I put together a few Lights, Camera, Sing Your Sins thoughts! Details about characters, filming, reactions, etc. I doubt I'll get the chance to smoothly work some of them into the drabbles, but I still wanted to share them :)
Post-T1 thoughts:
The first few days out of the prison are really weird and awkward – the prisoners got too deep in the immersion and are slowly remembering what’s real and talking some things out. Before these major emotions can wear off, they’re pulled aside by various writers and teams to make a plan for the next trial. They meet up with deco*27 himself and the songwriting begins
They each have a private bedroom in the facility. The first night, they’re all super excited to not be sleeping in those uncomfortable cells, and then immediately feel really closed off to the others. For some it remains a good thing – Yuno is glad for the isolation, Fuuta’s paranoia about judgment is eased, etc. Still, it’s strange to be separated from the people they’ve been side-by-side with for a year and a half, 24/7. Many of them end up sleeping on the floor of one another’s room or leaving their doors wide open.
Jackalope is using long distance tech to project his voice into the prison, but the animal in the prison is just a well-trained pet with some hardcore costuming. Freed from its little uniform, the rabbit gets lots of pets and pampering from the prisoners.
They aren’t allowed to leave and visitors must be for filming purposes only, but each prisoner is allowed a phone call (“hey, just like a real prison!” Jackalope laughs). Haruka calls his sister, and so does Fuuta. They stay on the phone for a really long time. Yuno calls her parents, making sure to say hi to Yura. Muu calls her parents too, and cries hearing their voices. Shidou calls his family; being separated from them for so long only confirms his near-miss intentions. Mahiru realizes too late she should have called her family – instead, fresh off the guilty verdict, she calls her ex to apologize profusely. Kazui considers a few people he could call, but doesn’t take Jackalope up on the offer right away. Later in the hiatus he calls his childhood friend just to say hi; he doesn’t mention any of the experiment stuff going on. Amane wanted to call her father, but she doesn’t want to break the news that she’s not doing a good job because of her verdict. She waits until she knows he’ll be out per his usual schedule, and leaves a brief and formal message on the machine. Mikoto calls his mom and sister, asking about how everyone’s doing (and largely avoiding talking about himself). Kotoko calls her family, surprised at how emotional she gets hearing their voices.
Jackalope makes the mistake of mentioning updated guilty uniforms in front of the prisoners. Fashion expert Mahiru, designer Mikoto, and just simply nosy Yuno and Muu track down the costuming team to “help.” Though there’s not a ton of alterations to be made, they enjoy being a part of the process. They end up sticking around and chatting about mv outfits. Mahiru enjoys everyone’s choices and fittings, and promises Amane they’ll go shopping someday and have a proper dress fitting. She asks if Es is going to get a new uniform as well. When told no, she vows she’ll take them shopping as well.
Though not allowed to leave, they’re at least allowed to step outside in designated areas. They enjoy the sun and rain and stars. The smoking group is excited to meet outside. Mikoto makes sure to hang out with them a bit extra seeing as he’s going to leave the group a bit come T2.
I wrote the drabbles as individual scenes since it was nice to give each prisoner their own time like that, but logically some filming would be overlapped a bit. Jackalope would still want to direct everything as best he could, but there may be multiple scenes filming at once. I just really liked the idea of the mixing of props and costumes. They yell “cut!” as Bee Muu takes a shortcut through the Backdraft set. Yuno accidentally leaves her pink-glasses rabbit in one of the AKAA chairs and Haruka laughs in the middle of a take as he moves it out of frame. Amane is on a quick break from her scene and Mikoto shows her around the train still in full marching band getup. (I just realized these were all back to back videos, but I think any and all can overlap lol)
Shidou is still the one to administer Mahiru and Fuuta’s bandages. Even though it’s fake, he wants it a) to be his real handiwork and b) to be accurate, given the disaster of Throw Down. He’s excited to share his knowledge and explain exactly how each of their imagined injuries would affect them, telling them the proper way to act. Mahiru listens intently, all but taking notes, while Fuuta is bored to death of his doctor-jargon ramble.
Back pre-T1, Jackalope started off telling the prisoners they can choose their song titles (just for organization's sake, Es won’t see them) but he ends up taking over because their titles are really, really bad. It’s a mix of those really long sentence-style titles and cool words/phrases that have absolutely nothing to do with the song itself. Jackalope goes through the files renaming “The Sweet Whispers of A Lost Love,” “Fuck You,�� “They say three strikes and you’re out but clearly they’ve never met me before” and “Kotokos_song.mp3”. By the time they start filming second trial videos, it doesn’t phase him to open up files titled “Elegy to a Broken Heart,” “I checked the train schedule five times and still missed my stop,” “I Can’t Be Normal,” and “Kotokos_song(1).mp3”.
And some post-T2 thoughts:
The verdicts are both easier and harder to handle this time around. This is the second break from the immersion, and it’s easier to separate reality from experiment. However, the videos and interrogations this time around were a lot more raw, so there’s an extra sting of betrayal to them. Es got to look deep – much deeper than most – and still chose not to forgive.
Haruka isn’t really worried about death or harm from the verdict, but he does feel betrayed that Es would throw his life away like that. Muu doesn’t fear the consequences, but is saddened that once again she made someone like her only to turn against her when they saw her true self. The t1 guilties have a little meetup where they breathe a collective sigh of relief and congratulate one another on making it through. Fuuta just kind of sinks in relief, while Mikoto is giving out high-fives. Then they make a beeline for the current guilties to see how they can help.
