#the way one of them hated rina so bad because they never watch the show until the season airs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fritae · 3 years

Text

The Missing Piece:

Chapter 2 - Frustration

Gang leader! AU / Corporate! AU

Characters: Dabi x F/OC

Status: Ongoing

a/n: hey guys! so I'm playing with this idea and I'm not sure if I'm conveying it properly, but I hope you enjoy regardless! this story's really fun to write and I'm excited for what's to come! I'd really appreciate any feedback 🖤 thanks!

---

"Call Mr. Tobiro, tell him we're airing a new program next month" Mr. Lane tells me as we hurry through the halls.

I get confused. Didn't we resolve all this new program talk last week? I know the ratings still bother Mr. Lane, but enough to go against the board?"

"Sir, is this-"

"No. I'm not replacing any of the current shows. It'll be during the special programming slot on Saturday," He scowls. "A 2 hour special documentary about the Todoroki corp's amazing work these past few years. You know how popular the company is."

Something about this makes me uneasy. Why would he decide this out of nowhere?

His commands jolt me back to reality. "Make sure he adjusts the schedule and starts airing commercials. I want huge ratings, Ms. Aiko. We don't spend all this money to have another company show us up."

An intern quickly hands me Mr. Lane's morning coffee. I mouth a thank you and follow him to his office.

I place the coffee on his desk as he shouts on. I spot another employee carrying files for Mr. Lane. Her hands shake, as if she's trying to decide whether or not to drop them off now. We lock eyes through the glass and I decide for her.

Not now, I shake my head from behind Mr. Lane. Her eyes widen and she nods before quickly hurrying off.

"Are you listening to me, Ms. Aoki?

"Yes sir. I'll call Mr. Tobiro right away."

I keep a straight face as he shouts for the delay. As soon as I find an opening, I go out to call our corporate lawyer.

---

During lunch break, I head down to the cafeteria. I smile when I spot Aliyah and the crew. We tried to sync our lunch breaks to ensure we had some time together during the day (though we at times have to work through our breaks). It makes work feel less lonely.

"Rina!" She exclaims when I grab the seat beside her.

"We finally have some time together," I laugh before hugging her.

"Those bastards work you like a dog," She grumbles.

"You too," I pick at my salad. "Your hours are worse than mine."

"Yeah but I don't have the boss barking orders at me every second of the day. Rina's the real champ here, guys." She tells the table. The others clap at that, and we all share a laugh through mouths full of food.

As a couple executives make their way past our table, we stand up and smile at them in respect. But watching our smiles fall as soon as they walked away made me feel bitter.

"I hate how they treat us like trash and we still have to smile and kiss up to them." I whisper.

Al nods immediately. "But it's whatever. The more you kiss up, the better they'll pay you."

I don't respond to that.

Instead, I think back to the stranger I met last night.

Then what you want isn't money. You want more. He told me.

But the amount they pay us should be enough that we take whatever they throw at us.

Right? I mean, this is why everyone dreams of working here.

"Oh, by the way did you guys hear?" Aliyah suddenly whispers. "You know that multibillion dollar company uptown? Todoroki Inc.?"

"The one with all those charity projects?"

Todoroki Inc. was a big name in the industry. Their extreme success is known worldwide - but they're really known for their philanthropic branch: including building orphanages for the poor, handing out 6 figure donations, and the famous Boku no Hero Academia - where they train leaders in every industry to become tomorrow's changemakers, or as they call it "heroes."

Aliyah voice gets lower, a mischievous smile on her face.

"Except turns out Mr. Todoroki has been caught up in major lawsuits these past few months."

I frown. "For what?"

"Apparently there's been several child abuse cases at the orphanages he sponsors."

All around the table, our mouths drops. Usually lunchtime gossip involves the newest couples or breakups of the day. But this...

This has severe implications.

I'm not surprised that Al knows this. She interacts most directly with our guests and stars meaning she's in on a lot of industry gossip. But still...a major lawsuit like this?

"Is this real or is it one of your rumors?" Someone asks her suspiciously.

"It's as real as you or me! I saw videos . Trust me. There's plenty of people with beef against the company. Big boss Todoroki spent heavy money to keep it all hush-hush. But word travels quickly." She leans back in her seat with a smug look on her face. "We'll see how much power Enji really has by how quietly this unfolds."

"That's disgusting." I push my salad away, my appetite gone. "He can't get away with something like that. Where's the accountability?"

"There is no accountability, sweetheart. That's the way it works. You got money and power, you can get yourself out of anything. Besides, Enji has a reputation. He's got supporters everywhere, people see him as a hero because of all these charity projects."

"But they don't know what's happening in those projects!"

Suddenly, I remember something.

The special program!

I have to tell Mr. Lane. If this is really what's happening, we can't air something like this. It'll give people a false image of what the company stands for. Charity projects that have no proper supervision and that serve as places of abuse should never be celebrated.

"I- I have to go. I'll see you later Al, good luck with your schedule today!"

"But-"

"Sorry, I just remembered something I have to do."

I can't let her know about the program just yet. If I'm lucky, it hasn't been formalized into our official programming. I need to get to Mr. Lane before it does...

---

"Mr. Lane!" I barge into his office.

My boss looks up from his desk, slightly concerned at the look on my face. I slow down to catch my breath.

"Sir, about the Todoroki programming you want to set up. We need to cancel it sir, there's- there's a huge lawsuit going on. The orphanages - the kids are being mistreated sir, please-"

Mr. Lane leans back in his seat.

"Ms. Aoki, relax. That's not your concern. The deal is done."

"Sir...this will give a false image of Mr. Todoroki and his company."

"It's not a false image, it's an alternate image. That's what this whole industry is about. Mr. Todoroki is not responsible for what his managers do. And unless you're speaking with legal authority, I suggest you end this conversation now, Ms. Aoki."

"But sir! A program like this will give people cause to celebrate Todoroki Inc., rather than properly probe into these issues. What about the kids? The victims? Sir, please- this is about more than just-"

"This conversation is over, Ms. Aoki."

I try to think of another argument quickly. What else, what else. What could this nimrod possibly care about.

"But sir!" I say quickly. "If this blows up and becomes public knowledge, what will the people say about our company? It'll be bad for our name, we'll lose the respect we have in the industry, don't you think?"

Mr. Lane lets out a deep sigh. "Ms. Aoki, I know you're smarter than this. If the lawsuits go public..." I get worried by the excitement thrumming behind his eyes. "More people will tune in to watch the program. Everyone will be eager to see the other side. If we play our cards right the ratings will be-"

I scoff.

Mr. Lane stops speaking. The sudden ice in his eyes makes my bones go cold, but for once, I can't back down.

"The ratings?" I almost laugh. "Sir, I'm telling you there's kids being abused due to this man's lack of accountability, and you want to use that for profit? What about the truth? What about justice!"

"To hell with truth and to hell with justice!" He slams his fist. Mr. Lane gets up to tower over me. "I make the decisions here, Ms. Aoki. Your job isn't to advise me or to babble on about bullshit like the truth. This is a broadcasting company, and your job is to maximize profits - that's it! Got it?"

I feel my face grow hot.

"You've been running on thin ice for a while now, Ms. Aoki," His voice gets dangerously low.

I bite my tongue.

"I can assure you that no other company would give you the benefits package we've given you. It seems we've spoiled you, haven't we? That's why you're comfortable running your mouth like this."

"Sir, I-"

"I'll see to it that your salary is adjusted appropriately until you learn your lesson. And I warn you," He says through clenched teeth. "I see any of this behavior again, you'll be asking for much more than a salary reduction, Ms. Aoki. Got it?"

-----

Emotions I didn't know I could feel bubble within me. Hatred and rage boil deep in my core. But what can I do? What can I do.

I look from left to right. Trying to find something, anything to throw. Anything to take my anger out on. But when I find nothing, I hurry to the edge of Du Monde's roof. My chest heaves with the weight of my anger.

And as I overlook all of Midtown, and the entire city seems to be under me, I scream.

I scream and then I scream again.

I let out every trapped word that's been aching to escape.

All the swear words stuck to the back of my throat for years.

I release it all into the sky, knowing the wind will carry it for miles.

"Fuck you Mr. Lane!" I screech. "You no good fucking bald-headed, stout faced little piece of-"

"Woah!" I hear someone say.

Suddenly, a pair of arms pulls me back by the waist, as if to restrain me.

Of course, this does nothing but infuriate me more.

"Who the fuck- let me go! Let me go before I fucking rip every single finger off your hands and shove them-"

"Easy!" The voice says again, before releasing me on the ground. "Don't stand so close to the edge, idiot. You could fall."

"If I fucking fall, I want everyone to know it's Mr. Lane's fault! Fucking sue NNTV and put the Court verdict over my fucking grave so I know-"

"Hey! Look at me." The headless voice says. "No one's fucking fall-" He lets out an exasperated sigh. "Listen. I need you to calm down."

I scoff. Calm down? Is he telling me to calm down? With clenched teeth, I turn around. Ready to throw all my fury at this intruder. "Who the hell do you think you are? Don't you dare tell me to calm-"

My mouth drops when I lock eyes with the slightly concerned stranger.

With those electrifying blue orbs.

No.

This isn't a stranger.

Not a total stranger at least.

The man I bought coffee for last week at Du Monde stares back at me.

"...down."

A smile plays on his lips. "Hey. So you remember me."

"What..." I let out an annoyed breath, though it's not as angry as it was a moment ago. "...are you doing here?"

A toothpick sticks out of the corner of his mouth. He pulls it out as he ponders over my question. "Well, I was doing business. And then you decided to let all of New York know you were crazy."

I scoff. "You haven't seen crazy." I mumble.

"You got quite the mouth on ya," He smirks. "A little loud..." He tilts his head, as if considering again. "But you're honest."

I cross my arms and look toward the skyline, ignoring the people cautiously watching us from the other side of the glass. They can whisper to themselves about how crazy I am. This is New York. No one will remember this by tomorrow.

"Thanks. Now if you don't mind, I have other crazy things to do. And don't you have a business to run? People to be an ass to?"

The man tilts his head, as though slightly disappointed. But his lips remain curled. "Now come on. I've been hoping to run into you and you want to leave so soon?"

I frown. "Why would you want to run into me? You aren't a creep, are you?" I ask suspiciously.

"Creep?" He shoots me a pointed look. "There you go making a guy regret being nice," He tsks. "I was hoping to pay you back for the coffee."

He still remembers that?

"You know what," I sigh, running a hand through my hair. "Normally I'd say no need. But considering I'm probably gonna be jobless soon, I might just take you up on that."

"Well then," He stands up and offers me a hand. "I don't know how much crazy you still got left in ya so let's go somewhere a little closer to the ground."

#dabi #todoroki touya #dabi fanfic #dabi fic #dabi x female reader #dabi x oc #dabi x reader #dabi angst #dabi fluff #dabi is touya #bnha fics #dabi bnha

18 notes · View notes

iridescentides · 3 years

Text

i watched the ep twice bc i didnt take notes the first time BUT. hsmtmts 2.04 thoughts under the cut

gina first. my favorite part of the episode was when she admitted that she feels out of place living in someone else’s house and that she wanted a bigger part in the play. i was SO worried they were gonna just let her happily sideline herself in a “yay she learned her lesson about not being the center of attention” kind of way bc i would not be able to handle that two seasons in a row. let her be angry!!! she has a lot to be upset about

the gina/carlos conflict was awful bc theyre making carlos unreasonably annoying this season. last season he was nice, he was enthusiastic, not competitive and just rooting for other people. idk why they needed to flip him so drastically to being spoiled, rich, selfish, pushy, and bitchy. and on top of that i have not been vibing with the pieces of dialogue theyve been giving him this season just to score woke points. its so unbearably obvious that even though hes a brown gay character, he was written by a white gay person who thought, on some level, that he was giving the gen z kids the #hashtag representation they wanted. his delivery of every line that screams “remember, im mexican” is so awkward, it doesnt land well, and im begging them to stop. they want so badly to commodify his character and parade him around as a “look how diverse our show is!” thing and im so so sick of it bc you can tell, with all the surface-level pieces of dialogue, that they dont actually care at all

(”look around, theres not a lot of me at this school” we GET it, this show wants to be glee so bad)

im honestly starting to slowly ship rina less and less. in season one i loved seeing someone make gina happy, especially since she had no friends before opening up to ricky. but now its just a whole mess and i wish she would love herself a lil more to realize that its not worth all this stress. he made a choice and no amount of conflicted moments of eye contact is going to fully take that back. im not necessarily against love triangle plots, but i HATE the whole “women wait around hopefully while male character, whose decisions have already hurt multiple people, makes up his mind” bullshit

that being said, gina handled the situation like a CHAMP, im dying over how quickly she was able to mask her pain and make the joke about the twix bar. im love her

we were absolutely ROBBED of an ej/big red performance this episode!!! i am at my LIMIT we better get gaston next week or i will riot

on the ej train, him not getting into duke was extremely predictable. we all kinda saw that coming and knew that would be his main point of growth this season. im glad they didnt wait super long to do it. now please @ writers i am BEGGING you to give my man more screen time than one scene per episode

its very odd that they keep making mr mazzara have emotionally tough conversations with the students. i will do a parallel gifset of those once the season ends. i liked his convo with ej for the most part, but he really didnt have to beat him over the head with the “youre an emotionless robot” thing again. its clear ej is gonna throw himself into av club or whatever (even though at the end of last season that was supposed to be big red?) and discover that he has a lot going for him. because he does, he literally has everything going for him, thats why they had to make his “problem” not knowing himself. bisexual ej caswell ftw

i love the parallels between ej and nini this episode? i think since the beginning ive felt that there was a lot about them under the surface that was similar. it was interesting seeing ej tell nini about duke first, instead of the obvious choice of ashlyn. i wouldve loved to see how that scene wouldve gone with ricky, gina, carlos, or big red though bc each reaction and attempt at comforting him wouldve been so different. i didnt love that nini had to be pulled away from the conversation, but im glad they can still talk to each other after everything that went down. and i love the juxtaposition of ej’s convo with mazzara directly following nini’s convo with miss jenn bc theyre essentially the same.

speaking of, i loved miss jenn in this episode. her stories are always so funny, but i loved seeing her care so much for nini and guide her, like a teacher. i loved how she pointed out that everyone who loves nini just wants her to be happy

im glad nini is leaving yac bc there was no good way to keep that up honestly. but im pretty annoyed that they were so obvious about it? like, they immediately made it the worst place in the world without exploring it very much. the place is super unrealistic, ive never been to drama school but im sure it wouldnt be like that. no creative arts place for KIDS would be so impossibly limiting. plus the weird bluish coloring in comparison to the nice warm tones of the rest of the show was, again, a dead giveaway. why send her to the school at all if it wasnt even gonna matter?

even though im glad nini left yac, im NOT looking forward to the way miss jenn is about to bend over backwards to put her in the play somehow. she plays obvious favorites and im so annoyed

(sidenote: nini just? decided to leave yac without consulting her parents??? ummm)

granted is a very good song, one of my faves so far

ricky deciding to tell nini he wants her to stay was stupid. what did he think that would accomplish? who in their right mind would drop out of a good school for you?

i loved when nini said yac was missing something, and miss jenn said “ricky” and nini said “you.” that was so so sweet and cute

i think the kourtney/howie thing is gonna grow on me. i hate amatonormativity so im not a big fan of them introducing a whole ass character exclusively so kourtney can have a love interest, but i loved the gesture he made of bringing her the pizzas and her flashcards. i feel like kourtneys love language is acts of service, and she was literally this meme when he did that for her:

i liked seeing ashlyn try to be there emotionally for gina! i want more of them together

overall this episode was okay. not enough songs, and i wish they were spreading out the emotional conversations through the season instead of packing them all into literally one episode, but what we did get was pretty good.

after watching the preview i see that next weeks episode is gonna be about carlos’s party, and i love party episodes. BUT i hope that after that ep we finally get an advancement on the north high stuff! i dont give too many fucks about lily, but i wanna see my son asher angel

#me @ myself every time i write one of these: we GET it youre a gina and ej stan #hsmtmts lb #hsmtmts spoilers #txt #waffle words of wisdom

9 notes · View notes

jq37 · 4 years

Text

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 17 For Candia (Part 2)--Mini Recap

Hey guys. It’s been a bit, huh?

I haven’t been on Tumblr a bunch lately because I’ve been busy as hell irl for a lot of reasons, but I also hate to leave a thing undone, especially when it’s so close to being done. So I decided to provide at least some level of closure for anyone who might have stumbled across these with no access to the ep and really wants to know how the story ends.

Maybe I’ll do a proper recap at some point but, for now, let’s wrap things up.

This episode is basically a series of Boss Fights standing in for the more significant but less interesting final battle going on in which the Rocks Family face off against all the Important NPCs.

Amethar and Joren together waste Grissini, Amethar saying that he might have been good to Jet, but he’s fighting for the wrong side. (Joren goes down but it’s never really resolved whether he survives or not. I feel like he probably did considering Liam’s epilogue.)

Ally gets their obligatory Nat 20 to intimidate Keradin for the rest of the fight by greatly shaking his faith in the Bulb before icing him. Then he sees the Pontifex watching the fight from the wall of the keep and makes a beeline.

Amethar, likewise, sees Cal running across the castle wall and breaks from his unit to go after him.

Ciabatta shows up and I am reminded in the absolute DOPEST way that Ruby never used her watersteel dagger. “In sweetness there is strength, bitch.” Ciabatta is toast.

White flags start to go up.

Liam catches up to the Pontifex, does the insane amounts of damage that’s just like par for the course for him at this point, and drops her, taking St. Citrina’s Book.

Cal tries to make for a secret tunnel to escape but Cumulus blocks his path. Amethar blocks him off from the other side. “What’s the last part of my title? Say it.” Cal, being forced to kneel by Cumulus, acknowledges his “Unfallen” title (throwing a man w/ the title “the Unfallen” off a roof and not checking to see if he’s dead is the very height or hubris. That’s some, “Not even God can sink this ship” levels of asking for it) and then attacks. Amethar gets 4 attacks back and his last is a Nat 20, activating Payment Day’s special ability: On a Nat 20 against someone who has killed a member of Amethar’s family? That person instantly dies. Boom. Fight is over just like that. Piece of cake.

With all the Big Bads dead, the fight is more or less over other than logistics. Or at least it would be if Brennan didn’t have some mind games up his sleeves. As the fight is winding down, Ruby and Rina lock eyes and they both know they have a moment to turn the tide in their favor in their little cold war by attacking the other and striking first. Out of game, Brennan makes Siobhan and Emily decide secretly on slips of paper whether they each want to attack or show compassion. It’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma setup. If they both play nice, it’s golden. If they both attack, it’s even. If you play nice and get betrayed, you’re screwed.

But like...it’s D20. It’s the Game of Thrones season of D20 but it’s still D20.

They choose compassion, both of them.

“Saccharina, you’re an astonishing leader, but I can’t be your subject. But please, I would like to be your sister,” Ruby says, and Siobhan keeps her perfect track record of taking me out in every finale.

Rina has her guys stand down (to Swifty’s dismay). Ruby tells a skeptical Cara to stand down and choose family (which she does, snapped out of her paranoia by Ruby’s brave move).

Brennan’s attempt at PvP thwarted, Amethar swears on the Book of Leaves that he was named Emperor and Primsy--who is here in too for some reason--recognizes the claim. That leaves the recently (forcibly) vacated throne of Castle Candy to Rina. Which is great for her because Liam remembers the wish seed and uses it to just quadruple Candia in size, the absolute madman.

We get epilogues! Liam becomes Master Gardener (and also casually says that he brought back the Pontifex and Kerradin to jail them which is wild because that’s not a spell that exists in this world--Ally just brute forced it in in the last second in a line so poetic that Brennan was just forced to let it happen). Cumulus takes a break from snapping chicken’s necks. Theo gets laid. Rina and Ruby do the sister thing and Ruby joins the circus for a while. Cinnamon becomes a vegetarian which mellows out his constant hunger. And Amethar enjoys time with his newly expanded family. For the first time in a while, things are looking sweet.

A Few Notes

I’m going to fight the editor who had me worried about the “family is exposed” clip all season for the exact wrong reason. But also, gold star. Well played.

