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#it's different telling somebody as it happens versus remembering what happened in the past
gear-project · 10 months
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HYPOTHETICAL STRIVE WINQUOTES
Remember when I said I was gonna write EVERY POSSIBLE WINQUOTE that characters were missing in GG Strive in classic Guilty Gear win quote fashion...
Well, here's my first attempt:
(I wrote all of these In-Character to the best of my knowledge… you can take them with a grain of salt… but I hope you appreciate the attempt all the same!)
Sol Badguy VERSUS SELF: You're lucky the Bounty on me was fake, I'd have cashed it in myself years ago! VERSUS KY: Just because you can use Dragon Install doesn't mean you're stronger than me… VERSUS AXL: At this point I should be the one with the handicap! VERSUS GIOVANNA: I knew somebody like you in the CIA… she dug too deep though. VERSUS MAY: You've gotten stronger since last we fought… wanna go again? VERSUS CHIPP: I don't actually SMOKE anymore… I quit a long time ago. VERSUS FAUST: PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF! VERSUS RAMLETHAL: I see you've gotten more vicious… but you're kinder underneath. Not bad. VERSUS POTEMKIN: Wait a minute, you're a Pilot? How can you fly when you're THAT big? VERSUS LEO: You've toughened up since last time, huh? Keep working at it. VERSUS ZATO: You and Death just don't get along. Stay out of trouble. VERSUS MILLIA: So you work for the Government, now? Don't dig too deep. VERSUS BAIKEN: You've mellowed out some since last we fought… but your sword is as sharp as ever! VERSUS ANJI: As usual you're a pain in my neck. Stay out of my business! VERSUS BEDMAN?: This hunk of junk is still walking around!? Wait, you're KEEPING IT? VERSUS TESTAMENT: Last time we fought you were on a holy crusade… you've changed a lot. VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: I'll go back to 'playing dead' soon enough, if it gives YOU less paperwork! VERSUS BRIDGET: You got a patent for that thing? Trust me, the rules are pretty strict nowadays. VERSUS JACK-O': C'mon don't be like that… I'll buy you dinner and roses when we get back. VERSUS I-NO: Even if you're not who you were in the past, you're still FREE. VERSUS SIN: Copying my moves, eh? Well it's better than nothing, I guess. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: I never thought a Katana could outpace Gear Cells… guess I've got more to learn. VERSUS CHAOS: Maybe you think the world needs you… But you'd be dead wrong. VERSUS ASUKA#: Why do I have to deal with your leftover crap, anyway? VERSUS ASUKA: After all that's happened between us… I just feel better having punched you in the face.
Ky Kiske VERSUS SELF: You probably don't realise it but my family depends on this sword of mine. VERSUS SOL: Not holding back… I finally understand what you meant. VERSUS AXL: You've got new tricks, I see… I can't tell where you'll appear next! VERSUS GIOVANNA: This is the first time someone has stopped my sword with their foot! You're strong. VERSUS MAY: Once someone figures out who they need to protect… they can only get stronger! VERSUS CHIPP: You used to be so hot tempered, then again, I wasn't much different. VERSUS FAUST: I see you've paid a great price to get stronger… Don't waste it, but take care. VERSUS RAMLETHAL: Your style is still much like Sol's but you've refined yourself even more. Impressive! VERSUS POTEMKIN: At this point I can afford to entrust my back to you, that's how strong you've become. VERSUS LEO: I never said I was a genius, or that I was handsome… HEY STOP WRITING STUFF DOWN! VERSUS ZATO: So you've dedicated the remainder of your life to being a Knight. Protect her with your heart, not just your power alone. VERSUS MILLIA: So you've found a place to 'exist'. I'm glad for you. VERSUS BAIKEN: You've matured a lot since last time… I'm glad you have something precious to protect now. VERSUS ANJI: You're still a bit of a mystery to me… How exactly did you get those Zessen OutRage? VERSUS BEDMAN?: The boy who once rode in this monstrosity sacrificed his life to protect his sister… I'll never forget his sacrifice. VERSUS TESTAMENT: I suppose at this point you're like a Brother-in-Law? Or a Sister-in-Law?!? VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: It is my HOPE that Illyria and America can continue to keep the peace of this world. I hope the feelings are mutual. VERSUS BRIDGET: Someday I hope you'll work up the courage to introduce me to your family. VERSUS JACK-O': Even if your past is tied to things you don't connect with, you can still make up the difference by being yourself. VERSUS I-NO: Even if you were given the role of a God… Humanity and Gears still have the freedom to live on their own terms. VERSUS SIN: I noticed you've been trying to copy my techniques too… if you want to practice I'll help you-- (….he got away again…) VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: Bushido still has a place in this world for those of us who fight to protect those we care for. VERSUS CHAOS: It's a shame. You were blessed with the world's greatest wisdom but you squandered it. Maybe it's time you sought to atone for your past. VERSUS ASUKA#: I've fought Robot copies of myself, so you'd think I'd be used to these situations… Unfortunately I'm not. VERSUS ASUKA: This is the first time I've exchanged words with someone who knew Sol for far longer than I have. I'm somewhat impressed.
Axl Low VERSUS SELF: I won't be giving Megumi up to you, just to have you know! VERSUS SOL: Chief, I'm just glad you have my back through thick'n'thin… VERSUS KY: Oi-Oi.. This King has a lotta Time on 'is 'ands if he wants to drink Tea with me! VERSUS GIOVANNA: You really need to work on your manners… it's rude to pick a fight you know… VERSUS MAY: I expected Sea World from you, but all that jumpin' makes you an easy target… VERSUS CHIPP: You say you're Japanese but live in AFRICA??? But you're actually a bloody American? You're confusing, mate. VERSUS FAUST: Is it just me or have you gotten even taller? And you can make portals like me now!??? VERSUS RAMLETHAL: So the girl who declared War on the World is now a HERO?? Politics, I tell ya… VERSUS POTEMKIN: I didn't mean nothin' by callin' you a Gorilla… but the similarities are very striking… VERSUS LEO: A SPEEDING TICKET!? FOR TELEPORTING? What kinda bollux speed trap is this??? VERSUS ZATO: So can Eddie do party tricks? Can you make him look like me? VERSUS MILLIA: I almost regret asking Megumi to trim her long hair… almost. VERSUS BAIKEN: Havin' family's important… it gives you a foundation to live. VERSUS ANJI: Been a long while, Mate. I didn't expect you'd figure everything out after the last time we met, but here we are. VERSUS BEDMAN?: I spoke with Romeo, you know. He was dead set on destroying the world if it meant protecting you, Delilah. I just hope you can find peace after all that's happened. VERSUS TESTAMENT: Just how many new hobbies have you GOT, Mate!??? VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: My Chain Sickles are lightweight for a REASON… I'd throw my back out if I swung around something THAT heavy, Mate! VERSUS BRIDGET: Sorry, I don't make it a habit to show the solutions to MY TRICKS! VERSUS JACK-O': Jacky! Do me a favor and keep Chief outta my hair… He's a bit much for me to handle! VERSUS I-NO: It's not like it never occurred to me to ask you out on a Date… I just didn't want to Cheat on my Girlfriend is all! VERSUS SIN: I suppose wielding a flagpole DOES improve your attack range… slightly. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: Becoming a Human isn't really that hard… You just gotta trust people a bit more is all. VERSUS CHAOS: You gross me out, Mate… I can't believe I met the "human version" of you in 2192… VERSUS ASUKA#: You mean I could make a COPY with MY powers? Of myself!? That's wild, mate! VERSUS ASUKA: I know you made the Gears, but did you ever expect the world would turn out like this? Amazin' how Humans bounce back, ain't it?!
Giovanna VERSUS SELF: If you can't even tell which of us is real, why'd you even try? VERSUS SOL: Don't even try it. I'll kick you so fast your "Bandit Revolver" will seem like a Squirt Gun. VERSUS KY: You're the type who causes misunderstandings with women, aren't you? VERSUS AXL: You're pretty nosy, butting in to peoples' business… but I'm not too different. VERSUS MAY: Love's important… but so is strength and speed. VERSUS CHIPP: I outran a Cheetah that was faster than you! VERSUS FAUST: Sorry, my insurance doesn't cover kicks to the face… that is your face, right? VERSUS RAMLETHAL: I'm not interested in your past, but you better believe you'll make it up to the future. I'll see to it. VERSUS POTEMKIN: I've heard you're an artist… can you dance, too? VERSUS LEO: Rei, hold him down so I can handcuff him…. He's coming HOME with me! VERSUS ZATO: I'm not really sure if Rei is the same as your Eddie here, but at least he's house-trained! (Thank god…) VERSUS MILLIA: I'm not really the type to hold back towards Secret Agent types, sorry… It's my line of work. VERSUS BAIKEN: The War is in the past, but it's hard for people to forget isn't it? I know. VERSUS ANJI: You're a pretty good dancer, but you get distracted when expecting people to be impressed by it. VERSUS BEDMAN?: In this line of work you never know what you have to face… Sorry, if I damaged it too much. VERSUS TESTAMENT: Your Scythe is pretty scary, but I don't see the point of drinking Tea… I guess it's a culture thing. VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: Boss… I know what you're gonna say… But, I got my own trail to follow! VERSUS BRIDGET: Being 'yourself' in this world is pretty tough, but hang in there, okay? VERSUS JACK-O': Rei isn't exactly a "ghost" or a "servant" in a traditional sense… No lectures, please… VERSUS I-NO: You cause trouble and expect people to be lenient… We're human, but even WE have LIMITS. VERSUS SIN: You're pretty energetic, kid… But if this were a race, I would have LAPPED you. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: My job involves a lot of things, but it's not like I don't have time to help people like yourself. VERSUS CHAOS: Sorry but… CAN YOU PLEASE GO DOWNWIND? YOU SMELL LIKE A CORPSE… VERSUS ASUKA#: I could actually tell you weren't the real thing, believe it or not you have a different scent. VERSUS ASUKA: You've probably been through a lot, but sorry to tell you, I'm just doing my job here.
May VERSUS SELF: You'll never beat me when it comes to LOVING JOHNNY! VERSUS SOL: You lived a rough life, so I heard. Maybe what you need is a trip to the BEACH! VERSUS KY: You're MARRIED NOW!? Time sure flies… VERSUS AXL: It takes more than Luck to find someone who loves you… You have to work hard. VERSUS GIOVANNA: (Johnny likes cool busty ladies, better make sure he never meets her…) VERSUS CHIPP: If I keep training like this, maybe I'll get to wear cute Ninja clothes too??? VERSUS FAUST: I'm sorry about your past (and misjudging you as just a 'baldy')… I hope things turn out better for you, someday! VERSUS RAMLETHAL: I finally found out the truth, thanks to you, but I'm still glad I heard it, even if it was harsh. VERSUS POTEMKIN: They say you have to be HUGE to be strong, but I'm pretty small and STILL strong. Did I eat something weird? VERSUS LEO: Even though you're a rough guy, you think about others… you're not so bad! VERSUS ZATO: Explaining what 'Love' is is pretty tough, actually… I'm not sure what to tell you… VERSUS MILLIA: You're what they call a "real professional", aren't you? I hope I get to be like that someday… VERSUS BAIKEN: I still haven't found my 'original family' yet, either… but I hope we can both find peace… VERSUS ANJI: You sure know a lot about the past… What other stuff do you know? VERSUS BEDMAN?: (This girl's a little creepy, but I doubt Johnny would be interested…) VERSUS TESTAMENT: I'm not sure if I can give permission for you to join the Jellyfish Crew (Johnny, HELP!!!) VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: Whoah… YOU HAVE AN ALIEN IN THERE!??? CAN I SEE IT?? CAN I, PLEASE!??? VERSUS BRIDGET: Your "real family" will always be there for you in a pinch, like me and Johnny! VERSUS JACK-O': These little guys are really cute… can I take one home with me? VERSUS I-NO: Just because you're feeling bored doesn't mean you get to pick on others! VERSUS SIN: Using a flagpole isn't too much different from an anchor… I don't think? VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: I can't say I've ever tried Onigiri before… (even if I'm Japanese…) VERSUS CHAOS: ---AND THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE JELLYFISH PIRATES!! (Oops, did I go overboard again…?) VERSUS ASUKA#: This is… totally weird. I half expect to run in to a ROBOT COPY of myself… shivers VERSUS ASUKA: I don't hold grudges for past mistakes… But I hope you'll continue to do good for people…
Chipp Zanuff VERSUS SELF: SHADOW CLONE JUTSU DISPERSE! Huh!? You're NOT part of my Jutsu!???? VERSUS SOL: Maybe you quit Smoking, but you really should work on your Endurance, old man… VERSUS KY: All leaders have a heavy burden… I know that now… Stay cool, though… VERSUS AXL: My armblade isn't quite the same shape as your chain scythe, but if I can move faster than you, it can slay demons! VERSUS GIOVANNA: I sense a spirit possessing you… and… he is a good boy. VERSUS MAY: It takes more than trust to form a bond with your familiar… You gotta keep up with their pace as well… VERSUS FAUST: I didn't realize this before but your techniques are a form of ancient martial arts aren't, aren't they? VERSUS RAMLETHAL: You're still learning how to interact with people, but don't try too hard, it makes them uncomfortable. VERSUS POTEMKIN: As usual, you're a slow-poke… but at least you're good at holding your own pace. VERSUS LEO: You wield those swords almost like Armblades… you've gotten stronger since last time… VERSUS ZATO: I've mastered shadow manipulation now, as well… Can you sense me when I 'disappear completely'? VERSUS MILLIA: You've gotten faster since we last raced… Keeps me on my toes! VERSUS BAIKEN: Okay, I'll admit I was raised in America, but my Master was Japanese… he was like a father to me! VERSUS ANJI: You need to learn your limits against some people… Especially against Demihumans and ME… VERSUS BEDMAN?: I met your brother, once… he didn't say much, but I sensed he had a strong conviction… He has my respect. VERSUS TESTAMENT: It's one thing to be curious, but don't just mess with Humans just for the heck of it! VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: Give Erica a message from me: I'm BUSY. SEE YOU! VERSUS BRIDGET: You can use that winch to maintain air in the sky… I might borrow it for a little while… VERSUS JACK-O': I sense two souls in one body… what the heck is this!? VERSUS I-NO: The heart of the Mother of Origin… To think you were someone like that… it's tragic. VERSUS SIN: Using all your energy in one go isn't a good idea… only save it for THE PERFECT MOMENT! VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: My Master taught me everything about Ninjutsu… just who are you to him!? VERSUS CHAOS: Purity and Sinlessness are two different things… I'm not here to judge you, I'm here to STOP you. VERSUS ASUKA#: It takes more than that to form a stable Bunshin, you need more practice! VERSUS ASUKA: Thanks for keeping Erica safe… But don't expect me to vouch for you…
Faust VERSUS SELF: PAST… GONE… NOT… NEEDED… VERSUS SOL: CHANGED… BUT STILL… HOT. VERSUS KY: SAVED… ME… THANK YOU. VERSUS AXL: PORTALS… HARD TO… USE. VERSUS GIOVANNA: DOG… IS… SOFT. VERSUS MAY: ENERGETIC… DOLPHIN… GIRL. VERSUS CHIPP: YOU… TALK… TOO… FAST. VERSUS RAMLETHAL: I WILL… SAVE… EVERYONE… VERSUS POTEMKIN: TOO… MUCH… PROTEIN… VERSUS LEO: NEW… DICTIONARY… ENTRY… VERSUS ZATO: HATRED… HASN'T… FADED… VERSUS MILLIA: TRIED TO… SAVE… SORRY… VERSUS BAIKEN: YOUR… HEART… HAS… HEALED. VERSUS ANJI: NO… SHIRT… NO… SERVICE. VERSUS BEDMAN?: SWEET… DREAMS… VERSUS TESTAMENT: RESOLVED… FAMILY… ISSUES… GOOD. VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: NOT… A… CRYPTID… VERSUS BRIDGET: CHALLENGE… YOUR… TRUE… SELF. VERSUS JACK-O': ONE… PATIENT… AT A… TIME. VERSUS I-NO: DESIRES… ARE… FLEETING… VERSUS SIN: OVER… EATING… BAD… DIET… VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: TOO… MUCH… BLOOD IS… UNHEALTHY… VERSUS CHAOS: TAKING ON… ALL GUILT IS… WRONG… VERSUS ASUKA#: CANNOT… FAKE… INSURANCE CARD… VERSUS ASUKA: MAGIC'S ORIGIN… IS… COMPLICATED…
Ramlethal VERSUS SELF: Understanding the uniqueness of oneself is a lot more complex than I realized… VERSUS SOL: I don't expect you to forgive me, but I will fight for the future… VERSUS KY: You gave me and my sister a home… I will repay this debt… VERSUS AXL: Even you have your own unique struggles… I learned something new today… VERSUS GIOVANNA: You wield a powerful energy in your kicks… I must continue to learn… VERSUS MAY: I explained things because you asked it of me, but I hope you're… feelings… weren't hurt. VERSUS CHIPP: I still don't quite understand what a Hero is… but I am still learning… VERSUS FAUST: Even if your past is a unique burden… it is still your OWN past and not anyone else's… VERSUS POTEMKIN: You've gotten sturdier since we last fought… but I won't lose here… VERSUS LEO: I hope I can wear my Pride on a Belt like you one day… VERSUS ZATO: You lost many things, but still gained insight that few others have… I must learn more… VERSUS MILLIA: Not having a place to be 'human' made you decide to become 'superhuman'… how noble… VERSUS BAIKEN: I'm not sure the swords I wield are strictly Katanas… but I still desire their strength as such… VERSUS ANJI: You dodged my attacks like they were nothing to you… you have a lot of skill… VERSUS BEDMAN?: Your brother taught me the value in being unique… I will never forget that lesson. VERSUS TESTAMENT: I've never encountered a Gear like you before… and you are very mild mannered as well… VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: I'm aware that some rare humans are blessed with unnatural strength… but you've surpassed that limit, you know. VERSUS BRIDGET: It seems like every day I encounter new and unique people… VERSUS JACK-O': To be like a 'Mother' or 'Sister'… I'm still learning what Family is supposed to be like… VERSUS I-NO: Maybe I'm in no position to say, but: you lost track of what it means to be Human and isolated yourself. VERSUS SIN: It's important to respect peoples' uniqueness, Sin… you can't… "copy people's moves"… (?) VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: Friendship involves the strength to support those who cannot support themselves… I am strong enough to support you if you need me. VERSUS CHAOS: Someone irresponsible like you created Mother… it is no wonder she rejected humans… VERSUS ASUKA#: I've been told I am a replica of Justice, but we look nothing alike… how does it feel to look identical yet be different? VERSUS ASUKA: It is not my place to say if your role in history was Divine or not… But if you hadn't I wouldn't have existed, so I offer my thanks.
Potemkin VERSUS SELF: Conviction, Pride, Strength… If you only focused on even two of these concepts it still wouldn't be enough to surpass me. VERSUS SOL: There was a time when I struggled to keep up with you, but it seems that Time has caught up with you at last. VERSUS KY: It is thanks to you in part that I continue to fight the good fight, so I offer my thanks. VERSUS AXL: My simulations can't seem to predict where your portals will appear next. You're an enigma to me. VERSUS GIOVANNA: Despite your hard-tack demeanor, you have the sincerity of a true soldier, it serves you well. VERSUS MAY: It takes a great deal of focus to master Water Magic, you've grown since last we met. VERSUS CHIPP: It's impressive that you've finally begun to take responsibility for your actions… but your personality is still rather abrasive. VERSUS FAUST: I know little about what sort of past you had, but refining yourself to this extent is dangerous… VERSUS RAMLETHAL: You've become someone very significant since last we met… Your strength is comparable to mine now… VERSUS LEO: For a King you are very honest… I can respect that. VERSUS ZATO: Your perception of others has changed a lot… Impressive, even if limited by eyesight. VERSUS MILLIA: I would ask that you maintain your distance from Leon Mining, he has his own agenda as a former Zepp Exile. VERSUS BAIKEN: Forgiving the past is not something easily done, however what you've done is calm the storm in your heart with the feelings of others… Commendable. VERSUS ANJI: You always struck me as unconcerned with others, but in reality you seek the Truth that History has hidden. VERSUS BEDMAN?: The President taught me to grow from my past failings, but I somewhat feel guilty facing them like this… If you need repairs, let me know… I will assist you. VERSUS TESTAMENT: There was a point when both of us fought one another mercilessly, but now you've mellowed out some… The World has become more peaceful, hasn't it? VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: I must admit… your strength pushed me back quite a distance… But I won't back down! VERSUS BRIDGET: If you struggle to be acknowledged, simply be yourself… others will see you eventually. VERSUS JACK-O': So the power of your Servants comes from the Backyard… I've learned something new. VERSUS I-NO: There was a time when I lamented being called a "monster", but compared to you… "being human" is a lot more complicated than people think it is. VERSUS SIN: I wield my strength for those who need to be protected by it… Your strength still requires a solid direction. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: Fear is the rejection of the unknown, which makes it all more important to gain knowledge of that unknown. You should seek to learn more about the modern world you've found yourself in. VERSUS CHAOS: I suspect you have ulterior motives for doing everything you did, but none of that can truly justify it. VERSUS ASUKA#: At one point I fought Robotic replicas of myself… embarassing as it is to admit, but I still overcame them. VERSUS ASUKA: So you've resolved to clear away all doubts and dangers, sparing no expense… I cannot say I have that kind of fortitude.
Leo Whitefang VERSUS SELF: I've a new ENTRY IN MY DICTIONARY for YOU: A POSER! VERSUS SOL: I took your advice to heart and improved my defenses… but I must say as usual you are hard to talk to during a fight. VERSUS KY: I want EVERY NEWSPAPER IN ILLYRIA to have this Fight on the FRONT PAGE! VERSUS AXL: You might have the ability to Teleport, but that doesn't mean I'll condone you appearing… in my office. VERSUS GIOVANNA: I must admit this is the first time someone has appealed to my ego so passionately… I'm somewhat taken aback! VERSUS MAY: You've a misunderstanding about me… I am NOT HERE to simply "boss people around"… I'm HERE BECAUSE… (She walked away… How RUDE!) VERSUS CHIPP: While it is true your Speed is worthy of Note… where you appear AFTER you've speed up is rather PREDICTABLE. VERSUS FAUST: Are you sure you yourself don't need an Ambulance? You look ready to topple over at any moment! VERSUS RAMLETHAL: I see you've found yourself a good team of subordinates… I hope they serve you well… VERSUS POTEMKIN: I don't actually 'hate' Gears, you know… It's just in my job description to not normally trust them… VERSUS ZATO: Whether you can see me or Not:… I HAVE BOTH MY EYES ON YOU AT ALL TIMES. VERSUS MILLIA: I didn't expect to find such a capable subordinate such as yourself… I look forward to working with you in the future… VERSUS BAIKEN: In truth, Humans nearly created their own demise, as painful and humiliating as that is to point out. VERSUS ANJI: So you've got your own Investigation underway? I'd ask you to show your hand, and if you're lucky, I might just show MINE! VERSUS BEDMAN?: I understand you have complicated circumstances… but there is a LIMIT to how IMPERTINENT one LITTLE GIRL CAN BE! VERSUS TESTAMENT: So it seems you knew Commander Kliff in times past… Maybe we can catch up on old times? VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: I've never actually taken stock of all the "unmentionables" that fell in to Area 42… So, how is Area 51 in your country? VERSUS BRIDGET: Dedicating yourself to the Ideals of your Parents, while commendable, should still have its limitations… I hope someday you'll face that fact. VERSUS JACK-O': You're a lot stronger than Frederick gives you credit… Keep him out of trouble for us, please… VERSUS I-NO: Normally I would have Arrested you under normal regulations… But this is FAR from a Normal situation! VERSUS SIN: You're not quite exactly what I'd call a Phalanx Guard, but with some training I hope you'll fit the part! VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: I don't think I have an entry on "Bushido" in my Dictionary yet… Let's see: "Doesn't know when to stop". How's that? VERSUS CHAOS: It seems to me I haven't proven how much of a BEAST I can really be… I'll have to make an EXAMPLE out of YOU! VERSUS ASUKA#: In case you didn't know, we have a statute of limitations on cloning… I can STILL ARREST YOU. VERSUS ASUKA: I can't say I'm very fond of Math… or Magic for that matter… BUT I WON AND THAT'S WHAT MATTERS!
Zato=ONE VERSUS SELF: Even in Eddie's case, he strove to differentiate himself from me and become unique. What about you? VERSUS SOL: Death holds little meaning to someone who has seen Hell multiple times… VERSUS KY: Although my sins have piled up… thanks to you and King Daryl I can at least reduce the stack somewhat. VERSUS AXL: A past long gone and a future that should not be… and yet you continue to support this world after it rejected you… VERSUS GIOVANNA: Eddie is closer to a 'shark' than a Dog, at least by my estimation… he can take any form he likes, after all… VERSUS MAY: Shadows can still exist in the Ocean, so I hope you won't underestimate my abilities… VERSUS CHIPP: It was not my intent to kill your Master Tsuyoshi… I will atone for the rest of my life for it, however… VERSUS FAUST: I sacrificed my eyesight for power… but I see there was even more to sacrifice if I ever wanted more… VERSUS RAMLETHAL: Your strength and sense of identity has improved… I hardly recognize you from before. VERSUS POTEMKIN: I must thank you for your President's Hospitality from last time… He saved the world, after all… VERSUS LEO: Even if my life is in your hands… I would have still given it freely… I deserve to die for what I've done. VERSUS MILLIA: Accepting that you can protect your own life has been hard for me… But I hope you'll still accept my intentions. VERSUS BAIKEN: It is a bizarre sensation to be the object of vengeance and yet still not share the desire of revenge myself… VERSUS ANJI: For once you have your own sincere objectives, it goes against your very nature… VERSUS BEDMAN?: Bedman was once one of my greatest enemies… But that conflict was resolved, so I will leave it in the past. VERSUS TESTAMENT: So even a Ghost of the Crusades can still talk of Family and a Future… what a world we now live in. VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: So they really DO exist… I had almost given up searching… VERSUS BRIDGET: Your precision and cunning are not to be underestimated, but somehow I doubt a fight is what you wanted. VERSUS JACK-O': Your presence is familiar to me… as if I or Eddie met you in some other lifetime… VERSUS I-NO: I gave up human traits for power because I looked down upon myself… perhaps the same is true in your case. VERSUS SIN: You have an insight that belies your age… But trusting in the darkness is still not without risk. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: Lord Slayer taught me Dandyism at a young age, however I must admit you have me at a disadvantage for having practiced the philosophy for much longer… VERSUS CHAOS: It seems you are the foremost authority on Magic despite your reputation. I would talk at length with you about it, not that it matters. VERSUS ASUKA#: Eddie is an approximate copy of my Soul, in case you wondered… not that it actually matters… VERSUS ASUKA: If I had known the true potential of the Tome of Origin, perhaps I would not have been misled by the Conclave for believing in the 666 Arcanum's power… In the end, it no longer matters…
Millia Rage VERSUS SELF: I never asked for this power, but I will take responsibility for it. Can you say the same, yourself? VERSUS SOL: At this point you might as well retire… Don't worry, I'll cover the paperwork… VERSUS KY: So now it's my job to keep you on your toes, is that it? You're pretty easy-going for a King… VERSUS AXL: We've both been through quite a lot, but I would appreciate it if you took this a bit more seriously… VERSUS GIOVANNA: They say meeting new people broadens horizons, but at the very least I expect some manners… VERSUS MAY: So you've begun to work with the Mobile Brigade? We expect big things from you… VERSUS CHIPP: Your insight and instincts still amaze me, but you need to work on your patience with others… VERSUS FAUST: Don't think I've forgotten what you've tried to do to save me… I won't forget my debt. VERSUS RAMLETHAL: Your strength and abilities are amazing, but what amazes me more is your current work ethic… looks like I have a new rival now! VERSUS POTEMKIN: We still owe you and Gabriel much for harboring us in our time of need… let's both keep working towards a better future. VERSUS LEO: Even if it's just superficial, I can't imagine you holding back against anyone… then again, I'm like that too. VERSUS ZATO: Protecting someone skilled means covering their blindspots you know… Can you even find mine, I wonder? VERSUS BAIKEN: I have much to make up for in my past, even if it means easing your pain somewhat… I'll do what I can. VERSUS ANJI: You tend to remind me of a certain Dandy Vampire who sticks his nose in other peoples' business… I'd stay out of things if I were you. VERSUS BEDMAN?: After all this time, I finally get to see the monster that Venom destroyed… Don't worry, I'm not here to gloat, just understanding. VERSUS TESTAMENT: So what has living in an ancient forest taught you after all this time? I hope you learned something at least… VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: America's Home Security still has a few gaps, but in your hands I'm still somewhat optimistic. VERSUS BRIDGET: The original purpose of the P.W.A.B. was to support Bounty Hunters in their task… I'm looking forward to working with you. VERSUS JACK-O': For someone who hasn't seen much of the world, you're pretty skilled… Have you considered becoming a Bounty Hunter, yourself? VERSUS I-NO: I haven't forgotten how you manipulated Eddie in the past… don't expect any mercy from Angra, either! VERSUS SIN: So you're a Phalanx Guard, now? You really should act the part more… Professionalism is important, you know. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: I'm still not all that interested in Dandyism… but I somewhat understand the Romantic appeal Vampires have towards it. VERSUS CHAOS: To think someone could still wield Guns like a Gunslinger in this modern age… Venom would be thrilled if I told him about your skills! VERSUS ASUKA#: At this point you'd think I'd be able to clone myself with my own hair… but I really don't want to think about it. VERSUS ASUKA: So you're the holder of the Tome of Origin… Do you think it's possible to undo the Curse on my Hair?
