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vampkomori · 10 months

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im watching The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady and it makes me go insane so i have to write about my feelings on it and twts dead and the character limit is not enough so im doing it here

im going insane. it is that good. heres why 1. its yuri (literally) and 2. ITS A GOOD ISEKAI.

i watch a lot of isekais (unfortunately. i enjoy the concept bc a lot can be done with it Very many Interesting things can be done with it but all of them are shitty harems or a carbon copy of one another and. its tough out here.) and this is like one of . a handful. that actually. LIKE. ITS GOOD. ITS A GOOD ISEKAI YOU DONT GET MANY OF THOSE

i still havent explained why its good. basically heres a lesson on current isekai culture(?) (<- guy that cant get to the point)

theres exactly 2 kinds: one is the male fantasy where a guy reincarnates into a fantasy world and gets all the waifus. the second is the relevant one, the Reincarnated Villainess Trope which is SOO LOADED YOU DONT GET ITTT

the reincarnated villainess, to my knowledge, started with My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom aka hamefura (the jp abbreviation, henceforth refered to as such) and summarized, its about a girl that reincarnates into a fantasy otome game as the games villainess and bc the girl is a weirdgirl she basically derails the plot by being weird funny and endearing and everyone falls in love with her and she has a harem consisting of boys AND girls (in the first season. the girls side is unfortunately not taken seriously afterwards)

and magirevo (The Magical Revolution of the Reincar- you get the gist. isekai names are long) is very similar in that the protag is a #weirdgirl but theres no harem this time and its gay for real.

where was i. basically hamefuras Thing is that its a “subversion” of the “villainess is put on trial by the crown prince who publicly annulls their engagement and accuses her of wronging the otome protagonist and also sometimes shes either killed or exiled” trope except its not a real trope. bare with me this is hilarious. its not a real trope but everyones feels like it is bc it feels familiar but there isnt a single existing example of this trope, its like a fake trope. theres certainly villainesses especially in older animes, but otome games very rarely ever even had a rival and this specific situation has literally never happened. just a fun fact. this is irrelevant to the discussion. but ill call it the fake villainess trope bc its not real but every villainess isekai “subverts” it. theyre subverting a fake trope. thats great. i could write an essay about this (already has)

anyway2.0 the point is there are literally so many. SOOOO MANY manhwas/mangas that base their story off this fake trope. some subvert the subversion some kinda follow it some deviate a lot more etc. but there always tends to be some flavour of “villainess is put on trial by the crown prince who publicly annulls their engagement and accuses her of wronging the otome protagonist (and also sometimes shes either killed or exiled)"

magirevo does this as well but in such a roundabout way you dont realize its doing the trope until its happening bc the protag, the crown prince’s elder sister, entirely does her own thing. she invents magic technology and tries to fly and tries to gain magic bc she doesnt have magic etc. so she Literally crash lands into the villainess’ trial and, in a fit of writing brilliance which i can only describe as bordering on genius, only vaguely implies that she knew it was going to happen (aka that the world shes in is a game) and literally whisks the villainess away on a whim (which in this case isnt even a villainess, shes never portrayed as one and shes not misunderstood, but as previously mentioned this is a common trope and euphy would be in the position of the villainess here) and now come the insane parts

euphy (stand-in “villainess”) is shown to have the worries/anxieties/issues that, logically, the villainess in the trope would have. i have to derail again for context on why its brilliant, the fake villainess trial trope in its most pure form is that the villainess was for real bullying the FL (the “female lead” of the otome game) and the FL/crown prince reveal this in public for revenge, in this the FL/prince are in love and portrayed as the side thats in the “right”. in the subversion of this, its literally flipped. the villainess is Wrongfully accused by the prince and “FL” (who at this point is no longer the protag of the story, but still is the protag in the original otome game which the reincarnated person.. knows about.. its getting complicated) who team up to, for never explained reasons, publicly ruin the “villainesses” image (my personal input would be that its so the engagement can be annulled more easily, its kinda like divorce where its easier if you can prove the other person was cheating. sort of. also palimony. there is technically one specific subversion that has the reincarnated person be a lawyer who helps the villainess get palimony- im getting carried away. i read a lot of these)

lost my train of thought. um. so the FL/prince are sometimes portrayed as antagonists in opposition to the “villainess”. who the reincarnated person even is kind of varies, sometimes its the villainess, and even then it depends on When in time she reincarnates (its not always since childhood) since some reincarnate during the moment of the trial, and in those the villainess was Actually a villainess, and the now-reincarnated-villainess (a wholly new person) takes this as an opportunity to do her own thing and rebuilds her life (whether in exile or not) but sometimes the reincarnated person is someone entirely unrelated to the trope, and in those cases the villainess in the trope is intead portrayed as a proper royal lady who follows etiquette very very closely. her “bullying” is mostly just telling the FL that it is inappropriate for her to spend a lot of time with the crown prince since Shes his fiance, and seeing him with another girl is very bad for his image. ultimately, the villainess is a kind person and is wrongfully humiliated/accused. magirevo does this, euphy is the perfect rule-abiding proper royal lady who only ever wanted to do right by her family and do what her father said (due to this her and her fathers relationships is strained, the anime actually touches on it . and parents are not given depth or show remorse in these things usually) so once shes whisked away by anis (magirevo protag) she suddenly doesnt have to fulfill any responsibility, has any expectations to fulfill, and is just told to do what she likes and what makes her happy, and she is not handling it well. once youre used to being ordered around and have etiquette ingrained into you its hard to just do what you Want to do and it becomes even more difficult to be able to Tell what you want to do. its very good.

anis is also an incredible protag but her whole deal isnt based on any sort of trope, so i wont go into it this time (also bc im only 5 episodes in and her thing is definitely going to span over the whole 12 eps so. refraining from commenting too early) but her BROTHER??? LETS GO TALK ABOUT HER BROTHER

as ive so eloquently and elaborately x paragraphs before (making fun of myself), the crown prince is portrayed as either the good side or the antagonistic side depending on writer, but ultimately tends to be a very paper thin one-note cardboard character that only exists for villainess angst and to hate him. which is a real shame bc theres clearly a lot of room for elaboration on motivation and just general. Potential. for a good arc. like, for real. the basic trope is just about the crown prince disgarding his fiancé for the (commoner) FL and thats it, but nobody??? sees the actions for what they are??? and magirevo does . its that the crown prince goes against his fathers wishes, against the rules imposed upon him by his royal blood and Does What He Wants and wants to be with the person he loves regardless of their status or his. thats good. thats insane. how has nobody banked on this. stocks are rising. so algard (magirevos crown prince) is that. he disregards the royal familys rules and wants to defy his fate, wants to be with the commoner girl he loves and is generally a very self-righteous person, which is used as the explanation for Why he accuses euphy in public, he thinks hes in the right for it (theoretically, bad means for good goals) and basically its portrayed as a sort of naiveté, bc hes the younger brother of anis, and still thinks the world revolves around him. zero consideration for others, doesnt think of consequences, gets manipulated by older nobles who use his self centric thinking against him, that sort of thing. plus hes a FOIL!!!! TO THE VILLAINESS!!! where the villainess is forcibly ripped from her responsibilities and now gets to live a life where she can do whatever she likes despite not having wished for it, the prince is forced to stay in his role as the crown prince and actively tries to go against the expectations placed upon him and cannot leave Despite Wishing For It (the “leave” in this case meaning the societal expectations, though its unclear if he still wants to inherit the throne at this point) and even Better, his actions and personality were entirely shaped by his sister, the protagonist, they used to be close as children with similar interests, but once anis invented magical technology (due to her knowledge from reincarnation) theres a growing rift between them bc shes heralded as a genius for her talents, and hes considered talentless. and even ! though ! anis is aware of this, and even revokes her right to the throne so that he can become ruler instead. theres so many misunderstandings in this royal family its insane. its the good kind of messy family drama. nobody knows how to talk to each other.

so im going insane bc isekais arent usually good or give any depth to characters and i feel like ive been given catnip. watch magirevo if you like weirdgirls and lesbians and like to see the fake villainess trope be explored in depth w motivations. yahoo

#k.txt #talkative. once i get going i keep going.#90% is just context explanation bc even though my thoughts are not broadcasted live to anyone. i have to explain things #brain flaw. idk if this is even coherent. im excited about something being good for once #<-enjoyer of otome isekais

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godtierwallflower · 4 years

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Hi, I was wondering if you know of any examples of Kakashi or Gai supporting women/women’s rights? I swear there are several (in the main series or maybe in SD), but right now I can only think of the scene in Gotta See Gotta Know where Kakashi tells the man to back off since the woman had told him to stop. (Or maybe I’m just imagining them with these qualities since they’re they’re two of my favorite characters haha).

Sure!

This post might stretch a little bit but I’ll try and be quick so it won’t at all be comprehensive. Still, I’ll put it under a readmore!

There’s of course the scene where Kakashi stops a girl from being harassed

And Gai’s most notable scene would be him noting his admiration for kunoichi and saying that there are a lot of amazing kunoichi he looks up to that can’t do Medical Ninjutsu

The two of them have some good teacher moments with their female students.

And they both definitely acknowledge when Tenten and Sakura put in the effort and make progress, even if, in Kakashi’s case, he’s not the one to be her direct teacher (that’s more-or-less the way it is with all three members of Team 7 bc plot)

Gai is serious about teaching Lee to be considerate of Tenten as a teammate, and he tries to take her limits into consideration, but only as a person, never because she’s a girl

Naruto Shippuden episode 237 was full of moments where Gai says and shows how much he admires and respects Tsunade and he gives Tenten a chance to test out every route she has as a kunoichi. Gai also emphatically said that kunoichi don’t have to be healers and can specialize in whatever they want.

Kakashi and Gai were also both fervent supporters of Hinata and encourage her abilities and try to build up her confidence

And since you mentioned Naruto SD, I have to mention the episode where all the kunoichi went to Gai for training because they knew he would give them a strict, tough regimen and wouldn’t go easy on them for being girls (Naruto SD episode 29). Gai was so kind but firm in their training, he even offered them sweets and rewarded their hard work by treating them all to barbecue

You also have the obligatory fact that both Gai and Kakashi are immune to Naruto’s and Konohamaru’s sexy jutsus (Naruto Shippuden 90, Naruto Shippuden

They have some sense and aren’t horndogs, so they’re up there with King Killer B in that respect (And as we know, Killer B is the ultimate supporter of women’s rights)

In Gai’s case, he’s basically incapable of even registering the idea of thinking about the students indecently. In Konoha Shinden, in the novel he says they should all take a soak in the hot springs together, and in the name he told Mirai that if she really wanted to take a bath, he could do what he did when he was younger and take a dip in the river, and both times it just never occurred to him that it could be taken in a weird way because he was completely innocent and earnest about it.

Speaking of Konoha Shinden, Kakashi and Gai are both very certain of Mirai’s skill as a kunoichi, especially Kakashi.

Kakashi praises Kurenai to Mirai, and he praises Sakura’s abilities to Sasuke on parent’s day. Kakashi and Gai both see Kurenai as a capable peer, as well as Shizune.

#Anonymous #kakagai #Kakashi Hatake #Kakashi #Maito Gai #long post #because I think I broke the readmore

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lol-jackles · 3 years

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austinite opinion on the Ackles leaving this godforsaken city —

if I were jensen I would take my family and leave too. Austin has had its issues over several years and the infrastructure can’t take the strain of its population much longer, and then covid was added on top. their kids are getting older and even a rich kid’s school options suck. the traffic is just straight up dangerous w/ very high rates of drunk driving and weird aggressive stuff, its like a vehicular manslaughter competition even in nice residential areas. What’s the point in having a nanny take the kids for the day if you’re worrying they’ll get hit by a truck on a crosswalk on the way to the park????

the city’s terrible policies on homelessness mean even in upscale neighborhoods theres problems related to people camping or dumping trash and a lot of weird violence and mental health crises, and the city has resources for probably only 15% of its homeless population and the mayor and gov are eager to make decisions that make the problem worse like they’re hoping homeless people will just die off. in 2018 the entire county’s water supply was //full of rotting clams// and was unusable for a week, and then in the ice storm this year the state’s privatized power grid failed, and even the padaleckis had bursting pipes and dead animals.

6th St and Rainey St are garbage and violent and tbh I’m surprised it’s taken this long to trigger a mass shooting like the recent one on 6th, not to mention it’s more public that there are high rates of sexual assault downtown and at UT and the DA just…doesn’t attempt to prosecute at all.

Jared’s roofied scuffle on 6th looks shocking from an outside POV but if you’re local it’s mundane. And I do think he was roofied, I showed the videos to a family member with a law enforcement background and he agreed. whether he was or not, that kind of crap happens two or three dozen times a night downtown thurs-sat and there were extra cops downtown that night bc it was halloween and extra crazy. Local people mostly got a kick out of it happening to jared like it was a down to earth kinda thing.

I know it doesn’t seem like privileged people should gaf or be affected by most of this but it sucks the fun out of anywhere you go here unless you gtfo out of the city (which is why the brewery is actually in a great location, right on the main route to big day tripping attractions) like yeah, theres all this quirky stuff to do in Austin but when a gay couple is nearly beat to death on open popular Rainey St and a homeless guy throws himself off a restaurant on SoCo during lunch rush it’s a fucking bummer.

And then you add covid and police violence on top of all that, and all the tourism/SXSW/ACL revenue and entertainment is tanked and that definitely derailed some of the Ackles’ plans, like the B&B they bought. but even if 2020 was a normal year those events are so congested now they aren’t very enjoyable even if you’re VIP.

but property taxes are the main thing: before they sold the lake house, tax laws about lakeshore property changed— previously it was barely taxed if at all bc of an old law from when no one wanted to build on the lakeshore like 40 yrs ago. Suddenly that untapped property tax potential is under a political microscope and I was like, I bet the Ackles will move and the Padaleckis won’t bc their property isn’t on the lake…and within a year the Ackles sold the lake house. absolutely not a coincidence.

so regardless of the state of their marriage (I really don’t buy what’s said about their marriage) austin isn’t what it was 10-15 years ago. They probably shouldn’t come back lol

Colorado is not far behind being turned into a shithole thanks to the Democrats running the state. Whenever Democrats control a city it always turns into a shithole.