Lol at Brennan not even getting his PvP in the GOT season w/ a prisoner’s dilemma. Like, give it up dude. Watch next season start in media res during a fight to the death to force everyones’ hands.

On the same topic, very funny that the previous episode it was like, “Loyalties tested! Lines drawn!” and then this episode Theo was like, “Come on guys you shoulda just talked to me. I would never betray you.” It’s like he just wanted to have a dramatic moment.

MVP this ep is Ruby with the watersteel dagger imo. Like everyone had their moment. And Amethar w/ that Nat 20 was dope but you were kind of waiting for that all season. But I totally forgot Ruby had that dagger. I, like, verbally cheered when she pulled it out.

I haven’t watched the last AP or the behind the scenes special so I don’t know that much about unseen characters besides what I’ve glimpsed on Twitter/Tumblr but Amand Maillard looks very dope.

I wish we’d gotten to know more about Citrina. Like I get that if you dump these players in a world, they’re gonna wanna take down The Man and often The Man is The Church and the Pontifex *did* need to go but sometimes people are just Good and I dug her (Citrina’s) vibe in the flashback we got.

I can’t believe Siobhan got me with the “Be my sister/Let me be your sister” stuff in back to back seasons. You’d think I would have developed some resistance in the intervening months. Nope! Weak as ever baybee!

One Final Thing

One of the reasons I’ve been so busy lately is I’ve been working on my podcast*, Absolutely No Adventures, which is dropping in a tiny bit over a month. The trailer drops on Sunday so if you wanna check that out when it’s out, you can follow the show’s Twitter (@noadventurespod)! I’ll also link it here as my pinned post once it’s up. I hope some of y’all check it out!

*ONE of my podcasts but one announcement at a time.

#a crown of candy #a crown of candy spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #the royal report #my busyness and the lack of the spectre of another episode in 7 days killed my sense of urgency #but pirates is coming out soon and I don't wanna get lapped so here you go #also I'm about to be even more MIA than before on podcast stuff so I wanted to do this before I fully forgot what happened and couldn't #do this even with my notes.

26 notes · View notes

maxbernini · 4 years

Text

skamfr is so much more fun when you ignore the plot, steal the characters from the show, and instead come up with headcanons about them. so therefore important scientific question: what type of music do we think la mif listens to?? here is my contribution to that below the cut. (my knowledge of french music is limited so this is english-based; apologies if the read more doesn’t work & you have to see all of this, im tagging it as “long post” so).

sekou: i feel like it’s been established that sekou is kind & empathetic in very “quiet” but important ways. he does things where you’re like, oh yeah that’s nice. but thinking about them beyond a surface level, they’re actually very meaningful: for example, hacking the account. that was second nature for him, an immediate reaction! but he took the lead from lola on what she wanted to do with it, and then took it down when she was ready, no questions asked, giving her agency (something she craves; also “maybe you’re just a good person” FIRST person all season to say that). so this is me saying i think he likes music where the emotion is...carefully constructed, but still powerful, still gut-punching. like classical/orchestral? or soundtrack music!! hello we KNOW he’s a future oscar winner (perhaps eliott would’ve been too had he listened to sekou's advice). he likes analysing films & their sound design, he loves the one for interstellar since the entire film is just science stuff + the power of love. he also likes beyonce and rihanna; songs like “xo”, “cheers to the weekend”, “bitch better have my money” and “countdown” remind him of dumb nights out with his friends. he also loves classic artists like whitney & tina turner: people you can dance to! videos on their insta + samedi 6:43 prove this (remember when he was going wild in the background when mayla were trying to flirt? legend).

lola: canonically didn’t like the music playing @ that bar (hip-hop i believe?). also canonically a dramatic teen: she has used music in her insta stories TWICE to call maya out, so i think she just listens to whatever she likes that happens to match her mood, and stares out the window pretending to be in a music video when she does so. but perhaps secretly prefers pop? or music she can jump and scream her lungs out to, like “i wanna get better” by bleachers or “shake it out” by florence and the machine? also if no one else is going to say it....she's a swiftie. she heard “love story” when she was eight and her heart ACHED with the forbidden romance of it all because when you're eight you somehow relate to lyrics you've never experienced irl, and she's sworn allegiance to taylor ever since. also definitely a paramore fan; she had a crush on hayley williams (“hard times”, “ain’t it fun”, and “the only exception” are her anthems, depending on the mood).

max: okay according to their insta he plays the guitar and SINGS so i think he probably listens to a lot of folksy/indie acoustic stuff, or at least plays a lot of them, and when la mif go camping he whips out the guitar and they have a sing-a-long. sometimes he leads; sometimes he'll fade into the background because he wants to listen to his friends or gets super into the strumming. either way he takes a bow at the end. sufjan stevens maybe when he's yearning over sekou (“i can’t explain the state that i’m in / the state of my heart, he was my best friend.”) also fleetwood mac (“the chain” when he’s angsty; “landslide” when it’s quiet & he hums it). but also rap and r&b? specifically stuff that hypes him up when he goes jogging or is urbex-ing by himself / when it's a somber, quiet group session. 100% a raleigh ritchie stan (they play "the greatest" in the car when they're driving at night; i think it's an anthem for them, max drums it on the wheel).

maya: canonically loves harry styles (she follows him on insta), but i am yet to decide whether this means she was one of those lesbians who Just Thought One Direction Were Neat, projected comphet crushes on them, or simply watched the music video for “watermelon sugar” and was like...i see the vision harry i see it!!! hayley kiyoko was important to her as a japanese lesbian teen girl but i think she's branched out to listen to other lgbt artists of colour now, like the internet (she vibes to “girl” when cleaning the apartment), frank ocean (she listens to his cover of “moon river” when she misses lola), and rina sawayama (“stfu!” when she’s having a bad day and/or dealing with racists @ work). however as a maya apologist i think it's important we also recognize that she has been known to canonically have, uh, questionable taste sometimes...so let's all accept that she unironically loves the glee cast version of “don't stop believin'” and move on! (we can discuss who the gleeks in la mif are later).

jo: ok this is the hardest one imo bc i think she’s most likely to follow in eliott’s footsteps and enjoy dubstep or something equally left field / cringey we can bully her for. but she canonically also likes reality shows and hates documentaries per their insta which seems like a more (for lack of better words) “mainstream” and "basic" thing to do, so to combine both feelings...electronic pop maybe? she definitely streamed charli xcx’s newest album & prefers her experimental stuff to her earlier pop stuff, but she mostly likes bouncing up and down. actually wait i want jo to stan, fucking...100 gecs or someone equally terrible. i want nobody in la mif to ever hand her the aux cord for that exact reason, but lola doesn't know she's unofficially banned from having it yet, so the first time they’re driving to urbex together she's like hey lola can you pass me that :D and lola does and la mif just FREEZE having realised too late and lola's very ???? but before they can do anything, the intro to “money machine” is being blasted, jo’s going feral, and lola is like. ok understood.

#long post #as always feel free to add on / critique!!#and please join me in my max/sekou pining slowburn best friends to lovers agenda #or my swiftie!lola and gleek!maya agenda. that one’s less angsty but more embarassing :-)#the way i spent more time & energy doing this than any assignment this semester 😐#okay but really...who in la mif watches/watched glee...who stans who...#skam france #my headcanons #la mif #*

25 notes · View notes

chaeryybomb · 4 years

Text

JUNE COMEBACKS REVIEW

BLACKPINK: HOW YOU LIKE THAT

ngl I’m kinda sad bc a lot of y’all don’t like the song ;-; but I can’t do anything about it since it’s your opinion so

but I hope that people know the difference between hating and giving criticism saying the song sucks and that it’s trash music is straight up music

I can get why people are disappointed with the song since everyone wanted almost the same thing, “jennie getting a rap part”, “jisoo saying blackpink in your area” and a high note from rosé

personally I really like the song, to me it’s not the same as dddd and ktl tbh I think it’s different

plus I kinda expected it to be like that bc their songs usually follow that yg style ya know the only songs I say that don’t follow that stereotypical yg style is “love scenario”, “stay” and AKMU’s songs

i mean if you compare the song with other yg artists song, they all have the same vibe to it because of the “yg style” we always say

the song also gives me nct and skz vibes too, like specifically “punch” and “side effects” bc of the heavy edm and also bc their songs has been called noise before dhshd

but enough of that

I really like how the song starts calmly in the beginning and then it starts to be more aggressive

also I like the fact that each of the girls get a chance to say “how you like that”

lisa’s rap????? y e s

personally I feel like this time it had more of a fairer distribution, including lines and center parts

like jisoo actually gets some center parts in the dance break and chorus

i also really like the outfits this era, especially the modernized hanboks! though I have mix feelings about the pink wig dhshdh

speaking of hair, jennie!! she fucking dyed her hair!!!

and rosé is no longer blonde dhsjdj

the parts I found weird is when rosé says “look up in the sky it’s a bird it’s a plane” i have no idea how that fits in the song so

and the “dumdudurum” part at the end, it sounds out of place, like especially after it the song ends

i also think that this is their best choreography! right next to don’t know what to do

overall, I really like the song, if you don’t it’s fine! hylt has the most aesthetic mv’s I’ve seen and the outfits are so much better and it has been said that BLACKPINK’s old stylist left the company in January no not maeng

lisa’s fur coat outfit reminds me of yeji’s outfit in wannabe

would I say that hylt is their best song? no, I think playing with fire was their best song but it’s not a terrible song either

another I like is jisoo owning this era, say what you want, hylt is Jisoo’s era period.

STRAY KIDS: GOD’S MENU

what even is a concept anymore

we all thought it was going to be some street racer concept

buT NO

it’s a kung fu panda concept dhshdh

felix!!! my baby has lines !!!!

his demonic voice is bACK

hyunjin’s blond hair 😭😭

what the fUCK

the way he tied it up in a ponytail, like sir that is diSRESPECTFUL he really is jaebum’s son huh

okay okay on to the song

it honestly shocked me so much, like the rap parts were so aggressive like and the vocals are kinda angelic???

i really really like the pre-chorus, seungmin’s voice is just so !!!!! i also like seungmin+i.n’s little duet after felix’s part

spEAKING OF FELIX’S PART

“looking like a chef I’m a five star Michelin” bro that part is lowkey demonic looking in the dance

like mans pulled his knees up and put his hands through them while looking directly at you

does that not look demonic to you??? my friend said it reminded her of a spider dhshdhr

also the “dududu” part instantly reminded me of bp’s dddd dhshd like can someone edit a part of bp going “oh wait till I do when I hit you with that” and cuts to skz “DUDUDU”

the fact that no one has done it yet astounishes me

also what the fuck is that chain thing on Chan’s face, who put it there and why dhshd

bless whoever gave changbin dual contacts lens

AND WHO GAVE JEONGIN SLEEVELESS SHIRTS WHO ALLOWED THAT DHSHD

at first I found the choreography a bit funny bc they added like cooking gestures to it dhshd, like stirring the pot in the chorus but my favorite part of the dance is changbin’s part

the entire album was a bop okay, the fact that “god’s menu” wasn’t even the title track and they decided to change it, the fact that jyp has so much TRUST in bang chan also we get to see chan and sana being best friends uwu

“pacemaker” is literally “my pace” 2020 ver dhshd it even has the “nananana” part!

my favorites from the album is “TA”, “blueprint” and “haven”!!

also “easy”,,,, chan what did u do that it can’t be performed in shows

TWICE: MORE & MORE

wow girl groups are really being criticized this month huh

if y’all don’t know what happened with twice, a lot of people are criticizing twice for not singing live during their encore stages

a lot of them are especially going after momo

I’ve watched their encore stages and I don’t know why people are saying they sound bad???? maybe they need a better vocal coach but the fact that people are taking advantages of the situation just to hate on them smh

a n y w a y s

the song definitely gives a whole lot of “dtna” vibes bc of the tropical concept, its like “dtna” but the mature version

if “dance the night away” had an older sister, it would be “more & more”

also I really like the eve & adam concept, “more & more” is also another “creepy”ish song that is hidden behind a catchy tune, like “yes or yes” where ppl think it’s a cute song but the lyrics says otherwise

okay actually writing this out, it’s mv has “dtna” vibe but the song is so much like “yes or yes”

if you read the lyrics, the girls are basically saying that “no matter how hard you try to hide, you’re going to be mine again”

even in dahyun’s rap she says “I’m naturally selfish, I’m sorry if you didn’t know” and “you will fall for me, you can’t say no no”

it’s almost the same as her part in “yes or yes” where she says “there is no letters n and o” dhshdh sorry this becam a whole theory

back the real song review, I’m so glad that momo got a dance break! I think that this is their fairest line distribution yet. jeongyeon got her lines, dubchaeng got their rap parts and momo has a lot of center parts!!

and the girls look so much happier during their promotions especially tzuyu! she was smiling so much, maybe it’s because mina is with them and I’m so happy they get to perform as nine again

i really like their choreography and the part where they do the chest bounce is really satisfying idk why dhsdh

plus jeongyeon got better outfits this era cough feel special era cough

overall, I really like this comeback and it’s nice that nayeon got the high notes this time instead of jihyo

IZ*ONE: SECRET STORY OF THE SWAN

oh boy this is definitely my favorite song of this month

it’s so much different than their other songs!!!

and there’s so much to go on about!

wonyoung, minju, sakura and hyewon literally improved so much. im so proud of them !!!

hyewon, nako and sakua getting to sing the chorus??? y e s

chaeyena rap parts????? y e s

chaeyeon getting a dance break AND a high note???? Y E S

my favorite parts is eunbi+chaewon pre chorus wow I have a thing for pre choruses don’t I dhsh

i will say that this song vies the girls the chance to show how much they’ve improved throughout the eras, especially the j-line and visual line since a lot of people said they didn’t belong in izone

wonyoung and yujin's expressions are really on point as well

and yena's hip move dhshdhs

it's also rlly cute how eunbi throws confetti at her part dhshd

it’s refreshing to see how the girls improved

unfortunately, izone will be disbanding this year ;-; this is why I never liked the produce series

but we do have some ideas what will happen to the members though, we all know yena will be added into everglow, i having a feeling that eunbi and chaeyeon will be debuting as a soloist, they have so much potential plus the radiate chungha energy

nako, hitomi and sakura would most likely return to Japan, although I see sakura staying in korea to pursue an acting career and hitomi as a producer since she wrote some of izone’s songs

yuri might debut as a solo or debut in a new girl group as main vocalists, the same goes for chaewon

i see minju and hyewon going into acting careers and CF contracts, the same as kang mina, especially since minju is now an mc for music core

whereas for wonyoung and yujin, their both still young so I think they’ll finish school before re-debuting in groups plus yujin will be attending sopa

especially wonyoung, we all know that she’s actually really smart and is good at academics, i also think she might do modeling work, she fits the criteria

i also kinda see yujin pursuing an acting career because she will be in the theatre and film department in sopa. unless starship is going to debut a new girl group, I hope that yujin can debut as a soloist instead

WEKI MEKI: OOPSY

*inhales*

LUCY AND LUA FINALLY GETTING THE LINES THEY D E S E R V E D

I’m so happy dhshdhhs

also lua fits the short hairstyle so much, I’ve literally fallen for her help I can’t get up

as much as I love yoojung, it’s nice to see lucy rapping

the song is very catchy, I especially like rina’s part in the second verse of the song

i also love the “wolf & hunter” concept for the album

like the pictures were very beautiful, I also like how they use white for the wolves and black for the hunters, it’s like painting the hunters at the bad guys and the wolves as the good guys

I am in love with Lucy, Lua and Sei’s “nonono” part in the chorus

and the choreography for the chorus too

as much as I love elly’s blue hair, she slays in black hair dhshd I

I really love their outftis this era, i like how it’s all pants for the girls too

my favorite outfits are the black outfits from the gif

overall, this is definitely their fairest line distribution cough tika taka and dazzle dazzle cough

NATURE: GIRLS

this is my second favorite song of the month

I love the whole horror concept and I also like the fact that they released the uncensored version of the mv

it’s give the song much more of the horror vibe

I’m new to Nature and as far as I know, a member is stuck in China and another member sat out due to an injury. please correct me if I’m wrong

the outfits might be simple, but it fits so right with the song, I prefer the white dresses over the black ones

it kinda gives out the feeling that the girls are like asylum patients ya know, whereas the black dresses gives out that the girls are rich daughters that were sent away

I really like LU and Haru’s parts

the dance is also kinda a simple but it looks great!

overall, I hope that Nature will do this concept again, actually I hope to see more groups do this kind of concepts more

WAYV: TURN BACK TIME

did this comeback scare me? yes yes it did

bro the teasers were so scARY

yangyang was literally laughing like a mANIAC

MANS WAS IN AN ASYLUM OKAY

their teasers gave me so much suicide squad vibes

also, why the fuck were 4/7 members not wearing shiRTS

sm do you have a shirt shortage??? I’m sure nctzens are more than happy to donate some shirts to you

okay anyways, I’ve always liked wayv’s sci-fi concept, I don’t know if the mv’s are connected or not but I think they are

“take off” is them basically flying away from earth and they landed in space in “moonwalk” and it seems they have been captured in “turn back time”

very inch resting dhshd

listen, I may be chinese but I can’t understand 70% of the song because of how fast it goES

so with that saying, yANGYANG DID NOT COME TO PLAY

his rap was amazing !!!! he is definitely one of sm’s best rappers along with taeyong and mark

my favorite part is lucas and hendery’s rap parts and then it switches to xiaojun and yangyang + kun, ten and xiaojun getting highnotes

the dance break is so satisfying to watch too

“stop, rewind, turn back time” and “5432” part is so satisfying

also I’m really impressed with how fast LabelV responded when fans pointed out that some of the outfits had offensive phrases in them, they took the time to edit it out of the teasers and the mv, cheers to them

also! i find it funny that wayv released the Korean version of “turn back time” but all of us were much more shocked at the fact that Ten got another cat dhshd

SEVENTEEN: LEFT & RIGHT

first of all, dokyeom looks so gOOD IN THE MV

second of all, vernon and wonwoo’s “hana dul set” will forever be iconic

third, seungcheol is back 😭😭

just like twice, they get to perform as 13 again dhsjdsn

AND THEY LOOK SO HAPPY DURING THIS ERA TOO

LIKE HAVE YOU SEEN WONWOO?? HE’S SUCH A SMILEY BABY with his orange mic dhshd

also if y’all don’t have tiktok, svt has been doing the “left & right” with so many other idols including chungha and apink’s naeun!

haha joshua hong and wen junhui being real disrespectful with those sleeveless shirts

bonus point we got svt x nct china line + mark and joshua interaction at music bank

their choreography looks so fun too dhshd

the entire comeback is so cute and colorful

my favorite parts are vernon and seungcheol’s rap parts

also vernon be rocking that greaser style

their new album is so versatile, like, “fearless”, “left & right”, “kidult” and “my my”?? who’s doing it like seventeen

i love their new songs so much especially “kidult”

overall, I really really love this comeback

WJSN: BUTTERFLY

I couldn’t find a group scene gif pls forgive me

let me say, I am absolutely in love with the concept, the outfit concept for this is so creative, I don’t know if any other groups have done it before but !!

their outfits evovle like a butterfly!!

at first, the outfits were plain pastel colours but they slowly become more detailed and colourful throughout the stages, like a caterpillar to a butterfly!

center yeoreum!!!

and dayoung looks so pretty in short hair 🥺

and again, as far as I know, the Chinese members are in China, two of them are apart of the Chinese group Rocket Girl and I think Chengxiao recently returned to Korea

I really like their ending pose where their hands are in the butterfly gesture and the “wings” are slowly flapping

and how their arms represent their wings during the chorus

by far one of the moor creative comebacks in my opinion

also, it’s nice to hear soobin doing the high note instead of yeonjung, let yeonjung rest her voice once in a while ya know

SUNMI: PPORAPPIPAM

THE QUEEN IS BACKKK

also wonder girls reunion uwu

the teaser gave me so much "barbie: island princess" vibes so the entire mv was not what I expected

at all

the mv literally describes sunmi a lot, she basically does whatever the fuck she wants like when she posted that pic of jyp on instagram dhshdhs

it’s so funny especially the scene where sunmi is wearing the teletubbies head

and at the end when she wakes up and goes back to sleep is just a mood lmao

something about the song really gives me a lot of “siren” vibes but happier???

i really like the way she pronounces “pporappipam” it took me one week to finally pronounced it dhshd

idk why but I really like the instrumental, especially the intro, it’s very melancholic

also she wears converse while performing the song bc she has to step on the dancers at one part !!

speaking of that part, it’s so cool!!! the way she climbs up the dancers like stairs and then she just trust-falls into their arms

23 notes · View notes

lori-hime · 4 years

Text

I haven't written much about what I've been up to lately, so here's some word salad updates~ 🥗

NijiGaku Anime

So I started watching the new LL. I hadn't been keeping up with SIFAS' story, but I did read some of it when it first came out. I gotta say, I'm really enjoying all of the changes they decided to make for the anime version of the story, to both the characters and story. It's starting to feel like something coherent. The story in the game was ok, but the main thing that interested me was the interactions with Muse and Aqours, overshadowing the actual "plot" and even Nijigasaki themselves. But the anime really made me interested and excited about the story and characters again. I would be a little annoyed about the personality and dynamic changes, but honestly, I'm used to it by now. LL always ends up doing this sort of thing, and the personalities only seem to become solidified after the anime airs.

