#ive watched this scene a normal amount of times. like a normal person.
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Satanic Rites Of Dracula (1973)
#ive watched this scene a normal amount of times. like a normal person.#hammer horror#hammer dracula#christopher lee#peter cushing#lorrimer van helsing#hammer films#satanic rites of dracula#dracula#gifs
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Not to shame some baby bats but oh man am I tired of seeing online newcomers to the industrial scene not being able to conceptualize the musicians as actual real living people who have endured real hardship and instead fandomizing them and treating them like silly little characters. And I’m not even talking about like real person fiction I’m talking stuff like making extremely inappropriate jokes at the expense of the musicians, often to their damn faces. Just saw someone tag Ogre’s personal Instagram in a joke about Al Jourgensen’s IV drug use. What the fuck is wrong with you. I still like see red with anger when I remember stumbling into someone’s Nivek Ogre roleplay blog where they used DRG’s OVERDOSE as a point of drama IN THEIR KINK ROLEPLAY. I fucking hope none of you watch your loved ones fall apart and eventually die from drug addiction or god forbid suffer from it yourself. And it’s not just that; I’ll never forget when those posts about Skuppy’s music being used at Gitmo were circulating as if it was just some quirky thing. Posts like “lol imagine being a war prisoner and suddenly Assimilate starts playing” as if that shit doesn’t suck hardcore and wasn’t the absolute antithesis of what Skinny Puppy has always fought for which is pacifism and equality and the end of war and violence and brutality. The people being tortured at Gitmo are real people and Skinny Puppy was reasonably devastated by the situation. Spamming public tags on IG with terminally online often very sexual jokes about these guys, me having to wade through “I want Raymond Watts to vore me XD jdhgdkdksjdh” in the damn KMFDM tag. Seeing a 17 year old comment on a popular musician’s selfie in eyeliner saying he looked “queer” and being like “I just know you don’t use he/him pronouns” like that shit IS WEIRD. THEY ARE REAL PEOPLE!!
IDK man. This is not a fandom, it is a real community that these guys are part of. I am friends with some of these musicians and/or their friends IN REAL LIFE because I live in the same city as them and go to the same events as them. I haven’t done anything special other than be around them and be chill. Tons of them are my Facebook friends or my mutuals on Instagram or they’re my friends’ Facebook friends and mutuals on Instagram. I’ve had some of my favorite musicians follow me back COMPLETELY unexpectedly. I’ve heard “I recognize you from online” when I’ve met some of my favorite people in the scene, even if we hadn’t directly interacted before… MULTIPLE times. I’ve made posts about a band and then saw the fucking band repost it to a different site. I’ve seen my blog get linked in the official Skinny Puppy group that the band moderates. I also know like three separate situations where somebody’s publicly posted RPF was SENT TO THE BAND MEMBERS. I’m relatively neutral (or at least have a lot of nuance) about RPF but some fucking self awareness would be nice; these guys are NOT that “famous,” they are actively running their social media pages, they don’t have PR guys, they are lurking social media, interacting with fans, their friends are normal people in the scene. It just feels so disrespectful and out of touch. Did you know that one time somebody made a joke about Ogre being on drugs in the Skinny Puppy Facebook group and Ogre himself logged in for the first time in awhile to say it wasn't funny and was painful for him to see NOT because of his own past with drugs but because it reminded him of the amount of friends he’s had die from addiction and overdose? That was a real moment that happened. It isn’t funny.
I just keep seeing this breed of newcomers who get super into the identity of being “an industrial fan” (usually with all these edgy extras like “fucked up sicko dykefag rivethead freak”) who are coming into it straight out of like, the Danganrompa or Saw or whatever fandom and cannot conceptualize the fact that this isn’t a “fandom,” they don’t know how to talk about it like it’s not a fandom, they talk about how the musicians are “so old now” which is just so insulting (you should be BEGGING the universe to be so kind as to allow you to live to be grey and wrinkly and still making art that you love!) or make jokes at the expense of the traumas they’ve endured, they don’t seek out more obscure or more recent or more local music even though THAT is what is keeping the scene alive. it has real life spaces that the musicians they’re idolizing are frequenting and it is very very obvious that they are not going outside or engaging with the scene at all, they aren’t viewing it as this huge community of people who are all congregating together over their love for this music. They’re treating the musicians like these crazy characters but they are real people and their traumas and struggles and “weird” behavior is what brought them to this type of music to begin with! They’re making posts about how musicians just aren’t “weird” anymore while completely ignoring the decades of recent incredible music from artists trying desperately to survive in this world IN THE SCENE THEY CLAIM TO BE PART OF!! You are not a depraved freak punk rivethead faggot you are a 20 year old introvert that listens to NIN, KMFDM, and Skinny Puppy while not supporting the scene in any tangible way whatsoever and talking about the people who created the genre like they’re commodifiable fictional characters. And it’s not a question of “you don’t listen to enough music to be legit!” I love baby bats and newcomers and I absolutely adore seeing people get into this music and find solace and community within it. Industrial music saved my life and I was once the newcomer just discovering this stuff. it’s a question of “you are being disrespectful and out of touch while acting like you know what more than you really do.” Go out to a goth club. Talk to people. Sing along in a crowd to your favorite songs. Type in Bandcamp Dot Com right now and discover a new artist. Buy an album and tip them. That r/LSD comment where the guy said “keep it chill or suffer the consequences.”
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daiya no ace anime reflection/review
**spoilers!!**
im at a point in my life where i have a lot of free time at the end of the day and i find myself filling that slot with anime.
for the past two weeks, ace of the diamond has taken up a big portion of my mind as i found myself falling in love with the team and its players.
about a month ago was when i started a roll on watching sports anime. i caught up on haikyuu, binged blue lock and ao ashi, and finally spent another good chunk of time on free!!. ace of the diamond was no new title to me, yet for some reason i kept it on the back burner. i dont know why; whether it was the art style, the then-seemingly long list of episodes, or the fact that it was baseball. maybe it was all of them. when i burned myself out trying to find another anime, i finally settled on giving DnA a chance.
today, as i have finished all 176 episodes (no OVAs yet!) i confidently say it's one of my top, if not the top, anime ive seen so far.
i noted a few things as i progressed through the series: strong points, cons, favorite characters, and a few personal thoughts.
i will start off with the cons head on. daiya's is, i guess i could say, notorious? for its "annoying, loud, benchwarmer" MC. one genuine complaint i do have is the lack of animation quality in the third season. there were many still shots with voice overs, though i felt a little more satisfied with the animation towards the end. also, to a smaller extent, the anime is not as complete as the manga.
anyway, i think the slow burn is actually a strong point, as many others point out. indeed, it is the very low lows that make the highs so high. don't get me wrong, i love a stupidly powerful MC, such as mob psycho 100 or OPM, but the realism gives DnA its charm and relatability. when others say "season 1 is bad, season 2 is good, season 3 is amazing," they are not lying.
DnA's charm not only lies in its realism, but also its character development and character interactions. brotherhood, leadership, and teamwork are all themes throughout the anime. the way the third years cared for their juniors and the way the juniors fought to elongate their seniors' summers was beautiful, heart-wrenching, and gut-punching to me, a recent college graduate. these types of moments are not uncommon in sports anime, but something about DnA's execution made it so much more..emotional? relatable? whether it was due to convenient timing or the fact that the sheer amount of episodes made me feel like they were actually my own friends, i just felt so much more compelled when watching daiya.
on the topic of my personal emotions, as i said, the themes of graduating/retiring really hit home for me. but that made daiya all the more special to me. both personal relatability and just watching everyone's hard work made it so easy to sympathize with their determination. maybe it was the countless scenes of them heaving and gasping for air; or the scenes where TJ made their frustrations so visible and vulnerable. as a watcher, i did not see myself rooting for some characters in a show; normally, i'd take a normal stance with the expectations that the "of course, the MC team will win." i saw myself rooting for my friends. in addition, knowing TJ, we can never be too sure on how seido's games will actually go. everything comes down to the realism. it's daiya's realism that made me feel their passion, made them so relatable, and made it feel like they were actually at high stakes. i truly, rarely never cry when watching an anime. besides assassination classroom, no other anime has made me so emotional. not only that, but daiya made me cry several times. the amount of immersion is insane.
to no surprise, my favorite character is miyuki. he was the know-it-all. he was essentially the rock of seido with his calls. i often found myself wondering how strong seido would be without miyuki. no disrespect to ono; as he proved, and as kataoka also believes, ono is also reliable. but miyuki was just built different bro. anyway, i appreciated his character for not only baseball iq, but his rapid maturity into the captain role, and his flexibility with his juniors. i found his personality very admirable and his logical approach to situations both relatable and reliable. other characters i particularly were fond of were chris and kuramochi. if okumura had more screen time, i could also see him climbing up my list. as someone who had no prior baseball knowledge, daiya/seido as a whole, but particularly chris and miyuki, gave me a newfound respect for and fundmental understanding of baseball.
i think one last thing i wanted to note was that i really don't read manga. but for daiya, im definitely gonna pick up the manga now. i have never done this before for an anime, even others i really liked--hxh, haikyuu, one punch man, etc. i just never felt compelled to read the story further beyond the anime. but for daiya, this is something im willing to do. i just love it that much.
if you are having second thoughts or are debating on watching DnA, def watch it if you do not mind slow burn and can take a realistic approach. on the other hand, i do not recommend if you want to see an OP MC.
~
i am truly a nobody, especially not a professional anime critic LMFAO but i just wanted to vent my thoughts of daiya somewhere :) these are just my personal opinions
#daiya#daiya no ace#anime#ace of the diamond#ace of diamond#sawamura eijun#miyuki kazuya#furuya satoru#anime review#takigawa chris yuu#okumura koushuu#seido#sports anime
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28 29 30
28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)
i never see zines in time b4 the apps are closed!!! so i usually dont get the chance.... but also im not very good at following through LOL. ummm i helped a friend run a pokemon art contest thing once! i... didnt participate in it myself but i was one of the mods and designed a trainer that ran it and everything that was pretty cool. i also did get to participate in a south park zine once! the ppl in charge of that were nice enough to actually reach out to me to be a part of it so i didnt even have to worry about the app. but other than that im not much for events i dont keep track of time or projects other than personal ones very well
29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically
to be fair i feel like i enjoy most media a normal amount and not as much in a fandomy whcih means not a lot actually inspires me to draw. i LOVE Friends which im sure some of u guys have noticed (tho i guess sometimes that does inspire art bc ive deffo just fully redrawn scenes from the show but like w tma characters) i love my various youtube men and im a huge fan of horror movies (especially found footage its by far my favorite genre and sometimes i like to just sit and sift thru some real shitty ones to find gold lol) im kind of all over the place. oh and i love a lot of adult cartoons ummmmm none that i currently keep up with bc i hate uhhhhh watching media thats still like... updatingi guess???? but ive been like CRAVING rewatching metalocalypse lately
30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated
this questions embarrassing bc as much as i love attention its also humiliating to talk abt the things i think should have more attention!!! ummmm not so much a piece but um as a whole my childhood au is really being slept on. not that i post much for it often but everything i have for it i love soooo so dearly and bc i havent made the plot of it super clear i dont think many ppl really get into it but i just think its so cool and the story isnt fully fleshed out but every time i get more and mroe thoughts for it it feels more like its own beast and like i could really go somewhere with it!!! for something like SPECIFIC? i think THIS messy comic was totally slept on i thought it was such a cool scene drawn out even without context i mean come on jmart in their lil ruined prom clothes and daisy taking mike down.... jon losing a shoe.... i really like it idk
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just because im watching an emotional scene. im going to rant about my father now. apologies
he’s insane. sooo right we have mice. shocker. he’s kinda somewhat willing to take care of the traps thank god. but there is literal blood like mouse remains under our sink that he just. didnt wipe up. and i was like hey uh dad. were you gonna like. get that. (yk bc a normal person would probably like wipe it up naturally after taking care of it.) and he was like what do u and your mother have some kind of problem ive told her a million times that she cant take boxes out to the mudroom and she needs to just bring them to me and i was like ok. so what does this have to do with the literal mouse guts though.
and he was like well if she’s gonna be like that im not taking care of it and i was like ok word well thats not a productive way to think abt anything (barely holding back going insane bc this is how it’s been in this house for a billion years) and he said well im not gonna be productive if shes just gonna be counterproductive
he frequently blames us. mostly my mom but both of us. for this house being so shit. my mom has literally had three foot surgeries in the last few years like she was not mobile and he didnt give a fuck abt helping her out like she’s fallen and we had a new puppy right after the one surgery and he just didnt take care of it so that she wouldnt have to get up yk. he is RETIRED!!!!!!
and furthermore he only takes care of the outside of the house like the yard and whatever. my mom (and i) do the cleaning if it can ever get done. we’ve had a broken cupboard door for years. he frequently leaves pots on the stove until literal mold grows on them if we dont get them. we had a leaky pipe that made our kitchen cupboard disgusting for years and rendered half of the sink unusable and if we said anything about it he’d scream at us for using the sink lol. we cant leave our fucking toilet water running rn lest it like flood the basement and he refuses to get it fixed. so! we have to only turn it on if we can while using it or fill up a bucket to flush
this is not even digging into his health issues that have caused this house and our furniture to be. godawful shit constantly. and the amount of money it’s wasted. and the amount of money he keeps away from my mother.
meanwhile im supposed to just be like. what normal? toward him? try to have a normal relationship? a healthy one somehow? he has the emotional capacity of a three year old. and all of this is just. like. idk. i have to just not argue with anything otherwise he starts yelling and i get like sooooo anxious so. did i mention one time we didnt speak for a week. and one time i literally went to my uncles house bc he was talking to me like i was 5 years old over something stupid and wouldnt just let it go. and i just sobbed and tried to call my mom. typing this all out sounds insane anyway i remember i had this insane callout last year like that’s my bad truly but that was on a day where i was a total airhead bc i had a huge fight w my dad so misdirected um energy idk. whatever lolololol
it’s hard bc. he does take care of us kids yk. financially. and i know he somehow in his own little ways like........... loves us. so i feel guilty constantly for not trying more but like. what. idk
#abby talks#i might need to go back to therapy. my last therapist was chill but when it came to my dad she was just like#ah well he's a narcissist what can u do. like i mean. yes what Can i do bestie
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omggg nooooo !!!! never let anyone make you feel insane i’ve literally dreamed abt moving up there. you’re so right i don’t think the south is for me either :// i was actually born up north but my parents moved when i was little and we’ve been here ever since i think a piece of me stayed up there tho bc ive ALWAYS loved the new england area
i used to watch gilmore girls and think “oh my god i need to live somewhere like that it would be perfect for me”
dw there’s no specific way you need to listen to it and the songs themselves are actually pretty self-explanatory but a little backstory:
taylor was dating a man named joe thru 2016-2023 and at firsttt we all thought it was sunshine and rainbows. they were vry private and we (swifties) thought that’s what she wanted !! we thought she’d found her forever !! and she thought so too :( but apparently there were comittment issues (among many other things). she wanted to take the next step, marriage & babies & whatnot. he DIDNT (there were multiple songs on lover that mentioned marriage and engagement) ((there was a song released last year with the lyric; “and i wouldn’t marry me either. a pathological people pleaser. who only wanted you to see her.”))
fast forward to the start of the eras tour breakup announcements are EVERYWHERE and she’s seen with some other guy ! oh who’s this one ? THE LEAD SINGER OF THE 1975 !!!! they went out for a few weeks and APPARENTLYYYY according to what i’ve seen all the other fans posting, HE MANAGED TO DO THE SAME AMOUNT OF DAMAGE THAT TOOK JOE 6 YEARS. HE DID THAT IN ABT A MONTH OR TWO. (they had a history together BEFORE this andddd they worked on music for midnights sooo it seems he was privy to all the inside details abt her relationship with joe and he might’ve used that to his advantage)
basically all this to say, she was going through a LOT last year and before that. so this album has ALL the feels. losing your sense of self, processing the deepest betrayals, learning to let go of something when all you want to do is hang on as tight as possible, not knowing who cares about you anymore, but eventually finding yourself at the end.
the song ‘i can do it with a broken heart’ has a lyric video on youtube and the clips are all clips for HER TOUR while she’s singing about her being miserable the whole time😭😭😭😭 BUT PUSHING THROUGH IT😭😭😭😭😭 it BROKE my heart to see that.
there’s nothing wrong with you and everything wrong with 14 year olds trustttt omg i don’t know what is in the air for these younger teens but they’re insane. and how was your vacation ?
mwah
~ 🎶
I LOVE GILMORE GIRLS I love that for you! I hope you move if that’s what you want 💕
I knew about Joe and Matty but not in detail like that. Honestly I was obsessed with the show/book Normal People and subsequently watched Conversations with Friends and I thought Joe was about as personable as a towel sitting in the rain and Taylor is way more talented and dimensional than what I saw so I can’t even imagine what happened behind the scenes. Matty seemed like too much of a bad boy tbh for her as well. I saw something about people feeling bad that they were going to The Eras Tour when she wasn’t feeling her best. It made me sad (no shade to anyone that went to the tour. She obvs wouldn’t have gone if she couldn’t do it ya know?) I’m excited to listen—waiting to have adequate time to really digest it)
My vacation was good! Relaxing and productive. A good combo. It’s gonna be a long couple of months. Trying to balance a lot of things and not go insane. Hope you’re doing well! 💕 tell me what’s going on in your life!