"How Decades Of Democratic Rule Ruined Some Of Our Finest Cities" https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/how-decades-of-democratic-rule-ruined-some-of-our-finest-cities/

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norgestan · 4 years

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SPOILERS!!!!! // i actually despise the route they've taken, i really do. if they really wanted dani and amira, and if they were endgame, i actually wouldn't have minded - i would've sighed a little bit sure, but i'd be ok.... but what they're doing with kassim... i'm just ... wow. disappointed and frustrated is a huge understatement. if they wanted representation it would've been great, but making that representation someone who could've been a really amazing love interest for amira? smfh.

uhhh i tried to put a “read more” but it’s not working???

yeah like i really like how the show has handled the first steps on the damira relationship, where there’s a lot of communication and you can see that they’re both negotiating. my biggest complaint is still that dani is a white man taking the spot on what originally was the place of a muslim man of color. and in that sense, i won’t give eskam a pass. while skamit pretended that they “ethnic-looking” white non-muslim female actress was a hijabi teenager of color, and that’s something i don’t think eskam would do, eskam is the second remake that has taken away one of the spots of that couple with two people of color, so they go to a white actor/actress.

but i agree with you: the worst this has got to be the kasim subplot. i DESPITE it with all my being for the following reasons:

perpetuates the notion that all muslim people are homophobic, something that they show has fought before in cris’ season and in the video lucas filmed with amira.

actually, let me go back to that video. because i feel like the eskam writers didn’t look at that video when they were writing this bullshit. both amira and lucas make points about how homophobia is not inherent to islam, that one can be gay and muslim because it depends on how people interpret their religion and how they feel their faith, etc etc. but then kasim spews out the same bullshit amira was fighting in the first place: that lucas, who lives in a christian environment, will have the support of his friends and people around him, but because kasim is muslim he’s deeply scared and doesn’t want to come out. it’s not because lucas is white while kasim is a brown man, it’s not because kasim has had particular experiences with his sexuality outside his religion. no. it’s because lucas is christian and kasim is muslim. and of course christian people are waaay more open minded than muslim people, right? that’s how LITTLE NUANCE was put in the whole thing. the entire story is written like any youtube comment under a clip of las labass, saying that they will punch cris for being bisexual and other islamophobic bullshit.

this kinda shits on the entire religious subplot of og s3. in og, isak’s mother insistence with showering his son with the word of God(tm) was what held him back from coming out to her and part of his internalized homophobia. the season also made points how what isak believed in, aka the evolution, could also lead into homophobic rationalizations of the presence of gay people in the story of humanity, while sana made sure to tell isak (and the audience) that hatred came from fear, not from religion. isak suffered because he was in a white and christian environment, where people were either disgusted by him (his parents at first), completely okay with outing him because “it’s 2016, get out of the closet” (emma, vilde at some extent, bunch of other people who spread the rumors in school), casually calling him slurs (magnus), fetishizing him and even (the dance girls, the skam fandom), and then people who were supportive of him (admittedly, not all of these things were called out in the show, but people got the point with the first two groups). the only muslim character in the show had absolutely no problem with isak being gay, and supported isak and even’s relationship: sana even got mad when she thought the balloon squad hit isak bc he was gay, when they actually hit him because he fought them first out of jealousy - and back then it was the white girls who insulted sana in the bathroom and who theorized that the balloon squad were homophobic. so, like, absolutely all of that is gone here. and in the last dani/amira clip, dani says how his parents aren’t actually “good christians” (hmmm the christian cult survivor in me absolutely loathes that term) because they’re intolerant and homophobic, but the fact that it’s kasim, the muslim gay guy, who says he’s in a bad environment, means that the show wants us to believe and empathize with him, right? UGH. very progressive of you eskam. i’ve never seen this before.

let me expand real quick on that last point. so far it’s only been amira, a straight muslim girl, who has told us that homophobia is not inherent in muslim spaces. HOWEVER, we have an actual muslim gay character say to out faces that he feels oppressed and that his circles will never understand him the way lucas’ christian circles understand and accept him. and because he’s the gay muslim guy, we’re supposed to believe he’s right over amira, who has never experienced being lgbtq+ and muslim. WOW. I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT.

yet again other western stereotype of a gay guy nonchalantly asking amira to play as his beard. WOW. WOWOWOWOW. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK. but what i hate the most about this is that amira is clearly SO disgusted by this, the narrative wants us to be on her side and demonize the closeted muslim guy of color for this. all while we were supposed to take dani’s al qaeda joke as a funny thing that amira adds to the list of why dani is the funniest guy she knows and why she likes him. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

moreover, i hate this entire conversation: because amira has had two people come out to her. cris and kasim. and when cris, white christian cris, told her she liked a girl, amira was immediately okay with all of that. but when kasim tells amira that he likes a dude, amira’s reaction it’s just SO baffling: she accuses him of FOOLING and LYING to his family and the people around him. but she never once questioned why cris hadn’t told anybody this yet, much less call her a liar for not coming out to everybody. what the fuck is this!!!!!!! not only this is yet another way that the show demonizes kasim, but it’s purposefully writing amira ooc to do so. wow. i absolutely hate it. i don’t think i have said that yet?

and to close this huuuuge rant off lmao, i just really dislike that everything about kasim’s sexuality is misery porn: begging for the white guy he likes (loves?) to understand him and be with him, the pressure of being the only man on his family, the pressure of his sister trying to find him a good muslim girlfriend, how oh so homophobic muslim people around him are... even if at the end the show ends up saying (again) that coming out as a muslim is Not That Bad, all of this is just, immediately gonna make white/non-muslim people look at this and think: “yep yep yep, muslim people are sooooo intolerant, not like Me, raised in a good Christian environment, where we’re Open Minded not like those arabs”. and i already hate all of that, no matter what the resolution is. this is SO catering of western audiences only. terrible writing choice and i won’t let eskam get out of this one. even if they found a way to say the right stuff at the end, what they’ve done for now it’s enough for me to step away from the remake. but i’ll be here to criticize it when the entire episode is out, you bet.

#skam españa spoilers #answered #skam españa #anti eskam #wow #never thought i'd use that tag before

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loptyrs-moved · 3 years

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Can you talk more abt ur fandoms ocs? I like your writing a lot and would like to know more abt em

Oh my goodness I’m 🥺🥺🥺🥺 you’re SO sweet thank you!

Well, I have quite a few and some have their own deeper lore stories that go with them. If you guys want more information on them, I can do separate posts on all of them. But Here they are! I’m so excited to share my babies with you!

More is under the cut. The Picrew I used is here.

Ikemen Revolution

Black Army Side

Corrin Fukui

Age: Appears to be in mid-early twenties

Hair: Brick white

Eyes: Blood Red

Height: 4′11

Any other Qualities:

Draconic features -- She’s literally a dragon but not by nature

Curved Opalescent Horns

Shimmery opalescent tail

Wings that also shimmer in the light

retractable?

Pointed ears

Easily frightened by loud noises and sudden movements

stunted growth

Hoards blankets and comfort items

writes in a journal every day

its one luka got for her and she refuses to write in anything else. she pours her heart out on the pages, and all her memories

she had a brother! but he passed away because of the magic tower :(

turns into a gIANT DRAGON

ICE ICE BREATH BABY

Was found by Luka while on a patrol near the forbidden forest, lost and afraid, so she was taken in

Had amnesia at first

She actually is an experiment of Amon and she managed to escape

Excellent at sewing and gardening

Sufficient with baking

She’s for Luka! The way they fell for each other was a slow, gradual trust, and mutual understanding. She saw him as a man, as he was, and nothing else.

Sometimes is called Corri

gentle hearted and innocent

but not as innocent as you’d think

she’s a dragon, and she’s a greedy little one

Ophelia Dae

Age: 24

Hair: Crimson red

Eyes: Jade green

Height: 5′8

Any other Qualities:

A skilled swordsman, and one of the Chosen Thirteen

9 of Spades baybeee

While she is more accustomed to short swords and sabers, Phelia is a magic user! But she isn’t really in agreement with Ray with his stance on magic

BOMBASTIC AS HELL

BISEXUAL

“Is he bothering you Queen?”

Trans

Was friends with Ray and Fenrir while in school, and was just as much of a hellraiser as them

she was there when the day things went dark happened and was almost taken but that day is a blur for her

phelia REFUSES to talk about it

she still has nightmares

raised by a single mother

TRIVIA! She was an old fire emblem oc i had and she was the daughter of Arvis -- so if you squint when she uses magic you’ll see Valflame

joined the army probably because Fenrir was too, and she was inspired by him

she joined for her own reasons but he made it easier for her to do it too

his passion was what made her fall for him in the first place

has a personal vendetta against the magic tower for what they did to her and her friends

AND CORRIN JEEZ

will sacrifice herself if necessary to the cause

PROBABLY HAS ALMOST DIED BECAUSE OF IT

Bruh girl

Amira Nasiri

Age: 22

Hair: Chocolate brown

Eyes: Turquoise blue

Height: 5′3

Any other qualities:

My version of Alice! Difference is that she’s Persian

That’s it

She’s just as spunky as Alice

however she responds with being called Alice a little different

she’s adamant about being called Amira

At some point she just accepts Seth does it to distance himself

also an avid baker like alice

pISTACIOS

BAKLAVA

Amira is just Alice except she’s just my take on her.

She has the same vibrant spirit as Alice

and I personally consider Seth the canon route for REASONS

just ask me why fjgdfgjksd

Red Army Side

Azul Flores

Age: 25

Hair: Raven black

Eyes: Wisteria purple

Height: 5′0

Any Other Qualities:

An old friend of the Queen of Hearts

like she met him when she was 8 years old

fought his bullies when they would give him a hard time when he was a kid

they dated for a WHILE

did NOT work out

HARD CHILDHOOD

Ambitious, hard working young woman who was married into a high standing family on the Red side. Her mother was a teacher and gained the attention of one of the Chosen Thirteen on that side, and got married

Azul is NOT the officer’s daughter. She’s his step daughter

Has had extensive studies on the History of Cradle and of the Red Territory.

Wants to be a Cradle Historian

Works for the Red Army as a personal assistant to the queen

UNINTENTIONAL

THEY ACTUALLY CANT STAND EACH OTHER

Unless....

Look their story is very dramatic and it hurts me every day so please stay tuned with them.

CUT THROAT BITCH

YOUR DEVIL

DEMON

Heckles Jonah like its her job — she knows him better than anyone elsd, if anyone knows his bs, its her

Bad resting bitch face

Actually really shy, and quiet when in different surroundings

A sweetheart and will cut a bitch for you once she knows u

She is perhaps one of the most transparent, honest, genuine person. there is no bullshit with her. she will tell you her honest thoughts with you

Cerise Nam

Age: 19

Hair: Berry Pink

Eyes: Petal Pink

Height: 5′2

Any other qualities:

Her mom came to Cradle from a far off place, and set up a food and pastry shop in the Central Quarter. Met her dad. Been there since

They live in Black Territory

She works for her parents and works with the pastries/desserts

loves making desserts from where her parents are from

She knows the Queen of Hearts VERY well since she makes the best mille feuille

Got a job from him actually, and works for the Red Army Headquarters kitchen

Loves to cook and bake!

a little naïve, but she’s a realist

youngest of FIVE kids!!

Morning girl

She may be petite but she can HEAFT heavy bags of flour/rice/dry goods

Met Zero by accident, and crashed into him while in town

love at first sight for her. how can you fault her?

she thinks he’s dreamy... and sweet...

does she flirt with him a little? Cerise can’t help it...

She and Zero have more of a hidden relationship because she fears her parents won’t approve

family stuff -- and she understands

RED ARMY OFFICER?? BLACK TERRITORY GIRL

look im cheesy

dont worry it works out

zero has to consider himself and his own personal stuff too so its a little difficult

Non Army Suitor(s)

Lucile Lidell

Age: 20

Hair: Straw blonde

Eyes: Aqua blue

Height: 5'1

Any other qualities:

She and her twin, Noelle, are the actual descendants of the original Alice

Inherited unusual hairpins that were from cradle

More of the 'modern woman stuck in the wrong time' kind of gal

Rebellious

Noelle and Luci: partners in crime

Short skirts galore

Does not give a singular shit of what MEN think of her

Wants to be taken seriously

Sometimes acts like an airhead in order to get attention. She's actually pretty somber as a person and prefers to be in the background as her sister takes the stage

loves her sister more than anyone else in the world

When she and Noelle fall into Cradle, they kind of hightail it and live in the woods with Harr and Loki

Sticks with Harr since he's literally the least threatening man ever

First man to feel safe around

"Excuse me he said NO pickles!"

Will cut a bitch for him, or use magic -- luci will hurt someone if they even think a bout looking at him wrong

Loves to make clothes

'I mended the holes in your cloak for you...' 'Bye Harr, be safe and have a good day.'

'Welcome home, I missed you.'

Puts up a tough girl front but she's just a big softie just like him

Doesn't realize she has a crush on him until shit starts to hit the fan

Actually very vanilla tbh but wants to spoil her bf

Ikemen Sengoku

Ito Tsunade

Age: 26

Hair: Straw Blonde

Eyes: Molten Gold

Height: 5′5

Any Other Qualities:

Graduate student at the same university as Sasuke

got stuck in the storm with him and Mai, and was tossed into the sengoku era

but she got separated from Mai

Met Shingen first much to her luck because uh.... lets say Tsunade is aint the sharpest tool in the shed

HEAD EMPTY

ZERO THOUGHTS

AIRHEAD

her aesthetic when she gets there?