A little disappointed in Kasumi's change in some vague ways I don't really feel like describing, but honestly it balances out because Ayumu is fantastic now (previously one of my least cared for of the group.) Yu's personality is surprisingly super gay fun and I'm really excited for her and Ayumu's dynamic in particular. They're so cute. Seriously feel like I'm gonna ship them hard.

I also really like Rina's initial personality in this. Not only is she bad at expressing emotions through her face, but she also seems bad at expressing them through words too. I feel like this is gonna be much more interesting than her already being cutesy and genki like in the promo stuff and SIFAS.

When Karin was first shown, I had mixed feelings. At first I was like oh god I'm gay and she's beautiful. But the whole sexuality flaunting thing kind of put me off for several reasons I don't really wanna get into explaining. I really didn't know how to feel. I started liking her a little more during SIFAS, when she competed against Muse in DDR and lost... started feeling like I was getting a glimpse of her real personality without the whole sexy idol persona. Although not much has happened in the anime with her yet, she's giving me Nozomi vibes and I love it. I actually think if I had gone into this without previous knowledge of the characters, I'd be betting she'd become my fave for sure.

My list has gone from Kasumi > Rina > Kanata / Emma > Karin > Ai > Setsuna > Ayumu > Shizuku to Yuu > Ayumu > Kasumi / Karin > Rina > Kanata / Emma > Ai > Setsuna > Shizuku

Still biased a bit towards characters that have shown up more in the first two eps, so it'll undoubtedly change. But It's really interesting how much the characters I already felt I had good placements for changed so much.

Edit for episode 3, because I didn't post this fast enough. Student council speedrun was fantastic. Yu continues to be incredibly gay. I wonder how this episode will affect the ships people will gravitate towards. LL has always been a fairly monoship fandom, heavily gravitating towards specific pairs. Of course that's largely the fault of canon itself, often pushing and developing single ships. Well, I suppose we saw a big change with Aqours, though, especially with season two. But even then, the ships tended to stay at least between girls of the same year (aside from my rarepair, shout-out to YohaRiko.) Now, I wonder. From the very beginning, before Yu even had a name, it felt like they were really pushing the shippy stuff @ the viewer. I wonder if that’s still gonna be the angle. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet. I really want to see more YuAyu rather than YuSetsu, but I can't really be mad at more gay content unless they try to make it a DEEP story and then fail to resolve it but haha they'd NEVER do that, I'm sure!!

As for the others... I'm guessing they're gonna push RinAi, KarinEmma, YuuKasu, and maybe YuuShizu? My original guesses were that AiKarin would be a thing, evoking NozoEli v3. But I guess that'd be too predictable a third time. KarinEmma sounds like it could be cute and sweet, RinAi feels like it has adorable potential, and YuKasu vs. YuAyu sounds like it could have some good comedic rival-y potential, given they don't make Kasumi super serious about it and make it really angsty. Not that a cute idol show would ever do such a thing haha!!!!!

Higurashi Gou

Also started Higurashi. I doubt many people know this, but I used to be a major Higurashi fan before I got into Touhou. It was my main "fandom" I guess, even though there wasn't really that much of a fandom to interact with comparatively. Anyway, despite that, I didn't think I'd get into this remake super hard... but I'm really loving it so far. The art style is really pretty and eye candy, and it turns out it's a direct continuation of the story rather than a remake. Very excited to see where it's going, and also to see a lot of my baby Rena again.

An interesting difference to me as I'm rewatching are my feelings for Keiichi. While I don't hate him, over the years I've really grown tired of the generic male leads (especially in harem anime) like him. Of course, he's definitely not AS generic as they come, or maybe perhaps that's just my bias from when I used to really like him. The me back then found him unique enough to stand beside the girls. Nowadays, I definitely can't say the same. At least he doesn't grate on my nerves as much as most other harem anime protags do, however. I feel like despite lacking the quirks that make the girls so likeable and unique, he still has something going for him... perhaps the fact he's framed as inherently different from everyone else, because he comes from the city, and the way he acts a bit more realistically to the scary things that are happening. Although those things are obviously explained away later, at least for now I still accept him for what he is, old bias or not.

Genshin Impact

Been playing Genshin Impact religiously and loved every second of it. Though I've caught up with the main story content, so sadly it's slowed down. I'd never heard of this game before it came out, so I was absolutely wowed that such a game was f2p. I've heard a lot of people criticizing it because they added gacha in at the last minute, and I definitely understand being annoyed through the pov of someone who was anticipating it. But part of me is still really thankful that the game is free at all. I suppose that full but paid 60 dollar game would still be a better experience, but because of my non-existent budget situation, I may not have ended up playing it at all.

Aside from the arguably shitty monetization practices, however, the game is fantastic. It really is as similar to BoTW as people have mentioned, and I really appreciate that. BoTW, from a gameplay standpoint, is absolutely my favorite game. It's exactly what I want from any given game. So I really appreciated this. The story and characters of Genshin are also really interesting. I really like Qiqi, Venti, Fischl, and Xingqiu, among others. I spent a while rerolling for Qiqi or Venti 5*s, and eventually got an account with Qiqi. Venti on the other hand I've been trying to roll for but sadly haven't gotten. I have 1 roll left before the banner ends, so hopefully.. My friends whaled him for me. I swear I tried to stop them! I owe them my soul...

HoloLive, Pikamee & Vtubing

I briefly started getting into HoloLive a little while ago. After the Aloe stuff, I started worrying a bit about how the company handles these situations as well as the girls' freedoms and how much of their donation money they actually get.. (I made a post about it a while back.) After a while my worries died down a bit, but then came back full force with the Coco and Haachama situation. After that and one too many uncomfortable sexual jokes, I decided to just distance myself from HL. It's a shame, because I really enjoyed their personalities, but it was making me feel uncomfortable more often than not.

I told myself it’s fine, I’ve got Pikamee if I ever feel like watching vtubers again. And then like a week later... Well, it’s not really something I wanna talk about here, but she made some posts on twitter that made me too uncomfortable to continue watching her either.

On a much lighter note... A friend of mine showed us how to use prprlive and facerig to use the Touhou CB Live2D models, and Asa and I played around with Mokou, Kaguya, and Lyrica’s. It was quite fun, and I do look forward to using the Kaguya one for private streams on one of my servers. I’ve actually always wanted to try out vtubing stuff myself, but not really publicly. Of course, the costs for getting a model drawn and made specifically for me are too much for something I’m not really committing to, so this is perfect. I’m excited~

Touhou Cannonball & Kagura Thoughts

It’s been a long time since I talked about Touhou CB on my blog, and I’m pretty sure I left things on a pretty bad note. Mainly dissatisfied with Mokou’s portrayal for pretty shallow reasons on my part, despite they game having just started and having a lot of room to grow. And grow it did. While I quit pretty early in because of that, Asa decided to take over my account. She realized that it was pretty easy to upgrade any given character you had to a 5* without having to rely much on the gacha. She ended up playing a lot with the goal of upgrading everyone we had. I came back to it around July and actually had a lot of fun with it. The cast had gotten much bigger and we really enjoyed playing on multiplayer. It wasn't the best game ever from a gameplay standpoint, but it definitely had it's charm. The announcement of its death, although unsurprising, came at the worst time. Asa and I actually cried a little when we saw the announcement, ngl. The game had such good, wholesome, Touhouy vibes to it. Nonetheless, we made the most out of the last month or so after the announcement. We played a LOT of multiplayer and had a lot of really cute and good interactions with other players. Near the end, we realized that Lyrica was the only character from the normal banner we were missing, so we grinded like crazy (mostly Asa) to try to get her... we ended up getting a number of 5*s but none Lyrica... she eluded us to the very end. It was quite sad, but how hard we worked for it still felt satisfying somehow. We were able to max out our multiplayer level and complete a ton of goals we wouldn’t have otherwise.

So after this bittersweet experience with Touhou gacha, and all the scummy things I've been hearing about Lost Word, I've been thinking like... I'm done with Touhou gacha, at least for now. Don't wanna hear anything else about it for a good while. And then the 25th anniversary hits and they announce Kagura. Ugh. Please, give me a break. Needless to say, I'm gonna have to give it a try. Touhou is my life, I love rhythm games, I love Touhou music, and I love character collecting games. And I've been waiting for something to replace SIF gameplay in my heart for a long time. I'd banked my hopes on SIFAS but it's really barely a rhythm game so.... at least now that I've gone through CB's death and seen how cruddy LW is, I'll have lower standards and not get my hopes up too high.

If you got this far, thanks for reading my rambles and have a good day~

#loritalk #super long im sorry #there's even more stuff i wanted to talk about but it was already long enough as it is

7 notes · View notes

miss-nerdstiles · 3 years

Text

THE WEST WING #105 [5-17] The Supremes Full transcript Written by Deborah Cahn Directed by Jessica Yu. I do not own this in any way, nor do I get anything from the sharing of it.

(MONDAY)

(CROWD OUTSIDE)

DONNA: (on phone) Tommy at Justice. Covitz at Justice. Citizens For a Strong America. Archbishop Gaudio, Archbishop Rummel…

JOSH: What?!

DONNA: Rummel! Of New York. Man of God.

JOSH: I can't hear a damn... Excuse me please. Thank You. How are these people up so early?

DONNA: It's a Supreme Court seat. They had sign-painting parties the second Justice Brady dropped dead. Council sent a new list, said burn the old list.

JOSH: Listen to this. “They cavalierly sacrificed the unborn innocents and beckon, arms akimbo, the reaper, the horseman and the apocalyptic end. Akimbo is a word you wish got used more. There’s someone out there selling “Who Would Jesus Nominate” t-shirts.

DONNA: They’re in Leo’s. They just started.

(OUTSIDE LEO’S OFFICE)

JOSH: You want this?

DONNA: You don't like it?

JOSH: Not really. Sorry I'm late.

LEO: Dem Leadership is in with the President.

JOSH: They giving us more names?

LEO: I'm sure they are.

TOBY: I need the short list by the end of the week.

LEO: Your schedule. Your schedule. Mine. Keep 'em quick. You got 3 judges an hour.

C.J.: Who has Austin Girelli from Connecticut?

TOBY: Me.

C.J.: ACLU called about him. I don't think it'll be a problem, but ask him about that migrant workers thing he wrote.

JOSH: Why isn't Haskins on here?

LEO: Having an affair with his clerk.

MARGARET: Toby - Dubar on line two.

C.J.: Here’s Bernstein. And this is…

TOBY: [on phone] Senator? Yes, Senator. No we're not having a party over the death of a Supreme Court Justice. Well, not a big party.

JOSH: Evelyn Baker Lang?

LEO: Fourth circuit.

JOSH: Isn't she kind of a lefty?

LEO: Yeah

C.J.: Decoy duck. And don’t do it in your office. Do it someplace where the press can see her.

LEO: We want the left flank sufficiently mollified and the right flank sufficiently panicked so as to inspire a little conciliation on all flanks.

JOSH: Lang should do the trick.

TOBY: Put Fred Canterbury down on some list of people we’ll never consider.

C.J.: Baker Lang's just with Josh?

LEO: You want Toby too?

C.J.: It'll look more like we're taking her seriously.

LEO: Toby, Evelyn Baker Lang will be your 8:45 with Josh. Let's go, people. First one to find me a Supreme Court Justice gets a free corned beef sandwich.

(ROOSEVELT ROOM)

JOSH: Obviously we're impressed with your record.

TOBY: Your work on the 14th Amendment in particular is the stuff dreams are made of.

JOSH: But before anything else, we want to gauge your interest level. This will certainly be a lifestyle...

LANG: We can just chat

JOSH: I'm sorry?

LANG: I hear you really went to bat for Eric Hayden.

JOSH: I wish we could have gotten him confirmed.

TOBY: Judge Lang, if the President were to...

LANG: Is he still teaching?

JOSH: Eric? Yeah. Umm...again, if we...

LANG: A conservative anchor of the court has just died. A young brilliant thinker who brought the right out of the closet and championed a whole conservative revival. You cannot replace Owen Brady with a woman who overturned a parental consent law. You'd be shish-ka-bob'd and set aflame on the south lawn. Two reporters have... three reporters have walked by since we started. I'm window dressing. That's fine. I'm happy to help. But let's just chat about the weather.

(OUT IN THE HALL)

TOBY: Not bad.

JOSH: That's what we're talking about. Maybe we should put her on the short list.

TOBY: Yeah

JOSH: Okay, who's next? (Donna gives them folders)

TOBY: That’s his.

DONNA: This is…

JOSH: That’s a “no”.

ACT ONE

(DONNA’S DESK)

DONNA: Sign, please.

JOSH: You want to move it so I can see?

DONNA: Not really

JOSH: Why are we apologizing to Ashland?

DONNA: We sent him flowers. Condolence flowers.

JOSH: Condolences?

DONNA: For his death.

JOSH: He's alive.

DONNA: That's what he said.

JOSH: We sent flowers to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on the occasion of his death?

DONNA: They were supposed to go to Justice Brady's family.

JOSH: Get protocol on the phone.

DONNA: They didn't actually....

JOSH: We did this?!

DONNA: It was an honest mistake. Ashland's 80, he's knock knock knocking on ....

JOSH: Who put the order in?

RYAN: Hey guys!

JOSH: You sent a funeral bouquet to the family of the living breathing Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

RYAN: No I sent them to the guy who died , Brady.

JOSH: No, actually you didn't.

RYAN: This is terrible. Umm... I really apologize. You know I am a nightmare with details. It's embarrassing. This stuff just leaks out of my head. We should leave the detail work to Donna. She's got the head for it. I'm more of a big picture kind of guy.

JOSH: She's here because she's invaluable. You're here because your uncle's so powerful I can't fire you. Big Picture.

LISA: Hi. Bad time?

JOSH: I'm on my way out.

LISA: Two minutes.

RYAN: Lisa, right? You work for the Judiciary Committee.

LISA: Staff Director.

RYAN: Ryan Pierce, we met at my office.

JOSH: Excuse us.

LISA: Is he the one who flipped the car in Nice?

JOSH: Yeah.

LISA: When do I see names for Brady's seat?

JOSH: Do you want to let the body cool?

LISA: You’re meeting with Barwald, Girelli, Evelyn Baker Lang.

JOSH: Here we go.

LISA: Whose acid trip is that?

JOSH: Just take a breath.

LISA: The committee’s not going to let the balance of the court hurl wildly to the left. You fill Brady's seat with...

JOSH: It's not Brady's seat.

LISA: It's not your Senate.

JOSH: We're just looking at the field.

LISA: Girelli has a fondness for Vicodin and Evelyn Lang is not an option. Save us all some time.

JOSH: We're some democrats over here. We're not going to nominate a born again elk hunter with a tattoo of the confederate flag on his ass.

LISA: Look at Arthur Lopez or Brad Shelton or Mayra Height. You go with Barwald or Lang and the Senate is going to make the next year of your life a living hell. I tell you this as a person who would be your friend if I was a person who looked for different things in friends.

JOSH: We should do this in more often.

LISA: As often as it takes.

(LEO’S OFFICE)

LEO: [on phone] We don't' hate Asians. No we don't. Justice Wong is more valuable to us where he is. Certainly. Thank you sir. [hangs up] Do a drive-by with Sebastian Cho, Massachusetts Supreme.

TOBY: Yeah. You were looking for me?

LEO: You hear about a congressional delegation to the Middle East?

TOBY: Next month.

LEO: It was Jordan and Egypt. Now they want to add Israel and do a day in the territories and meet with this shadow negotiation crew. State's iffy.

TOBY: As they should be. The Prime Minister is going to go through the roof.

LEO: Not to mention the Palestinian authority.

TOBY: I'll look into it.

LEO: Andy's leading the delegation. Is that going to be a...

TOBY: No. I'm on it.

JOSH: President's on his way. What's up?

TOBY: We hate Asians.

JOSH: Okay.

(OUTSIDE OVAL OFFICE)

DEBBIE: Ah Rina, how goes it?

RINA: These are today's. And Mr. Ziegler says that the President would want this before their 1:00.

DEBBIE: Oh here, you can put it in his hot little hands yourself.

RINA: Ah, this is for you, sir.

BARTLET: Thank you Lana.

RINA: Uh, thank you sir. (to Debbie) It…

DEBBIE: I hate to do this, but it's Rina, sir.

BARTLET: What?

DEBBIE: The girl in the dress with the flowers.

BARTLET: Just now?

DEBBIE: Yes.

BARTLET: What'd I call her?

DEBBIE: Lana.

BARTLET: Who's Lana?

DEBBIE: I'm guessing an exotic dancer from your spotty youth.

BARTLET: I should apologize. Get her back.

DEBBIE: You asked me yesterday how the schedule gets off the rails.

BARTLET: Yeah.

DEBBIE: This is how.

LEO: Good afternoon, Mr. President.

BARTLET: Hey, we make any friends?

JOSH: Maybe Zimmerly, Shelton.

TOBY: Mehldau.

JOSH: Lang was pretty impressive.

BARTLET: The gal from the 4th? Didn't she strike down some stuff?

JOSH: Parental consent for abortion.

BARTLET: Yeah, that's not going to happen.

LEO: She was a red flag to the bull.

JOSH: Well, it's working. Lisa Wolfe from the judiciary committee showed up today spewing all kinds of threats and admonitions.

LEO: About what?

TOBY: Three dems on the committee called, elated we were considering bold choices.

LEO: If the strategy's working, let's get her in again.

BARTLET: You like Shelton?

JOSH: Yeah. Moderate, insightful, gets it.

BARTLET: Let's meet him. Who else?

JOSH: Helen Waller. Beresford Bannett DC Circuit. Ellis Yaffe. Martha Zell. Uh.. Howard Kagen out of New York.

(TUESDAY)

(C.J.’S OFFICE)

TOBY: What are you doing?

C.J.: Nothing.

TOBY: What?

CAROL: She has a date.

C.J.: And she's getting fired.

TOBY: Evelyn Lang’s coming back in for another red herring performance, 3:00. You don't find that annoying?

C.J.: I'll have Carol march the Times by Lang at three.

TOBY: Brad Shelton's in with the President.

C.J.: We like him.

TOBY: Yeah, we do.

(OVAL OFFICE)

BARTLET: E. Bradford Shelton. What's the E for?

SHELTON: Elijah.

BARTLET: That's a burden.

SHELTON: Hence the E.

BARTLET: I hear good things about you from my staff. What did they miss?

SHELTON: My son burned you in effigy.

BARTLET: Did you watch?

SHELTON: I didn't. It was a campus demonstration against American presence in Saudi Arabia. There's a photo in his yearbook. Someone'll dig it up. I thought it would sound better in person than on paper.

BARTLET: I'm not sure it did. Did he burn anybody else?

SHELTON: No, just you.

(HALLWAY)

LANG: Well, I’ve missed you both.

JOSH: We appreciate this.

LANG: I keep running into Brad Shelton in the parking lot. Some say coincidence. I'm not so sure.

JOSH: You have been very patient.

LANG: Well I don't mind. But people wonder why the appellate system is so backed up. We shouldn't let them know this is how I spend my time.

TOBY: Well, if you were less appealing.

LANG: Same to you sir.