Baiken VERSUS SELF: I gave up on my journey to Hell recently, thanks to a certain 'mirror'… Can you look at yourself in the mirror and do that too? VERSUS SOL: You'd think I'd be mad after all this time of putting up with you… But right now I'm just disappointed. VERSUS KY: You were always getting in my way whenever it came to vengeance… I suppose I should thank you for that. VERSUS AXL: All the power in the world and you still can't figure out how to fight properly? Keep training… VERSUS GIOVANNA: Looks like I wasn't the only one dealing with poverty and a past I want to forget… VERSUS MAY: Just because I owe you for your help last time, Short-stack, doesn't mean you get a FREE WIN… VERSUS CHIPP: I've lost track:… you're an American Ninja living in Africa… who thinks he's JAPANESE??? VERSUS FAUST: You burned yourself out looking for the perfect balance, eh? Guess I know what to avoid from now on. VERSUS RAMLETHAL: To think just a month ago you were trying to destroy the world… you've changed a lot, kid. VERSUS POTEMKIN: I'm guessing all that heavy armor is meant to help you "hold back your strength"? Can't say I don't sympathize, but I can't hold back, either. VERSUS LEO: I'm used to getting chased around by the Police, but this is the first time someone's asked me to give a consultation? VERSUS ZATO: So even a dead corpse like you can find peace in this world… Guess I should smile more often! VERSUS MILLIA: Your hair's gotten sharper… can't even trim it with my sword… Then again, I'm not a barber… VERSUS ANJI: I suggest you not hold back against me if you want to live… Holding back's not something I'm good at with this sword. VERSUS BEDMAN?: C'mon Delilah… Training Time's over… lets get some Dinner… VERSUS TESTAMENT: I can't say I'm fond of European Tea… I prefer Sake (Rice Wine) to be honest… VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: I've killed my share of Demons… but you're bigger than most Oni… what'd you eat to grow that huge? VERSUS BRIDGET: Look, kiddo… you're too young to be worrying about such huge problems… relax a little. VERSUS JACK-O': I used to hold a grudge against Justice for taking my family… but now she's gone and there's just you left, hunh… I don't have it in me anymore… VERSUS I-NO: Pain is proof of being human as a survivor… If you can't handle it, you shouldn't be fighting in the first place… VERSUS SIN: You have a WEIRD outlook on life, Sin… But I suppose that's what everyone likes about you. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: My sword's called "Regret" because it'd be regrettable to cut anyone at this point… It's a broken Katana. VERSUS CHAOS: I won't kill you… but that doesn't mean I'll ever Forgive you… and you WILL pay for what you did. VERSUS ASUKA#: So Demons and Shadows walk hand in hand… You seem to have a lot of time on your hands… VERSUS ASUKA: So you had a hard choice to make in the end… If it weren't for Anji and his hard-headedness, I would've cut you down without learning the truth.
Anji Mito VERSUS SELF: I move with the flow of Nature itself… Your dance can barely make the wind blow. VERSUS SOL: You really should get used to hanging around other people… Being that unsociable is unhealthy. VERSUS KY: I used to think of you as uptight and strict, but I guess everyone changes when their priorities do. VERSUS AXL: I used to outpace you in foot-races, but now I can barely keep up… Where'd you even get that power? VERSUS GIOVANNA: You're not the ONLY ONE with God-like Feet, you know… VERSUS MAY: You've gotten even MORE cheerful since last we spoke… I'm glad things are going well for you! VERSUS CHIPP: Boss… now that I've won this match, can I get raise? VERSUS FAUST: Unfortunately, my dance can only calm the spirit, it cannot heal the body. Take care. VERSUS RAMLETHAL: If you're wondering how I dodged your attacks, it's because you kept attacking in the same spot. VERSUS POTEMKIN: So long as I stay outside your main range, I have plenty of chances to fight back… VERSUS LEO: For a King, despite your strength you're pretty sensitive… You should toughen up your Spirit and Heart… VERSUS ZATO: Perhaps I should add "Shadow Dancer" to my list of skills from now on! VERSUS MILLIA: The problem with your attacks is that the opponent just has to guess correctly and counter to win… VERSUS BAIKEN: I promised you I'd find out the Truth… and I mean to keep that promise. VERSUS BEDMAN?: Delilah, you have no idea how much you remind me of Big Sis… it's uncanny… VERSUS TESTAMENT: You've become more Human-like since we last spoke… I'm glad you've lightened up. VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: I'm gonna find out what they've hidden in Area 51 one day… and I'll let the WORLD KNOW… VERSUS BRIDGET: Dancing and Tricks aren't the only things that bring a smile to someone's face… so does Kindness and Heart. VERSUS JACK-O': You've had to face the world from many angles and still come out as yourself. My condolences. VERSUS I-NO: When you're a victim, that doesn't give you an excuse to do what you want… it means you have to face the truth and keep on moving forward with respect to others. You're not alone. VERSUS SIN: I can't say I agree with the notion of copying others' moves… but if you make it your own style, it might give you a chance to break out and get recognized. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: I know I sound like a little kid, but I really DO love Samurai and Bushido… you're just really COOL! VERSUS CHAOS: If you think you can escape, go ahead and try… but no matter what Alias you try to steal, I'll always know it's you… and you won't EVER get away from me. VERSUS ASUKA#: Last time we spoke, I had a feeling I didn't have a good sense of who you were… Was it a Copy I was talking to the whole time? VERSUS ASUKA: I'm actually really glad I finally got to talk with you… It's been an enlightening experience.
Bedman? VERSUS SELF: (Delilah): I can't tell if this is Mine or my Brother's power at work… But you gotta disappear now. VERSUS SOL: (Delilah): My brother actually lectured you!? He always told me he HATED long conversations! VERSUS KY: (Delilah): My brother gave me a chance to live in this world, so I'm gonna make the best of it… Maybe I'll become someone important like you… VERSUS AXL: (Delilah): Thanks for talking with my brother despite his situation… It means a lot. VERSUS GIOVANNA: (Delilah): Look, you got your business I've got mine… I just wanna go home. VERSUS MAY: (Delilah): I'm NOT INTERESTED in being your friend… just leave me alone… VERSUS CHIPP: (Delilah): My brother suggested you were fast enough to keep up with his Teleports, guess not though… VERSUS FAUST: (Delilah): So your Guilty Conscience led you to me… We both got our circumstances, I guess… VERSUS RAMLETHAL: (Delilah): I can see how my Brother entrusted his Bed's fate to you… you were strong enough. VERSUS POTEMKIN: (Delilah): My Brother beat you last time? Well, now I really feel sorry for you. VERSUS LEO: (Delilah): Oh great… now it's destroyed a King… am I gonna get arrested for this??? VERSUS ZATO: (Delilah): I can't picture a deadpan guy like you having a grudge against my Brother… VERSUS MILLIA: (Delilah): I'm not interested in joining your underground clubhouse… I just want to go home! VERSUS BAIKEN: (Delilah): Big Sis, you gotta keep your promise… Dinner is on YOU! VERSUS ANJI: (Delilah): You might not be like my Brother, but, thanks for helping me out… VERSUS TESTAMENT: (Delilah): You love sticking your nose in other peoples' business… how annoying… VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: (Delilah): This isn't a UMA… it's just a Bed… No, you can't "collect" it. VERSUS BRIDGET: (Delilah): If the Bed won that means I don't have to pay for your "trick". VERSUS JACK-O': (Delilah): So my Brother "erased his ID" in the Backyard? What else do you know about him? VERSUS I-NO: (Delilah): Maybe you feel like the world owes you something, but the world took MY brother, too! VERSUS SIN: (Delilah): You get along with everybody… I'm just not strong enough to do that… VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: (Delilah): This was an accident, I swear… We'll be leaving now… Wait, you want to learn the Bedframe's fighting style? Huh!? VERSUS CHAOS: (Delilah): No matter how many lives you think you'll save… you'll never make up for the lives you TOOK. And I will NEVER… EVER… ACKNOWLEDGE you. VERSUS ASUKA#: (Delilah): You'd think I'd be used to all the weird stuff in this world… Nope… VERSUS ASUKA: (Delilah): So Chaos messed up your life, too, huh? He needs to be stopped…
Testament VERSUS SELF: Have we evolved to the point of being able to replicate ourselves? Gear Cell potential seems limitless! VERSUS SOL: We used to think you had no room for others in your life… But you've changed a lot. VERSUS KY: We still think about Father (Kliff) now and then… He was like a father to you too, wasn't he? VERSUS AXL: We'll confess we still don't like your fighting style and methods, but at least you resemble a true Reaper more… VERSUS GIOVANNA: No time for Tea? Americans are always in such a rush… VERSUS MAY: We've never actually thanked you for how much you've helped us, so we really appreciate it. VERSUS CHIPP: You think we're being "too normal"? But humans are pretty strange to begin with. VERSUS FAUST: All those years past when we entrusted that Scalpel to you, we never expected you to master it so well… VERSUS RAMLETHAL: We've fought our share of fellow Gears, but this is our first time encountering a Valentine… it feels different somehow… VERSUS POTEMKIN: We've certainly had a long history between ourselves… It is our hope we can become friends at long last… VERSUS LEO: We never expected an encounter with royalty to be so… frivolous… VERSUS ZATO: We've wanted to sit down and have a conversation with both of you after all this time… the Crusades left a mark on all of us. VERSUS MILLIA: We're sorry but we don't have an immediate answer for your Curse… But we will try and help search for one. VERSUS BAIKEN: We used to think revenge was the only answer too… After all this time so much has changed… VERSUS ANJI: When we still hated humans, we never considered the possibility that they would try to meet us half way… You were one of the first to try that, so thanks. VERSUS BEDMAN?: A machine with a mind of its own? Well, it's not the first time I've encountered odd beings like yourself. VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: We have NO INTENTION on being locked away in some VAULT, thank you very much! VERSUS BRIDGET: Whether others accept the difference or not isn't as important as accepting your individuality for yourself. VERSUS JACK-O': You feel similar yet different to our old Master (Justice) somehow… You are much kinder than she was, which is for the best. VERSUS I-NO: As an individual we once longed for our past as a human, but we never regretted continuing to live. Consider your own value. VERSUS SIN: As we were SAYING: There is value in training for self-improvement, but it would be best if you focused and studied more. VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: We didn't mean to treat you like a spectacle, but we couldn't help but be curious about a Human who became a Vampire! VERSUS CHAOS: Having the World's Wrath directed at you might seem like the correct course, but we have other opinions on the matter… VERSUS ASUKA#: It was the Bureau (P.W.A.B.) that turned us in to a Gear, but we don't exactly know which Scientist it was for certain… sound familiar? VERSUS ASUKA: We still have to thank you for saving us from a life of mediocrity… Giving Gears more power than they are created for is uncommon, if not extremely rare.
Goldlewis Dickinson VERSUS SELF: Sorry but, dressing like me isn't gonna give you clearance… I'm going to have to escort you off the premises… VERSUS SOL: We were chasing a ghost like you for years, it seems like… It's just too bad I didn't get to finally arrest you for Breaking and Entering! VERSUS KY: It's an honor, your highness… But I still have my own Duty to serve, if you don't mind. VERSUS AXL: Are you SURE you're not a Cryptid? Those powers of yours say otherwise… VERSUS GIOVANNA: Back to your post, soldier… Secretary's Orders. VERSUS MAY: You'd think I'd be conscientious about wielding a heavy weapon, but seeing a young kid like you… It's encouraging somehow… VERSUS CHIPP: Sorry, it's Erica's orders… you're to report to base, like it or not! VERSUS FAUST: Personal Report: UMA encountered… Capture successful… Unsure of UMA's condition… VERSUS RAMLETHAL: Never thought the world's most wanted little girl would end up becoming a Soldier for the Good Guys… It's an honor. VERSUS POTEMKIN: As you can see, I don't budge, despite my age. I hope you've learned something new today. VERSUS LEO: For a King you're pretty relaxed… I can appreciate that. VERSUS ZATO: For a while there I really did think of you as a UMA, until I read that P.W.A.B. report on you… you really ARE a ghost. VERSUS MILLIA: It's definitely a tough job in this line of work, but earning your keep will pay off eventually. VERSUS BAIKEN: If I was a bit younger I might've liked meeting someone classy like you, it's too bad we didn't meet sooner… VERSUS ANJI: No matter what theories you cook up, I'm not talkin'… It's in the job description. VERSUS BEDMAN?: Sorry little lady, I sometimes can't hold back my own strength… Is your… uh… pet… okay? VERSUS TESTAMENT: Death hasn't quite kissed me just yet… But she's held me in her arms and danced a few times… VERSUS BRIDGET: I try my best not to make assumptions, but it also helps to have friends who'll believe in you. VERSUS JACK-O': I've chased and bagged my share of poltergeists, ma'am, but even so, you're pretty spooky! VERSUS I-NO: Even if it looks like the world turns it back on you, you can still face the music on your own terms. VERSUS SIN: You've got guts and potential, kid… Still, you might want something better than a flag pole to fight with… VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: I've read my share of history books, but I never met someone like YOU raised as a Japanese before… Y'learn somethin' new every day… VERSUS CHAOS: I've caught my share of bounty marks, but you take the cake. You're not gonna EVER leave your cage AGAIN. VERSUS ASUKA#: I've heard stories that there were multiple "Men" behind the Crusades, but are you sure you're not a UMA? VERSUS ASUKA: Given the circumstances and who you are, I can't just let you roam scott free… I have to keep an eye on you, you understand…
Bridget VERSUS SELF: Trying to steal my tricks is gonna cost you EXTRA, you know! VERSUS SOL: Sorry for thinking you still had a bounty on your head… Fake bounties are way too confusing! VERSUS KY: I promise! I'll put on a show at your Castle that'll impress the whole crowd! VERSUS AXL: I have a lot of tricks, but "disappearing" isn't one of them… I should study Magic more… VERSUS GIOVANNA: Threat assessment? I'm not a threat! These are just Yo-yos… "Street Legal Permit"? What's that? VERSUS MAY: Maybe someday I'll become an OFFICIAL MEMBER of the Jellyfish~! Is that hoping for too much? Do I STILL need Johnny's approval? VERSUS CHIPP: Despite what others may think, these AREN'T NINJA WEAPONS… I don't know where those rumors started… VERSUS FAUST: Sorry, but… I'm not ready for a Physical Examination just yet… VERSUS RAMLETHAL: Roger says he wants to look at your swords… Don't worry, we won't do anything to them… VERSUS POTEMKIN: I actually haven't completed a 'World Tour' enough to go back to Zepp for an encore… Maybe one day… VERSUS LEO: Sorry but… I don't reveal my tricks to anyone… not even ROYALTY! Hehe~! VERSUS ZATO: You had a bounty on your head, but records said you were dead… what's going on here??? VERSUS MILLIA: I'm still a bounty hunter despite moonlighting as an entertainer… but sorry, I won't be so easily scouted. VERSUS BAIKEN: If I've made you smile even ONCE today… I've done my job! VERSUS ANJI: Are you sure you've never wanted to work in Entertainment? You have the physical muscles for it. VERSUS BEDMAN?: Roger says: "No hard feelings." I hope that's okay by you. VERSUS TESTAMENT: You used to be so grumpy… I'm so glad you've brightened up! VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: We talked a lot… but I hope you get to talk with your brother someday… I hope I get to talk with my brother too! VERSUS JACK-O': Wow… how do you move like that? Are you an acrobat? How did you train? VERSUS I-NO: There were times when I hated the whole world too, but… hate isn't good for your heart. VERSUS SIN: I don't actually mean to use these as weapons you know… and no, you can't copy MY moves either! VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: You've never seen a Yo-Yo before? REALLY!? Wow… Where've you lived all this time? VERSUS CHAOS: Not all plots have to be dramatic and tragic, you know… A good entertainer knows when to brighten the crowd… VERSUS ASUKA#: I'm not quite sure I get it, but you're a… copy? Well, I'm a copy of my brother too, I guess, since we're Twins and all… VERSUS ASUKA: Sorry, but you can't dismantle my Yo-Yos… I've put a patent on them (good thing I took Sol's advice)…
Jack-O'Valentine VERSUS SELF: Synchronizing with my other self might seem beneficial, but as expected, Aria hasn't reacted to it. VERSUS SOL: You're "retired" so start acting like it, you hear me! VERSUS KY: Thanks for the advice… Thinking I wasn't human was getting in the way of actually BEING human… VERSUS AXL: So you've finally found your niche and someone you cared for… I'm so glad for you! VERSUS GIOVANNA: It took a while for me to accept who I am… You've got a strong heart to accept yourself so quickly… VERSUS MAY: I never thought you'd get this strong… even Justice would be impressed! (Oops, I shouldn't say that…) VERSUS CHIPP: It's just a theory, but you have the potential to exceed the sound barrier! VERSUS FAUST: Perhaps if I had dedicated my life to others more, I might've ended up like yourself… scary to think about. VERSUS RAMLETHAL: I suppose you can think of me as an "older sister", despite my memory records, that is… VERSUS POTEMKIN: I never knew you were an artist as well as a pilot… I really should get myself a new hobby… VERSUS LEO: I have nearly 200 years of knowledge on history, but I've never actually compared it to what's in books… VERSUS ZATO: We would've been enemies in another time and place… but I'm so glad the Great War is long over… VERSUS MILLIA: I've never heard about the Crusades from your perspective… What was it like, living in Darkness for so long? VERSUS BAIKEN: I'll never make up for that destructive past of mine… But I'll do my best anyhow… VERSUS ANJI: You're the first person I've ever met who wasn't afraid of Justice… Just what is your perspective on history? VERSUS BEDMAN?: Oops! My servants overdid it, didn't they? Sorry, they got over-protective. VERSUS TESTAMENT: I can't say I have many past memories of you (as a Gear), but I'm sorry you had to bear that burden… VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: Sorry but, these little guys aren't aliens… I summoned them from the Backyard… "Where's that?" you ask??? VERSUS BRIDGET: I've never actually thought about working as an Entertainer… Frederick doesn't want to draw any crowds… VERSUS I-NO: You fought so hard for a past you lost… But for me, I can't afford to focus just on myself… VERSUS SIN: Erm… for the record, I'm not exactly your "grandmother"… But well, we are family, anyway… VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: Maybe if I had had more courage like you, history might have changed… VERSUS CHAOS: I'll be the first to admit I made mistakes in my own past… But being irresponsible isn't the way to do things! VERSUS ASUKA#: I'll admit, chasing down the original Asuka is kinda fun… It's like Hide and Seek! VERSUS ASUKA: Frederick still has a hard time accepting everything you did… Please give him more time…
I-No VERSUS SELF: I don't have the TIME for bootlegs, you understand… VERSUS SOL: You gave up all that power just to keep living with someone… If only I had met someone like you sooner… VERSUS KY: Sorry, but can you give your "Holy Crusade" a rest, please… You're getting annoying… (I should've never changed his timeline…) VERSUS AXL: You could never maintain a true duet with me, dear… VERSUS GIOVANNA: Can't say I've ever listened to much Brazillian Heavy Metal before… Can you keep up with my thrashing, though? VERSUS MAY: All that noise you're making isn't music… it's just noise! VERSUS CHIPP: Your tempo isn't even consistent… you're not even improvising properly! VERSUS FAUST: I should've left your corpse back in the old timeline… VERSUS RAMLETHAL: No matter how many times I tried to kill you, you kept coming back… This is getting too boring… VERSUS POTEMKIN: In one timeline, I almost became a soldier like you… glad I changed my tune! VERSUS LEO: You couldn't even hum a marching theme right… How sad… VERSUS ZATO: Doom Metal just isn't my thing… VERSUS MILLIA: So there's even people like you who accept the life of a monster… while I'm still trying to become "human". VERSUS BAIKEN: Can't say I've tried to play a Shamisen… maybe next time… VERSUS ANJI: Wind Instroments just don't do it for me anymore… VERSUS BEDMAN?: Sorry if I "broke" your "toy", kid… Ahahahah~! VERSUS TESTAMENT: Death Metal is up there on my list, but I'll play my OWN music, thanks! VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: Sorry, but I'm just not fond of COUNTRY music! Hahah! VERSUS BRIDGET: Nowadays you have to "risk your life" in Show-Business~! VERSUS JACK-O': You think you're special just because the world gave you a chance? Try looking at things from MY perspective… I never GOT a past! VERSUS SIN: You wouldn't exist if I didn't change the timeline for dear old dad… You should be thanking me~ VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: For a bodyguard you sure don't do your job properly… Then again, you could barely scratch me… VERSUS CHAOS: Just because you're a sacrifice doesn't mean I owe you anything… Don't forget your deal in all this… VERSUS ASUKA#: So changing the timeline can even grant him THIS kind of power… How interesting… VERSUS ASUKA: I've finally caught up to you… You're going to be serving ME from now on, bookworm…
Sin Kiske VERSUS SELF: THE MAN IN THE MIRROR IS BACK AGAIN… God, just leave me alone! VERSUS SOL: Old man, THIS TIME, you owe me a STEAK! Extra Salt and Sugar, please! VERSUS KY: Dad, you really should try this recipe… Trust me, it'll taste GREAT! VERSUS AXL: Man you're getting good at disappearing, Uncle Axl… How'd you get so tricky? VERSUS GIOVANNA: So like… that Dog on your shoulder, does he eat meat too? VERSUS MAY: If I ever wanted to go swimming my old man would just throw me off an airship in the nearby ocean… It was fun the first few times… VERSUS CHIPP: So, I gotta ask… what does being a Ninja have to do with saying Haikus? Do Haikus make you stronger? VERSUS FAUST: Whoah… you've gotten really thin since I last saw you… you eating right, doc? VERSUS RAMLETHAL: You're so much better at math than me… how'd you get so smart, anyway? VERSUS POTEMKIN: It was a shock the first time I found out you were human… What exactly did you EAT to grow that huge? VERSUS LEO: So you're a king like my Dad… They aren't overworking you at the castle, are they? Do they make you run across the whole continent like my old man does? VERSUS ZATO: Well, even if someone tricks me… as long as they can get a better life out of the deal, it's worth it. VERSUS MILLIA: I can't picture my mom wearing your hairstyles… Wait, my mom's hair can do that TOO!?? VERSUS BAIKEN: Getting used to Gears probably took you some time, right? Well, getting used to humans took a while for me, too. VERSUS ANJI: To be honest I prefer running, climbing, and jumping over dancing… VERSUS BEDMAN?: We've been through a lot, but if I can help maybe we can track down where the rest of your "brother" went… VERSUS TESTAMENT: I used to think the old man was the scariest "Gear" I'd ever met… but I guess I have to meet more people and get stronger yet… VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: So did you have kids when you lost your eye? What? The eyepatch is FAKE!? You tricked me! You shouldn't lie to your kids… YOU DON'T HAVE KIDS!?? VERSUS BRIDGET: I've gotten used to being around unusual people, really… But you're pretty normal… You're the first person I've met to smile like that… VERSUS JACK-O': Don't get me wrong… I'm not just copying the old man's moves… I'm gonna put a whole new SPIN on 'em… Prepare to be amazed! VERSUS I-NO: Just because my Lightning's black doesn't mean I'm black-hearted… Do you even get what I'm saying… You don't have to live that way… VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: Onigiri? Do you put hot sauce on it? What about meatballs? Or, I know… dip it in SALT and SUGAR… VERSUS CHAOS: My old man said some old guy broke the state of the world to make it this way… I get the feeling it was you… VERSUS ASUKA#: If I run fast enough, I can see a copy of myself… No, that's not quite right… Let me try again… VERSUS ASUKA: I get that the old man has some history with you, but you seem like a nice guy to me… Sorry but… that Math stuff is over my head…
Nagoriyuki VERSUS SELF: To keep my Bloodlust Sealed, you had to be made manifest… I guess I must cut down ALL my desires… VERSUS SOL: I never expected to encounter a man as brazenly strong as you… I suppose I should be thankful for the fortune as a Vampire… VERSUS KY: So even a gentle soul like yours must carry a burden of power… But if I have helped temper you, I'm glad to assist. VERSUS AXL: I've lived long enough to be considered having lived in the past and the future… but I suppose it's not the same for your case… an entirely new reality… how intriguing… VERSUS GIOVANNA: Despite our duel, you held back… I understand where you are coming from, but I'm not sure I can reciprocate… VERSUS MAY: You fight with strong emotions, but at the same time want to maintain peace… I wish you could have met my Master… VERSUS CHIPP: Master Tsuyoshi from what I remember was a private man… but he still sought to teach others for their benefit… I would have you teach me what you've learned as well… VERSUS FAUST: To think that even a Doctor in the Medical Arts could also be so skilled in the Fighting Arts… you astound me… VERSUS RAMLETHAL: Perhaps if I had met someone as strong as you in my own past, I would not have made so many mistakes… It's regrettable… VERSUS POTEMKIN: You bear such burdens proudly, almost without a care… but I can see you still seek strength… If I can, I offer my services… VERSUS LEO: For someone who fought so valiantly, you seem to have suffered a great deal… I would hear your story… VERSUS ZATO: My understanding of Dandyism is a bit vaguer than you might anticipate… I am actually out of practice… VERSUS MILLIA: So you chose to serve others in order to find your place… I can sympathize, my past was similar… VERSUS BAIKEN: Your sword is strong, and your heart… even stronger… I would ask that we train together again some time… VERSUS ANJI: Your frivolity hides a cunning I haven't seen in some time… are you familiar with my Master's history? VERSUS BEDMAN?: While I do not know what past you and your brother suffered, I would ask to hear your story… not just for your sake, but for my own as well… VERSUS TESTAMENT: And they called ME a grim reaper when I fought… I just didn't quite look the part, it seems… VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: I was once tasked to carry a coffin with me wherever I went… I didn't expect someone would take it literally… VERSUS BRIDGET: Your cheerfulness surprises me… despite our battle you continue to seek to impress your techniques… I'm learning something new. VERSUS JACK-O': Despite the fact I sense TWO SOULS inside of you, one appears to be the more dominant one (and there is even a THIRD?)… How exactly did this come about? VERSUS I-NO: You would have me fight for nothing except your desire for power and infamy… I am no one's weapon save my Master's. VERSUS SIN: You wield a pole comparable to the length of my sword… Have you ever considered wielding a spear? You don't know what a spear is??? VERSUS CHAOS: Despite your obsession with humanity I would see to your death a thousand times… and a thousand times more if I must! VERSUS ASUKA#: The mystic arts and sciences confound me, if I'm being honest, I am just a humble warrior by comparison… VERSUS ASUKA: I never knew that your teacher created such a burden on you… If I had, I would have defeated him sooner…
Happy Chaos VERSUS SELF: Oh yeah, I saw this paradox coming a mile away… Just don't expect any favors… VERSUS SOL: This isn't exactly an audition, you know… I'd scrub you from my script if I only knew how… VERSUS KY: I've heard your sob story a billion times at this point… Had to rewrite the script a few times to get it just right though. VERSUS AXL: To keep a scale in balance, you have to make sure both sides have the same weight… the same story… Did that sting a little? VERSUS GIOVANNA: You're the type who doesn't even READ the script… get off my set! VERSUS MAY: I suppose you think bleeding hearts would eat your story up… BORING! VERSUS CHIPP: The fact you saw through to the real me is surprising… but I don't like people who READ SPOILERS FIRST. VERSUS FAUST: Is there even a POINT to giving someone like me a Medical Check-up? Is this a comedy sketch? VERSUS RAMLETHAL: You had your time in the spotlight, but now it's time for the understudy. VERSUS POTEMKIN: Someone like you should be a key grip… get it? Yeah, I'm not good at film jokes. VERSUS LEO: Throwing an amateur script like yours in to my story wouldn't be worth the print… VERSUS ZATO: Maybe in some other lifetime you would've made a great protagonist… guess I was a little slow… VERSUS MILLIA: Sometimes you meet people who were MADE for the big screen… You've got the icy EYES at least… VERSUS BAIKEN: There's always a critic… And there's always someone out there who doesn't watch movies… VERSUS ANJI: Chasing after MY story, are you? I'm afraid I can't let you see the final script… VERSUS BEDMAN?: At this point you two are just a sub-chapter prologue… Now if you'll excuse me I've got more Drama to publish… VERSUS TESTAMENT: We can't exactly have gawking bystanders on to the film set, can we? VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: You've probably got a conspiracy theory or two, I imagine… But I don't believe in any single conclusion… VERSUS BRIDGET: C'mon, SCRAM! AM-SCRAY! Get lost, kid, ya bother me! VERSUS JACK-O': I gotta say I'm impressed with my prized student's handiwork… Just too bad I couldn't tweak your script, myself. VERSUS I-NO: Being Creative isn't easy you know… you need to have a VISION. Ambition is only one part of the creative process. VERSUS SIN: You're one of those family-friendly stories, aren't you? Sorry, but my script is more ambitious than that… VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: I scouted you because your Drama practically writes itself! Even if I'm a dead man, I'd write for you any day… VERSUS ASUKA#: I've seen parodies and characatures before, but this is hardly a rewrite… (he really needs practice). VERSUS ASUKA: History isn't written by peace-lovers… it's written by survivors… Humanity will lose if it doesn't Evolve…
Asuka R# VERSUS SELF: Creating copies of myself, I now see that only the original can give me insight in to my own existence. VERSUS SOL: You noticed that I'm more talkative as a Copy… how perceptive of you… I just wish that animosity was aimed at me. VERSUS KY: With Sol as your rival, did it ever occur to you that such a relationship would galvanize you to the heights of power you now enjoy? VERSUS AXL: Even if I am not the genuine article, I can still relatively look and "act" the part… so you didn't exactly "catch the wrong actor". VERSUS GIOVANNA: The morality of some people confounds me… and I must confess that seeing someone "look defeated" has been refreshing for me. VERSUS MAY: I'm not sure I understand the concept of Love, though I do have concerns… For example, I have a concern for the results of this fight. Was it as edifying for you as it was me? VERSUS CHIPP: I must confess, subterfuge is lost on someone like me, who can use Magic to detect anyone even at long distance. VERSUS FAUST: Most likely I am the last person to end up as a Patient on your Docket. Do forgive my intruding on your schedule. VERSUS RAMLETHAL: My creator was fascinated with the method of your creation, which resulted in ME… though I doubt he created me to be as durable as yourself. VERSUS POTEMKIN: It fascinates me that not even Nature itself can predict the forms it takes… While you are an outlier of Humans, you are a great specimen of one. VERSUS LEO: My creator spent a large amount of time immersed in books, however I can't find myself to continue hiding behind them… Perhaps something is "wrong" with me. VERSUS ZATO: You make your vast knowledge out to be frivolous and meaningless, but in actuality most of what you are aware of STILL has great value. You can thank the Backyard for that. VERSUS MILLIA: I am still seeking my own purpose in this life granted to me, so I can understand your desire to belong. However, I'm not sure I can endure the opinions of others as easily as you do. VERSUS BAIKEN: Perhaps, upon seeing a copy of yourself, you found your own sense of enlightenment? Or was it just a coincidence? I wish I had that kind of fortune. VERSUS ANJI: You seek to be what others call a "friend", and yet you somehow end up getting in to trouble for your efforts… It's unfortunate the world rejects you that way. VERSUS BEDMAN?: If I had understood your brother's powers, perhaps I too would've made an Absolute World of my own… It's strictly speculation, however. VERSUS TESTAMENT: There are many generations of Gears that my Creator is responsible for making, however you weren't among them… I'd like to hear your story. VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: Being aware of your own mystical abilities is usually beneficial, but somehow in your case, the opposite is true. How does that even work??? VERSUS BRIDGET: If the world was as secretive as you about its myths, knowledge, and legends, I fear Science would never make any progress… VERSUS JACK-O': Even if you are a construct… merely existing is its own significance, I hope you'll find your confidence in that. VERSUS I-NO: I suppose I have you to thank for my own existence… if you had not changed the timeline, my creator would have never found the power and abilities to create me. VERSUS SIN: Does a change in perception of the world really work? I can't find any of your logic to make any sense, however I do appreciate the theories you've presented… VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: The real Asuka was never a man of physical efforts, however I am more than the sum of him, but even I must confess you've given me quite the workout… VERSUS CHAOS: The meaning behind "existence"… while I am starting to understand your point of view… your explanation of it is quite lacking… where's your Thesis? VERSUS ASUKA: If I had asked you to "forgive yourself", would you have taken this fight any more seriously? Somehow I doubt this.