TITS OUT

BIG HONKERS BIG TATA

HOT

her head might be empty but her tits are fat and they will protect you

Music nerd — loves traditional Japanese instruments, especially the difficult ones

Specializes in girl metal in modern day

eventually proves herself and plays some sick chords for the takeda/uesegi forces

she has entertained them for now

puts sake away like a monster

when she meets sasuke, she finds comfort in the fact he’s also lost with her, so she clings

asks him how to protect herself from shingen bc he’s horny lolol

genuinely thinks sasuke is hilarious

also does NOT realize she’s in love with him until the gravest of grave happens

her name was UNINTENTIONAL

Aibana Hinata

Age: Presents in his early-mid twenties

Hair: Black Midnight

Eyes: Haunting gold and vermillion

Height: 5'3

Any other qualities:

The concubine of Nobunaga

Please know I made him a long while before the other guy was dropped so I’m just gonna offer this little gay boy

Nobunaga bought him from a brothel after being so intrigued by him. Hina entertained him so well that he was set for life

A RIGHT SNARKY BASTARD

HE KNOWS HE’S PRETTY AND CAN GET AWAY WITH MURDER

Likes to challenge Nobunaga in battles of wits

board games

debate as pillow talk

swordplay if the lords will entertain him enough

Bisexual as hell

Gender? Don’t know her

He uses all pronouns

True pronoun: princess

ONLY EXISTS IN A UNIVERSE WHERE THERE IS MAI

Nobunaga/Mai/Hinata........

Unless.......

Smart, and educated

former geisha

he can read! and write!

LOVE FUCKING WITH HIDEYOSHI

if there is mai, he would bond with her like no one else

he would be her best friend

her confidant

genuinely adores her

even if she is pursuing nobunaga, he doesn’t resent her ... he just wishes that she would find room in her heart for him too

puts up a tough exterior

a softie.....

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thecringefailintherye · 4 years

Text

Oliver! (1968) Live (re) watch!

i have already seen oliver!, but not in ages, so i decided to watch it again, enjoy

very long post warning

fuckin hell these opening credits are LONG

i love the fact instrumentals of songs in the movie are playing

i have chocolate popcorn, apple lucozade and oliver! on, life is good

yes i know mark lester is oliver ive seen this like 20 times can i watch the film now

OH ABOUT FUCKING TIME

god is love

IS IT WORTH THE WAITING FOR IF WE LIVE TILL 84 ALL WE EVER GET IS GRUELL

i forgot how much of a banger food glorious food is

LOOK AT BABY MARK LESTER 🥺🥺🥺

ads in middle of movie be like

its harry secombe!

AMENNNN

oliver gets bullied the movie

look at this poor kid

MOREE????????

oh yes oliver i love this song

O L I V E R

poor kid

without any bannister yikes

the one who named him........O-L-IV-ERRR

oh were outside now

olivers just been kicked out oh shit

but on the plus side he has a cute ass hat on

BOY FOR SAY AL

look at oliver 🥺 he deserves better

SOWERBERRY MORE LIKE SHITTERBERRY

theres a severe lack of thats your funeral and i shall scream

noah claypole more like noah clayprick

“perhaps... if i had a tall hat?” BABEY

HES GOT HIS TALL HAT ON YES OLIVER

oliver said dab on them haters from your old gaff youre a funeral advisor now and theyre still homeless

DONT INSULT HIS MUM FUCK YOU NOAH

YES OLIVER KILL HIM

yes stuff the nine year old in a coffin and sit on it well done

"OLIVAH ??" "Yes im here: ((("

ITS MEAT!

oliver deserves better man

im gonna cry and were like 25 minutes in.

ik its not mark singing but whoever it is CAN SING WTF

i want to give him a hug

OH SHIT HES RUNNING AWAY

hes in the lettuce

LONDON YOU MADE IT !

yes oliver trains exist

DODGER!!!

whach you starin at aint ya ever seen a toff

the beak

look at lil jack wild

me more hintimate friends

cockney accent™️

the artful dodga

CONSIDERR YOURSSELF AT HOEME COSNIDER YOURSWLF OEN OF THE FAMILY !!!!!!!!!!

im sorry i love this song

look this scene is awesome, but it would be COMPLETE with charley oh wait he was demoted to extra and everything interesting abt him was given to dodger

he should have gotten the nobody tries to be ladeeda or uppity bit I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL

this cast is BIG

okay i am a Charger Enthusiast but do we all agree there is something oddly homosexual about oliver and dodger in this song

note how dodger is scared of the police FORESHADOWING

ive taken to this SO STRONGITSCLEARWEREGOINGTOGETALONG

how many extras is this ???? yall better be gettin paid

its dodga comin up

this set is sraight out of the book i love it

CHARLEY MATE IM SORRY THEY MADE YOU AN EXTRA

“oh not again” does dodger just always show up with random workhouse kids

ah yes fagin the character whos still a negative jewish stereotype

more and more big cast

THESE SAUSAGES ARE MOULDY! (am i going to freak out whenever charley does anything because i love him? yes)

stfu drink your gin

is this a laundry?? no fam

THE BEST FUCKING SONG IN THIS MUSICAL

IN THIS LIFE ONE THING COUNTS

sorry if i dont add to this until pick a pocket or two is done bc its a straight banger

this song is EVERYTHING

hard at work lol ok

did he make those himself??? no

couple a wipes

EMBROIDERED THEM??? no

petition for all oliver twist adaptations to refer to charley as master bates like the book and for him to have actual lines and not have his actor switched at least three times

i dont even now who charley is at this point because his actor is switched many a time im just gonna say purple blazer kid is charley

anyway charley bates supremacy

whos bill sikes??? NO

fuck bill all my homies hate bill

rum tum tum is a banger

go bed now

take your hat off in bed dodger

movie fagin has rights

fagin leaving where will he go

BET IS THAT YOU

FUCK OFF BILL NO ONE LIKES YOU

NANCY NANCY HES HERE !!!!!! bet deserves everything and more ily 💖

NANCYYYY!!!!!!

its a fine life more like its a banger

wheres all of bets lines gone

bet 🤝 charley (being demoted to extras)

its not funny anyore bet.. bet girl please sing youre the best fucking thing about this song

such a happy song about domestic abuse

THERE SHE IS THATS MY GIRL BET I FUCKING LOVE YOU

bullsye rights!

i hate how this movie made fagin more symathetic but he’s still a “greedy jew” stereotype

oliver?????

at this moment fagin knew he fucked up

nancy you deserve better than bill

oh hi dodger forgot you existed

and the rest of you except oliver

ah yes charley “sausages” bates i missed you

THESE FUCKING KIDS THEY ALL LOVE BET AND NANCY MY HEART

im a regular gent i am. no dodger you arent

why is “permit me to assist you across the road” so fucking funny

pov dodgers back on his bullshit so you have to pretend to be a horse and cart for him

not “sir artful” 😭😭😭

anyfink for youu

WHAT FISTICUFFS???!!!

i feel sorry for the child extras man theyve prob had to film this scene like ten times

THESE KIDS CAN SING

the boys dancing with eachother is too fucking wholesome i love this

again, movie fagin rights

weed riissk lifee and limmbb

you promised we could go see the angin!!!!!

ats on boys time were off

THIS IS MY FAVOURITE SONG

HOW COULD WE LET HOW COULD WE FORGET OUR DEAR OLD FAGIN WORRY!!

mate that aint single file did you not hear him

am i the only one who can hear london bridge is falling down in the back??

our pockets hold a watch of gold that chimes upon the hour!!! a wallet fat an old mans hat!!! the jewels from the tower!!!

WE KNOW THE NOSEY POLICEMEENNNN

dodger and charley (i am SURE charley is purple blazer kid even if havent seen this film in ages) are GETTING INTO THIS

oliver 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

movie fagin rights pt 27238227

DODGER OLIVER COME ON!!!!!!!!! alright dude chill

ARE YALL SEEING THIS SHIT, I WAS RIGHT, I TOLD YOU THAT THE LAD IN THE PURPLE BLAZER WHO SINGS “a wallet fat an old mans hat” WAS CHARLEY BATES AND GUESS WHAT HE FUCKING IS. I WAS RIGHT, PURPLE BLAZER KID IS CHARLEY YOU CAN LEAVE NOW

no dont were only an hour in

three kids on the back of the omnibus what will they do

dodger and charley said be gay do crimes

ah shit now look what youve gotten us into dodger

IT WASNT EVEN OLIVER IT WAS CHARLEY AND DODGER GO AFTER THEM

are dodger and charley straight up framing oliver for a crime they commited while also helping him escape

yes they are why are we surprised

i hate to break it to you dodger but hiding oliver in a meat sack doesnt work

OLIVERS ON THE ROOF????

charley and dodger got oliver into this mess and they are not going to get him out

WHY DIDNT YOU LOOK AFTER HIM????? right calm down fagin

how could i help it :((((

no bill!

stan nancy

“two other boys stole it” no shit

BROWNLOW !

run bitch run

right intermission time now

AND WE’RE BACK!

entr acte

who will buyyy

strawberry girl is carrying this

oliver owns my heart pt 278983728938728

this is a banger wtf

okay its done now right

right?????

UHH BILL???? DODGER???? BITCH WHY TF ARE YOU HERE

have bill fagin nancy and the boys been stalking oliver???

NO SHE WONT FAGIN!

shit.

fuck bill

this scene is far more sadder when you think of how the boys have just seen the only woman they see as a mother figure been hit to the flo or, im not crying, you are

as long as he needs me :(

FUCK YOU BILL

rose maylie is that you?!

look at lil oliver!!

BILL FUCK OFF

i hate bill

“look at his togs! he’s got books too!” charley and dodger are my emotional support kids

anyway have i mentioned i hate bill, bc i hate bill.

I REALLY REALLY HATE BILL

even fagin aka the guy whos keeping these kids as pickpockets has more morals than bill

WE STAY CALM!!

no bill i havent heard a dying chicken

act one was just childish antics now we have THIS

fuck bill

YOURE TELLING ME THE BOYS WATCHED THAT????

jack wild is a banging actor. he genuinely looks terrified 🥺

this film..

a mans got a heart hasnt he?? yes you do!!!

a full song dedicated to movie fagin rights?? did i ghostwrite this?? probably

banger

ithinkidbetterthinkitoutagain!

villains theives and nine year olds

MR BUMBLE?????!!!!!!!!!!

fuck bill pt72898376728909878199

bill youre traumatising him

cmon nance do something!!

also completely forgot abt this but uh does monks exist in this i forgot bc we have had no mentions of him yet

nancy tell him who bill is!!!

bullseye deserves better

uhm what is going on

bill sikes more like bill yikes

oliver what are you doing

BILL TERRIFIES ME

FUCK

omg oom pah pah????

leave oliver alone bill hes like nine

oh banger

OOM PAH PAH THATS HOW IT GOES!!!!!!!!!

just asking are nancy and bet lesbians bc they look it

COULD IT BE OOM PAH PAHHHHHH

god i love this song

IT SHOOOOOWSSSSSS

its the same oom pah pah

“She was from the country but now shes up a gumtree she let a fella feed her then lead her a long” foreshadowiinnggg

OOM PAH PAH! OOM PAH PAH! OOM PAH PAH!

nancy is so fucking smart

getting the whole pub singing and dancing to smuggle out oliver? clever

fuck

bill.. no.. bill.. bill????

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKC

BILL GET OFF HER

NANCY NO

HE STRAIGHT UP COMMIT MURDER AGAINST THE NICEST CHARACTER

BROWNLOW DO YOU NOT HEAR NOTHING

nancy deserved a better death than to be killed by bill fuck bill

EVEN BULLSEYE HATES YOU BILL

ARE THEY ACCUSING BULLSEYE OF MURDER

FUCK YOU BILL

movie fagin rights + fuck bill combo?

youre telling me fagin had an ESCAPE ROUTE??? AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HOUSE THING??? THE WHOLE TIME???

BILL DONT KILL THE CHILD

BILL

fuck, well. #

“WHAT DO I DO!?” “LIVE UP TO YOUR NAME, DODGE ABOUT”

ten quid says dodgers been caught

oh no all fagins shit is gone

BILL DONT KILL THE CHILD PT 2

FUCK YOU BILL

GOD I HATE HIM

OLIVER MATE ARE YOU OK

never have i been so happy to see a character die

rest in shit bill

hi dodger thought you got caught n went to australia

god, this film is so fucking good.

reviewing the situation 2.0 goes hard

MOVIE. FAGIN. RIGHTS!

FAGIN YOU CAN BE A GOOD MAN YOU KNOW YOU CAN

DODGER??????????