(OVAL OFFICE)

BARTLET: Affirmative action is going to be back in the next few years. Let's start there.

SHELTON: What do I know about it?

BARTLET: What do you think about it?

SHELTON: I don't know. Not the answer you were looking for?

BARTLET: Not really.

SHELTON: Unnerving isn't it?

BARTLET: Is there another topic you'd be more comfortable with?

SHELTON: Nothing comes to mind.

BARTLET: Perhaps you should make something up.

SHELTON: I'm not trying to be cagey, but I don't position myself on issues and I don't know what I think about a case until I hear it. There are moderates who are called that because they are not activists. And there are moderates who are called that because sometimes they wind up on the left and sometimes on the right.

BARTLET: You think I want someone who’s gonna vote with Ashland?

SHELTON: I think you are looking for somebody who will vote with him now and replace him later.

BARTLET: And that's not you?

SHELTON: Wish it were. He's a giant. But my allegiance to the eccentricities of a case will reliably outweigh my allegiance to any position you might wish I held.

(ROOSEVELT ROOM)

JOSH: Let's talk a little bit about what the judiciary committee's concerns would be. We can safely say reproductive rights are gonna come up.

TOBY: They're going to say judicial activism, particularly in drori. How would you address that?

LANG: And you're who?

TOBY: I'm sorry?

LANG: Who are you? We're playing committee.

JOSH: This will be coming from one of the 11 Republicans on there. Mitchell -

LANG: You can only be one.

JOSH: We don't need to -

LANG: If you're Webster, the question is 'Where do you stand on Roe v Wade?'. And the answer is 'Judicial ruling shouldn't be based on personal ideology, mine or anyone else's'. If you're Davies, the question is 'How would you approach a D&X case?' because he's the drum banger on partial birth. And the answer is 'I don't comment on hypotheticals'. If you're Malkin, you're from Virginia, so you ask about my decision in drori. I take you point by point from the doctor to the father to Casey to undue burden to equal protection back to Roe at which point you can't remember the question and I drink my water for a minute while you regroup.

JOSH: Will you excuse us for a second?

(OUT IN THE HALL)

JOSH: I love her. I love her mind. I love her shoes.

TOBY: We march her to five senator's offices and they'll be so scared they'll beg us to put Shelton on the court.

(ROOSEVELT ROOM)

JOSH: Sorry. You were vetted by the FBI when you hit the Federal bench, but if we re-opened an investigation....

LANG: I'm a shill, right? Why would you bother with a background check?

JOSH: Humor us.

TOBY: If there's anything that they didn't find...

LANG: Let's see, umm... in high school I snuck a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover out of the public library and never returned it. In college I got a marijuana plant from my roommate as a birthday present. And in year two of law school I had an abortion. Can I get some water while you regroup?

ACT TWO

JOSH: Okay. Okay.

LANG: I tell you this so you'd be prepared. It might not come up, but if it did, I wouldn't comment.

JOSH: But if they know, it'll be hard.

LANG: Roe v Wade affords me the right to terminate a pregnancy and to do so, free from all restraint or interference of others.

JOSH: A hearing room....

LANG: I'm told I have a right to privacy. I think this would be the sort of thing it's referring to. I also bet like a drunken sailor during my bi-monthly games of Hearts. Do you wanna talk about that?

(C.J.’S OFFICE)

C.J.: An abortion?

TOBY: Of all the gin joints in all the world....

JOSH: Maybe they won't find it.

TOBY: Oh, they'll find it.

JOSH: Yeah, but who's going to bring it up? The committee, they'd look like monsters.

C.J.: They don't have to. Someone leaks it to the tabloid press, it's a feeding frenzy in 12 hours.

JOSH: She says she can handle it.

C.J.: Oh, okay.

TOBY: Well, we need her. She's the cautionary tale. Without her, we may not get Shelton.

C.J.: You been outside today? We don't hand someone to the madding crowd so they can take the heat off some guy from Indiana.

JOSH: The woman is - you should hear her.

C.J.: What? So she IS a serious candidate?

JOSH: She should be.

C.J.: She's going to be on posters under a headline that says 'Wanted for the murder of 15 million American children'.

JOSH: Let's think about this.

C.J.: Let it go.

JOSH: No. Really, nominees live or die by Roe v Wade. We're playing along with the ridiculous notion that the Supreme Court is a single issue body in a way it hasn't been since, I don't know what...

TOBY: Slavery.

JOSH: Exactly. So she had an abortion. Who the hell are we?

C.J.: You think I like this? You keep this up, somone's going to take this to the press and this bright woman's going to be a checkout counter spectacle. Get her out of the building.

(WEDNESDAY)

(OVAL OFFICE)

BARTLET: Brad Shelton could work for us. I like him.

LEO: So talk to him this afternoon. He's going to start getting calls.

BARTLET: Who else?

TOBY: Wisnewski’s a good maybe. The majority leader’s really pushing him. And Barkham from the 5th, though he has a question.

JOSH: It's a tax thing. We're looking into it.

BARTLET: You still having a love affair with Evelyn Lang?

JOSH: No. Uh, Robert Brant.

BARTLET: How come?

JOSH: She won't make through vetting.

BARTLET: Why not?

TOBY: She had an abortion.

JOSH: Robert Brandt’s on the 9th circuit state. Stan Yancy's worked with him and says he's always kept his cards -

BARTLET: When did she have an abortion?

JOSH: Law school.

BARTLET: Before or -

C.J.: After '73, it was legal.

BARTLET: We discarding anybody else for legal activities?

TOBY: Not yet.

BARTLET: Tonsillectomy? We down on surfing this year?

C.J.: She'd be publicly eviscerated.

BARTLET: 27 million women voted for me. I think they might had in mind that I was going to protect this particular right.

JOSH: We have plenty –

BARTLET: “I like that guy from Florida with the good hairdo, but I want to retain my right to choose, so I'm voting for what's-his-name, married to Abbey Bartlet.”

TOBY: Sir. They're going to make this about her objectivity.

BARTLET: We promised the committee a short list by Friday. I want her name on it.

LEO: Okay.

STAFF: Thank you, Mr. President. (EXEUNT)

BARTLET: That pisses me off.

LEO: Apparently.

BARTLET: We marched her around here all week. The honor of a place on the short list is the least we could do.

LEO: We’re still going with Brad Shelton? BARTLET: (nods)

(DONNA’S CUBICLE)

RYAN: Filling a seat on the Supremes…heady stuff.

DONNA: Don't call them that.

RYAN: My uncle calls them that. So does the minority leader. So does Henry Clark. You know him? He's on the court.

DONNA: You drop one more name and I'm going to staple your mouth shut.

RYAN: (chuckles)

JOSH: There’ll be hell to pay at Agincourt. I've offended the dauphin.

DONNA: Lisa Wolfe called twice. Senator Webster called regarding E. Lang. “What can you possibly be thinking?” Senator Milbank, regarding Lang. “NO NO NO NO NO.” Bertha McNull, “Not a snow ball's chance in...” oh, that's not about Lang. That's about the highways bill.

JOSH: I need a drink.

DONNA: Sun’s not over the yardarm.

JOSH: C.J.'s right.

DONNA: Usually. You want a Black Eyed Susan?

JOSH: Is that a drink?

DONNA: It's a cookie. My mom sent them.

JOSH: No -- Yes.

DONNA: Peanut butter with a chocolate kiss.

JOSH: They’re cat people? [holding up cookie tin]

DONNA: No they're not.

JOSH: These theirs?

DONNA: Shadrach and Meschach.

JOSH: Two cats, they’re cat people.

DONNA: For years they only had one, but he died over Christmas.

JOSH: This is a dry cookie.

DONNA: After what was deemed an appropriate mourning period, they went to get a new one. And my mother liked the abyssinian and my father liked the gray. And they claim that after 39 years of marriage, they’ve outgrown compromise, so they got both. It doesn't make them cat people. The house doesn't smell. Do I have crumbs?

(TOBY’S OFFICE)

JOSH: They pick one. They pick one! That's how we get Evie Lang. And not as a decoy. We put her on the court.

TOBY: Hi.

JOSH: The Chief Justice says he wouldn't step down because the President wouldn't be able to fill his seat with another liberal lion. She's the liberal lion. Ashland resigns, she takes his seat, okay? And we offer the Republican Senate Judiciary Committee the opportunity to hand-pick a conservative for Brady's seat. We put 'em both up.

TOBY: I’m ordering mu-shu. You want some?

JOSH: Listen to me.

TOBY: No.

JOSH: I'm serious.

TOBY: And then we got what, after we hand the Republicans a seat on the Supreme Court with a red bow on top?

JOSH: We have a balanced court. They can't let Brady's seat go to a liberal. So let them keep it. Meanwhile, we name the first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the nation's history. I'm taking it to the President.

TOBY: No you're not. Do not go in there.

(HALLWAY)

JOSH: Trip him.

TOBY: Ashland is 82. We may have an opportunity to put two people on this bench. That's two seats we fill with Democrats.

JOSH: Moderates.

TOBY: What do you care how moderate they are? Two is twice as many as one.

(OUTSIDE OVAL OFFICE)

JOSH: Can I get in there?

DEBBIE: No, just a minute.

TOBY: We don't need him.

JOSH: Not moderate, mediocre.

TOBY: What, Shelton’s not bright enough for you?

JOSH: I want more than bright. If we had a bench full of moderates in ’54, 'Separate but Equal' would still be on the books, and this place would still have two sets of drinking fountains.

TOBY: Moderate means temperate. It means responsible. It means thoughtful.

JOSH: It means cautious. It means unimaginative.

TOBY: It means being more concerned about making decisions than making history.

DEBBIE: Indoor voices please.

JOSH: Is that really the biggest tragedy in the world? That we nominated somebody who made an impression instead of some second rate crowd pleaser?

TOBY: The ability to see tow sides of an argument is not the hallmark of an inferior intellect.

DEBBIE: Toby!

JOSH: What about the vast arenas of debate a moderate won't even address? A mind like Lang's?

DEBBIE: Josh!

JOSH: Let them pick a conservative with a mind like like Justice Brady had.

DEBBIE: Josh!

JOSH: You can hate his positions, but he was a visionary. He blew the whole thing open. He changed the whole argument.

DEBBIE: (sprays water in Josh’s face) The President will see you now.

BARTLET: And you?

TOBY: I think they're going to pick a young, spry, conservative ideologue who's going to camp out in that seat for 45 years.

JOSH: Fine. Two voices are articulating the debate at either end of the spectrum.

BARTLET: Filling another seat on the court may be the only lasting thing I do in this office. Shelton's a great choice. He'll make us proud. And if Ashland resigns in a year, we’ve got a stack of great options. We can't give it away.

JOSH: Mr. President, the first woman in that chair.

TOBY: We go out on some limb here and alienate the Senate, they'll tread water for three years, and we get nobody. The next guy gets to fill Brady's seat.

BARTLET: Take it to Ashland. See what he says.

TOBY: How’d you come up with it?

JOSH: What?

TOBY: The swap-a-dee-doo.

JOSH: There was.... Donna's mom... I thought it up in the shower.

(JUSTICE ASHLAND’S OFFICE)

ASHLAND: Who let them in?

TOBY: Sorry to disturb you, sir.

ASHLAND: Carrier pigeons. Oh -- your flowers. Yeah, we like them.

JOSH: I'm dreadfully sorry about that, sir.

ASHLAND: Oh for God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. Brady was your age. Eat your greens.

TOBY: He was a great man.

ASHLAND: He was a selfish bastard.

JOSH: You told the President you hope to be replaced by a liberal with the same level conviction that you brought to the chair.

ASHLAND: That sounds like something I'd say.

TOBY: Sir, are you familiar with Evelyn Baker Lang?

ASHLAND: Miss Lang. You've met with her?

JOSH: Yes sir.

ASHLAND: How are you going to get her past the pit bulls? They're not going to like the notion of Miss Lang in Owen Brady's seat.

JOSH: For your seat, if - if - you were to resign, she'd be Chief.

ASHLAND: My seat? What about Brady's?

TOBY: We'd allow the Judiciary Committee to choose someone. A conservative.

JOSH: Would you consider stepping down under those circumstances?

ASHLAND: Sure.

JOSH: We think it might be a viable option.

ASHLAND: Go ahead, see who they pick of their favorite sons. See what segregationist, anti-miscegenationist, Isaiah-quoting, gay-bashing bastard they come up with. Jed Bartlet from New Hampshire had an idea. Uh-oh.

ACT THREE

(THURSDAY, LISA WOLFE’S OFFICE)

LISA: No, I cut this because what he's implying is illegal. Take it back out. [to Josh] Three times in one week. In some cultures we'd be married.

JOSH: Chilling.

LISA: Is it Shelton?

JOSH: He's the front runner.

LISA: Good, are we done?

JOSH: Mind if I shut the door?

LISA: No.

JOSH: How are you doing?

LISA: Ah, super!

JOSH: Feeling good?

LISA: I got a meeting in 4 minutes.

JOSH: I'm going to float an idea here that even I can't believe I'm mentioning and my colleagues definitely can't believe I'm mentioning, and the President would probably prefer I drop completely and if I find it in the Washington Post tomorrow morning, I'll march straight out to the Press Room and tell them the idea came from you. It'll embarrass the crap out of your boss and you'll be on Hotjobs by nightfall.

[THE WHITE HOUSE. TOBY’S OFFICE]

TOBY: There's someone in my office.

RINA: I thought it was your ex-wife.

TOBY: You didn’t want to warn me about that?

RINA: You asked her to come in.

ANDREA: She's cute.

TOBY: Late some night, our eyes’ll meet over the maritime commission report. We'll be at the Justice of the Peace before dawn. You want to talk about this dog and pony show you're attending in Gaza?

ANDREA: Not really. Bradford Shelton.

TOBY: He's on the list. You're not going to Gaza.

ANDREA: I still don't want to talk about it.

TOBY: You're not attending peace talks with a bunch of Israelis and Palestinians who don't work for the Israeli or Palestinian governments.

ANDREA: They may generate some useful ideas.

TOBY: The ideas already exist. The problem is getting the recognized parties to stick to the plan.

ANDREA: So we sit with our hands folded?

TOBY: We asked them for democracy. We should maintain some scrap of respect for the guys who are democratically elected.

ANDREA: If you're really interested in peace, you negotiate with anyone. You negotiate with the mailman.

TOBY: Thanks for tee-ing that up. The mailman can't deliver.

ANDREA: We'll see.

TOBY: No, we won't see. You're jeopardizing this country's relationship with the Likud party and with the Palestinian authority, and it is not an option.

ANDREA: Is that all you've got? There’s no “and what about the kids?”

TOBY: Did something happen?

ANDREA: I'm going away for two weeks.

TOBY: Will they be...?

ANDREA: At my mothers...

TOBY: Good.

ANDREA: Would you have asked?

TOBY: I figured your mother’s, which is apparently....

ANDREA: You say you want to be involved. It doesn't come with an embossed invitation. You involve yourself or you don't.

TOBY: The President would like to remind you that this is a fact-finding mission. Please make it clear to any parties that you meet with that you are not empowered to negotiate for the United States.

[OUTSIDE C.J.’S OFFICE]

JOSH: Is she in there?

CAROL: Hang on. She's getting off.... [C.J. laughs loudly through the door] the phone.... [into speaker phone] you want Josh?

C.J.: Lord knows I do! Josh Lyman as I live and breathe! You want a cookie? They're from Donna's mother.

JOSH: I spoke to Lisa Wolfe.

C.J.: What did she say?

JOSH: I don't want to talk about it. I'm hiding from Toby.

C.J.: [giggles] Nothing. You're hiding. It's funny.

JOSH: It's not funny.

TOBY: Hey

C.J.: [laughs] see? It is.

JOSH: I gotta go.

TOBY: What's going on?

JOSH: C.J. has the giggles.

C.J.: It's your deal. I find it elating.

TOBY: She stoned?

C.J.: I'm fine. I just didn't get enough sleep.

JOSH: You were with Ranger Rick weren't you?

C.J.: Josh spoke to Lisa Wolfe.

TOBY: She give you a name?

JOSH: You are a faithless wench.

TOBY: What's the name?

JOSH: Christopher Mulready. Wait for it....

TOBY: Christopher MULREADY????!!!!

JOSH: There it is.

C.J.: He’s not the....

TOBY: American's Democrats - The triumphant of Socialism.

JOSH: He doesn't like the name.

TOBY: The man wrote a book that flushes the entire doctrine of un-enumerated rights down the -

C.J.: Toilet.

TOBY: …garbage disposal. No right to use a condom. No right to get an abortion, certainly. No protection from electronic searches. No substantive due process.

C.J.: He's what, 48?

JOSH: I know.

C.J.: The left's going to blow a gasket!

TOBY: No separation of church and state.

JOSH: We got problems on the right too. Kogan, Howard, Tondello. They can't vote for a Mulready. Their constituencies are too moderate.

TOBY: Get another name.

JOSH: That is the name.

TOBY: There are other....

JOSH: This is the deal. He's what Evelyn Lang is to them. We nominate the patron saint of a woman's right to choose for Chief Justice. We ask them to ignore an incredibly rich piece of her personal history. We take the name they give us.

TOBY: This isn't going to work.

JOSH: Yeah.

TOBY: It isn't.

[JOSH'S OFFICE]

TOBY: If --- if we were going to try this, what would be the plan?

JOSH: We give the President and Leo the name. We bring Christopher Mulready in. We bring Lang back in, hopefully the two of them woo the pants off the President. And he agrees to the deal without noticing he's standing in the gaze of history, pantless.

TOBY: I'll talk to him.

JOSH: You don't have to talk to him.

TOBY: You have been on about this. It sounds more plausible coming from me. What are you gonna do about the committee?

JOSH: Lisa Wolfe’s gonna take it to the Chairman.

TOBY: I mean the Democrats. I need to get Senator Pierce on board or you get nobody. What are you going to do about Pierce?

RYAN: (singing)'Won't you stay... just a little big longer... '

DONNA: Stop.

TOBY: I thought you were firing him?

JOSH: If wishing made it so. Donna! Send in Elvis.

RYAN: What's up?

JOSH: Come on in, take a load off. I was a little, ah, brusque with you before. I'm sorry about that.

RYAN: Okay.

JOSH Your feelings a little hurt?

RYAN: Not at all

JOSH: Really? Why not?

RYAN: Would this be easier if they were?

JOSH: I said I was going to fire you if it wasn't for....

RYAN: Are you? Firing me?

JOSH: No.

RYAN: Then there's a “sticks and stones” thing that comes to mind.

[OUTSIDE OVAL OFFICE]

TOBY: Finishing a call. I spoke to Andy.

LEO: Anything?

TOBY: No. The National Security Caucus is sponsoring the delegation. We could talk to them.

LEO: We'll deal with it next week. Don't worry about it.

TOBY: We got a name for Brady's seat.

LEO: Somebody workable?

DEBBIE: You can go in now.

LEO: Thank you.

(OVAL OFFICE)

BARTLET: MULREADY!

TOBY: That's the name.

BARTLET: No! Are you out of your bloody mind?

TOBY: Let's sit down and talk about this.

BARTLET: The last time I heard Christopher Mulready's name it was in conjunction with a treatise over the rights of incorporation, and some sort of baloney about the stranglehold the EPA has placed on the endangered species list…

ACT FOUR

(THURSDAY)

[DONNA’S CUBICLE]

JOSH: Ryan in here yet?

DONNA: Not yet.

CHARLIE: Chris Mulready?

JOSH: Yeah

CHARLIE: Dissented on minority set asides. Struck down hate crime legislation. Went after miranda rights. Feeling pretty good about that?

JOSH: It's not a perfect plan. I'm the first to admit.

CHARLIE: The President wants to reiterate, he’s not spending more than five minutes with this clown.

C.J.: The press room is clear. Carol is going to babysit the filing shop. But keep an eye out for roving reporters.

CHARLIE: You're in on this too?

JOSH: We got Lang coming in to meet the President at 7. Christopher Mulready is at 8. The press can't see him. We need a clear shot from the Roosevelt room to the Oval.

DONNA: He's on the short list?

JOSH: He is if she is. We may get both.

DONNA: Oh my god. You're putting my mother's cats on the Supreme Court.

C.J.: You're what?

JOSH: It's just an experiment. She’s on sentry. We’re good.