Xoxo
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The leader and a body guard(Rin x reader)
(Sorry this took so long, school sucked all of my motivation away. You can find the rest of the series here: Eloni )
warning: violence, slight angst with a happy ending
Sometime after the rock revolution, Neon J decided to leave for a 3-week vacation
This meant that you and your coworkers would need to report to Rin
The first couple of days were difficult because Rin didn’t seem to care about the reports and would flirt with whoever was giving him the report
It wasn’t till week two that things began to spiral
1010 had been in the middle of a performance when a fight broke out in the crowd
You jumped out of where you were standing to help control the crowd
You assessed the damage after everything calmed down
The venue + stage was partially destroyed, Purl-Hew lost his glasses and an eye, Haym lost an arm, Zimelu and Eloni’s faces were cracked, and Rin was missing
Rin was missing
This was bad news as the factory still hadn’t been repaired yet which meant that he couldn’t be brought back until Neon J came back
And if Neon J found out that you lost a member of 1010, you and your co-workers would be fired
So your group split into two parts, one half would take Zimelu, Haym, Purl- Hew, and Eloni back to Barraca Mansion while the other half would search for Rin
You were placed into the latter
It had been nearly an hour since Rin was discovered missing and there still was no sign of him. You were definitely going to get fired. While the concert was in Cast Tech, you along with several others were sent to search Metro Division in case he simply went back to Baraca Mansion without telling anyone. You were about to head back when you heard the sound of crashing metal.
“Hello, is anyone there?” You didn’t mean to say anything, but you were caught off guard. Against your better judgment, you began to walk towards that alley. You were desperate to find him after all.
“Stay back! RETREAT!” shouted a panicked autotuned voice. It was Rin.
“Rin? Is that you? Are you ok?” you rushed down the alley to find Rin hiding next to a dumpster.
“Don’t look at me!” Rin was trying to cover the right side of his face with his arm.
“What? Are you alright?”
“Y-yeah! Do not worry about me, I’ll make it back fine,” Rin tried to stand up, still covering his face, but immediately fell back down because his leg was missing.
“Look… everyone’s worried about you and you won’t be able to make it back by yourself with that leg,” you gestured at Rin’s broken leg. Please let me help you, I know some shortcuts.” You offered your arm. Rin hesitantly lifted his hand for his face and grabbed your hand for support. The metal that covered the right side of her face was gone, revealing the damaged hardware underneath.
You involuntarily flinched, he may not have been human, but it was still pretty jarring to look at something that looked like a person who was missing part of their face. Rin also flinched, covering his missing face with both of his hands now.
“I’m so sorry about that”, you rubbed your neck, “I just… well I didn’t expect the injury to be that bad.”
“You aren’t going to scream, are you?
“What? No, I'm very sorry about that. Besides I’ve seen way worse” you joked, trying to release the tension. Rin hesitantly uncovered his face once again and grabbed your hand and pulled himself up. The two of you dodged the groups of people walking through Metro Divison.
As the two of you were walking through, you couldn’t help but wonder about Rin’s reaction when it suddenly hit you, 1010 got severely injured during the rock revolution. One of these injuries included all of them losing their faceplates. Their fans unsurprisingly freaked out which caused 1010 to explode due to some protocol Neon J must’ve implemented. Your heart sank when you realized Rin’s reaction wasn’t because he was worried about his image, but he was scared of you screaming and what would follow afterward.
——————
After that incident, Rin seemed to act differently towards you. He took you more seriously and listened to your reports
Even after Neón J came back, Rin still came to you for your reports
Probably just practice for when Neón j retires, you thought
As the weeks passed, the time spent on the casual chats you had increased to the point you’d forgot to give him the actual report several times
“And that’s how we got Quienne and Bebe.” Rin had just finished telling you the story of how they got their cats by Haym and Eloni smuggling them in through a box. This was one of many of the 'behind the scenes stories' that Rin had told you. While they didn’t act that much different when they weren’t on camera or in front of a crowd, it was nice to be trusted enough to hear about their personal lives.
“So what about you?”
“Hm?”
“Do you have any good stories? I don’t think it’s fair if I tell all of my secrets after all~.” Rin teased
“Well, I do have one. I was at a dance audition and waiting for my turn to perform and this dude that was performing was pretty much a circus act. He was doing all these frontflips and backflips and it was just crazy. Wish I had recorded it.”
“You used to be a performer? How come you stopped?” Rin curiously asked.
“Nah, I never made it past the first round of auditions. I didn't really mind since I only entered to support a friend.” You sipped on your coffee
“That’s a shame.” Rin paused for a moment. “You know I could always offer you lessons.”
“that's really nice, but I’ll have to decline. No amount of practice can fix these two left feet.” You looked at the clock, realizing half an hour had passed. You quickly said your goodbye and left to avoid getting into trouble. Rin watched your back as he left, unsure why he couldn’t take his eyes off you.
——————
Rin was walking to his dressing room when he saw you walking alongside several other security staff. As rude as it sounded, Rin normally wouldn’t think twice about the people he worked with. Most staff would either quit from being harassed by crazy 1010 fans or get fired for secretly being 1010 fans who used the job to get access to 1010 content, or worse, 1010 themselves. Rin shuddered as memories of one of the many incidents came back. Rin could count on both of his hands the amount of current staff that has been working for over a year and you were one of them. Rin began to think about the early part of his career when he and his family would actively engage with the staff, talking about both of their personal lives and inviting them over to hang out in the mansion. He and his brothers stopped interacting with the staff after the high turnover started. What was the point of talking with them if they were going to quit and avoid 1010 like the plague or get fired and be avoided by 1010 like the plague. He was glad that he could talk to you. He also liked the sound of your voice and how your eyes sparkled brighter than the LEDs that lit up him and his brothers. Rin blushed at the last thoughts. The sound of your voice and the sparkle of your eyes? It’s not like he was in love with you or anything. He was technically your boss and your relationship was completely professional. Yeah, your interactions were one of his favorite parts of his day and your smile would always brighten his day, but even if he was in love with you(which he is not) there’s still the challenge of gaining the approval of his family and having to deal with his fan’s harassment. He couldn’t let you go through that. Though Rin couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to talk with you outside of work…even go on a couple dates… maybe he was in love afterall.
——————
You walked past Rin and smiled. Despite your attempts, you fell for Rin's charm just like his fans did and it took you no time to notice this. You knew you were never going to say anything, afterall, everyone knows the rule about not dating coworkers and Rin can choose practically anyone, why would he pick you?
——————
It was the first concert after the rock revolution
The fans were extra antsy due to the lack of content, so it was all hands on deck
You were positioned on the front of the stage
This concert was no different than the previous ones, 1010 were performing, a couple of their fans attempted to jump on the stage, and you could barely hear your own thoughts over the mix of music and cheering. Suddenly both of those stopped. You looked at the stage and so 1010 standing still in mid-performance. You were told about this situation during training: it was either a malfunction or a hacking. You prayed that it wasn’t the latter. 1010 suddenly began to move in sync, but it was different from their normal in sync movement. You saw two fans get tackled to the ground as a red saw blade passed them at what would’ve been chest height. Your radio buzzed loudly as you were given your new orders:
“Get everyone out of there.”
It was chaos as you rushed around to get everyone out of the venue. Those with superhuman abilities(pyrokinesis, levitation, etc) stayed behind to prevent 1010 from leaving the venue. Despite not having any abilities, you stayed behind too. You were running around in the back looking for anyone who still might be there when the rubble from an explosion behind you knocked you to the ground. You quickly got up and saw Rin towering over Neon J. Without thinking, you quickly grabbed a nearby pipe that came from the newly busted wall and smashed it over Rin’s head. This managed to stop his attack, but it also brought his attention to you. He suddenly ran towards you, grabbed you, and threw you against the wall. Your consciousness began to fade in and out as your head collided with the wall. You saw Rin approaching you, then darkness, Rin raising his arm to strike, darkness again, Rin being pulled away by Neón J, darkness again, the inside of an ambulance, and then nothing.
——————
You woke up in a hospital room. Your eyes scanned the room: on your right was a monitor accompanied by an IV drip. On your left was a small table with flowers, a get-well balloon, a couple cards, and a Rin with a worried face sitting on one of the chairs of the room. Rin noticed you were awake and quickly rushed before stopping unsure of what to do.
“Y/N” Rin said, unsure of what to do or say
“Rin”
“Y/N… I’m so sorry about what happened- I didn’t want to-I couldn’t stop- if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you-” Rin began to stutter out of guilt. He kept making sentences but giving up on them and starting new ones.
“Rin, please” Rin paused and looked at you. “It’s not your fault, I know you would never do this” the two of you sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before you continued, “You know... if the offers still up… I’d be happy to accept those dance lessons when I get discharged." Rin began to smile
“Yeah, the offers still up”
——————
Neon J walked through the hospital’s halls. For the past two weeks, he had been personally escorting Rin to your hospital room. He knew Rin felt responsible for your injuries so he didn’t object to this despite the possible security risks(he couldn't keep his boys locked up). He had heard from Rin that you had woken up and he was glad that you were ok, but he had to cut your visitor time short due to an interview that all 1010 members must be present for. He walked into your room to find the two of you sleeping with Rin’s head on your lap.
“It’ll be fine if Rin misses one interview.” Neon J thought as he closed the door. He also began to wonder how long it will be before Rin introduces you officially to the family.
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bea, you've been around with nct for so long and have constantly been creating high-quality content for us for free, and I really admire your passion & endless creativity 💚 i was wondering how you managed to juggle between your rl endeavours & your hobbies?
i have a tendency to go all out for something that i really like, and ive been finding myself prioritising them over my rl stuff, and i know it's not them but my poor time management skill to blame. i fear that i might miss out a lot of them if im not in ncity even for just a day. i know that at the current stage of my life, i have to focus on rl more, and im really struggling between the two 😔😔
quick answer: i don't really have real life endeavors and hobbies 😂
no, but really like I love writing, I've always loved writing since I was really young. Reading and writing go hand in hand with me, so any time I'm reading I wish I was writing and I'm getting ideas for like plotlines or just little snippet scenes that I would like to write that are inspired by whatever book I'm reading. I've been writing fanfiction since I was probably like twelve or something, like I started with Harry Potter and Twilight then that became One Direction, and when I got into kpop I started writing a tiny bit of BTS, but mostly I've only ever written for NCT when it comes to kpop
Usually I try to find time to also read and watch movies or TV instead of just writing and digging myself down the kpop rabbit hole, try to hang out with my best friend (but I'm very much a person who likes to be home, so that's rough), but with doing these member days I haven't really been doing those other things much, so right now I'm not doing a good balance of kpop and other interests
I think it helped a lot that I didn't get into kpop until I was halfway through college, and I didn't even start listening to NCT until I graduated from college, so I don't have like the real life responsibility of schoolwork, and my job isn't the kind that you need to bring home from work, so like as soon as I'm done with work for the day I can bury myself in kpop if I really want to when we're talking about time management. With NCT especially, it does feel like if you're not constantly online it's so easily to fall behind on content, like I don't know how many times I get home from work and they've posted on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, they've done music show performances and new interviews are posted, and there was an online concert earlier in the day too, and then there's like just a mountain of things it feels like I've missed out on, but normally I just come on here or quickly scroll through twitter and get the gist of what I've missed out on.
Focusing on real life is definitely more important, that's for sure. Like it's not the end of the world if you're away from ncity for a day or two or a week or even months, as long as you focus on you and what makes you happy and what's good for you. There are always update accounts that will let you know if you've missed anything big, and if you're away for a little while, I'm sure there are plenty of accounts who you can ask that can help you figure out what you've missed!
I'm just here because I've been stuck on tumblr since literally 2012 when I discovered the massive amount of One Direction fanfiction on here, and I know that I wasted so much of my high school and college time on tumblr, thinking about what to write or wanting to keep up to date instead of going out and having fun with my friends, and I know that I've seriously missed out on opportunities I should have taken, so that's probably my best reason behind telling you that if you're struggling to find a balance between real life and your kpop interests, definitely don't let this interfere with doing real life things, making real life friends, going and having fun in real life.
#asks#like for real#it's both a good and a bad thing that tumblr and me being so deeply ingrained in fandom and fanfiction has#made me who i am today like there's definitely good in that#but the bad is that i think it's made me a person who's glued to my laptop and is best at creating parasocial relationships#rather than real life relationships (rip)#so go out there into your real life and do real life things#that's my bit of advice for the day#but damn.... answering this and realizing i've been writing on tumblr for 10 years???#what??? and I know that some of the stuff I write nowadays I kinda cringe at#but when I look at my early day stuff from when I first started on tumblr I'm like.... oh.....#i didn't write smut back then (as I was a minor) but god i wrote drama and fluff? I guess with like hints toward sexy stuff#but yeah..... cringe#and i did in fact write one direction ship fics as well as some 1dmember x OC fics#and even a couple reader inserts but mostly i didn't write reader insert stuff to the degree i do now until i started this blog#like i don't know if I even know how to write from a POV that's not second person anymore lol
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Kaleidoscope of Death, Extra 5
Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu
Link to Chinese / Novel Updates
Extra: Twin Lives, Twin Deaths (2)
And so, Cheng Yixie returned to Cheng Qianli's side.
After leaving his first door, Cheng Qianli came down with a fever. He was sent to the ICU that night. Their parents both thought Cheng Qianli wouldn't make it, but only Cheng Yixie knew that Cheng Qianli was welcoming his rebirth.
A few days later, Cheng Qianli left the ICU, his body slowly healing. The first sight that greeted him upon his waking was his brother Cheng Yixie.
Cheng Yixie was sitting on a chair beside his bed, leaning back with his eyes lightly closed, apparently asleep. Cheng Qianli saw the sunlight spill over Cheng Yixie's black hair, making the inky strands seem slightly translucent. Speckled light dripped through tree branches and upon his back, and for a moment, it looked like he had wings. In Cheng Qianli's eyes, Cheng Yixie seemed as holy as an angel fallen from the heavens.
The angel's lashes trembled, and his eyes opened. Sleepiness clouded his dark pupils, and it was only in moments like this when a childlike tenderness could still be seen in his gaze.
"Ge," Cheng Qianli called to him.
The instant he heard this, the child in Cheng Yixie's eyes faded. His gaze returned to their deep, lake-like calmness as he looked at Cheng Yixie.
"Awake? Does it hurt anywhere?"
Cheng Qianli shook his head. "I think I'm pretty okay."
Maybe he was imagining things, but he thought that the bout of sickness this time actually made his body more healthy; the places that were always quietly hurting didn't feel like anything right now.
"Mh," Cheng Yixie said. "Leave with me tomorrow then."
Cheng Qianli was stunned. "Leave? For where?"
Cheng Yixie, "a place that can save your life."
Cheng Qianli stared at Cheng Yixie in a daze. Cheng Yixie thought he'd at least ask some questions, but the fool nodded right then and there, concerned just enough to ask, "have you told mom and dad? They won't stop us, right?"
"No," Cheng Yixie said. "I've already talked to them."
Upon his return this time, he'd gotten a check-up at the hospital. The doctors had been shocked to find his body completely recovered from terminal disease. By all reason, this kind of congenital cardiovascular malformation had no treatment at all given the state of modern medicine, but there hadn't been a single symptom to be found on Cheng Yixie's body.
"Let him come with me. If he stays here he'll die," Cheng Yixie had told his parents. "Only I can save him. I'm the best example."
Faced with Cheng Yixie's somewhat absurd request, their parents had at first been a little hesitant. But after Cheng Yixie used his own healthy body as proof, they'd agreed to it in the end. Because even if they got to keep Cheng Qianli, the doctors didn't have any solutions. Since that was the case, why not let Cheng Yixie have a gamble?
After that, Cheng Yixie successfully took Cheng Qianli with him out of the hospital, and the two returned to Obsidian.
Obsidian was a warm place. Cheng Yixie rejoiced that he had been able to meet such a group of people. But Cheng Qianli was only a kid who practically grew up in the hospital—he was scared of the dark and a wimp. Though his body was growing gradually healthier after entering the doors, he still couldn't manage to extricate himself from that terrifying world.
He couldn't sleep because of the nightmares; every night he came to Cheng Yixie crying, barefoot, hugging a pillow and saying, "Ge, I had a nightmare again…"
Cheng Yixie was at his computer looking up information. He turned his head back and shot Cheng Qianli a look, before gesturing with his chin for Cheng Qianli to get on the bed.
Cheng Qianli obediently crawled into the large bed behind him, staring up at the ceiling in a daze.
"Ge, aren't you scared?"
Cheng Yixie, "scared of what?"
"Of ghosts," Cheng Qianli answered.
"What's so scary about ghosts," Cheng Yixie said. "I'm not scared of ghosts."
