um, um – The Stranger y’know, because you’re here and provably a number of the people listening to us have seen The Stranger on Netflix, but it’s the same thing with The Stranger a little bit, where I had a lot of ideas for secrets that could be revealed by the Stranger, and each one could have been a separate novel. And instead, the challenge is put them all in one story and find a way to hook them together.

RA: Yeah. I mean, it’s rich in a way that when I- I’m reading it and the producer head in me is saying ‘gosh, this is gonna be a great TV show’ ‘cause you know, you’ve got the present day, you’ve got the near-past and the um, the heist story, which uh, is kind of crying out for – you just want more of it, which is brilliant in a book. When you’re – you’re leaving the reader wanting to know more and wanting to, to know more about that family and what happens to them. It’s – it’s the perfect recipe, really.

HC: And so much of it does come from your life in ways that you don’t expect – right now, maybe a lot of people are watching this uh, the Aaron Sorkin movie about the Chicago Trials from the 70s, Abbie Hoffman, who is played by uh, I think Sacha Baron Cohen played him in, in the movie. When I was in college at Amherst, Abbie Hoffman was on the run, um, but he still showed up one day at our college and gave a speech, then disappeared again. And boy, that stuck in my head always. Man, I’d love to write a character that’s kind of like Abbie Hoffman. ‘Cause he had that charisma even then, y’know on stage he was funny as heck, I must have been eighteen or nineteen um, when I – when I heard him speak. And so that – I never consciously back then, I didn’t think that, but every once in a while those experiences come to head and you wanna write about it.

RA: Mm-hmm. You’ve been writing for quite a few years now-

HC: *Laugh*

RA: -you’re – I don’t know if you can even remember what it was like when you first stated your very first book. Um, and some people have said that books are like children in a way, you sort of rear them and then the more you do, the more familiar you are with that process. But would you – I mean, it’s difficult for you to answer this, but would you say you have a favourite book that you’ve written?

HC: I don’t have a favourite book that I’ve written. Um, this – this sounds self-serving, but it’s usually the book, the most recent book, that I like the best. Um, it’s a little bit like – and the way I try to explain this is – maybe you wrote a paper, an essay when you were in college which you thought was brilliant. You remember that moment in school and you wrote a paper and you thought it was brilliant and you find it now and you re-read it and you go, ‘wow, this wasn’t good after all’. It’s not that it’s not very good, it’s just that you have sort of moved on and you’re not that sort of person and so you see all the flaws. So in the older books, which I don’t re-read, I see all of the flaws. I always think, y’know even if you think of yourself, what you thought ten or fifteen years ago – you sort of go ‘ugh, what did I know back then, I’m so much smarter now’. So the same thing a little bit with books, where I think I’m learning more and the current book is better. One of the interesting experiences of working on these adaptation is having to go back and read a book – in some cases we’re doing one, the next one I think uh comes out in France for example, is Gone for Good, which I think was released in 2002! Or 2003. So I wrote it twenty years ago. And to have to go back and read it now, I’m always kind of cringing at some of the stuff-

RA: Mm-hmm.

HC: -some of the stuff I’m kind of thrilled with, like ‘wow, that’s an interesting twist. You don’t have that kind of ending anymore’ and some of it I’m like, ‘wow, why’d you go there?’ so it’s an interesting experience.

RA: Yeah, I feel the same. I very – I, uh, very early on in my career I would watch my work back in quite a lot of detail, thinking ‘I’m gonna learn something’ and then as I got older it was – it was almost unbearable to just do that. And I actually haven’t been able to do that, but it’s because when you’re – when you’re first starting out you throw everything you’ve got into that first breakout role that you do, and then your realise that you’re always in danger of repeating yourself and you think – ‘gosh, people are gonna suss me out that I’m only capable of doing one or two things’, but you live in hope that you can, y’know, find that one thing that you can completely reinvent. Y’know I still hope for that.

HC: I still think that everyone who I’ve ever met who is successful at what they do has imposter syndrome. If you don’t um, you’re prob- you have a false bravado and you’re in trouble. I always say, “only bad writers think they’re good”. The rest of us really suffer with that, and really questioning and always think we’re gonna be sussed out. And I can tell you, um, Stephen King sent me a book not that long ago because he’d nicely put my name in it and wanted my reaction. But even Steve, after all his success and whatever else, he still worries about the reaction, that he’s as good as he used to be, that people will still like it, he’s – I know him. He still worries about it. And when you stop, that’s when you’re in trouble I think as an artist, when you’re starting to doubt what it- when you don’t have the doubts, you start having an overconfidence that you sort of got this. It’s a little bit like my golf game, frankly.

RA: *laugh*

HC: There’s moment’s when I’m about to swing, y’know, I’m gonna be okay and then you get out there and you stink all over again. So-

RA: Yep

HC: -you’re constantly trying to get better and so I imagine it must be difficult to look at your old roles and you – you’re kinda cringing, right? You see all the mistakes you’re making. You see through you so to speak, right?

RA: Yep. Absolutely.

HC: And then someone will come up to you, right, and they’ll say, “Oh, my favourite thing you ever did was-“ and then they’ll list something you did twenty years ago, and you want them to pay attention to what you’re doing now *laugh*

RA: Yep. Yep. Seeing through you is, is one of the things that is quite haunting because I do, I see through me. I can’t shake myself off, if you know what I mean.

HC: Well, you are very cool, you don’t watch any of it until it’s all over. Uh, that’s correct right? You never watched any of our rushes or I remember trying to tell you that you’re doing great and all that-

RA: No, I watched, I watched the first shot-

HC: -and you had not seen any of it and I watch you every day when you’re on set working on our shows and I’ll comment if I see something or whatever, to either you directly or the director, uh, and most of the time I’m – I’m complimenting you, but you don’t – you don’t know either, because you’re not watching, you’re not getting lost in that.

RA: Yeah, I don’t like to watch or be somebody that studies myself to much, I don’t think that’s my job. I think my job is to be inside the character looking out, rather than the other way around. I leave that to the experts like you and the director.

HC: Also, I think it’s- I think if you start worrying about what – you’re right – and also you don’t have the distance. This is always an issue when I – I first start watching the cuts of the first episodes, and I read the book while I’m editing it, while I try to take time between my writing it and then seeing it, I have to sort of put myself in the position of being somebody who knows nothing about this, and doesn’t come in knowing the story already that I’ve already read or seen a thousand time. How do I keep it fresh in my head when I’m trying to be objective and watching it so we can make edits. Uh, both on the screen or on the page.

RA: Mm-hmm. What draws you to crime/thriller? What – I mean is that – I, I can’t often imagine you writing a romantic novel, but what is it that draws you to this particular genre?

HC: Well, y’know to me it’s uh, not really a genre. It’s more like – it’s a form. It’s more like saying it’s a haiku or a sonata.

RA: Mm-hmm.

HC: And within that form I can, and hopefully have, done everything. Um, I think The Stranger for example is more a story about family, uh, and the secrets we try to hide, rather than it is about who killed who – y’know, the mystery angle of it.

RA: Yeah.

HC: One of my most, uh well-known books, my first bestseller, was a book called Tell No One which was made into a French film starring François Cluze, and that’s really a love story, it’s about a man who’s madly in love with his wife and eight years earlier, she was murdered. And then eight years passed, he gets an email, he clicks the hyperlink, he sees a webcam and his dead wife walks by, still alive., And the pursuit, the wanting to get back, the hope for full redemption is really what drives the story more than ‘who killed who’.

RA: Mmm-hmm.

HC: So different stories do different things. But the great thing about the form of crime fiction is that it compels me to tell a story. I’m not getting lost in the beauty of my own genius, my own kind of navel-gazing. I have to continue to tell a story and entertain you. So any of the themes that I wanna tell, any of the things I wanna discuss, has to be slave to that story. And I think that’s probably a rich tradition. If you think about Dumas really, wasn’t that all crime fiction? Even Shakespeare is mostly crime fiction.

RA: Yeah.

HC: Most great stories, if I ask you to name a favourite novel that’s over a hundred years old, Dostoevsky, whoever, you will find that there’s almost always a crime in it. There’s almost always a crime story.

RA: I mean it’s one of the things that I get very excited about, um, I mean obviously I haven’t read your entire canon but I – there’s a signature, or a theme that you love to play on which is this idea that – that um, the people you know aren’t telling you everything about themselves, or that there’s something to hide and that in our modern world, with technology, we have this sort of ability to – to sort of lead multiple lives of truths or lies. And it’s something which I think we immediately recognise. ‘Cause I think we – we’re living that, that reality, and it’s a theme that I really enjoy about your writing.

HC: Well, first of all, thanks. Second, um, there’s a lot of things we’ve heard about the human condition. One of my favourites about the human condition that I used to write, is that we all believe that we are uniquely complex and no one knows the inside of us. And yet we think we read everybody else pretty well. We all think we are uniquely complex and the person across from us, we can kind of figure out. They’re not quite like us. Um, and that’s something I love to play with when I write. Because you’ve gotta remember that everybody is uniquely complex and on a humanity level, and on an empathy level, I raise my kids and I’m always teaching them that every person you see, the richest, the poorest, the happiest, the saddest – everybody has hopes and dreams. Just think that, when you see a stranger on the street, when you’re going to interact with somebody, when you’re getting angry at somebody, whatever it is – just remember, they have hope and dreams. Um, small little thought, but it helps me create a character as well.

RA: There’s also a- a kind of very strong level of self-deception involved, which I think can be quite surprising. Because you always read a character and go, ‘I’m not like that’ or ‘I would never do that’ and then if you really think about it, we – there’s a truth we tell ourselves about ourselves which isn’t always honest.

HC: Well, exactly. It’s really come to fruition in the world the last few years, where I kind of joked that I’ve been working too hard on making my villains sympathetic, the villains in today’s world don’t seem to be very – very complex at all.

RA: *laugh*

HC: But for the most part, people don’t think they’re bad guys. Even the bad guys don’t think they’re bad guys.

RA: Yeah.

HC: They have some way of, of justifying. It’s one of the great things about human beings, or one of the most prevailing thing about a human being, is we all have the ability to self-rationalise, to self-justify. Um, and so I’ve always tried with my villains, and I hope that I did it in everything that we’ve done together, to try to make even the villain – you may not like the villain, but you get them. I don’t really write books – I don’t write books where the serial killer is hacking up people for no reason, that doesn’t really interest me. I prefer the crimes where you can say, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t have done it maybe, but I can see why that happened. I can see if I was put in that position, um, where I may have done something similar’. That to me is a much more interesting villain than somebody who’s just cruel and evil.

RA: Yeah. Um, final question actually, is – I mean, as a listener/reader yourself – are there any other authors whose books you love and just go back – I mean, you’ve mentioned Stephen King, um I’m with you on that one – but are there any other authors who really kind of inspire you and, and y’know, like a little guilty pleasure reading for yourself and not for work?

HC: Yeah, well the problem always is that I start listing authors, and then someone will say, ‘well, what about so-and-so who’s a friend of mine’, and then I say ‘oh shoot, I forgot – I forgot that one’.