TOBY: Hi.

JOSH: Don't ever tell anyone that story.

TOBY: We all settled?

C.J.: Lefty’s got the goods. Rocko got the call. Stinky's on lookout.

DONNA Hey!

RYAN: Shall we?

JOSH: Your uncle’s here?

C.J.: Knock 'em dead. Pierce’ll never buy it, will he?

TOBY: Nope.

RYAN: Remember, he's all bark. Just let him holler and wear himself out. He's got the strength. You've got the endurance. Here. [hands over bottle of scotch]. Use it wisely and for God's sake, don't try to keep up. You're way out of your league.

JOSH: Not necessary. Thank you.

(MURAL ROOM)

SENATOR PIERCE: Good to see you, Josh.

JOSH: Senator Pierce, thank you so much for stopping in.

RYAN: Josh was pretty impressed with your floor speech on Tuesday.

PIERCE: Josh can kiss up all on his own. Get back to work.

RYAN: Yell if you need anything.

PIERCE: My nephew behaving?

JOSH: He's a… treat.

PIERCE: Well, he better be. Bugged me for two years to get him a job in this place.

JOSH: Really?

PIERCE: Watch yourself, he's a lean and hungry type. Have someone taste your food.

JOSH: Ryan?

PIERCE: So! Craziest rumor you ever heard running around the committee.

JOSH: Oh, yeah?

PIERCE: Charlie Felson says you want to put Chris Mulready on the Supreme Court. I said anybody who tries is going to find himself in a closed session with myself, the minority leader, and the business end of a two-by-four.

JOSH: You know, we got a 21year old Glenlivet knocking around here. Can I get you a drink?

[DEBBIE'S OFFICE]

C.J.: Lang still in there?

DEBBIE: Oh, she's a big hit.

C.J.: She has to leave. Her evil twin Skippy is on his way.

DEBBIE: I did our secret wrap-it-up sign, which is, I knock and say 'The deputy NSA needs to talk about Japan' and he said 'you talk to him, you've been there' which is true. But it makes me think he's forgotten it's a secret sign.

C.J.: How about "Excuse me Mr. President we need to move on"?

DEBBIE: If you want the job, you're going to have to work on your typing.

[ROOSEVELT ROOM]

TOBY: Apologies. He's running behind schedule.

MULREADY: I imagine that happens. You want to tell me what I'm doing here?

TOBY: Oh, just a hello.

MULREADY: I'm not being impeached?

TOBY: No.

MULREADY: This isn’t a not-particularly-subtle form of intimidation about the gays in the workplace case?

TOBY: That would be illegal.

MULREADY: My point exactly.

TOBY: The President will explain....any minute now.

MULREADY: Hm.

TOBY: But since you mention it, I read your article on Bellington, and I may be out on the fringe here, but I - I don't see how a family values conservative justifies denying committed couples access to the benefits of state sanctioned monogamy.

MULREADY: Homosexual couples.

TOBY: Couples. A couple is a couple.

[C.J.'S OFFICE]

JOSH: Hi.

C.J.: How was Ryan's uncle?

JOSH: He's a blast. Come meet him.

C.J.: He's still here? Oh my God! You're drunk!

JOSH: I think I just promised him a pork barrel roads project on an omnibus bill that doesn't exist. Don't try and keep up. He's got a wooden – a hollow leg. He drinks a lot.

[ROOSEVELT ROOM]

TOBY: It's an equal protection violation.

MULREADY: Homosexuals are not a suspect class.

TOBY: D.O.M.A. denies access.

MULREADY: No.

TOBY: To over 1,000 federal protections.

MULREADY: To what?

TOBY: Survivor benefits under Social Security.

MULREADY: $255.00? I'll write you a check.

TOBY: Hospital decision making.

MULREADY: So talk about power of attorney, not marriage. Besides, the fact that D.O.M.A. doesn't restrict access to marriage.

TOBY: Of course it restricts access. It restricts full faith and credit.

MULREADY: So, Vermont gets to steer nationwide marriage legislation? Vermont?

LANG: Well, this is a sight to see! One of the more unlikely meetings in the history of the Bartlet White House.

MULREADY: It's good to see you, Evie.

LANG: You too, Chris. I came to say goodbye. I wish I had a camera.

MULREADY: Mr. Ziegler was trying to convince me that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

LANG: Oh, D.O.M.A.? He was trying to convince you?

TOBY: What?

LANG: He doesn't need convincing.

TOBY: I wasn't doing it because...

LANG: He was yanking your chain. He would never uphold D.O.M.A. He may not love the idea of gay marriage, but he hates congressional overreaching, and Congress doesn't have the power to legislate marriage. The issue isn't privacy.

MULREADY: Or equal protection.

LANG: It's enumerated powers. He'll have an easier time knocking down D.O.M.A. than I will.

MULREADY: Lack of imagination on your part, if I may be so bold.

TOBY: You were yanking my chain?

MULREADY: You called me in for a meeting with a Democratic president in the middle of the night. Are you really going to give me crap about yanking your chain?

LANG: Josh Lyman is gesticulating wildly.

TOBY: Excuse me.

[HALLWAY]

TOBY: Where's the Senator?

JOSH: He's in with C.J.. He got me a little drunk.

TOBY: Is he leaving?

JOSH: I think he's getting C.J. a little drunk. How's it going?

TOBY: He's striking down gay marriage bans and she's defending him and they're as thick as thieves and he's a fan of chain yanking.

JOSH: She's defending him?

TOBY: Down is down, down is up.

LANG: I am not... no I am not rewriting Article 1. What I am saying is that a gun free school zone...

MULREADY: Is not a federal issue. In Lopez…

LANG: Lopez overturned 50 years of precedent.

MULREADY: Too bad, they ruled a plain text reading of the commerce clause, does not afford Congress...

LANG: A plain text reading of the Constitution values a “negro” at three-fifths of a man.

MULREADY: Hence the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.

LANG: Oh, generous. Thank you.

MULREADY: The relationship between guns and schools and interstate commerce is... is...

LANG: You don't think that the quality of education has a direct affect on the economic...

[DEBBIE'S OFFICE]

TOBY: Is he?

DEBBIE: Waiting to meet a man you're holding hostage in the Roosevelt room.

(MURAL ROOM)

C.J. AND PIERCE: Oh and while the king was looking down, the jester stole his thorny crown, the courtroom was adjourned, no verdict was returned…

JOSH: Ok... ok.... Everyone needs to put down their glasses and pay attention.

[OVAL OFFICE]

BARTLET: You like him.

TOBY: I hate him. I hate him, but he's brilliant. And the two of the them together, they’re fighting like cats and dogs, but it works.

[MURAL ROOM]

PIERCE: You couldn't find a single warm-blooded centrist to put on the court?

JOSH: We've got centrists. We've got six of them plus two staunch conservatives plus Justice Ashland. The one clarion voice articulating a liberal vision. He's going to go and then what?

[OVAL OFFICE]

BARTLET: Well, send him in....

TOBY: Sir…

BARTLET: I said I'll listen to him, Toby. That's going to have to do it.

[HALLWAY]

DONNA: Toby.

TOBY: What?

DONNA: Nothing's happening.

TOBY: Hang on.

DONNA: That's him?

TOBY: Yeah.

DONNA: No tail. No cloven hooves.

[OVAL OFFICE]

DEBBIE: Judge Mulready.

BARTLET: Thanks for coming in.

MULREADY: It's an honor sir.

BARTLET: Please. I understand that you and Judge Lang had a bit of a knock-down-drag-out.

MULREADY: She wants to federalize law enforcement.

BARTLET: Yeah.

MULREADY: I thought it was hasty.

BARTLET: Not your brand of judge?

MULREADY: Quite the opposite. I haven't had that much fun in months.

BARTLET: Really?

MULREADY: Use her, if you can. I'm not sure what all this is about. I suppose a number of people are placated by a glimpse of someone like her or someone like me in these halls. I'm most certainly here for that. But if there’s anyway that you can use her…

BARTLET: It's unlikely.

MULREADY: Who's at the top of the list? ... If I leaked it, would they believe me?

BARTLET: Brad Shelton.

MULREADY: Really?

BARTLET: You don't like him?

MULREADY: He's a fine jurist. And in the event that Carmine, Lafayette, Hoyt, Clarke and Brannaghan all drop dead, the center will still be well tended.

BARTLET: You want another Brady?

MULREADY: Sure, just like you'd like another Ashland - who wouldn't? The court was at its best when Brady was fighting Ashland.

BARTLET: Plenty of good law written by the voices of moderation.

MULREADY: Who writes the extraordinary dissent? The one man minority opinion whose time hasn't come, but 20 years later some circuit court clerk digs it up at three in the morning. Brennan railing against censorship. Harlan's Jeremiad on Jim Crowe.

BARTLET: Maybe you, some day?

MULREADY: They can't put me on the court, just like you can't put Evelyn Lang on the court. It's Sheltons from here on in.

BARTLET: There are 4,000 protestors outside this building worried about who's going to land in that seat. We can't afford to alienate all of them. MULREADY: We all have our roles to play sir. Yours is to nominate someone who doesn't alienate people.

(FRIDAY)

(PRESS ROOM)

JOSH: Where's Toby?

C.J.: Can you see this? [pointing to spot on her blouse]

JOSH: Yeah.

C.J.: It's water, it'll dry.

JOSH: Okay.

TOBY: Ready?

[on the TV in background...]

REPORTER ... have gathered around..... Ashland having served 32 years on the United States Supreme Court, 12 of them as Chief will officially announce his retirement in just a moment.

ASHLAND: (at podium, on TV) Henry Staub retired, and I received a phone call, you were probably learning to walk. It's been an honor to pause in Henry Staub's chair, a joy to spend...

C.J.: (to Bartlet) He’ll take three questions at the most, and then we’re off .

LANG:[to Lang] you ready? [Lang is engrossed in Ashland's announcement] [To C.J.] That's a yes.

MULREADY: So, why a racial preference and not an economic one?

CHARLIE: Because affirmative action’s about a legacy of racial oppression.

MULREADY: It’s about compromising admissions standards.

CHARLIE: That's bull….excuse me. It's about leveling the playing field after 300 years of…

MULREADY: See, this is where the liberal argument goes off the rails. You get stuck in the past. Now you wanna comeback at me with grading is based on past performance, but admission should be based on potential on how a candidate may thrive with this sort of opportunity. And studies show that affirmative action admits have a higher predisposition to contribute to society.

CHARLIE: Hang on, I gotta write this down.

BARTLET: Ah-ah-ah. Hand it over. [to Evelyn] Toby has a daughter, Molly, 10 months old. She's a looker and very bright. And someday he'd like to give her this copy of the 14th Amendment signed by the first woman to ever hold this job.

LANG: Have you got a...

TOBY: Oh... [hands her a pen] Would you mind adding that title?

LANG: That's a bit premature, isn't it?

BARTLET: No.

TOBY: Thank you.

C.J.: Mr. President.

BARTLET: Shall we? [at the podium]

C.J.: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

BARTLET: The honorable Christopher Mulready, nominee for Associate Justice - United States Supreme Court. The honorable Evelyn Baker Lang, nominee for Chief Justice - United States Supreme Court. I look forward to taking your questions.

THE END

#The West Wing #the supremes #west wing supremes #west wing transcript #west wing script #evelyn baker lang #president bartlet #i love her mind i love her shoes

3 notes · View notes

sarshattack · 4 years

Text

Azula’s Playlist

Okay, so. I made a playlist for Azula like a lot of other people because we all do appreciate playlists made for our favorite characters. But for some reason (I’m obsessed with here) I decided to make a commentary of why I did chose these songs and this specific order. In other words, I’m writing another essay about Azula.. It’s a playlist on her during the series but also how I imagined her redemption arc.

So. Here’s the link to the playlist if y’all are interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6O0OEgwoKTSVXYiij13uMO

And I’ll put under the cut the abbreviated version of my commentary (I’m not done writing the whole thing yet but if you want, I’ll post it when it’s finished.)

Before hand, I’d like to excuse myself for my poor english. It’s not my first language and even tho I’m comfortable with it, it’s highly possible that I made dumb mistakes or stuff like that. So don’t be too harsh... Also, I’m note sure if I have to specify this but it will be full of spoilers so be aware of it if you’re not up to date.

So now that we’re good... Here we go !

1. Queendom - Vinida

Azula as we see her at the start of season two. Confident, savage, ready to take on the world. She's close to her notion of perfection. She's not afraid of losing because she never did. She's Ozai's perfect soldier and she's really proud of this title. She uses everyone around her because that what she does the best. She loves messing with other people's minds.

2. Army of Me – Björk

Azula during all the Ba Sing Se arc. She won’t retreat, she’s not afraid of anything crossing her path. She still thinks that she's the best and it's true. She is.

3. Nightmare – Halsey

Back at the Fire Nation’s palace. She’s got to do some reflection about herself but she loves it. Kinda Ember Island, too. She’s a little more vulnerable, she starts to act more… Human.

4. Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Lorde

Towards the end of season 3, she fully believes in Ozai’s supremacy. They will conquer the world together. They will rule together. She’s not afraid of anything once again. How could she be when she’s with Ozai? She doesn’t have to fear anything but his judgment.

5. Warriors – 2WEI, Edda Hayes

Now, a little flashback on her early days. When se was still a little girl. Well, a few moments before she started to be Ozai's weapon. When she discovered what she had to do to bee praised by him. It's also about how she felt that it was him and her against the world.

6. Survivor – 2WEI, Edda Hayes

After Ty Lee and Mai's betrayal. She's once again alone. But it'.s okay or so she tells herself. She was always alone. And she's still the best.

7. Castle – Halsey

Azula is alone at the Fire Nation's palace. Ozai named her heir. It's now her palace. She's the rightful Fire Lord. But she starts to being more and more paranoid.

8. Dynasty – Rina Sawayama

Right before the Last Agni Kai, Azula's losing herself. She's alone, she can't keep her act up. This is the song of her downfall. But even in that state, she tries to stay the same, to please Ozai. She's afraid to disappoint him. It's also the song of her last fight.

9. Daddy Lessons – Beyoncé

As she fights her last battle, as she tries to stay up to Ozai's expectations, she thinks about him. About the tales he told her. Even when she knows that everything has been ruined, she stays his girl, his best soldier. She knows he never loved her but she decides to lie to herself. She has to. Or else she'll lose everything she ever had.

10. Medusa (acoustic) – Kailee Morgue

Here, Medusa is Katara. Even if it's Zuko who defeated her, Azula was alone and they were two. She lost. For the first time of her life or so. She doesn’t know what to do anymore. Medusa can also be the memory or the ghost of Ursa. Or Mai. In the end, they all are women who prefered her brother over her.

11. It Happened Quiet – AURORA

This one is more about Zuko's perspective. How he saw his sister fall. He tried to help her but he couldn't do it. Not yet, at least. After the last Agni Kai, he's visiting her at the hospital. He's watching over her as she sleeps. He's taking care of her. He's afraid to lose her, too. He wants to protect his little sister.

12. Never Ending – Rihanna

Azula woke up. She stays alone but highly guarded at all times. Since Aang take away her bending, momentarily, she doesn't feel like herself anymore. And every time she's force to watch a mirror, she sees Ursa or Ozai. She's overmedicated because doctors and nurses don't know how to treat her. She has nightmares every night. But the worst part is that she starts to feel things she never had before. The fear in her heart is gone. The anger not yet. The ghost in the mirror is herself. But she doesn't know that. Not yet, once again. She refuses to see her brother.

13. Praying – Kesha

After a while, her request to see Ozai has been approved. But she started to realize he wasn't the man she thought he was. This song is for him and for Ursa. She's still so mad at her mother for abandoning her and she stars to feel anger toward her father, too. That's a letter for them. She wants to become more than what they made her. And she wants to show them that she's better than them.

14. Guilty – MARINA

The overmedication is starting to make her lost her connection to reality. One day Zuko visits her and she's so drugged she can't refuse. She still has nightmares. But is it really nightmares or only memories? When Zuko tells her that people want her to pay for what she's done, she plead guilty. For everything. But she laughs, too. She says all of this with a mad eye. She's not herself anymore.

15. Icicles – The Scary Jokes

It's been months. Zuko is now officially Fire Lord and peace has been restored. But Azula's still locked up in a mental health facility where all the doctors do is giving her too much medication. And when she's not drugged, she finds everything ecstatic. Her vision of the world is distorted. She's always alone except for the nurses appointed to take care of her. But they're afraid of her. And they hate her for what she did. They're not professional at all. Once a month, Zuko tries to visit her. But he's always here when she's drugged. And all she does is speaking nonsense. Her paranoia is peaking. Her state is pitiful.

16. Headcase – Kailee Morgue, Hayley Kiyoko

Zuko got her out. He put her in a nice home on Ember Island. Not far from the house where they went when they were kids. She's still supervised all the time by nurses and guards, but they've been personally chosen by the Fire Lord to keep his beloved sister. Azula hates it. She keeps everything inside. She refuses to speak to psychiatrists and doctors. But, slowly, she starts to grow fond of one guard. She didn't recognize her at first. But it's Suki. She still acts as if she hates her but she can't hide that she loves her company. And Suki, even if she decided to stay professional, doesn't hate her guard duty that much anymore.

17. A Pearl – Mitski

After a year or so, Azula starts to do some self-reflection. After spending more time with Suki, learning how to manage how the feelings she has and how to cope with her traumas, she realizes she's a victim of abuse. But she's also conscious of some of the bad things she did. The war, her traumas, still lives inside of her. And she doesn't know what to do with it. She's afraid again. But, this time, it's not about other people. It's about herself. She's afraid that she'll never be able to change. That she'll never deserve Suki and her kindness, her understanding and her help. She decides to take a step in Zuko's direction after months of silence.

18. Shine – Birdy

Once again, it's a song from Zuko's perspective. The rain is a metaphor for the love he has for his sister. He wants to help her get better. He does his best to make the right things for her. He doesn't quite understand what she's going through. And he can't fully take care of her because he has his own traumas to deal with. But they can share pieces of what they had together. They talk about good memories. He wants her to have the Ember Island family house. He tells her she can move in anytime. And he'll lighten the guards on the property. He tells her she can become anyone. He will always help her.

19. She Was – Camille

Time has passed. This one is from Suki's perspective. She's living with Azula on Ember Island and gave temporarily the lead of the Kyoshi Warriors to Ty Lee. Azula is getting better. She's making arts because it helps her to communicate all the things she can't say out loud. She still has a long way to go but she's trying her best. This is a love song. Suki will always be there for Azula. She.'ll help her. She'll teach her how to be a better person. And she'll escort her everywhere on the road of recovery.

20. this is me trying – Taylor Swift

This is the last song. Azula's confession. She knows she'll never be the best like before. But she also knows she wasn't the best version of herself. She regrets what she did and learn every day to be a better version of herself. For the people around her, for the ones she hurt and for herself. This song is for Zuko and Ty Lee, the two victims of most of her abuse. This is a song for Suki, who helped her get better. This is a song for Aang, Katara and Sokka. For Toph. But this is also a song for Iroh. She still wants to prove him he did her wrong by never caring about her as much as he cared about Zuko. And this is also a song for Ursa. To show her the woman she became even thought she let her down. But she doesn't hold any grudge anymore. She's a new version of herself. A version she can love, fully. She still have regrets, she still have troubles every day. But mostly, she's learning. She's always been a perfect student.

If you read all of this, I’d like to thank you. If you want a more in-depth and refined version, I’m working on that. Sorry if some parts are messy and/or poorly written. Hope you liked it :p

#azula #atla #avatar the last airbender #azula's redemption arc #playlist #redemption arc #long post #text #mine #azuki #suki #zuko #fuck ozai all my homies hate ozai #and ursa too #let me know what you think of my playlist!!

4 notes · View notes

fritae · 3 years

Text

The Missing Piece (Chapter 12)

Closer.

gang! au / ceo! au

characters: dabi x f. oc, lov

status: ongoing

read on ao3 here.

a/n: i really like this chapter heh, hope u enjoy! 😚

The staircase leads all the way to basement. I wondered why they would hide such steep, hidden steps in Dabi's office when they could create (much) shorter, more accessible ones from the first floor.

But I'm guessing that's the point.

This isn't supposed to be easy to reach. And Dabi's office is the one place no one would dare enter.