"Then what are you scared of?" Cheng Qianli's voice asked from behind him.
This question, Cheng Yixie did not answer for Cheng Qianli. Cool light spilled from the computer screen onto his impassive face. He didn't want to say what he feared out loud, because it felt like if he said it it would come true.
Cheng Qianli didn't pursue the question, either. His even breathing came from behind—he was just a kid, after all. Once he wasn't scared anymore, he fell quickly asleep.
A few days later, Cheng Qianli saw Cheng Yixie come into the house with a furry lump in his arms. Before Cheng Qianli could react, Cheng Yixie was tossing that lump into his arms. The lump perked up its furry little butt and lapped like crazy at Cheng Qianli's cheek with its tongue. It licked Cheng Qianli into giggles, and Cheng Qianli registered then that the lump was an adorable little corgi—he exclaimed in a moment of pure delight, "it's a corgi! Ge!! I love you!!"
Cheng Yixie nodded at Cheng Qianli, turned around, and left.
What kid didn't like animals? It was just that their physical conditions before hadn't allowed them such hobbies. Now that Cheng Qianli was getting healthy, he'd given Cheng Qianli a long-coveted present.
Of course Cheng Qianli was happy beyond words, gobbling up extra bites of dinner that night. He even went around excitedly collecting everybody's opinion on what to name the dog, before finally making a decision—Toast.
Toast was the little corgi's name.
With Toast around, Cheng Qianli's mental state got a lot better. He no longer sought Cheng Yixie out at night because he couldn't sleep.
Cheng Yixie would sometimes go to his room and check on him in the middle of the night. He'd see the kid sprawled out with limbs akimbo, bent in all sorts of strange ways on the bed. And Toast would be lying right next to him, sleeping with its belly up—the two of them, one large and one small, made a particularly harmonious scene.
And Cheng Yixie would look away. When he closed the door behind him that night, he saw Ruan Nanzhu standing and smoking in the hallway.
"You're up so late?" Ruan Nanzhu asked him.
"Mh," Cheng Yixie said. "Couldn't sleep."
"It's his second door in two days. Nervous?" Ruan Nanzhu said.
Cheng Yixie was silent for a while, before nodding and admitting to the anxiety deep in his heart.
"It's never easy." Ruan Nanzhu stubbed out his cigarette. "And you're still so young…I'll go in with you."
Cheng Yixie thanked Ruan Nanzhu in response.
Ruan Nanzhu said nothing, just started back to his room. But when he pushed his door open, his footsteps halted, and he looked back at Cheng Yixie.
"But he'll have to grow up sooner or later."
Cheng Yixie met Ruan Nanzhu's eyes. He knew what Ruan Nanzhu meant.
"You can't protect him forever," Ruan Nanzhu said.
"Do you think he can do it?" Cheng Yixie asked. "Do you think, he can come as far as I have?"
Ruan Nanzhu sighed, and said nothing more.
Some things could be achieved with hard work, but other things could only be gotten through talent. Though it wasn't fair, this was the case for the world of the doors.
Some people were naturally suited to enter the doors. They were calm and clever; even in the most dangerous moments, they could think of ways to escape.
But some people couldn't.
Cheng Yixie was a person suited to the doors, but his brother Cheng Qianli was just a regular dumb kid.
Cheng Yixie didn't know how many times he'd fantasized about this—what a fortunate thing it would be if they had healthy bodies.
Cheng Qianli would grow up normally. Perhaps he'd be a bit stupid, and his grades would mean headaches for their parents, but that was fine. He would have a clever older brother. His brother could watch over him.
But all these fantasies were simply wishful thinking.
Cheng Yixie returned to his room. Nobody knew better than he did that Cheng Qianli was not suited to the doors. If things progressed down their regular tracks, Cheng Qianli would most likely very quickly die in the following doors.
But how could Cheng Yixie let all that happen? He'd already decided the path that he would walk.
Three days later, Ruan Nanzhu and the Cheng twins entered Cheng Qianli's second door together.
This door was not particularly difficult, but to Cheng Qianli, it was still horribly thrilling; he was screaming of fright the whole time.
Cheng Yixie asked him, "how the hell did you even survive your first door?"
"I don't know," Cheng Qianli said. "I just went quietly to bed every night, and then one day I saw an open door. It was all bright inside, and after I walked in, I was out…"
Both Cheng Yixie and Ruan Nanzhu sank into a peculiar silence at this. It looked like fortune favors fools really was a wise saying.
After exiting his second door, Cheng Qianli got sick again for over a week. The doctor said it was caused by an excess amount of right.
Cheng Yixie watched over him as he got his IV drip, and Cheng Qianli was all wilted and sticky with sickness. He asked Cheng Yixie, "gege, how do I get better at this?"
Cheng Yixie patted his forehead, saying nothing.
"Will I get better if I stop being scared of ghosts," Cheng Qianli said. "I've decided, I'm going to watch a scary movie every day once we're back…"
Cheng Yixie wanted to sigh, but in the end, couldn't do it. He only spoke lightly, "focus on getting better first. Everything else, there's no rush. Ge's here."
Cheng Qianli nodded obediently.
Cheng Yixie thought Cheng Qianli had only been saying so, but after he got better, he actually did start watching scary movies. And one per day. Every single day he would be curled up in the living room with a blanket wrapped around his entire body, still scaring as badly as a quail each time.
Cheng Yixie was exasperated, but didn't try to talk him out of it. It pretty much looked like Cheng Qianli's courage wasn't something that could be built up.
Though Cheng Qianli wasn't particularly strong, he injected a different kind of life into Obsidian.
When the group grew numb from the torment of the terrifying doors, the upbeat Cheng Qianli was just like an oil pastel, swiping rich colors back onto Obsidian and filling the place with the breath of life.
If only the days could continue on like this, how nice would that be? Cheng Yixie wouldn't think this just the once. Some things, however, couldn't be avoided just by hiding.
Everything changed in Cheng Yixie's seventh door.
That door was vicious beyond measure, and Cheng Yixie was the only survivor. Just as he was stumbling out the door, he got his hands on a hint slip different from all others.
A detailed hint for the next door was written on the slip of paper.
In that moment, Cheng Yixie didn't comprehend just how this hint slip would change the tracks out under his life. He was still rejoicing, rejoicing that he'd once again escaped disaster, rejoicing that he'd gotten a hint to the eighth door, rejoicing that he'd be able to see Cheng Qianli again.
But a long, long time later, when he remembered this moment, he would realize that the Cheng Yixie back then had been standing at the crossroads of fate.
On one side of fate was hell. And on the other, was also hell.
[Extra: Twin Lives, Twin Deaths(1)] | [Extra: Twin Lives, Twin Deaths(3)]
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hi, genuine question! I want to like Mara, but d2 lore shows her, in my eyes, as selfish and cruel, set on her own goal with no consideration for others. At least that's what I got from marasenna lorebook.
Why is she liked by so many in community? I feel like I'm overlooking something over things I mentioned above, but I would appreciate a perspective from someone who likes her character! If it's okay to ask!
its totally okay to ask!! this is going to be a long post so im going to put it under a readmore :)
i just want to stress first that mara is like.... widely disliked by many in the community. it used to be very unpopular to like her and if you even said anything remotely positive about her, people would reply to your posts and send you anons about how you were a terrible person for liking such a manipulative and toxic character. it was only recently that community opinion kind of started to shift, and people started to actually appreciate her character as nuanced and interesting. i definitely dont think this is because of me or anything crazy like that, but ive tried to correct misconceptions about her and cultivate a space on my blog at least where people can just openly like mara and not feel like they have to qualify it by constantly assuring people that they know mara's done bad things too (because literally every character in d2 has done bad things, and somehow people understand that liking the uldren doesnt mean you support him killing cayde but cant apply that same concept to mara for some reason). ok, im getting off my soapbox now and im going to just talk about why i like her.
mara is genuinely just such a fascinating character to me. reading the marasenna im really struck by how alone she is, even as a 19 year old human. her mom has essentially abandoned her and says that she's mara's friend but not her mother, and mara's father is never mentioned, so mara literally has no parental guidance or supervision or love. this puts a lot more of her pre-awoken actions into context, such as her not knowing how to interact with people and preferring to keep herself away from the rest of the crew. everyone mara loves leaves her. her mom stays in the distributary, uldren is distant in his efforts to impress and surprise her and then dies, and sjur dies too.
i also love mara's character arc, although it kind of makes me sad. mara is so painfully human in the earlier parts of the marasenna. she's awkward, she's lonely, she thinks her and uldren's secret language is "cool," she gets embarassed at her mom's embarrassing petnames, she hero-worships alis li and listens to her advice. watching her lose all of this and crystalize into a queen is so interesting. remember, mara didn't go out into the fight between the darkness and the traveler bc she knew she would gain power and create the awoken, its stated that she went out there to die. so a 19 year old just trying to die peacefully ends up witnessing firsthand the power of the dark and light and being tasked with essentially creating a new species, knowing that one day she wants to go back and fight the darkness. she becomes such a politician and has to scheme and plot and really loses her humanity while following ALIS' advice- alis was the one who told her that people need a mascot, not a friend. this also makes for a really interesting scene where alis grants mara one favor, and instead of asking for political power, even though mara is such an intensely political and scheming person, she tells alis the truth about the awoken and asks for forgiveness. alis, who mara looked up to, doesnt forgive her, and mara really internalizes this and starts to permantantly close herself off. mara made herself into a queen and lost her humanity in the process. there's a couple people who see the real her, like sjur, but even sjur doesnt really understand her. but her relationship with sjur is also so well written and interesting, sjur being the one person she lets herself drop her mask around and just act human. i made a post about this once, but even mara's speech patterns change around sjur, becoming much more casual and "normal." however, at the same time, mara's mask/persona is a part of her character, and one that i love. people hate her for being "mean," but i like characters like that. mara doesnt take any shit, even from the protagonist, and has her own plans and goals that she doesn't feel obligated to share or change for other people. she's ambitious, sticks to her guns, and doesn't allow other people to influence her.
you say she's selfish, and i think it is easy to brush her off as selfish and doing everything for her own gain, but there's a lot of subtext and outright text in the marasenna and other lore that shows mara genuinely believes that the only way to fight the darkness is to become a being on the same level as the darkness and the traveler. she doesn't let the awoken become immortal gods, which some people regard as a bad thing, but she did that for a reason. mara understands that a people who are eternal and ageless will never grow as people, and she knew that the darkness wanted them to just be complacently sitting aside in their little realm while it does whatever it wants. mara wasn't going to let that happen, and knew she had to find a way to encourage people to leave paradise. you can dislike the way she went about this, essentially encouraging conflict and war among her people, but she did not just do it for her own gain or amusement. mara has also been hated on for starting the reef war/firing a missile at the house of wolves, people act like she did that just for fun too, but the eliksni fleet was heading to conquer earth. instead of just hiding and building up her own resources, which wouldve been the logical thing to do in this situation, mara put her own fleet and power on the line to draw the eliksni's attention away and help earth. she doesn't do things solely bc they benefit her, but because she genuinely loves and wants to help earth. her uncaring persona is a mask, the thing that she feels she needs to be for people to have faith in her.
i have more to say but this is already so long and ive said a lot, so i'll end it here :) at the end of the day, some people are just not going to like mara and thats totally fine. she's not everyone's type, bc she IS ambitious and manipulative and sometimes cruel. i just wish she didnt get a disproportionate amount of hate for being like that when i know for a fact that if she was a male character she would not get this much hate, and i wish that people could just dislike her normally without lying about her or misinterpreting her character and motivations. but if you dont like her, you dont like her! sometimes we just dislike characters, sometimes for well thought out reasons snad sometimes just for no reason! thats completely fine, as long as you're respectful!!
#long post#ask#i did not read this over again before i hit post so if anything is grammatically weird just ignore it#and if its hard to understand just send another message and ill try to explain#tldr; misunderstood gay asshole with a heart of gold? SIGN ME UP
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lavender latte: viii
(M (for now!)
hawks | takami keigo x reader
ao3
chapter 1 || chapter 2 || chapter 3 || chapter 4 || chapter 5 || chapter 6 || chapter 7 || chapter 9 ||
masterlist
word count: ~4.7k
realities, huh.
warnings: descriptions of blood and bodily injury, post-traumatic symptoms, panic/anxiety attacks
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oof. wow. here it is, part one of the BIG boy chapter. please mind the warnings on this one!! trauma and post-traumatic symptoms are a big theme in this chapter and the next.
as an author, these have been some of the harder, more vulnerable chapters to create and i hope that the writing shows this :’’’^) all that said, enjoy :’^)
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Keigo was fucked up.
Or he had fucked up.
It was hard to tell the specifics of his predicament, considering how hard he’d hit his head.
‘Hawks’ was known for his speed, his skill, and his ability to finish fights off before they even had a chance to truly start. He prided himself on his prowess, the product of his own diligence and meticulous training. Normally, Keigo kept to these high standards without fail and with faltering.
On the rare occasion he did get injured, it was usually simple scrapes or bruises.
Except, sometimes time, his shortcomings created much more than scratches.
His left arm was twisted the wrong way, wrenched from its socket. His skull ached, hair sticking to the back of his neck and cold.
Keigo blinked slowly, vision tilting and blurry against the asphalt he’d crashed onto. He’d sent his feathers to finish off what was left of the fight, knowing that he was, bodily, down for the count.
It hadn’t started as a large fight, notably. It shouldn’t have gotten so bad. The first alert he’d received just made it seem like petty burglary. Quickly after arriving on the scene, it escalated into an entire firefight spanning several blocks.
He’d been one of the first heroes there, naturally. It wasn’t hard to disarm and pin most of the villains down, but quickly, things got out of hand. Figures forming from the afternoon’s shadows, quickly turning the simple de-escalation into an all-out brawl.
Keigo pushed himself from the filthy ground, coughing up spittle and blood on the blacktop below. It wasn’t from an internal injury, he knew, just a bitten tongue and cheek that made the drippings of his mouth pink and cloudy.
He sat up, forcing himself to his feet as more heroes arrived, finishing the job out of sheer numbers. Mentally, he cursed his mistakes and his stupor. The media circus and bureaucratic bullshit he was undoubtedly going to have to deal with made him audibly groan. Keigo could handle pain without question, but his least favorite parts of his job were the nuts and bolts of it all.
Maybe it was the head trauma or the fact he’d just gotten sloppy lately, but Keigo didn’t even notice the oddly large amount of shattered glass at the scene or the shadows that loomed and weaved without rest nearby, though they never moved to the offensive.
...
You sat on your couch, boot propped up (as usual), and a pillow hugged in your arms.
Typically, you weren’t one to watch the news, but the moment you’d seen the alert from your phone about ‘large scale villain attack- Hawks and Miruko on the scene!, you’d rushed to turn on any channel that had coverage.
Which, creating a sense of dread in your gut, was most of them.
You watched the varying camera angles of the fight, squeezing the pillow tightly in your arms like the pressure would comfort you.
The fear and terror was such a contrast to the absolute bliss of the first couple of weeks of you and Keigo’s relationship.
During that time, your text-based communication hardly changed, still ambiently throughout the day and including the exchange of many memes and well-placed photographs and selfies.
The messages had changed, somewhat, truth be told. There was a sweetness to it, soft, warm, and new. The bantering never stopped, but woven within each of your words were small, tender lines that were new to you both.
Wonderfully new.
You found that Keigo was particularly affectionate over text, but it was nothing compared to him in-person.
You hadn’t really expected him to be clingy. Not based on the way he texted and talked previously and how he was generally portrayed by the public.
But god, was he.
He came over several other nights, always bearing food, drinks, and a bright smile. He wouldn’t even think of settling for the evening in the comfort of your couch (or bed) until you’d been showered in kisses and teasing touches, always seeming hungry, maybe even starved.
He was careful, however, to never go too far or touch too much.
When you two would finally settle on the couch, usually finding yourself strewn over each other in some way, Keigo would continue heaping on affection in any way he could, subtle or otherwise. You returned the gestures, giving your own too.
You craved the heat of his body in the same way he hungered for yours.
You found that, as the nights would wear on, he tended to slip his rough hands under any top you might be wearing, settling his grip on your sides or back. He’d either press and massage, or just ambiently draw shapes. At first, you thought it was some sort of sexual preamble, expecting his touch to drift higher and hungrier.
It took you a night or two of it to realize it wasn’t like that at all—
Keigo just craved contact.
It all made sense, though your revelation surprised you a bi at first.
One night, with his head in your lap, you had simply hummed out, “I never thought you’d be touch-starved.”
Keigo hummed as you ran your nails around the shell of his ear, “Mind elaborating on that one?”
“You’re always touching me when we’re together,” You replied simply, heart squeezing at the little twinges of anxiety you could see forming around Keigo’s eyes. “Not that it's a bad thing— I really love all of it, it’s just sweet. I didn’t think you’d be so affectionate and touchy. I would dare to say, it's cute.”
That comment turned Keigo’s cheeks bright red, though you hardly got much of a chance to tease him about it before he was on you with another wave of soft kisses and squeezes.
Maybe, you were a little touch-starved yourself.