RA: *laugh*

HC: Y’know I saw recently that it’s the eleventh anniversary of the death of Robert B. Parker, who wrote the Spencer novels, if by any chance you haven’t found the Spencer novels, and I don’t know how popular they are overseas – they’re fantastic, wonderful detective series. Um, so that’s one guy I would go back in time and try to find for audio. But I actually like Philip Roth a lot on audio, even though he doesn’t do crime fiction. I’m a big Michael Connelly fan and I like Lee Child, um and Laura Lippman. Y’know, I could sit here just naming um, people all day. I’m always curious also – who is reading – who does it because of the reader and who does it because of the writer. I know there’s a number of people who will listen to anything you read, Richard, because it’s you. Um, which is really quite nice, but it’s interesting the combination of the audio reader. I have Steven Weber, he’s been reading most of my novels, though I’ve had a female lead – a woman named January LaVoy who’s fantastic – and I think Weber captures my voice. He sounds a little bit like me, we both have a similar background, similar sense of humour, so part of it with the audio is also the match you end up making.

RA: Yeah. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because I certainly find I don’t often get to read something which is purely my choice, I have a stack of things that are work-related, or that I’m about to record. So I don’t think I’ve – I’ve chosen a book recently which is just been- I don’t know how I would pick something, it’s usually a recommendation, so I’ll certainly have a look at the Spencer novels, they sound – they sound brilliant.

HC: Yeah, and they’re fun – there was a TV series in America for a while called ‘Spencer for Hire’ – this is s or going back to the, I guess the 70s or 80s I think. Um, those were not great, but the novels themselves were sort of – Raymond Chandler to Robert B. Parker to the guys who are working now. So he’s a huge – he was a tremendous influence on most of your favourite crime writers. I said in his obituary eleven years ago, I said, “90% of writers admit that Robert B. Parker was an influence and 10% lie about it”. So um, if you can find Robert B. Parker Spencer novels that would be a good clue for everybody out there.

RA: Brilliant. Well, that just about wraps it up. And uh, thanks for talking to me. I really enjoyed the book and no doubt it will be another best-seller and fingers crossed it ends up as a TV series.

HC: Well, thanks Richard, and I look forward to seeing you work on uh, Stay Close. I know that uh, Armitage Army out there *laugh* that – your, your loud uh supporters and fans who just adore you are going to go gaga cause you get to play somebody quite different from Adam in The Stranger. Um, it’s-

RA: Yeah. Looking forward to it.

HC: Yeah, it’ll be a lot of fun. Thanks very much.

#this was actually more interesting that I thought it would be #sorry the audio ain't great I had to compress it a lot #it is longgg #richard armitage #harlan coben #win

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transmascjfk · 3 years

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i'm,, trans and hc chihiro to be a male..

i'm sorry, but i don't quite understand how that's transphobic. could you please explain how chihiro is transmisogynistic? (sorry if i come off as rude - that's not my intention and i genuinely just don't understand, though i would like to!!)

What is transmisoginy?

"Transmisogyny is a distinct category of transphobia in that transmisogyny mainly focuses on trans women and other transgender individuals who demonstrate femininity, whereas transphobia is a more general term, covering a broader spectrum of prejudice and discrimination towards transsexual and transgender individuals. Julia Serano states in Whipping Girl that "when the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on 'men wearing dresses' or 'men who want their penises cut off' that is not transphobia – it is transmisogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults committed against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia – it is transmisogyny." "

Chihiro is written to mock trans women, to say that in reality trans women are secretly men, she is a man who is weak and uses being trans as a way to escape her problems, this is a thing that is also said to trans men a lot, that theyre just trying to avoid the hard parts of being a woman by becoming a man. Even if the writters intended it to be like that or not (which they probably did because transphobia is a big thing that happens a lot, obviously) it's still transmisogynistic. Thats that on that

This is a pretty common transphobic trope actually, the "Turns out this one character was actually from the opposite sex??!!", theres more examples of this in other games outside Danganronpa.

But also her experience is pretty different from other examples, her experiences are way too similar with trans womens experiences.

This is mostly for the cis people who call her a crossdresser and refuse to change their mind, on it, sit down.

Written by a trans man.

Don't tell me whats transphobic and what it's not transphobic if you're cis. Just sit down and read.

Tw: transphobia, transmisoginy, death mentions and blood in the pictures.

The game implies a lot of stuff with her dialogue, it doesn't straight up says "I don't want to be a woman anymore, I'm a man" like everyone claims it does.

[ Alt text 1:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I'm going to get stronger...and accept who I am... ]

[ Alt text 2:

Chihiro Fujisaki: Strong enough so that when someone says "even thought you're a boy" I'll be okay. I'll get better! ]

[ Alt text 3:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I wrapped myself in lies. I'm weak. I want to destroy that version of me forever! ]

[ Alt text 4:

Chihiro Fujisaki: ... I want to change. ]

[ Alt text 5:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I have to change. I don't want to be weak anymore ]

She goes to Mondo not because hes masculine, but because she admires him and his strength. She never once says it's because shes a man or because Mondo is a man.

[ Alt text 1:

Chihiro Fujisaki: Maybe talking to Mondo about it will help give me some courage... ]

[ Alt text 2:

Chihiro Fujisaki: I admire... your strength... ]

These dialogues can be read in two ways, the first one being the one the game tries the hardest to put in your head thats shes a man, all of this guessed by other people btw not what she herself says. Which is really transphobic, because she was written as a trans woman and then theyre like "uh no actually hes a man, because he was born as one but hes a coward so he started to dress as a woman to hide from his problems. Because thats what people do right? People who dress as their oppossite gender are so pathetic, specially men amiright? Ahaha"

Reading it in this way really weird, you're doing a lot of mental gymnastics because you would literally call her a trans woman with all of this if the rest of the trial, that consists of cis people assuming shes a man, didn't happen. And sadly you're following transphobic ideas by this. Because the canon is transphobic and transmysoginistic.

And the other way is just read what she says, that she just wants to be stronger and stop lying to everyone, basically about being cis, because shes not, shes amab (assigned male at birth) and thats probably what she said to Mondo, but most people when a trans person who already passes or is in their transition comes out many people tend to think "oh so youre your gender assigned at birth and not the one you claim to be?", because they don't get what being trans is and they think only "biological gender" is a thing. Basically, misgendering and invalidating the trans person.

I can guess all of this just because of how vague they decided to make her dialogue, not even showing how she tells Mondo about being amab.

What did she said to Mondo? "I'm trans"? "I'm a man"? "I was born a man"? We dont know, because they didn't show it and she died right afterwards and then everyone was like "Chihiro was secretly a man" to solve the case and thats it. A lot of people in the discourse get their information from Monokuma who isn't either Chihiro or even Mondo. Monokuma knows many things but he can't read minds to know if she was really trans or not, only she could say it but she died so she couldn't explain if shes trans or not.

[ Alt text:

A youtube comment by Gail Frisbee, posted 4 days ago, this comment was edited by the autor. The comment says:

"It's honestly increible to me when people try to argue that a scene in which a female-presenting character gets their genitals groped and then is posthumously referred to as a male from that point on can't be transphobic just because that character calls themselves a boy in some other side content later. It's on about the same level of intellectual honesty as claiming that Quiet from MGS5 isn't really fanservice because she totally breaths throught her skin you guys.

As it turns out, if you really dig down deep into the lore, Chihiro is a fictional character and the same people who wrote the genital investigation scene also wrote the lines that character says in the game as well. It's a shocking twist, I know." ]

Her fears of being outed and people founding out her secret (being trans) or being transphobic is used as a gross big twist. A trans woman being used as a mockery of trans people? Great totally normal (/sarcasm)

Read this post made by a trans woman. I'll be using this only part but it's still a great read.

[ Alt text:

So. There is a lot to unpack here, but I want to start with something that specifically hurts me as a trans woman, and that's how the game flippantly uses real world horrors trans people face as shocking reveals and twists. You can go down the list for "worst nightmares" of trans people incluiding:

Threatening to be outed against your wishes

Outing yourself to a trusted friend and being met with rejection, or worse, violence

Having your body and privacy examined and invaded

Having your deadname used and being misgendered after death, when you can't correct them ]

Now, let's go to her backstory for a bit. I will be using the wiki for this. (Which sadly uses he/him for her 💔)

" When Chihiro was a child, he became the subject of harassment and bullying. He was always told to "be a man" and that he was "so weak despite being a boy", and because of that, Chihiro slowly but surely began to develop a "weakness complex". In order to escape the bullying, Chihiro began to dress as a girl so that people wouldn't bully him as a weak boy. "

This doesn't sound like a normal crossdresser, this sounds like a trans woman who was bullied for being different when she was younger, like many trans people, and then she decided to transition because she's a woman, she wanted to be more feminine and stop being seen as a person shes not. Specially after so many people tell her to basically man up when she doesn't want that, because shes not a man.

Have you ever heard of the classic stories of "since I was little i knew i was different, i was a boy who liked playing with dolls and was more feminine than the rest" or "i used to be a tomboy when i was little, i had mostly male friends, i liked playing with car toys and was more masculine than other kids" coming from trans people? This just sounds as these types of stories to me.

People also like to say that alter ego uses he/him pronouns and says shes a boy. Many trans people can misgender themselves for personal reasons too guys, she could've been trying to misgender herself because she didn't felt like she wasn't enough to be a real woman, this happens a lot to trans people. If people constantly tell you that you're not actually transgender or you just feel like you're faking it then you might actually believe it, thats were most "detransitioners" come from. And thats basically what they made her, a detransitioner.

Some of you might also don't get how shes trans because you think she doesn't perfect or exact trans stereotypes. Trans experiences can be similar on the feeling of not fitting in, dysphoria, etc. But trans experiences, stories, transitions and complete lifes can be very different, because we all (including cis people) live different lifes, experience, process and cope with things differently. So i can understand why you might not get her being trans coded at first, don't worry. But try instead of just not caring because you don't get it at the first try, to see what trans people say.

This whole discourse its mostly cis people talking over trans people about their own experiences (incluiding the dead trans coded characters experience) saying if theyre valid or not and denying stuff not wanting to learn anything, completely refusing to it because "In canon hes a boy" ok then in canon shes written in a transphobic way too but most of you don't care about that. You would rather call her a crossdresser than try to acknowledge how obviously trans coded she is and how thats used as transphobia.

The way most cis people act in this discourse is very transphobic to me to be honest, if you think you're a good ally but act like this then you should get more educated on the topic as a whole and about trans people too.

-the trans Chihiro flag to finish this up, she has a bit boobie! good for her! good for her.

#chihiro discourse #discourse #transphobia #transphobia cw #transphobia tw #chihiro fujisaki #if i forgot about something please tell me!!#trigger happy havoc

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amuelia · 4 years

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I'm not sure if you've ever mentioned anything about this but how do you feel about show Roose? I was really sad to see his character get cut so much but I really like his voice,,,,it's a good Roose voice ( also it's CRIMINAL how they took away the Bolton's pink like they don't even wear anything but black in the show 😭😭 ) (( also also I absolutely love your art YOU MAKE SO MUCH GOOD ART OF UNDER APPRECIATED CHARACTERS ITS SO GOOD TO SEE 🥺😭♥️♥️ ))

I think the actor is very handsome and talented! I like reading his Interviews, he seems very intelligent and you can see the thought he put into his character and his scenes. He did a great job with the material he was given, and i think it’s very understandable and professional that he read the first books but then decided to focus his portrayal on the show scripts, because the way they wrote him was too different.