IM TOTALLY NOT CRYING RN

FAGIN NO DONT TAKE IT

FUCKING PLOTTWIST

IT MADE IT LOOK LIKE FAGIN WAS GONNA GIVE THE WALLET BACK TO DODGER BUT NO

once the villain you’re the villain to the end

i completely forgot abt this scene since i’ve been reading the oliver twist book and in that dodger gets arrested and fagin gets hanged but here they get away?

god this is bittersweet

I THINK WE’D OUGHT TO THINK IT OUT AGAIN!!!!!

thats where the film should have ended, i get olivers the main character but it ending on dodger and fagin walking out into the sunset is such a pleasing ending man

oliver gets his happy ending abt time

YES CONSIDER YOURSELF AND BE BACK SOON (THE BIGGEST BANGERS IN THE FILM) CREDITS SONGS!!

well.. that was a journey and half

#oliver!#oliver twist #oliver #oliver! 1968 #oliver 1968 #charlie’s comfort movies #oliver twist 1968 #oliver! the musical #oliver the musical #musicals #1960s #1960s movies #60s #mark lester #jack wild #oliver reed #ron moody #shani wallis #and everyone else in the huge ass cast

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nbapprentice · 4 years

Note

You said a while back that while Supergiant games (Bastion, Transistor, Hades) was mostly okay, you had some words about them. I was curious as to what those words were, since Hades' full release is soon.

okay. alright. ive been playing hades lately so i definitely want to give my two cents (or dollars by the size this is gonna get). but let’s go Step by Step

the good: i want to throw a whole Endorsement over supergiant games with the art direction and its characters, which is what keeps me coming back again and again, and what i can assume is that most people are attracted to.

gameplaywise, they have a Format they stick to which has become their staple, not to their detriment but to their advantage, like... gameplay tropes, so to speak, that they stick to (such as the addition of special conditions that give a disadvantage in exchange for more long-term rewards)

i fucking adore that they take one concept per game, go for it, and when they’re done they are Done; they don’t bother with sequels, they don’t want to run things to the ground and i fucking respect that. They have their themes, and they stick to them (to various degrees of success).

that said, like every piece of media, they are not perfect and this has to be analysed and spoken about

CONTENT WARNINGS: genocide and ethnic cleansing, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, suicide, and mentions of incest, and a general Spoilers warning

bastion: touches on ethnic cleansing, and not in a way i’d say is satisfactory. our narrator and one of our Sympathetic characters is one of the men who worked on a world-ending weapon meant to use against the Ura (a group of people coded as East Asian) which after a bit of googling is literally called “the final solution” if there was ever a war between the Ura and the Cael (who feel like rly tan white people to me). jesus fucking CHRIST.

we also meet more Ura other than our two named characters and we have to kill most of them. so that fucking blows.

the game tries for “being a genocidal monster will get you fucked up and blown up” which duh, but i feel we shouldn’t have had a person responsible for war crimes be one of our friends no matter how bad he feels about the whole thing, or the people victim of war crimes become villains in the latter half of the game. zia’s father could’ve taken ruck’s role ez pz.

transistor: the weakest of their games, imo; the lore and writing are fairly flimsy and i did not come out feeling Satisfied, especially because it had this rly good build-up that did not pay off. not to mention... their villains? 3/4 were gay people. lol. two married guys (not even explicit, you only realize by their shared last names) and the ps*cho lesbian trope (iirc she wanted to kill the protagonist’s lover or something). the female protagonist also ends up killing herself to live forever in a digital paradise with her dead lover. it’s. god.

very Aesthetic, GORGEOUS music, interesting gameplay; had potential, i do not feel like it lived up to it at least as far as the story goes.

pyre: now this one. this one’s BEEFY. where transistor felt flimsy, pyre is rich; lots to sink your teeth into, rich in lore and loveable characters, again w the beautiful music, themes of cooperation and togetherness. my favorite of the cast is volfred sandalwood, the only Black (or, well, Black-coded) revolutionary i’ve ever seen portrayed with this amount of sympathy.

onto the bad: they literally have a Class of character named “Savage”; there’s the “mystical mentally ill person” trope; there is an overwhelming amount of explicit m/f pairs (one of them being. a romance that formed in a single day and then both of the characters were somehow willing to risk it all for each other? PLEASE) while the only hints of gayness are... hints. especially when Jodariel (another of my favs) is teased to have feelings for the player regardless of gender then only gets an ending with a male character with whom she has nothing in common 🙃

hades: and now. this one. music: gorgeous. character designs: spectacular (aphrodite is straight up naked but it’s so... natural and casual, it doesn’t feel sexualized at all). voice acting amazing. character interactions charming and endearing. as a greek mythology nerd, it was nice to see them go for the obscure shit like Zagreus at all, NOT portray Persephone and Hades as a loving couple, AND portrayed the gods as the bunch of petty assholes (some more benevolent than others) that they are. imo they’re too generous with their portrayal of achilles but i’ll allow it.

and finally... it seems all those criticisms about having all the gay characters hidden in the shadows paid off, cuz we got (aside of patroclus and achilles) a bisexual polyamorous protag. Holy Shit! and it’s not even playersexual, romance whomever you want shit without the routes recognizing each other: he explicitly talks about how he’s thinking abt them both (though it’s like “yeah usually mortals take one lover but gods love many huh” polyamory is a human thing too bro!!!!!)

and this is where it all goes, well, at least vaguely downhill lol. ok so the incest warning i gave up there? well. it’s not... outright incestuous. but it has some ugly implications. i want to emphasize: the characters never refer to each other as siblings, nor do they treat each other as such (thanatos, in fact, only recognizes hypnos as his brother, and megaera only sees the other furies as her sisters), but they were all raised by the same woman, Nyx... zagreus and thanatos even grew up together (im assuming megaera didnt meet zagreus until he was fully grown).

this is complicated even worse by the fact that they tried to trick zagreus into believing Nyx was his mother. he realized pretty early on this was not true but like... adoptive mothers, anyone? granted i can believe that bc of the attempt at deception that probably ruptured any attempt at actual familial closeness, and it’s not like hypnos and thanatos saw zagreus as their brother at any point, so they were p much aware of the truth too. with the fact that thanatos even looks like goth miles edgeworth (im not kidding you can google him up right now its literally edgeworth in a cowl) i rly feel they were aiming for Childhood Friend Anime Rival Man than the “surprise kiss bc ur not actually related <3″ shit. zagreus never once refers to nyx as his mother in-game, and also refers to thanatos and hypnos as her sons, never his brothers.

so yeah, like. if one’s feeling generous, zagreus and thanatos are more of a “my father is emotionally closed off and neglects me so my best friend’s mother basically raised me” kind of situation... just pulled off in, perhaps, the worst way possible (why didnt they just say Zagreus was told Hekate was his mom, that’s such an easy fix? or that he was born of nobody other than Hades??? [gestures at athena])

but then, the gods. aaaaaaaahhhhahahahh the gods. demeter shows up! and she calls zeus, hades and poseidon... her foster-brothers. which somehow would make the persephone thing less fucking awful, apparently. they really. really really did not need to do that. she could’ve just said “my fellow gods” or whatever. or my “god-brothers” or something, to pretend it was just a weird god alliance thing??? i dont know but implying that foster family isn’t family is just... bro, the dynamics still exist.

Don’t Like That.

i even contacted supergiant games over this. they reassured me they were even trying to avoid the incest of the original myths bc they didn’t want to mess with such a heavy theme. i believe them... but i really think they didn’t think this through. compared to something like fire emblem fates this is nearly benign, but the implications don’t look good :/

tl;dr of the tl;drs: i admire their artistic philosophy and the heavy emphasis on fresh gameplay, characters and their relationships; i appreciate that it seems that they listen to criticism?; i don’t appreciate that they didn’t think to at LEAST talk to adoptees when making a game about family.

#Anonymous #asks #mod nba #supergiant #supergiant games #bastion #transistor #hades #pyre

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motherfated · 4 years

Text

AREUM’S ROUTE / BAD ENDS / GOOD ENDS / AFTER ENDING STUFF. this is a super long post, please don’t feel like you gotta read it, i just wanted to write it.

HOW TO EARN AREUM HEARTS:

Complimenting Mei-Shin or just asking about her daughter’s wellbeing in general with usually get you to earn a heart along with telling areum you’ve eaten, show interest in her baking & show concern for the other members once everything starts to go downhill.

HOW TO GET AREUM’S HEART BREAKS:

if mc thinks of only herself openly in chatlogs, is rude towards any of the members, speaking negatively about areum’s comfort in alcohol, makes any rude/hurtful comment towards rika. ( areum had high respect towards rika! )

COMMON ROUTE.

areum is actually pretty skeptical of MC, she’s closed off and very quiet, only making small inputs of her opinion in the prologue. she’s distant to mc and doesn’t tend to stay long in chatrooms after the prologue. areum had high respect towards rika and what she did to get guests to the party so of course areum is going to be standoffish and distant when a stranger comes in. in the prologue, areum openly argues with v’s decision to let MC stay and do rika’s work. of course, not meaning to give any disrespect towards MC, but areum is a single mother to a one-year-old, she can’t help but be a nervous wreck when some stranger comes into the messenger, a place where she feels safest. she’s not happy and only sends a “Fine.” before leaving the chatroom at the end of it.

DAYS 5 & 6

after all the chatrooms and calls, you got areum’s route she most likely part of the DEEPER STORY part of mystic messenger! she’s slowly opening up more to you as the chatrooms go by and get to know you. she even apologizes for how cruel she must have been in the beginning, of course super embarrassed and timid in reaching out to MC. her hearts are a lot easier to earn, and almost like zen hands out hourglasses, areum hands out hearts depending on if you do what’s said above. she really is the sugar momma for hearts.

throughout these two days, areum is a lot friendlier after apologizing for her behavior when she first met MC, she even suggests for them to bake together after the party! asking MC what her favorite sweets are & makes promises to bake them for her! if MC calls areum, sometimes she’ll let MC talk with Mei-Shin over the phone! she really growing wowie. she even mentions how she’ll casually drink from time to time which is actually hinting towards her severe addiction to it.

DAY 7.

when the bodyguards are sent out / the bomb is revealed, areum is super active in the messenger, continuously asking if MC is okay, desperately wanting to help her out in some way but obviously, she can’t actually do anything. areum openly expresses her concerns and unease towards her own bodyguards, making comments on how she feels like a bigger target with a group of people in suits following her, escorting her to places. she even starts to speak about her parents and how they disowned her for getting pregnant before marriage, etc to mc (and basically the rfa bc the messenger.) and revealing her damaged relationship with them and her younger brother. and even though she’s angry with her parents, she desperately wants to fix things... but just doesn’t know how and is too stubborn to let go of the fact they shunned her and their only grandchild...

DAYS 8 & 9.

IN THE CHATROOM AT 3:40 AM areum, drunkenly, reveals the past about her abusive ex-boyfriend to MC and basically the whole RFA when in a chatroom with MC. speaking of the verbal/psychological, and sometimes physical abuse that happened, how she felt so useless then & when rika’s suicide happened, and now, with MC in danger, she feels like she’s back in that mindset. she can’t help but worry constantly about MC, drunkenly expressing how her heart can’t take the worry, that it aches too much to the point she can’t focus. Areum reveals that alcohol has helped her feel better in the means of forgetting the ‘ache’ in her chest every time she thinks of her ex-boyfriend, rika’s suicide, MC’s safety... Areum brings up that her baby daddy ran into her today, which was also the second reason why she decided to drink so heavily.

As the days continue, it’s clear Areum is sinking into a deeper depression and deeper into her addiction as she shows more typos, becomes more sentimental, or if she calls MC her words are slow & slurred. News gets out that Myung is filing for custody over mei-shin and Areum can’t stop the panic attacks she gets in the story branch that’s unlocked. It’s revealed how unstable areum's mental state is, holding her daughter and crying uncontrollably, slurring apologies for everything to ghostly ears.

BAD END # 1 BRANCH DAY 8.

if MC were to take Areum’s brother’s side with taking mei-shin and make playful comments instead of being serious and constructive in ways to support the woman and offer help, Areum suddenly goes radio silent, rarely logging into the messenger. The last time she does log in is at night when no one else is logged in, being completely wasted, she sends a picture of the stars from her rooftop, making comments on how they sparkle and how beautiful they are before she logs out of the chatroom. When Areum gets up to go inside, she loses her balance and ultimately slips, falling off the 10 story building, too drunk to catch herself and ultimately ending in her death.

BAD END # 2 BRANCH DAY 9 - 10.

Myung wins full custody of mei-shin and that’s the snapping point for areum. she’s in a dark place mentally and can’t find a way out, her depression becomes more apparent and obvious down this branch as she makes comments in chatrooms on how empty everything seems, she doesn’t post pictures of home-made sweets like she used to, you’ll see her name in the chatroom but she won’t speak unless spoken to, and even then her answers are short and cryptic. eventually, she doesn’t login anymore, doesn’t go to work, doesn’t eat. she’s empty, SHE’S LOST. on day 10, a mint eye believer comes knocking, areum on auto-pilot opens the door, she’s then told of paradise and how it’s she is so close to being welcomed into it, of course advertising their organization and with areum in her robotic / auto-pilot state, she starts to believe them. in depressive thoughts believing that possibly her daughter would be waiting in paradise for her.

after hours of not logging on, areum finally does, just to send ‘Please do not worry. I’m going to be fine now, everything will be fine now.’ before logging out with no further explanation, either destroying or leaving her phone in her apartment, areum disappears, allegedly joining mint eye. Her brother puts up Missing Person posters for Areum at local convent stores, park billboards, etc. But she has just vanished.

DAYS 10 - 11. GOOD ENDING.

If MC stays supportive but also realistic with areum in her battle with her addiction, she’ll start to see reason, and see that if she doesn’t clean up her act, her daughter will be taken away from her. she finally agrees to seek out help from local AA meetings, tossing out a bottle one day every other week, of course, baby steps. she will fall and struggle sometimes but with this new determination thanks to MC’s support and somewhat wake up call, she refuses to stay down. when it’s the day of the party, areum doesn’t log into the morning chatroom. but at the party, areum has mei-shin in her arms, standing at the mic, thanking all the guests for attending, speaking of the rfa and their purpose before she switches the topic to her own battle and how she wouldn’t be standing there to greet them all if it wasn’t for one special woman, lololol it’s mc surprise. areum makes a speech of how mc has changed her life for the better and how she wants to continue to work on herself for not only her daughter, but for MC and the rfa members, and ofc u know this girl is gonna look at MC and do a cheesy thing like “if you’re by my side, i know i can defeat my demons... i love you, mc... thank you for being the light at the end of the tunnel for me...” BEFORE COMIN DOWN WITH HER DAUGHTER AND SMOOCHINTF OUTTA MC SDKKJSDKJFD

AFTER ENDING.

o ha ha. EVERYTHING’S GREAT BRUH. areum is 4 years sober now, she has her own bakery but also teaches young children how to play the violin, and u know areum is big gay for mc. even putting MC’s name on the bakery’s name along with hers, and mei-shin is happy with her two moms don't even @ me bro. areum’s hair is longer, usually tied back, and she’s so happy, you can see the fucking SUNSHINE RADIATING OFF OF HER BRO. she bakes mc cute cupcakes almost every weekend and is a lot more open with her past to all her friends now. she even fixed her broken relationship with her parents and younger brother, having them involved in her life & mei-shin’s. there’s family photos hanging up in the bakery and everyONE IS JUST SO HAPPYYYY.

#* DEPRESSION.#* ALCOHOLISM.#* MENTION OF SUICIDE.#* HEADCANONS. - let's add it to the list !#* ABOUT. - will you remember me when you close your eyes...?#d....do i have two about tags.... U H OH #I DOO NOOO DKJFDKHKJFD #i cannot tell you how many times i've thought about areum's route.#that's why there's so much jhsdhkdfkj #* DOMESTIC ABUSE MENTION.#* MANIPULATION MENTION.#* LONG ASS POST.