And definitely, surely, falling into each other simply and sweetly felt like heaven.
...
But all of that syrupy goodness was gone, the flavor of it stale and rotten.
All you could focus on was your TV screen as Hawks was being pulled from an alleyway. The camera angle was poor, the quality shaky, but the picture was clear as day to you.
Keigo was walking, barely, most of his weight bared into Miruko’s side. He looked half-dead when he first emerged, limbs twisted painfully and face downcast.
He brightened up a moment later. You weren’t even sure that anyone would’ve caught the change in his expression if they didn’t know him as intimately as you did.
Your chest tightened painfully when he gave his most dashing smile, pearly white teeth stained with blood that was rushing from a wide cut on his forehead. The juxtaposition of him being purely fucked up mixed with the shining expressions he was flashing at the media made your stomach churn with dread.
He’s hurt.
And it seems bad.
You chewed your bottom lip until it ached.
The newscast kept playing, showing the wreckage of the scene, all of the hurt civilians— it was a few cities over, but you swore you could hear the sirens just outside of your window.
You dug around for your phone, typing out a message to Keigo, fingers shaking as you did.
[you]: hey i saw about the attack? how are you doing?
Texting him was the bare minimum, wasn’t it? If you could, you’d call. But based on the way he was reported to have been taken to a nearby hospital, he wouldn’t be answering his phone any time soon.
It didn’t feel like enough, but what more could you do?
You felt uncomfortably powerless.
A very lucid, perhaps cruel part of your mind rang out amid your quiet panic:
Get used to it.
You fell back into the cushions, unable to turn off the screen, though unable to do anything other than watch and churn.
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Keigo didn’t have a great recollection of the day's events after sustaining his fairly significant head injury, not to mention the shattering of the bones in his right arm and a few in his left leg. Not to mention his sorely dislocated shoulder.
Pain blotted things out memory, he knew.
Hospital trips were few and far between for Keigo, but in the unfortunate circumstance he was stuck and strung up with wires and IV tubes, he was more than well taken care of.
He was aware, somewhat, of the Commission’s hold on the scruff of his neck, though complacent in it. His good attitude and impeccable, nearly-perfect performance earned him the best medical care they could provide.
Some sweet girl, a student from the west, was brought in to heal his wounds. Healing quirks of any significance were rare, so it was always interesting to see how they worked and manifested.
The girl’s quirk came at the price of any energy his body had, but he was completely patched up in a number of minutes. Fatigue be damned, he was happy to be quickly and easily put back together. He made sure to put on his best camera-ready smile as the girl traced symbols on the backs of his hands, fingers shaking and shyly smiling.
She was probably starstruck, all things considered. Meanwhile, Keigo was exhausted and out of it.
All through it, all of it, the actual fight and subsequent medical nightmare, he had slipped into a far different mindset than the one he’d been occupying for the last couple of weeks.
Consequently, he hadn’t thought of you at all.
You didn’t even cross his mind.
Keigo could’ve blamed it on hitting his head, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair or truthful.
All the same, the absence would burn later.
...
Keigo flashed a dopey smile to the door of his hospital room when he spotted a familiar puff of bright yellow hair.
Despite his stupor, familiarity still resonated. Besides, his PA stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the greyscale scrubs and antiseptic.
“Akane! I knew you’d never be far in my time of need,” Keigo relaxed against the hospital bed he was still resigned to. He was to be discharged as soon as possible for the bevy of press reports he would had to complete. Not to mention the mountains of paperwork he’d probably have to file and sign.
Akane kept a stern but humored expression as she shooed a nurse out of Keigo’s room. She was shorter than most, face cut with sharp angles and high ridges. They were dressed immaculately as always, a well-tailored black suit with crisp-looking dress shoes. All professionalism, trained and honed by the Commission in a similar way to Keigo, though it was implicitly recognized.
“You’ve got a press conference in thirty with Miruko,” Akane didn’t answer his greeting, though Keigo could tell by their quick nod that it was at least acknowledged. They rolled a small suitcase next to the bed. “Extra hero costume in there. I called your normal hair and makeup, they’ll be in a few minutes after I leave. It’s been a while since you’ve been this injured in a fight, so put on a good show for everyone, won’t you?”
Akane’s sarcasm always brought a smile to his face, contrasting so starkly with their well-pressed hems and seams.
Keigo quickly sat up, dropping his feet to the cold linoleum below, “Always a show.”
He quickly began to re-robe into his new garments, tired mind returning to its trained roots.
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You had been watching the newscast for hours, probably (definitely) against your best interest.
You’d have plenty of time to kick yourself for it later.
You couldn’t stop watching the repetitive footage and bland media, despite the report that ‘Hawks’ was safe, well and receiving treatment.
Until you saw him, you couldn’t rest—- Or that’s what it felt like, anyway.
The image of him bloodied felt painfully etched into the forefront of your mind. The contours and highlights of Keigo’s wounds were uncomfortably bright and hot, nestled next to swirling images of your own. Uncomfortably vivid sensations and colors of your own stitched-up wounds that once wept blood themselves.
If you steeped in it all too deeply or for too long, your breathing would quicken, memories unbridled in the way they sucked down.
Sweat dripping down your brow, you willed your breath even and slowly despite how you definitely were having trouble handling what you were experiencing.
As the evening wore into night, you remained wired.
You convinced yourself, despite the thorns that ran deep, you would be able to rest once you saw Keigo well.
Eventually, there was an announcement for a late press conference, a conclusion to the media frenzy.
You knew you’d stay up for it, no matter how long it took to air. You knew he was fine, it had been confirmed over and over throughout the coverage, but it wasn’t enough.
You just need to see him.
Then you’ll be fine.
Keigo is fine.
No amount of reassurance comforted you. You were sinking too deeply in your throes, ungrounded and crackling within your own fragile mind.
The memories of blood and gore and hot, white fear rolled over you, suffocatingly close to how you’d felt less than a month prior.
On the cold cement floor of the tea shop, you had Keigo’s feather, the knowingness that he would be there.
Yet, now?
You were alone in your dim apartment.
No Keigo.
No villains.
Just you and your skull.
You had to pull yourself back when you felt your quirk begin to activate with your adrenaline, thankful for the low stimulation of your apartment, and the pillow in your arms being exchanged for the plushie Keigo had gifted you. You forced yourself to ground, counting your breaths, and holding yourself together.
(Maybe the trauma of your own run-in was deeper than you wanted to acknowledge.)
You pushed the thought aside as the live footage of the press conference began. It was better to compartmentalize it all, wasn’t it? Why not shove it back where it was easier to not deal with? You’d get a therapist or something.
If Keigo is okay, you’ll be okay.
The press conference decor was coated with the diamond insignia of the Public Safety Hero Commission, along with a few sponsors and nearby police departments. Local heroes and police officers sat around microphones with plastic waterbottles, ringing around the focal points of the events:
Keigo and Miruko.
Seeing him, perfectly in uniform and switched-on didn’t make you feel better.
If anything, it made you feel worse.
Before everything, when he was just your regular you pined after, you saw and heard of him doing heroic duties all the time.
But, it was different when Keigo was your partner, yet living an entirely different reality from yours. In the safety of your apartment, and formerly the teashop, that line of difference was somewhat blurred, or, it at least appeared to be.
But while Keigo was shiny and dazzling, charismatic and blunt as ever on the stage of the conference, the contrast turned polar.
As there was a jeer of laughter, Keigo grinning as Miruko clapped a hand on his back, your stomach rolled.
Seeing him fine and good-as-new wasn’t soothing.
It was like pouring moonshine on a brush fire.
Every moment of the conference highlighted the separation between the two of you, the feeling of fear and now loss so strongly in your mind, it started to taste like the tannin of a rotten wine .
The concoction was made even viler as the memories of injuries didn’t fade or falter.
Your chest ached.
The press conference droned on in front of you, but none of the content of it registered. It was all sickly background noise to your own pains
You pressed the plushie against your stomach, ignoring the phantom stabs of rancid-yellow that traced up your leg from your booted foot.
...
“From what we can surmise, there’s activity of several different villain groups in this area that are connected. This incident is related.”
...
You were getting to yourself, you had been all evening. The problem was you couldn’t climb out—
Not if you weren’t honest and self-aware.
Too bad you were actively spiraling away from anything even close to the latter and former.
...
“There is much we don’t know at this time, but it is clear there must be further investigation into the roots of the attack.”
...
You recognized, even then, that Keigo was going to be in harm's way because of his job, constantly. He was always in danger.
It just felt different, having to see it play out in front of you, isolated from him in all ways except the glimmer he showed the cameras and the gore he bore prior.
The absences burned.
Your gaze moved to your phone, the device still dormant.
With a thick, sticky swallow, you resigned yourself to sitting back into the cushions of your couch, spiraling and numbing as you had been hours.
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Following the press conference, Keigo had one priority—
Sleep.
Despite Akane’s nagging that they ‘really needed to talk to him’, Keigo was exhausted after being healed and wanted nothing more than to go home and rest for as long as he could make himself lay still.
Maybe, he could’ve handled a patrol (if he had had anything significant of his wings left), but he could not stand the idea of dealing with bureaucratic bullshit in his wrung-out state.
At this admission, Akane sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Fine, but you need to come to the office as soon as possible,” Akane seemed exasperated after such a long evening (now night), of dealing with the attack. “Seriously, or your publicist is going to kick both of our asses.”
Keigo didn’t ponder too far into the topic of whatever Akane needed him for. Far too mentally wiped-out to bother with what was undoubtedly bureaucratic bullshit.
He rolled his eyes, sending a feather forward to trigger the automatic doors ahead, “I’ll be sure to come in— It’s not like I don’t have a backlog of paperwork to finish.”
“That too,” Akane sighed, pausing outside of the doors, just dimly lit under the lip of the entrance of the building. “Feel better, quick. And please, stay safe.”
Keigo raised an eyebrow, “You know I always am. I’ll see you around tomorrow, bright and early.”
Keigo flew away so quickly, he didn't notice Akane’s pinched expression and set jaw and she waved goodbye.
...
Nearly featherless and on the edge of total exhaustion, Keigo dragged himself back to his penthouse. His mind and body ached, his thoughts messy and disorganized.
It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar state, though he didn’t get to it often.
He had ample training to not get like this. The fuzziness he was clouded by should’ve been tossed aside easily; he blamed his own overcast on the healing he received.
(And, not that he, perhaps, had more on his mind as of late)
More on his mind meant more to forget.
It wasn’t until he toweled off from a quick shower that he even looked at his phone.
It wasn’t until he saw your single text that you even came to his mind.
Keigo called you nearly instantly, jaw going tight.
It made sense that he’d forget, he rationalized.
The portion of his psyche that was trained to be a hero was the same part that struggled the most with his feelings for you. All of the affection, validation, and deep admiration (and perhaps more) was slowly but surely allowing long-dormant parts of him to awaken—
Yet, all of the new roots and growth aside, he’d forgotten about you in the chaos of the day.
Maybe a passing, subconscious twinge in his gut, but otherwise? Nothing.
A bit of guilt chewed him as the line began to ring.
You laid across your couch, curled up with the plushie in your arms. The news reports played like white noise, your mind long having gone to gum and static. You alternated between different horrors of memory and sensation.
The buzzing and shrill sound of your ringtone made your jump, pulling you from your stupor.
[birdboy <3] calling...
You immediately picked up the call.
“Keigo?” You asked, trying to ignore the continual light shaking of your hands.
“Hey, dove,” His voice was cool and calm. “Sorry, I just saw your message now. I figure you saw all the news, but I’m all good, no worries! How are you?”
Oh.
Was it that easy?
The gears in your skull turned far slower than you wanted them to.
He’s fine, (Y/N).
He’s so unbothered.
Everything is fine.
You tried to comfort yourself, taking a few methodical breaths.
“Dove? Are you there?”
Get your shit together.
“Yeah, I am.” You shook your head. “I was worried, that’s all. My bad. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“The news really plays things up, huh?” Keigo laughed with a sigh, scratchy from the speaker. “Sorry about the media circus. They like the drama.”
“Uh-huh.” You replied, feeling yourself begin to spin all over again.
Drama.
Dramatics.
...
Calm down.
It wasn’t that simple.
“Hey, dove, are you alright?” Keigo spoke casually from the line. Maybe there was some concern in his tone (or you just wanted there to be). You couldn’t fully tell.
You sank back into the couch, bending your good leg into your chest, “I was just worried, is all. I freaked myself out.”
“I’m sorry about that, angel,” Keigo clicked from the phone. “I don’t get banged up too often. Besides, they always stitch me back together quickly! It’s just like this sometimes.”
“‘It’s just like this sometimes’,” You repeat mechanically, processing so slowly it was painful. Your voice sounded far off—
You felt like you were drowning.
Why couldn’t you handle seeing him hurt?
It’s part of his job.
Why does this all feel so bad?
“Can you come over?” You asked, praying that he’d say yes, and maybe, maybe, you could have your fears be assuaged with some contact. Some support—
“Sorry, dove, the healer they got for me really drained me,” Keigo yawned from the other side of the line. “I think I’m gonna hit the hay. But, tomorrow is just an office day for me, so I can come by after?”
Your heart sank in your chest, faster and harder than you could try to make yield.
“That works,” You replied, despite how rotten you felt. “Take care, okay? Get some rest.”
You hung up abruptly, not waiting for his reply, and lowering your head.
Tears drip from your eyes, soaking the plushie in your arms as you finally let out the sobs you had been holding back for hours.
...
Despite Keigo’s exhaustion, he knew that the entire phone call was so off. You’d never hung up that quickly before, and you sounded a bit off.
None of it sat right.
He shot off a kind text or two before knocking out for the night, nodding off just after sending them.
...
You hardly slept.
You felt like you were being eaten alive as the night wore on and the moon remained high.
It was all metastasized, unchecked. Breathing exercises had stopped cutting it at some point, your own thoughts and methodical actions lost in the soup of it all.
You ‘rationalized’.
He’s a fucking hero, he’s going to get hurt. It’s part of the job and you need to get over it.
That doesn’t matter! It’s still terrifying to see someone you care about super injured!
You knew all of that though.
None of it was new.
What was new, and harder to understand, was the storm that had buried itself like a barbed arrow between the two halves of your brain.
The rest of it.
The complex miasma of feelings that were only set off by the events and subsequent feelings you tried to rationalize.
The mental thunder-cracks kept you tossing and turning, any sleep light and flighty. Your eyes burned and dripped through the entire night, soaking your pillowcase.
By the time morning light began to shift in from the heavy curtains of your bedroom, you might’ve felt worse than you did the night prior.
Your mouth was dry, tongue tacky, and swollen in your mouth. You forced yourself out of bed, methodically showering despite all of the energy it took with your leg still recovering.
You felt hazy beyond belief, fatigued, and purely awful.
Quickly, you nested for the day, still damp from your shower and sore from your lack of sleep. Tucking into the couch, you covered yourself with blankets and held the plushie to your chest, not even bothering to turn on the TV.
Keigo, meanwhile, prepped for his office day. Since his wings were sparse, he made an extra effort for his face. Bit of concealer to brighten his dark circles and smooth out the finer lines around his brow and under his eyes.
It seemed pertinent to cover more, wipe away his anxieties as his gaze flickered to his phone on the countertop of his bathroom.
You’d never responded the night before. You hadn’t said anything— not even giving an indication that you’d seen the message.
Truthfully, now that the drum of the press and his de-facto role had died down, your lack of contact filled him with burning anxiety.
You two had a habit of texting each other in the mornings, little sweet greetings and the occasional messy selfie that the other adored. Keigo typically woke up earlier than you, but still.
He gave you a call.
You robotically picked up on the second ring, hardly looking at your phone and its caller as you held it to your ear, “Hello?”
“Hey, angel!” Keigo’s voice seemed too chipper from the other side of the line. “I just wanted to call and check-in. You just sounded a bit off last night, is all. Are you doing okay?”
“Oh,” You sounded hollow, far-off, and sticky.
There was a pause, your numbed out psyche far-too slow and miswired to say anything else.
“(Y/N)?” Keigo asked. “Are you there?”
Your name shoved you a bit closer to reality.
“Yeah, I am.” You blinked, your name making you twitch, “Sorry, I’m just not feeling well.”
“Awww, since last night too?” Keigo’s wings beat in the background of the call. “Is that why you wanted me to come over?”
Sort of, not really.
Your voice shook as you quickly were losing the will to keep it even, “U-um—”
How do you even explain?
Your quirk spun alive, the feeling of shrapnel and rusted nails running jagged lines down your spine.
You need to be honest.
“I j-just,” You sniffled back tears, though fruitlessly. “I just got really scared.”
You covered your mouth with your hand, holding the phone away from your mouth and praying that Keigo couldn’t hear the muffled sobs you forced to stay in your throat.
“It’s alright, I’m okay!” He tried to assure you, tensing at the doorway to his balcony. “Everything is totally fine, there’s no reason to be scared.”
You went quiet on the other side of the receiver, all sound muffled and mixed. It made Keigo chew his lip, tightening his grip on the phone.