Asuka R. Kreutz VERSUS SELF: Not a construct I created: but an actual paradoxical existence from another timeline? When did this event occur and HOW!?!? VERSUS SOL: While I do regret our history… I do not regret saving you, and I will never look back and own up to my responsibility. I hope that will someday satisfy you. VERSUS KY: I've always known Frederick to not be the most likeable of people, but I never knew he was able to inspire others… Thank you for this knowledge. VERSUS AXL: I still haven't taken you up on the idea of going for some Tea and Snacks… I've perfected my materialization method… care to try my recipe? VERSUS GIOVANNA: Your simple methods of using gravity and inertia to increase your damage output are fascinating… Though I have my own ideas and methods. VERSUS MAY: If I could make up for the tragedy of Japan, I would do my utmost to make amends… I hope to meet your expectations one day. VERSUS CHIPP: It never occurred to me that someone born and raised in another culture could have their own culture be completely rewritten… your life story fascinates me. VERSUS FAUST: While I have chosen to atone in my own ways, I cannot make shortcuts or sacrifices hastily… In order to properly atone, I must keep living. VERSUS RAMLETHAL: I must confess I went a little "overboard" when I was inspired by your creation… I'll try to keep out of trouble if I can manage it. VERSUS POTEMKIN: Honor-bound as a soldier, I imagine your history is what made you exactly what you are… and I still seek the truth behind that history as well. VERSUS LEO: I suppose you have every right to resent me for burdening you as I did during the War… But I will do what I can to repent and atone… you have my word. VERSUS ZATO: We both have our roles to play in atonement, don't we? We should both work our hardest, then. VERSUS MILLIA: My condolences to your mother. I am to blame for the loss of many families… I won't ever forget this… I won't ever let history repeat itself on my watch. VERSUS BAIKEN: That day when you came to me, sword drawn, in any other circumstance I would have let you kill me… But now I have a purpose to atone for… and I hope one day you'll find peace at last after learning the Truth. VERSUS ANJI: I owe you my thanks. You were resolute in seeking the truth, and without your insight a lot of history would still be hidden. I am in your debt. VERSUS BEDMAN?: So my teacher is once again to blame for this… I will do everything in my power to make up for this… I swear this to you. VERSUS TESTAMENT: It is a great regret of mine to see other Gears I did not create, but I still hope your lives are not in vain. VERSUS GOLDLEWIS: Fighting an unseen war is something I'm all too familiar with… I hope we both make progress in our objectives. VERSUS BRIDGET: It is almost refreshing to see someone practically unaffected by the past dark history such as yourself… I hope you'll be a beacon to people who need it. VERSUS JACK-O': We were BOTH stubborn in our beliefs, but making mistakes is still a HUMAN TRAIT… Just as making up for them is. VERSUS I-NO: I wish you could have waited for me… just a little longer. I hope your future does get fulfilled, however… VERSUS SIN: The last time we met, you were racing through the Backyard Gate to save Sol… I hope you've been doing well, Sin… Also, Math isn't that scary a concept, trust me… VERSUS NAGORIYUKI: I must say I've never kept much track of the history of Vampires or Nightless such as yourself… I will have to brush up on my history of them. VERSUS CHAOS: I'm afraid I can't let you roam about as you once did in the old days, Teacher… please, cease your actions at once… VERSUS ASUKA#: To be honest, you've surpassed all my expectations… I did not foresee power of this magnitude manifesting, though your lack of morality is worrisome…
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DIABOLIK LOVERS Do-S Kyuuketsu VERSUS Ⅲ Vol.5 Shuu VS Yuma [Track 2]
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Original title: 在りし日の証
Source: Diabolik Lovers VERSUS III Vol. 5 Shuu VS Yuma [CD not owned by me]
Audio: Here
Seiyuu: Toriumi Kousuke & Tatsuhisa Suzuki
Translator’s note: Sly Yuma is the best kind of Yuma. I honestly really love the tension between him and Shuu. They have such a cute past together and a lot of potential to still be good friends despite their vastly different personalities. I feel like they would get a lot out of the friendship though. Yuma could get Shuu to stop sitting on his butt all day while Shuu could teach Yuma a thing or two about thinking before acting, haha.
Track 1 ll Track 2 ll Track 3 ll Track 4 ll Track 5 ll Track 6
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Track 2: Marks of the Past
The two of you are walking through the forest.
Shuu: ...I’m pretty sure that once we make it past here...Mmh. Seems like I wasn’t wrong.
*Rustle*
Shuu: This tree is still here, huh? ...If I recall correctly there’s an escape route by the root...
*Rustle*
Shuu: Yeah...It should still be useable. ーー Oi, don’t stand there spacing out. Get over here already. Do you want to be left behind in a forest full of monsters?
You ask Shuu if they are going the right way.
Shuu: Haah...? Are you making fun of me? This is Vampire territory. In what world would I get lost?
The two of you continue walking.
*Drip drip drip*
Shuu: ...This place hasn’t changed at all.
You ask if he has been here before.
Shuu: I used to play here as a child, that’s all. ...!
Shuu suddenly comes to a halt.
Shuu: These doodles...
You look at them in confusion.
Shuu: It’s written in this world’s language. I guess you can’t read it, huh?
You ask what it says.
Shuu: I’m pretty sure that back then, he also...
You tilt your head to the side.
Shuu: It’s nothing. More importantly, let’s hurry aーー
He flinches, sensing a presence nearby.
Shuu: Oi, you! Come here!
*Rustle*
Shuu: Shh...! Somebody’s coming!
Approaching footsteps can be heard.
Shuu: ...!! Mukami...Yuma?
Yuma: ...!?
Shuu: What are you doing here...?
Yuma: That’s what I’d like to know! Don’t give me a fuckin’ heart attack!
Shuu: ...Let’s go.
Yuma: Wait!
Yuma grabs hold of his wrist.
Shuu: Don’t touch me!
Yuma: Don’t try and run.
Shuu: I’m not running.
Yuma: Heeh? Then while we’re here together anyway, why don’t we take a lil’ trip down memory lane, huh? ...There happens to be someone here to listen to our stories as well.
Yuma glances over at you.
Shuu: Ridiculous...If that’s what you want to do, suit yourself, but I’m leaving.
Shuu starts walking away.
Yuma: I mean, fine by me. ...But in return, leave this chick behind.
Shuu: ...!?
Yuma: Ya don’t mind, do ya?
Shuu: ...Be my guest.
Yuma: Hah! As to be expected of a lil’ rich kid, you’re quick to understand. Couldn’t be me. ...I mean, in the end, I’m nothin’ but a filthy farm boy. I refuse to let go of what I want, no matter what. ーー Especially when I’m ‘bout to lose it to some aristocrat. Well, I guess that sort of stuff doesn’t matter to Mr. Rich Boy who always has everythin’ go exactly his way.
Shuu: ...Please don’t assume that everything always plays out in my advantage.
Yuma: Hah! Ya tell me.
Shuu: You can only say that...because you don’t about us at all, no?
Yuma: ...Now don’t be mockin’ me. I know ya.
Yuma walks up to Shuu.
Yuma: We were pals in the past ーー Nah, pretty much best buds, no?
He grabs hold of Shuu’s collar.
Yuma: Have ya forgotten ‘bout that already? Doesn’t lookin’ at the words written on this wall bring back any memories?
Shuu: ...!! Don’t tell me...Your memory has...?
Yuma: So it really is true...
Shuu: ...!
Yuma: I’ve only regained fragments of my memories. So I tricked ya into revealin’ the truth.
Shuu: Che...
Yuma: You’ve only got yerself to blame for takin’ the bait. ...Well, I’m sure ya would have much preferred if I never remembered at all. ...I’ve been wantin’ to ask ya this whole time. ‘Bout the fire which broke out in my village that day, for example.
Shuu: ...
You perk up your head.
Yuma: Hehe...You’re curious as well, aren’t ya?
You nod.
Yuma: Come on, tell me. You’ve got somethin’ to tell me, don’t ya? On the day of the fire, what did ya see? What did ya think? We’ve both gathered here, so let’s use the opportunity to get things straight...Shuu.
Shuu: There’s not really...anything I have to tell you.
Yuma: Cut the crap!! ...That side of ya is exactly what pisses me off!! If ya think ya can get away with keepin’ quiet, you’re gravely mistaken! You witnessed the truth with yer very own eyes that day, no!? Then why are ya tryin’ to hide it!?
Shuu: ...Hah. Aren’t you getting the wrong idea here?
*Rustle*
Shuu: I’m not simply remaining silent. I just don’t feel like I need to tell you. Don’t try and act like you know me, when you barely remember anything. It’s annoying...
Yuma: Che...Spare me the bullshit.
You run up to them and try to stop their fight.
Shuu & Yuma: ...!?
Yuma: Oi, don’t butt in.
Yuma: Shut up, keep quiet!
Shuu: Haah...Whatever.
Yuma: Aah!? Hold it! ...You’re fine with this chick bein’ taken away from you!?
Shuu: Go ahead? You’re the one who asked me to leave her behind, remember? Well, one of those ‘rich kids’ you hate so much is being generous enough to lend her to you, so why don’t you happily accept the offering?
Shuu walks away.
Yuma: ...Ugh!
Yuma punches the wall.
*THUD*
Yuma: Fuck...!! I don’t like this one bit...!!
*THUD*
Yuma: Makin’ fun of me like that...! Ugh!
*THUD*
You try and stop Yuma.
Yuma: Don’t stop me! Buzz off...!!
You seem worried about the drawings on the wall being destroyed.
Yuma: The doodles...? Ya really think I give a damn ‘bout what happens to thoー ...Haah...My bad. I lost my temper for a sec there...I guess I’m havin’ trouble bein’ honest with myself as well. ...Altho you wouldn’t say so at present, we were actually reallly close back when we scribbled these.
You ask Yuma what is written on the wall.
Yuma: This was my name when I was still human...and this one’s his. His real name. ...His ‘Vampire name’, in other words, what he is truly called. Don’t ask me ‘bout the details. I can’t read these after all. ...But I’m certain that when we were kids, we both wrote our names on here. Guess ya could say this was like our secret hideout.
You seem surprised.
Yuma: Hard to believe, huh? I don’t remember everythin’, but it’s all too weird to be just some fantasy made up by me. These should be...definite memories of our time spent together.
You ask why the two of them don’t get along at present.
Yuma: We’ve both changed. ...The fire which broke out in my village. And the fact that I became a Vampire. Regardless of my memories being intact or not, the cirumstances are just far too different. I can’t imagine...the two of us will ever get along again. Besides, I don’t think I can ever forgive him for all those years he simply turned a blind eye to everythin’. Right now...He’s nothin’ but a coward runnin’ away from the reality he doesn’t want to accept.
*Rustle*
Yuma: Tsk...Anyway, I don’t know if it’s ‘cause I’ve been reminiscin’ ‘bout the part, but it’s as if my mind is shrouded in a fog, I feel like crap.
You voice your concerns.
Yuma: I’m not that weak, I don’t need ya worryin’ over me. I’m sure I’ll feel better if I just leave this place. ーー Let’s go. I don’t know if it’ll make much difference to ya, but I’m gonna take ya someplace nice.
You seem worried about Shuu.
Yuma: Don’t let it bother ya. He said he doesn’t need ya, remember? ...Come on, follow me.
Yuma grabs hold of your wrist and drags you along.
ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー
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bananaofswifts · 4 years
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In the new Taylor Swift documentary, “Miss Americana,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Thursday night, there’s a montage of derogatory commentary about the singer that has appeared on cable shows over the years. One of the less nasty remarks: “She’s too skinny. It bothers me.”
As it turns out, it eventually bothered Swift, too.
In one of the most revealing and surprising segments of the Netflix film, Swift talks for several minutes about having struggled in the past with an eating disorder.
After being pictured facing a phalanx of photographers after she emerges from her front door, Swift is heard in voiceover saying that “it’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day.” Although she says “it’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it,” Swift admits there have been times in the past when she’s seen “a picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or… someone said that I looked pregnant … and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit — just stop eating.”
Swift elaborated on what she’s gone through with that in her interview with Variety for this week’s cover story, saying that it was difficult for her to speak up about it for the documentary.
“I didn’t know if I was going to feel comfortable with talking about body image and talking about the stuff I’ve gone through in terms of how unhealthy that’s been for me — my relationship with food and all that over the years,” she tells Variety. “But the way that Lana (Wilson, the film’s director) tells the story, it really makes sense. I’m not as articulate as I should be about this topic because there are so many people who could talk about it in a better way. But all I know is my own experience. And my relationship with food was exactly the same psychology that I applied to everything else in my life: If I was given a pat on the head, I registered that as good. If I was given a punishment, I registered that as bad.”
In the quiet of a hotel suite, she goes into greater detail on how formative an effect that one early tabloid torpedo had on her. “I remember how, when I was 18, that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine,” she says. “And the headline was like ‘Pregnant at 18?’ And it was because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat. So I just registered that as a punishment. And then I’d walk into a photo shoot and be in the dressing room and somebody who worked at a magazine would say, ‘Oh, wow, this is so amazing that you can fit into the sample sizes. Usually we have to make alterations to the dresses, but we can take them right off the runway and put them on you!’ And I looked at that as a pat on the head. You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body.”
She hesitates. “I think I’ve never really wanted to talk about that before, and I’m pretty uncomfortable talking about it now,” she says quietly. “But in the context of every other thing that I was doing or not doing in my life, I think it makes sense” to have it in the film, she says.
Wilson, the director, is proud of Swift for taking up the subject with such candor. “That’s one of my favorite sequences of the film,” she says. “I was surprised, of course. But I love how she’s kind of thinking out loud about it. And every woman will see themselves in that sequence. I just have no doubt.”
The filmmaker points out that there were clearly plenty of people who didn’t think Swift was too thin back in the mid-2010s. “You can also just not notice people being really skinny, because we’re all so accustomed to seeing women on magazine covers who are unhealthy-skinny, and that’s become normalized.” Even with non-celebrities, Wilson says, everybody’s a body critic. “It’s incessant, and I can say this as a woman: It’s amazing to me how people are constantly like ‘You look skinny’ or ‘You’ve gained weight.’ People you barely know say this to you. And it feels awful, and you can’t win either way. So I think it’s really brave to see someone who is a role model for so many girls and women be really honest about that. I think it will have a huge impact.”
As much as Swift may be seen as a role model for speaking frankly on the subject, she’s got her own favorite artist, so to speak, when it comes to advocacy for women’s bodily self-image issues.
“I love people like (actress and activist) Jameela Jamil, because she says things in a really articulate way,” the singer tells us. “The way she speaks about body image, it’s almost like she speaks in a hook. If you read her quotes about women and body image and aging and the way that women are treated in our industry and portrayed in the media, I swear the way she speaks is like lyrics, and it gets stuck in my head and it calms me down. Because women are held to such a ridiculous standard of beauty. We’re seeing so much on social media that makes us feel like we are less than, or we’re not what we should be, that you kind of need a mantra to repeat in your head when you start to have harmful or unhealthy thoughts. So she’s one of the people who, when I read what she says, it sticks with me and it helps me.”
In the film, then-and-now photos illustrate just how thin Swift had gotten during the “1989” era, versus the still svelte but healthier look she sported by the time she toured behind the “Reputation” album in 2018. Swift says that her under-eating in that earlier time severely affected her stamina on tour.
“I thought that I was supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it,” she attests in the documentary. “Now I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel (enervated).” Swift says she doesn’t care so much now if someone comments on a weight gain, and she’s reconciled “the fact that I’m a size 6 instead of a size double-zero.” Swift says she was completely unaware that anything was wrong in her double-zero era, and had a defense at the ready should it come up. If anyone expressed concern, she’d say, “‘What are you talking about? Of course I eat. …. I exercise a lot.’ And I did exercise a lot. But I wasn’t eating.”
Few women viewing the film will fail to nod their heads as Swift describes the impossibility of any body shape or size living up to all the standards for beauty. “If you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants,” she says in the film. “But if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just f—ing impossible.” As she became aware of the problem, Swift says in the film, it would cause her to “go into a real shame/hate spiral.”
The word “shame” comes up elsewhere in conversation with Swift, who by virtue of becoming one of the most celebrated women in the world has also had to deal with more catty comments than almost any celebrity in the world — and hasn’t always succeeded in shaking it all off.
“I was watching a Netflix Brené Brown special on shame, because I read a lot of her books, because I have dealings with shame every once in awhile,” Swift tells Variety. “She was saying something like, ‘It’s ridiculous to say “I don’t care what anyone thinks about me,” because that’s not possible. But you can decide whose opinions matter more and whose opinions you put more weight on.’ And I think that is really part of growing up, if you’re going to do it right. That’s part of hoping to find some sort of maturity and balance in your life.”
She continues, “I don’t expect anyone with a pop career to learn how to do that within the first 10 years. And I know that there’s a lot of bad stuff that’s gone on recently, a lot of really hard stuff my family is going through, and a lot of opposition and feeling pressure or suppression of one kind or another. But I am actually really happy. Because I pick and choose now, for the most part, what I care deeply about. And I think that’s made a huge difference.”
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Survey #440
from a day or two ago.