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literaetures · 5 years

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i sobbed my heart out during avengers: endgame so here are my fresh thoughts straight from seeing it (overall: it made my nerdy heart soar)

this entire franchise has been with me through everything. i read the comics, i watched all the movies, i grew up with this piece and it came such an important moment in my life that i felt amazing to see all of it laid out on screen. it felt like a true labor of love that they created and yes there were odd and questionable choices and some plot holes and things you can criticized but honestly? they brought back so many scenes and lines from all of those iconic movies over the years. they brought back all of the literal moments that made me fall in love with this whole universe and sitting in that theater filled with the culmination of all of that in a span of a three hour movie with very good pacing for the things that they did was astounding and entirely unforgettable

i sobbed so hard at the end that i couldn’t speak until the character credits ended

captain america means the absolute world to me and to see him finally get the story and attention that he deserved? it felt so right and so good and it felt like justice for his character after everything that happened post-ca:tws

he and peggy finally got that dance! he got a life! he got the life that was frozen and taken away from him and he got to Live! and Thrive!

the music!!! as they danced!!!

sam taking the shield!!! that’s what i’m talking about!!!

bucky Knowing when steve went back and still hardened from his time as the winter soldier and knowing that it had to be sam to talk to steve and take on the mantle (i wish we got more bucky and more of that beautiful relationship that was established because!! um!! hello!! how could you leave it like that???) but i understand with the timing and pacing and with needing to give sam the spotlight and taking up the shield (AS HE RIGHTFULLY DESERVES) it had to be done (but i’m going to be bitter about it)

that one salt grain of gay? annoying that it was a salt grain, but did i still freak out and give a “hell yeah” in the theater? absolutely

thor seceding the throne and valkyrie being the “king of asgard”??? my longest yeah boy ever

“proof that tony stark had a heart” ENDGAME MORE LIKE END ME

tony getting to have that final conversation with his father after years of regret and bitter resentment and it being the best closure for him after his big sacrifice that was beautiful

someone must have called it already but “i love you 3000″ is the mcu “always” (but with way better context and actually worthy of being the ‘it’ phrase)

time-traveling was the p e r f e c t plot device to bring back all of those nostalgic lines and scenes and moments to b

“that’s america’s ass!”, “that is america’s ass” !!! this entire running joke? iconic and Everything

honestly there were so many good lines and great jokes in here

thor’s viking transformation before the final battle? my longest yeah boy ever part 2

STEVE USING MJOLNIR!!! STEVE IS WORTHY!!! i genuinely jumped out of my seat and started shaking my friend sitting next to me!!!

i loved the role reversal of gamora and nebula where nebula is able to work from a clearer square one and gamora a different one which allows them to achieve their sisterly bond from a different route but not a less valid one. it’ allows them the time and space to get to know each other and learn about each other and see each other from a new perspective in order to meet that same end goal of sisterhood and i love it

peter has a whole hoard of moms now!!!

pepper and tony fighting back to back!!! hell yeah!

pepper potts in general!!

“howard potts” i screamed!

peggy still having steve’s picture on her desk in the 70s + that whole scene of steve looking through the window but knowing he could never interact :(

still! having! the compass!

the scene where the whole team jumps into space for the first time and you see the entirety of space in steve’s eyes? big same

seeing the entire wakandan army ready to fight that good fight!!!

wanda and her ICONIC line and destroying thanos + carol’s amazing haircut and WRECKING the ship!!! we stan

i love that we saw how much time had passed and how it really did feel like a journey. this was a journey and we lost people but there’s still a good fight and we have to see our stories through

also we are just going to ignore nat’s death scene (bc like. come on. are you kidding me.) and most of thor throughout the movie (bc come on. are you kidding me.)

this series. this felt like a satisfying “ending”-- or the most satisfying ending that something of this magnitude could have. it felt like it did justice to all of my years of love and care for this series and these characters. getting chills from seeing all of them come back from those portals “on [cap’s] left” and fighting that good fight one last time. seeing their journey through the years. seeing everyone back on screen if only for a moment. hearing that iconic theme music. seeing so many character arcs get a good ending (and ofc many just setting up for future shows and movies) it was beautiful and i think it was due to the time travel. that really felt like i walked through those 10 years and enjoyed every moment of it and i’m really glad i got to experience that.

thank you. i don’t know who i should thank, but thank you for all of the years and all of the stories and all of the memories. i could do it all day-- all over again

#personal #avengers spoilers #endgame spoilers #i'm a Sap with so many emotions #doesn't fit this blog i know but it means a lot to me #so here it is

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thegeminisage · 6 years

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What other characters (of DBH) you think people should appreciate more and why? I love read your opinions❤

omg anon pls thats so sweet

(if anybody wasn’t here for the last ask the first character was north & there’s a follow-up here)

alright just a “””quick””” (lol as if) little thing for each one bc it’s getting late & you’ve already been waiting on this for like an hour at the time i started typing. it’s probably gonna be long as fuck but the tl;dr is at the bottom

LUTHER:

they did luther so dirty…it was like david cage was playing “racist trope bingo” for his entire debut chapter…and then on top of that all he cares about is kara & alice, these two near-strangers, and it’s real easy to get him killed for them. in fact, in an ending where kara sacrifices herself at the border, she tells alice that luther will get her across the border, and after that, rose will take care of her. UM WHAT? don’t call ur PSN trophy “happy family” and then try to erase luther like that!! what does luther want? what are his hopes and dreams, his fears? nobody ever bothers to ask bc they’re too busy making ralph alice’s dad. and it’s not that i don’t like ralph - i do! but he threatened alice with a knife TWICE. after her previous dad’s bullshit, that’s the last thing she needs!!

here’s my take on luther: he says that what his life was before kara & alice doesn’t matter, and that’s because david cage doesn’t care about him. but imagine instead that luther remembers what he did (was forced to do) before he broke his programming. our luther is sweet and gentle and good, but zlatko forced him to use his strength as a weapon for LITERALLY tearing people apart. don’t you think luther regrets that? don’t you think he wishes he could take it back? perhaps his even temper and loving heart is a RESULT of those early memories: he’s seen the worst sides of anger and callousness, he’s had to be complicit in it. my feeling is that he never ever wants to be complicit in something like that again…it feels weird when he picks up a gun in the game because i think he would be even more of a staunch pacifist than josh?? i feel like even when luther does get annoyed or angry he’s so afraid of the harm he’s capable of doing he doesn’t even really let himself feel it And That’s Sad. he should be able to get annoyed at like a broken coffee maker or some shit without illogically worrying it will result in someone’s maiming or death?? maybe he is So Ready to throw himself on a grenade for kara and alice because yes, he does love them, but also he feels he has to redeem himself somehow, yk? he has to be willing to do absolutely WHATEVER it takes to be Good

they didn’t give luther any depth…he never got to speak to zlatko’s captives and apologize, he never got to express a feeling about kara potentially burning down the whole fucking nightmare house (with living androids inside, i might add) - would he have wished to save those androids? would he be glad their suffering was over? would he have motherfucking hearts in his eyes for kara single-handedly destroying his own personal hell? he deviated for alice, it was alice that made him say “ok, doing this to kids is where i literally can’t take it anymore” - don’t you think he’d be so retroactively terrified of all the terrible things that could have happened to her?

like i truly don’t get why people make ralph alice’s dad when luther loves her so fucking much he’d bring her the moon if she asked - he’s the only person who loves her just as selflessly and unconditionally as kara does. she accepted him and wanted him to say goodnight their very first night together…as soon as he resisted his programming, she stopped being afraid of him, and it must be so amazing for him to finally have people around who don’t either fear him or try to control him…whether u ship him with kara or not (i do, everyone should - it’s one thing to HC kara as gay but i side-eye people who don’t wanna ship luther with anybody) you know he’s gotta cherish them so much

AMANDA:

ok look i know amanda is the antag to connor’s story but honestly she’s metal as FUCK. i was so fucking floored to not only learn the garden isn’t a garden but that amanda isn’t amanda…my first playthrough i was letting connor be just a lil bit deviant but whenever amanda would ask about it i would panic and lie…now i know it doesnt matter what you can say and you can be blatantly deviant right in front of her and she’s like ok Whatever BUT i was deeply shook to realize all my lying to her all along hadn’t meant a thing…she did in fact KNOW i was lying because she wasn’t real, she was living in connor’s brain and she could see all that shit he was doing

and also?? like, imagine you were made out of a dead person’s face and voice. we don’t know if amanda has a body, we don’t know if kamski actually liked what he created or thought it was creepy (like imagine if he and amanda were close and then she died…it’d be weird to see her like that), we don’t know if amanda CAN deviate like the androids…she’s living this half life potentially stuck in some garden and just doing what her program says like everybody else. but even though machines get all the sympathy in this game i very rarely ever see people stop and go “dude, is she ok…is someone controlling her can we help her” - amanda’s a lot like connor, she’s hunting down deviants but she’s not a human and she’s not alive yet so who’s pulling her strings?? can they be cut???

JOSH:

i’ll be honest i haven’t figured out what Angle i like best for josh the way i’ve got one for luther and north but he has such strong convictions i feel like they would have to stem from some past experience. everybody’s always arguing about simon vs north that nobody stops to give josh the attention he deserves…he’s part of the fantastic 4 too!! who is josh? what does he want? what is he afraid of? does he refuse to be violent for reasons like luther - did he hurt someone, deliberately or accidentally? (to a lesser extent, a pacifist markus who shoved leo can also follow this pattern - he gave into violence and thought he’d killed carl’s son, so he swore to do no more violence after that.) or: did he see someone else get hurt/get hurt himself? i know the backstory they give him in the gallery but tbh it’s very similar and not stand-out from most of the rest of the stuff we hear…

like, what made josh deviate? we literally never find out. i think it would be interesting tho if instead of just being the victim of violence, he was ordered to DO violence, and refused - maybe that’s why he got hurt. but i think his relationship WITH violence could be a complex thing for anyone who wanted to tackle it. we know why north prefers violence, why does josh detest it? (similarly, why does simon prefer safety over either approach? - but fandom gives him a lot of love and attention and tries to explain this, and nobody tries to explain it for josh.)

KARA & ALICE:

like…to a small extent…i know they’re main characters but i could write an essay just on why they didn’t get a fair shake either - constant victims of assault, little depth, kara got to choose what happened to her but not what kind of person she was gonna be like markus & connor, significantly less playtime than markus & connor, had NO influence on the big macro plot like markus & connor, i could go on…but definitely the worst for me is that everything about kara that made us love her (from the short), was ERASED - david took her memories and never made the slightest move towards kara wanting them back, or her being able to get them back. she’s six years old and he took all of her history from her, all of her agency!! i feel like translated into fic they can both become very flat - all kara cares about is protecting alice, and alice is constantly scared or hurt or needing to be taken care of, like a baby doll. granted that’s not actually far from the game’s canon, but it could have been MORE. kara had six entire years of experiences before she met alice - what makes alice special? who is kara without alice?

i really wish we had been able to take a personality route with kara - her main superpower seems to be empathy and getting people on her side (ralph, jerrys, zlatko’s creatures), but she can also wave around a gun at anybody who gets near her baby. it would have been really interesting to explore two sides of that - to have a kara who is 1000% Done and ready for wholesale murder if it means surviving vs having a kara who can bring out the best in anyone, even if they seem like bad people at first. (imagine the influence you could have over alice - she would learn to be wary of strangers or be warm to them.) but instead the narrative is wishy-washy; you can’t teach alice anything, and in fact she serves as kara’s moral compass instead of the other way around - you wind up doing things like comforting the guy who broke kara multiple times and waving a gun at ralph (who like, shouldn’t have done that, but also isn’t 100% in control of his own facualities all the time). it would have been really interesting to see kara be able to influence her own fate more as well - the camp sections are shitty and should not exist but like maybe a kara who had spent the whole game yelling at everyone with a gun would have the ability unlocked to then rally the people inside, and who cared what connor and markus were doing, you know?

but david doesn’t know how to write women so that’s not what we got - kara carried that entire franchise into reality and he totally screwed her over!!

TL;DR

luther was forced to do terrible things and that could explain a lot of his behavior if anybody cared, nobody ever wonders if amanda is being forced to obey programming like the rest of the machines or if she’s ok, josh’s relationship with violence could be very complex and we don’t know his motivation for refusing to participate in it the way we know north’s for preferring it, and david can’t write women so he shafted kara so fucking bad and it is an honest to god shame

(dbh meta tag)

#dbh #dbh luther #dbh amanda #dbh kara #dbh josh #dbh alice #detroit become human #long post #liz answers asks #anonymous #sorry that took so long!! i had more feelings than i thought #THANK U FOR ASKING made my night #dbh meta #liz's dbh stuff #liz's meta

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oscopelabs · 6 years

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Elvis, Truelove and the Stolen Boy: The Tragic Machismo of Nick Cassavetes’ ‘Alpha Dog’ by Amy Nicholson

[Last year, Musings paid homage to Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films You’ve Never Seen, a review anthology from the National Society of Film Critics that championed studio orphans from the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the days before the Internet, young cinephiles like myself relied on reference books and anthologies to lead us to films we might not have discovered otherwise. Released in 1990, Produced and Abandoned was a foundational piece of work, introducing me to such wonders as Cutter’s Way, Lost in America, High Tide, Choose Me, Housekeeping, and Fat City. (You can find the full list of entries here.) Our first round of Produced and Abandoned essays included Angelica Jade Bastién on By the Sea, Mike D’Angelo on The Counselor, Judy Berman on Velvet Goldmine, and Keith Phipps on O.C. and Stiggs. Today, Musings concludes our month-long round of essays about tarnished gems, in the hope they’ll get a second look. Or, more likely, a first. —Scott Tobias, editor.]

A decade before the presidency that elevated insults like “betacuck” and “soyboy” into political discourse, Nick Cassavetes made Alpha Dog, a cautionary tragedy about masculinity that audiences ignored. Time for a reappraisal. Alpha Dog is about a real murder. Over a three-day weekend in August of 2000, 15-year-old Zach Mazursky—in reality, named Nicholas Markowitz—is kidnapped and killed by the posse of 20-year-old San Fernando Valley drug dealer Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch) with a grudge against Zach’s older brother. No one thought the boy would die, not his main babysitter Frankie (Justin Timberlake), not the girls invited to party with “Stolen Boy,” and not even the boy himself, played with naive perfection by Anton Yelchin, who played video games and pounded beers assuming that his new captor-friends would eventually take him home.