Did you read the books before you started filming? I read the books before I started. Well, I read two of the books, and then I stopped actually. Because the character in the books is very, very different to the character in the show. The core differences were he spoke with a whisper. He never raised his voice. He had no emotion on his face. I remember there's a [line] that joy and laughter were very similar. So you couldn't play that. It's fine if it was the Roose Bolton show, you could do something like that. The character was not written like that at all. So it kind of did me a disservice reading the books. So I put them aside and just concentrated on the character in the scripts. - Michael McElhatton, IGN interview

But also, in the end, what he mentions about the difference is part of why, as a book stan, the show version doesn’t interest me that much; it’s not even about him specifically, but just a general thing all the show characters share. Just like most other characters they adapted, they completely suck the fun out of the character grrm wrote - no leeches, no icy eyes or pale face, no pink house sigil; ending up with a character that pretty much looks and acts like every other dude. I don’t need Roose to look like Dracula (as much as i love it, the long dark hair for example is not book canon, since his hair is never described), but he should be memorable! Instead, i often hear that people new to the show don’t remember his s2 scenes, or mix him up with other regular looking dudes like Stannis, or otherwise don’t remember him. One of grrm’s biggest strengths is how with just a few traits he makes every character memorable and distiguishable; think about any random character and youll probbaly remember at least one “special trait” that sets their appearance or personality apart from the rest. The show completely falls flat in this regard, ironically making it so that the books make better use of the “visual medium” than the show does.

Apart from that, visually the actor is ok; Considering a Dance with Dragons came out at a similar time as the first season and the casting process takes a while, I don’t blame them for leaving out some details of his character descriptions (for example his “ageless” appearance or the small close-set eyes are only mentioned in aDwD). His height (175cm, influenced my hc for the book version) and body type are close to the book, though i wish they’d left him clean-shaven like in s2 for the entire show. He has a bit of a long face which fits with the book’s northmen. He’s no Supermodel but i heard him called handsome frequently, so idk if that fits with the book description “not handsome but not quite plain”; i love interesting faces more than conventionally attractive ones so i can’t really judge objectively. Voice is imo too deep (imdb also calls it “commanding”), i imagine him having more of a mid range voice; and the actor also just talks normally instead of being notably whispery/quiet.

In terms of characterization, as the actor hints at, I do not think they are written very similarly. Roose in the books is a character who is ruled by an underlying fear/anxiety that drives him to, at all times, ensure his own safety and health (I elaborate on this more in this meta); The show version the way i remember it does not show this a lot. He doesn’t have the leeching scene and if he has scenes about being obsessed with health they werent prominent enough for me to remember (maybe the Jaime scene included some book dialogue?). He is serious, but he does not act emotionless to hide his feelings (Though the show scene where he says he doesn’t drink was a nice touch; it is not completely congruent with book canon, but brings across the same idea that he wants to be in control of a situation and his feelings).

For a bigger example: Show!Roose’s characterization in the Red Wedding episode shows him acting very confident and in a great mood, bantering with Cat, and staying in the room the entire time while wearing chainmail; while in the books he barely eats and doesn’t talk to Cat, is shown exchanging threatening glances with Walder, and leaves early to ensure his own safety only to return fully decked out in armor to give Robb the final blow. In the books, imo, you can see that he is stressed out by the situation; because while he planned it very thoroughly with Lothar Frey, it is still a great risk for such a cautious man to take, and he needs to trust that Walder doesn’t backstab him.

Bolton had made a toast to Lord Walder's grandsons when the wedding feast began, pointedly mentioning that Walder and Walder were in the care of his bastard son. From the way the old man had squinted at him, his mouth sucking at the air, Catelyn knew he had heard the unspoken threat.

They are not necessarily great story-changing differences, but to me still paint a different picture of his character. People always say “oh a character doesnt need to look exactly like the descriptions as long as the actor works for the story, oh you dont need to adapt every little character detail as long as the story is intact”, but do this too much and somewhere along the way you lose what makes the character themselves. The small details and human traits are what makes me love a character, so if those are missing i end up not seeing them as a an adaptation of the same guy, even if the plot is similar. I do think there are scenes in the show where you can see the scriptwriter read the books and put in some of the book characterization, but the general direction of the character is still different.

I also loathe the s2 change that had Arya as Tywin’s cupbearer; it removes one (/two) of Roose’ best chapters and also the one that establishes a lot of his character traits and Red Wedding foreshadowing. The Tywin-Arya scenes are everything wrong with the show; changing scenes arbitrarily to prop up fan-favourite characters (later culminating in stuff the s7 wight hunt), bad “feminism” (like Arya saying “most girls are idiots”), having characters act OOC to be more “likable” or “sympathetic” (like that weird “fatherly” way Tywin acts towards Arya), ignoring how people in that time period and universe act (as if a man like Tywin would even glance at a servant), etc etc... here is a great post on that scene by @turtle-paced.

As far as the post-s3 scenes go I’m not a fan (though i did not rewatch those a lot, so feel free to remind me if i forgot something). i don’t like that they made Ramsay the main character of the plot, with Roose merely as a supporting role side character; the books give Roose a great arc starting in aDwD that imo is needed as a continuation of the Red Wedding plot. They pretty much cut out the Winterfell aDwD story (one of my fave storylines in asoiaf) entirely and replaced it with forgettable scenes. Replacing Jeyne with Sansa not only makes no sense for Littlefinger but also for Roose, since that makes him antagonize the Iron Throne. His death scene was so bad that it makes me hopeful he will have a bigger story in the books, and that they just culled him because they wanted to thin out plots like they did with Mance, Barristan, and Stannis.

Though in the end, while i don’t like the show’s writing and visual direction, i do still thank them for making the Boltons such prominent characters; They seem to have gained a lot of fans through the show, and are regarded as very important characters (i even see them in some “great houses” gifsets). They are of course also important in the books, but not as prominent/central as for example Ramsay was in s6. So even if they are adapted badly (Show Ramsay is especially bad), if they make people interested in their book counterparts, it’s still some sort of a win in my book.

(Also, thank you so much!! Glad you enjoy my art ❤️❤️)

#asks #asoiaf #roose bolton #meta #game of thrones #Anonymous #not art #long post

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riceccakes · 3 years

Text

Earth, Wind, and Coffee: Chapter Three Analysis

chapter one analysis | chapter two analysis

back again for another chapter analysis. i think ive been looking forward to this chapter the most, it’s where some big decisions were made!!! this analysis is a long one, i hope that’s all right! i kinda got carried away. so, let’s dive right in, shall we?

some fun stuff before we start!

chapter three was supposed to be the last chapter of the fic

idk if any of you were there when i first started writing this fic, but it was only going to be three chapters with a possible epilogue. however, everything changed when i finished the end of chapter two. (lil atla reference there for ya) (sorry i know that was bad, moving on). like i said in my last analysis, i had an idea of what i wanted to happen (the separation of korrasami) so that they could come back together. it was just a matter of what separates them. so, i’m not sure where i got the panic attack idea but once i did, the rest of the story changed. i realized i couldn’t quite possibly finish the story in one chapter so i split the ideas i had and decided on it being four chapters

now, this being said, maaaaajor changes were made in my story outline. most notably: korrasami was going to be a couple in this chapter

this was originally going to be a full fledged “they meet, they get to know each other, they fall in love, happily every after” but the thing was, i planned on treating their romance as korra’s recovery; that being with asami is what made korra better, that all she needed was a partner, someone to love, and that is not what i wanted to portray with this story. i’ve never been a fan of stories that give a character a love interest and all of sudden their problems are fixed and they’re completely happy, and here i was about to do just that. i knew i’d never respect myself if i continued down this narrative, and when chapter two ended with korra’s panic attack, i realized her growth needed better love and attention. so, i changed what happened and gave her some therapy

this change in the storyline also let me explore more of kuvopal !!! (is that their ship name?)

so, back to LOVE WITCH for a second (because that glorious fic really did steal my heart) not only did it make me love kuvira’s character more, it also got me into the kuvopal relationship! and yet again, i wanted my own go at it. with the original timeline, there was just no space for me to include the lil bread crumbs of their relationship. however, however, however; by splitting the ending between two chapters (and adding some stuff in between) i was able to lay some foundation for them, which im very happy about :)

into the chapter we go:

let’s talk about the meeting! the whole reason this fic came to be! i’ll start by saying i always knew the project was going to get pulled out from under asami. 1) because thats some angsty/hurt shit right there and im a sucker for writing angst 2) i didn’t feel like creating a whole ass presentation because knowing my ass i would’ve made a powerpoint about it so i had every detail down to the font asami used and 3) getting the presentation taken away from asami was a pivotal point in her character arc.

i actually started the chapter in two different ways. at first, i’d written her whole entire morning with there always being one thing that was off. like, instead of a perfect omelette, it was going to split and asami would’ve had a scramble, still good, but not her favorite. instead of going through all green lights on her way to work, asami was gonna meet every. single. red. light. i would’ve gone through with this if it hadn’t felt strange; i wanted to give the impression that something bad was going to happen but i felt like having something go wrong with every thing in her morning was gonna be a dead give away that some even bigger big bad was about to happen, if that makes sense. so instead, i went with the picture perfect scenario, almost too perfect, if you ask me. and indeed, it was too perfect, because hiroshi was too much of a coward to tell his daughter any sooner that his board agreed to get a new presenter

im just gonna cite a bunch of my favorite lines/bits from this chapter because i really enjoyed writing it xD

Iroh has already begun but Asami hears no words, only a blaring ring in her ears. Her face feels hot and she wonders how red she is. She stares at the black binder, notes the natural grooves and curves of the material, the plastic covering over top of it, the metal spine peaking out at the bottom. She’s only brought out of it’s dark trance when she feels a hand be placed on her arm; Kuvira.

when you’re upset, do you ever just, hyper focus on one thing and its like you’re analyzing it under a microscope for the first time? yes? no? well, i do that, and personally, i do because if i focus on my anger/hurt emotions any more, im going to explode and i dont want to explode. so, this instance about looking at the grooves in the binder and each of the components of it just hits with me, idk if does with you too, but like bruuh.

Asami has her hand over her mouth, silently sobbing, feeling as if she’ll throw up. She leans her head on her wheel, her mind wanders to what could’ve been, what should’ve been. She feels as if her car is closing in on her, that the metal is compacting. The seatbelt keeps her locked down to the driver’s seat and she can’t leave if she wants to. The Satomobile holds her hostage and she lets it. Even while it’s hurting her, even while it’s harshly molding itself onto her, she stays at her father’s heel because, what else is she to do?

this is one of my favorite things ive ever done with asami’s character, is using future industries/satomobiles as a sort of vehicle (heh) for her relationship with her dad. this paragraph just kind of hurts, but the good hurt? but also not good hurt? it’s just, (and not me over here boasting about my writing or anything) it’s so poetic that she has this breakdown and she’s so upset with her dad, i mean “what should’ve been” like, asami KNOWS that the shit that’s just happened is more than wrong, yet asami is still somehow wondering how she can please her dad and it’s in the literal legacy hiroshi built for himself. “she stays at her father’s heel because, what else is she to do?” i remember writing that and being like “shit, am i really gonna do this? yeah” ugh, i could go on forever about how i love this section, but i’ll stop here for now.