Aside from us, of course.

The basement is completely dark, forcing me to draw myself even closer to Dabi. I enjoy the weight of his hand in mine. He has a firm, tight grip. But just as the thought warms my cheeks, I shake it out of my head.

Within seconds, Dabi turns on the lights.

My eyes widen, taking in the sight before me.

Blood.

A lot of it.

Though it looks dried, like it's been there for ages.

I spot a wall of different sized knives on one hand. A gun display on the other. A shelf of jars, filled with a murky looking liquid and...I don't even want to know what that is inside.

Dabi watches me.

There's a simple, plastic white table in the center of the floor with a large white board behind it.

The place is much messier and less...classy, than the rest of the Blaze.

But I have the feeling it's because it's not meant for outside eyes.

"You okay?" Dabi asks.

I nod, squeezing his hand to comfort myself.

Before the others reach the bottom, he whispers in my ear, "Whenever you want to leave, let me know. You don't have to be here."

"Okay."

"And," He takes another glance at the stairs as the others begin to appear. "Again, Rina. This place does not exist. Anything we say here does not leave this room. Got it?"

I glance warily at the knives.

"Why are you so worried?" I try to smile so he doesn't pick up on my nervousness. "I don't have anyone outside of you guys anyway. Who would I talk to?"

My comment seems to confuse him. "What about-"

"Welcome to the League!!" Toga jumps off the last few steps and swings into full view.

I shoot Dabi a look. "The League?"

"The League of Villains, of course!" Atsuhiro follows Toga, a dramatic grin on his lips. "Only the baddest group of bad boys in town."

"And girls!" Toga calls out.

"League of Villains?" I cackle. "Who came up with that?"

Tenko scowls.

Oop.

Dabi lets go of my hand and motions for me to take a seat on one of the plastic chairs.

I pick a red chair near the board.

"So what is that you guys really do?"

"I told you," Dabi says. "Special services to people willing to pay up."

Given where we are, that suddenly feels a lot more sinister than it did when he first told me.

I look back at the knives and jars in the background.

"So like, a gang? Where you steal things and hurt people if someone pays you enough? Like the movies?"

"Guess you could put it that way."

"And there's actually people that pay for this stuff?"

Dabi shrugs. "It's a niche market."

Woah.

There's a lot more questions in my head, but now is not the time. Maybe later.

As Dabi moves to take a seat, his abdomen brushes against the edge of the table and he hisses in pain.

It releases blood again.

"Fuck!" He grips the skin.

I move closer to him, gripping his hands again. "It still hurts?" I ask worriedly. "Is there anything we can do?" I look around at the others quickly.

"Yes!" Toga says, a little too eagerly.

"What is it?"

She hops over to knives behind us, and takes a moment deciding which one she wants.

She brandishes a short but sharp blade and lets out an excited squeal, as though she enjoyed this.

"Fire please!" She calls out.

What's she doing?

Dabi groans and pulls a lighter out of his pocket. He tosses it toward her, and she carefully holds it under the edge of the blade, running it up and down for several minutes until it turns red.

She's going to seal the wound so it doesn't get infected.

"Lie down, boss," She says in a sing-song voice.

I clear the few papers were scattered on the table and move so Dabi could spread himself over it.

He lifts the edge of his shirt to his midriff, and my breath catches in my throat when I see his abdomen.

The skin is covered in large swaths of reddish purple.

Like parts of it were burnt off...

I gasp.

"These are old," Dabi looks at me. He's watching me carefully, wanting to see just how I'd react. "Still want to be here?"

I swallow my anxiety as I stare at Dabi's mismatched skin. I won't give him the chance to say 'I told you so.'

This must be why he wouldn't let me dress the wound.

He didn't want me to see this.

No wonder the stab didn't phase him.

What else has his body been through...

"Here I come!" Toga grins.

She was all too eager to take the scorching knife and press it to his stomach.

Dabi clenches his teeth immediately, leaving me to hurriedly stand next to him. I squeeze his hand to soothe him, but he grips mine back so hard I think he might break it.

I brush his hair out of eyes and press my hand to his forehead to calm him.

"It's okay," I tell him softly. "It's over."

The others stare at Dabi's wound uncomfortably, like they've been under Toga's knife before.

I wonder if they have similar wounds.

Dabi releases his harsh grip on my hand and begins to breathe slower.

One things strikes me though.

Despite all the pain he's undoubtedly feeling right now, not a single tear drops from his eyes.

I think it might just be him trying not to appear weak in front of us.

But as I look into his eyes, I'm surprised to find them completely dry.

"Are you superhuman or something?" I joke with him.

He looks at me quizzically.

"All of that and you didn't cry?"

Dabi closes his eyes. "I don't cry." He grits his teeth.

I roll my eyes.

Whatever you say.

The others slowly help him sit up straight. I take the first aid kit from Atsuhiro, picking out the cotton, gauze and antibacterial wipes.

Dabi is less reluctant when I try to wrap the area this time.

"You can hold onto me if you want," I tease as I wrap the gauze around his body.

A small smirk appears on his lips. His arm suddenly snakes around my waist, pulling me close to him.

I blush and the gauze falls out of my hands.

Dabi tilts his head. "What's wrong? Thought you wanted me to hold onto you?"

The guys snicker behind us.

I push him away from me, and he laughs as I take another piece of gauze and try again.

"You guys can talk now," I tell them focused on what I'm doing. "What exactly happened today?

Did Mr. Lane find out about the League? Is that what made you a target?"

Dabi is silent.

His silence puzzles me. I look to the others to see if they knew anything.

"Dabi tried blowing up his car!" Toga volunteers.

I frown.

Could this be just because of how Mr. Lane treated me?

No. There's no reason for it to mean that much to Dabi.

Enough to get angry, sure.

To harm Mr. Lane?

Doubtful.

"Why would you blow up his car?" I ask.

Tenko pulls up a chair. "We did some research on him. He's working with some really shady people. And Dabi told us about the whole Todoroki affair."

I shoot Dabi a look.

"They're trying to trick people into thinking they're heroes. That they should be put on a pedestal and admired. There's people out there telling their kids to be like them. Meanwhile they're going around-"

"Enough," Dabi interrupts Tenko. "Point is, they're fakes. They built up their media empires off that fake image. And we're going to expose them."

"But you guys are also doing...you know," I don't know how to say it in a way that isn't offensive. "I mean, you tried blowing up his car. And I'm guessing you probably have done more...if I'm not reaching."

Their eyes harden.

"We never pretended to be good."

I know I should stay silent, but I keep going.

"Right, but you have a double image too. There's the Blaze, and then there's the League."

They shake their heads.

"The Blaze is to funnel money into the League. Yeah, sure it's a front, but those who need our services know where to find us. We can't have masses of people finding out about the other shit we do, can we?"

"But how did this all start? What are you trying to achieve?"

"We just hate hypocrites. We'll help a bad guy to bring down a worse guy. Those that act like angels in public are our favorite targets. I don't care if we have to steal, blackmail, or kill them," Dabi's eyes shine with evil. "Whatever it takes to beat their egos down. Reveal the private faces they hide. Until they're forced to show their bloody hands before the world. Someone like Enji is using Lane for media coverage. Lane is depending on him for protection and cash. We can take them both down."

"What if you get caught?"

He dismisses the question, like it's not even worth his time. "By who?" He scoffs. "Lane? As soon as we take down Enji, Lane's done for. Since he's your old boss, we can give you leeway with how badly you want us to go after him." Dabi says this like that's what I'm genuinely concerned about right now. "Lane's a scared little prick anyway, as soon as he saw me he bounced out of the car and screamed for protection." He laughs like he can picture Mr. Lane's pathetic position as we speak. "But he'll fall. Just like the rest of them."

"I meant the police, Dabi."

The question puzzles him as if he's never considered it before. But the look in his eyes tells me they're even less of a concern than Mr. Lane.

"Don't worry about that," He says. "That's the least of our problems, to be honest."

I nod.

I let them speak uninterrupted for the rest of the night. They have business to take care of, and if I keep asking questions like this, they'll never get to finish. It's enough that they waited all day for me to leave so they could start. Can't hold them up at night as well.

The Todoroki name was brought up several times, among others. It seems strange now, considering Dabi knows it was Mr. Lane's relations with Enji that led to me leaving the company the way I did. Turns out he knows a lot more about Enji than I do.

I try to keep track of the other names as well, but there's so many and I'm so tired, I can barely keep up.

"Here's where Rina comes in," Dabi continues.

My eyes widen at the mention of my name.

"Enji's using Lane for his image. Rina, you said they were working on a movie or something?"

"A documentary, yes."

"We need to make sure that shit doesn't air."

I bite my lip, trying to remember as much information as I could about the documentary. It was supposed to air already. I remember Mr. Lane saying it would be within the month.

But it hasn't yet.

Which means I need to find out more from Al.

"My roommate still works at NNTV. She's the floor manager so she might have some idea of what's going on. I can ask her."

"You sure you can trust her?" Dabi asks with a frown.

"Well, I'm not gonna tell her any details, she's the one that's gonna need to have trust in me, no?"

Atsuhiro cracks his knuckles and rubs his neck. "I don't know, I don't like the sound of that. We have our own ways of finding stuff out so-"

"It won't hurt to try," I insist, looking at Dabi since he's the one that has final say on these matters. "Having 2 avenues of information is better than 1."

Truth be told, I just want to feel useful. I want to feel like I have a role to play, not just that I'm here to "sit and watch".

I want them to feel good about me being here, not apprehensive about whether this was a good decision.

After some deliberation, Dabi sighs. He looks to the others for input. "Might as well?"

"I mean she's here," Tenko says monotonously. "Might as well use her."

Dabi nods and then turns to me. "Just don't be stupid with it. Lead her into the conversation, don't bring it up out of nowhere. She'll be curious about why you're bringing it up. Don't say anything that'll make her ask questions. The more questions she asks you, the more suspicious she'll be."

"Relax guys, I got this." I smile. "Besides, she's a chatterbox. She'll open up at the slightest nudge and go on forever. She's the one that told me about all the.." I grimace. "..issues with the Todoroki company."

Plus, she's my friend! Of course, I can trust her. We've been roommates for years. If anyone could tell me about Mr. Lane's current plans for the documentary, it'd be her.

"So it's settled!" Toga claps. She takes a marker and goes up to the white board, drawing a flow chart with all that's been discussed today. She adds my part last, circling my name and underlining it several times for emphasis, over a big red INTEL SOURCING.

The sight of that makes me smile, like I have a role to play in all of this. I look around at the others but they're all preoccupied with moving things around and discussing their own parts.

The lack of enthusiasm isn't surprising, I mean this is normal for them.

But all I can think of is how exciting it'll be if I have something to contribute the next time we meet. If they'll call me down, and look at me expectantly. I imagine the looks on their faces with glee and the thought almost makes me giddy.

"Okay, are we done here?" Dabi asks.

A bunch of 'yes'es and 'yup's fill the basement.

"Alright then," Dabi grabs a leather jacket from on the wall and checks to make sure his keys are inside. Then he walks my way and grabs my arm.

"Time for you to go home," He says, moving me in front of him.

"But-"

"Now," His eyes narrow. He moves his head in a silent nudge, telling me to turn around and make my way upstairs.

The others watch us curiously, and Toga lets out a snicker at my expense.

"I'm jealous!" She calls after us. "Wish I had someone to drive me home!"

Dabi groans, nudging me to keep moving.

"Bye guys," I wave back at them from halfway up the steps. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

They all wave warmly and I can't help thinking how grateful I am that they trusted me with this.

It feels so weird emerging out of Dabi's office like this, from a secret path that leads deep under the building. But Dabi simply presses another tile in the walls, and the entrance reseals itself, as though it never existed.

We make our way to his car, and I hurry to catch up to him. The height difference certainly doesn't help.

He unlocks the car and slides into the driver's seat. I follow into the passenger's seat and shift awkwardly in my place.

"Where do you live?" He asks as he readjusts his rearview mirror. No sooner had I told him the address, than he revved the engine and sped away from the Blaze.

The ride is quiet for a while. Regrettably so. Dabi hands me a box of disinfectants to wipe the blood off my hands. I wonder how many times he's had to do the same thing before coming into the office.

I fiddle with the hems of my shirts as I try to think of something to talk about. Dabi doesn't seem to be in as big of a rush to speak, his eyes darting from the rearview to the side mirrors periodically as we cruise down the mostly empty highway.

"Dabi?"

"Hm."

"When they said you were gone today, were you really in the basement the whole time?"

Dabi takes a moment to answer. "After I got back, yeah. Couldn't exactly walk through the front doors looking the way I did." He glances at me before switching lanes.

"Were you avoiding me?"

"Partly."

I nod. "Now that I know about the League, do you think you'd avoid me in a case like this again?"

"A case like this won't happen again."

"Okay." I respond quietly. "Cause you know I get worried."

Dabi seems to be deep in thought.

"You worry a lot for someone who's only met me a month ago."

I smile. "Well, of course. We're friends aren't we?"

Dabi spares me a look before switching lanes again. "Right." But he doesn't look like he fully believes me.

"You think you'll be able to handle your friend?" He changes the subject.

"Who, Aliyah? Of course! I told you, we're really good friends and she's the kind of person that loves gossiping anyway. It'll be a piece of cake."

He grunts. "Okay. Because to be honest, that's part of why I wanted you at the Blaze."

I don't know why hearing that makes me feel slightly sad, but it does. "The documentary?"

"Yeah. I mean you work in the media industry. You'd know about that stuff. People like Enji have the industry wrapped around their palms. When you told me he was cozying up to NNTV, I figured you'd be the person to handle all of that for me."

I nod. "So why haven't you asked me before today?" Come to think of it, he even sounded reluctant about agreeing.

"I don't know," He sighs. "Still not sure I want you mixed up with all of this."

I roll my eyes. "I'm not even a member, remember? I'm just getting information for you," I tease. "What's so dangerous about that?"

"That's what worries me," Dabi glances at me, his brows pulled together. "That's all you see it as."

"What am I supposed to see it as?"

"What it is," Dabi gets increasingly agitated, but he tries to keep himself calm. "I'm not sure you're taking this seriously enough, Rina. The closer you get to us, the more at risk you are. The more people that know you work for me, especially what kind of work," He looks dead serious. "The more danger you'll be in."

I roll my eyes. "But no one knows anything about you, Dabi. I've been here for a month and I'm only just finding out about all of this. And I'm sure there's much more I don't know. How would people outside of the League even find out?"

"Same way we find out shit about them. Lane's using his Todoroki connections to supply him with information and protection. They're good at what they do."

My mouth drops. "You mean the Todorokis know about you?"

"Well," Dabi's jaw hardens. "They think they do."

I wait for him to say more, but he leaves it at that. We ride the rest of the distance in silence.

Once we pull up in front of my apartment complex, I try to put a smile on my face.

"Thanks Dabi." I tell him as I unlock the door.

He nods without looking at me. "See you tomorrow."

Those words trigger me immediately and I let go of the handle.

"Don't say that."

Dabi looks confused.

"You said that yesterday and had no intention of seeing me." I cross my arms. "You broke your promise."

"Don't be dramatic, no one says that shit as a promise."

"See you tomorrow means I'll see you tomorrow," I tell him seriously. "Otherwise, just say goodbye or something else."

He leans his head forward against the steering wheel and sighs. "It's just a stupid phrase, you're overthinking it."

I frown.

"See you tomorrow," He gives up. But still, I don't leave.

"I mean it!" He says. "I. Will. See. You. Tomorrow. Good enough?"

I grin. "Mhm, thank you!" I lean over to give him a quick hug before I leave, and he immediately recoils, like my body was made of ice.

"Handsy, aren't you," He mutters, craning his neck to look at me, without getting too close.

I pull away.

"Always have to ruin the moment, don't you," I counter, slightly disappointed. I turn to open the door, and suddenly feel him pull me back in.

"How do you do that?" His voices comes out low and raspy.

I look into his eyes. "Do what?"

There's that frustration in his eyes again.

"Fucking making me feel bad about shit I'd never fucking feel bad about." He growls.

The way he says it makes me blush.

"Cut that shit out."

"Yes sir," I mumble.

He leans his head back.

Then, he hesitantly opens his arms.

I shake my head, pulling my purse over my shoulder again. "Not gonna force you to do something you don't want to do."

I open the door this time, and just as I'm about to step out of his car, he pulls my arm again - harder this time, and I fall back into the bend of his arm.

My heart is pounding faster. I shake my hair from my face to get a better look at Dabi in the dark.

"Why are you so much fucking work," He mutters, his face inches away from mine. I swallow.

He leans forward to hug me closer to his chest. The leather jacket feels surprisingly smooth against my cheek, and my hand finds the back of his seat to balance myself, careful of coming near his wound. He holds me to him for a few long breaths and I smile against his chest, knowing he can't see me right now.

When we pull away, I look at his face once more. But Dabi avoids my gaze.

"You don't have to play along with me," I tell him, a teasing smile on my lips. "I'll only expect more from you next time."

"See you tomorrow," He mumbles, still without facing me. His foot is on the brakes but he's already pulling the gear shift into Drive.

And then, just before I leave for good and with no time to think this through -

I press my lips on his cheek.

Dabi's eyes widen immediately and he looks at me in alarm. "What-"

"Bye Dabi!" I wave with a laugh as I hurry out of his car. I run to the door of my building, grateful for the dark to hide my red cheeks.

Dabi remains in front of the building for a moment, his head still turned my way in shock.

I close the door behind me but hurry to the window, peeking the corner of my head out just in time to catch him shaking his head and rubbing a tired hand across his eyes.

There's no way to describe the relief and warmth in my chest, when he eventually pulls out of his spot.

But just before he can drive off, I swear I feel him smirk at the window.

As if he can hear the adrenaline thrumming in my veins.

#dabi #touya todoroki #dabi x oc #dabi fanfic #dabi angst #dabi fic #dabi fluff #dabi x female reader #touya fluff #bnha fic #mha #bnha #league of villains #dabi is a todoroki #dabi is touya #touya x y/n #bnha touya #tw: mentions of blood

11 notes · View notes

cobythinks · 5 years

Text

I Don’t Do Soulmates || A Sanders Sides Soulmate AU

A/N: This is a long one, so most of it is under the cut. Also, be sure to check out my MASTERLIST.

Summary: Roman doesn’t do soulmates, even though he has three. Dalton doesn’t do soulmates because he doesn’t have any. Despite Roman’s best efforts, though, it feels like he’s destined to meet his soulmates one day. That doesn’t mean he has to like it.

Ships: Roceit, LoganxPattonxVirgil, platonic LAMP

WARNINGS: sympathetic Deceit, mentions of death, mentions of a car accident, food mention, swearing, depression, talk of self harm/suicidal thoughts. Nothing super explicit. Please stay safe!

Roman liked fairy tales. He always had. He loved the stories about the kings and the queens, knights, princesses that needed saving, evil stepmothers, fairy godmothers, dwarves, beasts, soulmates, and especially happy endings. When he was little, the bookshelves in his bedroom were dominated by various copies of the books and CD cases. His walls were covered in drawings of those stories - and sometimes stories of his own.

The day he found out that he was lucky enough to have three soulmates was the best day of his life. The thought that he could be a prince or a knight and protect someone who meant so much to him? That just fueled his creative energy into more. He’d write stories to his soulmates in bright red marker and pen, usually accompanied by illustrations.

Roman never once considered that most of his heroes had a tragic backstory. After all, that was just a story. Just something to make the stories more interesting. His life was fine - perfect even. He had three soulmates, more than anyone else he knew! Patton, who never seemed to use the same color of marker. Logan, who always used dark blue ballpoint pen. Virgil, who seemed to only own black and purple markers.

Even his parents only had each other, just one soulmate each. Unlike some antagonistic fairy tale parents, they were wonderful. They encouraged him in writing his stories - sloppily relayed to his soulmates across his arms and sometimes legs.

As far as fairytales go, Roman was sure he’d gotten the better end of the deal. He didn’t have a curse or a wicked stepmother, he had all the good.

At least… he did.

Roman was nine years old when it happened. It wasn’t anyone's fault, of course. Accidents like that happen all the time. It was January, and it was getting dark as they drove home from the movies on the backroads. No one could have seen the patch of black ice covering the road. No one could have stopped them from sliding, spinning off the road. No one, not even a prince from one of Roman’s stories, could have stopped his parents from dying.