Cassavetes’ daughter went to the same high school as Nicholas Markowitz. The murderers were neighborhood kids and he wanted to understand how fortunate sons with their whole lives ahead of them wound up in prison. The trigger man, Ryan Hoyt—“Elvis” in the film—had never even gotten a speeding ticket. Prosecutor Ron Zonen hoped the publicity around Alpha Dog would help the public spot the real-life Johnny, named Jesse James Hollywood, who was still on the lam despite being one of America’s Most Wanted. So the lawyers gave Cassavetes access to everything: crime scene photos, trial transcripts, psychological profiles, police reports, and their permission to contact the criminals and their parents. Cassavetes even took his actors to meet their counterparts, driving Justin Timberlake to a maximum security prison to get the vibe of the actual Frankie, and introducing Sharon Stone to Nicholas Markowitz’s mother, a broken woman who attempted suicide a dozen times in the years after her son's death.

Alpha Dog, pronounced Cassavetes, was “95 percent accurate.” Which was part of why it got buried, thanks to Jesse James Hollywood’s arrest just weeks after the film wrapped. Cassavetes hastily wrote a new ending to the movie, but his problems were just beginning. Hollywood’s lawyers insisted Alpha Dog would prevent their client from getting a fair trial, and used the threat of a mistrial to force Zonen off the case. “I don't know what Zonen was thinking, handing over the files,” gloated Hollywood’s defense team. “It was stupid.”

The publicity, and the delays, dragged out the pain for Markowitz’s family, especially when they heard Cassavetes had paid Hollywood’s father an, er, consulting fee. “Where is the justice in that?” asked the victim's brother. “This just goes on and on, and I’m spending my whole life in a courtroom.”

The film, too, was pushed back a year from its Sundance premiere. Despite casting a visionary young ensemble—Alpha Dog was my own introduction to Yelchin, Ben Foster, Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried, Amber Heard, and the realization that Timberlake, that kid from N*SYNC, could actually act—no one noticed when it slid into theaters in January of 2007. It wasn’t just the bad press. It was that audiences couldn’t get past that Cassavetes’ last film was The Notebook. No way could the guy behind the biggest romantic weepy of a generation make something raw and cool.

But he had. Alpha Dog is a stunning movie about machismo and fate, two tag-team traits that destroy lives. Think Oedipus convincing himself he can outwit the oracle of Delphi. But Sophocles’ Oedipus telegraphs its intentions, elbowing the audience to see the end at the beginning. Greeks sitting down in 405 BC knew they were watching a tale that came full circle. Every step Oedipus takes away from his patricidal destiny just moves him closer to it.

If you map Alpha Dog’s script, instead of a loop, it looks like a horizontal line that plummets off a cliff. For most of its running time, Alpha Dog could pass for a coming-of-age flick where a sheltered kid with an over-protective mom (Sharon Stone) taps into his own self-confidence, right up until the scene where he tumbles into his own grave. Audiences who’d missed the news articles about the case weren’t clued into the climax. Cassavetes doesn’t offer any hints or flash-forwards, not even an ominous “based-on-a-true-story.” (The film might have been more successful if he had.) Instead, he lulls you into joining the kegger, watching Zach crack open beer after beer as though he expects to live forever. “There’s a movie sensibility that the film doesn’t conform to,” said Cassavetes. “You don’t watch this film. You endure it.”

As Zach, his eyes red-rimmed from bong rips, not tears, is shuttled between party dens and wealthy homes, he’s given several chances to escape. He’s even revealed to be a Tae Kwan Do blackbelt who can jokingly flip his captor-buddy Frankie (Justin Timberlake) into a bathtub. But Zach stays put—he doesn’t want to get his big brother Jake (Ben Foster) in more trouble, not realizing that Johnny is too busy making nervous phone calls to his lawyer and his aggro father Sonny (Bruce Willis) to get around to asking Jake for the $1200 in ransom money.

Zach’s death is disorienting, almost as if Psycho's Marion Crane got murdered in the second-to-last reel. In a minivan en route to his execution, he innocently tells Frankie he wants learn to play guitar. “It bugs me that I don’t know how to do anything,” he sighs. Meanwhile Johnny assures his dad that there’s no need to call off the killing. “These guys are such fuck-ups, nothing's gonna happen,” he shrugs, a rare example of cross-cutting that defuses tension in order to make the shock of the gunfire even worse. Up until the last second—even after Frankie binds him with duct tape—a sobbing Zach still can’t believe Frankie would hurt him, and honestly, Frankie can’t believe it himself. And Yelchin’s own early death makes you ache for him to get a happy ending, which Cassavetes dangles just out of reach.

This is how evil happens, says Cassavetes. Masterminds are rare. Instead, people like Frankie can be basically good, but can also be panicky and passive and selfish. Shoving Zach in Johnny’s van was an idiotic impulse by upper middle-class kids, who flipped out when they realized the snatching could get them a lifetime sentence. There’s no honor or glory in the violence. Johnny, the cowardly ringleader, talks tough, but orders his most craven friend, Elvis (Shawn Hatosy), to pull the trigger while he and his girlfriend Angela (Olivia Wilde) get drunk on margaritas. And after the murder, one side effect is that Johnny can’t get an erection. When Angela tries to get Johnny in the mood in their hideout motel, the walls close in on him, suffocating the mood.

Away from his boys, Johnny is weak. Surrounded by them, he's the king. Alpha Dog sets up a culture of animalistic dominance. Johnny’s rental house is basically a primate cage at the zoo, only decorated with weight benches and Scarface posters. All of Johnny’s boys jockey to be his favorite and tear each other down in order to bump up their own rank. Kindness is weakness. When a fellow dealer with the ridiculous nickname Bobby 911 cruises by to negotiate a sale, he snarls at a guy who vouches for him: “You don’t need to tell him I’m good for it, man!”

Elvis, the future shooter, is the lowest member of the pack. He can’t ease into the group without Johnny ordering him to go pick up his pit-bull's poop in the backyard. Why do they pick on Elvis? He owes Johnny a bit of money, but the source of the scorn is simply group think. No one wants to be nice to the outcast, and Elvis is just too sincere to be taken seriously. When Elvis offers to get Johnny a beer, the guys tease him for being in love with Johnny. When he says sure, he does care about Johnny, they twist words into a gay panic joke. Elvis can’t win—they won’t let him—so he literally kills to prove his worth, and winds up sentenced to death row, where the real boy, just 21 at the time of the shooting, remains today. Another life wasted.

Cassavetes humanizes the killers because he wants us to understand how their micro decisions add up to murder. Not just the gunmen. Everyone’s a little to blame. The kids who got drunk with “Stolen Boy” and didn’t call the police. The girls who told Zach that being kidnapped made him sexy. Even Zach’s older step-brother Jake, an addict with a twitchy temper who escalates his war with Johnny to a fatal breaking point. Neither boy will back down over a $1200 debt, and there’s an awful split screen call when Johnny dials Jake intending to bring Zach home, but Jake is so boiling over with anger, his Bugs Bunny voice shrieking with outrage, that Johnny just hangs up the phone.

The opening credits, a montage of the cast’s own old home videos, underline that these were young and happy children—the kind of kids people point to as examples of the suburban American ideal. Over a treacly cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” we watch these real life boys being cultured to be brave: riding bikes, falling off dive-boards, running around with toy guns, going through the rituals of young manhood, from bar mitzvahs to karate lessons. Yelchin—recognizably dark-eyed and solemn even as a toddler—grins wearing plastic vampire teeth.

It takes another ten minutes for Yelchin’s character to sneak into the film sideways in a profile shot eating dinner with his parents, played by Sharon Stone and David Thornton. His Zach is barely even visible as brash Jake barges into the scene to beg for money. They say no, Jake stomps out, and Zach finally makes himself seen when he runs after his brother, begging to go anywhere less suffocating. Zach’s mom loves him so much that she watches him sleep. “I’m not fucking eight!” he yelps. He’s 15—practically a man, in his own imagination—and desperate to get away, even if it means mimicking Jake, a Jewish kid who’s so scrambled that he has a Hebrew tattoo on his clavicle and a swastika inked on his back. Jake starts to say that he wishes his own mom cared about him that much, but as soon as he gets vulnerable, he spins the moment into a joke. “Boo for me,” Jake grins, and takes another swig of beer.

“You could say it’s about drugs or guns or disaffected youth, but this whole thing is about parenting,” grunts Bruce Willis’ Sonny Truelove. “It’s about taking care of your children. You take care of yours, I take care of mine.” He’s half-right—his parenting is half to blame. Sonny and his best friend Cosmo (Harry Dean Stanton) taught Johnny to bully his friends. Cosmo, looking haggard and hollow, mocks Johnny for having one girlfriend. “You gotta plow some fucking fields,” he bellows. “Men are not supposed to be monopolous!” Not that “monopolous” is a real word, and not that Cosmo fends off women himself, except in his own big talk.

Cosmo and Sonny’s own posturing gradually emerges as being more dangerous than Johnny’s because it's more integrated into society. They’re the type of creeps who rewrite the rulebook to suit them, and attack journalists who try to tell the truth. When a fictitious documentarian asks Sonny about his son's drug connections, the father shrugs, “Did he sell a little weed? Sure.” But when the interviewer presses him further, Sonny snaps, “I’m a taxpayer and I’m a citizen and you are a jerk-off.”

Cassavetes, of course, understands growing up with a father who left a giant footprint to fill. His father, John Cassavetes, the writer-director of Shadows and Faces and A Woman Under the Influence, was one of the major pioneers of independent cinema. He died when Nick was 30, before his son attempted to take up his legacy. “We never really talked film theory,” said Cassavetes. “My experience with my dad was more along the lines of how to be a man, how to be yourself, how to free yourself from what society tells you to do, how to release yourself as an artist.”

It makes sense that Cassavetes would make his own ambitious, and maddeningly singular film. And perhaps it even makes sense to him that fate has yet to give him the reward he’s earned. Alpha Dog deserves to be acknowledged as one of the most incisive examinations of machismo and the banality of evil. But like his fumbling criminals, he knows he’s not really in charge of his life. Admitted Cassavetes, “I'm not smart enough to really have a master plan for my career.”

#alpha dog #alpha dog movie #nick cassavetes #john cassavetes #justin timberlake #emile hirsch #ben foster #amanda seyfried #olivia wilde #Nicholas Markowitz #Bruce Willis #Harry Dean Stanton #Oscilloscope Laboratories #O-Scope #musings #film writing

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henry-hart · 6 years

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“Adventures in Sleeping Over” - a HD one-shot part 1

yes, that is a lame play on “Adventures in Babysitting” akskjslksj

Requested by: @kiwikwami

“Even though I’m terrible at coming up with ideas I wanted to suggest something anyway. How about the trio having a sleepover? That would be cute~”

Dedicated to: well, for starters @kiwikwami bc she sent me the request that sparked this idea and then to all my other friends @sunbeameyes @up-the-tube @youngbloodthekilljoy @ramune-ray @sleepylilsnowflake @shonashee @writing-excuses @chewbaccaagainstthoughts @coldasalaska @periwinklechild @an-anxious-gay-mess @lesbian-so-what @x-cookies-art-x @can-you-believe-it @alissamikealson @knowwheretolook @thehotbrothburglar @jyrus-kelevra @ishouldbsleeping

Fandom: Henry Danger

Summary: When Mr. and Mrs. Hart go out for date night, Henry invites Jasper and Charlotte over for a sleepover. No parents. No little sister. Just the three of them alone in the Hart house--or so they thought. Piper was supposed to be at a sleepover of her own, but there’s been a change of plan. Now Henry and his friends are stuck sharing the house with Piper and her two friends. Piper and her gang claim upstairs, and Henry and his gang claim downstairs. When the trio decides to sneak out, they discover that little Piper has a scheme of her own. Their paths cross, and suddenly it becomes a race to see who can make it back home before the parents do, granting that sibling the chance to rat out the other. ;) (it’s kind of inspired by a movie called “Sleepover”--appropriately lolol--with Alexa Vega.)

A/N: I’m so glad you requested this! My mind went into overdrive with all kinds of ideas for it, so I decided to make you this one-shot. I hope you like it! It’s just gonna be a little fun fic. Nothing serious. Nothing too deep. Just a silly little fic. :))))) ***I also want to say that this will be 10000% platonic and cute and not AT ALL inappropriate or creepy. I don’t know if anyone was thinking I’d go down that route (I sure hope not), but I just felt like it should go on record that I’m not making this anything it shouldn’t be. xoxoxoxoxo

"Mom! The oven beeped!" Henry yelled from his spot on the couch.

"Will you get it for me please?" His mom yelled back from upstairs in her room.

She was getting ready for a dinner party she and Mr. Hart were attending that was put on by Jake's boss. She didn't want to go--her husband's work friends were real bores--but it was their first time going out in a long time and she knew it meant a lot to Jake that she be there. So, she had curled her hair, put her makeup on, and gotten the dress she hadn't worn in a year out from the back of her closet, ready to spend the night listening to a bunch of contractors and project managers drone on and on.

Jake had also promised her a romantic night after the dinner, so there was some incentive for her to make it through the party.

"Sure," she heard Henry call back in response.

Siren grabbed one of her earrings and looped the silver hoop through her ear. She grabbed the other earring but stopped when her daughter appeared in the doorway. She studied Piper in the mirror. Her arms were crossed and her nostrils flared.

"Ooh, that is not a happy face." She went back to putting her earring in. "What's wrong, baby?"

"Gabby's parents canceled her sleepover." Piper huffed, walking into her parent's bedroom to plop on their bed.

"They did? Why?"

She threw herself back on the mattress. "Her dumb Dad busted a water pipe while jazzercising and flooded their basement."

"Oh?" Siren had a hard time finding the connection between jazzercise and water pipes, but she didn't point it out to her obviously agitated daughter.

"Yeah. Now I have nowhere to go."

Mrs. Hart took a few steps back from the mirror, doing a few last minute touch ups on her hair. "Well, you can stay here with your brother and his friends."

"Gross. Why would I want to do that?"