Asami begins yelling, screaming at the top of her lungs, letting all the thoughts, all the insecurities her father gave her finally be released into the world. Kuvira lets her, simply nodding and following along on the couch while Asami paces her living room. She spews out word after word, about the work, about the presentation, about Iroh, his position, her position, the company, the CEO, and she only stops when she feels the weight of her father rest on her shoulders.

back with more diction; i really love this paragraph because of how we circle back to hiroshi. note how i first say “the CEO” and then a few words later say “her father” because, in a way, this is asami’s confession that hiroshi is CEO first and father second, if i haven’t already explicitly said so. it’s so heart wrenching and sad but my favorite thing about it is this isn’t even about korra. like THIS right here is a prime example about how i realized this fic became more than just a love story. in the planning stages of this fic, asami was going to go through getting the presentation taken away from her, but what was she going to focus more on? the fact that korra wasn’t around anymore. and yes, asami still does think about korra after this, but so much more happens for her. asami gets to know kuvira more, asami gets to know her lab partners more, (and my personal hc is that they’ve all been lab partners for two years and only NOW asami is getting to be friends with them in their senior year, but hey, better late than never!) and to me, what’s even better, is that a bunch of realizations come to asami w/o korra being there. asami is growing and the idea of being able to grow without needing to have a partner in order to grow is so important to me, not only for the fact that growth should be endless and something you do all the time for yourself, but asami literally wants to share it with korra. not boast about changing and growing and becoming better, but just be better with korra. sdlfakds i swear, im fangirling over my own writing, oops

okay, moving on from The Meeting and onto the rest of the chapter

this dock scene was also another part i wrote beforehand and it had a completely different ending in that asami was going to ask korra out on a date. of course, korra would’ve said yes, and then yay yay happy ending. this didn’t happen and i’m glad it didn’t. in one version of this dock scene, asami was actually going to be upset with korra for disappearing, and even worse, mad that korra wasn’t there to comfort her after the presentation. oof, i know. so so glad i didn’t continue down that line, cause it is toxic, and my girls aren’t like that at all.

Once Korra’s eyes meet hers, Asami says, “That doesn’t mean you always have to be on your own.” She smiles at Korra, at the girl who’s turned her world upside down. Her hand remains on Korra’s cheek and she feels the girl sink into her palm. “I’ll be here for you, and it seems like Tenzin will be too, what with saying he was calling you more. And you have his family, and your own family, even though they’re away, they’re here to support you, we all are. You can still be strong and turn to other people for help. It takes great strength to ask for help and I know for a fact you’re strong enough, those bags of coffee beans were nothing for you.”

i like this line of dialogue here for a few reasons, mostly because asami is so soft and so right and the joke at the really helped lighten the mood but didn’t take away from what she’d just said before. i don’t have too much else about the Reunions section, though if you guys have any questions or anything you wanna point out, please do so! i think what i will say is that i tried to be as real and gentle with korra’s progression. i was so nitpicky about everything i wrote because i didn’t want to get any of it wrong or over dramatized or fake. recovery from anything is so important and it takes time and it’s not a straight line so i hope i did a good job with it the rest of the fic.

moving on, i love the found family trope and this leads me into the next section, New Friends

when i think about this section, i like how soft it is, and i really enjoy the ending bits: korra recounting memories from the south, asami meeting tenzin. i think what i like about the end of this chapter is that, it kind of leaves the question: what’s next?

asami has grown, she’s changed, she sees the errors of her father’s ways but she’s not excusing them. korra has grown, she’s changing, she’s taken the first step in recovery. now it’s just a matter of, what happens with this growth now. and i really loved how i wrapped up the fic in the next and last chapter, so i hope you enjoy it too :))

honorable mentions:

there were a lot of changes in this chapter and one of them got changed twice! korra was gonna get a therapist but then i was like, we gotta get the krew together, and then i was like supppppoorttttt grouuuppppp, because lets be honest, all the krew has stuff they need to work through, and i know therapy isn’t for everyone, but mental health is so vital and important. asami is an advocate for therapy in the chapter but there are also other means to take care of yourself and your mental health and while i’ve never been to a support group, i understand finding comfort in knowing you’re not alone.

i guess what i’m trying to say is please take care of yourself and dont be afraid to lean on others. i know not everyone has the means to get a therapist/psychiatrist and i know that your friends aren’t made to only be your therapist. buuuut, don’t be afraid to reach out, there’s nothing wrong with needing help and support :)

anything i would’ve wanted to change?

honestly, i think the only thing i would’ve wanted to change was mako’s speech during the support group meeting. for me, it was a lil bit too poetically out of character. not to say i want to change the content, but rather the manner in which it’s presented. other than that though, i really loved writing this chapter :)

so this analysis was reeeaaaalllly long, i understand if not everyone made it to end. anyways, thanks so much for reading this analysis and the fic! once again, i’m very much open to questions and any comments, i love them very much! i’ll see you guys in the next analysis of the final chapter :)

#ricewrites #earth wind and coffee #coffee shop au #chapter analysis #writing analysis #korrasami #korrasami fic #korra #asami sato #lok

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agentsnickers · 4 years

Text

let’s talk about the angst tornado that was that opening scene, shall we?

spoilers for collision course chapter 4 within ;)

I’m going to lead with the fact that this is actually a remix of what was originally going to happen in Bullseye 6

at the time Ben wasn’t a fleshed out character, and it wouldn’t have been this devastating.

but that scene was originally going to end with all of their friends knowing

so I did that this time ;D

this is the angriest you will ever see Benny at David

this is the angriest you will ever see David at Katherine

this is the angriest you will ever see Katherine, full stop.

benny is caught off guard by seeing both of them and he’s very hurt by what happened still

shocker, I know.

and ben being immediately confrontational puts Katherine on the defensive, but the thing about Katherine is that she’s definitely a “the best defense is a good offense” kind of player

and the thing about that is.

katherine to this day knows exactly how to hurt ben and david.

(they know how to hurt her, too.)

keep in mind that this is the moment when the others are all finding out for the first time ever and they are seeing the absolute worst of kath

it’s not a great picture of ben either but. not as bad as kate.

part of why she’s so aggressive - and part of the jab about ben being in love with david - is that she feels incredibly guilty for ruining their friendship along with everything else

she also feels guilty bc it’s all reminding her of how she knew even in college that ben probably loved david more than she did

(but that david loved her at least as much as he loved ben if not more)

i’m not going to go into detail about the fallout with sarah or the hcs, because that’s all coming. but there’ll be some.

my two favorite lines of dialogue are both from benny: “that’s worse. you know that’s worse, right?” and “half nothing, bitch.”

and now everybody knows!

but it’s fine

everything’s fine

;)

#collision course au

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theexistentiallyqueer · 5 years

Text

I really hate waking up to see that there was good meta that was circulating during the night and I have so many things I want to say but I have to go to work like a responsible adult in this capitalist hellscape. I’m specifically referencing this, this, this, and this, and I just got home from work and it was balls to the walls fucking crazy today, so excuse me if I seem incoherent and disjointed.

All of this made me think of a few very specific theories I have, which I’ve already mentioned in passing, but now I feel the urge to lay them out all together in one post, which are:

Loki is Goro’s original persona, and Yaldabaoth hand-picked him for a reason

Yaldabaoth, disguised as Igor, served the function of psychopomp cognitive guide to Goro that Morgana serves to Akira, Teddie serves to Souji, and Mitsuru serves to Makoto

Goro used Loki’s berserker power on himself so he could kill Wakaba

Robin Hood is the persona born from Goro’s bond with Akira and represents the justice he wishes he believed in

Goro is not a true wildcard and never was one

Plus some other ones reading today’s meta made me think about

So, without further ado.

Loki as Goro’s original persona aligns most strongly with two things: 1. actual dialogue during his boss fight, and 2. the larger framework of the game Yaldabaoth was playing.

For his boss fight I’m referencing specifically the JP-ENG comparison of that scene. One of the things the anon who did the comparison repeatedly references is that “psychotic breakdowns” is an incredibly erroneous translation of what Call of Chaos actually does:

!! 暴走させる means “to make [something] run wild/rampage/act reckless,” not to drive the psychotic. While it can be used to refer to someone wildly lashing out at others, it can also be used for a runaway car, losing control, acting without regard or just being reckless in a potentially dangerous way. In the Persona series, this term has also been used in reference to losing control of one’s Persona, and to a Shadow going berserk (for those who’ve played Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, the JP name for Shadow Frenzy, シャドウ暴走, also uses the term).

Goro’s ability makes people act recklessly without regard for others; it doesn’t make them outright psychotic. (Strangely enough, the first scene at Leblanc in the game translates the incidents related to this ability as “rampage incidents,” which is closer to what it should be, yet they consistently screw it up in later scenes.)

And the original dialogue follows up on that:

Makoto (JP): あんな、人を操ったり狂わせたりする力を、自分自身の心から生み出してたなんて…(“To think that the power to manipulate and drive mad others was born from his own heart…”)

And more subtly:

Futaba (JP): なのに人生ソロプレイだったから、目覚めた力は、自前の『嘘』と『恨み』の、たった２個だけ… (“Even so, ‘cause you went through life in single player, the powers you awakened were just your "lies” and “resentment”…“)

I feel like the original text upholds this argument, especially considering Goro consistently refers to Loki as his “true” power, and he is way OP with Loki in a way he’s not with Robin Hood–almost as if he’s had more time to level-grind with Loki than he has with Robin.

As for Yaldabaoth, I think the context of what Yaldabaoth actually wants is very clear: Yaldabaoth wanted Goro to win. He created a blatantly unfair “game” modeled after the normal “game” played between Philemon and Nyarlathotep, and the first thing he did was give a persona to one player two years earlier than the other. Yaldabaoth wants to destroy and remake the world, and he would have cherry-picked the angriest kid in the barrel to make that happen. Goro didn’t have some psychopomp cognitive guide in the form of a talking cat to explain the metaverse to him, and I think it stands to reason that Yaldabaoth groomed Goro as much as Shido did: Yaldabaoth was Goro’s psychopomp cognitive guide. Goro’s not-dumb enough to be immediately suspicious when a random app installs itself on his phone; it stands to reason that he only paid it any attention because some half-bald fucker with a nose longer than Goro’s Robin Hood mask planted the idea in his head of what it could be used for. Akira tries to delete the app twice, and it’s only after Ryuji accidentally triggers the Nav that he stops trying to get rid of it.

(I’ve seen the Goro was a subject in Wakaba’s research theories too as an explanation for how he could know so much of the metaverse without Morgana around to catsplain it to him. I’m not a fan of them, mostly because I think subtle writing is a concept Atlus is very much not at all engaged with, and if he really was a research subject that would have been dumped on us with all the subtlety of trying to assassinate someone by dropping roof tiles onto them, and I like my HCs and theories to be as in line as what can be explained most comprehensibly with canon until I decide to throw the entire baby out with the bathwater and say MY PLAYGROUND NOW. It’s a cool theory, it’s just not one that I’m into. The people who play with this theory are smarter and more valid than Atlus will ever be. And who knows, maybe Royal will prove me wrong. I am open to being proven wrong and Krist is already starting to feed me food from Royal that has me second-guessing, but I’m going to wait until the international release in March to have takes on this.)