Do you drink a lot of soda? I definitely do. :/ I'd lose weight so much easier if I could drop the habit. Are tomatoes the best food in the world? I don't like tomatoes unless they're very fresh and on a mayo and bacon sandwich. Have you seen The Blindside? I actually haven't. Do you have a favorite local pizza place? Not really. There's a place I like that isn't huge, but I don't have like, a serious passion for or loyalty to it. Would you date someone 10+ years older than you? Meh, I think ten years is my cut-off. Are you due for a haircut? For sure. >_< Are you dealing with any health-related problems right now? Yeah. Even with my APAP mask, because I apparently move it too much in my sleep, I'm struggling with my sleep apnea nightmares/terrors. Do your parents like the music you listen to? Most of it. Do your parents approve of your beliefs? Not all of them, no. How many different digital cameras have you owned in your life? How about cell phones? Cell phones, idk. I've had two "pro" cameras. Do you typically do your make up the same each time? Or do you like to change it up often? It's pretty much always the same. Who is the last person you were in a room with just the two of you? What were you doing? Mom. We worked together on my room. What do you usually order at Subway? Turkey, bacon, American cheese, pickles, banana peppers, and chipotle on I want to say Italian bread. How long is your mother’s hair? It's hard to say, because it's all poofy now versus wavy like before it had to be shaved off. Don't repeat it to her ever, but she has, uh... "old lady hair" now, ha ha. What is your favourite car brand? I don’t care. Whose chore is it to clean the bathrooms in your house? My mom does it. Pick your three favourite fruits. Strawberries, kiwi, and uhhh... apples. Or pineapple. Have you ever played Cards Against Humanity? Yeah. We used to play that a lot at Colleen's house on nights we had some drinks. Who were the last friends you went to hang out with? Oh jeez, idk. I haven't hung out with a friend in a long time. How many chairs are in the room you’re currently in? Zero. I'm in my bedroom. Are you bored right now? I'm bored almost every waking hour of my days. Have you ever seen a pelican in real life? I'm actually not sure. What’s important about April? My younger sister's birthday is in April. Is there anyone who hates you? Jason probably does. Would you consider adoption? Not for me personally. What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? Our late boxer mix. Do you own any kind of helmet? No. Do you ever put fruit on your cereal? Noooo. How do you usually celebrate your favorite holiday? My younger sister comes over here and we open our presents with Mom, who also cooks a nice breakfast. We then go to my older sister's house for the day to watch the kids open presents from their extended family. I say "extended" because the kids obviously aren't going to wait for us to get there to open the majority of their gifts from their parents, ha ha. What’s a few facts about the last person that talked to you? She's from New York, has five kids, has survived cancer (one almost advanced to a fatal level) twice, she loves owls, and recently graduated with her bachelor's in social work (it's never too late, people). What would happen if you had a baby with the last person you kissed? We're both cisgender females. Where is the biggest scar on your body? It's probably where I had a cyst removal, which is in a spot I can't see. Would you date someone who was addicted to drugs? Absolutely not. I am NOT getting involved in that. If you could go back and change something in the past 5 months, would you? I'd go to the gym sooner. Have you ever kissed anyone with a tattoo? Hmmm... I think Tyler actually may have had a The Legend of Zelda tattoo? I can't really remember. If not him, then no. Have you ever kissed someone you weren’t dating? No, but I've been kissed by someone I wasn't dating. Do you know anyone who drinks a lot? Yes. What were you afraid of the most when you were a kid? Being separated from/losing my mom. Do you like to make the first move? No. When was the last time you completely broke down? A few weeks ago when I was having a PTSD episode. Are you listening to any music? No; I'm watching Gab play Final Fantasy X. Is your hair long enough to put in a ponytail? No. Has someone ever told you they want to spend the rest of their life with you? Hm, it's funny, I don't see him anymore. Have you ever peed in the woods? No. Have you ever played Twister? Yeah, I liked playing it as a kid. Are you looking for a boyfriend//girlfriend? Not actively, no. I really don't need one right now. Out of all of your friends who have you gotten in the worst fight with? Of all friends I've EVER had, probably Colleen. Of the friends I still have, maybe Sara. What is the last microwaveable meal you had? I've been on a SERIOUS grilled chicken pesto kick lately. Mom buys these small Healthy Choice (or some brand like that) bowls that you put in the microwave and then pour the noodles and chicken into the sauce after and mix, and oh my GOOOOOOOOOOOD it is so good. What would you consider a talent of yours? Assuming the worst out of every imaginable situation. If Hogwarts was a real place and you were able to attend, what class do you think you’d excel at? According to those little quizzes I've taken, I lean mostly towards Hufflepuff, but with Gryffindor traits as well. Would you rather learn more about space or more about the ocean? Well, ideally, space, but I think learning much more about our ocean would be more beneficial to our planet and our prosperity on Earth. Do you have a mental illness? If yes, how have you learned to cope with it? If no, do you ever suspect you may have one? I have a lot. My bipolarity, OCD, and PTSD are *mostly* under control, but I most certainly still have trouble sometimes. My anxiety and AvPD are still rabid fucking hounds. My depression was well-managed not even that long ago, but life circumstances have it so it's been more aggressive than what was usual. Do you have a favorite character from The Avengers? I dunno, I like Loki ig. Thor is cool, too. It's been WAY too long since I've seen that movie. What type of cake would you like right now? Double chocolate cake sounds great rn. @_@ What was your dream job when you were a child? Are you going after that dream or not? Why? Paleontologist, and no, because I don't want to travel for work, and I could also never handle the heat during site excavations. Even though it may not work all the time, what usually helps make you feel better when you’re upset or down? Watching one of my comfort series on YouTube from channels I enjoy. Why do you personally take surveys? It's a method to just get all these thoughts out of my head and to vent when I need to without actually directly burdening someone with my problems. No one has to read 'em. It's purely for my benefit, and also to pass the time, which I have too much of. Are there any words that you can’t stand? Derogatory terms for certain groups of people. What are words that you love? Words like "serendipity," "bliss," joyous, bubbly words. I'm blanking on actual terms. If you had an endless supply of money for clothing only, what would you load your closet with? Ohhhh, lots of shit with studs and spikes. :') I've wanted a studded leather jacket since I was in middle school. Have never gotten one because of how pricey they are. :( I'd also get some KILLER boots and just obtain a more gothic wardrobe. I'd love corsets too if my body ever shrinks back to a point I'd be comfortable wearing well-made ones. What is your favorite type of cookie? Chocolate chip. What is your favorite type of candy? Strawberry Sour Punch Straws. What color would you like to paint your nails next? I don't paint my nails. Realistically, they probably won't be 'til my entirely hypothetical wedding, in which case they'll probably be black. What do you think is creepy that society accepts as normal? Urinals, alsdkfja;klwejr. Like I get men's bathrooms give the option of using a stall, but still... side-by-side urinals are so weird and a breach of privacy to me. What is the silliest secret about yourself that you sometimes feel the need to hide? That I enjoy forum RP. I tell NOBODY because I fear being judged and found as weird. Like seriously, in my "real" life, maybe two people know. What do you think is a good date other than dinner and a movie? I want a picnic date really bad kalj;dkl;jwe. Do you dread certain days of the week? If yes, what day/s and why? No. They're all very similar. Do you ever give money to homeless people? No, admittedly. Mom instead likes to sometimes offer them bottles of water or if she's really feeling generous, a cheap meal at like McDonald's or something. She doesn't like to hand out money because, well, we know what a vast majority of homeless people spend it on. Do you like to brag or are you modest? I get really uncomfortable bragging, so I try to be as modest as I can be. What your favourite thing to have on toast? I love giving it a light toast, then adding a thin layer of butter, cinnamon, and sugar. It's bomb. Do you know how to surf? Would you ever like to learn? No to either. If you eat oatmeal, do you have it plain or do you have certain toppings that you like to add to it? I love sprinkling some sugar in there. Would you prefer to spend time with your whole family all at once, or would you rather quality time with one family member at a time? Depends on what I feel up to, but I tend to enjoy family time as a group more. That way, I don't have TOO much pressure to be constantly social. I can just listen sometimes. What is the funniest or strangest thing you’ve ever heard somebody say in their sleep? I have no idea. I worry what people have heard ME say/scream in my sleep. Do you own a pair of slippers? Yeah, they're meerkat ones! :') Choose one: Butterfinger, Milky Way, Snickers: Absolutely a Milky Way. Who was the last person to comment you? My mom. I'm cool, I swear. How many arguments have you had with the last person you kissed? A lot over all these years, but I'd say that's normal when you've been friends since you were 8 and 10. Do you know anyone who has been arrested? Yes. What are you planning on doing after this? When I'm done taking this survey, I'll probably either go to bed or play a bit of WoW. Idk. Will you be up before 7 am tomorrow? I have my alarm set for 7, actually. Ever been the only one trying to fix a relationship? Mhmmmm. -_- What was the last bad thing that happened to your phone? The case that came with the phone got a big crack in it. Have you ever been with someone while they were throwing up? Absolutely not. I would start vomiting. I can't handle the sound or the act in general. Have you been to the beach this year? No; I haven't been in a long time, and I am noooot complaining. Have you ever skipped school just because you were tired? Yes. Are you tan? God no. Do you own any leather? No real leather, no. I never would. Have you ever bought a shot glass? No. Do you have a therapist? Yes. We actually just talked today. Well, technically yesterday. What’s the worst name your mom has ever called you? I don't know. She doesn't really call me bad names. Have you ever listened to Christian music? Not of my own volition, but I've heard it because of other people controlling the radio. Are you the ‘creative child’? Yes, I'm considered that one. Did you like your life when you were in middle school? God no. That's when everything started going downhill. Have you ever been 'popular’? No. Has someone ever tried to convert you? Yes. Are you a fan of muffins? I LOVE muffins. What’s your most recent obsession? It's kinda chilled out now, but when Resident Evil 8: Village released, I was CRAZY over it. I watched SO many different let's plays of it. I think it's safe to say it beats out RE4 as my favorite installment.
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Taylor Swift Opens Up About Overcoming Struggle With Eating Disorder
By: Chris Willman for Variety Date: January 23rd 2020
Taylor Swift tells Variety more about "how unhealthy that's been for me - my relationship with food," a subject boldly broached in her Sundance documentary, "Miss Americana."
In the new Taylor Swift documentary, “Miss Americana,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Thursday night, there’s a montage of derogatory commentary about the singer that has appeared on cable shows over the years. One of the less nasty remarks: “She’s too skinny. It bothers me.”
As it turns out, it eventually bothered Swift, too.
In one of the most revealing and surprising segments of the Netflix film, Swift talks for several minutes about having struggled in the past with an eating disorder.
After being pictured facing a phalanx of photographers after she emerges from her front door, Swift is heard in voiceover saying that “it’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day.” Although she says “it’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it,” Swift admits there have been times in the past when she’s seen “a picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or... someone said that I looked pregnant... and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit - just stop eating.”
Swift elaborated on what she’s gone through with that in her interview with Variety for this week’s cover story, saying that it was difficult for her to speak up about it for the documentary.
“I didn’t know if I was going to feel comfortable with talking about body image and talking about the stuff I’ve gone through in terms of how unhealthy that’s been for me - my relationship with food and all that over the years,” she tells Variety. “But the way that Lana (Wilson, the film’s director) tells the story, it really makes sense. I’m not as articulate as I should be about this topic because there are so many people who could talk about it in a better way. But all I know is my own experience. And my relationship with food was exactly the same psychology that I applied to everything else in my life: If I was given a pat on the head, I registered that as good. If I was given a punishment, I registered that as bad.”
In the quiet of a hotel suite, she goes into greater detail on how formative an effect that one early tabloid torpedo had on her. “I remember how, when I was 18, that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine,” she says. “And the headline was like ‘Pregnant at 18?’ And it was because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat. So I just registered that as a punishment. And then I’d walk into a photo shoot and be in the dressing room and somebody who worked at a magazine would say, ‘Oh, wow, this is so amazing that you can fit into the sample sizes. Usually we have to make alterations to the dresses, but we can take them right off the runway and put them on you!’ And I looked at that as a pat on the head. You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body.”
She hesitates. “I think I’ve never really wanted to talk about that before, and I’m pretty uncomfortable talking about it now,” she says quietly. “But in the context of every other thing that I was doing or not doing in my life, I think it makes sense” to have it in the film, she says.
Wilson, the director, is proud of Swift for taking up the subject with such candor. “That’s one of my favorite sequences of the film,” she says. “I was surprised, of course. But I love how she’s kind of thinking out loud about it. And every woman will see themselves in that sequence. I just have no doubt.”
The filmmaker points out that there were clearly plenty of people who didn’t think Swift was too thin back in the mid-2010s. “You can also just not notice people being really skinny, because we’re all so accustomed to seeing women on magazine covers who are unhealthy-skinny, and that’s become normalized.” Even with non-celebrities, Wilson says, everybody’s a body critic. “It’s incessant, and I can say this as a woman: It’s amazing to me how people are constantly like ‘You look skinny’ or ‘You’ve gained weight.’ People you barely know say this to you. And it feels awful, and you can’t win either way. So I think it’s really brave to see someone who is a role model for so many girls and women be really honest about that. I think it will have a huge impact.”
As much as Swift may be seen as a role model for speaking frankly on the subject, she’s got her own favorite artist, so to speak, when it comes to advocacy for women’s bodily self-image issues.
“I love people like (actress and activist) Jameela Jamil, because she says things in a really articulate way,” the singer tells us. “The way she speaks about body image, it’s almost like she speaks in a hook. If you read her quotes about women and body image and aging and the way that women are treated in our industry and portrayed in the media, I swear the way she speaks is like lyrics, and it gets stuck in my head and it calms me down. Because women are held to such a ridiculous standard of beauty. We’re seeing so much on social media that makes us feel like we are less than, or we’re not what we should be, that you kind of need a mantra to repeat in your head when you start to have harmful or unhealthy thoughts. So she’s one of the people who, when I read what she says, it sticks with me and it helps me.”
In the film, then-and-now photos illustrate just how thin Swift had gotten during the “1989” era, versus the still svelte but healthier look she sported by the time she toured behind the “Reputation” album in 2018. Swift says that her under-eating in that earlier time severely affected her stamina on tour.
“I thought that I was supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it,” she attests in the documentary. “Now I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel (enervated).” Swift says she doesn’t care so much now if someone comments on a weight gain, and she’s reconciled “the fact that I’m a size 6 instead of a size double-zero.” Swift says she was completely unaware that anything was wrong in her double-zero era, and had a defense at the ready should it come up. If anyone expressed concern, she’d say, “‘What are you talking about? Of course I eat... I exercise a lot.’ And I did exercise a lot. But I wasn’t eating.”
Few women viewing the film will fail to nod their heads as Swift describes the impossibility of any body shape or size living up to all the standards for beauty. “If you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants,” she says in the film. “But if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just f—ing impossible.” As she became aware of the problem, Swift says in the film, it would cause her to “go into a real shame/hate spiral.”
The word “shame” comes up elsewhere in conversation with Swift, who by virtue of becoming one of the most celebrated women in the world has also had to deal with more catty comments than almost any celebrity in the world - and hasn’t always succeeded in shaking it all off.
“I was watching a Netflix Brené Brown special on shame, because I read a lot of her books, because I have dealings with shame every once in awhile,” Swift tells Variety. “She was saying something like, ‘It’s ridiculous to say “I don’t care what anyone thinks about me,” because that’s not possible. But you can decide whose opinions matter more and whose opinions you put more weight on.’ And I think that is really part of growing up, if you’re going to do it right. That’s part of hoping to find some sort of maturity and balance in your life.”
She continues, “I don’t expect anyone with a pop career to learn how to do that within the first 10 years. And I know that there’s a lot of bad stuff that’s gone on recently, a lot of really hard stuff my family is going through, and a lot of opposition and feeling pressure or suppression of one kind or another. But I am actually really happy. Because I pick and choose now, for the most part, what I care deeply about. And I think that’s made a huge difference.”
*** You can read other parts of Taylor’s interview with Variety here: Taylor Swift: No Longer ‘Polite at All Costs’ and How Midterm Elections Inspired Taylor Swift’s New Song, ‘Only the Young’
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writing-radionoises · 4 years
Text
forgive?
ship: none, platonic father-son bonding with akutagawa and dazai
genre: hurt/comfort
prompt: akutagawa and dazai cope together
notes: more ada akutagawa.
mega tw for csa, child abuse, and suicide. they’re not spoken about in depth but this drabble is centered around dazai talking about his relationship with mori.
It’s been a few months since Akutagawa joined the agency.
Something that has never been quite discussed was this relationship with Osamu Dazai, it’s something Akutagawa never felt like he had to explain.
His and Dazai’s relationship was personal.
… But, mostly, that’s just a cover up reason.
His and Dazai’s relationship is difficult, complicated beyond belief.
It’s only gotten worse since Akutagawa did join the agency.
It’s like some underground reason between him, Dazai, and Fukuzawa, the secret that it was Dazai who hurt Akutagawa, who threw him on the ground, broke his ribs, broke his arm, pointed a gun at him, tried to kill him at least twenty different times and, and, and-
A lot of different things. Dazai did a lot of different things to Akutagawa.
Even after his apprenticeship with Dazai ended and Dazai left the mafia, he still used Akutagawa. He hung his approval over Akutagawa’s head for years, like dangling a carrot over a horse’s head so it’ll walk. And no matter what Akutagawa did, Dazai would never approve of him. He’d just laugh and walk away, call Akutagawa names, make fun of him.
And Akutagawa would never forgive Dazai. Even now.
Dazai knows that. He doesn’t seem upset, and Ryunosuke knows well now that it’s because Dazai knows he fucked up.
It’s been awhile since Dazai formally apologized, though, and Akutagawa refused to forgive him with a half-assed apology. Instead, they’ve both decided to draw a line between past Dazai and current Dazai.
It was past Dazai who hurt him and used him, current Dazai would never.
Akutagawa is pretty sure Dazai would take a bullet before doing that now…
It’s not a perfect relationship, they still have fights and bumps in the road, but mostly it’s developed into a father-son relationship.
It’s thanks for Dazai that Akutagawa even figured out his feelings for Atsushi.
And it’s thanks to him Akutagawa and Atsushi even became friends…
So, maybe it’s natural that Akutagawa feels the need to check in on Dazai while he sits in the corner of the training grounds, facing the wall.
They both have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, after all. Ryunosuke has had flashbacks, they’re never good, and it always hurts.
Akutagawa approaches him carefully, getting on his knees beside Dazai, though keeping a distance.
“Dazai-san, you’re not looking too good. Are you okay?” He asks.
Dazai lifts his head from his knees, looking over to Akutagawa, followed by a pained smile and laugh.
“Akutagawa, what’re you doing here?”
“Checking in on you, what does it look like?”
Dazai turns his head away, the pained smile still plastered to his face.
“Actually, I’m doing awful. Thanks for asking.”
Akutagawa glanced off to the side, trying to figure out what to say next.
His social skills are failing him.
“Do… You wanna talk about it?” He asks.
Dazai pauses for a moment, thinking.
“I’ve… Never done that before, but, I guess, if I were to talk about it with anyone, it should probably be with you…”
“Is it mafia related?”
Dazai nodded, dropping his knees from his chest and instead sitting criss-cross applesauce. His hair is messy, the ends of his hair was wet from crying, eyes red from the same thing. His shaking has subsided, though, which is a good thing.
“Do you know anything about what happened to me in the mafia?”
Akutagawa nodded a no.
“Good…” Dazai mumbled, “It wasn’t fun. It was awful. I don’t know how to talk about it…”
Akutagawa sighed, brushing a piece of his hair behind his ear, “Then let’s start with this. Why did you join the mafia?”
“... I was basically kidnapped into it. I never really knew my parents, I was passed around from a lot of different people since I was young. I assume my parents were apart of the mafia as well, as I was passed around between mafia members mostly. I was an unofficial member of the mafia most of my life, I received training and all that other bullshit from the age of nine,” Dazai began to explain, “I developed suicidal tendencies from there, the training conditioned me to be ready to die at any moment, to give my life to somebody else. It backfired on them, because I found myself wanting to kill myself to avoid the violence and bloodshed of the world around the age of ten.”
Akutagawa nodded understandingly, the background wasn’t surprising. He’d seen this happen to other children, it’s not uncommon for children to be born into the mafia, either.
“Then… How did you formally join the mafia?”
Dazai smiled a bit, looking off to the side, “I kept trying to kill myself, they were unable to put me in a psychward because of the information I held. So I met Dr. Ogai Mori, an underground doctor at the time. It was a mistake, he was a homicidal maniac, a manipulative piece of shit… He used my suicidal tendencies as a way to climb up to the top. He took me, age fourteen, with him to meet the former boss, and I watched him slaughter him. He used me as insurance, to get him to be the new mafia boss. In hindsight, it was good he did decide to kill the former mafia boss, but… Mori is no better.”
Akutagawa’s eyes widened, nodding along with Dazai story. He could tell this was likely the first time he had never said something like this to another person, he kept fidgeting with the buttons on his coat.
“... Mori is a pedophile. I’m sure you’re aware of that, right?”
“Yes, I’m well aware,” Akutagawa, “That why I used to tell Gin to stay away from him.”
Dazai chuckled a bit, “Clever, but you probably didn’t need to do that. I was fourteen at the time, correct? Well, when his plan fell through as I never ended up successful in killing myself, he ended up resorting to other methods… He groomed and manipulated me, abused me. Don’t imagine it, I don’t want you in the same state I’m in, but physically he did just about everything I did to you, but much worse. A doctor knows exactly where to hurt you without it being fatal, it’ll be the most painful experience of your life, but you won’t die…”
Akutagawa frowned. He took Dazai’s advice, not imagining it, and trying to avoid the thought of Mori standing above Dazai, who is in a pool of blood.
“... I hesitate to talk about this. I’ve talked about the physical side of things with people like Odasaku and Fukuzawa, Fukuzawa knows most of the crimes Mori has committed… But I never did get the chance to tell Odasaku about the sexual parts of the abuse,” Dazai explained, his voice getting quieter.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Akutagawa answered, “But sometimes it’s good to get things out, especially if you’ve never talked about it. I can promise you I’ll never tell anyone.”
Dazai ruffles his hair casually, “I know, Akutagawa. You’re a good kid, you’d probably take this secret to your grave.”
“If you asked, I happily would.”
Dazai takes a breath, running his hand through his hair as he continues to speak, “... I’m not gonna speak about it in detail, but he assaulted me on many different occasions, usually after he had beaten me up so I couldn’t fight back. I don’t usually get upset by it anymore, I’ve blocked out most of the memories, but sometimes I still remember.”
“Is that what you remembered today?”
“... More or less. I have constant reminders pasted all over me, whether or not it triggers me depends on the day,” Dazai replied, slipping off his tan jacket and beginning to roll up his sleeve.
Dazai began to unwrap the bandage on his right arm, the white fabric falling away to reveal dozens of pale white scars. Some were messy vertical incisions, if Akutagawa had to guess, they were self inflicted, versus the neat and clean horizontal ones more towards Dazai’s upper arm and shoulder.
… What I went through is nothing compared to what happened to Dazai. I don’t really have an excuse to be so upset over what he did to me, Akutagawa thought. It was a bad thought, he knew better. Atsushi told him better, his therapist told him better. There was no need to compare trauma with Dazai, but sometimes, he just couldn’t help it.
So caught up in thought, Akutagawa barely noticed Dazai beginning to shake again as his eyes ran over each scar, muttering something.
Muttering the situation each scar came from.
Akutagawa, desperate to bring his former mentor back into stability, took the bandage Dazai dropped and began to wrap it around his arm again.
“You don’t need to remember that anymore,” Akutagawa replied, reapplying his calm facade as he continued his work, “It’s in the past. It was awful, it hurt a lot, but you’ll never have to face it again.”
Dazai visibly relaxed as Akutagawa finished applying the bandage, rolling down his sleeve as Dazai then pulls Akutagawa into a hug, Akutagawa’s head against his former mentor’s chest. Ryunosuke relaxes against the other, Dazai brushing through his hair with his fingers, likely as a distraction.
“Akutagawa.”
“Yes?”
Dazai smiles a bit, “Past you would’ve just ignored me, brushed off me sitting in the corner as just me being silly, but instead you approached me and made sure I was okay.”
“Yes, and?” Akutagawa questioned, raising a brow.
“You’ve come a long way,” Dazai replied, “And I’m proud of you.”
Akutagawa pauses, feeling tears begin to well up in his eyes as he brushed it off and buried his face in Dazai’s chest again.
He’ll never forgive Dazai for what he did.
And he’ll never forgive Mori, either.
… But Akutagawa can’t lie. He’s pretty happy all of those awful, awful things led to this moment.
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nadziejastar · 3 years
Note
Imo Kingdom Hearts could have been a lot different if Disney was never involved or if it was it's entire own francise with no crossover with FF or Disney, imo that would have been great. Since KH1, the Disney-worlds had barely to no connection or revelance to the main-plot anymore, Sora just travels to the worlds because he can, in KH1 there was more at stake in those worlds too, now they just feel like filler, as much as SE has tried up untill KH3.
Well, “Quadratum” means “Square”. It’s possible that Nomura wants to move away from Disney worlds and focus more on Square worlds. Although I like the Disney worlds, and think they help give the series a unique identity, I can understand that Disney is a is large, powerful, greedy corporation. And Nomura’s relationship with them has changed over time.
It’s telling that instead of coming up with a new plot that gives us a good reason to travel to the Disney worlds again (the real ones, not data worlds, memory worlds, dream worlds, etc.) he’s sending Sora and Riku off to a new alternate dimension based on Versus XIII—a Square property. It may indicate that he’s tired of Disney worlds and they will be getting less focus from now on.
KH1
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As the series has gone on, the implementation of the Disney worlds has become worse and worse as Nomura has struggled to come up with reasons to travel to them. I think you’re right that KH1 did the best with incorporating the worlds into the plot. Sora was trying to seal all the Keyholes, giving him a good reason to be in each one. He was looking for Riku and Kairi, which was a more personal goal. And then you had the seven princesses and the villain alliance. And each world contributed to the overall theme of the story.
KH CoM
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Pinocchio: Gee, Riku, don’t you have a Jiminy like I do? He’s my conscience. He’s taught me all kinds of important stuff. Maybe you just need somebody to show you what’s right and wrong.
Jiminy: Sure. You can’t shoulder all your problems alone, ya know. You must have somebody–a friend you can talk to?
In CoM, the Disney worlds were pure filler. Only existed for gameplay. On Sora’s side, the story within them was almost the exact same as it was in KH1. Even on Riku’s side, the Disney worlds were pointless. For instance, the whole Monstro level in KH3D could have happened in Re:CoM, since it’s basically reliving Riku’s memories from KH1, but having him make a different choice that time.
KH2
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Iago: I wanna be a good friend, like Genie, but I can't do anything to help you. What kind of a friend is that?
Sora: Oh, no---it's not like that, Iago. Friends don't have to "do" stuff. As long as you have fun hanging out together, that's all that matters.
In KH2, the worlds are a mix of new and old. But they’re not really important to the plot. Sora’s just looking for Riku and the King, they’re not there, you participate in the movie’s plot, then move onto the next one. All the actual story happens in Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, or TWTNW. Each world usually has a theme and a moral lesson, but it doesn’t always relate to Sora that much, so they feel filler-ish. In the second half, the organization appears in the worlds, which makes them a little more relevant to the story. But not much. They were still fun levels, though.
358/2 Days
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Roxas had a good reason to go to the worlds, to collect hearts for the organization. I don’t mind if the Disney worlds aren’t directly plot-related, as long as there’s character development in them. I like that they took certain worlds from KH2 that felt like filler and expanded on the main theme of them, contributing to character development, particularly for Axel. For instance, in KH2′s Agrabah, the moral lesson was: best friends don’t have to be “useful”. This idea doesn’t have much to do with Sora, though, so it felt kinda pointless to his quest.
If you didn’t need me, then I no longer held meaning. However, reality is different. It wasn’t about whether I was needed or not. If I could just connect to others’ hearts, that would be enough.
But it was implied that this idea was very relevant to Axel’s memories of his past and his best friend. 
“Because they copied my powers, the Keyblade’s power, and then they didn’t need me anymore— is that it?” Roxas spat. 
He couldn’t bring himself to confirm it. 
“I guess you felt the same way, huh, Axel?” 
At those words, something wrenched in his chest, and he could hardly breathe. No, not me. I wasn’t thinking like that. I would never. “That’s not true. You—you’re my best friend.” The words spilled out of him.
The story of Days was all about how Roxas and Xion help Axel remember his past and what it felt like to have a best friend (an idea that connects to CoM). And the Disney worlds at least contributed to that idea in a meaningful way.
“Set in a circus and playing off the story of Pinocchio, a puppet with a heart, and the Nobodies who possess no heart, we planned for a sad episode with Roxas and Xion looking for hope for themselves”.
I would have preferred Prankster’s Paradise as a world, though, instead of, say, Halloween Town. It sounds like Roxas and Xion would have developed more in that world and it would have been more relevant to the story. Plus, it would have been new. But I think Days did a decent enough job with the Disney worlds. At least Roxas learned something new when he went to them, spurring on interesting discussions with Axel about friendship, love, the heart, etc.
KHBBS
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Bagheera: It was bound to happen. Mowgli is where he belongs now.
Three new characters. In each world, the character learned something new and developed slightly. The worlds were mostly new, too. I don’t have a problem with BBS’s Disney worlds. I do wish they would have kept the Jungle Book worlds in, though.
“Riku… Do you think Nobodies have a home? Somewhere we belong?” Naminé wondered.
Having a home, somewhere to belong, was one of the main themes of the Xehanort Saga.
Master Xehanort: Darkness that you channeled.
Terra: No, I succumbed to it. Just like when I stole Princess Aurora’s heart of light. I can never return home now. I’m a failure.
Terra felt like a failure, and that he could never return home. And Aqua was tasked with bringing Ven home. This world could have been really good in BBS.
Coded
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Mickey: Yen Sid… I think we’re finally close to figuring out where Ven’s heart is.