"Because your friend's basement is flooded and you don't have any other options."

"Ugh, but I don't want to be here with Henry and his loser friends all night." Piper complained.

When she said 'loser friends' she really just meant Jasper. She liked Charlotte, but even still she didn't want to spend all night being the awkward fourth wheel to whatever little party they were having.

"Well, I don't know what to tell you, sweetie. Your father and I are leaving in a few minutes, and we can't take you with us." She gave a little spin in front of her daughter. "What do you think? Not bad for your old mom, huh?"

She was wearing an old dress she didn't wear often. It was a deep purple color--the right color for going out at night--and was long enough to drag the ground if she didn't wear heels. She of course would be wearing heels tonight, though. The V neckline wasn't too plunging, and the fabric was soft and comfortable. It really was a gorgeous dress, and she felt incredible in it.

Piper rolled her eyes and sat up. "Sure, Mom. You look great. Now can we get back to my problem please?"

Mrs. Hart pursed her lips, not liking her daughter's attitude. "I could always ground you so that you have no choice but to stay here."

Piper jumped off the bed, flying to her mother's side. "No, don't do that. You look beautiful. That dress looks really good on you." She blurted, hoping it was enough damage control.

Mrs. Hart smirked, looking at herself in the mirror once more. "It does." She smoothed her hands over the soft material. "I can't remember why I stopped wearing it."

Piper wasn't really listening to her mom now that she knew she wouldn’t be grounded. She was trying to come up with a solution to her current problem; it was Friday night, and she didn't have any plans. There was also the matter of what she and her friends had arranged for later tonight. She wouldn't be able to see that through if she was stuck at home with her brother watching her every move.

Unless...

"I have an idea." She spoke then, slowly smiling as it all started to fall into place in her mind.

Mrs. Hart didn't like the look on her daughter's face: narrowed eyes, sly smile. It meant trouble. "Am I going to like this idea, or is it going to be more like that time you tried to get rid of Henry at Disneyworld?" She went to her closet to get her heels out.

"You're going to like it. It's perfectly innocent." Piper assured, crossing her fingers behind her back where her mother couldn't see them. "And, for the record, I wasn't trying to get rid of Henry." Her mom stuck her head out of the closet to raise an eyebrow at her. "I was trying to sell him."

-----------

"Did you bake cookies?" Henry asked over his shoulder when he heard his mom coming down the stairs. He was taking the cookies off the pan and putting them on a large plate.

"I did." His mom answered, the click of her heels telling him that she was joining him in the kitchen.

"Why? Aren't you and Dad leav--" he turned around once all the cookies were on the plate to see his mother all dressed up for tonight. "Wow, Mom, you look great."

Henry used the same words Piper had, but there was much more sincerity in her son's voice. Siren smiled wide, making her way to him.

She reached out for Henry's hands, giving them a little squeeze. "Really? You think?"

Henry nodded, smiling back. "Really. I haven't seen you wear that dress in awhile."

His mom swung their hands between them. "I know, and I can't seem to remember why I stopped wearing it."

She had the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that there was an important reason she had moved it to the back of her closet, but she couldn't think of any explanation--especially when it looked this good on her--so she just dismissed it entirely.

"Well, I think it was a good idea to get it out again."

Siren made a sound in the back of her throat, a little choked up by her son's kindness. She let go of one of his hands to reach forward and brush the hair away from his forehead. "Thank you, sweetheart." She noticed that he was still a good bit taller than her even with her heels on. He was growing up right before her eyes.

Henry let go of his mom's hand and reached for the chocolate chip cookies he had taken out of the oven. He offered one to his mom. "So, about these cookies--"

She took the cookie from him, taking a bite while being careful not to mess up her lipstick. "I baked them for you and your friends." She said around the food in her mouth.

Henry took a bite of his own cookie. "Thanks, Mom, but you really didn't have to. We have pizza on the way."

She shrugged. "I just want you all to have enough food."

"You ordered three pizzas. We're gonna have more than enough food."

"That's good." She looked away from him, not sure how to say this next part.

Henry noticed his mom was avoiding looking him directly in the eyes. "Mom, what's up?"

Mrs. Hart set her cookie down, dusting the crumbs from her hands with a sigh. "Hen, honey, I hate to do this to you, but your sister is staying here tonight after all."

"What? Why? I thought she was staying at a friend's house." He was a little bummed that his little sister would be around when he thought it was just going to be him and his friends, but it wasn't too terrible. She'd probably stay in her room and avoid all of them anyway.

"Her friend's basement got flooded--something about exercising and some water pipes--so she asked if they could stay over here. I know you and your friends had planned to have the house tonight, but I was hoping you'd be okay with things being moved over here."

Henry was only half listening--he didn't care if Piper was staying or leaving either way--but something she said caught his attention. "Wait, did you say they?"

Mrs. Hart nodded, her brows furrowing. "Yes, Piper, Gabby, and a little girl I haven't met before are having their sleepover here as well."

Henry's mouth fell open. This was definitely going to ruin his plans with Jasper and Charlotte. He could just see how tonight would play out: Henry Hart's babysitting service. There was no way he was going to be able to just hang out with his friends when there would be three twelve year-olds milling about.

"Mom, this isn't fair. I already called dibs on the house tonight." He protested, dropping his half-eaten cookie on the plate. He didn’t feel like finishing it anymore.

Mrs. Hart grimaced, looking pained. She didn't want to ask her son to give up his plans anymore than he wanted to, but the girls needed somewhere to stay. "I know, Henry, and I'm sorry, but Gabby's parents had to leave their house while the plumbing gets fixed. Piper suggested she come stay at our house, and I said yes."

"What about the other girl? Is her basement flooded too?"

Mrs. Hart thought about it for a second. "I don't think so, but Piper gave me this really long explanation about the girl feeling left out if she wasn't invited too and you know how your sister's rambling gives me headaches."

Henry nodded, feeling one of those headaches coming on right now--and Piper wasn't even in the room. "Okay, yeah, I guess I understand." He sighed. "You and Dad are okay leaving all these kids alone while you're gone?"

His mom grabbed her purse, rummaging through it for her lipstick. "We're not leaving them alone. You'll be here."

Henry licked his lips, letting out a short scoff. "So I'm babysitting."

"No, you're not babysitting." She pulled her lipstick out along with a circle mirror. "I just trust the girls will be okay with you in the house." She rubbed the red color on her lips, touching up a coat that didn't really need touching up.

It was more of a nervous gesture. She was nervous about going out when she hadn’t in so long, nervous because she couldn't remember the reason she had hid this dress, and nervous that her son was mad at her for okaying Piper's friends to come over.

"I guess three pizzas doesn't seem like so much now."

Siren looked away from her lipstick and the little mirror and smiled, admiring her son's ability to find the positive in any situation. She reached a hand out to cup his cheek. "Exactly. Besides, you won't need to watch them much. They're all twelve. Just make sure Piper doesn't bite any of them, and the rest should be good."

Henry chuckled despite the annoyance he felt. He couldn't really be mad at his mother. She was just being a mother, looking out for the girls. He didn't want her to feel bad for that. He would be okay. Jasper and Charlotte wouldn't mind, and his mother was right. There really wasn't any need for the two groups to mix. If Piper's friends were anything like her, then Henry probably wouldn't even see them. They'd disappear in her room, and he and his friends would be free to resume with their own hanging out.

"You're right. Sorry I got mad."

His mom shook her head. "It's alright. I knew it was asking a lot of you, so thank you for being so understanding." She held her arm up, checking the watch on her left wrist. "Your father better get a move on or we'll be late."

As if on cue, Mr. Hart came down the stairs, dressed in one of his spiffy suits and speaking loudly. "Siren, honey, we've got to go or we'll be late."

Mrs. Hart turned to her son, and they shared similar exasperated expressions.

"Really now," she muttered, grabbing up her purse and joining her husband at the front door. "Piper, we're leaving." She called up the stairs.

"'Kay!" Piper called back.

Mr. and Mrs. Hart waited for more, but Piper didn't say anything else. They looked at each other and shook their heads. This wasn’t atypical of their youngest child.

Mrs. Hart turned back to her son. "Okay, you have my cell phone number." She told Henry as Mr. Hart helped her put on her black wrap.

"Of course I do, Mom." Henry replied with a slight mocking tone. "Pretty sure it was one of the first numbers in my phone."

"Don't be smart with me. There's going to be a lot of people in this house, and we won't be here."

Henry grabbed his dad's car keys and handed them to him, practically pushing the two of them through the front door. "I know, and you have nothing to worry about. I can handle Piper and her friends, and Charlotte and Jasper will help."

His parents nodded.

"Make sure you lock both doors. We have a key, so you don't need to answer the door for anyone." His dad stressed, eyebrows raised as he watched his son, trying to get his point across. He was also nervous about leaving Piper and her friends in Henry's care.

He didn't doubt that his son was capable. He just knew his daughter and what she was like. Few people were equipped to handle someone like her.

"Guys, really, I'll be fine. This isn't the first time I've been in charge and had to watch Piper."

"Of course, Hen. We know." His mom stepped forward to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Call me if you need anything, anything at all."

Henry wiped the lipstick from his cheek with a slight cringe. "Will do, Mom."

"Remember to lock the doors," his dad reiterated.

"Got it, Dad."

"Did you turn the oven off?"

"You do know where the first aid kit is, right?"

"Okay, seriously? Go." Henry commanded, starting to close the door for emphasis.

"Love you!" He heard his parents say as the door closed.

"You too," he answered, shaking his head at their ridiculous concerns.

He kept the door unlocked for now. His friends--and Piper's, unfortunately--would be arriving any minute.

-----------

The doorbell rang, and Henry got up from the couch to answer it. He opened the door, leaning a forearm on the frame and crossing one foot in front of the other as he gave a lazy smile to his best friends.

"Jasper, Charlotte, I was wondering when you guys were--" Henry stopped when he realized it wasn't his friends standing on his porch. Instead, a small brunette girl who looked about Piper's age stood there, holding a pillow. She looked vaguely familiar to him. He was sure he’d gone to her birthday party before or something. "You must be Gabby." He concluded.

The little girl looked up at Piper's older brother, eyes widening when she saw how cute he was. Piper had only ever vaguely mentioned Henry. She never told Gabby that he was totally crush-worthy.

Gabby nodded rapidly. "H-Henry, right?" She stammered, feeling her cheeks get warm.

Henry leaned into the arm he had propped up so he could rub a hand over his forehead. He recognized the look on Gabby's face. It was the same look he had gotten from Piper's other friends and even the Game Shakers when they'd stayed at his house; it was the "I’m-totally-getting-a-crush-on-you" look, and Henry really didn't want to have to deal with that tonight. It made him uncomfortable, and this girl would be staying at his house for the rest of the day. He wouldn't be able to get away from her wide-eyed stare.

"Yeah, it's Henry." He answered with a sigh. He moved to the side to make room for her to walk past him. "Come on in. Piper's upstairs."

Gabby took small, timid steps forward into the Hart house, all the while watching Henry instead of where she was going. She tripped over the threshold, barely regaining her footing in time to keep from falling. She looked away from Henry now, embarrassed that she'd goofed in front of him.

Henry really wasn't paying attention anyway. He was more concerned with getting his little sister downstairs so she could occupy Gabby before the other girl arrived and he was stuck being the main attraction for the two twelve year-olds.

"Piper!" He yelled up the stairs.

"What?" She screamed back, sounding incredibly irritated.

Henry jerked his head back, surprised by her tone. "Jeez," he muttered to himself. "Gabby's here!"

Piper didn't respond, but Henry did hear the sound of her footsteps running from her room. "Gabby," she breathed when she was at the top of the stairs, smiling pleasantly, her mood completely changing.

Henry shook his head at his sister's capricious nature, but he didn't have time to comment because the doorbell rang again. This time, he didn't answer it with a greeting to his friends, expecting it to be Piper's other friend.

It was Jasper, holding a sleeping bag roll under one arm and board games under the other, clad in his pajamas. He was smiling so wide it looked painful.

"Hey, Hen!"

Henry stared at the ducks on Jasper's onesie. "Hey, Jasper," he started slowly. "Dude, you know you could've just worn regular clothes, right?"

Jasper's brows knitted together. "But it's a sleepover."

"Well, yeah, but it's not like we're gonna be sleeping the whole time--and don't call it a sleepover." He added, not liking how juvenile 'sleepover' sounded. Piper was having a sleepover. Henry was having friends over to hang out. "You're just spending the night at my house."

"I know. I'm sleeping over." Jasper said, winking pointedly at Henry.

"Dude, what did I just say?"

"Henry! Where's the pizza?" Piper yelled across the living room.

Henry motioned for Jasper to come in before he shut the door. He turned to face his little sister and her friend, who was once again staring at Henry. "Not here yet, Piper."

"Well, when will it be here?"

"I don't know, Piper."

"You don't know anything." She huffed, grabbing onto Gabby's arm. "Come on, Gabby. Let's go upstairs."

Gabby's face fell a little. She pulled against Piper's grip. "But--why can't we stay down here?"

Piper scowled at her. "Why would we want to?"

Gabby bit her lip, refraining from telling Piper the real reason she didn't want to go upstairs. She knew Piper wouldn't understand. "No reason."

Piper wasn't convinced. She knew there was something Gabby wasn't telling her, and she suspected it had something to do with her brother. Piper was cursed with an older brother her friends all found cute. She didn't have an opinion either way--why would she--but it was annoying when her friends all wanted to talk and talk and talk about how "good Henry's hair looked" and "how tall Henry is" and "oh my gosh he totally smiled at me!" It was nauseating, and she wouldn't let Gabby fall into the Henry trap tonight. She needed her focused.

They had other things to worry about.

Piper nodded once. "Good. Now let's go upstairs so we can discuss our plans."

Gabby's eyes widened, remembering what she and Piper and Lily--their other friend--decided they were going to do tonight. "Right, the plan."

Henry and Jasper looked at each other, both their faces scrunched up in confusion.

"What plan?" Henry asked, narrowing his eyes at his little sister, suspecting she was up to her regular no good ways.

Piper towed Gabby behind her to the stairs. "None of your business." She shot back in a sharp voice over her shoulder to Henry.