As for Goro himself–I’ve always, from the first time I played P5 when I thought Goro as interesting enough in concept but wasn’t really ready to be a Goroboy, thought that Goro represented the Justice Arcana in reverse, which is interesting in that this Persona game you can’t reverse confidants’ cards. Goro is reversed Justice in and of himself within the main context of the narrative.

I don’t really jive with the idea that Goro started out with Robin Hood as representative of his ideals before he was manipulated and twisted by Shido, because it contradicts the context in which he had his awakening and it removes whatever degree of culpability or autonomy Goro did have in what he ultimately became. Goro is full of rage, and Goro acted on that rage. Goro got the slightest taste of power and went from 0 to acting on a desire from revenge in about thirty seconds flat. He definitely didn’t realize he was signing on for murder and Shido definitely groomed him into being his psychopomp hitman, Goro is the one who took the initiative to approach Shido in the first place because Goro wanted to destroy the man who destroyed his life and who did, in some sense, kill his mom. Not that I think it’s disingenuous to say that Goro did originally believe in a justice that was, well, more just, but there’s a vast chasm between the boy who used to pretend to be a hero of justice and a boy who decided what he wanted most was to humiliate his fascist of a father. Goro’s sense of justice was already hugely warped by the time he awakened to his persona. Justice is exposing Shido publicly and holding him accountable; justice for Goro was making Shido’s life a living very personal hell.

Loki’s power isn’t even necessarily to make someone go berserk. Goro actually explains how Loki’s power works at the start of his boss fight, and it’s carried through pretty well in the English translation.

Goro (JP): ちっぽけな存在でも、心の枷が外れると、桁違いの力を得る事がある。 ("Even a tiny being, once you remove the bonds on its heart, can gain unimaginable power.”) Goro (EN) Even the feeblest existence can gain tremendous power once the chains on its heart are broken. !! 枷 has a double meaning of both literal restraints (shackles/chains/etc) and more metaphorical ways to bind someone (such as relations to others, or societal restrictions on what you’re allowed to do). While “chains on its heart” is a valid translation, it fails to maintain that wordplay in English, and given how the power he’s talking about works, it’s almost certainly on purpose.

Loki’s power works by shattering the restraints on a person’s heart that stop them from acting recklessly in ways that hurt other people. I think a case could very much be made that the reason this seems to always result in violence on the part of those of Goro’s targets (and Goro himself) is because when you’re in that state, you stop feeling sympathy or empathy, and the dark impulses you bury deep inside (which everyone has) can reign unchecked.

When I first started to choochoo along the “Goro went berserk to kill Wakaba” train, one of the first things I started to speculate was that he was the first person he used Call of Chaos on. I started to reevaluate that today when I read all of that delicious food and found myself rethinking how Goro would have approached Shido, and I found myself drawn the conclusion that Goro brought Shido two things–the ability to gather secret knowledge and the ability to drive people berserk–but Shido would have wanted proof. And Goro’s an idiot, but he’s not dumb; he would have had that proof ready in advance. Goro would have been causing some psychotic breakdowns on a smaller scale before he approached Shido, just enough to make the news and catch Wakaba’s attention in her research, but not enough to cause widespread chaos on the scale that’s referenced in game, before he stepped foot through Shido’s door.

I find it very hard to believe that Goro didn’t know the basics of Wakaba before he killed her: single mom, no father in the picture, daughter roughly his age. Goro is the type to hoard information because it makes him feel in control, so he’d be given this name from Shido and want to know everything he can uncover about his target first–also he’s the one with the metaverse nav app and he’d need to know as much about her as possible to figure out what her distortion is.

(This is assuming Wakaba had a palace as opposed to residing in Mementos. I have no grounds to base this theory on, but I think she did. I won’t go into it in too much detail, but I HC that Wakaba’s palace was modeled after the Library of Alexandria, and Wakaba’s shadow was Hypatia. I’ll save the thematic whys of that for another post because they’re neither here nor there.)

I have a hard time buying that a teenager would just go from zero to being okay with murder without having some pretty critical hangups in the process, especially a teenager who kind of thinks of himself as a hero who has to get his hands dirty. You can’t really justify murdering an innocent woman who did nothing wrong when you measure her against people like Okumura. Especially when so much of that single mom’s life story should probably logically resonate with you.

(This is another reason I get upset that nothing in canon ever has Goro actively acknowledge his murder of Wakaba, because if it did it would have to grapple the between Goro and Futaba and the fact that Goro did to Futaba was exactly what was done to him, but way more directly. Atlus is not subtle and is also not capable of nuance or depth.)

So the logical line of thought is that Goro used Call of Chaos on himself to break the chains on his own heart (the feelings that would make him sympathize with Wakaba and see his own mother in her) so that he could kill her. I’d also argue that layered on top of of all of this is that Goro didn’t know killing her shadow would kill her, because Shido guarded her research closely and Yaldabaoth wanted a boy who would be willing to smash things. They were both grooming him to be their perfect little murderer.

By the point we meet him in the game Goro is heavily tied up in Shido’s conspiracy and all that that entails. His already jaded sense of justice will by this point have been warped beyond repair–until he meets Akira. Akira is probably the first person Goro has ever bonded with in his entire life, and a wildcard’s power is rooted in the ability to form bonds. Positive bonds specifically, because it’s only through those that their power can grow. I think we can all look at Goro’s life and agree that his relationship with Akira is the only positive one he’s had since he was like…….never years old.

And I specifically think that it’s through his relationship with Akira that Goro starts to reawaken to his true sense of justice. It’s textually canonical that Goro is jealous of the fact that the Phantom Thieves found a way to achieve their goals without collateral damage. I think that bonding with Akira–in a way Goro has literally never bonded with anyone else before–is what caused Goro’s second awakening and his tentative re-embrasure of the belief that justice is about helping, not hurting. Except he’s in two such different places at this point. I’m very on board with the BPD!Goro hc that’s become a thing lately, thanks to Krist and the goroboys discord server, but I’m not going to go into specifics because I’m not BPD. I just think that from what I’ve read of BPD it sounds valid, and if a person who is BPD says they get that mood from him, that’s extra valid

But Goro’s sense of self is clearly very split between Loki and Robin Hood and what they thematically represent. He wants to be a hero, but he still dresses like a tokusatsu villain half the time. He wants to be a hero, but he’s also a murderer. He can’t reconcile these aspects of himself.

Goro isn’t a true wildcard because he lacks the ability of connection. While the wildcard ability is granted by a cosmic entity (Philemon/Igor/Yaldabaoth/etc.), the degree of its manifestation is dependent upon the wildcard’s ability to connect with other people. The case could be made that Adachi and Namatame are wildcards because they’re both selected as game pieces by Izanami, but only Souji manifests the wildcard ability because only he is able to connect with others. The implication to be taken from that is that a cosmic force can grant an individual a persona and the corresponding wildcard ability, but that ability can’t manifest itself unless the individual is capable of wielding it–which Goro is not.

And very much unlike a wildcard, if you take the necessary steps Goro’s two personas do fuse into an ultimate whole. If you complete the development of Goro’s character to the extent the game requires, then Loki and Robin Hood fuse to become Hereward. I have some thoughts about this in relation to the fact that I can’t find any evidence that Hereward is tied to the Robin Hood myth, but all that aside: Goro’s warped sense of justice and his true sense of justice fused together in a way that’s, uh——-

Robin Hood is very bara and Loki is very twink. Hereward looks extremely similar to Robin Hood, but has a dark grey, an almost black, color design. Hereward literally represents Goro embracing that justice is grey, and that it’s okay for Goro to both want to be the hero and to want to see people struggle with the hard questions of how the hurts they’ve inflicted, intentionally or not, have impacted the people affected by them.

Goro was never a true wildcard to begin with. Yaldabaoth chose him because he was isolated. That he found his other half in Akira was dumb luck of the draw.

#persona #persona 5 #p5r spoilers #goro akechi

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someobscurereference · 4 years

Text

Graceless Heart Fic (Spoiler) Notes

These are notes for my 80K Fire Emblem fic “Graceless Heart.” These notes are full of SPOILERS! Please read the fic first! Beware at your own risk!

The notes will be under a Read More. Mobile users, if it doesn’t work for you, I’m so sorry.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BELOW:

GENERAL NOTES:

Sumeragi was at work while Corrin was saying goodbye to the Hoshido family. He already said goodbye to Corrin that morning. That’s why he doesn’t appear here.

Xander texting Inigo back a heart emoji: I don’t see Xander as an emoji person, but I think Inigo is definitely the type to use a lot of hearts and whatnot when texting. Xander would not do that on his own, but if you look at his phone, you’ll see his most used (and only) emojis are the heart ones that Inigo sends him. Because Xander is willing to mimic how Inigo shows his affection for the sake of mutual reciprocation. Plus he got made fun of for being so stiff and formal when he writes.

Dock Fight with the Trio: Owain is genuinely embarrassed and Inigo really is going to tease him with those memes, but they’re all friends. This is not a serious fight. Severa and Inigo are not being deliberate assholes here. They’re all having fun.

The book Leo is reading when Owain asks is The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

Everyone’s swimsuits are based on what they wear in FE Heroes as summer units or their outfits in the Beach Brawl DLC, minus Corrin, who wears a swim t-shirt on top of whatever bathing suit you imagine for them.

In a real situation where someone is drowning, you should probably not grab them the way Corrin grabs Inigo. A drowning person is very likely to harm or hinder their rescuer due to panic. I just wrote that scene a little less realistically in the fic because I didn’t want to deal with that and, like I say in the notes, I’m functioning on action movie logic. Action movies aren’t realistic.

When Corrin tells Inigo that they’ll keep his almost drowning a secret so long as he lets them know if he has health problems later and Elise tells Inigo to let them know if he has bad dreams, what Elise is actually saying is “Hey, if you start to get PTSD over this, let us know so we can help you.” But she doesn’t want to be so blunt, making this be the type of thing Inigo keeps to himself and suffers through alone, so she says “bad dreams” instead to phrase it with less stigma.

You’ll notice after Inigo’s near drowning that I mention how exhausted he feels when he’s having a freakout on the floor of his cabin, how tired he is the next morning before, during, and after the shopping trip, how he leans heavily on stuff and people, etc. His fatigue can be explained by stress and other normal things. However, it is also a result of the lake water being genuinely bad for people! Most people who go to the lake naturally get this vibe and don’t swim too far out into it/tend to visit the lake in groups or pairs so the chances of drowning decrease. (I almost wrote some of this into Anankos’s dialogue but it felt wonky and didn’t fit.). Corrin also feels this same exhaustion in subsequent scenes, although it’s emphasized less.

Likewise, when Owain and Corrin are stranded in the middle of the water, they also grow quite exhausted rather quickly because (a) the closer to the center of the lake, the more powerful the Bad Vibes that drain your energy and (b) there’s so much rain and water everywhere that as they swallow, they’re also growing more and more tired. Also, fear takes a lot out of a person in general.