After the crash, stricken with grief and confusion, Roman stopped writing to his soulmates. How was he supposed to protect people he’d never met if he couldn't even keep his own parents alive? He couldn't keep making them promises he’d never keep. So it would be best, he figured, to not. At least for a little while.

A little while turned into eight years.

“Roman, get your lazy ass out of bed!” Roman groaned, rolling out onto the floor. “Now! The bus will be here in five minutes and I am not driving you again!”

“Okay! God, Aunt Rina,” Roman muttered under his breath as he pulled himself standing, glancing with a frown at his mirror. He’d fallen asleep in his clothes again, not wanting to change and see the messages written there.

Not that he didn’t read them. Roman smiled sadly, pulling at his wrist to examine an intricate flower in black and purple. He read all the messages he got from his soulmates. He never replied. They didn’t deserve that. They’d stopped trying to directly contact him years ago, Roman wasn’t even sure if they remembered.

“ROMAN!”

“OKAY!” Roman yelled irritably, grabbing his backpack. One plus side of accidentally sleeping in his clothes and shoes, he could just leave his aunt's house as soon as he woke up. He hurried through the kitchen, avoiding looking at his aunt.

“Hey,” Roman sighed and lifted his head to look at her. She sighed. “Breakfast.” Roman caught the banana she threw at him and turned without replying, hurrying down the street to the bus stop. He stuck the banana in his backpack, halfheartedly planning to eat it at lunch.

His aunt wasn’t a bad person… they just didn’t get along. They never had, and it probably didn’t help that Roman had three soulmates he refused to contact. She had none. So, it was natural she’d be bitter and angry about it.

Roman slipped into the backseat of the bus and pulled up his sleeve, smiling fondly at the poem written in dark blue ink. Even after all these years, they used the same colors. Virgil with his purple and black - eternally edgy. Patton continued to supply different kinds of inks and colors - some complete with glitter. Roman sighed and pulled the sleeve back down, looking up moodily as someone else got on at the next spot.

He didn’t recognize them, they must be new. It was the beginning of a term. Roman sighed, watching as the kid looked around. Then they locked eyes, and for some god-forsaken reason he smiled and walked over, sitting across the aisle from Roman.

“Hey,” Roman grudgingly smiled. No reason to be rude - this guy hadn’t ever done anything to him. “You’re new, right?”

“Uh…” The kid shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I’m Dalton.”

“Roman.” Roman ran a hand through his hair. “Nice to meet you.”

“I guess.” Dalton sighed and shook his head. “You too.” Roman nodded, looking down as the pink Crayola marker traced the outline of a few hearts on the back of his hand. He shoved it into the pocket of his jacket, planning to check the finished design once he was alone.

“Are you in drama?” Dalton suddenly asked. Roman looked over in surprise, nodding.

“Uh.. yeah. How’d you know?”

“Your jacket…” Dalton shrugged sheepishly. Oh yeah, he was wearing the hoodie from the play last year. Roman smiled. “Is it hard? I kinda wanted to try out, but I’ve never really acted before…”

“You should do it,” Roman said, turning to face him better. “It’s really cool, and I think you’d do well.” Dalton frowned.

“You just met me.”

“Yeah,” Roman shrugged and looked at the floor. “Anyway, where’d you move from?”

“Oh, just a few towns over.” Dalton sighed. “I came to live with my mom and her new husband, and his kids. Long story.”

“Hey,” Roman held up his hands. “You don’t have to tell me, we’ve all got long stories.” Dalton smiled.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Roman looked at the back of his hand and smiled fondly at it.

Four hearts in a group covered most of it, and Patton seemed to be highlighting them with all different colors. Purple, navy blue, and sky blue… and red. Roman looked away and put his hands back in his pockets. Dalton didn’t seem to have noticed, he had turned to look out the window as they pulled into the parking lot.

“Do you have your schedule?” Roman asked with a sigh, grabbing his bag and standing.

“Uh…” Dalton rifled through his pockets and pulled out a folded paper. Yeah. “Logan just graduated last year, he made me a map…”

“Cool.” Roman tried not to think about the poem on his arm when he heard the name. Logan was a common name. “He’s…”

“My step-brother,” Dalton said as they slowly made their way to the front. “Like I said,”

“Long story.” Roman grinned. “Who do you have for first period?”

“Mr. Corey,” Dalton frowned. “Math. why did I decide to have math in first- nevermind.”

“I have him second,” Roman said. Dalton nodded, then smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry I’ve kinda bugged you all morning, uh… but thanks.”

“It’s nothing,” Roman, threw an arm around the other kids' shoulders. “I’ll show you where Mr. Corey’s room is.”

“You sit alone?” Roman’s head jerked up from where he’d been reading Virgil’s to-do list. He yanked his sleeves down when he saw Dalton. Dalton slid down the wall next to him, pulling out a paper bag.

“Uh, yeah,” Roman shrugged. “Gotta fill the quota for teenage brooding, y’know?”

“But like, you don’t have any friends?” Dalton seemed completely surprised. Roman frowned.

“I mean…”

“You just seemed like the popular kind of jock guy. Theater guy.” He corrected as an afterthought, pulling out a sandwich.

“Well, not everything is obvious.” Roman sighed, then dramatically pouted. “Are you saying you aren’t my friend?”

“Hey-” Dalton frowned. “That’s not fair, dude, come on!” Roman laughed, shaking his head.

“I’m kidding. Geez. You don’t have to sit with me.”

“I want to,” Dalton shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich. Roman watched him for a moment, then remembered his own lunch. The projectile banana from Aunt Rina. He sighed and grudgingly pulled it out, Virgil’s handwriting flashing through his mind.

‘Remember to eat’ he was always writing things like that. ‘Water is actually important.’ Whether it was for himself, or for his soulmates, Roman didn’t know. And he certainly never planned on asking.

“What do you have after lunch?” Roman asked as he peeled the fruit.

“Creative Writing,” Dalton replied. “You?”

“Do you have Bird?” Roman asked, face lighting up. Dalton pulled out the wrinkled paper, transferring Dorito crumbs onto it, then nodded. “Well, that’s at least one class we both have.”

“You write?” Dalton’s face lit up. “That’s cool!”

“I mean…” Roman shrugged and rubbed the spot where Logan’s poem still remained on his skin. “Kindof. I like to, but I don’t know if I’m good.”

“I’m horrible,” Dalton said matter of factly. Roman frowned.

“I refuse to believe that.” he declared.

“I am!” Dalton laughed. “I mean… I might not be horrible. But I’m not good. I’m nothing like…” he trailed off and shook his head. “Logan hates it when I compare myself to him. I can’t help it. Did you know he graduated a year early? He’s the same age as me, but he’s already graduated!”

“...yeah?” Roman tried to ignore thoughts of scribbled conversations between his soulmates. Talking about grades and accelerated programs in that dark blue ink. “Well, you shouldn’t compare yourself.”

“You haven’t read his poems,” Dalton put his sandwich down.

“Do you have any poems of your own?” Roman asked. “I don’t care about Logan, I’ve never met him. I want to read yours.”

“You… you do?” Dalton stared at him for a moment before he sighed. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? You could stop talking to me, and we’ve only known each other a day. Wouldn’t be that devastating.”

“What, you don’t find me absolutely charming?” Roman grinned. Dalton rolled his eyes, then pulled out a notebook and flipped forward a few pages.

“Just don’t make fun of me, okay?”

“Would a prince charming ever make fun of someone like you?” Roman joked, accepting it. Dalton chuckled.

“Prince charming, huh?”

Roman didn’t respond, eyes skating over the words on Dalton’s page. He was good, which meant he had really bad self-esteem or that Logan guy was amazing. Maybe as amazing as the one who used blue ink. He quickly banished the thoughts and looked up, grinning.

“This is great! Mr. Bird is going to love you.” He declared, passing it back as the bell rang. Dalton smiled, shoving the notebook into his bag as fast as he could.

“I want to read some of yours eventually,” he declared as they stood up. Roman shook his head.

“I don’t write poetry. I write stories.”

“Well, I wanna read your story.”

“You will, we’re required to peer edit in Birds class anyway,” he explained.

“You know what I mean,” Dalton laughed anyway. “Show me the way, then, Prince Charming.”

Roman ignored the slight flush to his cheeks when Dalton said that and nodded, turning into the English hall. What right did he have to think about this kid when he ignored his own soulmates, anyway?

Roman sighed, staring down at his bare arms. Well, no sleeves. They were in no way bare. Virgil’s morning to-do list was faded, and at the moment being ‘bedazzled’ with glitter gel pens in gold and silver. On the other arm, the poem had grown. Roman knew it had been open-ended, but he hadn’t realized it was just unfinished.

It was beautiful.

Everything they did was beautiful. Their drawings, Logan’s poems, just the way they talked to each other. They did more when they were younger before they exchanged phone numbers and started talking that way. Roman closed his eyes to block out the marks.

He didn’t want to talk to them. He’d just let them down. It was best that he hadn’t let a pen touch his skin in years. It was best that he just… avoided it. He couldn't break a promise he didn’t make.

And then there was Dalton. Roman sighed, running his hands through his hair. Someone who didn’t think Roman was weird, who didn’t know he was a depressed orphan who spent a summer in a mental health facility because he wanted to see his parents again. Dalton didn’t know. And Roman didn’t know about his past, they didn’t know each other's long stories. That was the best part about being friends with Dalton. The past didn’t matter.

Roman opened his eyes again and stared at the hearts on the back of his hand. They were beautiful. What started out as some kind of doodle - probably because he got bored during school as always - had somehow become some kind of 3D masterpiece. It was beautiful.

And there were four hearts. Roman ran a thumb over it, smiling sadly. Patton remembered him. There was no other reason to draw four hearts. God, why did he have to care so much? Roman buried his face in his hands, shaking his head. Why did he have soulmates? How could he have one soulmate? Let alone three! It didn’t make any sense! It had never made any sense.

“Hey, your aunt said you were-” Roman’s head jerked up in surprise. Dalton stood awkwardly in the open door. “Uh… sorry. You left your phone in the drama room, and…”

“Th-thanks.” Roman got up, letting his hair fall over his eyes to try and disguise the tears. “Sorry, you didn’t have to.”

“It’s okay.” Dalton shrugged. “Uh… are you good? Sorry I barged in, your aunt said it’d be okay.”

“It’s fine.” Roman snapped, tossing his phone onto the bed. Dalton frowned. “Sorry, D, you just came over at a bad time.”

“Sorry about that,” Dalton said quickly.

“Don’t be.” Roman grabbed his jacket and pulled it on. “What’s up?”

“Logan’s being an ass.” Dalton declared, leaning against the doorway. Roman snickered, turning to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He met one of his soulmates last week and ever since then he’s been super weird. Now the guy’s at our house and… yeah.”

“Oh.” Roman pulled the sleeves of his jacket down to cover his hands. “Sorry about that, buddy.”

“It’s okay.” Damien walked over and sat on the bed next to him. “I don’t care about soulmates, the guy’s just annoying. He keeps trying to hug me.”

“Wow, what a horrible thing,” Roman said sarcastically. Dalton rolled his eyes.

“Okay, whatever.”

“I don’t do soulmates either,” Roman mumbled.

“Well, guess we can complain about Logan together.” Dalton laughed, bumping him with his shoulder. Roman chuckled, nodding.

“Sounds perfect. You can come complain about him, and I can listen and nod slowly and agree.” He declared.

“What, you don’t have anything to complain about?” Dalton asked skeptically. “Like your crazy aunt who eats chocolate covered bugs?” Roman groaned.

“I told her that was disgusting.”

“It’s okay. You can complain about the bugs, I’ll complain about the step-brother. It all evens out.”

“Well, you’re better at math than me so that sounds right.”

Logan and Patton met. Roman didn’t care. At least, he tried not to care. But how could he not care? Why did he have to keep getting their marks if he didn’t want them? Why did they happen to meet at the same time as Dalton’s stupid step-brother and his? Why did he have to be so certain that Dalton’s stupid step-brother was his soulmate?

Roman sighed, staring at the ceiling.

He doesn’t do soulmates. He’d decided that… well, he never necessarily decided that. He just didn’t want to talk to them. He didn’t want to meet them. He didn’t want to disappoint them. It was inevitable that if he contacted them, he’d disappoint them. Besides… he didn’t need a soulmate. He had a friend - for the first time in years. And that was fine.

If only there was a way to get rid of the marks.

He’d spent the past three hours googling it, and he had nothing. According to science, there was no way to get rid of the connection between soulmates. He was stuck with it, and it was stupid.

“How’s that ceiling looking?”

“Ugh, I’m trying to brood Dalton come on.” Roman sat up, frowning. “How long have you-”

“I didn’t want Rita to offer me another weird snack.” Dalton shrugged. “Anyway, what are you brooding about?”

“Nothing.” Roman barely got the words out before a pillow smacked him in the face. “Hey!”

“Cut the crap, you dummy,” Dalton demanded, holding the pillow threateningly. Roman squinted at him. “What the hell is going on with you? You’re lucky enough to have three soulmates and you claim you ‘don't do soulmates’? You’ve been googling all about them for days now.” Roman sat with his mouth partway open, surprised. “I rant to you about my crap. Can't you just… talk for fifteen minutes about whatever it is?”

“...I don’t get it.”

“What’s wrong, dumbass.”

Roman sighed, shaking his head.

“How do you know I have three soulmates?” he asked. Dalton rolled his eyes and pulled Roman’s jacket off.

“Three handwritings,” he said softly. “Different colors. Come on, I’m not an idiot. Logan has two, and… wait.” Roman tried to pull his arm away but Dalton pulled it closer. “What the hell?”

“D, listen, I-”

“This is Logan’s handwriting. And Patton’s. What the hell is going on, Roman?” Dalton shoved Roman’s arm and got up, folding his arms. “My step-brother is one of your soulmates?”

“No.” Roman pulled his jacket back on and stood up. “I mean… yeah. It doesn’t matter, though. I told you before that I don’t do-”

“You don’t do soulmates, I get it!” Dalton yelled. “I don’t either. Know why? I don’t have any soulmates! You have three! I drew on my arms all the time until I was fifteen just trying to get someone to respond! You’re an idiot!”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Roman spread his hands miserably. “I never asked for soulmates… I don’t want to meet them! I haven’t drawn on my skin in years because I don’t care. Okay?” Dalton sighed, burying his face in his hands.

“I just… when you first said you didn’t do soulmates…I thought you were like me. I thought, that maybe, we could be actual friends. But…”

“I don’t have soulmates.” Roman insisted. Dalton looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “Okay? Just… I just have whatever they draw. On my skin. Like soulmates. But they aren’t. Please stop yelling at me.”

Dalton just looked at him, and Roman looked back.

“Logan has been studying soulmates for years.” Dalton finally said. “If there is anyone who can get rid of them, it would be him. I’ll ask.”

“Wait- really?” Roman stared at him. He couldn't tell if the feeling in his chest was sadness or elation. It was just something. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Dalton scoffed. “When you get Logan talking, he never stops.”

“Thanks.” Roman wrapped his friend in a hug and Dalton laughed, returning it. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah well, you better believe it. I’m gonna have to listen to all Logan’s crap to find this out for you.” Dalton laughed.

“I owe you,” Roman said enthusiastically. “I will get you five boxes of chocolate covered crickets.”

“If you do that, I’m gonna cut your hair off,” Dalton said, shoving Roman away playfully. Roman frowned but nodded.

“Okay, no crickets. I’ll think of something!”

“But before I go back to my house, where I’ll be forced to hear many many things that are irrelevant to the question I’ll ask, let’s go do something actual people do.”

“Everyone stares at the ceiling all day,” Roman said, waving a hand dismissively. Dalton rolled his eyes.

“Your aunt said she’d bring us snacks in fifteen minutes and if we aren’t gone I’m jumping out the window.” He said, turning to the door.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Roman chuckled. “Bye Aunt Rina!”

“Don’t get hit by a car.”

“So, you’re saying that hypothetically, you want to know how to cut off a soulmate bond?” Logan asked, adjusting his glasses.

“Hypothetically,” Dalton said, smiling winningly. “I figured you’d know, you’re almost an expert.”

“D…” Logan shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out for ages, too.” Dalton frowned.

“You just wanna know everything, cuz you’re an ass.” Logan sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Look, Dalton, I want to know the same thing you do. But scientifically, biologically, even spiritually which is a load of shit but I still looked into it, there should be no reason you stop having a connection with your soulmate.” Logan shook his head. “Why do you care? You don’t have a soulmate!” Dalton scowled, stepping back.

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, I-”

“Shut up, you fu-”

“Dalton, I’m sorry!” Logan yelled, grabbing his arm. “I know you’re upset about that, and I get it. But no one can control soulmates. Anomalies happen, and that’s why Ro- and that’s why no one understands it.” Dalton frowned.

“I was asking for a friend,” he said, pulling away from his step-brother’s hands. “Because unlike everyone else on earth, he knows that soulmates are stupid!” Dalton stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Logan had been about to say a name, and he knew which one. How did he know who Roman was if they’d never met? If Roman hadn’t written to them in years? Dalton hurried down the street toward Roman’s house. He had to figure this out, he had to figure this out before he got in too deep. Before he got his hopes up.

“Hey Dalton,” Rina said when he walked through the door. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

“Where’s Roman?”

“Where do you think?” Dalton ran down the hall and slammed open the door.

“Holy shit-” Roman scrambled to get up from where he sat on the floor. “Dalton?”

“What are you-” Dalton’s eyes flew immediately to Roman’s hands. He scowled. “Roman!”

“What?” Roman asked bitterly, tossing the pocketknife onto his bed.

“What the hell are you doing!” Dalton stormed over and grabbed Roman’s arms, glaring at the handwriting scrawled across it in purple. The sentence severed in several places, and Dalton glared up at his friend.

“Listen, you can’t do this.”

“Go away.”

“No.” Dalton shoved Roman into the desk chair and pulled open a drawer, rifling through it. Of course, Roman had a stash of bandages in there too. “How many times do I have to tell you-you're-”

“An idiot! I know!” Roman snapped. “I’m sorry, okay? I just hate seeing Virgil’s stupid…” he shook his head and Dalton sighed. “Nevermind.”

“Logan knows your fucking name,” Dalton said, pressing the bandages over Roman’s arm.

“What are you talking about?”

“I asked him about the soulmate thing,” Dalton said, walking to the bed to pick up the knife. “And he got really upset. Logan doesn’t get upset. Apparently, he’s researched soulmates for a specific reason that he didn’t specifically tell me because he stopped himself halfway through saying ‘Roman’.”

“Yeah right.”

“So what’s your deal?”

“I just…” Roman shook his head and Dalton raised an eyebrow. “I can never talk to them. Okay?”

“...okay.” Dalton sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Please don’t do it again, Roman.”

“I’m sorry,” Roman muttered, rubbing the bandages. “I just…usually, no one cares.”

“Well I do, so stop being…” Dalton took a deep breath. “Please.”

“Okay, whatever.” Roman pulled on his jacket, concealing both the bandages and the Muriel covering his right arm.

Dalton leaned against his desk, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t make things worse. He was always making things worse. But now, this time, he really didn’t want to make things worse.

“Why do you care?” Roman asked softly. Dalton sighed and looked up at him, offering a small smile.

“Cuz I’m in love with you, dumbass.”

Somehow, Roman was less bothered by the marks on his skin than ever. He barely noticed them, most of the time. He kept his arms covered - though sometimes their doodles would creep onto his hands, but he didn’t mind. After all, who needed a soulmate when you had a boyfriend who wasn’t fated to love you anyway? It was still difficult because Roman did care about the people writing on his arms. But he didn’t have to be involved with them, right? He could still laugh at the puns Patton might scribble in green marker, he could still use Virgil’s to-do list as his own if he was having trouble. He could still read Logan’s poetry, though it wasn’t as good as Dalton’s.

“We’re out of milk.” Roman sighed, slamming the fridge shut.

“I live a block away, let’s just make cereal there,” Dalton said, standing up with his bowl. Roman snickered.

“Do you have milk? What if we walk all the way there and you guys are out too?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Dalton rolled his eyes.