Here’s where things start going off the rails. In Coded, Disney worlds are yet again retreads of KH1, only this time they’re data instead of memories. The whole purpose of the plot was to explain why Mickey sent Sora, Riku, and Kairi that letter at the end of KH2. But you didn’t really need a whole game of travelling through virtual Disney worlds for that, especially involving convoluted ideas like data Namine implanting bug blocks in the journal or Jiminy’s Journal embodying itself as Riku (WTF?). You could have just added a scene into KH2FM+ like the above one from the manga. When Mickey saw the photo of Roxas, he recognized him as Ventus. Then he tells Master Yen Sid about it later, leading to Coded’s ending and him writing the letter. 
KHUX
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Ephemer: The worlds we visit—the worlds of fairy tales—are nothing more than holograms. You know, projections. The light we collect there is actually this world’s light. To put it simply: There are lots of worlds, right? And they’re all connected by land. But it’s impossible to go around all of them. That’s why there’s a mechanism that projects those worlds here and allows us to collect Lux from faraway lands. I’m gathering information, trying to figure out how the whole thing works. My hunch is that the Book of Prophecies held by the Foretellers is what’s creating these holograms.
The Disney worlds were extremely boring to play through. More than any other KH game, they have scenes that are just copy/pasted straight from the movies. Your main character, since they are mute, has little involvement. They do not grow, change, or develop, after any of these worlds. They have nothing interesting to say and they can barely interact with anyone (Chirithy does it for you). 
And all, except for Wreck-It-Ralph, are just retreads of plots that we already experienced in other games. The worlds are digital holograms of the future generated from the Book of Prophecies. It’s all a VERY convoluted excuse to have you play through the same old plots from the Disney worlds. AGAIN. Only with a FAR less interesting main character. Since this was supposed to be just a F2P gacha with little story, it could have been excused. But since KHUX has become so important to the main story, it is inexcusable how poor of a game it is.
KH3D
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Sora: I get it now. After this, Pinocchio and Jiminy’s world gets dragged into darkness, and they end up cast into the sea between worlds, along with Monstro. And then…they end up in Traverse Town, and the belly of the whale. That’s when we meet for real. It’s like Master Yen Sid said–I’m in the dream Pinocchio’s world is dreaming. And that world will never be right again until it wakes from sleep.
I don’t have any real issue with a game focusing on the mark of mastery exam, where Sora and Riku travel through Disney worlds. Riku develops along the way in a satisfying way. It’s the first time you actually go to new worlds as him. The test was for Sora and Riku to acquire the power of waking, so they had to go to dream worlds. Fantasia was perfect for this idea.
But the concept of Sleeping Worlds is convoluted and confusing. They’re dream versions of the worlds? Who is dreaming them? The Dandelions? They’re stuck in a time loop of the past? But visiting the Sleeping Worlds doesn’t rewrite the present. So, are they connected to the datascape? Again, it’s so convoluted, because there really is no reason that Sora and Riku would have to go on another adventure in the REAL world. Again, I would have preferred Prankster’s Paradise in Days. Pinocchio would be a human, it’d be set in the present timeline so no awkward dialogue, and Honest John and Gideon would be involved, giving it more of a plot.
KH3
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The game’s worlds could have been okay if Sora wasn’t just wandering about aimlessly. And if they had developed the power of waking better. The power of waking is essentially the power to wake a sleeping heart by connecting with it. It’s the power of love, basically. Most of the Disney worlds are about love. And also, a member of the organization appears in each one.
Dark Road
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In BBS, it’s revealed that Xehanort wants to open KH to create a new world. But in KH3, he wants to reset the world. How is this different?
Nomura: The most essential part is that he thinks the current world is a failure, and wants to remake it.
I’m interested to know why Xehanort came to think that way (that the world should be remade).
Nomura: Initially, I wanted to dive deeper into the naive, untainted Xehanort who we see playing chess in the next installment (before KH3 was made), but if I did that, the dark seeker arc wouldn’t have ended (lol), so I decided to shelve it for now.
Wonderland is the only Disney world that has had a plot so far. But this was still the most interesting usage of Wonderland in the series, IMO.
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Envy (Latin, invidia): Invi Gluttony (Latin, gula): Gula Lust (Latin, luxuria): Luxu. Anger, or Wrath (Latin, ira): Ira Greed, or Avarice (Latin, avaritia): Ava Sloth, or Laziness (Latin, acedia): Aced
The Foretellers are named after the seven deadly sins.
Nomura: As I was writing the scenario for Kingdom Hearts Back Cover, I was careful so as to make each character look neither like a hero nor a villain, however in the end it seems that only Ava was received as a good girl (laughs). At any rate, if you think of the story progression as a gun, where Ava is the only one with the capacity to pull that gun’s trigger, I’m not so sure about how devoid of sin she really is…
I think there were a lot of parallels between the age of fairytales and the Book of Genesis.
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Pride (Latin: superbia) is considered, on almost every list, the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins. Out of the seven, it is the most angelical, or demonic. It is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins.
The MoM is probably really Darkness, the original sin, Superbia. And Xehanort has his Keyblade, becoming his successor. Pride was his deadly sin. He could never admit that he lost to Eraqus at chess because of his pride. In the Bible, the source of sin was the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. After acquiring knowledge of good and evil, he developed a god complex. Pride is the ultimate sin, where all the other sins originate from.
I need only play the role of a fool desirous of the Keyblade’s power.
Luxu is lust and Braig lusted for Xehanort’s power (as Luxu probably did with the MoM). The story in Dark Road is actually interesting. Xehanort is a FAR more interesting protagonist that the Avatar in Union X. As a wielder in training, he actually has a good reason to travel the worlds, and develops as a character along the way. I think Dark Road deserved to be its own real KH game, released on the Vita or 3DS a long time ago. It’s a shame it’s only a mobile game.
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Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
The story of Dark Road will likely be Xehanort encountering the seven deadly sins as manifested in Disney villains and coming to the conclusion that the world is too corrupt and needs to be reset. That is actually a decent enough plot and good justification for travelling through the Disney worlds. It’d be cool if they added new worlds. Maybe like Pocahontas, and Governor Radcliffe could be Greed, etc.
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fma2003-fmab-stuff · 4 years
Video
Episode 4 of FMA 03 is my Least Favorite Episode, but, since it IS FMA 03 Month, I thought should discuss some of the GOOD things about it. (This is also Day 17 so I do have something to say about that).
First thing to talk about is the scene at the very beginning of the episode(which is above) where Ed and Al reflect on their resolve after they’ve first set off on their journey. It is by far a fantastic and heart felt way to start the real story(and the fact that they use the “Bratja”/”Brothers” theme is also really good and emotional and fills it with both hope and sorrow). I love how it shows Winry and Pinako in this scene, and how you really get the feeling that Ed and Al have more or less pushed them to the side in pursuit of getting their bodies back to normal, of trying to distance themselves from their past.
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You can tell that they’re both frustrated by it. But additionally, I got the feeling that maybe they even did this before Pinako and Winry got there, set their house on fire, and went off on their own without even saying goodbye, which would make it doubly sad, and add to the themes of the 2003 series in Ed and Al pushing those around them away.
I really like how Ed tries to be confident about the whole situation, even though you can tell that he’s probably just as scared and apprehensive as Alphonse down deep. 
All and all, this is probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire 2003 series.
And what makes it even better is that 2003′s famous intro comes right after it, saying “Man cannot obtain anything without first sacrificing something. In order to obtain anything, something of equal value required. That is alchemy’s law of Equivalent Exchange. At the time, we believed that to be the true way of the world.” 
In my opinion, this whole scene is BRILLIANT, considering that Ed and Al will never truly be able to get their home back in this series, it gives us a feel of inevitable underlying tragedy but also a tinge of optimism(as Ed and Al will always have people there ready to support them), but their home life is one thing they subsequently lost in not only the human transmutation. but especially their decision to join the military. They have to put everything they once knew behind them for that decision. for their goal to get their bodies back.
It ties in wonderfully with the themes of the series, and I just have to commend them for this much.
...
Another decent point about Majahal is this
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- Majahal having ties with Hohenheim. 
His name on the letters leading them to him… that was actually not a bad idea at all, and is definitely a good relation to give the brothers more of a desire than otherwise to seek him out. While it’s not anything spectacular, it was still kind of smart, I think...
- Also, something kind of neat is that Majahal did the two same things that the Brothers did.
Human Transmutation:
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And even though Majahal tried to commit human transmutation, he didn’t appear to lose anything.
And nor did he do the clap:
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Some might claim this as a plot hole, but I think it actually explains something that nothing else in the series went into.
Every other human transmutation in series was committed to bring somebody who was confirmed dead back to life. But Karin never actually died, so I think this really ties in with Equivalent Exchange and things later with the homunculi.
Hense: You can’t lose anything in exchange for trying bring somebody who was never dead to begin with back to life. 
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Since Karin was alive, the gate must be able to know the difference. And I think that’s really important, considering the deal with homunculi later on.
And then there’s Soul Bonding:
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Honestly, I’m kind of surprised there was no call backs to this one at all throughout the series, even during Al’s body crisis, considering how relevant this is to the situations of Alphonse, Barry, and even the homunculi.
And the fact that he was using dolls for his experimentation actually reminds me of this scene from the episode before(after Winry has found out her parents were killed):
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And in many cases, especially brought up later on, the homunculi are seen as living “dolls”, (or at least when talking to Lust and Sloth, Ed seems to be more or less under that impression and treats them rather harshly). I think that this was an interesting point to make and that this soul bonding builds some parallels to things that will be gone into. 
...
Lust also makes an appearance alone here, as she does multiple times in several of the other earlier episodes:
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Lust’s solo appearances are always fruitful and mysterious and leave you with questions of what her true motives and intentions are. After all, in these appearances:
She always seems to be interested in the same things as our protagonists are:
 Mainly, the creation of the philosopher’s stone, but also cases like this of hearing about the dead coming back to life and human transmutation.
At this point, of course, we’re not entirely sure what her goal is. Heck, looking back this even leaves me questioning if she came out of curiosity and just happened to be there, or if this is a case like with Mugear where Majahal was being partially manipulated. 
Of course as somebody who knows how her arc is concluded, we know that she was clearly searching for a way to become human all along; That her interest was obviously peaked at the notion of resurrection, probably was debating whether or not he would be able to help her achieve her goal, that she was definitely acting on her own in this specific case.
...
Nextly, I really like the moments that you shows that Ed and Al are really still just kids beneath it all.
Like this for example:
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This scene is a really cute way to remind us that not only is Ed the more rational older brother, but that beneath that suit of armor, Alphonse is still a little kid and a big softy who gets scared over ghost stories. Honestly, it’s precious, and not enough people talk about it.
...
This is kind of neat statement Ed makes too:
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Considering how much confliction he has towards Roy later over not immediately taking revenge for Hughes.
And then there’s this scene, because it shows us how insecure Alphonse can be sometimes over his body.
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Short jokes are great and all, but it’s the rare moments with Al like this that you just want to hug him and the gentle giant that he is, just like this one in episode 5:
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(Seeing Ed reassuring Al is the big brother type stuff I really like seeing in their bond)
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(not to mention how great Ed seems to be with kids sometimes)
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But this isn’t about episode 5, so I’ll get back to episode 4.
Whenever the reveal about Karin is made, Majahal rejects her, and honestly, I find it incredibly Sad
Words cannot describe how bad I felt for Karin throughout this entire thing. Majahal was so deluded by the “beauty” he remembered that he couldn’t love her for who she was. 
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And even in the end he still rejected her
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and honestly, that’s so emotionally frustrating. (However, I also have a major issue with this scene, that I am going to discuss at the end of this post.)
...
One last thing I like about this episode is how at the beginning of the episode there’s this conversation:
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Versus this at the end:
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It shows how idealistic Al can be at times and idk I kind of like it).
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However, with all that aside, since I went over the biggest positives of this episode that stand out to me, I suppose I should get to my biggest issue with it and my answer for day 17 of FMA of the 03 Month Challenge - A character I wish hadn’t died.
Even though it’s sad for Karin, 
- Majahal’s Death Weakens the Impact of Greed’s Death and so many of the other scenes in the series.
Even if Alphonse argues it was an accident and it was just a slip of some ribbon or something.
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so many scenes would have been even more emotional if Majahal hadn’t died or even if somebody else had been responsible for his death. (I’m especially kind of bummed because Edward didn’t really react at all to it and it doesn’t even get brought up until 32 episodes later. Hell, Alphonse seemed more depressed than him afterwards.)
And I mean... this episode actually wouldn’t have been that bad at all save for the end, if Majahal had lived and been taken to some place and/or arrested(tbh I wonder if there are government officials in that area or not, since we never saw anybody from the military there...). But instead, he dies due to something Ed does. But yeah, that’s really my only major issue with this episode... Every thing else actually isn’t that bad. I just feel like for somebody who had ties with Hohenheim, I feel like his arc and the episode just wasn’t well concluded, especially considering it only ever gets brought up again once.  (No surprise that it was apparently written by a different person than the majority of the other episodes)
I’ve been meaning to make a post on this episode for a while and I finally got to it. I hope y’all enjoyed reading it haha... =w=;;;;
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Halestorm, In This Moment And New Years Day Are Inspiring The Next Generation
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They say that good things come in threes, so we put that to the test with the stars of Halestorm, In This Moment and New Years Day…
Lzzy Hale has always been given to bursts of over-excitement, but we’ve never known the Halestorm vocalist and guitarist to be quite like this before. When Kerrang! catches up with her for a rare pause for reflection following the band’s recent 10-date European headline tour with her friends In This Moment and New Years Day. We say ‘friends’, but that doesn’t feel like a strong enough word to sum up just how close this lot are.
Since joining forces in the U.S. in the summer, the three bands – and in particular their three singers – have formed the kind of bonds that will last a lifetime. On one level, the tour represented something of an extended victory lap for Halestorm, in the wake of the success of last year’s fourth album, Vicious. Theirs has been a consistent and deserved rise over the past decade, but for those involved in the daily hustle, it feels like more of a shared triumph. Four of those dates took place in the UK, and as Lzzy cackles at the prospect, it’s fair to say that her appetite for “the rock show” has never been greater.
Yet her joy is even more evident when she’s joined by In This Moment’s creative mastermind and vocalist Maria Brink, and the vibrant force of nature that is New Years Day frontwoman Ash Costello. Three close friends who are striving for something more creative, more inclusive and more empowering than ever seen before.
What has been the key take-away from this recent tour? Lzzy Hale: “On the U.S. leg, my guys started talking about how they’re seeing changes out there in the crowds. Typically we’d see a 60/40 male-to-female split at a show, but at these gigs it has completely flipped, as if women are taking ownership of this music. They’re coming out to see this tour because it’s their music. These fans wanna be heard. They wanna stand out and be part of something. We’ve all been experiencing this beautiful moment together.” Maria Brink: “So many women are out there, from little girls aged no more than maybe seven to older fans in their 70s! I think it’s because the whole tour has this empowering quality, and a universal, shared energy. It happens to be a lot of feminine power, too, but I think men love it equally. It’s certainly not a ‘men versus women’ thing. We all become one when we go to a concert.” Ash Costello: “It feels like there’s this massive change coming. I think the message is: watch out, because in 2020 there’s a really big shift coming.”
It must be heartening to have witnessed that change happen over the past decade? Lzzy: “Definitely. Even my own personal experience of being in a band has altered so much in that time. In the early days, I remember loading our gear into venues and the people working there assuming I was a girlfriend of someone in the band. Then you get to the next stage when you’re trying to get played on radio, and the stations reject you because they already have what they see as their ‘token girl singer’ on their playlists. It’s ridiculous to think like that. All three of us have ended up using that as inspiration to prove those attitudes wrong. Today we see parents encouraging their daughters to be themselves and go after the things they want. That inspires all women. It’s a situation that’s forever evolving and not just within the rock genre. You can see throughout history that as humans we’re doing different things; not sticking needles into people’s brains to try to cure depression, for example. People are coming to realise that it’s not really that big a deal for a girl to be in a rock band. Things are always gonna move slowly but we’re travelling in the right direction.”
Did you all experience those kinds of challenges in your early days on the road? Maria: “Moving to LA and trying to join a band was pretty scary. I was constantly knocked back. No-one would audition me because they didn’t want a female singer. Even my own band did at first, although I eventually persuaded them. We had a jam session and they wound up taking me seriously, but that initial reaction was tough to overcome. Everyone has their own path to follow, and their own challenges, and it’s not always about gender. Most challenges I’ve faced haven’t been to do with being a woman – as an artist, male or female, you’ve got to hold your ground and persevere.” Ash: “People often assumed I was the merch girl. It doesn’t happen so much now. New Years Day are on our way, but compared to Halestorm and In This Moment we’re still relatively new and trying to make a name for ourselves, so I still get put into a category where there is apparently only room for one band with a female singer. What I will say is that this tour is absolutely making a difference. Look – here are three girls and we’re selling out arenas!”
How does it make you feel when you have fans say that because of you, they too have started bands? Maria: “Incredible. My mom took me to see Tina Turner when I was little, and that had a huge effect on me, so imagine what seeing Lzzy Hale playing rock music is gonna do for girls today!” Lzzy: “I always think about all the girls out there right now, playing in their garages and building up to something that’s gonna blow our minds in future. It’s beautiful to think that we’re inspiring them, because the day will come when they step up, knock our socks off and inspire us right back again. The key is to keep doing whatever it is that brings you joy. Don’t let anybody tell you what you can and cannot achieve.”
You’re clearly the best of friends who inspire one another. How much does it push you to be even better, watching each other perform? Lzzy: “There’s friendly competition, but we learn so much from each other at the same time. Sometimes we talk about who got the most ‘wow’ from the audience. It’s fun because I think we will all be much better frontpeople having faced that challenge every single night. Regardless of who you’re playing with, you wanna win people over and have them talk about your set.” Maria: “I wouldn’t call it a rivalry, as such. But we definitely all want to go out there and do the best we can every night. We want to connect with people, to move people. It’s all a matter of perception, too. Our bands are so different, and some people like one and some people like another. When I watch the other bands I want them to kick ass. If somebody gets a big ‘wow’ reaction from the audience, then we want to go after that too, but in all honesty, it would hurt my heart if I thought that we did way better than someone else did.” Ash: “I’ve really raised my game based on what I’ve picked up from Lzzy and Maria. I’m only in competition with myself. I always want to beat my own performance. Society often wants women to compete and there’s surprise when women actually support and empower each other. When I see fans after the show I ask what their favourite part was. Every time they answer, ‘All of it!’”
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taylorswifthongkong · 4 years
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Taylor Swift Opens Up About Overcoming Struggle With Eating Disorder (EXCLUSIVE)
Taylor Swift tells Variety more about "how unhealthy that's been for me — my relationship with food," a subject boldly broached in her Sundance documentary, "Miss Americana."
In the new Taylor Swift documentary, “Miss Americana,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Thursday night, there’s a montage of derogatory commentary about the singer that has appeared on cable shows over the years. One of the less nasty remarks: “She’s too skinny. It bothers me.”
As it turns out, it eventually bothered Swift, too.
In one of the most revealing and surprising segments of the Netflix film, Swift talks for several minutes about having struggled in the past with an eating disorder.
After being pictured facing a phalanx of photographers after she emerges from her front door, Swift is heard in voiceover saying that “it’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day.” Although she says “it’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it,” Swift admits there have been times in the past when she’s seen “a picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or… someone said that I looked pregnant … and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit — just stop eating.”
Swift elaborated on what she’s gone through with that in her interview with Variety for this week’s cover story, saying that it was difficult for her to speak up about it for the documentary.
“I didn’t know if I was going to feel comfortable with talking about body image and talking about the stuff I’ve gone through in terms of how unhealthy that’s been for me — my relationship with food and all that over the years,” she tells Variety. “But the way that Lana (Wilson, the film’s director) tells the story, it really makes sense. I’m not as articulate as I should be about this topic because there are so many people who could talk about it in a better way. But all I know is my own experience. And my relationship with food was exactly the same psychology that I applied to everything else in my life: If I was given a pat on the head, I registered that as good. If I was given a punishment, I registered that as bad.”
In the quiet of a hotel suite, she goes into greater detail on how formative an effect that one early tabloid torpedo had on her. “I remember how, when I was 18, that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine,” she says. “And the headline was like ‘Pregnant at 18?’ And it was because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat. So I just registered that as a punishment. And then I’d walk into a photo shoot and be in the dressing room and somebody who worked at a magazine would say, ‘Oh, wow, this is so amazing that you can fit into the sample sizes. Usually we have to make alterations to the dresses, but we can take them right off the runway and put them on you!’ And I looked at that as a pat on the head. You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body.”
She hesitates. “I think I’ve never really wanted to talk about that before, and I’m pretty uncomfortable talking about it now,” she says quietly. “But in the context of every other thing that I was doing or not doing in my life, I think it makes sense” to have it in the film, she says.
Wilson, the director, is proud of Swift for taking up the subject with such candor. “That’s one of my favorite sequences of the film,” she says. “I was surprised, of course. But I love how she’s kind of thinking out loud about it. And every woman will see themselves in that sequence. I just have no doubt.”
The filmmaker points out that there were clearly plenty of people who didn’t think Swift was too thin back in the mid-2010s. “You can also just not notice people being really skinny, because we’re all so accustomed to seeing women on magazine covers who are unhealthy-skinny, and that’s become normalized.” Even with non-celebrities, Wilson says, everybody’s a body critic. “It’s incessant, and I can say this as a woman: It’s amazing to me how people are constantly like ‘You look skinny’ or ‘You’ve gained weight.’ People you barely know say this to you. And it feels awful, and you can’t win either way. So I think it’s really brave to see someone who is a role model for so many girls and women be really honest about that. I think it will have a huge impact.”
As much as Swift may be seen as a role model for speaking frankly on the subject, she’s got her own favorite artist, so to speak, when it comes to advocacy for women’s bodily self-image issues.
“I love people like (actress and activist) Jameela Jamil, because she says things in a really articulate way,” the singer tells us. “The way she speaks about body image, it’s almost like she speaks in a hook. If you read her quotes about women and body image and aging and the way that women are treated in our industry and portrayed in the media, I swear the way she speaks is like lyrics, and it gets stuck in my head and it calms me down. Because women are held to such a ridiculous standard of beauty. We’re seeing so much on social media that makes us feel like we are less than, or we’re not what we should be, that you kind of need a mantra to repeat in your head when you start to have harmful or unhealthy thoughts. So she’s one of the people who, when I read what she says, it sticks with me and it helps me.”
In the film, then-and-now photos illustrate just how thin Swift had gotten during the “1989” era, versus the still svelte but healthier look she sported by the time she toured behind the “Reputation” album in 2018. Swift says that her under-eating in that earlier time severely affected her stamina on tour.
“I thought that I was supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it,” she attests in the documentary. “Now I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel (enervated).” Swift says she doesn’t care so much now if someone comments on a weight gain, and she’s reconciled “the fact that I’m a size 6 instead of a size double-zero.” Swift says she was completely unaware that anything was wrong in her double-zero era, and had a defense at the ready should it come up. If anyone expressed concern, she’d say, “‘What are you talking about? Of course I eat. …. I exercise a lot.’ And I did exercise a lot. But I wasn’t eating.”
Few women viewing the film will fail to nod their heads as Swift describes the impossibility of any body shape or size living up to all the standards for beauty. “If you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants,” she says in the film. “But if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just f—ing impossible.” As she became aware of the problem, Swift says in the film, it would cause her to “go into a real shame/hate spiral.”
The word “shame” comes up elsewhere in conversation with Swift, who by virtue of becoming one of the most celebrated women in the world has also had to deal with more catty comments than almost any celebrity in the world — and hasn’t always succeeded in shaking it all off.
“I was watching a Netflix Brené Brown special on shame, because I read a lot of her books, because I have dealings with shame every once in awhile,” Swift tells Variety. “She was saying something like, ‘It’s ridiculous to say “I don’t care what anyone thinks about me,” because that’s not possible. But you can decide whose opinions matter more and whose opinions you put more weight on.’ And I think that is really part of growing up, if you’re going to do it right. That’s part of hoping to find some sort of maturity and balance in your life.”
She continues, “I don’t expect anyone with a pop career to learn how to do that within the first 10 years. And I know that there’s a lot of bad stuff that’s gone on recently, a lot of really hard stuff my family is going through, and a lot of opposition and feeling pressure or suppression of one kind or another. But I am actually really happy. Because I pick and choose now, for the most part, what I care deeply about. And I think that’s made a huge difference.”
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mittensmorgul · 5 years
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Look, I know you've covered this already but I just want to reiterate how AWESOME it is that several lines and scenes of s14 were deliberately drawing our attention to the in‐betweens, to the fact that these guys have lives outside of what we seen and that they have significant moments in those off screen lives. I just fricking *love* that.
Hi hi! I know you sent this like a week ago, but I really wanted to have time to sit down and detail all the moments in s14 where they’ve used this device before replying– both for the sake of completeness in demonstrating just how critical they’ve made these “in between” spaces to the overall narrative, as well as for my own general reference purposes. :P
I’ll start by saying that the show has done this on some level from the start. I mean, the entire series begins with a cold open in 1983 before jumping 22 years into the future to begin in the “present day” of October, 2005. We begin our introduction to the story of Supernatural immediately aware that there’s already a metric fuckton of backstory we’re due to have filled in, and we’re primed to begin looking for more pieces to flesh out that history from the moment the first scene airs.
*clenches fist* STORYTELLING
I’m currently in mid-late s7 in my eternal rewatch, and even s7 uses this device MULTIPLE times. I mean, s6 does this, as well, immediately informing us that a year has passed since the events of 5.22, and gradually filling in the missing events from that gap, using Sam’s soullessness and then post-re-ensoulening amnesia about his soulless time, him “scratching the wall” and beginning to piece his own memories together, as one entry point into this “filling in the blanks of the past for full understanding of the present” storytelling device. The other major expression of this device in s6 is Castiel’s story throughout the season, which doesn’t truly begin to fill in all the blanks and answer all the questions until episode TWENTY.
(I am not defending this storytelling choice, because in s6 it served as a metaphorical “punishment,” which is still so skeevy I struggle to watch the season as a whole… in Gamble Era, characters are “punished” for remembering their past– Sam for his guilt over what he did while soulless, and eventually Cas for his hubris in believing he could devour the souls of purgatory without consequences… and again, what I get from Gamble Era overall is an unkindness to all the characters… this Erasure of Identity. For years now, I’ve read this exchange from 6.09 as a bit of an indictment of the story of that era by Ben Edlund:
SAM: So you’re saying having a soul equals suffering.DEAN: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.SAM: Like, the million times you almost called Lisa. So you’re saying suffering is a good thing.DEAN: I’m saying it’s the only game in town.
but back to the point)
S7 employed this technique in really in-your-face obvious ways, showing us time skips with little montages that cover several weeks in a matter of less than a minute, during which we’re shown the tone of the events of the “missing time” and are being told directly how to fill in those blanks:
7.01 shows this montage through Dean repairing Baby while receiving occasional updates on Sam’s recovery and Cas’s Godstiel rampage.
7.03 gives us a montage of Dean’s healing leg while he’s relegated to the sofa in the cabin watching tv… weeks elapse like this before the action picks up again.