Similarly, when Corrin’s foot gets grabbed on the docks, I mention a few times that their legs feel heavy, etc. This is all related to Evil Lake Energy. Severa’s almost drowning is the same deal as Inigo. Everyone who gets in the water (especially if they swallow any) experience this same lack of energy. It’s worse if you actually swallow some water right out there in the middle of the lake and you’re just more susceptible to that kind of bad magic like Anankos unfortunately was. Corrin has been through the wringer at the end of this fic because of constant exposure. They’re on nothing but bedrest for a good number of days after the end of this fic. Lots and lots of sleep for them. Owain is only mildly better in that he doesn’t have to be admitted to the hospital but does need A Lot of sleep. Rest assured that they do eventually recover though.

Elise “lying to Xander and Camilla about stuff all the time” — A reference to in-game canon about how Elise regularly ditches her retainers and goes around to the poorer parts of the city where she is explicitly forbidden to go. She’s surprisingly sneaky and has no problems not telling her siblings about this.

I paraphrased some dialogue from in-game between Leo, Niles and Owain when the latter are trying to convince Leo to swim because it mimicked a Beach Brawl DLC scene.

“Pot, kettle” = a reference to Niles canonically reminiscing about the past in his and Leo’s support. He likely does that in this AU on occasion as well.

Camilla’s SUV has 3 rows of seats because she loves the extra room for bags/extra passenger space.

Some of Camilla and Xander’s interactions and some of Xander’s narration referencing her is also a direct reference to their Supports in Fates also. In this fic, Camilla’s jab at being surprised Xander would ever notice how she felt about Severa because he’s always so busy is more a jab to get him to back off than a pride thing like in canon, but the pride is probably still there too.

Severa lives! She lived because I wanted her too (and because I cannot stand any character death in fics that isn’t like “The Villain Died Forever Ago And Maybe There’s Danger But Everyone Else Is Fine”), but it is a sort of miracle. Camilla did not do proper drowning rescue procedure here. Nobody did. I’m sure you picked up on that from the panic and flashbacks and whatnot. Everyone did their best at handling that rescue, but it wasn’t great. There is too much Panic™ to remain calm, although in real life that’s absolutely what you should try to do in an emergency. Camilla’s one (1) exchange of air is not usually going to save the life of somebody who is really in danger. The only reason it worked is because (a) Severa wasn’t really dead, although she sure looked like it and (b) this is fantasy fiction. Please call emergency services in a situation like this irl or immediately drive to the nearest hospital if there is no cell service and it’s safe to do so.

Xander’s last conversation with Inigo in this fic directly stem from his fear of (a) not being in control and (b) not being strong enough to protect those he cares about.

Originally Elise was going to be the one who figured out Anankos drowned, but somehow while writing it just didn’t work that way, mostly because she ended up stuck by the cars. Whoops. You’re the real hero in my heart, Elise.

CHARACTER NOTES:

Owain’s insecurities stem from his Felicia and Severa supports where Owain reacts very negatively to being called weird. Also from the hc that growing up in modern AU with public school would probably emphasize that insecurity too, since kids can be real bullies. I very much picture him as the “Weird Kid” in class who was in his own little world and other kids whispered about him for it. Which is unfair, because he’s really just having fun :( By middle school/high school, he’s likely learned to tone this down a little, but only after a series of Bad Memories that make him develop a fear that everyone is just barely tolerating him or is making fun of him behind his back. It’s an infrequent insecurity because Owain is pretty good at not really caring what others think, but it’s one that exists all the same. He’s known Niles and Leo for a year or maybe two at this point, but when Leo admits (like in canon) to hating Owain when they first met, it triggers those insecurities again and sets back the progress the three of them had made in working up to a relationship together.

Corrin has a peacemaker type personality in Fates and always wants to believe the best in everyone to the point where they only seem to learn their lesson of “trust but have a backup plan” near the end of the Revelations route. I think I was mostly true to that character of Corrin in my other horror fic Dark Things Grew. And I think I was mostly true to that version of canon here until the part where Corrin and Owain are stuck in the middle of the lake together. (If you think Corrin was 100% what you expected all the way through, yay! But if not: ) Perhaps Corrin is a little more freaked out or snappier than some of you might have expected. However, I am taking some liberties with the fact this is a modern world AU here. In Fates, magic is real. Dragons are real. Ogre monsters that you can summon out of thin air to do your fighting for you (i.e. Faceless) are real. Some things are less likely than others, but there’s a whole realm of magical possibility that doesn’t exist in our reality. So when you find out that the lake your mom used to visit all the time is possessed (huh????) by a demon (?????) whose voice you are hearing in your head (???????) and also who is not a demon but actually your ghost dad (????????) who is trying to kill you and all your friends you guess (????????) but you’re not really sure what’s going on still except for the fact that oh, Ariana, we’re really in it now, aaaahhhhhhhHHHHH—

Well, you, too, would probably be a little upset. Corrin is the same at their core. They’re just allowed to go “Yo, what the heck” now. (I almost had Corrin say the F word in just their narration once and I couldn’t do it :/) They go through a lot of feelings in the climax of this fic, actually, and I hope they felt at least somewhat reasonable reactions to you, the reader, since the situation Corrin finds themselves in is so unprecedented, stressful, and wack.

Also, this is true for all characters! They’ve been mildly adapted into modern counterparts. This means some experiences that shaped them in Awakening/Fates didn’t happen here or were adapted into modern equivalents. (For example, Inigo is a little less able to run face first into battle than in Awakening/Fates bc he didn’t experience the terror and necessity of having to fight the Risen as a young kid. He still grew up shy and is a (self-admitted in Supports) crybaby who tries to hide those facets of himself, however. Hence why he feels the need to put on a brave face after Bad Things Happen. He still feels like he needs to be a pillar of support for people, although he’s a less steady than his more hardened counterpart. Similar extractions can be applied to other characters throughout this fic.

I often write Severa/Camilla as a very doting, established relationship. A lot of the time the conflict in my stories comes from some outside factor—a dragon, a war, magic, etc. I don’t write a lot of interpersonal conflict, and it’s something I thought I should try my hand at least once. Camilla and Severa’s dynamic here specifically draws from Camilla’s habit of keeping her true feelings close to her chest in her supports. In canon with Selena, she very obviously gives noncommittal answers to Selena’s demands that Camilla praise her for being the best. With Xander, Camilla lies by omission—when he guesses her favorite food wrong, she pretends he’s right for the sake of (presumably) not embarrassing him and proving he doesn’t actually know his siblings better than she does. I’m sure there are other incidents where Camilla hides her true feelings too. I’ve always wondered about these events. Emotionally, Camilla is a very interesting character to me. She has a lot of thoughts and feelings, but she seems to keep a lot of them to herself. I wish that was explored more in-game.

Here, I combined Camilla’s natural tendency to keep her true feelings to herself with her canonical childhood loneliness. She canonically felt bereft of maternal love as a child, and that’s why she tries to shower so much on Corrin. In this fic, Camilla is afraid of opening herself up to love from others. She can dole it out because she doesn’t want to deprive anyone (specifically Corrin, who was isolated a lot via Garon) of that same love, but in turn she never wants to actually be vulnerable with anyone. Family gets special privileges, but even her siblings don’t get to see everything. She has romantic feelings for Severa, but she’s afraid of opening herself up to potential hurt and having that love thrown back in her face later. So Camilla does herself the favor of not allowing herself to be vulnerable in the first place. There’s some part of her that really does want to openly love and be loved by Severa, however. So that’s the yo-yo affect Severa is dealing with throughout this fic.

Camilla knows, factually, that Severa likes her too. But she also has this defense mechanism she’s used her whole life. She wants the best of both worlds; she wants to teeter on the edge of romance/intimacy she and Severa both crave while still keeping Severa at arm’s length so she never actually has to face the danger of being potentially vulnerable with Severa and therefore hurt. Which, you know. Is shitty. (Sometimes the people you love can do shitty things. Sometimes you can do shitty things. I think Camilla’s character is more complex, realistic, and interesting here because of it. I hope you think the same.)

And Camilla keeps it up until she realizes losing Severa is still a very real possibility whether or not she admits her feelings. It’s too late to pretend otherwise. She’s already vulnerable to that hurt she wanted to avoid. The shock of that revelation, the fear of losing Severa, and also McFreaking Water Ghost is enough to get her to admit her feelings and change her behavior. It’s not all peaches and cherries from here on out for them, but it’s a start. They’re taking it slow.

Camilla isn’t a villain here, which I say because I worry some people may think I wrote her to be villainous. Sometimes the people you love have baggage. Severa has it too. So does everyone else in this fic and in your actual real life. That’s natural. Sometimes we do shit things because of that baggage. It happens. Does that mean you get an excuse for your actions? Absolutely not. Apologize. Do better. Camilla is trying. They’ll go from here.

I was trying for a lot more nuanced, complex approach to these two this time around rather than the zero interpersonal problems approach. It was new for me too. I hope it payed off.

Anyway, love wins.

A VERY BAD OUTLINE OF THE CABINS THAT I MADE IN PAINT 3D AND A FLOOR PLAN I STOLE FROM GOOGLE IMAGES 2 YEARS AGO:

I am so sorry for the quality of this, lmao

#my fic #long post #fe14 #fe13 #graceless heart #character analysis #fic analysis #my text #graceless heart fic

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brightly-painted-canvas · 5 years

Note

prompt for mazlek rewatching the pacific years later? either by themselves so they can fondly reminisce or them showing it to ben and gwilym?

Heyyy I hope you don’t mind me filling this with an hc? I’ve thought a lot about how this (apparently very canon, as they keep reminding us) event has occurred, but I just have some random ideas about it and they’re so confused I don’t know how to put them into a fic atm.But let’s say that this is basically what came to my mind:

one of the first thing Joe and Rami realise when they meet again on set and then meet their BoRhap co-stars is that there is no way, no way on earth that other people (normal people) can understand their inside jokes, their silent dialogues and the complexity of their relationship if they completely ignore who Sledge and Snafu are and what they meant and still mean to them. Working on The Pacific had been a once in a lifetime experience both of them like to talk about almost no stop, given the opportunity, even in their own private interactions: it’s pretty obvious how that topic would keep popping up effortlessly during every kind of conversation when they are together

at first Gwil, Ben and even Allen are pretty sure they don’t need to know much about their co-stars’ previous works to forge a close relationship with one another and succeed in the job, but after a few days on set and a bunch of nights out together, they figure out how close Joe and Rami already are and how much there is to catch up for them if they want to keep the pace

the turning point event is Rami passing out on stage at the end of the last day of shooting Live Aid, after having performed the entire concert three times. Everyone rushes to make sure he is okay, if he’s still breathing, if he needs to see a doctor, but Joe’s reaction is what makes Gwilym and a few others truly realise the two actors’ relationship is something so particular and hard to understand it must be studied and understood carefully:

still in full John Deacon costume, pink shirt / mushroom wig and all, Joe sits down right where Rami is lying, flat on his back with his hands on his chest trying to catch his breath. Rami then lifts one hand to poke Joe’s side and with the thinnest voice he can muster at the moment he says ‘I’m dying, Sledge.’ and as Joe looks at him from above, his concerned expression morphs into a strange mix of annoyance and mirth. ‘Shut up, Shelton.’ he replies with an accent and they both laugh and then Rami coughs and Joe looks like he wants to throttle him for making him and the others so worried

Ben is the first to actually ask for a The Pacific night so they can watch the show all together, complete with the actors’ exclusive live commentary