“I know.” Your voice broke at the same moment as Keigo’s chest tightened. You sounded so hurt.
It pricked those seldom-used parts of his brain alive.
It was those weird tingles and shooting bits of cortisol that screamed ‘protect them’. They screamed to life at your distress, hot and bright.
“Dove, are you alright? Are you crying?” Panic seeped into his tone as his feathers rippled from soft to razor-sharp in his instinctual rise.
“I just got so f-fucking scared,” You choked, voice fizzling on the line. “Keigo, I’m sorry, I just— “
Your voice broke into tears, sobs echoing from the phone.
Keigo’s grip tightened, heart-pounding and feathers vibrating.
He acted before thinking too hard about it.
“(Y/N), I’m gonna come over, okay? I’ll be there soon,” Keigo assured you, and himself, truthfully as he tore open his balcony door and launched into the sky
You sputtering out an affirmative as wind-whipped into the receiver.
Burying your face in your hands, you felt dread weigh you down from the inside out.
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ko-fi
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taglist: @thepandapopo @hawksexual @sinclairsamess @darcia22 @inhalingsoysauce @yee-fxcking-haw @aproperthottie @seasalttrioforever @msgrungie @mia--merc @a-monsters-love @peach-buns-unicorns@amethyst-rose-17 @mega-bastard @an-untamed-rose @ravioliplease @keigosangel @gobestupidelsewhere
(send me an ask if you would like to be added!)
#salem writes#hawks x reader#takami keigo x reader#hawks#takami keigo#my hero academia#hawks x y/n#hawks x you#lavender latte#takami keigo x y/n#enjoy y'all hehe and SMOOCH
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My opinion is that a good amount of the fandom doesn’t see El as her own person and only sees her as an extension of Mike even when they try to deny it, and that not being together romantically would be a lot healthier for both of their character growth.
oh this. ive found in my short bursts of exploring the stranger things fandom that far too many el stans for my liking erase or twist everything that makes her HER, or seem to get defensive over characteristics that el DOES have and things that el DOES do. not everyone loves characters the same way, sorry that you can't appreciate el's hot-headedness, intellectual struggles and probable post-institutional syndrome, and tendancy to mimic other people around her as she learns the world, but that's a you problem shawty <3
i think a lot of people just don't care to engage with her character on any deeper level other than thinking she's a cute badass who kicks monster ass, and that's okay. i do get the impression with how they talk about el and mileven, and the type of content they make, that a group of fans simply use el as a self-insert because they find finn cute. i tend to think el does have her own distinct personality, but for those who don't necessarily engage with her character, i can see how she'd come across to them as a semi-clean slate they can project onto.
and actually ive decided to go on a tangent because this just reminded me of something lol and im using this anon as an excuse to try to collect and organise my thoughts. in the conflict scene between mike, max and nancy regarding mike's concerns of treating el like a weapon, nancy was literally projecting in that scene...she's personally dealing with sexism in her own plot and thus applies her own feelings about her own situation to el's, growing defensive over mike's genuine worry, batting it away with 'el knows her own limits. el is her own person' and she's misguided because even though el does know a great deal more about her power than anyone else, she's been shown to be extremely brave, protective and sacrificial (which mike helplessly WATCHED the first time) for the people she cares about and would absolutely exhaust herself and push herself past her own capabilities if it meant saving them for a little bit longer. that's ALSO who el is at her core. a girl who loves deeply.
to me it's not that mileven is 'unhealthy' like they're kids tbh, tho mike has been paralleled to hopper in s3 numerous times with his possessiveness, talk of others "corrupting" her, and typical 80s teenage boy behaviour, for me it's that i don't really like where that dynamic puts mike's character and by extention how other characters have to kind of...revolve around mileven when it's romantically A Thing, as they literally did in season 3. mike is a group leader but in season 3 he really wasn't, mike loves his friends so much but in season 3 he was really slacking on the whole 'i would literally DIE for my friend' thing and was so obsessively preoccupied with girlfriends (while the girls, on the other hand, were living their best single lives) that he shoved aside 2 out of 3 friends etc.
el on the other hand isn't that much affected as a character by having a boyfriend/love interest as far as we can tell, which I really love, however I find it...odd...that she's this really traumatised child with actual powers, she's WEIRD she's not normal, she's no particularly well-adjusted, she's still learning language, context and behaviours and such, she doesn't know who she is or what she likes, she's barely seen the world, but right away she's just acting like a normal teenage girl with unconventional speech patterns trying on clothes, eating ice cream, skipping through the mall, oogling boys and dealing with angsty teen drama, which isn't bad, I'm just wondering where the rest went and why they can't co-exist. a quick shot of el feeling watched and uneasy while she's in the mall surrounded by all those people. something. that's not really a gripe i have with mileven, but just how it's been fitted in with the other elements of the show and how it was so in our faces all season 3. with that being said im in agreement with the metas discussing how season 3 is supposed to be superficial and goofy and emphasises how mileven doesn't really work and has been moving quickly, i think we were supposed to be uncomfortable with that makeout scene watching through the crack in the door where hopper is, being told the kissing is constant, having joyce ask hopper to clarify it's ONLY kissing these 14 year olds doing, that awkward one-sided kiss with mike's eyes wide open, everyone teasing them or expressing frustration towards them, etc. i have no hard feelings for mileven, i don't actually mind it (or i didn't until all that i just mentioned in s3 plus some), i think it's very sweet in s1 and s2. really i don't take major issue with the relationship itself when you remove it from everything else and look at it, i simply just prefer byler. LOL.
#sorry i say etc so much SJFNSHDJ#i think in 3 thoughts at a time#stranger things#mike wheeler#el hopper#el byers
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Those Who Are Kind
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Summary: Siblings are the last thing on Marinette’s mind as she begins her frantic search for Tikki. Really, she can’t even consider them siblings, not yet. But they’re along for the ride, whether she wants them to be or not.
Duke doesn’t know what to make of the current situation.
He’s always known that the Waynes are crazy, insane, even, but he loves them all the same, in the begrudging, cautious way he cannot shake. (This approach has served him well over the years, allowing him to avoid multiple schemes that Tim or Jason typically start up to rile up Damian. From there, everything is guaranteed to snowball. The only time things get really bad is when Cass gets involved.) To him, it’s always been a bit uncanny how similar all the brothers looked, despite the fact that none of them shared blood. All of them had the same sharp jaw, piercing blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones and defined bodies. Only Tim and Damian differed slightly, with Tim having a dancer’s figure instead of that of a body builder or demolitions expert, and Damian having green eyes instead of blue. It’s also disconcerting that everybody the Waynes are more intimately involved with have some sort of alter ego. He often joked with other members of the Justice League that heroism ran in Bruce’s blood.
With the new addition of Marinette to their family, he has to say that he’s been proven right.
A girl who had absolutely nothing to do with the Waynes in any capacity other than the fact that she and Bruce share blood becoming a hero. The leader of a team. Fighting supervillains at the age of thirteen.
He’s very, very glad that he was not adopted by or shared blood with Bruce. He doesn’t think he could have handled being a superhero at age thirteen. He can barely handle being Signal now some days, and he’s an adult. The amount of responsibility on Marinette’s shoulders is difficult to understand. To be the sole wielder of magic that can revert an entire city back to its original state. To bring people back from the dead.
Dick is strangely quiet. A car is driving them from a pit stop near a zeta tube to Marinette’s hospital.
Hands down, Dick is the most sane male of the Wayne family, not including Alfred. But there are times when Duke sees the weight that he carries. All the times that he refuses to talk about the burdens that he bears. Moving forward with a smile when he’s in pain. When he gets in a mood like this, he’s hard to read. But given the circumstances, it’s fairly clear exactly what’s bothering him.
“He’s known about her this entire time,” Dick says, tinted windows allowing Duke a glance at his expression, carefully devoid of any telling emotions. “Nineteen years. He kept her a secret.”
“It’s Bruce.” The man is known for keeping secrets.
“Yeah, but Marinette is family. She should have been, at least. And now…”
Now she’s all alone when she should be surrounded by people that love her, praising her for her victory, for how she shouldered so much responsibility at such a young age. But by bringing her to a hospital in America, she’s been cut off from her team, and any support system she should have had is gone.
“You and her,” Duke says, looking for a way to comfort him. “You’ll get along. You’re similar, after all.” After they brought Gabriel and Lila to the a top security prison and sent Emilie to a hospital that couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, they got two files from Tim. One detailing Ladybug and all of her exploits. The second, detailing Marinette’s life.
Duke has watched the videos. Has watched how Ladybug leads by example, comes up with the plan and begins the execution. How she shoulders more battles than she should.
He’s seen Marinette pull people together with a smile on her face, even while she’s running on empty after a strenuous akuma attack.
Dick and Marinette are alike.
“We’re too much alike,” Dick says. “I suspected for a long time that Bruce had another kid that he wasn’t telling us about, but I thought that if he was keeping her away from us, then maybe she’d have a shot at leading a good life. A normal life. Not the one she got. Sabine’s— Bruce’s biological daughter shouldn’t be somebody like me. She deserves better.”
Duke is acutely aware that Dick’s parents were also murdered, but whatever relation he had with Sabine is something he’s never been willing to talk about. There are pictures in his apartment of a petite Asian woman with a soft smile standing next to him, but whenever asked about her, Dick never gives a straight answer.
“Nobody has the ability to change the past.” Duke claps a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He sags imperceptibly under the weight.
Well— actually, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities, given the fact that magic, aliens, and metahumans all coexisted, supplemented by the fact that multiple members of Marinette’s team do have the ability to travel back in time, but that’s another matter entirely. There’s not a lot of information on the Miraculous, and all of their knowledge is coming from Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Zatara, and even the three of them don’t know everything.
“But you have the chance to do good by her. Be a good older brother, like I know you are.”
A thin smile appears on Dick’s face. “She’s going to need more than just one good influence on her life. And Damian is better, but you saw how he looked at her when Bruce brought her through the Zeta tubes. Tim’s not going to react well either, and Jason is a wild card. She’s not going to get the support she needs if she stays with us.”
Duke crosses his arms, knees brushing up against the back of the car seat. “The only person whose actions you’re responsible for are your own. Don’t worry about them. If they don’t like her, they’ll just avoid her.”
That’s certainly not true— all of the members of the Wayne family are notorious for going hard after all of the things they don’t like. But... it’s comforting to hear. Sometimes temporary and known lies are much nicer than harsh realities.
#
She’s gone.
All of her belongings are missing, the IV needle is hanging from the stand, the window open, and Marinette is missing from her bed.
At least she left a note?
Be back soon — Marinette
“Great,” Duke mutters under his breath. “Another incredibly vague, cryptic Wayne.”
Dick’s face turns to ash. “Her legs. Her head. She can’t go out so soon. Hold on, maybe Barbara can pull up some footage.”
“On the bright side, there’s no blood,” Duke says.
“That’s not a bright side.”
“It is,” Duke argues. “She fell in the worst places possible, right on top of that broken glass casket. If she’s not bleeding that clearly means she didn’t pull her stitches on her mad escape out.”
When Ladybug fell, they’re not exactly sure what happened, because the screen showed Ladybug collapsing almost gracefully. When they arrived on the scene, she flickered between Ladybug and Marinette as her earrings beeped. Her legs were slashed from falling on the glass with a seemingly unnatural force— simply falling would not have garnered cuts that large— and her head was twisted at an odd angle, debris bloodied beneath her.
Somehow, the Miraculous Cure seemed to be working backwards. Not from the epicenter out, but rather from the edge of the damage, in. It worked slowly, every mile taking minutes instead of mere seconds. It hadn’t happened before in any of the battles.
It was useful in apprehending Hawkmoth and Pavona, who were still knocked out. But Marinette, even after the Miraculous Cure washed over her, didn’t get healed. Her injuries didn’t revert. There was still a gash on her stomach from Hawkmoth’s cane, still muscles exposed on the back of her legs and blood on her neck. When she was first brought in, the doctors feared that she may be permanently incapacitated.
Good at keeping to her word at least. She came swinging through the window with worry on her face and grief in her eyes.
“I need to go back to Paris,” she says.
Dick will undoubtedly say no. He’s a very protective person, and Marinette is the center of his current efforts.
But she doesn’t look injured. He eyes her stance. She’s standing with no effort, walks with no limp. No hospital dress, no blood on her neck, no bruises in all of the places he was expecting them to be. Marinette does not look like she just faced a world ending threat less than twenty four hours ago. She certainly doesn’t look like she’s permanently lost the use of her legs. There’s the familiar Wayne Brand Stubbornness in her eyes— no way she’s not Bruce’s kid— that tells him that she’s going to get to Paris one way or another, and that they’re either lucky they were even notified in the first place or that she wants to use a resource that they have that she does not have access to. It’s fairly obvious what that resource is, considering that Paris is nine hours away by any normal plane and it sounds like she wants to get there in minutes, and not hours. Duke also knows that if they don’t take what she’s offering now, she’ll use an alternative method that definitely won’t be as nice or clear cut.
He jumps in before Dick can say anything. “We’ll take you as long as we go with you every step of the way.”
Oh, he’s going to get in so much trouble for doing this. Dick is looking at him with his Disapproving Dad glare, and he can imagine Bruce going into brooding silence when he hears that Duke allowed this to happen.
Marinette’s lips pinch together, but she nods. “Where’s the nearest zeta tube?”
#
Barbara gets Dick’s text and sighs in frustration.
She’s already got her hands full with watching Tim, who’s spiralling trying to find information about the Miraculous, muttering under his breath in the way he does when he gets a particularly hard case to crack. He’s gone through six cups of coffee in the last hour, and he kicked off his research with a combination of 5 Hour Energy, Monster, three packets of sugar, and 10 caffeine shots. Soon, she’ll have to start limiting his caffeine intake, but right now it’s clear that any attempt to get him to stop his research now will fail spectacularly. At least she’s not in charge of Damian and Jason. Wherever they are, they’re definitely on the move and not happy.
She never thought she'd be able to say she’s happy about being paralyzed from the waist down, but she certainly doesn’t want to be chasing after one of the two hellions. Cass definitely has her hands full and whoever’s watching Jason— wait, is anybody even watching Jason? Typically Roy gets stuck with Jason-sitting duty, but he’s been out for a while.
Barbara groans. Jason is probably on his own, wreaking havoc.
Great.
She’ll deal with that later, even though she has no doubt she’ll regret that decision, but if Marinette is gone from her room, Dick needs the footage, and somebody needs to find where she is. The nurse put in her latest report that her legs were almost healed and that she didn’t show any signs of a concussion, but Marinette was in bad shape when she got admitted to the hospital. Even though Barbara doubts that there was any misdiagnosis, given that Bruce sprung for a VIP room in one of the pricier hospitals, in a world where magic and aliens are present, who knows what’s true or not.
“Tibet!” Tim jumps up from his hunched over position for the first time in hours. “I’m going to Tibet, the closest zeta tubes are three hours by car away, but I can get somebody to loan Wayne Industries a helicopter while I’m over there.”
“Sit down, Tim.” Barbara takes her glasses off and pinches the bridge of her nose. Why can’t Bruce rein in his children? Why is she the one stuck babysitting? “Marinette left her hospital room.”
That certainly gets Tim to put the brakes on his movements towards the zeta tube in the bat cave.
“What?”
“I said, she left her hospital room. Just sit down while I send the information over. It’s not going to do you any good to rush into things anyways.”
A quick review of the surrounding CCTV shows that Marinette didn’t travel far, just around the hospital. She’s looking for something, calling out for it, too. Barbara grabs that file and slows it down so she can read her lips. “Dickie? Do she and Dick know each other already?”
A quick text back to Dick reveals that Marinette has already returned to the room and—
Oh, hell.
“Well,” Barbara pushes her laptop away from her, letting Tim watch the files she’s pulled up. “It looks like we’re taking a family trip to Paris.”
#
Somehow, Marinette almost manages to lose all four of them within the first four minutes of roaming around Paris.
Luckily, their family has an almost absurd amount of luck between all of them (not all of it good) and the person Barbara was half sure she could only find in prison, beating up Hawkmoth and Pavona, runs into Marinette on the streets and herds her back to them.
“Lose something?” Jason asks, arm slung around Marinette’s shoulder, the smaller, younger girl looking rather upset at having her plans thrown off.
“I told them that they could follow me,” Marinette argues without much real bite. It’s not my fault if they can’t keep up, is the clear meaning of her statement.
Again, Barbara is very impressed that the barely nineteen year old somehow managed to shake off vigilantes with decades of experience with ease. But it is, at least, partially due to her disability. Every time she goes out in her wheelchair, her heart aches a little, especially as the civilians she passes eye her with pity. Barbara doesn’t want pity. Doesn’t need pity. She shouldn’t feel anything when people look at her like she can’t keep up, because she can keep up.
Most of the time, anyways.
It doesn’t matter how she uses her tech skills to modify her wheelchair and deck it out with all the equipment she could ever need, or that she can easily get up to speeds rivalling sports cars for short periods of time before the power runs out. When she’s stuck in her wheelchair, she loses the maneuverability she had when she wasn’t paralyzed.