7.10 uses flashbacks as Bobby lays dying to directly show us a fuller snapshot of who he is as a character, and why he’s been so important to Sam and Dean as their adoptive father figure
7.11 uses another “weeks pass” montage to show us Sam and Dean’s grief and their respective ways of handling Bobby’s loss
7.17 uses another flashback montage as Castiel literally rebuilds his identity from these moments… can’t really be more anvilicious than this about the import of filling in the narrative gaps…
But over the years, this has evolved in the narrative from these blatantly obvious tells to something we’re being low-level reminded of in nearly every episode through a constant implicit assumption that these characters have lives outside of what we see on The Magic Rectangle for 42 minutes a week. The show’s gone from literally subtitling these scenes and telling us exactly what we’re seeing to requiring our assumption that all we need to learn how to fill in the blanks is to assume these are actually real people who casually reference things we never knew before from their own lives and assume we know all the characters well enough by now to correctly fill in the blanks they so casually point out to us, or even expand on vast swaths of otherwise “missing time” from what we actively see of their lives from an otherwise minor comment made in passing…
Gosh, ain’t it nice when writers assume their audience is actually intelligent, considerate, engaged, and caring like this? Honestly in this day and age of GOTCHA! oneupsmanship, of authors attempting to demonstrate their intellectual superiority over their audience, it’s rather refreshing.
One more thing before we jump right into s14. Dabb and Company have been “educating” us on how to read these subtextual instructions for years now. We had the Mixtape Revelation in 12.19 that idiotically devolved into fandom arguments over what a mixtape itself was intended to symbolize, with people arguing that the thing itself had no inherent romantic implications (which… wow… but people be dumb sometimes…). I’d argue that regardless of what anyone has convinced themselves the gift meant symbolically (or didn’t mean symbolically for people with their heads shoved so far up their butts they actually made that argument in a public forum with a straight face and actually got mad about folks who actually know better…), what it meant NARRATIVELY was that the original gifting of the tape was something that had happened in the past, that we-the-audience previously had no knowledge of this particular interaction between Dean and Cas, and were being SPECIFICALLY TOLD that even though WE DID NOT SEE IT HAPPEN ON SCREEN, it absolutely, definitely, CANONICALLY ACTUALLY HAPPENED regardless of that fact.
Not only did that unseen exchange canonically happen, it was discussed by Dean and Cas in a casual fashion, as if it was simply one moment in a past filled with moments just like it. In a season where the episodes leading up to this one were filled with comments about Dean and Cas calling each other regularly (conversations that we never see, yet are informed casually happen constantly offscreen), and Dean’s increasing distress over NOT being able to reach Cas for several episodes, it’s impossible NOT to draw the conclusion that this lack of communication is HIGHLY IRREGULAR and therefore SOMETHING WE SHOULD ALL BE CONCERNED ABOUT. We didn’t need to *see* all of this to apply this fact far more broadly to the entire narrative, and understand there were massive gaps between what they could show us in 42 minutes a week versus what the baseline background life is for all of these characters in those between-times.
They doubled down on this in s13, specifically in 13.06, both with the “Dean and Cas regularly watch movies together” comments AND in the casual knowledge Cas shares with Jack about Dean’s sleeping and coffee drinking habits. It’s not just these isolated facts that we’re supposed to take away from these sorts of exchanges, but what they mean in the larger context of their off-camera interactions and relationship as a whole.
So that said, let’s move on to s14, where this has honestly evolved to the next level. The rest of this is going under a cut for now, because the totality of this post is something like 7700 words...
14.01, Stranger in a Strange Land:
The season begins with a montage of Dinkle’s actions over a period of weeks, talking to different people and asking what they want. We don’t see every one of these conversations, but we can extrapolate out from the ones we DO see and infer how all of those experiences guide his subsequent actions (as well as Dean’s subsequent emotional and psychological state later down the road).
But we’re shown one more of those conversations INDIRECTLY, from an offhand comment of another character, where we’re both reminded of Dinkle’s little conversations, AND reminded that they don’t constitute the sum total of those conversations. There is much we haven’t seen (and will NOT see, because this scene renders any additional on-screen time to cover the tone and content of those conversations superfluous and redundant), and yet we still understand the importance and gravity of Dinkle’s entire occupation during those missing weeks:
Kip:You see, recently, I had a revelation. You know, somebody asked me what it was that I wanted. And I realized that after 600 years as a demon walking the planet, destroying, drinking, defiling – you know, the Three D’s – I didn’t know. So, I sat back, and I gave it a good think, and I realized exactly what I wanted.Castiel: And what is it?Kip: Everything.
We also see this from the other side of the narrative– through the progression of events occurring at the Bunker in Dean’s absence. Sam’s despair is conveyed not only in dialogue in his conversation with Mary, it’s conveyed through just how poorly he’s looking after his own wellbeing, not shaving (visual confirmation of his mindset informing us of what his life’s been like over the previous weeks), not eating or sleeping (we’re told, and believe because of how he’s presenting himself, but also emotionally informs us of how he’s been affected by his ordeal), while simultaneously having stepped up to lead the army of AU Hunters– i.e. people from a world where war against Michael has been their lives for more than a decade, and are literally bringing that experience to THIS world, metaphorically going back to the start of their own battle to a world where Michael is only BEGINNING to enact that war on this world, who now have the experience of having survived that war and the knowledge gained while having fought against it, but also a chance to stop it before it can be allowed to start again. Or that is the hope, you know?
We’re also seeing Jack struggle with guilt, with adapting to life without the magical powers he’d been born with, and being forced to confront what is truly important to him, and what his own humanity means to him.
We’re subtly being reminded of VAST quantities of canon upon which the current character developments are resting.
14.02, Gods and Monsters:
There’s a lot of “backtracing” through character arcs in this one, which I’m gonna boil down to the general themes:
Jack seeking out his familial history, seeking out Kelly Kline’s parents to make a personal connection to his mother’s past in order to better understand himself now
Cas relating parts of his own past to Jack (falling and becoming human, not mourning the past he can’t change but finding strength in himself regardless of his current circumstance, and to have patience while his circumstance will change in future) (aside to remind folks that this setup at the beginning of the season is entirely about subverting his words through his own actions throughout the season… with 14.14 being the massive turning point again for both Jack and Cas)
Nick’s setup of beginning to fill in the blanks from his own life after a decade of having lost everything to his possession by Lucifer. He’s got a lot of catching up to do, and a heck of a lot of blanks to fill.
the absolute knowledge that the show is 100% aware of how they’ve trained us to look at the narrative this deeply, using character mirrors, foreshadowing, parallels, etc., and that they’re keen to use this power against us. And it’s up to us to understand the difference between “things being presented to us for the purposes of subversion” and “things being presented to us to fill in narrative blanks.” Like the entirety of Dinkle’s conversations with both Dean and Lydia the vampire. Heck I’m already down to bullet points and I’m gonna need to extrapolate on this one… *sighs*
Let’s start simple, with a couple of quotes:
Michael: Why do you think I dumped your brothers and sisters in plain sight? Why do you think I let you escape?Lydia: You let me escape?Michael: Rule number 1 – you can’t have a trap without bait. That brings us to rule number 2, which says once the trap has been sprung, you don’t need the bait anymore.
and
Dean: Get… out!Michael: I don’t think so.Dean: You can’t!Michael: Oh, but I can. Because, see… I own you. So hang on and enjoy the ride.
Because the first defines and contextualizes the second… Do I really need to elaborate? No? Oh good, then we can move on!
14.03, The Scar:
Again, using the trope of amnesia and memory recovery to illustrate the emotional and psychological impact of “missing time,” if not the entirety of the content of that missing gap. In addition, to Dean recovering his memories and demonstrating his reaction to his own lost time, the two respective cases of the week (Darth Kaia, learning how she came to this universe, and everything she’s endured at Dinkle’s hands also informing further the information we learned in 14.01, and in the bunker Jack and Cas helping heal Lora of a witch’s curse that was literally stealing time from her in the form of her own life energy).
I love demonstrating how “filling narrative gaps from the past” is not only built into the inherent structure of the narrative like this, it’s also the entire purpose of all the character development we’re witnessing, as well as setting the foundation of the entire story going forward.
We had that in spades from Jody, putting in plain words what we all saw happening in 13.10:
Jody: They have a right to know but I can’t. I promised Claire human cases are mine, but anything “monstery” I’d loop her in: this. God. Claire’s been doing so good. I mean anything connected to Kaia, she’s a powder keg. First loves strikes quick, and then to lose it like that. Wow, you two are having a time of it.
Confirming the subtext of Claire and Kaia’s relationship, while simultaneously informing us of what Jody, Claire, et al’s lives have been like since then, filling in a huge narrative gap with just a few innocuous comments. But there’s one more example from within the span of this episode:
Sam: Okay, look, I’m just saying… you said you let Michael in, then, bang you’re back in a blink. But for me? You were gone for weeks. I didn’t know if you were alive. I just need you to talk to me, to slow down so I can catch up.
Sam, defining the narrative gap and begging for information to fill it with. And then at the end of the episode, he gets an answer, but it’s nothing like what he expected or hoped for:
Dean: And it wasn’t a blink, being possessed. I make it sound like that, but it wasn’t. I don’t remember most of what Michael did with me because I was underwater, drowning, and that I remember. I felt every second of it – clawing, fighting for air. I thought I could make it out, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. And now he’s gone and he’s out there putting an army of monsters together and he’s hurting people. And its all on me, man. I said yes. It’s my fault.
And it’s still not really an answer.
14.04, Mint Condition:
Narrative gap reshuffle yahtzee. I’m just gonna give a few links to meta already written for this one, because it’s about the journey, and being informed enough to pay attention to all the sights along the roadside as we go:
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179792849870/when-in-doubt-sing-mittensmorgul-i
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181790806615/questions-and-their-empty-spaces
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179742780230/mittens-help-dean-says-he-loves-hatchet-man
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179734411135/i-love-there-wasnt-any-acknowledgement-about-dean
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179724128520/stuarts-my-best-friend-we-watch-movies-and-eat
(gotta throw in at least one destiel reference…)
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179700702490/hey-mittens-just-wondering-if-you-could-help-me
And because this reading list is already getting long, I just want to use this post to point out how the use of narrative mirrors informs our understanding of those one-off characters through our established understanding of the main characters, enabling those mirror characters to serve their function in the story. Davy was not subtle with pointing that out in this episode, and it’s an essential tool in understanding the bigger picture of the narrative. But it’s also a device in filling narrative gaps by recognizing and applying the subtextual lessons being demonstrated:
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179695858820/a-few-observations-on-the-mirror-characters
So this isn’t just about individual lines at this point, but an entire narrative shift that the writers spent the entire first half of s14 laying out for us through these sorts of storytelling lessons hidden just under the surface of the story itself. Brilliant.
Basically, if you’re NOT making these connections and using your brain to flesh out the entire world pointed at in the narrative gaps, you don’t really have a hope of understanding the bigger story.
14.05, Nightmare Logic:
Aah, the superpowered djinn, 3D walking metaphor for filling in gaps from the past to find wholeness in the present. Also, one of Michael’s “monster traps” he laid out in order to lure in and kill unwary hunters, which he believed (and the monsters themselves believed) made them more powerful, but in reality became the vehicle through which the Winchesters were eventually able to gain the upper hand… they survived the encounter and walked away with new knowledge about both themselves AND Michael’s bigger plans that had been evading them before this episode.
Information fills narrative gaps.
The djinn itself has been “enhanced” from djinn we’ve seen in the past, able to create its illusions in reality rather than only within its victims own minds. What was imaginary becomes tangible. Subtext becomes text.
We also get AU!Bobby’s backstory, which demonstrates that this alternate version of Bobby is really nothing like our original version, and the sum of his life experiences have made him who he is.
We also get another “zombie” reference, which the more I think back on this entire season (and Jack’s long obsession with zombies in general) is an interesting metaphor for this sort of viewing, not engaging with the deeper text and instead shuffling across it without looking deeper. Because pretty much every time someone suggested the monster could be a zombie, it’s definitively shown to be something much more complex once they begin to dig for answers.
(we also have Dean discussing his past, his relationship with his father, and talking about how setting that baggage aside and living in the present, and for the future, is something he’s worked long and hard to achieve for himself. And we’ve seen some of that journey for him, but this was a huge step for him, which will become profoundly more evident in 14.10 and 14.13)
14.06, Optimism:
Oh, we wanted zombie references? Well, alrighty, have some zombie references! Via the entirely self-deluded MotW character, masquerading as a person with a sad backstory of being “unlucky in love” while all the while she’s a necromancer who murdered and resurrected her boyfriend as a mindless zombie she enacts a brutal game with for her own personal pleasure: luring in suitors and letting her zombie boyfriend kill and eat them. Worst honey trap ever.
Speaking of honey, the other MotW is a fly dude who couldn’t find love among his species and exiled himself to live alone among a pile of rotting corpses of his victims. I mean… ew.
But back to our necromancer, who is a lonely librarian, who is surrounded by stories and laments that people in her town aren’t interested in stories. All the while she’s not engaging with her own reality, and has decided that her own version of the story is an accurate reflection of reality (while the rest of us shake our heads in horror because whoa no hon…)
We also learn AU!Charlie’s backstory, with the constant reminders that what Sam keeps mistaking on the surface level for “his Charlie” IS NOT HER. Man, I feel that feel, AU!Charlie.
Jack: What's 'courting?'Dean: It's what you do before you start dating.Jack: Oh, and that's the thing you do before the sex.Wanda: Sometimes you just have the sex.
Yes, Wanda. Sometimes you skip all the courting, all the emotional and interpersonal stuff, and just go right to the sex. But then you tend to just walk away after without any sort of deeper connection having been made. One night stands are fine, but they’re very different things from deep interpersonal relationships.
You can absolutely engage with Supernatural like a one night stand. The story’s fun on the surface, but ultimately the courting is what provides the deep payoff.
14.07, Unhuman Nature:
We get back to the twisted story of Nick, and his quest to understand himself. He’s filling in more of those horrific gaps in his history and getting closer to the Worst Possible Conclusions about himself. He ENJOYED being Lucifer’s vessel, and wants that feeling of power back, even if it wasn’t HIS power, just being the vehicle for that power is enough for him, more important to him than even discovering the truth about himself. At the bottom of himself, he’s just an empty douchebag-shaped vessel for pure evil.
What a fucking delight >.>
Nurse: Uh-huh. Family medical history? Let's start with the father.Dean: He's dead.Nurse: Cause of death?Castiel: He was stabbed through the heart, and he exploded.Dean: Okay, you know what? We don't have time for this. All right, he's sick. His name is Jack Kline. His father exploded. There, you've got all the basics. Now what does he need to do to see a doctor?
Well that simplified the whole “filling in the backstory through the narrative negative spaces” thing in this episode, didn’t it?
Jack: Since I've been alive, everyone assumed that I would be this special 'person' who goes on forever. Only now it looks like forever might be a couple of weeks, so--Dean: We don't know that.Jack: What I do know is I'm done being special. Before my life is over, I want to live it. I just want a chance to get a tan or see a hockey game... get a parking ticket... get bored... and when it's all over -- die.
I mean, isn’t that what all of TFW kind of wants? They want to not be “special.” They want the universe to stop picking on them specifically. They want to just live their lives until they’re done.
Jack: You once told me you and your father did the exact same thing. It was your happiest memory of him.Dean: I didn't say that.Jack: It was how you said it. I could tell. I guess my point is that if I don't make it... The stuff I'd miss -- it wouldn't be things like Tahiti. Or the Taj Mahal. I'd miss more time with you. I'm getting that life isn't all these big, amazing moments. It's time together that matters. Like this.Dean: Well, who'd have thought hanging out with me would make you sentimental?
Dude. Dean. Everyone thought this. You are the king of “family is the most important thing in the universe without which I am nothing.” Talk about Jack filling in that particular blank for you.
14.08, Byzantium:
Aka that one where we discover something important to Jack in his own Heaven-- and it’s literally a missing scene from 13.06 and their road trip to Dodge City where they stop for burgers. UNPROBLEMATIC FAMILY BONDING IS JACK’S HEAVEN. And it also fills in a past narrative gap, specifically from an episode that was structured around filling in narrative gaps. WE’RE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, PEOPLE.
We also have the return of Lily Sunder, now grown old since she’d completed her revenge quest against Ishim and the other angels who’d wronged her (including Cas, who literally killed Ishim FOR her). Talk about filling in a lifetime worth of gaps, and her literal near-lack of a soul she “fills in” through one final sacrifice made of love, which earns her redemption and entrance to Heaven.
I mean… those narrative gaps are looking pretty important here right about now.
Also, what’s that other big gap I haven’t mentioned yet? Oh, right! A villain literally known as “The Empty.” I’m sure that’s not meta relevant to the importance of the narrative empty spaces at all...
14.09, The Spear.
Sequel to The Scar (since the spear is what left Dean with the scar in the first place, so we’re back on our Dinkle nonsense again). There’s a lot of blank-filling going on in this episode.
Remember Garth? Well, as he’s reintroduced in this episode it appears as if he’s gone over to the Dark Side, but of course we learn he’s actually there as a deep cover agent for the Winchesters. This tells us they’ve been keeping in close touch with Garth all this time, despite us not having seen him on screen in ages. (FIVE YEARS!)
Remember Ketch? Well, he’s also doing deep cover agency stuff for the Winchesters, but with a level of incompetence that reminds us all that he’s still not one of the good guys, no matter how hard he’s trying, he’s still… falling a bit short. But at least they’re still keeping contact with him. And BOTH of these characters appearing after a while offscreen reminds us that TFW truly aren’t alone in the world, and they DO have this network of people (at varying degrees of competence still ranging from typical bumbling civvie to TFW themselves).
This entire episode was also a massive reference to Die Hard. Just… it was Die Hard: Supernatural. And we know Dean has referenced this movie endlessly. But the funniest thing: Die Hard isn’t actually referenced ONE SINGLE TIME in text in this episode. Nobody points out the similarities between the situation at the Hitomi Plaza at Christmas with Die Hard. Narrative negative space ftw.
And then we have the reveal that Michael had somehow left a “secret back door” open into Dean, and was able to just jump right back into him when it was convenient to do so. I.e., when he was losing the fight to Dean. He had a cheat code at the ready, because his possession of Dean had been operating on cheat code rules since the start in 13.23. His entire possession of Dean was a violation of the “standard rules of angel possession.” Consent of the vessel being primary. Even BAD consent has been enough in the past-- tricking the vessel into saying yes, backing them into a corner. I mean, remember s5 and the horrors Zachariah was willing to go to in order to secure Dean’s yes? Not even manipulation here with this version of Michael. Even if the face of Dean’s abject rejection of his possession, he refused to vacate the premises. Which is an interesting narrative blank to fill in, yes? Angels may have these rules, but for some reason-- is it Michael’s supreme power? Is it the fact Dean is his “destined vessel?” is it a factor of this Michael being from an alternate universe that might operate on different rules? Is it a factor of Dean’s own lack of conviction in his demand that Michael get out? Whatever it is… it is interesting.
We also catch up with Darth Kaia, who after months of balking at the notion, hands over her spear to Dean with the promise that he’ll return it after he kills Michael. It would solve her ongoing problems with the monsters Michael had been relentlessly sending after her. But he also promises to help her find her way back to her own universe. And now we don’t even know if any of that is possible… (aside to say that I’m now crying over the loss of Wayward again, and I feel this lack of resolution here is a damn pointed statement on that from Bobo.)
14.10, Nihilism.
Nihilism being a descriptor of Michael’s basic personality, in this case.
The most long-term relevant narrative negative spaces in this episode are Sam and Cas venturing into Dean’s mind, and literally using what they know about Dean to find where Michael had locked him away. They literally rely on their knowledge of who he is as a person as a map to find him, and then as a codex to actually get through to him and break him out of the illusion Michael had trapped him in. And then they all turn around and weaponize all of that to lock Michael away in Dean’s mind fridge.
Metaphors, anyone?
Meanwhile, Michael literally insists he’s telling everyone the truth about how Dean really feels about them, but it’s all… ALL OF IT… a manipulation and a lie.
(aside to admit that at this point I have been working on this post on and off for the last 12 hours, can barely remember what the point of it even was, and regret everything. I think we were supposed to be discussing Narrative References To Stuff That Happens On Screen, but at this point, that is so deeply intertwined with the narrative structure as a whole that I’m having trouble separating out textual references to offscreen stuff from the actual content of the story as a whole… yes this is already approaching 5k words at this point, and no I don’t care anymore :P)
14.11, Damaged Goods.
Dean is given information (that we have not yet seen) by Billie (again, offscreen) about “the only way to save the universe.”
Disclaimer to note that we STILL haven’t seen exactly what Billie showed Dean in her magical destiny book… which fact in itself can be open to myriad interpretations, because canon itself has shifted from this point in the canonical timeline to what we have actually witnessed unfold, which fundamentally differs between what Billie told Dean and what actually transpired on screen.
This… is major.
Also, Nick, and the effective end of his story… or is it? He’s finally got his personal backstory filled in, and turns out he was just a dick all along! Surprise! Because his “truth” never actually mattered to him. It was all a lie he told himself from the very first moment he was ever introduced on screen back in 5.01. He was never a good person who’d been used by Lucifer and manipulated into doing terrible things. He was always just a bad person who’d been looking for an excuse to do terrible things. Lucifer was just his excuse.
Dean fills in some horrific bits of their childhood for Mary through the metaphor of Winchester Surprise. Apparently delicious to Dean, but yikes… stuff like that’s really not healthy…
14.12, Prophet and Loss:
So, Donatello might not be as brain dead as previously believed! Let’s fill in that backstory, through a broken prophet who can’t be fully realized because Donatello’s technically not dead, so the new guy is getting a distorted message because Donatello’s interrupting the signal.
Dean asked Sam not to tell Cas about his Drama Coffin plan, but of course Sam had immediately told Cas about his drama coffin plan anyway…
CAS: Sam. Maybe if I spoke with Dean…SAM: It wouldn’t matter. Believe me, I-I I’ve never seen him like this. He won’t listen to me. H-He just – No. If we don’t find some way… Dean’s gone.
But then just a little while later, when Dean talks to Cas and learns that Cas knows his entire dumbass plan:
DEAN: Really?SAM: Dean, it’s Cas. I had to tell him.
Well, some time in the previous few hours, when Sam hasn’t been trapped in the car with Dean (which we know he has been canonically), Sam’s first priority was calling Cas to tell him about Dean’s plan. Like… duh… 
14.13, Lebanon:
I love this episode on every possible level. It drops us at the climax of a hunt and just trusts us to understand what’s going on. Someone has been murdered for their collection of supernatural artifacts, and it’s been traced to this shop, where the owner trades in dangerous artifacts… all of that happened offscreen, yet we understand the context if not the specific case itself. Beautiful.
Then we have the cursed pearl that apparently grants a wish. Dean uses it to theoretically wish that Michael was out of his head. In monkey’s paw fashion, instead of just granting the wish through the simplest means, the wish actually attempts to rewrite history (this is the sort of thing that differentiates a “cursed object” from a “magical cure”) in order to remove the root infiltration of Michael into Dean’s life… by literally bringing John Winchester into the present time from 2003, removing him from the entire timeline to this point and changing EVERYTHING.
Talk about filling a narrative negative space. Cas doesn’t know them, Dean never went to Hell. Hell, Dean never even went to collect Sam from Stanford. NOTHING from the entire history of the series as we know it actually happened AT ALL.
D:
At least we got to see Zachariah get stabbed again. Sam deserved a turn, you know? :’)
But we also have the other half of the episode-- the case in Lebanon, and seeing the Winchesters through the eyes of the locals. Talk about a HUGE reminder of the things that happen offscreen. They go to the post office, the local shops, and have a weird reputation around town, despite most of the townsfolk accepting their brand of weirdness. It’s… weirdly refreshing, seeing how they’ve gone from “hunters of urban legends” in s1 to “actual urban legends themselves” in s14. The power of storytelling at its finest.
In this case, so many personal blanks were filled in for Mary, Sam, and Dean just by being able to share a single family dinner with John in the aftermath of everything else. In the end, Sam and Dean CHOSE their own lives, and smashed the pearl with John’s blessing, putting everything back the way it was. The most powerful line in this entire episode, to me:
John: Dean. I, uh -- I never meant for this.Dean: Dad, we pulled you here.John: No, son. My fight. It was supposed to end with me, with Yellow Eyes. But now you -- you are a grown man, and I am incredibly proud of you. I guess that I had hoped, eventually, you would... get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, a family.Dean: I have a family.
HE HAS A FAMILY. :’)
It might not be what John ever imagined for him. Or even what Mary wanted for him when she rejected the hunting life the first time around. But it’s the family Dean earned for himself. The one he CHOSE for himself. And he wouldn’t trade it for anything-- not even for the family he was born into, or a white picket fence he used to think he should have.
And then after this… everything changes… again…
14.14, Ouroboros:
Right. That one where everything changed. Where everything from Billie’s Books of Certain Prophecy to Jack’s soul to Dean’s certainty about… pretty much everything… went up in a swirling whirlpool of burning grace.
Yes, the episode where they burned the spiral narrative structure and were clearly beginning the inevitable run toward endgame. I mean it had been hinted at as a possibility before this, and 14.13 was certainly a product of the inevitability of endgame, but this episode sealed the deal.
They could’ve technically still gotten away with 14.13 as a one-off product of “very special 300th episode” and still continued down the narrative spiral that they’ve been circling for years now, but in retrospect from beyond the rest of s14, this was the official burn point.
So the story shifts radically in very fundamental ways from this point on, and reference to the past become… different. But what happens offscreen in the context of these episodes going forward takes on so much more weight as a result. We’re now “living in the present” with these characters.
We have Sam’s relationship with Rowena, which has clearly developed to the point of casual intimacy. Rowena confronts Sam in ways we’ve never seen before, demonstrating a confidence in their interactions DESPITE Billie’s assertion that Sam will be the one to “kill” her. That has strangely given her a sense of… comfort… with Sam, that’s demonstrated in the fact that they work together through this entire case-- paired off much the way Dean and Cas are.
Again, like in 14.06 and 14.13, we’re dropped into the middle of their case, and only informed that they’ve been tracing this monster through numerous other towns in this episode, requiring us to extrapolate out their entire hunt from discovering there might be a case, to the point where they’ve even brought Rowena onboard to help give them an advantage of a monster that had repeatedly eluded them.
The monster itself has an advantage in that it can literally see the future and escape before they catch him, until they discover the huge gaping hole in what it can actually see-- Cas and Jack are literally invisible to it. He can’t see THEM coming, specifically. The importance of actually reading what we DON’T see. Because if the monster hadn’t been so confident in what it COULD see, he would’ve understood that he was missing a critical piece of information-- the door literally shut itself in his vision of the future and he didn’t bother to stop and question WHY. And it was his downfall.
The narrative is telling us that missing this key gap-filling information is effectively our downfall as viewers.
14.15, Peace of Mind:
Hooray, we’re back to simple “missing scene” levels of text to latch on to, and I don’t have to swim through the whole of the narrative structure to make a comment. Wheeee! (sorry it’s been like 14 hours since I started writing this reply and I’ve achieved Peak Mental Exhaustion for it) :P
Let’s reflect on how all of the characters managed to delude themselves in this episode, and simultaneously approach their own personal concerns without actually talking to each other directly… and then instead focus on this exchange:
Dean: Oh. Hey! How was Arkansas?Sam: Arkansas was, uh It was weird.Dean: Heard you wore a cardigan.Castiel: Yeah, I told him about the cardigan.Sam: Great. Thanks.Dean: And the wife. He said you were, uh, really happy.