She couldn't tell him. He'd either try to stop her or tell their parents, and she couldn't have that.

Henry held his hands up in surrender. "Whoa, sorry I asked."

"Call me when Lily gets here." She said before the two of them disappeared up the stairs and around the corner.

Gabby cast one last longing glance at Henry.

"That girl's got it bad for you." Jasper commented with a smirk. He knew how often Piper's friends developed crushes on Henry, and he found it amusing.

"I know," Henry grunted.

The doorbell rang again.

Jasper scrunched his eyebrows together as Henry went to open the door. "This place is really popular tonight."

Henry didn't answer; he just opened to door to greet Charlotte and a girl he didn't recognize. He looked to Charlotte, eyebrows raised waiting for her to explain her friend.

"Don't look at me." She objected. "She was here before I got here."

Henry looked to the girl. Her sleek black hair was pulled into pigtails, making her look a lot sweeter than he was used to girls her age looking. Piper was to blame for that.

"What's your name?" He asked gently, bending down a little to be at the girl's level.

"Lily. I'm a friend of Piper's." She managed, despite how breathless being this close to Piper's brother made her.

When Piper had said she had an older brother, Lily expected Henry to be a lot like her older brother--a short, geeky shut-in. Henry was none of these. He was tall, cute, and Lily imagined he was pretty popular. She was standing next to someone she assumed to be his friend, and a girl no less, so he had to have some level of charm. His smile was charming enough on its own.

She was glad the sleepover had been moved to Piper's house. It was going to be a lot more fun than she imagined now that Henry was in the picture.

Henry straightened back up with an awkward cough. Lily was looking at him with a similar gleam in her eyes that Gabby had. He really couldn't catch a break.

Charlotte noticed that Lily was hardly blinking, her eyes trained on Henry. She held back a laugh, but a small chuckle escaped her lips anyway.

Henry gave her a meaningful glare and gestured for the two girls to come in. "Piper and Gabby are upstairs. I can call them down, if you want."

Lily walked into the living room, spinning around to get a full view of the place. She gripped the straps of her bag, turning back to face Henry. "Or you could show me the way to her room." She suggested in a tone that really didn’t leave room for disagreeing.

Charlotte and Jasper both snorted from behind Henry. He ignored them and focused instead on the little girl watching him. Lily wasn't as bashful as Gabby had been. She was staring right at Henry, a sly smile on her lips, waiting for him to answer.

"Or I could show you the way to her room," Henry repeated, a little shocked that Lily was so assertive at such a young age. He drummed his fingers on his legs before motioning a hand towards the stairs. "Lead the way."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "It's your house."

Henry mentally face-palmed himself. "Right. My house. I'll lead the way." He corrected.

He could hear Charlotte and Jasper laughing from behind him, but he didn't look at them. He didn't need any further embarrassment.

Lily followed Henry, keeping a very small distance between them all the way to Piper's room.

Henry knocked on Piper’s door, giving Lily a small, uncomfortable smile. No one answered. Henry knocked again, harder this time. "Piper, open up." He urged, not liking that he was stuck spending more time alone with his sister’s bold friend.

Lily twisted back and forth a little bit, trying to appear nonchalant. "So, is that girl downstairs your girlfriend?"

Henry nearly fell over. "Uh, no," he cleared his throat. "Charlotte is just my friend."

"Oh," Lily remarked, a smile spreading across her face. "So, no girlfriend then?"

"No, no girlfriend," Henry repeated quickly, knocking on Piper's door again, even harder than before. "Piper, please, please, open the door."

The door whipped open revealing one annoyed Piper.

"What do you want?" She barked at her brother.

“Lily is here." Henry stressed, darting eyes in the direction of the girl standing next to him, hoping his sister would pick up on his obvious discomfort.

Piper looked over to Lily as if just seeing her. "Oh, hey girl."

Lily nodded to Piper. "Hey, Pipes." She looked back at Henry. "You didn't tell me your brother was so cute."

Henry and Piper both cringed in sync.

"I'm gonna go back downstairs." Henry announced, backing away from the girl with the misleading pigtails.

"Good. You and your friends stay down there." Piper ordered, crossing her arms and cocking a hip to the side.

"Okay, well you and your friends stay up here." Henry sassed back.

“Fine."

"Fine."

There was an awkward beat of silence. Piper stared down Henry. Lily was gazing at Henry, and Henry was avoiding looking at either of them.

"Yeah, I'm gonna--"

"Would you just go already?" Piper snapped, cutting Henry off.

He made a mocking face before disappearing down the hall and to the stairs, joining Charlotte and Jasper downstairs.

"What an idiot," Piper dismissed, walking back into her room.

Lily watched still where Henry had disappeared. "Yeah," she sighed blissfully.

Piper rolled her eyes, understanding that yet again one of her friends was infatuated with her brother. She grabbed Lily by the arm, pulling her into the room and closed the door behind them.

-----------

"Shouldn't we tell Piper and her friends that the pizza's here?" Charlotte asked, grabbing a slice of cheese pizza and putting it on her plate.

Henry grabbed his own slice of pepperoni and cast a glance at the stairs. "Nah," he decided. "They'll be okay up there in the room and away from me."

Charlotte eyed him. "Without anything to eat?"

"Maybe they'll eat each other." Jasper chimed in absently, picking some onions off his slice.

"Dude," Henry protested, "Morbid." Jasper only shrugged, and Henry continued on. "No, I know. It's just--they keep...staring at me."

Charlotte shook her head. "They're twelve, Hen, and you're the older brother. It gives you a sort of untouchable charm. That's all." She bit into her pizza. The cheese stretched out ridiculously, sticking to her chin and dangling down to her plate.

Henry handed her a napkin. "I'd like to think it's part of my normal charm, too." He muttered. Jasper and Charlotte gave him the same unimpressed look. "You're right. Just let me enjoy a few more seconds of not having to feel like someone is always watching me." Three seconds went by. "I'll call them down."

Henry texted Piper this time. He really didn't feel like yelling up the stairs again--it'd be like the fourth time that night--and Piper was more likely to respond this way.

Twenty seconds later, Piper and her two friends were on their way down the stairs.

"You better have saved some spinach pizza for me!" Piper called, running into the kitchen to make sure her pizza was still there.

"Don't worry, Piper, I didn't let anyone eat your spinach pizza." Henry grimaced as Piper grabbed a slice. "I don't think anyone wanted to."

"I don't even want to hear it Mr. 'I like pineapple on pizza'."

"Okay, that was once, and I didn't even like it."

“What's wrong with pineapple on pizza?" Jasper wondered, obviously offended.

"Just everything," Charlotte answered. "Fruit doesn't belong with pizza sauce. That's just gross."

Piper nodded, gesturing to Charlotte. "Thank you."

"What about you guys?" Charlotte asked Lily and Gabby, while eating her regular, ordinary, not gross cheese pizza. "Where do you stand on the pineapple on pizza discourse?"

Gabby was nervously playing with an olive on her plate, but she looked up at Charlotte when she realized she was talking to her. "Oh, I--I'm allergic to pineapple, so it's a no from me."

Charlotte gave Jasper a pointed look as another person joined her anti-pineapple coalition. Jasper stuck his bottom lip out in a pout.

"What about you, Lily? You think it's okay for pineapple to go on pizza, right?" Jasper asked, leaning forward in his seat, waiting to hear her opinion.

Lily, a lot more confident than Gabby, was watching Henry again, but she snapped her attention to the one named Jasper who was, oddly enough, wearing a baby outfit that was covered in ducks. She found him strange. "What? Oh, no I don't think so."

Jasper sank in his seat, defeated.

"Okay, I think I've heard the word pineapple enough for one night." Henry announced. A creepy sensation ran down the back of his neck, making the hairs stand up; he could feel Lily's eyes on him. He stood up from his seat, pushing it back a little too forcefully making it scrap the ground with a horrible screeching noise. "Anyone want a refill?" He held his half-full glass up in the air, trying to recover from the chair incident and provide an explanation for standing up.

"You don't even need a refill." Charlotte noted, her eyes narrowing at Henry’s odd behavior.

He looked at his cup, realizing she was right. "No, I don't, but Jasper does."

Jasper raised his eyebrows, looking around at everyone before looking at his full glass. "No Jasper doesn't."

"Yes, he does." Henry reiterated through clenched teeth, whipping a hand out to knock over Jasper's drink.

Jasper jumped up as root beer spilled into his lap. "Henry!"

"See," Henry grabbed the empty glass. "Jasper needs a refill."

He grabbed Jasper's arm and pulled him into the kitchen with him, ignoring everyone else's puzzled looks.

"What was that?" Jasper demanded. He was mad. His favorite onesie was now stained with soda.

Henry gave his friend a few paper towels. "I'm sorry, man. Lily kept looking at me, and it was making my skin crawl."

"So what?" Jasper hissed, wiping his pajamas down with harsh, angry strokes. "She was staring at me too."

Henry motioned to Jasper's clothes. "That probably has more to do with the fact that you're covered in little rubber ducks."

“Yeah, well, I won’t be wearing it anymore.” He clipped, throwing his balled up dirty napkin on the counter, giving up on getting the soda out of his clothes. “Why don’t you just ignore her?”

“I’m trying to, but I can feel--” Henry stopped. He was looking around the kitchen and accidentally locked eyes with Lily. He gave her a short wave and a tight-lipped smile. He turned back to Jasper. “See?”

Jasper rolled his eyes. “You’re being ridiculous. Once they’re done eating, Piper’s gonna make them go back upstairs, so you won’t have to see her for much longer.”

“True.” Henry rubbed the back of his neck. He looked at one of the stains on Jasper’s clothes. “Sorry, dude. You brought a change of clothes, right?”

Jasper nodded. “Yeah, but they’re not pajamas.” He mumbled.

“That’s even better.”

Jasper glared at Henry, but he left anyway to change out of his onesie.

Lily noticed Jasper had left. “Why are you standing over there alone?” She asked, sitting up straighter in her seat.

“Oh, I was--” Henry searched around looking for something to busy himself with. He grabbed a salt shaker. “I was just refilling the salt shaker.”

“Okay, well why don’t you come join us?” She patted the empty seat next to her.

“Join you. At the table. In the seat right...next...to you.” He ran a hand down his face. “Don’t you and my sister have some plans to figure out or something?” He blurted.

Piper perked up. “That’s right. We do.” She dropped the crust she wasn’t interested in eating on her plate and stood up. “Come on girls. We’ve got some planning to do.”

Gabby smiled a small, timid smile and got up out of her seat as well. Lily didn’t want to leave Henry, but she really didn’t want to fight Piper. She stood too.

When the girls were gone, Henry joined Charlotte at the table.

“What plans are they talking about?” She asked him, frowning at the suspicious way the girls whispered among themselves as they left.

Henry plopped down in his seat, sighing in relief now that he wasn’t being watched like a zoo animal anymore. “I have no idea, and I don’t really care.”

“Aren’t you worried? I mean, this is Piper we’re talking about.” She pointed out. If anywhere were to devise some devious scheme, it would be Piper Hart.

Henry shrugged, picking a piece of pepperoni off his pizza and popping it into his mouth. “Not really. My parents have the car, so it’s not like she can drive off anywhere. Whatever their planning, it’s staying in the house, and that’s good enough for me.” He leaned back in his chair. “They’re probably just gonna talk about boys they like or something.”

He didn’t care what his sister and her friends did as long as they stayed safe and stayed in the house. He just hoped he wasn’t one of the topics of their conversations.

Charlotte pursed her lips. She didn’t agree with Henry’s indifference to his sister and her friend’s actions. Charlotte had a hunch that whatever was going on it wasn’t good.

-----------

“Okay, so we’re all clear on what to do, right?” Piper asked, staring meaningfully at her two friends, wanting to make sure they were all on the same page.

Lily nodded, her pigtails swooshing back and forth beside her face. “Yep. At nine o’clock, we put these dolls in our sleeping bags,” she held her life-size doll up. “And if anyone comes to check on us, it’ll look like we’re sleeping.”

Piper nodded with proud smile. “Correct. Then what happens next? Gabby?”

Gabby wasn’t as shy now that they weren’t around Henry. Her voice was loud and clear, and she looked right back into Piper’s eyes as she spoke. “Then you call us a Tuber, and we sneak out the window. We get in the car and take a ride to the Swellview Convention Center.”

“And you-know-who will be there.” Piper concluded, giggling excitedly. She had been planning this for a week.

Originally, they were going to sneak out of Gabby’s house, and Piper would just drive one of her parents’ cars, but that idea had been scrapped when Gabby’s dad flooded the basement. Piper thought they would have to miss out on the event they were all so looking forward to, but then her mom had told her her friends could spend the night at their house.

She had to work something out in the way of transportation considering her parents had taken the car, but she remembered she was owed a favor by a certain Tuber driver, so she called to collect that favor tonight.

In a few hours, the girls would be off, and Henry and Piper’s parents would be none the wiser.

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A/N Part 2: What do you guys think??? What do you think of Piper’s friends??? I loved writing their bits. It was so much fun to tease Hen for being the “cute older brother.” alskjslkjs (remember when Jace was young so Hen was the one having crushes but now he’s gone and grown up and become one of Nick’s oldest kid actors so Hen is the one being crushed on??? yeah, it hurts my heart a little) There’s gonna be more info in the next part as to what Piper and her friends are sneaking out for bc the trio is sneaking out for the same thing hee hee. This is probs gonna be three parts? Maybe? I’m never good at guessing those things, but I know it won’t be long. Hope you liked it! Please, tell me what you thought! You can reply, reblog, message me--anything! Just let me know somehow! Much love! xoxoxo

P.S. “Tuber” is a play on “Uber” if you were confused. You know how Nick likes to avoid using the actual names for copyright comedic reasons. There’s the “Yo-Pro” cameras and the “Air TnP” on Game Shakers, so I figured I’d stick with the source and make my own goofy replacement word. ;)

#the actual sleepover cute stuff you were looking for will be in the next part lou #i hope you find it good so far!#:)))))#henry hart #piper hart #siren hart #jake hart #jasper dunlop #charlotte bolton #henry danger #henry danger fanfic #one-shot #mine #em writes

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