Mahiru and Mikoto were always helpful to the others, but Fuuta surprises everyone by constantly checking in with the guilty prisoners. He remembers how much the verdict sucked and wants to try and help/prepare them as much as he can.
Red appears every once and a while to force people to take breaks when filming gets very involved/tiring. While Blue is pretty chill and cheery about everyone staying hydrated and getting good sleep, Red is a bit more serious with his approach.
I think with another innocent verdict and seeing everyone 'behind the scenes,' Kazui would finally, finally start opening up to people. I like to think, as Yuno starts filming another video about very comfortable with her sexuality, he approaches her first with the topic.
When given the chance to make phone calls, most of the prisoners choose the same people as before. Haruka doesn’t want to call anyone at first, but is glad when Muu forces him to call his sister. He’s by her side when she calls her parents. Mahiru remembers to call her parents first, telling them to pass along her well wishes to others. She got the verdict she was hoping for, but Amane can’t bring herself to call home.
The upcoming videos will likely be even more intense, but that just makes everyone band together more. They give each other confidence. They work extra hard to get silly goofy when it’s in good taste.
63 notes
·
View notes
Y'know the thing about writing feral/unhinged versions of Orion/Optimus, is that you can't go too far into the feral/unhinged direction to a point where OP's core character traits are lost or become too diminished. After all, in a multiple-continuity franchise like TF, part of what makes the stories make sense is that even if details change (sometimes major details), the characters are still recognizably themselves to one degree or another. (Although this isn't always the case due to executive meddling or some characters being such blank slates from their initial G1 appearances that there's basically nothing to model them off of, but I digress.)
It's pretty much another reason why I love IDW1 Optimus, bc he literally is a canonical feral/unhinged Optimus who's unhinged as a direct consequence of who he is as a person and what he's been through. Like, he still has those fundamental character traits of trying his best to be moral and make good choices, trying to be a role model, etc, except after 4 million years of war and untreated depression he's basically holding onto his sense of self by his fingertips. So when he "goes feral" e.g. losing his temper and beating up/killing people or saying hurtful things, he's feral in a way that's directly tied to his normal personality and not just as a random quirk he has.
IDW OP's feral moments arise from the gaps between "Optimus' attempts to be who he thinks he needs to be" and "the reality of the world that he can't fix/seems to only make worse" that cause him to lose hope, or become cynical, or lose his temper. But in this case, the unhinged-ness makes perfect sense because it arises out of Optimus trying and failing to be the best person or to make the most morally good choices he's trying to make. Basically, the "feral/unhinged" label is just another way of me trying to say that he's not just unhinged because he's weird or because he's a bad person, but because it's an emotional reaction (more like an emotional explosion due to pent-up emotions) to the context he exists in.
I'd also say that IDW OP's personality being generally reserved/stoic and (trying to be) noble works in tandem with those moments he has of going feral because it makes him more realistic. His psyche is treated in a way where the writers are like, "Hey what if the pressure of having to be everyone's idol and be the best person in the galaxy at all times actually broke Optimus down mentally and emotionally?" It makes IDW OP far more relatable. Instead of naturally being a perfect Christ-like figure who never wavers in his morals or convictions and is just naturally a nice person who always has the wisest and best answer, being a good person is something that IDW OP has to consciously strive to be. Even when he feels like it's useless, or the cycle of violence will never stop, or any attempts he makes to help only ends up with things becoming worse.
And I feel like this does a service not only to IDW Optimus as a character, but also as a sort of moral/philosophical perspective for the reader to ponder upon? I feel like culture at large (or at least my experience of it) tends to believe that "goodness" in a person is simply an innate feature that people are born/not born with, and that being "good" means that you must be good at all times, both in your actions as well as the way you feel emotionally about yourself and the world. Like, there's a tendency for our vision of "a good person" to be good in every aspect at all times without having to try to be a good person. So I think IDW Optimus' character stands as a good example of how someone can be good at heart but still struggle to maintain those feelings of optimism and hope and justice. It's a good idea to have such a paragon of a character (in-universe and out-of-universe) be so conflicted and to even be mistaken, misguided, or make things worse because it shows that goodness is as much about "trying to behave/act in a way that is good" and not just "existing as an innately good person."
It's way more realistic for a person to want to be good, try to be good, and sometimes/often fail than it is for them to just be a good person. I enjoy the fact that IDW Optimus is both a good person at heart, but also has to strive to be a good person and live up to other people's expectations of what they see in him. I like how he wants to be a good person and change society for the better, but he also spends a good amount of time either feeling hopeless and alone or being angry at/detached from other people because of how frustrated they make him. He's realistically portrayed as someone who wants to be good and hopeful and change things for the better, but is also mentally and emotionally broken by that burden because of how impossible it is for him to Fix Everything and be the Perfect Prime/Leader/Autobot that people see him as. It's this fascinating mixture of "yes, this is who he is as a person" but also "there are things he desires to be that he could never possibly become or live up to."
This got really far off based from feral/unhinged Optimus sdklfjaslkdlfkas. The TLDR is that if people want unhinged OP, I feel like they should give IDW OP a chance because he IS unhinged but he's unhinged in a way that's a realistic/thematic representation of how being an Absolute Good is impossible. And how being a good person isn't just about Existing And You Are A Good Person, but rather goodness is a constant state of flux in which you adjust, you make mistakes, you lose your temper and feel hopeless, but then you pick yourself up and try again.
Also IDW OP really likes climbing in dangerous wilderness and jumping out of flying vehicles which I think is very feral and sexy of him to do.
38 notes
·
View notes