Joe and Rami are so pleased by the request that they argue about who’s going to host the evening so intensely Gwil has to step in and offer his trailer

they pile on his couch and chairs with pillows, blankets, drinks and snacks and they manage to watch the first three episodes before some of them starts dozing off from tiredness, despite the violent and shocking nature of the show. It doesn’t help that Joe’s scene are so few and Rami is not even featured until episode 5, even though they both try to add anecdotes and interesting facts about what they’re seeing

two days later in Ben’s trailer they arrive at episode 5 and the first time viewers are all shocked about Snafu’s introduction, which makes both Joe and Rami giggle in delight

(Gwil doesn’t miss how Joe searches for Rami’s hand under the blankets during Snafu’s infamous ‘Japs gold’ scene and how they keep close to each other and seem to lean even closer every time there’s a scene that looks like it had been hard for them to shot)

by the next episode they’re all so involved in the show and in their characters’ dynamics that they vote to keep watching even when it gets too late and it’s past their bedtime (considering their tight shooting schedule)

(Allen keeps asking ‘but this is based on a true story, right? You are playing real people.’ to which Rami and Joe always reply with a ‘Yes, why are you asking again?’ and he goes ‘Nothing’ and keeps watching with even more confusion in his eyes)

Ben declares at some point that his favourite character is Burgie and that if anything happens to him he’s going to riot. Joe snorts and Rami just says: ‘This makes me miss Martin so much’ at his ear so he snaps a picture of the screen and then takes a selfie to show the audience and sends them to their friend just to bother him a bit

(they act like they’re bored by John Basilone’s full episode but in fact they’re all closed to tears at the end)

they’re left with two more episodes one week after that and this time they’re in Joe’s trailer and he has ordered pizza for a full regiment

episode 9 is a shocking experience for everyone, even for Joe and Rami who of course know what it’s about but have to deal with their friends’ anger and confusion at what’s happening on screen

when Sledge says that his dog has died and Snafu tries to console him they’re so quiet nobody can miss Rami’s sigh as Joe hugs him close. No one comments on the simple gesture, but they all start to finally get what’s going on with them on a deeper level

Ben still riots at Hamm’s death because even though Burgie is his Favourite™ he liked that kid and he also hates Peck so much Gwilym has to physically prevent him from getting up and act like he wants to go punch a dude

episode 10 feels like relief until they get to the train scenes (and Allen asks one again ‘but these were real people?’ to which no one replies anymore)

Gwil admits they both look incredibly good in uniform

(they blush profusely and say ‘thank you’)

Snafu doesn’t say goodbye

chaos ensues (Ben is screaming at some point)

they watch the rest of the episode in religious silence as Rami’s head is resting upon Joe’s shoulder and Sledge’s story comes to an emotional ending

they read the ending titles about what happened to the real veterans of WWII portrayed in the show and at Snafu’s screen Allen just goes: “But!” like he’s offended at what’s written there. Rami and Joe are still confused by the Irish actor’s entire behaviour toward the whole series so they keep quiet, only exchanging some concerned looks

Gwil admit he’s glad they watched it all together and compliments his friends for their acting performances and also hugs them before leaving Joe’s trailer so he’s maybe way more emotional about the whole ordeal than how he’s been showing all along

the next day the crew looks puzzled at them all sitting in circle during a break as Rami, in full Freddie Mercury costume (tight leather trousers and jacket and long wavy wig), describes how to fire a WWII 60.mm mortar like and expert

#hc request #anon ask #mazlek #rami malek #joe mazzello #ben hardy #gwilym lee #allen leech #watching the pacific #sorry I also added allen but he's a favourite of mine #just like burgie. I freakin' love burgie #and martin

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deniigi · 5 years

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i read that one minific about rio mothering matt in itsv and now i totally hc that when claire is out of town rio insists on taking care of him. btw i really love like all your fics and i’ve read in technicolor and dfv a hundred times. your writing style is so clean and funny and perfect and i just Love everything about you and your fics. if you don’t mind me asking, how did you develop your writing style into what it is now? do you still find it changing occasionally?

Heya boo!

Aw, thanks for reading/re-reading! I love to hear that people go back to the work!!

As for the writing style: this is a big question!

I wish I could tell you that I had such-and-such method to develop, but really? I think I just wrote a fuckload and this is where I ended up. And things are always changing. Right now I’m having this problem where the work isn’t doing what I want it to in terms of producing meaning, and so I’m struggling with finding the balance between big-picture ideas, prose, dialogue, and story length, which might result in a few shorter one-shots here in the future, we’ll see.

There are some things, though, which I can probably explain which might be helpful to others who are trying to like, paddle through the tides of style, so I’ll go in to that here:

POV/Perspective

So back in the days of yore, I had this like vendetta against fics written from characters’ and outsiders’ POVs because they felt really cheap to me and I didn’t like someone deciding for me what a character thought about X,Y, and Z. So that meant that I read a lot of like, omniscent-esque type of work which was fine, but which can oftentimes come across as lacking warmth.

It can feel a little empty, you know?

As I read more work (fic and original), I started to figure out that it wasn’t the character/outsiders’ POV I had a problem with, it was more of the characterization of those narrators. Like, if you are writing from the POV of a grown man, your character shouldn’t be talking and acting and reflecting on themselves like a 15 yo. The dissonance there, I think, is what made me really dislike these kinds of fics because I felt like they were more about the author than the character. And that felt extremely selfish to me.

In published and original fiction, that’s totally fine. But in fanfic, that can be incredibly distracting, borderline annoying.

So I started to think very hard about people’s interests, motivations, and reactions. I tried to empathize with characters where they were at, rather than what I wanted them to be. And that’s how I’ve found myself very comfortable writing in the POV style.

I am comfortable writing within limits and those limits should be embraced, I think, rather than eschewed. They create these little pockets of irony, where the reader knows more than the narrator does and there is so much potential in evoking emotion and playing with suspense there.

Narration/Description/Dialogue

So I found your description of the work as ‘clean’ extremely interesting, anon, because at first I couldn’t tell if you meant that I don’t do a whole lot of sexual humor or if you meant that the work is fairly straightforward and tidy.

I presume you mean the latter, and having recently read work that feels ‘messy,’ I think I understand what you mean.

So when I write descriptions and ‘set the scene’ around dialogue, so to speak, I focus on imagery, timing, and feeling more than I focus on detail.

Readers are intelligent, capable human beings who do an amazing job in filling the gaps that I leave. I don’t need to make them see things exactly as I do. I can just give them the framework and let them run wild. As long as they get the emotion I’m trying to convey in the work, then I’m happy.

Furthermore, I don’t lay into detail like some other authors do because I just cannot stand huge blocks of text on my screen. I don’t have the patience to slog through that kind of thing. It does not bring me pleasure, it just makes me impatient. I will skip down to dialogue in reading when I start to feel like the descriptions are lagging or slowing down my enjoyment of a piece. And I don’t want my readers to feel like they have to do the same.

So I use spacing and long and short sentences very carefully to set the pace of my story telling. Rhythm is super important in this kind of thing. So in the last fic I wrote, darling you’re stars, I just leaned into the rhythm of syllables as I wrote them, focusing less on dialogue and more on texture. This obviously creates a very different feeling than the stop, hold, and start rhythm of my other pieces.

I use this type of syllable dragging and swaying when I want my reader to feel what I’m feeling, in terms of emotion, I suppose. It works very well for those more serious moments.

I use spacing to achieve a similar effect for those less serious moments. For example, if I put a paragraph break here

you have to pause just a hint to move on to the next one, and that kind of forces my readers to pause/take a breath with me and acknowledge that beat of silence or action before moving onto the next part of the story.

Spacing helps immensely with things like clarity and impact because it separates out ideas and makes things just generally easier/less tiring on the eye.

So yeah, my earlier work didn’t have as much space in it, but the work now has embraced space as an aesthetic and functional part of story-telling.

Anyways, that’ll all I’ve got to say on style for now. Hope that answers your question anon!

#fic #writing advice #fanfiction #I also just write a fuckload boo #I am always writing and evaluating #finishing stories is very hard at the minute #so I'm working inward instead of outward #hence the slightly slower pacing of publications lately

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spookysnicket · 5 years

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your stuff is always so wonderfully written, in character, and detailed all while remaining so sweet and fluffy?? how ARE you doing it? we stan

HhhhhhhaaaAAAA you’re trying to send me into cardiac arrest, thank you so so much!! ❤️❤️❤️ I’m definitely still improving on my writing, but there’s a few tips I use below the cut! And thank you again, seriously! I love you! (’:

Writing for Characters: When I write for a character, I have a whole personality and version of them I can see in my head. I can picture their thoughts and feelings, in a way it’s like when you’re role playing, or pretending to be another person. When I have prompts or information to work with, I play out how that character in my head would react to it or what they’d do in response- then just write that down! Sometimes, it’s just me blankly staring at a google doc while I’m imagining a scene for about 10 minutes straight. It’s sort of like a daydream?

Details and Staying in Character: There’s all sorts of different ways that different kinds of people choose to show their love, gratitude, etc- and it kind of swings back to the daydream thing! Carrie White has a much different “love language” than say, Bo Sinclair. I just play out scenes of how they’d interact with their s/o in their own unique ways! One of the most wonderful things about the slasher fandom has to be all the varying personalities, and how hard it is to find two characters that’re considerably similar! I feel like most of the slashers are well fleshed out, one reason being that having a pretty solid dynamic antagonist can make them much scarier than just ‘slashy stabby slaughter spooky oooooo scary killer!!!11!!1”. There’s also a lot of psychological background a majority of the slashers have that can help writers dig deeper into a character, and interpret more traits for them! TLDR; Put yourself in your character’s shoes! Try forming a concept in your head, build it on little details like what their favorite color is, what music they like- if they even like music! It’ll help you grasp better ideas of them and how to keep yourself ‘in character��

Elaborate on Details: I think it’s important to elaborate on ideas as much as you can. Sure, it’s more a read, but it also helps with staying in character! When you add more to a HC or a line of dialogue, you define the character- details change them into actual individuals instead of just personality traits. Another good thing to practice is proof reading your whole piece a few times as you work! It’s helpful when you’re trying not to make too many grammar mistakes, sure- but you can catch yourself getting OOC by going through what you’ve written and assessing the way your portrayal works with how the character actually behaves!

#yall are too SWEET #tysm again #ill never say thank you enough sdfhskdfhak #asks

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elderburn · 7 years

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Ruby Rose Kisses (Almost) Every Girl RANKINGS

I haven’t seen this one yet so I’d like to resurrect this terribly underfed blog (sorry about that by the way) to list, in order, my favorite Rube Smooches- as written by @xekstrin. (This is just my personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Viz Media, Paramount Pictures, or any other corporation to which I have no relation. I’ll also announce that if you’re tired of this blog not producing (sorry,) you can always follow me on my normal blog, @gottalovethosecostcomuffins, which has been known to reblog at least one thing per day. Maybe more. Let’s begin!

21. There are really that many of these? Goodness. I’ll be here awhile. The bottom of this list is BY NO MEANS the “worst” Ruby smooch, as if there could be such a thing, but something has to go here! Ciel starts us off this morning. I honestly pictured the obstacle course for MW2 for this piece. This also scratches my “Ciel is a tough, smol cookie” HC, which is nice, but it also mentioned suicides, which I hated, so there. Kiss rating: 7/10. Good on Ruple for being conscious of her own sweat. Simple soul confirmed.