Yep. Proof again of offscreen communication happening, in a way I can yell and point at without having to write paragraphs to explain and defend. :P Aah, just like the simpler days of our past… which hey, is also a narrative theme of this episode! Nostalgia!
14.16, Don’t Go In The Woods:
Or, that one where we discuss why we don’t share everything with the general public, while Jack… behaves poorly with the general public, and then hides that fact from Sam and Dean. Also, we have this confirmation of offscreen conversation:
SAM: You got it. I'll grab Cas.DEAN: Mm. He actually left.SAM: What?DEAN: Early this morning.SAM: Why?DEAN: I don't know. Something about being cooped up in the bunker for a few weeks. We all need to stretch our legs. I get it.
Dean… had a whole conversation with Cas… and didn’t even mention it until Sam specifically asked about Cas. Stuff happened offscreen… big important stuff… and we’re only getting a peek at it now. Not only that-- because this will be VITAL to remember two episodes down the road-- they have been cooped up in the bunker “for a few weeks.” In 14.15 ONE EPISODE EARLIER, Dean complained to Sam that he’d been driving them literally from case to case without a break:
Sam: (Sam was in the map room flashing back to Maggie and the other hunters dying. He looked sad as he went to the kitchen) Found us a case. Arkansas.Dean: We've just done three back-to-back Hunts. I need some rest. At least a night. We both do.Sam: Yeah, well I'm leaving in ten.Dean: Like I said, not good.Castiel: Maybe I should go with him. And you can stay with Jack.
So the events of 14.16 are clearly after a hiatus of several weeks. Again, things have happened offscreen, and we’re only learning about them in the absolute most casual statement-in-passing sorts of ways, but these tiny references are pretty earth-shattering.
14.17, Game Night:
The timeline isn’t concrete, but I’ve written in several places that I believe 14.16, and 14.17 flow one into the other, just based on these subtextual sorts of cues-- Dean’s statement in 14.16 that Cas had been feeling cooped up after several weeks in the bunker, the fact that Cas had only LEFT the bunker at the beginning of 14.16 and we only see him reach his destination of talking with Anael now in 14.17  (and how long do we REALLY think it took him to find her and convince her to meet with him? Especially when the events of 14.17 take place over about 36 hours before bleeding directly into 14.18…). So this timeline that I’ve understood presupposes the gap of “several weeks” of being cooped up in the bunker to have elapsed between 14.15 and 14.16 as suddenly resolved itself into all of them willing to spend time in the bunker as a family… except for Cas, who’s on an as-yet unspecified mission.
This episode reinforces those missing scenes, through showing us the very different mission Cas is on, finally addressing the seriousness of Jack’s condition, but also paralleled through Mary’s growing suspicions of Jack that she’ll be unable to ignore by the end of the episode…
Jack even addresses this “but in that scene you didn’t see play out, this important thing happened!” IN TEXT, TO MARY:
Mary: If Sam and Dean saw what you did, they would be as worried as I am.Jack: Are you gonna tell them?Mary: You need help, we'll help you. We're your family.Jack: You can't.Mary: We care about you, Jack.
And now the things that happen offscreen have been lampshaded as being CRITICAL to understanding the whole of the story. And the divide between the two can be fatal...
14.18, Absence.
Literally, the title itself is telling us to be aware of what’s missing.
But we finally get the payoff on the “missing information” about those several weeks spent cooped up in the bunker-- Sam was literally not there. It was Dean and Cas, alone with Jack.
Sam: You know, after Maggie and the other hunters died... I just left. Just dumped Jack on Cas and left.
That happened in 14.14. The other hunters dying. But we KNOW that Sam had not left on his own at that time. He’d dragged Dean and Cas and Jack on three consecutive hunts in the aftermath of that to avoid going back to the bunker, in the run up to 14.15. THIS was the payoff of that “cooped up for weeks” comment in 14.16… because SAM hadn’t been cooped up with them. He’d dumped Jack on everyone and run off on his own after 14.15…
But this episode doesn’t stop there. It takes each character individually and pushes them through memories of the past, of Mary specifically, but those memories do so much narrative heavy lifting I can’t even begin to yell about them here. I’ll just link a post:
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/184195342200/you-know-when-deans-turns-around-after-that
Wait, I found that post while looking for the one I’d set to to find, but it’s in my Narrative Negative Space tag, so yay? Bonus. This is the one I’d meant to find:
https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/184144189665/drsilverfish-mittensmorgul-mittensmorgul
There. My best thing from s14. And I’ll leave this episode at that.
Oh, and with the reminder that if Dean and Cas had truly still been at odds over Mary’s death, then Dean would not have brought Cas to Mary’s funeral pyre. Period. 
14.19, Jack in the Box.
Aka that one we’d all figured out what the big plot thing was just by the on-the-nose nature of the title, months before it aired.
At least the drama coffin got blowed up good?
14.20, Moriah:
The most meta meta to have ever meta’d. There’s not much happening offscreen in this one aside from the entire setup and premise of the episode as a whole. Again, we’re dropped into a hunt and expected to understand the setup, the legwork that’s already been done. We learn that Dean has been in touch with Cas, but they’re investigating different avenues. We see Chuck FINALLY answer Cas’s prayer for help from 14.17, but Chuck’s idea of “help” isn’t helpful in the least.
We understand the fundamental nature of the extent of the personal little lies Sam and Dean tell each other (Thanks for that one, Jack!), and therefore are being asked to reassess which comments from their past were the full, honest truth, and which were the comfortable performance they put on to maintain their own projected self-identities.
And whoa.
It’s now 3 am, and I’ve been working on this post on and off for the last 16 hours. And I am tired, and officially out of mental steam to keep thinking about it. So I’m gonna post it. All 7700 words of it. I hope this helps... :P
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brannfllakess · 4 years
Text
Horseshoes & Hand Grenades
One cool September night I woke up in a hospital bed, my heart still pumping and my stomach, luckily, had not been. After spending a long day hiding alcohol in water bottles, I drank some more once I got home. My last recall before awaking in a hospital gown was one of myself meeting the counter face to face before I folded to the floor. I would have been content with dying that day. I had a good run, I thought to myself. Years later I would come to learn the term survival instinct, and the fact that I had none. Some more years later, I would come to hear the song ‘If The World Was Ending’, written by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels. Early on in the second verse, Michaels reminisces of the night that her and her partner drunkenly did not make it past their kitchen. Albeit different circumstances, I too did not make it past the kitchen.
Somewhere among the good times, the first girl I had ever fallen in love with had planned to pick up all the pieces and move to Minnesota. In a moment of doubt, she decided against it; And she did not tell me of her brash idea, or her intentions for myself to come along. I would find that out later and had she not been hesitant, I would have left all of my pieces in a moment of stupidity.
At times, I think we are all less than we expect ourselves to be. Myself came to be somebody far worse than my capabilities my freshman year of college, where I made many ill-advised decisions. In a moment of reflection, I had come to terms with the fact that the habits by which you are hurt are no excuse to continue the cycle of pain. My hands have healed, but the scars still remain. The anger still remains but what I choose to do with that is entirely up to me, and what you choose to do with yours is entirely up to you.
Had things gone a little bit differently, I would’ve gone to college with a girl I had loved for years gone by. Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure what I would have said to her. Truth be told, I'm not sure that I had much left to say after I love you. I would like to think that this was an act of fate and in a moment of selflessness, I let her go.
Throughout ‘If The World Was Ending’ there is a sense of yearning, and ideally we shouldn’t have to wait until an earthquake happens, as mentioned by both Saxe and Michaels throughout the melancholic duet, to hold the person we love. But in moments of the human condition I believe we all want the things that we can never have.
In the onset of the summer of 2019 I would come to make the greatest decision, and mistake of my life. I called my mother in a moment of uncertainty and planted the idea of me moving back in. Of course, I knew she would support it as she had wanted me under her roof in the godforsaken volunteer state since the morning she got there 6 months prior.
With eviction imminent, this seed had barreled into an oak tree before my very eyes. Looking back, I think the universe had been asking for me to grow up for some time and I had been repeatedly dodging it’s calls.
By pure luck and the sake of my odds, I had met a girl a few weeks before my time in the empire state was up; And in a moment of hope I had continued seeing her. One night we sat in the backseat of my car atop a hill overlooking some small town, the name I’ll never quite remember. We talked for hours and our conversations fogged up the windows. Amongst all the chatter I told her of all the stupid shit I did from childhood to present and in a moment of adoration she grabbed my face and told me that I was an idiot. Call me dumb but that was a moment of love. I think relationships, like most life changing decisions, are a leap of faith. Now I do not have faith in many things, but I did in her so in a moment of change I jumped.
My world has ended many times. It ended the day my first dog died. It ended the day I moved schools in 5th grade. It ended the day I graduated. It ended the day my best friend moved to North Carolina. And lastly, it had ended the day I moved 789 minutes away. Throughout ‘If The World Was Ending’ one question is proposed continuously, ‘If the world was ending, you'd come over right?’
To answer both Saxe and Michaels, she did, in fact, come over.
I find that a family bound by devotion and loyalty to one another to be stronger than blood ties, and mine has proven to be time after time. However, I still lost them in a sense after I indirectly forced myself to leave. Not without trying, I was unsuccessful in the job hunt for a few months after the move. One smoldering morning in June I found tire marks streaking my driveway and that is where I learned that I had lost my car; And in a moment of regression, I had lost my girlfriend.
Within ‘If The World Was Ending’ a beautiful couplet is sung by both Saxe and Michaels, which goes “I know You know We know You weren’t down for forever and it’s fine, I know You know We know We weren’t meant for each other and it’s fine.” What’s graceful about these few lines is that neither party points nor takes blame for who led to the fall of the relationship. The same could not be said for myself. In a moment of misdirection I had chosen what I desired right then versus what I had wanted my life to look like down the road. Up to this point in my life I believed myself to be the good guy, as most people do. Six months time would pass before I would come to the realization that in this instance, as well as many others previous to this, I was the lesser of the two parties involved.
Shortly after I landed a job, I met a homegrown Tennessean, and she, like most women who caught more than my eye, had a boyfriend. After a flirtatious interaction she asked for my number, and in a split moment of choice i gave it to her.
I spent my 21st birthday in a coffee shop foreign to myself sipping on bitter coffee with a girl who was not mine. Before what would come to be a bittersweet farewell, she serenaded me with swan songs courtesy of Blink-182 in the passenger seat of her car and in a moment of simplicity I let myself know that I loved her.
In a last act of sick twists which I can only assume to be a play by god, I would come to learn that had I jumped ship when my mother had, I would have ran the chance of meeting her before she held a boy who was not myself.
You see, throughout the song the world was not ending, and they did not end up at each others’ houses, but had it been perhaps they would have.
I almost died. I almost graduated college. I almost became a drug addict. I was almost in a steady relationship.
Almost.
Circumstances are always close to being different, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
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mskinkyafro · 5 years
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Last Call (Ethan Ramsey x MC)
A/N: I know what most could be thinking...what the hell it’s only been two chapters, but I can’t help it! I feel so much excitement and adoration for Dr. Ethan Ramsey. We don’t know much about him but ideas were popping in my head all weekend.  Any details I reference about his past in this fic is original content I conceived and nothing confirmed in PB cannon. This would definitely not be apart of cannon so cannon divergence here. The song used briefly in this fic is “These Arms of Mine” by Otis Redding.
Italicized and bold:song lyrics
Italicized: internal thoughts
Summary: Dr. Ethan Ramsay takes time to reevaluate the newest intern that’s captured his attention in more ways than one, whether he wants to admit it or not.
All Rights to PB for their characters, settings, and stories. I don’t own them, I just borrow minus my MC Dr. Katrina Michaels.
All Rights to who own the song “These Arms of Mine”.
In the mischievous hours of the night Dr. Ethan Ramsey sits alone in the now barren Donahue’s nursing another drink. The place once buzzing with noise is now near sheer silence except the gentle music playing from the jukebox. The last crop of stragglers, only a few with slurring speeches make their exit. Hearing the soft thud of the door shutting he let out a mild grunt and raises his near empty glass towards the bartender.
“Last one, buddy. My knees are screaming and any minute longer I’ll be visiting you at your job versus you visiting mine.”
Reggie says as he refills the glass and then grabs a rag to clean.
“Now we can’t be having that now.” Ethan replies before taking a small gulp.
Suspicious at such warm words from the man Reggie stops wiping down the counter to look at Ethan.
“Hmm, that’s strangely kind of you-”
Before Reggie can finish his sentence Ethan cuts him off all the while looking into his diminishing drink
“Because then who will serve me drinks at my beck and call?”
His eyes shine with mirth as looks at Reggie while he takes another sip.
“You almost had me there. You’re a cheeky bastard, you know that? I should throw your ass out for that.” Reggie says while shaking his head amused.
“But you won’t because you’re too good. That’s exactly why the likes of myself don’t deserve you as friend Reg.”
“Heh, damn right. I only keep you around because you tip well.”
Ethan chuckles at the man in front of him.
“Never change, Reggie.”
“Wasn’t planning to buddy.”
The two men finish laughing when the shoosh of the door opens and a young African-American woman enters while calling over her shoulder before the door closes.
“I’m going to use the restroom and wait inside until the Lyft comes. Night everyone!”
Recognizing the voice speaking  Ethan turns and sees Dr.  Katrina Michaels. As she moves from the entrance and towards the back right of the bar to the restrooms his gaze follows and he retreats to his mind briefly.
“I haven’t quite figured out why but there’s something about the rookie that intrigues me.”
Reggie notices his friend is watching the woman from earlier and can already gather what could be the reason why. Being the good friend that he is Reggie decides to give his old pal  a nudge in the right direction. So he taps Ethan on the shoulder to get his attention.
“Welp, I gotta clean up in the back. Keep an eye on the place for me. Especially the little lady, I’m leaving both in your capable hands.”
Ethan quirks an eyebrow at Reggie as he takes another swig and asks
“What are you getting at Reg?”
Reggie smirks to himself and shrugs his shoulders before he turns to leave Ethan alone and enters a side door near the shelves of alcohol. Ethan scoffs and continues to drink his glass of scotch enjoying the the burning sensations that slide down his throat. His thoughts lingers to earlier in the night when talking to Katrina.
“She definitely is different in the real world but on the hand not so much.  I don't quite understand why this intern is different from the others. Other than  proving herself capable so far but outside  EdenBrook I notice that my thoughts have dawdle on her more  trivial attributes. Such as her underlying fierceness or perhaps her vivaciousness. Well I suppose I can’t say I truly recognized these qualities more so I overlooked them, one such as her beauty. She truly is stunning. It makes me wonder why a woman like her spent time near me when the place was swarming with younger men. Especially asking if someone was waiting at home for me. It can’t be what I think… no I probably need to ease off the alcohol right now. Besides who would wait around  for me anyway? Edie surely doesn’t anymore.”
As he sets his glass down back on the counter he hears a soft voice calling his name which removes him from his thoughts. Without turning around he says
“Hello again, rookie.”
“I’m surprised to see you still here Dr. Ramsey.” Katrina Michaels murmurs.
He turns to face the intern and replies
“I’m surprising in a lot of ways.”
She smiles and delicately places herself  onto the stool that’s next to Ethan.
“You’ll have to  prove that you know.”
Despite himself he smirks at her. His gunmetal blue eyes piercing into Katrina’s hazel ones. Their gazes seem to challenge yet captivate the other. There’s a comfortable yet tense air between the two until the smooth vocals of Otis Redding play from the jukebox.
“These arms of mine, they are lonely. Lonely and feeling blue. These arms of mine are yearning, yearning  from wanting you...”
The song continues to play as Katrina speaks.
“You know he’s is one of my favorite artist. I used to...”
As she speaks Ethan watches the woman in front of him. He observes the way her eyes are lit up to how a rogue strand of her curly hair hangs, and even how in the dimly lit bar her smile radiates and contrasts with her beautiful coffee-hue complexion. He tries to listen to all she’s saying, now beginning to tell him about much of a fan she is. But he’s beginning to distract himself with his thoughts once more.
“Of course this song plays. Very convenient timing, I’d say. I bet Reggie had something to do with this. It’s been so long since I had someone. At this point other people would take anyone. But I could never at my stage in life. That’s why I’m here at almost one in the morning. I wonder why she’s here too, besides being young.”
Ethan breaks away from his mind to refocus back onto Katrina whose finishing up a compliment about his research.
“Katrina, may I ask you a question?”
“Of course, Dr. Ramsey.”
“First, outside of EdenBrook you may call me, Ethan.”
Katrina runs her hand through her hair before replying
“Are you sure, Dr. Ramsey?”
He rolls his eyes briefly before turning to look at his glass to take another sip of his scotch.
“Yes, rookie. You referring to me as doctor outside of the hospital makes me look a bit pretentious.”
“I think that’s your own doing, Dr. Ramsey.”
He pauses lifting his glass to meet his mouth in midair and turns to glare at her but it falters once he hears the bubbling of laughter escape her plump lips. He goes back to take a swig and places his glass back down gently.
“Sorry. I couldn’t pass that up...Ethan.”
“Now, was that really that difficult?”
“Not exactly, but it’s a bit strange. To be on first name basis with your idol.”
“I’m just a man, rookie. Not a celebrity or some god.”
Katrina turns her face away from Ethan and averts her eyes from his as she whispers
“Maybe, but you sure do have god-like looks.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t make out what you said?”  curious of what she said.
“It’s not important. But you wanted to ask me something?”
“Yes I do. I happen to be thinking of what you asked me earlier in the night and wondered the same.”
“Is that so? Is there a reason why you liked to know?”
Her tone so playful with a hint of flirtation that he couldn’t decipher if he imagined it or not.
Instead of speaking he shrugs his shoulders in response.
Smiling to herself and looking down before meeting his eyes again.
“I’m just like you. No one awaiting my return.”
“Interesting.”
The fading music is more audible as the two stop speaking momentarily
“...I need somebody. Somebody to treat me right, oh. I need your arms. Loving arms to hold me tight. And I, I, I need your, I need your tender lips to hold me.”
A chime from Katrina’s cell phone breaks the silence before either one of them could.
“That’s my Lyft. It’s two minutes away so, I’m going to waiting outside.”
Ethan nods in understanding, she begins to remove herself from her seat, but still slightly tipsy she slips and falls into Ethan’s body who reacts immediately.  He grasps firmly yet gently ahold of her,  keeping her steady. Both freeze from the sudden contact and close parameters they are from the other.
Katrina can see Ethan’s adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat and he thinks to himself while staring at Katrina.
“I suddenly have the urge to gently brush the curls away from her beautiful eyes and...I need to stop this instant. It’s late and I am feeling a bit lonely but I’m beginning to enter a dangerous area. This would lead to an H.R. nightmare. I can’t let myself get tangled with the matters of the heart. Especially with my, ahem, the rookie. God, I need to lay off the sauce for a while.”
He’s pulled from his thoughts when Katrina removes herself from his arms.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it, rookie.”
“Is that going to be a permanent thing? Even outside of work?”
“What?”
“Rookie. I mean you’ve called me by my first name earlier tonight even when I thought you didn’t even know it, much less remember it nor care to.”
“I’ve told you. I’m observant...rookie. Does that answer your question?” He says smirking at her.
Rolling her eyes she moves to make her way to the exit.
“Yes it does. And you deny that you’re favoring me.”
“I’ll let you believe what you want. Even if it’s a silly notion.”
“Whatever you say, Dr. Ramsey” she purrs.
Ethan feels his heart rate increase briefly. Before he can respond, she speaks up.
“My ride should be here now. I’ll see you around Dr. Rams- I mean Ethan.”
She rubs her hand obsessively through her hair before giving him a quick wave as she inches closer to the door.
“For whatever reason my name leaving her lips sounds right. As the same for hers. Katrina. Ka-tri-na. I’d like to say it more than just in my...Okay enough. I must stick with calling her  rookie. That’s what's...what’s safe.
Katrina opens the door which pulls Ethan out and he speaks for the final time
“Have a good night...Katrina. Get home safe.”
She stops at hearing her name being used and turns back around and grins wide at Ethan.
“You too.”  she steps outside and calls back to Ethan.
“Maybe once I’ve graduated from rookie or you tire of it, you can call me Kat. Whichever comes first.”
Without another word or glance she walks out the door.
Ethan is left staring at the spot she was occupying before turning his attention back to his glass. He drains the rest of his drink and retreats into his thoughts.
“So much for playing it safe. Then again, what’s life without a few risks.”
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letterboxd · 5 years
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Run, Brittany, Run.
“It has changed my life. It’s changed the way I look at myself, the way I speak about myself or even think about myself. I feel like I’m a much kinder person to me.” We talk to stars Jillian Bell and Lil Rel Howery, and playwright-turned-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, about his debut feature film Brittany Runs a Marathon.
Transformation stories, makeover movies, ugly duckling tales: Hollywood has long been awash in them, but usually they’re steeped in fantasy (average girl discovers she is princess! Princess reveals she is ogre!). Brittany Runs a Marathon is the very real story of a woman who is transformed not by any magic spell or deus-ex-machina, but by the words of her doctor, warning her to follow a healthier diet, get some exercise and lose some pounds.
The real-life Brittany ended up running the New York Marathon, inspiring her friend, playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo, to write and direct a feature film about her journey. It’s a great vehicle for Jillian Bell, who racked up her own running miles to prepare for the title role. Playing Brittany’s wonderfully supportive brother-in-law Demetrius, lending moral support via video-chats, is Lil Rel Howery (Get Out TSA agent Rod Williams).
While Brittany Runs a Marathon is being heavily marketed as a comedy, “there’s something deeper, more serious and heart-wrenching lying at the heart of this film” observes Letterboxd member Nina. “Sticking to regimens and coming off of setbacks is hard,” writes Michael. “It was refreshing to see growth portrayed in all its fits and starts.” “A really beautiful story of someone trying to better themselves and how that doesn’t mean you have to do so alone,” Claire agrees. “Jillian Bell is excellent and really raw as Brittany.”
We spoke to Jillian Bell, Paul Downs Colaizzo and Lil Rel Howery ahead of the film’s US theatrical opening.
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Jillian Bell (Brittany)
What was the first thing in the script that you related to and made you feel that you could be Brittany? Jillian Bell: I got the script from my manager and I was very nervous [laughs]. She said, “You’re going to be a little scared while you’re reading this because I think you’re going to relate to the character and then you gotta keep reading because the script is really beautiful and powerful.” I read it and I remember thinking the exact same thoughts: ‘This is going to be very different to take on than most things I’ve done’. It was different in a good way. Something I wanted to try and go out of my comfort zone. I just related to the characters so whole-heartedly. There were moments where I thought ‘someone is taping me right now’ because I’ve thought the exact things and now they’re in a script I’m reading.
What were some of the conversations you had with the real Brittany? How did meeting her affect your approach? The script is inspired by her story but there were a lot of other characters in the film that were not in her actual life story. Paul and I decided to create a character together and Paul had sent me early on a video of the real Brittany when she was making a tape to raise money for the marathon. I completely got her essence from that. She is so inspiring, smart, and funny, sometimes very silly.
Paul and I worked together on creating a character based off all these other characters and it informed us about X, Y and Z. But the first time I met the real Brittany O’Neal was when we were shooting a super emotional scene. I was concerned about making sure she was okay. It’s one thing to know that your life story was about to be told; it’s another thing to see an actor trying to portray all of these things you really went through in your real life.
What were the other types of preparations you did for the role? I decided I was going to do the actual physical journey of the character. I decided to lose 40 pounds for the shoot, 29 pounds before we shot and eleven while we were filming. I just thought it would inform me on certain approaches the script took that I didn’t quite connect to emotionally. There was so much that I did connect to with Brittany, and then there were moments in certain scenes where I thought ‘why is she acting that way? Why is that her response?’ Once I had done the physical journey I completely understood. I had never experienced what it was like to plateau, for example, and focus on a number so intensely. That was part of the script that I didn’t really understand.
You’re known more as a comedic actress and this was a fantastic opportunity to show off your dramatic talent. How did you want to subvert expectations of yourself coming into the more dramatic scenes? I think there’s always a lot of pressure when you try something that is different than people expect to see when they come to see a movie that you’re in. I was just so drawn to the script and I wanted to protect the character. I know I told Paul that I didn’t want anyone else playing her, not that anyone else couldn’t do it, but I wanted to make sure that the way I read it was the way he was going to shoot it, and he was so on the same page.
I felt like I was in really good hands. We were both taking a chance on each other. He was a first-time writer/director and this was my first time doing something that had dramatic elements, and I was playing the title character which I’d never done before. This is the first time where I was in a movie where I was in every single scene. I had no idea if I was going to enjoy doing something that was such a departure of things I had done in the past, but I truly loved it and I hope I get to do it again.
There’s a fine balance between the need for people to live healthily in order to avoid lifestyle-related illnesses, versus the need for society to accept everyone for who they are, no matter their appearance. What conversations did you, Paul, and other creatives have about this line? We had several conversations and talked basically every day for seven months before we started shooting. We wanted to make sure that we were being honest about these conversations: what it’s like going to the doctor and have them say to you: “You need to lose weight to be healthier” because of some health concerns; and the difference between that and the friendship that you have where somebody is saying: “You’d look better if you drop a few pounds” and how unhealthy that is. And how you can have self-hate and lack of self-worth and [how some of that] is society-ingrained ideas and some of that is of your own making. I think Paul did such a beautiful job with the script. We hit on everything without being too political or too shy.
We just covered Sword of Trust and had the delight of chatting with its director, Lynn Shelton. That’s another fantastic, funny movie you’re in. Can you talk about the different pleasures you get from working from a script versus the type of freedom you have in improvisation, as you did on Sword of Trust? I’m definitely more comfortable with things like Lynn’s film, where it’s not as scripted and you get to be extremely loose and bring whatever you want to it, and Lynn was so open to any ideas we had. I remember Michaela and I, the night before we shot, we were sitting in a hotel room together talking over who our characters were and what they wanted, what their goals were. We approached Lynn saying “this is what we’re thinking” and she said “great!”. It’s very different from doing a role like Brittany, where all I got was the script and I fell in love with that. I decided to stick more to the script than I’ve done with any other film. But I definitely wanted to make sure I was telling the story that I received and was so moved by.
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Jillian Bell, Micah Stock and Michaela Watkins.
It’s awesome that in both these movies you’re opposite Michaela Watkins. It’s wonderful for me. Michaela Watkins is one of my favorite actresses. I just think she’s so strong, and honest in her performances, and she also makes me laugh harder than most people in this world. I would really love to work with her again. I’ve worked with her twice in one year so I’ve felt very lucky.
Paul Thomas Anderson has said he’s gearing up for a comedy with Tiffany Haddish. He brought you onto The Master and Inherent Vice because he thinks you’re very funny. You must be on his speed-dial for this project, right? I don’t know about that. [Laughs]. I may not be on speed-dial. I’m definitely a huge fan of his and I love that him and Tiffany are working together. That’s going to be amazing. If I hear nothing more than it coming out, I’ll be very excited to go see it.
Brittany has a life-changing experience and your hard work to demonstrate that really shows. How has working on the film changed your life? It has changed my life. It’s changed the way I look at myself, the way I speak about myself or even think about myself. I feel like I’m a much kinder person to me. It made me examine what I was putting out there and how negative that can be and I think that happens, not to all women but to some, and I’m definitely one of those women.