She couldn’t follow Marinette through the alleyways because she was stuck. Barbara was the one who noticed her escape first. If only she were more capable, she could have—
But it’s okay now. Jason ran into her. Marinette is back with them.
“I need to search for something, and none of you can help.” She’s not intentionally being rude when she says it, and if anything, sounds apologetic. Barbara sees the similarities between Marinette and Bruce. It makes a lot of sense that the two of them are father and daughter, when the two of them are so insistent on keeping major issues to themselves. Marinette twists herself out from underneath Jason’s arm, clutching her purse. Her head doesn’t move, but her eyes are wild.
“We can help,” soothes Duke, ever the voice of reason. “You know who we are.”
“And I’m guessing you’ve all either deduced who I am or have been told my identity,” counters Marinette. “Which means you should know why I can’t have you helping me.”
Barbara and Duke exchange pointed glances.
“That’s not really clear to us, actually,” says Barbara. Marinette isn’t moving, but the way her shoulders tense makes her believe that the younger girl is ready to run at the drop of a hat.
A small group of people from the parade on the streets tumbles into the alleyway they’re resting in. They smell like cheap booze and sweat.
“What are all of you doing in this alley?” one says, after he finished vomiting up his last (very colorful) meal. “You should be out there partying with the rest of us! Celebrating Ladybug and her team.”
“Fuck Hawkmoth and Pavona,” says another solemnly, with neon face paint and pigtails with glitter string intertwined. “Their defeat should be celebrated by even the darkest souls.”
Jason, easily amused by their antics, looks very willing to join them. “Yeah Marinette, we should be celebrating Ladybug not—”
As one, everybody looks at the place where Marinette was, just moments ago. The alley is decidedly empty of a small asian girl with blue eyes and pigtails.
“Fuck,” Jason curses.
“Fuck is right,” Duke agrees, placing a hand over his temple.
#
Marinette manages to disappear for three hours.
Three full hours.
“She’s good,” Tim says, typing into the holographic computer embedded into his sleeve.
Paris’ CCTVs are painfully easy to hack into, though he suspects that the lack of attention to them may have to do with the fact that everybody in the city is celebrating. Policemen, politicians, artists, students, scientists— people from all walks of life are in the streets today, screaming and shouting and being free for the first time in years.
He spies more than just a few dozen people bawling their eyes out within a few minutes. But that’s not surprising, considering how long Parisians have had to suppress their emotions for.
Dick and Barbara are still in the midst of profiling Marinette, trying to determine the most likely places where she’d stop by, either as Ladybug or herself. All of Ladybug’s usual haunts are decidedly devoid of the young heroine, though Tim does manage to catch a good amount of footage of the other young heroes like Carapace and Rena Rouge, who are most definitely in a relationship based on their makeout session on top of the eiffel tower (one of the first places Tim checked), Viperion, who seems to be the only one from Ladybug’s team to be seeking out the crowd which seems rather atypical considering that the hero never frequented interviews or was spotted on news coverage all that frequently, and Chat Noir and Queen Bee who Jason insisted were in a relationship as well, though the rest of them believed they were only embracing each other out of comfort— Chat Noir looks like he’s been crying for hours, and Queen Bee looks like she’s barely holding it together.
Ryuko has not shown up on camera once today. Neither has Ladybug.
The second place Tim checks is the bakery. She is not there either, though another girl is. It doesn’t seem like the girl has any ill intent, but Duke is more than happy to pull up past files to see if she’s been there before, if she has any reason to be there, and who exactly she is.
Just as Barbara and Dick are debating the chances that Marinette would be at Le Grande Paris, she walks past one of the cameras focused on Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie. Tim has the system rigged up so that any facial matches for Marinette automatically alerts the room. He hadn’t been able to replicate that with Ladybug’s face for some bizarre reason which is why he, Barbara, Dick, and Jason are manually combing through the areas where Dick and Barbar think she may be (magic is why, but Tim has always believed that technology can be used against and with most forms of magic) so it’s lucky that she enters as Marinette.
“Kagami Tsurugi,” Duke says triumphantly. “She visited often when Tom and Sabine were still alive. Potential candidate to represent France or Japan for Sabre in the next Olympics. Definitely friends with Marinette.”
“Thank God,” sighs Dick. “Now let’s get over there.”
It’s truly, truly unfortunate that they set up shop quite a distance away from the bakery.
They take too long to arrive.
#
Perhaps it was a mistake, telling Kagami first.
No, not just perhaps. It was a mistake. A bad one.
But Kagami was pushing so hard, and Marinette was so tired and so alone without Tikki at her side, without the knowledge that her parents would be waiting for her. Kagami pushed and pushed and pushed about why the house felt so empty, why there was dust on the floor, why the bakery was closed for so long, and where were Tom and Sabine? Why weren’t they there for the team yesterday, when the battle was won, when they knew how important it was to be there for Adrien who had just lost all three of his parental figures?
The moment the words fall from Marinette's lips, she knows she shouldn’t have revealed it at that moment, because Kagami draws in on herself, lips turning downwards, hands curling into fists.
Kagami has come a long way from the girl she was in lycèe. The thrill of victory is still something she enjoys, but not something she needs to feel secure in her place in the world. She has trouble expressing her emotions, but when it comes down to it, she communicates everything necessary to understand why.
With the news of Tom and Sabine’s death, she withdraws into herself, shifts back into that thirteen year old Marinette first met. Logic and rationale thrown to the wind in favor of cold anger.
It’s no secret that Ryuko, Ladybug, and Viperion are the main strategists of their team. Viperion, out of his duty of using Second Chance and his ability to keep a level head in the face of constant death. Ladybug out of necessity as her position as team leader and the power of Lucky Charm. Theoretically, the two of them should have been enough. But over the years, Kagami became Marinette's favored confidante; though Ladybug trusts all of her team to keep a tight hold on any information she gives them, Kagami is one of the few who is able to pick apart a given situation and transform the monsters they face into manageable pieces.
Today, it is Kagami who has broken to pieces. Very angry, razor sharp shards that seek to hurt.
“You lie to the media, tell them a pretty tale of how they died due to a break in. Why do you avoid pinning their deaths on Lila as you should? To absolve a quality woman from guilt?”
Marinette can’t look Kagami in the eyes.
Her parents deserved a peaceful death. To pass on in old age, hand in hand. Not looking on as a family member died, in fear of what would happen next for their daughter.
“The police know. The judges know,” Marinette protests weakly, but without much eight behind her words.
Kagami just scoffs. “Tom and Sabine were kind people. To not tell the media what truly happened— that’s preventing Lila from getting the full force of what’s coming to her. What happens if she gets out of prison one day? Without any real deaths to her name, she could just flee to another country to escape it all. And when another person loses their life because of her…”
She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. If somebody else gets injured in any way, shape or form at the hands of Lila Rossi, it’s Marinette’s fault. Marinette gets what Kagami is trying to say. She thinks the same thing, after all.
“My parents would not want their death publicized in that manner.” It’s the truth, but it’s said so weakly that the words come off as little more than a weak defense, and Kagami takes the words and twists their truth.
“You know little of your parents, considering that you’re their daughter.” Kagami stands stock still, not a single extra muscle moving. “Perhaps if you spent more time with them as Marinette instead of unsuccessfully gallivanting around as Ladybug, you’d have realized that Tom and Sabine admire truth above all else, even if it is painful.”
Kagami does not ask a single question about where Marinette was last night, or how Marinette felt over the loss of her parents or when she saw all those she held dear lying still on the ground after Hawkmoth and Pavona’s final attacks. She just purses her lips and sweeps out the door.
And then she’s gone, and Marinette is alone once more.
#
The bakery is bone-achingly quiet.
Every step Marinette takes creates such a disturbance in the peace that moving hurts.
But she can’t stay here. She can’t stay here. She does not deserve to stay here. Kagami is right. Marinette was a bad daughter. She could have prevented their death, could have given them justice sooner, could have—
And Marinette can’t breathe. She tries to, she tries so hard to, but she chokes.
She kneels down on the floor— Kagami is right again, the place is dusty, because Marinette couldn’t bring herself to use the living room and kitchen without her parents, could barely bring herself to sleep in her bedroom because she knew that her parents were not sleeping soundly in the bed below hers— and scrabbles at her throat, vision coming in and out.
Her legs burn. She knows that during the final battle, her legs were cut towards the end of it, and they should be healed, she should be okay now, she’s better than this, she’s—
Somebody gathers her in their arms. They smell slightly of Lotus flowers, just like Maman, and cradle her ever so gently.
Marinette’s eyes open— black hair, greyish eyes filled with understanding and love and—
She can breathe again.
She falls asleep.
#
“Cass?” Dick’s eyes widen at her unexpected appearance at Marinette’s home.
“I thought you were on Damian guard duty,” Barbara says, fixating on the red around Marinette’s eyes and the barely dried tear tracks on her face.
“Where’s that Kagami girl?” Jason scuffs his shoes on the hardware floor, silently marking the footprints on the floor and getting a general idea of what occurred before they were able to get here based on Marinette’s current state and the other girl’s absence. “I want to have some words with her.”
Cass inclines her head sharply, eye sparking with anger. Jason’s fists rise unconsciously— Cass rarely gets angry, and whenever she gets angry at a specific person, that means they’ve done something very, very wrong— ready to hunt down Kagami. Marinette sniffles and shifts in Cass’ one armed embrace, to which Cass places a finger over her lip and shakes her head, a universal sign to be quiet.
Jason scowls but settles down.
They’re quiet as they wait for Marinette to wake.
@biodad-bruce-month
Maribat tag list(to be added onto this pls send me an ask/dm): @our-precipreciousss @my-dear-friend-anxiety
Who Are You (and what will you become) tag list (to be added here just comment): @anjuschiffer @theunquiet-dead @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @cresentmo0n @allulily @myazael @zalladane @rebecarojas07 @keepingupwiththemalfoys @frieddonutsweets @all-mights-asscheeks @thornalchemist23 @trippingovermyfeet @jiso-lee @redscarlet95 @ira-sairain @screechingflapbiscuitpeach @ramos123 @cutechip @theunquiet-dead @sleep-deprived-aroace @enternalempires @lilkymilky @woe-is-me0 @officiallydarkgeek @miyla-lokidottir @queencommonsense @demonicbusiness @iamablinkmarvelarmy
@emark7 (i will have the edited version of these on ao3 eventually but i think the link to ch 1 on this one works)
where i ended this doesn’t feel very good but ehhhhhhhhhh my writing process is summary then word vomit that barely correlates which means nothing makes sense unless i edit but looking back at my work makes me cringe so at a crossroads yayyy
also can you guys tell which prompts ive written these for because i’m curious
#bio!dad bruce wayne month 2020#bio!dad bruce#maribat#marinette dupain cheng#bruce wayne#duke thomas#jason todd#dick grayson#damian wayne#barbara gordon#tim drake#cassandra cain#batfam
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Anakin Skywalker Deserved Better
Ive made this post before but it was really rough and i meant to edit it later and its later now but its been so long that i don’t feel like finding the og post so here we are. If it’s not obvious i care more than a normal amount about Anakin Skywalker.
Tl;Dr: I firmly believe that there are so many points in the prequel series, the clone wars, and even the comics that some level of intervention could have steered Anakin away from falling in Revenge of the Sith.
The Phantom Menace
This is our first encounter with Anakin, and it does a decent job at introducing us to him. This movie sets up his tragic backstory™️ and gives us a good look at his personality; Anakin appears selfless and eager to help complete strangers in return for nothin when he first brings Qui-Gon and crew to his home to give them shelter, and then risks his life in the podrace to help them afford the part they need to fix their ship. Aside from introducing and developing Anakin not much else happens until Qui-Gon brings Anakin before the Jedi Council where they decide he is too old and there is already too much anger in him to be trained as a Jedi. Qui-Gon disagress, but we move on to Naboo where 9-year old Anakin blows up a very large ship all; by himslef w/ autopilot ( they grow up so fast), Qui-Gon dies, and we get our first look at Palpatine being creepy in hindsight, “And you, young Skywalker, we will watch your career with great interest.” not all that weird out of context but uncomfy when you remember who Palpatine is.
Before we move on i actually want to flashback to Anakin’s first encounter with the Jedi Council. For a group of people who constantly take in and raise children, the Jedi seem to do a poor job interacting with them. A kind of infuriating thing about this scene is that the Jedi seem to shame Anakin for being afraid (no matter how much Anakin himself denies that fear). This scene does a really good job at setting up how the Jedi consistently fail to take into account that Anakin is fundamentally incapable of being a “normal” Jedi. Anakin has had a fundamentally different childhood than any other Jedi and absolutely needed more help and support than the average Padawan from the very beginning. Granted it is possible that the Jedi tried to get him the help and support he needed, but if they did we can infer they failed from Dooku’s line in Revenge of the Sith, “I sense great fear in you, Skywalker. You have hate, you have anger, but you don’t use them.”
Obi-Wan And Anakin Comic
The Obi-Wan and Anakin comics take place sometime between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. The story focuses on Anakin and Obi-Wan investigating a distress signal on a planet that has been destroyed by war. The comic also flashes back to reveal that Anakin is thinking of leaving the Jedi Order after Palpatine shows him the dark side of Coruscant, and tells him that neither the Jedi nor the Senate will be able to do anything about it. We get more creepy (not just in hindsight this time) moments out of Palpatine here. The first one is when he uses his position as Chancellor to gain access to Anakin under the guise of “helping” him. “Why young Skywalker is a Jedi, is he not? The Jedi are under the Senate’s jurisdiction. And as I am the Chancellor of the Senate...”. Palpatine proceeds to take Anakin to a club of some kind where they see a corrupt senator gambling; Palpatine also mentions how “Lives are bought and sold here everyday” he then makes a show of apologizing for bringing it up considering Anakin’s past.Without context this would seem harmless enough, but with the context of Palpatine’s true identity it is more likely a ploy to subelty remind Anakin of how the Jedi and Senate are unable or unwilling to intervene on Tatooine or the rest of the Outer Rim. Palpatine reminding Anakin of the Senate and Jedi’s inability to help everyone seems to be a running theme in their meeting as the series continues.
Aside from Palpatine being a creep; we see that Anakin is still just as willing and eager to help as he was in The Phantom Menace. His skills in mechanics result in him being briefly kidnapped so that he can fix weapons that will help one side to win the war that has destroyed the planet. Seriously Anakin is just so ernest in these comics that i shed tears because i know how his story ends.
One character that Obi-Wan and Anakin team up with to reach the distress signal first mistakes Anakin for Obi-Wan’s son, and then tells Obi-Wan, “He [Anakin] doesn’t think so. Kid idolizes you. You can see it” when Obi-Wan admits that he’s not sure he is the best suited to teach Anakin, and fears he has failed him in some way. As the story progresses, it is revealed in a flashback that after Anakin told Obi-Wan he wanted to leave the Order, Yoda sent the two of them on the mission they are currently on to give Anakin a chance to reconsider his decision, and Obi-Wan tells Yoda that if Anakin returned from the mission still wanting to leave the Order, Obi-Wan would leave with him to continue his training and keep his promise to Qui-Gon.
Attack of the Clones
Back to the movies. Attack of the Clones reunites Obi-Wan and Anakin with Padmé Amidala when they are assigned to protect her from an assassin. One of ( if not the) most important elements to this movie are Anakin’s dreams/visions of his mother. Towards the beginning of the movie Anakin doesn’t explicitly say what the dreams are about, but it can be assumed that the dreams are unpleasant as he says, “I don't sleep well anymore.” in response to Obi-Wan commenting on him looking tired; going on to claim that he cannot sleep because of his dreams. Anakin later admits to Padmé that he worries about his mother. This is one of the key moments in Anakin’s life that set him up to fall in Revenge of the Sith. There is no reason i can think of that Anakin should not have been allowed to check on his mother if he was having dreams about her that prevented him from sleeping properly and made him worry for her safety. As Anakin says, “Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life, so you might say we're encouraged to love.”. If compassion truly is central to a Jedi’s life, then surely they could at the very least send one of their 10,000 Jedi to check on Anakin’s mother if he could not? Is it compassion to deny someone the help they need? I find it hard to believe that Anakin would not have told Obi-Wan that he was worried about his mother going off of how close they appear to be in the previous comic. Especially after Anakin responds to Obi-Wan joking about Anakin being the death of him one day with, “Don't say that Master... You're the closest thing I have to a father... I love you. I don't want to cause you pain.”
Anakin and Padmé arrive too late to save Shmi, and she dies in Anakin’s arms. This is a crucial moment leading up to Anakin’s fall as it shows Anakin that his dreams have a very real potential of coming true and likely results in him blaming himself at least partially for not insisting on checking on his mother or getting there sooner or doing anything different that may have allowed her to survive; it’s also the first time we see Anakin really lose control. There have been instances of him lashing out in anger before (turning a pair of padawans’ lightsabers against them when he hears them making fun of him behind his back), but nothing like what happens in the wake of Shmi’s death. Anakin wipes out the entire village of Tusken Raiders; children included. And while Anakin does express genuine remorse for his actions, he never faces consequences for them. It’s not even clear if anyone but Padmé ever finds out; Yoda claims to feel Anakin’s pain in the wake of his mother’s death, but does not appear to see Anakin’s actions, and is not shown to discuss what happened on Tatooine with Anakin at all.