20. Neon. LOVED THIS. If there were any more scenes in V3 with Neon, this is how I would have pictured them going. Meg would have had far too much fun VA’ing these, though, so of course it could never happen. Bonus points for the use of “impish delight”, always a crowd pleaser and definitely appropriate. Kiss rating: 6/10. ‘Mmmmmwah’ is my favorite smooch onomatopoeia, sure, but poor Rotunda was just so distraught. Can’t have that. Bonus points for (in my mind) secret domme Rubes and the implication that someone would be kneeling should this piece go any farther. Me like.

19. May Zedong. You may be thinking by now, “Hey. this guy is putting all the secondary/tertiary character smooches pretty low.” And you’d be right. But not because of that. Anywho. May joins Neon in the “Be playfully mean to my daughter” squad, but Rope-a-dope takes it in good fun. These two practicing together/bonding over weapon types was like the FIRST thing I thought of when we met May, and I love that May is having so much fun with it. Kiss rating: 8/10. Kissing the bullet is such a cheeky thing to do, and the slightest possible whisp of gunplay has me goin’ like a drop of water on a dying man’s tongue. Bless. 18. Pyrrha. This one was so cute! I’m gonna go ahead and guess that Ruby decided that those dern Goliaths were just too tempting and decided to go big game hunting. Thus the broken leg, so far the only real injury she’s ever sustained (the_shade_of_it_all.gif) Pyrrha though, as usual, is a perfect god damned angel that this world does not deserve, and thus stands ready to keep her girlfriend safe and... otherwise entertained. Bonus points for pet JNPR rock, whose name I still want to know. Kiss rating: 9/10. There’s lots of em, which is always good for healing (something something transfer Aura). Cute as fuck. Would read again.

17. Weiss. The main team had to start somewhere, right? I like how this one frames the WR dynamic, which has always been one of my favorites, if not necessarily my favorite ship. Flustered Ruby will always get some points in my book. Just don’t be needlessly sharp with her T_T Kiss rating: 7.5/10. So close, but when compared to Pyrrha, Weiss is gonna need to step up her game. Though I don’t think Rubes had any problems with this one. A good kiss. 16. Coco & Velvet. A photoshoot is, of course, the perfect place for Ms. Adel, and the scenario to get Ruskie in one is perfect. Tall/ leggy Yang is my shiiiiiiiiit, so points there. Lots of detail on the shoot itself, which just makes me want to pull out MY camera again. Jerk. Overall a fantastic and well built piece. Like Yang’s legs. I’m not distracted, shut up. Kiss rating: 10/10! First one of the set. Velvet and Coco both playing off Ruby’s flusteredness is my fav, which may or may not come up again on this list... but that’s for later. Bonus point for boo-boo kisses.

15. Salem. Eughhhh. What an unsettling mental image this piece gave me, but at the same time, that’s fucking perfect. The eyes especially got me. Poor Rub. Kiss rating: 6/10. This is more of a “Ha gotcha now you’re my corrupted mindslave” kiss. Black liquid was mentioned. My eyes kinda glazed over after that. Well fucking written, though. Goodness. 14. Reese. “Eaaaaaaat my shorts” has to be the best opening to a piece you’ve had in a long time, Kep. The ball keeps rolling from there. Yang somehow breaking the ice and setting up this little bet also tickles me pink. I guess you could say she was being an... enabler? To her weapon junky tendencies. Now she gets to take the weapons apart. Is what I mean. Not. You know. Shut up. Kiss rating: 9/10. She is Ruby god damned Rose and fuck if she is not getting a kiss you fucking fucks get out of her way

13. Amber. This one seems like the longest? I didn’t do a word count. But I like it. Poor Rutabaga. You hook up with a nice gal, you clock in to your bodyguard job the next day, there she is. Awkward. Did I mention she’s basically a god and now you have to protect her from all the shit that wants to kill her? No pressure. Still, Amber, being Amber, handles it perfectly. A nice fic on its own. Lots of fantastic internal dialogue and focus on thoughts. Which I love. Kiss rating: 7/10. For this one, the kiss was but a small part. Still an important one, but smaller. This was such a fantastic piece that gave more to Amber as a character than Mile and Kerble could ever hope to give her. I wouldn’t mind a little prequel to this one, though... club hookups? Yes please. 12. Arslan. One of my favorite new characters. Aaaaand she’s gone. This one has so many of my favorite #JustXekstrinThings- you got tight, revealing clothing, you got Ruby noticing said clothing, Ruby short circuiting when girls in tight clothing touch her, “beforewards” and the ensuing mental battle over its status in the Oxford Dictionary... the list goes on. Fantastic. Kiss rating. 9.5/10. This kiss has so much. The breathless “Y-yeah.” The “I’m warm cuz exercise, not gayness.” The forehead, mentor mentee thing. But something keeps it from a 10 for me. I dunno. Maybe I’ll come back to this one. Still excellent.

11. Penny. Arguably one of my favorite Ruby pairings, and another one knocked out of the park in this set. Normal girl, normal knee things are my favorite with these two who, along with Ruby/Pyrrha, so desperately need to do normal girl, normal knee things. Cute. As. Fuck. Kiss rating: 8/10: Again, this kiss is a passing thought, but for it to be so normal for them is what makes it beautiful. Did I mention I fucking love this ship? 10. Winter. Hoo boy. Top ten. It’s gonna get a little more difficult here, but I’m taking my time, so I’m confident I’ll get these right. Pilot Ruby is something I didn’t know I needed in my life, but here it is. Winter being naturally apt with such things is a no-brainer, but I love that that became a mentor dynamic as well. Perfect characterization throughout. And just a dash of spice at the end- “I can teach you more... if you want.” I bet you could, Winter. I bet you could. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Kiss rating: 9/10. Keep your sticks under control, Roob. That’s an expensive ship.

9. Neo. Alternative learning style Ruby has always been a thing for me, so what better way for her to learn than through the most unconventional methods possible? Neo yanking her sign language chain made me giggle. Then you turn around and slap me with an “oh shit someone’s fallin off a cliff” scenario. Rubrub to the rescue. Kiss rating: 10/10! Ya gotcher adrenalin pumpin’, almost dyin’, arms slinkin’, shirt bundled in fist ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), height difference, full on smackeroo of a kiss. Perfection. Everything I could ever ask for. 8. Raven. Ohh-ho man. Do I love me some Ruby/Raven. Like Neo and Arslan, this one checks lots of boxes for me. Wall pinning. Desperate clawing. ANGST. Raven’s shirt unbuttoned? Y E S P L E A S E. Still, I feel bad for Ruby in this one. I just want it to stop too sometimes. Kiss rating: 7/10. A bit unclear in this one, but I liked it all the same. What ties into the kiss(es) are what make it so good. An excellent read. 7. Nora. Another one of my favorite ships. Doesn’t get nearly enough love in my opinion, but hey, what can you do. This is weapon-nerd Ruby in her fucking PRIME, so major kudos there. She’s elbow deep in this muthafucka and Nora likes. I like all the little world-building details you’ve got here- gee, it’d be nice if we got those from someone who, say, wrote the show- as they really help explain certain mechanics of weaponry and Aura without having to, say, make a 3-8 minute video narrated by some creepy dude to explain them. Amazing stuff as always. Kiss rating: 9/10. That it was brief was its only flaw. Established couple stuff is my jam, and this delivers. Love, love, love. Bonus points for the wink, Nora. I see you. 6. Numbers 4, 5 and 6 are probably the hardest for me, but I think I’ve got it pinned down. This one is Cinder. Arguably one of your best written ships overall. I like the dynamic you set up in this piece- anti-hero, is she the bad guy or not, and so on. “As always, Cinder was perfectly put together” is the perfect summary of the character- at least as written by you, imo- and the rest of the piece frames that so perfectly. I would gladly measure my music by her footsteps- so long as they were on my back, chest or face. Damn do I love this character. (side note: Is this set in the Chained Rose universe? Cuz if so...)

Kiss rating: 10/10! You’ll probably see a few more of these as we reach the top. This one is double for your money- you’ve got Ruby being a little bold puppy, always a favorite; and it even comes with a side of feigned penitence. This is, of course, immediately punished. As it should be. Bad Ruby. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

5. Emerald. This is one of those fics that just makes you go, “Aaahhh.” Not in the screamy way. In the “I’m home” kind of way. I love all the little domestic touches. Her wife. Calling in sick. Let’s buy a house. Talkin about jobs. It’s perfect. Poor Em- I hope she works through her issues. She’s got a good helper. Kiss rating: 8/10. As the rest of it, this one is perfectly domestic. A nice hand kiss. What a sweetheart. Points to Ruby for taking initiative.

4. Blake. I really miss Beacon as a setting. While the whole high school anime thing can only take you so far, I do love me some dorm room snuggles, and boy does this scratch that itch. All my Ladybug boxes are checked off here. I would read 200k words of this. at $.03 a word... let’s not do that math. Kiss rating: 10/10! Blake is opening up. Her mouth. Get it, Ru.

3. Glynda. I am heeeere for this pairing. Of course Glynda can always find the nearest office space within a few miles to make her home. And of course Ruby can find it’s window to languorously hang off of. I love the dialogue here! Probably some of my favorite out of this whole list. What a fantastic piece. Kiss rating: 11/10!! There are so many!! There’s your hello kiss, your return mid dialogue kiss, your on your knees kiss pepperings. Glynda, as always, is completely down for this. Bravo. 2. Yang. You knew it was coming. And boy oh boy did it come. Heh. This is written in what I called the Style of the Strained Master- all of your Ruby/Yang fics have this feel to it, and it makes them amazing. Ruby is always thiiiis close to destroying herself, Yang, and everything around her, at any given time. Because she’s so. Fucking. Ready. This makes me happy. This waters my crops, feeds my children, eases my aches and pains. This puts a man on the moon and music in my soul. This is everything. Kiss rating: There isn’t even a fucking kiss but you know damn well it’s getting a 10/10

1. The Sisters Malachite. Sound the trumpets! We have our champion! This was a struggle to decide. But this- and I know I’ve said this a couple times now- checks all. The. Boxes. Ruby being difficult. Ruby can’t do numbers. Weiss, help me. I have a number fixation and it’s making it really difficult to be the fuckin’ mack daddy that I know I am deep inside. Ruby has fucked up now. Now you fucked up. It has begun. Double teaming. Vainly struggling. There is no hope for you, child. Your clothes are ours. Have some cleavage, it’ll make up for the last three meals you’ve skipped. Except it wont. How bout we just fuck you instead. K? K. Kiss rating: ∞/10. I mean, there’s two of them, and they’ve got pretty decent stamina... There’s nothing here saying they couldn’t just go on forever. Poor Rubiks has a looooooot of stress to work out.... What. A. Ride. I spent the better part of two hours writing this out, and re-read all the pieces a few times a piece to get things down just the way I like it. Is this full of grammatical errors? Probably. Do I care at this point? Nah. Thank you again, Krissy, for writing this, and everything you write. You put in a lot of time for us nerds, that you really wouldn’t have to if you didn’t want to. And we appreciate the fuck out of that. Keep on keepin on.

#xekstrin #rwby #ruby rose #so many pairings

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