I feel like a movie like this really inspired me to look at that and have a deeper look at how I would talk about myself. I think this is the movie that I wanted to see when I was thirteen, about a real woman who was struggling with these things and how hard it can be to make the first step, how amazing it can be to really choose yourself first over everyone. It’s a hard thing to do, making that first step.
What was the film that made you want to be in film? Clue was the movie that made me want to be in films. I watched that when I was a young girl; it was one of the first VHS tapes we had and I watched it on repeat. It wasn’t just because I loved comedy and mystery and anything that’s a little dark and twisted; I also loved how all these funny character actors were the leads. I still love watching that movie and it’s still my favorite movie to this day.
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Jillian Bell with writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo.
Paul Downs Colaizzo (writer/director)
The film is based on your best friend and roommate Brittany. What was the moment you realized her story could be a movie, and how was she involved in shaping her own narrative and the tone of the film, if at all? Paul Downs Colaizzo: It was after a conversation she and I had after I first moved in with her, where she decided she was going to turn her life around and take control of what she could control and find some structure in her life. So she went for a run. It was when she was out for her first run that I thought this could possibly be a movie. I outlined it without telling her I was working on a movie that was inspired by her life and then a few months later I let her know. She was surprised and flattered and excited and interested and intrigued.
The character of Brittany is different than my real-life friend Brittany in a lot of ways but her DNA is all over it. She was incredibly supportive, and now she’s at a point where she’s excited that people are going to be inspired by something that was inspired by her.
Which aspects were fictionalized for the movie? I took some milestones from her journey and there were elements of her personality that I incorporated into the character of Brittany, but none of the characters is really based on anybody. The character Brittany is different from my friend and really none of the scenes from the movie is a recreation of anything that happened in real life.
What was it that convinced you Jillian was right for the lead? How did you identify the dramatic potential of the comedic actors you selected? [With] Jillian, I’d always been a fan of her comedy and her comedic acting; when she was in 22 Jump Street I fell in love with her. When I met with her about the role she really had this connection to the character. She wanted to tell the story and she wanted to protect the character in the way that I did. Her brain is naturally funny so we got the opportunity to play with the comic genius that is Jillian Bell and also expose this well of untapped emotion that most people had never seen her access. She’s never done a dramatic role before, I had never directed a film. We had to place bets on each other. That drove both of us to work as hard as possible to not let the other one down. 
The idea of the film is that we’d take a character who is typically a sidekick, start with the archetype of her as someone we know how to laugh at and create actually a really deep, personal pathos-filled human that we also empathize with and relate to. We wanted to do that with Brittany but also with all the other characters in the film. Luckily we got incredibly talented comedic actors who are normally playing supporting roles and also have these other elements of their personality that we were able to expose and illuminate for the world to see.
Do you feel there are films or plays that have done justice to body image issues before? What did you want to bring to the topic you felt was lacking? I never really approached this as a body-issue film. I started working on this in 2011 and that wasn’t really part of the cultural conversation at the time, at least in the way it is now. Her relationship to her body was always a big element of the film as far as her trying to understand what her own value system was, not the value system that the world put on her. But I would consider it a story of a person coming into their own.
I think we all can relate to this idea that we’re not living the lives we want to live and that we’re maybe not taking ourselves as seriously as we could because we’re afraid that if we try we will fail. I think we’ve been ingrained to feel that failure is a bad thing. For me this was a story about a person who learns to help and dream for herself and pursue these dreams in a way that’s earnest, without losing her edge and irreverence in the process.
I like how you kind of utilized the “friend-zone” in a way most rom-coms don’t know what to do with. What were some of the genre clichés you deliberately resisted? Again, you know, I never really looked at it that way because I come from theater. I really am just looking at the characters and their journey and the story we’re telling and how it all relates back to the theme. It’s not quite how I look at the construction of a story; I’m not starting with the genre. The one thing I was starting with here is I was starting with the archetypes we were familiar with and allowing the story to decidedly go in a different direction by deepening the characters and seeing where the story would go as we deepen the characters.
How do you feel your instincts as a playwright and experience in television informed your approach in making your first feature film? What were the different satisfactions in the process? The good news about theater is that it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation. You’re making things work, you’re solving problems because there are limitations in the space in which you’re telling the story. In an indie film, there are also a lot of limitations. So getting creative with your surroundings and figuring out how to multi-purpose environments so they can be several different settings so your film can have a feeling of scope and a change of scenery, but also be filmed in a certain amount of time, was a technical thing I brought over from theater. But beyond that, it’s all storytelling and it goes back to Aristotle and the poetic and finding heroes with flaws that we can relate to. It’s just, in this movie, I’m just asking that the sidekick is the hero because she deserves to be one too.
You filmed at the New York City Marathon. That sounds very challenging. Can you talk about your experience filming there? Did it go smoothly? It was incredible. There were six of us from the crew permitted to be there. We had three units in the race. It was a monster of a day. And also, the action you see in the marathon is easily one of the most emotional days of the city in the year because everybody is so supportive and lovely and kind to their fellow man. We could feel it that day, and I think you ultimately feel that energy in the film. It’s a magical day to experience in real life and we did our best to honor that.
What was the importance for you of depicting an LGBTQIA+ family in the film? I’m a gay man. I think this story is about giving depth and relatability and asking for empathy for all of the people in the film, many of whom are “others” in our society. I wanted to subvert the idea of the gay best friend as a trope, which is usually in a lot of ways the comic relief or kind of a hot mess, sort of the character Brittany would be in a typical big comedy. I wanted him to have a full life that honored where our culture is headed and made the gay storyline as relatable as any other storyline.
What are the types of films you’d like to make moving forward? Do you see yourself making more personal projects/dramedies like this or maybe adapting your own plays? I’m gonna go wherever the inspiration takes me. One thing a friend of mine observed about my work recently: I tend to like to unfreakify people we freakify. My guess is that thread will remain in my work but I’m going to do it in a whole bunch of different ways I hope. I’m working on something right now that’s a historical thriller but I’m not done with it yet. I’ll let you know.
What was the film that made you want to be a filmmaker? The first film that made me realize that films had the amazing potential to break through to people all through the country in all sorts of situations and make them feel excited by the idea of insight was American Beauty. I grew up in Georgia in a conservative area in a religious home and the idea that my life could be subverted in a way that movie depicted made me excited to understand more about myself and the world about me and the lies we tell ourselves.
Great choice, it was formative for me too, I resent this backlash it’s been getting. American Beauty? Fuck that! It’s great!
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Lil Rel Howery as TSA agent Rod Williams in ‘Get Out’.
Lil Rel Howery (Demetrius)
What did you connect with most about the script? What was it that stood out to you? Lil Rel Howery: How honest it was and how Paul did a good job of writing the human experience on an aspect of you know, “you lose weight, everything becomes peaches and cream” but you have to get your mental health together too. I thought it was dope. Brittany’s character really showed all the different processes of getting it together. She would be running and losing weight and it’s like “everything’s going great now” but then here comes an obstacle. It’s not about the weight, it’s more than that, and I thought that was very deep. I love how, also, he wrote all these stereotypical characters in such a human way without a political agenda to it. He made these beautiful families look like real people.
Most of your scenes you’re acting in front of a computer. What were the challenges of acting without your co-star present? How did your scenes work? I always joke with people, like, “I’ve done more than Get Out”, and they’re like, “Have you ever acted with people before?” I’m joking. It was acting, man. I think one of the things I love about what Paul did a good job of was each of us got our one-on-one with Jillian. And not just one-on-one, especially for us funny people, very dramatic one-on-ones. It wasn’t hard, it was a beautiful well-written movie and for me, that scene with me and Jillian was one of the coolest things I’ve ever filmed because it was filmed with honesty and emotion and I think we did a good job of filling that.
Do you feel eager to show that dramatic side of yourself? How will you reconcile that after establishing yourself as a comic relief? I’ve never put myself in that box. Unfortunately people just love to do that, I guess. With Get Out, as funny as I was in that, I was only funny to people because it was so intense. It wasn’t like I was just telling jokes. I wasn’t doing anything silly. My character Rod was just being honest: “This is what I think is going on.” It’s just funny the way I was saying it because the rest of the movie is insane. I even look at Bird Box, that character, I threw in a couple of jokes in there just because I felt like it, but that was a dramatic character. 
Even the scenes in Get Out, most of those things were dramatic. Even doing Uncle Drew, I made sure they didn’t make me the funniest person in that movie, especially with a movie with everyone running around with prosthetics. I thought that was crazy. I made sure I was the one who brought the heart into the movie. I’m very specific about what I pick. So I think with my next few films, the ones coming out this year, along with Brittany Runs a Marathon and the stuff I’m filming now, I just think you’re not going to put me in a box. You’re just going to have to call me good at one point.
You are good! [Laughs, generously.]
What are the different pleasures for you working in a scripted format compared to the freedoms you might have on other projects where you can improvise jokes? The crazy thing is, when people hire you they want to hire the best of you, right? I can improv drama. When I met with Paul it was about playing a love interest. We had a conversation of how I loved the script so much and I was talking to him about how I wish the father figure would be aggressive with her and he ended up making me that character where I played the father figure. He created this character based on our conversations. This character didn’t even exist at first.
I’ve worked with directors so far that trust me, and I trust them along with the creative process. I’m one of those dudes who’s a control improv-er. Maybe some comedians go off the rails. I know what the story is, I know what the moment is, I never go off what we’re supposed to get. My only thing I like to do is make a scene real. Even if the scene is funny, I don’t like to do nothing funny if it ain’t real. If it’s too silly, I don’t want to do it. I’m very big on keeping it real.
The same goes for my standup. My standup always comes from a real place. I try to make sure, everything I do, every project, every role, even the stuff now, I’m working with some great directors and I’m like, “can we get on the phone today because some of these lines are too stupid. Let’s think of something better and dramatic and I’ll make it funny” [laughs].
Get Out is a bonafide classic. It must have been exciting two years ago when it was being lauded and discovered, but in hindsight, it’s a key part of a movement that’s defining Hollywood right now. How does that feel to be part of? It feels great, man. I feel like I’m a part of so many different versions of that. I’ve been lucky, I’ve been able to do some cool stuff, man. I think with Get Out and what that did. I think about even Bird Box, you can do whatever you want, that was a fun time and I loved the script. After that, Netflix said they were breaking all these records. “This is a record-breaking movie.” There are a lot of interesting things I’ve been able to do, which I’m not done with.
I think for me, Brittany Runs a Marathon falls under that category with Get Out where I don’t think people know what they’re about to get into. I remember telling people that about Get Out and they were like, “Oh, okay”, and I was like, “Naw, you have no idea what this is about to be”. I think Brittany Runs a Marathon is like that too, I don’t think people have any idea how special this movie really is until they see. That’s why I think it’ll do well word-of-mouth more than anything.
Did you get to keep the hoodies for your character’s birthday? That’s the best piece of costume in a film for 2019. [Laughs]. Naw, I didn’t. It’s so funny you say that. I don’t know why I didn’t keep a t-shirt. Damn, I should’ve. I’d keep anything.
What movie made you want to be in movies? Let me tell you something funny. It’s not a film that made me want to take this on at first. It was an episode of Family Ties. It’s the episode where his friend got killed by a drunk driver [season 5, episodes 23 and 24; a two-parter titled A, My Name is Alex which won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 1987]. Michael J. Fox performed in a way, you know, you watch things to be entertained at first? But that was the first time I watched an actor and I was like, “Yo, this is crazy good”. Then he did like a one-man show in the second part, like a play where he was walking on different parts of the set and it was different parts of his life. Man, I thought that was brilliant. I thought, ‘Whatever job this is, this is what I want to do!’ [laughs].
‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ is in US cinemas now.
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lindburgsreviews · 5 years
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My Top 3 Favorite Quentin Tarantino Films Hey everyone. It’s been awhile since I’ve shared much of anything on here. If you follow me on Instagram, you have seen a few before/after movie reviews I’ve done over the past year. If you’ve watched any of those, you would also know this was my first year teaching high school, and that doesn’t exactly lend much time for me to share my thoughts on movies. There’s a couple weeks until school starts, so the reviews may be few and far between once again. But there’s been one movie I have seen this summer that inspired me to dust off the keyboard and talk about said movie’s director and his other works that I really love. That movie is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the director is the one and only Quentin Tarantino. I’ll be talking about my top three favorite movies directed by him. Just to be clear, there is no criteria that these movies have met that gives them an undisputed assessment of their quality. They are simply three great movies made by one of the most unique minds working in film today.  #3- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) Granted I’ve only seen this movie once, it is by far my favorite movie of the summer and it may end up being the best one I see this year. The story is set in late 60’s Hollywood and follows Rick Dalton, a TV star played by Leonardo Di Caprio whose popularity is quickly fading. Rick isn’t taking it well, confiding often in his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt. Tarantino is known for not playing by the rules as far as traditional movie making goes, but Hollywood is very different even by his standards. There isn’t much a of plot, as almost the entire movie focuses on following these two characters around as Rick comes to grips with the changing Hollywood landscape. There isn’t even that much violence until the final 20 minutes or so. It really is a movie that only a handful of directors pull off, and Tarantino happens to be one of them. Both Leo and Brad Pitt are fantastic in their respective roles and are especially great when they share the screen together. One of my favorite things a movie can do is recreate a very specific era in American culture, and everything from the sets and music to the costumes and dialogue transports you back to 1969 Hollywood. Even though it runs nearly three hours long, I was hooked every minute. And although Hollywood doesn’t have the same tension and violence that have become Tarantino staples, the threat of the Manson murders looming over the story (Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate, whom happens to be Rick Dalton’s neighbor) simmers and finally comes to an exhilarating head in the final act. A few repeat viewings might bump this movie down or possibly even up in my list, but as of right now Once Upon a Time in Hollywood definitely has earned a spot in my top three.  #2- Inglorious Basterds (2009) If you love moments of tension in your movies as much as I do and haven’t seen Basterds, I recommend you stop reading right now and watch one of the best movies of the past 20 years, (It is streaming on Netflix after all) and then finish reading. Like the last entry, the story that this movie tells could only come from the mind of Quentin Tarantino. As World War II rages in Europe, a ruthless yet charming Nazi colonel by the name of Hans Landa (played by Christoph Waltz in one of my favorite performances on film) is hunting down the remaining Jews hiding out in France. Meanwhile, a ragtag group of Jewish American soldiers led by Alado “The Apache” Rayne (again Brad Pitt) are also tearing through France, terrorizing Nazi troops with brutal surprise attacks. On top of that, a young Jewish woman that had escaped Landa before (Melanie Laurent) also owns a small movie theater in Paris. The top leaders of the Third Reich decide her theater would be the perfect location to debut a new propaganda film. Unbeknownst to them, both the theater owner and the Basterds are planning a daring attempt to take out some of the most evil people in history as they gather to watch the new film. What really makes this movie for me is how unique it is. Again, I’m not sure any other director could pull off a story like this. Three storylines are taking place simultaneously that are all entertaining. Moreover, most of the movie isn’t even in English. Over half of the script is spoken in French or German. Like all of his other movies, Tarantino’s dialogue here is top notch, but what makes it brilliant is how it builds edge-of-your-seat tension almost entirely through spoken words. Alfred Hitchcock’s explanation of how to create tension in filmmaking is perfectly showcased in multiple scenes, most famously in the opening act. Much like Hollywood, Basterds is two and a half hour long movie that is so gripping that it feels like it goes by in 30 minutes. It’s hard to write a detailed explanation about what makes this movie so great without just telling to just see it yourself. Brad Pitt is hilarious, Christoph Waltz is vilely suave, and too many other people to count are brilliant in their roles too. Just go watch Inglorious Basterds. I promise you’ve never seen anything like it, and you won’t see anything like it again.  #1- Pulp Fiction (1994) Ezekiel 25:17. Royale with Cheese. “SAY WHAT AGAIN!”. The Jack Rabbit Slim’s Twist Contest. Mention these phrases to anybody that loves film and they will know exactly what you’re talking about. Sure, Tarantino had a solid debut with his first feature film, Reservoir Dogs (which would probably be number four on this list) but Pulp Fiction is the movie that announced to the world that he is here to stay. It may have been released a year before I was even born, but even I know that it was a cultural phenomenon and a cinematic gamechanger. Tarantino’s signature dark humor, pop culture references, nonlinear narratives, and even his first casting of Samuel L. Jackson were introduced with this movie. Even more so than in his other works, Pulp Fiction has an incredibly unique plot that’s pretty difficult to summarize second hand. Three different storylines that interweave to varying degrees throughout the movie are presented out of order. The main story focuses on two hitmen played by Sam Jackson and John Travolta that are out trying to recover a mysterious briefcase for a mob boss played by Ving Rhames. The other story focuses on a boxer played by Bruce Willis whom refuses to throw a fight despite being pressured by the same mobster. The movie opens and closes with the last story throughline about a British couple of bank robbers that decide to hold up the Denny’s style diner they happen to be in one morning. As unusual as this sounds, Pulp Fiction is yet again a movie that is wildly entertaining just through the dialogue alone. Anybody that knows me well can attest that I love quoting movies, and this one happens to be a favorite of mine to pull from. There definitely are some weaker scenes even with repeat viewings (mainly Bruce Willis and his French(?) girlfriend) but the rest of the movie more than makes up for it. There are a lot of deep themes that can be explored with this movie, and some amazing character arcs that can lead to hours of debate and discussion. Motifs like redemption, free will versus fate, hypocrisy, and basic ethics can be found throughout and will linger in your mind along with the great writing and memorable characters. I remember the first time I watched this movie was about five years ago. Once the credits rolled, I had no idea what I had watched. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. But after watching it a second time, and then a third time, I realized its brilliance. I now consider it one of my all time favorites. Even more so than with Basterds, this movie is so different than anything else out there and needs to be watched rather than having somebody on the internet try to explain to you why it’s so great. It definitely isn’t for everyone with the graphic violence and coarse language, but if you haven’t seen Pulp Fiction, it’s also streaming on Netflix I’d highly recommend giving it a watch as it happens to be my favorite movie written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. What do you think of my list? What are your top three Tarantino movies? What should my next editorial, analysis, or review be about?
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uberchain · 6 years
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Mental Health Rambling
God I hope I don't regret posting this like how I feel embarrassed about posting similar long-winded dramatic personal stuff in the past (there's a tl;dr at the end if you hate reading)
Trigger warnings for mentions of suicide, medicinal drugs, and ableism.
Six years ago, people close to me didn't "buy into the mental illness thing" and thought I was being overdramatic. It was all in my head. I was being self-absorbed in my dramatics because I was raised in Western culture. Other people have it worse. I was "normal" and despite what I thought for months, I wasn't "crazy" like those people who were "mentally unstable". And because of that, my requests for a mental health assessment always lead back to: I didn't need a doctor. 
Until I threatened my life in front of them.
And that is not okay.
On that same day, the doctor they said I didn't need diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder. I was prescribed WellButrin while recommended therapy I was able to afford.
Six years ago, people close to me didn't want me taking medication for it because they heard from the media or their close friends on different antidepressants, that there was a risk of worse side effects like hallucinations or drug addiction. Had they done the research, they would have known that's not a common side effect of bupropion. Those people asked said close friends to talk me out of taking these drugs when I started, and told me sweet nothings like how I was still young and shouldn't rely on medication that might be lifelong if I get addicted or something bad happens because of it. The doctor finally told me after I told them about these fears, to start the prescription or I might never get better.
Six years till now, people close to me would constantly ask if I really needed them, if I would be on them forever like if they were "real medication". I've tried to stop WellButrin after the 300mg runs without medical assistance or proper weaning, whenever I felt like I didn't need it anymore. In reality, I didn't want to keep being judged for taking them, and didn't like the idea of lifelong dependency. That was incredibly irresponsible and I relapsed weeks to months after stopping. As of last week, I was re-prescribed another run of 150mg to start. And just as I was feeling better about being responsible this time, somebody told me, "Why? You have depression again? Really? I thought you got better."
I grew up in an environment, surrounded by people who didn't want to talk about it. They didn't believe in it not only because they thought it wasn't real. They didn't believe in it because they couldn't handle the thought of their friend, lover, or family member having a mental health disorder because they had associated it negatively with this stigma that it was a dangerous instability that leads to killers, criminals, and "crazy people". And for a while as I was growing up in that close-minded, conservative environment and area - I genuinely believed it too.
And that is not okay.
Because of this, I am actively training myself to not feel ashamed or look down upon something that's simply human nature, which I was told to consider weakness or flaw. That I am not necessarily tougher than others like me, because I do not know what they actually go/went through and should not belittle their experience in comparison to mine. I am training myself to notice when or how my depression hits me or affects my thinking, and that it's not me “being messed up or crazy beyond salvation". I am telling myself that if I need medication for my depression (or my ADHD), then that is what I need to survive and function just like anybody else on medication. I am training myself that even though I will have recurring thoughtcrimes of no longer existing, that doesn't have to mean I'm going to act on it and it doesn't have to be how I really feel:
Like when I'm uncomfortable in a moving vehicle. Where I look over something from tall heights. When I look at sharp or dull objects in my vicinity. When all my previous bottles of unfinished 300mg WellButrin from the past 6 years are stored away in a bag. And even though I can function fairly well and HATE the idea of getting hurt or dying, I'm afraid I'm going to slip, then try and kill myself. That I'll jump out of the vehicle. That I'll jump over the ledge. That I'll cut. That I'll overdose.
And I have to tell myself, that aside from consideration of the people around me having to deal with that kind of loss and gravity of someone they loved - suicide is not what I want, and will not fix what I have.
I can't believe to this day that I had to threaten myself in order to get help for myself. I felt like I had to do it to get that diagnosis, to start medication and therapy. I had to hold my own life hostage for the people close to me to take me seriously. I hate realizing that's genuinely how I thought I needed to go that far, for my mental health to be taken seriously, back then. And I hate that the way these people thought initially, contributed to that thinking. That it was the length I thought I needed to go through to get help for myself.
I hate it. I feel like I've invalidated other people who have survived suicide attempts, who have lost the battle against their own struggle, who are struggling in worse conditions or who have lost a loved one to suicide and don't know how to take it all in or feel like it was their fault. And I hate that I have the gall to still think in comparisons when I just said don't do comparisons. I hate that despite what I did to get help, I still tend to slip up and invalidate my own mental health, due to the nature of what I have as well as what people told me when I was growing up.
And that is not okay.
I have support now. I have better confidence now that what I feel, is not necessarily what is fact. I don't feel as alone or ignored as much these days. I've chosen to retake depression medication. I am actively trying to recognize patterns when my depression is at its worst. I understand when people need space for their own emotional capacity, versus when they just don't care and are trying to fix me for them. I'm figuring out therapy options. I have people - friends, family, lovers, strangers - who stood by me, who still stand by me, who get it; or if they don't, understand that sometimes I deal with shit that scientifically or environmentally makes my thoughts & emotions completely irrational, absolutely terrifying, or just plain miserable.
There's some discussion as to whether or not the term "mental illness" gives off the wrong idea and encourages ableism. I absolutely see my depression as mental illness. Even if I know how to cope with it better than when I was first diagnosed, I wish I knew how to make it go away so I don't have to continuously keep questioning my thoughts or emotions. I can't tell you if that's still due to how I was told to perceive mental health, or if that's me acknowledging how much damage it is capable of after years of living with it.
So I try to tell myself there are chemicals in my brain that are not balanced, and that the medication, every specific hour of every day that I have to remember to take it, can help. That it's not weak when I can find the energy to visit a therapist I'm able to afford, rather than expect change to be dropped in my lap and close people to always go out of their way for me. That I cannot help others in the same way I helped myself or want to fix them, because everybody's mental struggles are different, and to want to fix somebody means you haven't actually accepted your friend's struggles and you're not really listening to them. That at my worst, due to the self-reinforcing, manipulative and distorting nature of depression, that I can hurt others by enabling my depression and letting it envelop me in a dangerously comforting abusive mentality, if I don't actively make an effort to fight this poisonous disorder.
I have to keep telling myself I will not take my own life. There is lots I would still like to do, people I still want to hang out with. If I have to go, then that’s what it is. If I force myself to go, then that’s worse to me. I cannot continue to risk letting this sickness fool me into thinking my life is not worth it to the point where the solution directs me to nonexistence. I’m so sad when people I know or people others know lose their battles because they were overwhelmed by it all, and couldn't find any other way in that state of mind when they chose to leave early. It’s hard. It's so hard.
I am trying to be more responsible and understand mental health better, because the people I grew up with and around (several whom understand it now, are trying to understand it, and or whom I might have forgiven) didn't do that and did not want to understand it. They were afraid of acknowledging this horrible mental sickness could be part of someone they loved and cared for, because it would that the person they cared for had something wrong with them - like the murderers they talked about on the news, or the villain in violent thriller movies. Because their initial perception of it based on denial, and refusal to be educated or even discuss it in an open-minded way, led to them thinking like that. So, I was afraid of saying I was not okay.
And that is not okay.
I fight to not think like these people did, every day of my life. I have to fight this learned toxicity of thinking that I've been surrounded with. I do it for my friends and my family, for my lovers and for strangers - and for myself. I am responsible for my life. It's my life now, it's nobody else's. And thus, I am responsible to be more considerate of mental health. No, you are not responsible for anybody else's life. You don't have to take anything away from these rambling paragraphs I've written out and decided to post. But personally, you should be responsible enough to talk to people and/or reassure them, especially when they decide to say "I'm not okay" (and it's very hard to admit that), that sometimes it's okay to not feel okay.
I understand if you are not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle somebody's struggles, in a way a therapist or a psychiatrist might be better equipped for. Do know it is 99.9% why people don't WANT to talk about their mental health or disorders publicly or even people they trust - it's why I DON'T feel completely safe in posting this. It's in case those people can't handle it, in case they think they'll be perceived as emotional baggage, or in case they'll be perceived as "weak". But the least you can do is tell them it's not "weak".
Don't push away the people around you when they need to open up. Don't force them to talk about it if they're not ready yet. Listen to their words; listen to their silence. Don't necessarily give advice or interfere unless you think it's absolutely necessary. Don't tell them that they are "not normal" because they struggle with a disorder. Simply because it's not healthy (it's often unhealthy or debilitating) and not stable (it's often chemically unstable) does not mean it's not "normal". Simply because you listen to them does not necessarily mean you're enabling them. Simply because you ask them if they are okay now does not mean you are necessarily responsible for their future. Simply because they’ve got fucked up shit going on does not mean they are fucked up as a person. Simply because they are depressed now does NOT MEAN they will die from it one day. 
No, once again; you don't have to take away anything from what I've written for your own life. You might disagree with what I'm trying to get across or not care. And no, you're not responsible for somebody else's life. But you listening or willing to talk to them a little bit about it, even if you admit you don't completely understand it - might mean the difference for that somebody's life. And that if anything should be your responsibility: to at least be considerate when people decide to say, whether in actions or through words, that they are not okay.
And that's okay.
tl;dr: I have depression. It's shit. Other people have shit too. It's also shit. Shit's shit, that's what it is. But sometimes it's okay to not feel okay. Nobody told me that, and now I'm training myself to accept that. This way, I can be considerate of not just my own mental health, but other people's mental health.
And when talking about mental health, treat it seriously rather than disregard it. It will help people who need to hear that to treat mental health seriously - and hopefully, not disregard their own life.
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