Some light googling on my part revealed that in the novelization of Attack of the Clone, while Anakin did tell Obi-Wan about his mother’s death it was Padmé who told Obi-Wan how she had died, but Obi-Wan is unaware of what happened afterwards. “Anakin had told him of Shmi’s death; that was why he and Padmé had gone to Tatooine, he said. Obi-Wan had talked to Padmé later, and she had explained that Shmi had been kidnapped and killed by Tusken Raiders. Neither of them had been willing to go into much detail, and from what Obi-Wan knew of the Tusken Raiders, he didn’t blame them. It was no wonder Anakin seemed shaken, if his mother had been tortured and killed. One day, perhaps, Anakin would be willing to tell him the whole story.” Obi-Wan appears to know that there is more to the story than he has been told, but it content to wait until Anakin is ready to talk about it. I wonder if they ever had that conversation.
Anakin’s inability to save his mother even after the warnings he receives in his dreams likely leads to his desperation to save Padmé form the danger he believes her to be in later in Revenge of the Sith. He has been shown once before that his dreams can easily come true, and he is desperate to prevent this dream from coming true no matter what the cost may be.
The Clone Wars
This is gonna be a long one; it’s gonna have to cover the most relevant episodes of The Clone Wars and oh boy that’s not a small amount. Im gonna try to go chronologically but bear with me (if you actually read this far you know what you got yourself into)
Assassin s3ep7
In this episode Ahsoka begins having visions of Padmé being assassinated similarly to how Anakin dreamed of his mother’s and later Padmé’s deaths. The difference with Ahsoka is that she is able to prevent the visions from becoming reality. What i want to focus on in this episode is the reaction Ahsoka gets when she tells Yoda about her dreams. Yoda explains to her that her dream may be telling her something and provides her with the means to act on her visions to prevent them from becoming true.
When Anakin approaches Yoda about his dreams in Revenge of the Sith, Yoda simply tells him that death is natural and he must train himself to let go of everything he fears to lose. We could chalk this up to just a writing inconsistency, but i dont think i will. I would instead like to wonder why Yoda treats Ahsoka’s visions like they are something that can be changed but then treats Anakin’s like they are set in stone. Anakin has already proven himself capable of having true visions, and is more force sensitive than any other living Jedi. It makes no sense to dismiss Anakin’s feelings like this. All this to say looking into and helping Anakin to examine his dreams instead of telling him to let go when he has proven over and over to be incapable of doing so would likely have been significantly more helpful in the long run.
The Mortis Arc S3 Ep15-17
Honestly i dont have a lot to say on this arc aside how much psychic damage it dealt to see Anakin briefly turn to the dark side because he was so desperate o avoid the future The Son had shown him ( really hope everyone had the common sense not to bring that up to Anakin after the fact though).
The Deception Arc S4 Ep15+18
In this arc Obi-Wan fakes his death in order to go undercover as the bounty hunter Rako Hardeen and uncover a plot to kidnap the Chancellor. This wouldn’t be a problem if they had brought Anakin in on the plan; instead they use Anakin’s reaction to Obi-Wan’s “death” to better sell the illusion. Obi-Wan even says, “Keeping Anakin on the outside was critical. Everyone knows how close we are. It was his reaction that sold the sniper. I'm sure of it.” Obi-Wan and the Council are fully aware of how much Obi-Wan means to Anakin, yet they all decide to use those feelings to their own advantage with little regard for the consequences.
On top of betraying Anakin’s trust; this move leads Anakin to doubt the Jedi Council and wonder what else they may be keeping from him if they were willing to let him believe that Obi-Wan was dead as long as it suited their interests. “How many other lies have I been told by the Council? And how do you know that you even have the whole truth?”.
I just cannot imagine why they thought they even had to use Obi-Wan for this plan. In the Obi-Wan and Anakin comic, Obi-Wan claims that there are 10,000 Jedi; surely there is someone less connected or with less attention on them who would be more suited to go undercover without the element of faking their death. Or if faking their death was necessary, surely they could have picked a Jedi who was not closely attached to arguably the most emotionally unstable Jedi in the Order. Anyone else would have been better. I don’t doubt that Anakin was telling the truth when he said, “If it was up to me I would kill you right here! But lucky for you, the man you murdered would rather see you rot in jail.”.
The Deception Arc just really grinds my gears because it really is almost like the Council wants Anakin to fall. There really is no excuse for how they use his bond with Obi-Wan against him for their own gain. The Council and Obi-Wan know full well how much Anakin loves Obi-Wan (see Anakin referring to Obi-Wan as the closest thing he has to a father in Attack of the Clones), and chose to use this vulnerability against Anakin in the worst way possible.
This arc really sets Anakin to later doubt Obi-Wan and the Council in Revenge of the Sith, and make it easier for Palpatine to convince Anakin that no Jedi would understand him and that they would likely kick him out of the order and not help him. ( heck he even has a recent memory of the Jedi expelling a 14 year old from the Order for the sake of not looking bad in the eyes of the Senate. “I understand your sentiment, Obi-Wan, but if the Council does as you suggest, it could be seen as an act of opposition to the Senate. I'm afraid we have little choice.” i might go more in depth on this one later but this doesn’t feel like the right place as this is a post about Anakin and i don’t want to make and Ahsoka centric arc all about him).
That wraps up the Clone Wars! Finally!
Revenge of the Sith
Ok big finale. Revenge of the Sith; so close to being my favorite Star Wars movie, but it almost made me cry in the library so its my second favorite (Attack of the Clones is my favorite).
I’ve already touched on the dreams Anakin has of Padmé’s death in the Clone Wars segment, but it bears repeating and i have more to touch on. Im not 100% if im misremembering or not but i cannot recall Anakin ever explicitly telling Palpatine about his dreams, but Palpatine knows that Anakin fears for Padmé’s life anyway. It’s possible that Anakin just told him off screen but a fic i read recently ( It’s called give me one more night by Spongyllama on AO3 and it is so worth the read) introduced me to the theory that it had been Palpatine sending Anakin the dreams to begin with.
This theory has a good amount of legs to stand on honestly. As mentioned previously, Anakin never tells Palpatine about his dreams, but Palpatine still knows exactly what to tell Anakin to best manipulate him. Furthermore; Anakin’s dreams very likely would never have come true if Anakin hadn’t fallen; Padmé reportedly dies of heartbreak, something that could not have happened had Anakin not fallen. All signs point to Palpatine being behind the dreams (and we know that Anakin and Palpatine are close by the time Attack of the Clones occurs so it’s not out of question that Anakin may have told Palpatine about the dreams about his mother, giving Palpatine the idea to use those dreams against him later)
Conclusion
Honestly the biggest thing i think the Jedi could have improved on was just trying to understand Anakin better. The average age for entering the order is 2 to 3 compared to Anakin’s 9. Anakin entered the order years after any other Jedi, and because of that was able to remember his mother and had formed attachments (or attachment but i digress) before he had even reached the order. It should have been obvious from the start that if Anakin were to ever become a successful Jedi he would need significantly more help than the usual padawan.
We frequently see Anakin scolded for forming attachments or being too emotional (see Clone Wars s1e6-7 where R2-D2 goes missing and Anakin suggests taking a squad out to look for him “Anakin, it's only a droid. You know attachment is not acceptable for a Jedi.”(Obi-Wan) “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”(Yoda). etc etc) But, to the best of my knowledge, we never really see anyone showing Anakin how to let go. Anakin lacks the tools he needs to properly deal with his emotions, so the best he can do is shove them down and pretend they don’t exist because to him that’s what a proper Jedi does. No one has ever told him otherwise. The explosion was inevitable.
Anakin Skywalker was a traumatized child who was most likely never taken to therapy or told how to deal with/ healthily show his emotions in any way other than to ignore them or push them aside on top of being manipulated by Sith Lord from a young age. With all these factors is it really a surprise that Palpatine was able to turn him?
ok im done; see yall next time ig
#anakin skywalker#star wars prequels#star wars the clone wars#anakin#character analysis#long post#read more#id apologize but itd be a lie
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you know, i’ve been thinking about the most common criticism of euphoria (that it sexualizes teenagers in a romanticized way)
and i feel like the school setting kinda works for the story the creator is trying to tell?
these characters do not have ANYTHING going on in their lives except for their personal relationships and troubles
even a character like Lexi who's the most ‘normal’ of the group isn’t really shown doing any studying or thinking about colleges or anything like that, her arc is about getting sidelined all the time while also living a pretty boring life
at best McKay had his football troubles and these troubles amount to not knowing how to quit without his father becoming disappointed with no other plans for the future
and Jules is apparently going into fashion later which she constantly shows with her daring costume and make up choices, but like, this isn’t a part of her story arc at all
these kids have no aspirations and no real school life! we don’t really get to see any lessons, there are no substantial teacher characters, the school set is just an ambiguous background which doesn’t really matter
and i think that’s the only way this could work in a non-scifi setting, really
in college kids are adult enough to make better choices and if they still focus on self-destruction they don’t really evoke as much pity, plus there’s bigger separation from their families while in euphoria relationships with parents play a larger role
adults just don’t tend to have as much silly drama
so, if you want to explore characters in a close-knit group who make stupid decisions with dramatic consequences pertaining to drug abuse and sexual misadventures without anything else like work/studying getting in the way, then high school is the way
tbh i still think this could be a truly outstanding show if they did go more in-depth about the pressures of school and future career, hobbies and other motivations, even Skins had more of that, but well, that... isn’t the story Euphoria is trying to tell I guess
glamour, naked bodies, provocative outfits, music - all of it is supposed to evoke the feeling of being young and stupid, focused on other young and stupid people, same as the original israeli series
it’s too beautiful, too artistic for real life, which is why there’re also some pretty gross scenes and plot turns
like getting high and then coming down from it, or at least that’s what the creator is trying to do here, i suppose
then again from what ive seen the creator insists that he’s exploring his own experiences and that’s the whole reason they’re minors which uh...
plus it’s super weird to make the main plot about a shitty cheater who sexually abused a minor and filmed her without her consent (ehh Jules lied about her age and wanted to sleep with him, but that scene was obviously NOT what she thought she was agreeing to) when the minor on-screen is portrayed by a 23 y/o actress
im just saying, the actor who played Jules as a child is 14, closer to Jules age (17) than her adult actress, i think that alone is... oof, telling
so im not too keen on trying to justify these choices, after all im only watching for the cool sound mixing and pretty pictures
god knows we have more than enough of those drug&sex high school shows, best we can hope is that euphoria will pave the way for something more thoughtful but with the same level of sound/visual design
#also a lot of truly abhorrent behaviors are more or less waved away#feels like the series is way too lenient towards awful ppl#euphoria#text
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episode 9 baby!!! dear lord that was a lot!!
frankly, i'm still in shock that i full on manifested an opera stage, AND it was a rock opera stage at that! plus i got a jazz stage AND a taemin stage??? if they’re pulling out all my favourites now then what on earth are they gonna do in the finale??? this was a very overwhelming crop of stages, i thought i was going to be prepared, but oh no i was not prepared. i'm just going to get right into it because this one is gonna be long and i have many words. i'll discuss in airing order first, and then put my personal rankings for this round at the end.
btob
costume
changsub, you absolute king. spectacular. stunning. incredible. zoot suit riot playing in my brain on repeat. will i finally get the zoot suit revival of my fucking dreams instead of this current drab ill-fitting suit trend? for those who are wondering why in the fuck changsub is dressed like that and what on earth i’m talking about, the specific cut of suit that he’s wearing is called a zoot suit, which were popular in mexican, black and italian american communities in the 30s and 40s, until they were outlawed by the united states war production board as a fabric rationing method as part of the war effort in 1942. there was a huge amount of mob violence surrrounding the wearing of them (there were actual zoot suit riots) as they were direct counter culture fashion to the predominant drab trends of white americans at the time. i'm actually very impressed they got a proper (modernized) cut of zoot suit instead of just putting him in an oversized one; there are actually specific structural differences. the pegged trouser legs, large should pads, and knee length single breasted jacket are key features, and they were often in much more flashy fabrics than a pinstripe, but they get points for effort. i wish they had put all of them in zoot suits but he’s playing the ‘lead’ actor so i will begrudgingly forgive them.
eunkwang those are the stupidest sleeve garters ive ever seen i love them never take them off. they’re like someone decided to repurpose a suspender in the worst way. excellent. i do love that they’ve got three of them in oxford saddle shoes, another great touch.
love the three piece and the fedora* on peniel. it's also in a relatively close period cut; waistcoasts (vests) were generally cut much higher in the neck pre-war, we only start seeing the neckline slide down in the 60s (i think? i don’t remember when exactly). also love to see a proper sleeve and jacket length, it's good practice to have at least a finger’s width of sleeve cuff visible ahead of the jacket sleeve when hanging at rest. also looks like there’s french cuffs on everyone, which is also great.
minhyuk in his slutty lowneck shirt....thank you. in addition to the zoot suit revival i would also like a revival of those ultra low necklines on mens’ shirts from like 2010-2011. i don’t think those are the same boots from the backdoor stage but those are some beautifully cut boots. i also loved the little details of his crewmember look, especially the chunky watch and the string bracelets; those are super realistic, i know so many crew with them and i had several for many years. and who doesn’t love a visible button fly?
none of any of the other costumes are period in any way shape or form but i’m forgiving it because there’s several layers of meta in this stage, and they explicitly based it on la la land, even though we don’t respect la la land in this house. do i wish they had gone more strictly period with at least the jazz club ‘actors’ a little more? absolutely, but i'm not mad about it.
set
again we’ve got a good delineation of the two different ‘stages,’ there’s the club itself in the smaller stage and the soundstage set in the larger space. you can pretty clearly see all the ‘pieces’ of the set on the soundstage, especially the obvious set painting techniques on false prosc frame and the window facade from that first little scene. also the you can see the castors (wheels) on all the setpieces too, which is another nice little versimilitudinous** (triple word score!) touch, as old hollywood movies were made still using theatre stagecraft techniques.
i love how the visual shorthand for ‘this is a set wink wonk’ is just...leaving a ladder on stage. i see it all the time and it's so funny. it doesn’t always make sense because as soon as there’s actors on set the ladders are the first thing cleared because actors cannot be trusted, but yes there are always ladders, so. also psa ladder safety is no joke, please be careful on ladders.
nice streamline of the mnet deco into the club. i’m consistently surprised at how well the designers have been able to mask it or use it to their advantage, because in the normal kingdom stage lighting it is SO obvious and stylistic that it always sticks out.
i'm going to ignore the fact that they implied changsub and miyeon were drinking wine out of martini glasses.
lighting
no complaints, it does its job. everything is visible and super clear. love that the ‘scene’ changes are made through the lighting, it's a really simple and effective device to change atmosphere. purple/blue/amber are the most flattering colours on human skin and that’s why you see it so commonly in stage lighting. also blue/lavendar is the best way to show nighttime/moonlight.
really nice and subtle projection work, especially with the billboard bit and the blue moon sign in the club. despite being obviously meta/’world breaking’ it’s actually very seamless and fits well into the flow of the stage.
sound
i love love love the big band feel in the intro, combined with the piano lead. very duke ellington, as all things should be.
no complaints. i love big band. i love eunkwang’s voice. i have nothing else to say.
staging
i LOVE this movie within a movie within a performance meta nonsense! it's such a fun concept and it is exactly what i wanted ikon’s first round stage to be! i also love to see btob consistently coming up with concepts that are inventive and fun and allow them to showcase their technical performance skills without the aerobics the younger groups are putting themselves through. it provides a really lovely variety and it just goes to show that you can make impressive, dramatic stages without having to be serious or ‘dark.’
i do wish they had leaned into the band director/lead singer with eunkwang a bit more; this could have been a really excellent place for a tap number a la the nicholas brothers or an homage to cab calloway. i know i know this was meant to be la la land themed but la la land is a cheap and whitewashed version of jazz and look me right in the eyes and tell me this isn’t the greatest tap routine of all time. i know i’ve typed this out somewhere before but la la land is just a conglomeration of old hollywood tropes and so stylistically cheap that this would have such a better visual core if they had actually looked back at the real old hollywood musicals like stormy weather. even singing in the rain and an american in paris have such phenomenal visuals and are really beautiful examples of the scope you can pull off with a limited technical capacity and sticking to these old techniques.
now that i'm thinking about it, oh my GOD i would DIE for a lindy hop routine in kpop PLEASE. i know it would never happen because kpop doesn’t like partner dancing and not a single kpop boy has the chops but oh you think fourth gen has too many acrobatics?
this got off track but i think you see my point.