“We always have milk cuz I’m the only one that drinks it. My step-dad is lactose intolerant.”

“Let’s go.” Roman grabbed his own bowl and Dalton chuckled. “We’re going out, Aunt Rina!”

“Have fun and don’t murder anyone!” Rina yelled back. Roman rolled his eyes, but couldn't help but grin as he and Dalton walked down the sidewalk. He grabbed Dalton’s hand, ignoring his boyfriend’s protests.

“It’s fine,” he promised. Dalton raised an eyebrow. Roman grinned. “We’re just two soulless guys who happen to be dating, right?” Dalton rolled his eyes.

“Right.”

Dalton led the way up the front steps and into the kitchen, where he put the bowl down and pulled a gallon of milk from the fridge.

“Tada! I was right.”

“I didn’t doubt you,” Roman scoffed. Dalton laughed, pouring his milk before doing Roman’s as well. “Aw, for me? You’re too kind.”

“Dalton?” both looked up when someone poked their head into the room. He was tall and pale, with black hair and glasses. Roman knew it was Logan, he had a purple grocery list on his left arm. “I thought you were going to be at your boyfriend’s house.”

“We were out of milk,” Roman said, lifting his bowl. Logan stared at him, lips pursed.

“Don't worry, geez.” Dalton waved a hand. “We aren’t gonna bug you guys. I told you soulmates are stupid.”

“Good.” Logan adjusted his glasses. “We’ll be in the living room, you can manage to stay out of that room can’t you?”

“Yeah.” Dalton looked at Roman and rolled his eyes, Roman chuckled. Logan sighed and left, shaking his head. “...that’s Logan. I told you he was an ass.”

“I still believe you,” Roman promised. “You’re stuck with me, understand?”

“Thank god.” Roman glanced toward the hallway when the doorbell rang, but Logan answered it almost immediately. Dalton chuckled, elbowing him as they heard a chipper voice start to ramble. Roman wasn’t really listening until he heard him say;

“And this is Virgil!” Roman stiffened, and Dalton gently leaned his head on Roman’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he whispered softly. Roman frowned. What exactly was he referring to? He opened his mouth to ask, but then the owner of that chipper voice bounced into the kitchen.

“Hey Dalton!” he said, beaming. “Oh! And Dalton’s handsome friend!”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Dalton said, narrowing his eyes. Patton laughed - it had to be Patton.

“Awe! Hi, I’m Patton!” yep, it was Patton alright. Roman smiled, nodding politely.

“Patton, Dalton promised not to bug us, and-” Logan sighed as he walked into see Patton trying to hug both Roman and Dalton at the same time.

Roman pushed him away, feeling his heart race. This was not a good time to be at Dalton’s house, obviously. Shit, he never wanted to meet his soulmates and now all three of them happened to be here.

“Oh, sorry!” Patton chuckled, stepping back.

“It’s fine,” Roman said in a soft voice. Dalton took his hand, smiling supportively. Roman frowned. What was with him right now?

“Well, I guess you've met Patton.” Logan sighed. “This is Virgil, he’s our... other soulmate.” He walked in, followed by a short teenager with purple hair and a black jacket. Just like Virgil would most definitely look.

“This is my boyfriend,” Dalton said as he squeezed Roman’s hand. “Roman.” Roman’s head swiveled and he narrowed his eyes. Dalton just smiled back sadly. The other three just stood there for a moment.

“...that’s a nice name.” Patton finally said. “I’ve always liked it, anyway.” Roman self consciously rubbed his arm through his jacket sleeve, knowing that a purple grocery list was on his arm just like the other three.

“Yeah, well,” Roman shrugged. What else could he say? He looked back at Dalton, who was obviously trying to convey silently that he should do something. But Roman had no idea what it might be.

“Erm, anyway,” Logan chuckled nervously as Dalton’s eyes flicked between Roman and the group of others. Roman scowled. Dalton could not be serious. They were dating for crying out loud! “Nice to meet you, Roman. Dalton’s boyfriend.”

“Dude.” Dalton hissed. Roman glared at him.

“Let’s just pop in here,” Patton was obviously forcing a smile as they all went to the living room. Roman turned to Dalton.

“What the hell!” he hissed. “Dalton, what was that!”

“Roman, they’re your-” Roman raised an eyebrow and Dalton lowered his voice. “They’re your soulmates. You should at least tell them.”

“No, are you crazy?” Roman shook his head. “I can’t. I told you that a month ago, D!”

“What did they ever do to you?” Dalton demanded. “I just want you to make sure you’re happy, okay! I care about you!”

“Then why did you try that?” Roman demanded.

“Soulmates are real, Roman. They’re a thing. We’re really close, but I know you wish you could be with them! I’ve always known!”

“No, I don’t.” Roman insisted. Dalton frowned, folding his arms.

“Why?”

“They’d be disappointed,” Roman said, repeating the lie he’d told himself for years. Dalton snorted. “They probably don’t even remember me and-”

“You know they do. You saw their faces when I said your name!”

“Well, I don’t care!” Roman yelled, pushing Dalton away from him. Dalton stared at him, eyes filled with hurt. “You don’t get it, Dalton. I can’t risk letting them down!”

“How can you let them down if they don’t even know you?”

“I just will. It’s inevitable.” Roman sighed, burying his face in his hands. Neither of them seemed to realize they’d been shouting, and that it had attracted the others back to the doorway. “Besides, I’m as good as dead to them. I haven’t let ink or paint touch my skin since I was nine years old.”

“Roman-”

“I’m serious! You said it didn’t matter! You said that we didn’t need soulmates, so why are you doing this?”

“ROMAN!” Dalton grabbed his wrist and shook his head, pointing to the doorway. Roman turned, eyes widening. All three of them stood there, looks of shock on their faces. Roman pulled away from Dalton and shoved past them, refusing to make eye contact. He tried to say something to his boyfriend as he left, but it was like his voice stopped working. So he just left, and as soon as he left he started running to get as far away from there as he could.

“Roman!” Dalton went to run after him but Logan grabbed his arm.

“Dalton, what’s going on?”

“Let go, you fucking asshole!” Dalton yelled, karate chopping his stepbrother in the arm.

“Language!” Patton said indignantly. Dalton rolled his eyes.

“Dalton!” Logan tightened his hold and Dalton sighed, glaring at him. “Tell me right now what you know about this.” Dalton closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“I can’t.”

“It’s obvious. Let him go.” Virgil said, pulling Logan away. “Your step-brother is dating our soulmate. Duh.”

“...why? How? What?!” Logan’s voice rose in volume with every word. “Dalton, how long have you known that?”

“Since the universe was created,” Dalton said sarcastically. “Can I go? Roman’s upset.”

“At you.” Logan pointed out. Dalton glared at him.

“Hey, why don’t we all calm down?” Patton said softly, stepping between them. “Dalton? Can you please talk to us?”

“Roman was my friend,” Dalton said softly. “Then he was my boyfriend. I’d seen all Logan’s marks often enough to figure it out. So we talked. Roman…” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Whatever you guys did when you were kids made him hate you or something.”

“What? We didn’t do anything!” Virgil snapped. “He’s the one who just disappeared.”

“I don’t know!” Dalton shoved past Logan, shaking his head. “But he’s my boyfriend, not yours! So I’m going to go find him to make sure he’s okay!” he took off, running to the street. He couldn't see Roman. He had no idea which way Roman went.

“Dalton, please!” Logan said from the porch. Dalton didn’t turn around to flip the bird, then decided Roman wouldn’t want to be found, so he sprinted away from both their houses. He turned left, running up the street. “Dalton!” Dalton kept running, trying to hold back tears. He had to find Roman before he did something stupid. God… what if Roman was going to do something stupid?

Dalton didn’t stop when Logan’s car pulled up next to him. Where would Roman go? He wouldn’t go back to his aunts' house, he hated it there. He might have run to the high school to hang at the theater… maybe?

“Dalton!” the car pulled in front of him and Dalton stumbled to a halt, glaring at the people inside.

“What?”

“Let us help you.” Patton leaned out the window. “We can find him faster driving, okay? We aren’t going to steal your boyfriend.” Dalton narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah right.”

“We just want to make sure Roman’s okay.” Virgil piped up, opening the back door. “Get in, and tell us where he could be.” Why Dalton trusted Virgil more, he wasn’t sure. But he clambered into Logan’s car anyway.

“I don’t really know,” he confessed. “When Roman’s upset we usually just go for a walk. But he’s mad at me this time. I’d check the high school theater.”

“On it.” Logan hit the gas and drove toward the high school. “While we’re driving, can you please explain why Roman hates us?”

“I don’t know. It’s not my business,” Dalton shrugged. “But he doesn’t hate you. He just… doesn’t want to meet you. He doesn’t like the idea of soulmates.”

“Really?” Patton asked sadly. “When we were kids he seemed so excited about us, and then one day he just stopped writing. He used to write stories to us, like fairy tales.”

“I don’t know!” Dalton snapped, glaring at him. “We just need to find him before he…” oh god. Please don’t let Roman try anything.

Roman stared blankly down at his arms, where yellow writing appeared a few minutes ago. At first, he’d thought it was Patton. But it wasn’t. It was one of Dalton’s poems. He must be writing on one of the others. Roman reached up and brushed tears out of his eyes, taking a shuddering breath. He’d been about to cut again - but he couldn't break one of Dalton’s poems. Was that why he was doing this? Classic. Why did Dalton care, anyway? How could he care if he didn’t have to, according to fate?

“Stupid Dalton,” Roman muttered, then felt horrible. Dalton wasn't stupid, he was Roman’s best friend. More than that, his boyfriend. So why did he do what he did? Why did he tell them he was the fourth soulmate? It wasn’t fair. Roman didn’t want this. He didn’t want anything.

“Roman!” Roman’s head jerked up and he stared in surprise as Dalton tumbled out of a car, sprinting across the parking lot. “What are you doing here?”

“...sitting.” Roman sighed and looked around the strip mall.

How did he end up here, of all places? Dalton fell to his knees next to him and grabbed Roman’s arms, inspecting them worriedly. There was nothing but the healing scars from the month before. Roman sighed sadly.

“I’m so sorry.” Dalton suddenly pulled him into a tight hug. Roman’s eyes widened, but he returned it. “I know you didn’t want to meet them, but I thought…. I thought it might make you happy if you just tried. I just want you to be happy.”

“It’s okay.” Roman sighed softly. “I… I don’t mind meeting them. But I still love you… you know?”

“You do?” Dalton sat back and grinned, wiping tears from his cheeks. “Really?”

“Of course! You’re stuck with me.” Roman repeated, then looked over Dalton’s shoulder to where his three soulmates were standing near the car. He lowered his voice. “Do they hate me?”

“No one hates you.” Dalton scoffed, sitting against the wall like he had that first day in the cafeteria. “They’re just worried. Virgil let me write to you, y’know.” Roman looked at his arms, nodding.

“Thanks. I’ve always loved your poems.”

“Do you want to talk to them at all?” Dalton asked softly. Roman scowled.

“I’m not gonna break up with you unless you want me to.” he insisted. “So yeah, I can talk to them. And you don’t have to worry. Alright?”

“Sounds good.” Dalton looked over at the others and nodded. The three of them walked over and sat down, completing a circle on the sidewalk.

“Hi,” Roman said softly, staring at his hands.

“It’s so good to meet you!” Patton said, beaming. Roman smiled.

“You gave us quite a scare,” Logan adjusted his glasses. “Dalton was very upset.”

“Like you weren’t.” Virgil scoffed, elbowing him. “Anyway, Roman. I’m just glad you’re okay. I always wondered what happened to you.”

“Oh, that,” Roman sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to vanish… I just took a break from writing and never… finished the break.”

“That’s alright,” Logan said matter of factly. “Statistically, only sixty percent of soulmates ever meet or actually enter any kind of relationship. Half of those people remain only platonic soulmates.” Roman smiled.

“Well good, cuz I’m taken,” he said, elbowing Dalton. Dalton elbowed him back, harder. “Hey!”

“You started it.” Dalton shrugged. Roman chuckled.

“Anyway, I’m sorry for vanishing. Just got in a funk.”

“Well,” Logan stood and brushed off his pants. “Would you like a ride home? You walked quite far.”

“Sure.” they all stood now, and Dalton took Roman’s hand as they walked to Logan’s car. “Thanks, really.”

“No thanks needed,” Logan waved a hand. “Just don’t hurt Dalton or I will run you over with this instead of giving you a ride.” Roman’s eyes widened.

“Okay, geez.”

“Wow, you care about me?” Dalton laughed as they got in.

“Of course I do.” Logan scoffed. “Just because I am, as you so eloquently put it, ‘an ass’ does not mean I don’t care about you.”

“Good to know,” Dalton muttered, leaning his head on Roman’s shoulder. “Hey, why don’t we go hang out at your house Roman? I bet your aunt has some good bugs to serve as snacks.”

“Oh my god.” Roman glared at him. “You know those are disgusting.”

“I don’t want to know what you’re talking about.” Virgil declared, shaking his head. Dalton laughed, smirking up at Roman. Roman smiled, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Maybe things would turn out okay after all.

The End

133 notes · View notes

natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk · 5 years

Text

Kiznaiver - Thoughts

I just finished Kiznaivers and despite people on both sides saying that they love it or hate it, I can say that it fits the niche that I was looking for, so I really liked it. I like shows where romance is prevalent but not the most relevant plot point of the show. The cast wasn’t as bad as I thought they were going to be, and I ended up enjoying this more than I should’ve. I’m about to get hyper-critical on a show that was given a 9/10 on MAL because that 9 was purely based on enjoyment.

Pros

Voice Cast

Good cast of characters (at times)

Good concept

Good script (at times)

Amazing art

Stunning music

Cons

Some of the characters aren’t that great

Lots of things are left hanging or just never got addressed ever

Story and writing can leave some things to be desired

Was not done to its fullest potential

Spoilers and full thing below!

Story

I separated stories and characters this time because I felt like I wanted to address both on their own.

The script was written by Mari Okada who’s known for writing the script for other sob stories like Anthem of the Heart and Anohana. I really like her writing despite criticism saying that her style is melodramatic. The script was a bit stuck at times during its idle moments, but when it was trying to hit, sometimes, it truly resonated with me. But I’ll admit, the tone of the show had a few mixed messages at times that took away the impact of her writing. It was unfortunate but between the mascot things and the Trigger art style, I understand how people think that the show can’t be taken seriously.

The story itself... needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. Or maybe a small pile. Heck, just take the whole bag of salt. It establishes more questions than they could ever answer within their run. While you can mount most of this to humans and their stupid ideas, I have a hard time believing that this happened in modern-day Japan with kids under the government’s eye with mascots roaming about. Yeah... it gets off to a bit of a rough start.

Characters

In this kind of show, characters are vital to the show’s success. This show takes the classic “seven deadly sins” and spin them off using a mix of classic anime tropes. We have the “lifeless kid”, “tsundere”, “thug”, “eccentric freak”, “ikemen”, “cold bitch”, and “insane masochist”. We also have the “mysterious girl” to top it all off, but I found her annoying throughout the duration of the entire story. It didn’t even matter once her backstory was revealed, I didn’t like her.

But want to know the weird thing? I liked the tsundere and thug. Chidori and Tenga were my favourite characters. This cast was written pretty well. Maki the “cold” one gets the development she deserved. We barely touched upon the other characters besides Noriko, Katsuhira, Maki, and the environment. Maki’s development had so much potential, and luckily, they used a lot of it. However, as I mentioned before, too many ends were left undone. We see characters have issues that are never addressed. One character arguably has an eating disorder, and I was waiting for them to come out, say, it, and show us that it’s okay to come out. And for a male character at that. Why couldn’t we have that? And Maki’s development, she’s bisexual. It’s canon. Nice. I think they could’ve gone further into it. Where and how did Chidori and Kacchon meet if he wasn’t “always like this”? I felt that the romantic connection between Niko and Tenga was kind of forced within episodes eight and nine, but that scene in episode eight and nine was so well done by all standards. Given the certain circumstances, maybe it didn’t hit that hard, but for me, it gave a pretty good impact. The love confessions were so well acted that even if the feelings flew over my head, I still felt bad for them.

The way I see it, Noriko and Katsuhira go way back and their past is the reason why they wreak havoc on these other people’s lives (I weirdly didn’t like either of the leads). Noriko does it because she’s in pain, and Katsuhira is like this because he never got over his childhood crush and doesn’t understand anything. Chidori deserves better than she got, I don’t know why she gets so much hate. Her design is cute, she has the perfect voice, and she’s transparent making her very easy to read. Tenga is super transparent too. He’s the kindhearted thug, and I like that trope. His genuine liking towards Chidori comes across easily. I also like the whole “trying to set people up but falling in love along the way” when it’s done right (look at Toradora). Yuta is good, but we got nothing on him. Maki is great. She got the development she deserved, and even though it took a whole chunk of the show, it was one of the best parts of the series. Hisomu is just a messy insert character who is a masochist because it fit the niche of the series. He also spews wisdom at times because he’s a plot device. I didn’t strongly hate any of the cast.

Art

Yuzuru Tachikawa has worked on Death Parade and Mob Psycho 100. And with Trigger’s style, the anime turned out great. The OP and ED were stunning in their own right. Even when the anime got emotional, it was still good! The art did its job great and showed the eccentric side of their characters in a way that made me believe them even more.

Sound

This is one of the strongest parts of the anime. The OP by BOOM BOOM SATELLITES was so catchy, fitting, and I know they won’t ever make a song like that again because of the tragic death of one of the two members but this song was such a high note. The ending was great and with the visuals, I liked it! The score was done by Yuki Hayashi which I didn’t find out until after I watched the show, and if you don’t know what he has worked on, he has done Haikyuu, My Hero Academia, and more. When they use the soundtrack, it’s really good. I just wish they let it showcase a little more.

The voice acting! Where do I even start?

Another role for Kaji, and honestly, I have heard too many main characters by him now. My outlook was like Katsuhira. It was so bland. His performance as an actor was great leaving little to ask for, but I almost wish this role was given to a smaller voice actor to get their big break.

Tomoaki Maeno has blown me away quite a few times with his performance in Death Parade and Hak in Akatsuki no Yona. He was also really good as Doujou in Library Wars and the White Blood Cell in Hataraku Saibou. However, he has had quite a few misses for me. One of the biggest misses was the main character role as *cough* Dino (*STOMPS FOOT*) in Blend S.

Nobunaga Shimazaki is quite a capable voice actor too, but he is mostly known for a certain niche with his higher voice. Ironically, this character in Kiznaiver doesn’t hesitate to swim. One of his most notable roles is Haruka Nanase from Free. I personally know him for playing Shinichi in Parasite and Kaidou from Saiki. I would say something more, but as his character wasn’t developed much, what can I say? A voice actor only gets as good as the writing does.

Ironically, both Yuka Terasaki and Hibiku Yamamura are known for voicing the child versions of a lot of main characters but don’t get as many main characters themselves.

And I tried to see whether there was any other Terasaki role that I would want to watch, and honestly, there wasn’t anything (since I hold general consensus and genre above voice actors). I wanted there to be, but there wasn’t any. Her performance for Chidori was so powerful, innocent, pure, naive, and raw that I was genuinely surprised. Terasaki got married a little while back. Congrats! Maeno and Terasaki both gave me surprises performance-wise.

But you know who else surprised me? Kuno. Misaki Kuno. I only know her for voicing children or babies or the token mascot pig. This was genuinely surprising. I had already heard Sugita and her having a heart-to-heart conversation, and I heard her interview saying that she had a hard time with this role, but it came out beautifully.

Rina Satou is a very, very, very strong voice actress. She’s almost as old as Sugita and Nakamura. She’s married with a kid, and this role was done just a year before that news came about. In fact, this anime came out in 2016, but within that same year, she revealed she had a kid and was married. You probably heard her voice somewhere, but she doesn’t have a whole lot of mainstream leading roles. She does have a seiyuu award for Best Leading Actress though.

And Koutarou Nishiyama... right... him... his BL career (assuming he has one) is paying off because you can certainly see it shine? I don’t know. The writing didn’t let this character go far. Maybe another role will make me respect him as an actor.

This show had a strong voice cast, and it’s one of the strongest parts of the show.

#kiznaiver #anime thoughts

56 notes · View notes