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ateez
costume
these are really sharply cut suits. and the detail work on the beading??? so beautiful. i'm disappointed that they gave me a rock opera stage without the true ridiculousness of rock opera costuming, because they could have pushed this a lot farther if they really wanted. a tragic lack of gay little outfits, seonghwa’s lace choker is just not enough! two favourite suits: hongjoong’s and yunho’s.
that being said i do actually really like these. this stage is actually very modern opera with a kpop twist and i'm a little surprised by that? i continue to be impressed by the ateez team who are clearly doing their research.
i'm absolutely not going back through their stages to check all the choreography but i wonder if you can track all the ‘wound’ placements to places they’ve been ‘hit.’ i wouldn’t put it past them to have put that thought in but also i’m not expecting that much either.
who is this white grim reaper bdsm executioner chain arm man. where did he come from. i have no idea and i love it.
why is honjoong blindfolded. it was such a fast beat, if youre gonna blindfold someone give it a little longer and some more obvious narrative weight!
seonghwa does that quickchange, runs across that massive stage to the smaller set, and gets into places in like 45 seconds. it's not the hardest quickchange in the world but still, under a minute is fast for any quickchange, especially when there’s travel time involved. i think the fastest, most complex quickchange i ever did was in university which was a 50s cocktail dress into a flannel and culottes with a shoe, hair, and jewelry change in 35 seconds. and that took three dressers. quickchanges are always impressive. the added bonus of this review being later is that i can specifically reference that you can see him book it the fuck off stage in the full cam!
cute moment with the backup dancers dressed in costumes from the previous stages. i'm assuming this is a time travel reference? i'll get more into my thoughts on this in the staging section. regardless, love to see that iconic seonghwa moment again.
set
this is such a restricted space! they really pared down their dancing space with those staircases and ....arms? honestly i have NO clue what these are supposed to be. the only thing i can maybe think of is flying buttresses??? but why?? i mean, i'm 90% sure theyre just there for drama and i agree but i do still have questions.
there’s a lot of moving parts in this set? the buttresses, and the upstage centre staircase. i don’t think the staircase is totally automated because i spotted some dancers securing it in place, but it’s still a moving part. i do really like that we get that expanding upwards energy, because it's really tough to get functional level movement in this kind of a performance, mostly because of its length and because it moves so quickly. so seeing the downward vertical movement and then the upward movement was actually a really nice visual contrast that made use of how tall those fucking ceilings are, and the fact that they had less horizontal space. in sort of similar way to sf9’s jealousy stage, using long, narrow vertical lines really makes it feel like a castle space. the interiors of castles, especially the really old ones, are a lot smaller than you think they would be.
i’ve actually seen that type of small house/tent/thing several times in various types of performances before, but i think this is the first time i’ve seen it used as a time travel device (other than in the say my name mv). aesthetically it's a bit incongruent but i dont really mind because i'm used to watching rock operas that look a lot weirder than this.
lighting
there is so much happening. i have NO clue what the projections are doing. i dont hate it though, so that’s a plus? there’s a clear-ish colour arc even if it does get a bit funky in the middle, which is why the projections dont feel as insanely distracting as some of the other stages we’ve seen.
the climax is a perfect example of how to light a busy stage with primarily red but still maintain clarity on the performers. a little bit of red goes a long way; the spark stage from last week would have looked so much better if they had done what the ateez designers did here.
sound
i know it's only ode to joy, but answer already gets my motor running and then i get so gassed by the guitars and then by the time those vocals come in i'm inconsolable. i don’t know why i wasn’t expecting a rock opera stage but i'm so glad i got that surprise because i genuinely love rock operas so much. it's two of the most dramatic genres in music, what more could you possibly want?
staging
the choreo for answer is so goofy that I'm kinda glad this was mostly terrible mnet boom shots. i love it, but you can't deny that it's goofy. i spotted a couple of moves from their other choreos as well?
choreographing dance fights is just as difficult as choreographing real fights and i think they did a fairly good job here. i think it was a solid mix of dance and conflict that erred on the side of dramatic rather than accurate and i prefer that over trying to be ‘realistic.’ i’ve only ever seen one truly realistic fight scene on stage and that was for a deeply naturalist play (boring and a waste of the medium), but the best fight scene i’ve ever seen was in the prague national ballet’s adaptation of kafka’s the trial where three ballet dancers beat the absolute snot out of the main character with the most beautiful leg extensions. that whole show was probably one of the best pieces of dance i’ve ever seen, holy fuck it was so good.
despite how insane the music and the visuals were going, i actually really liked how sedate this was, on the part of ateez’s performance. there was a really sophisticated and resigned energy from them that is very different from what we’ve previously seen and i think that was a pretty admirable risk to take. reaching the top and then throwing away the crown? especially in a competition where every other stage has involved stealing crowns or royalty and there’s a group competing that got here through that very concept? that shows a real maturity, peace of mind, and foresight that i did not at all expect from a bunch of 22 year olds.
here we come to a very interesting comparison. both ateez and tbz are very heavily leaning on previously established group lore. we all know my thoughts on why it isn’t working for tbz, but here’s why i think it is working for ateez: it's because it doesn’t matter to the audience’s understanding of the stage. i had absolutely no fucking clue what was going on the first time i watched this, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the music and all the weird shit they were doing. i totally believed that they understood what was going on. there’s a loose enough established conflict right at the beginning that draws us in, and really it doesn’t matter who they're fighting because they win in the end. the key here is that they’re so earnest. they believe 100% in every move they make on that stage. there’s no winks to camera, there’s not a drop of irony. they really deeply care about the ridiculousness of it all and that’s what makes it work. i sure as fuck dont know what’s going on, but i can see that they do, and i trust that. this is what i meant when i talked about convincing the audience you belong on stage in my stage presence post. i’ve never once believed that juyeon was anything other than an idol. he’s talented and very beautiful and he may occasionally stand on that stage like he owns it but it's always as juyeon. as an idol. but when hongjoong flaps around in that gigantic fur coat i 100% believe he’s a pirate captain. I believe he’s a punk rebel leader. i believe him a resigned king. there’s always a level of irony you have to fight as a performer because we all start from a place of disbelief. acting is not just lying to the audience, it's lying to yourself too. and if you succeed in convincing yourself? well, you’re already halfway to convincing us.
i checked it out because i wanted to see if they did the blindfold how i expected them to and was genuinely surprised by hongjoong’s fancam. the boy is EMOTING even when he knew the camera wasn’t on him; that’s a real dedication to craft.
ok i'm finished talking about this stage, this is over two pages in my document, there’s so many things i have not covered here but that’s fine, i'm quite sure any further thoughts will end up out there at some point.
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sf9
costume
let’s get it out of the way......crop top. crop top? crop top. crop top.
ok, besides the crop top, i think i might actually like the backup dancer outfits more...? i find mannequin adjacent looks really fascinating and i thought there was a lot more they could have done here in connecting the two thematically. i actually think a change of costume on the boys would have been very interesting, especially because there was a lot of inference and direct reference to changes of colour.
ALL the backup dancers are wearing the same wig and i LOVE that.
special mention zuho’s.....jacket? the right idea but it absolutely should have been one of those extreme french cut bodysuits, you COWARDS. don’t come at me with this ‘male version of venus’ if you don’t have your whole torso out! come on!
set
not sure if this is meant to be a department store, a factory, or a white cube gallery. honestly you could make the case that they’re all the same place anyways. more on this later.
i loved the movator and wish they had used it more! that sequence was so good and they could have done some more interesting repetition sequences to further highlight the ‘sameness’/the breaking of that sameness.
i feel like the set could have been used more as a whole? i would have loved to see some mannequin interactions with those boxes, because all they did was dump colour everywhere.
....why did they feel the need to include the rain bit? i know it's likely because it's in the mv and at the 2018 dream concert taemin does perform move in the rain, but with the standing still and the box walls with the words it just looks like a department store ad. which i...dont think is what they were intending?
lighting
nothing really to say here. it has a similar feel to the mayfly rap stage, which is fine because the lighting for that was good. i could tell what was going on all the time and that’s the most important part. notable standouts are the lips sequence, that's fun use of pop iconography and very effective, and the scanning lasers at the beginning.
the repeating sequence in the edm dance break is actually done pretty simply, it's just what happens when you point a camera that’s livestreaming to a monitor directly at that monitor. it's a very cool effect and it was neat to see it used intentionally, especially with the handheld leds.
actually i also really liked the lightbox tables, those were cool.
sound
the remix was fine for the most part, it was about what i expected it to sound like. i did however greatly dislike that unnecessary edm break in the middle. what was the point of that? it didn’t add anything to the overall sound or arc of the stage because it was SO out of place. there was no connective tissue around it.
oh i was also not a fan of the effect on zuho’s mic. no one else had a discernible vocal effect so it felt a little out of place. also for some reason his cadence and tone right at the end made me think of some of the voices that bo burnam uses for his vocal masque sketches/songs, especially repeat stuff, weirdly? took me right the fuck out of it. i listened to it again after i slept and i’m still getting it, so maybe i’m just going insane so best ignore this part.
staging
loved the mannequin tree, not a clue why it was there.
do actually think this is a successful cover because it does what i was hoping it would, which is take move completely out of the taemin context and put it into an entirely new one. however, i’m really struggling to figure out what exactly that new context is? and what theyre trying to say with it?
obviously they went for a ‘show your own colours/individuality’ vibe, like i said in the set section, where exactly is this supposed to be? from the start i get factory/mechanized environment, which is fine and grand because mannequins and making repetitive motions and products and all that, makes sense. but then there’s stacked shelving type units happening and curtains and that combined with the mannequins give me pretty big department store vibes, which is also fine, because that’s still a comment on commercialization and the mass production of product. but then we get to the movator and the repetitive movements of the dancers say pretty clearly factory, but the lighting and projections are very pop art referential, plus combining that with the white set, just makes me think of an art gallery. so now is this a comment on the commercialization and commidification of contemporary art? are they making a statement about being ‘real’ artists among the others who have lost the critical understanding of why pop art was even a thing in the first place? and then the rain bit at the end literally looks like a department store ad, so are they then making another statement that they still are that packaged product? maybe the episode has more clarity in it but i’m genuinely a bit baffled by what the underlying statement is here.
i suspect it is not as deep as i'm making it, but i did say that i was likely to be hyper critical of this stage AND i am a grad student, so here we are.
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tbz
costume
ok of all the ‘fourth gen’ style costumes we’ve seen, i actually like these ones more than most. i'm not entirely clear on the theme but i'm assuming it's meant to be post apocalyptic, and i'll take that.
backup dancers in black!!! we’re beyond this!!!
this will be a running theme with this stage, but i’m disappointed these don’t have more depth.
set
compared to every other stage, the set here seems especially plain. there’s so little set dec that it's disappointing. i do like the movement of the pieces themselves combined with the blocking; that first slide underneath the arches was slick and i would have liked to have seen more of that.
yea ok the big snake was cool and also a fairly complex build, but the transitions around it were a bit awkward for my tastes. especially the turn around, why did they even show that at all? you have control over what the audience sees, you can totally not show scenic transitions. skz were super smart about hiding theirs in last week’s episode.
also if you have a bigass puppet like that, i wanna see some more movement from it! it doesn’t have to be complex, we literally just saw a kraken balloon arm wave around aimlessly, but at least there was movement! that snake had a long ass body, why didn’t they at least take a pseudo dragon dance movement with it, that would have been such fun to watch with the iridescent scales. there was a lot of opportunity here!
lighting
i don’t hate it but also.... not a lot to say about it on the whole.
there were two really smart ideas here, the first being the front projection section, which i was SO glad to see! i explained in a previous review, but the projections in kingdom are not actually projections per se, because they’re actually massive led screens. there are two common types of projections in performance, rear projection and front projection. rear projection is when the projector is behind the screen, and front projection is ‘normal’ projection. rear projection can produce a crisper image because you have full control of the light values, because the projector is in a separate room from the performance space. but the downsides are that the projector has to be in a separate room from the performance space. so if you’re short on real estate, it's not ideal. front projection is much more common, because the tech is a lot cheaper and easier to access, especially now, and it requires less real estate because you can ceiling mount about the audience (you can move a projector wherever, this is just the most common spot in commercial theatres). but! in order to get an actually crisp image, you have to be really careful with your light bounce. it’s exactly the same principle as how you kinda can't see a projected screen when you have all the lights turned on, but when you turn them off it's a lot clearer. front projection works best in pitch dark, so when you use it in a theatre you gotta be smart about it. i use front projection a lot in my personal art practice as a singular light source, and that’s what tbz did here in that traveling/snake intro sequence. it’s a really fun technique that they used as a good gimmick because it’s not something we’ve seen before, and you get some great shadow effects because the projector is throwing light directionally at the performers (they have it set up close to the floor, it’s probably on a wheeled cart of some kind). however i did not like the snake intro. a bit too cheesy and out of place, especially because the asset quality didn’t match the rest of landscapes that we have been seeing.
the second smart idea, which is partially also a set and blocking thing but whatever, was that final image of the eclipse within the circle architecture with all the members standing in front of it. it was a great shot and a great ending pose, but it felt like a concept photo. like someone had that image as the idea that they then built the stage around, instead of a narrative first and then imagery after.
sound
this remix had SO much promise! those first two minutes were SO GOOD. i love that dirty discordant strings bit, it's gross and right up my alley. but it really fell off in the back half and i'm sad about that.
staging
i'm sorry tbz but.....what did you actually do differently than exo here? with the exception of the continual game of thrones references? nothing here felt transcendentally different from the original monster. and especially coming RIGHT after sf9’s move, which did go beyond its original context. this feels more like an awards show stage cover than a stage at the level of the others we’ve seen just this episode.
again like with the skz stage, there’s no conflict here. no tension. yes they do a great job covering the dance but it just isn’t enough! this is obviously personal preference and i'm sure lots of people liked the fact that it was uncomplicated, but even just a hint of narrative tension could have pushed this into more engaging territory. and if they didn’t want to do that, i would have loved to see them make up for that with extra visual spectacle. this is the no limits round! ikon is putting a full jungle on stage and these are grey cubes!
i think this is a perfect example of what i talked about at the end of my tbz section in my episode four review; this is a good performance, there are good elements at play and good ideas at their genesis, but the core of the issue is that nothing about this is transformative. all of the ideas here are just exaggerations of the original song. fuck, the snake was even IN the mv! and they didn’t even include the best part which is the lip chains! ive said before and i'll say it again; being a good artist has two steps, the first is understanding the material and its context, and the second is elevating the material from that context and synthesizing something new. tbz are really good at the first step, but terrible at the second.
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ranking
btob - the cleanest and the most fun of the round. everything i wanted.
sf9 - fun and a good cover, despite being conceptually baffling.
ateez - very extra dramatic nonsense with an unexpected dose of sincerity. and it’s rock opera, of course i love it.
skz - fun, with some good thematic devices but generally lacking in arc. also australian accents, that’s an automatic ding.
tbz - honestly the first two minutes of the remix and the costume are holding this above 6th. it just wasn’t fully formed.
ikon - aesthetically this is a great set design and although i do love the opening and closing moments, everything else scrapes me the wrong way. super personal preference here, i’m not expecting anyone else to agree with me.
i feel like my rankings were probably pretty easy to guess if you’ve been around reading the reviews for long enough. i do have very specific tastes after all. i know sf9 ranked first in the episode but i have no idea what the other slots are. i’ll find out when i watch the episode in a couple of days, but i think yea a first for sf9 is fair. i do think its mostly because it’s a taemin song and you have to do something horrendous in order to fuck up a taemin song, but there is a lot of thought and work that went into that stage.
ok i'm done now, sorry this was later than usual, but i was busier and there were four stages that i had to review. also technical difficulties because tumblr is a garbage platform and nothing works properly. comments/questions/opinions always welcome, i know i didn't expand on a couple of points that i could have so hopefully y'all have some thoughts too!
* the type of hat that ~society~ has told you is a fedora is actually a trilby. what peniel is wearing is a real fedora, i felt the need to correct this unjust hat malignment.
** meaning ‘the appearance of being true or real.’ you do sometimes hear it used by normal people, but it’s more commonly used as a descriptor in film and theatre. it’s also one of the five rules of neoclassical theatre, which are: versimilitude, purity of form, five act structure, decorum, and purpose. the most prominent playwrights from that era are moliere and racine if youre interested in what those look like in an actual text.
#kingdom#kingdom review#btob#ateez#stray kids#the boyz#sf9#tumblr is so broken it would NOT let me save this as a draft#does my constant hyperlinking make you angry tumblr? too bad im gonna keep doing it#i played in a jazz band in school for seven years#which is another indicator as to why i am like this#one of the first songs i remember learning was zoot suit riot#i have very strong memories of yelling RIOT during performances#i will however forever question the logic of our band teacher making us learn a song written by 'the cherry poppin daddies'#christ on a bicycle this is TEN pages#and it took a full eight hours last night and then i did like two hours of editing after i woke up#maybe i should go back to bed#ah i forgot to tag ikon again lmao#ikon#kpop analysis#text#if there are any spelling errrors do not tell me im tired of reading this#im pretty sure this is my longest review so far i decided to hate myself and did a wordcount#its 5.2K you're welcome you better get a snack for this one#i hope this is an interesting read for people ive lost all objectivity at this point#pls enjoy my semi-comprehensible word vomit!
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