#that can be boring and cliché or it can be compelling if done right and bring home just how isolated they are from humanity etc

[electricbluebutterflies]

❛ don’t be a stranger, okay? ❜

A vaguely plausibly canon-adjacent-maybe Joel/Tess first encounter. PG13-ish (it's in the vague aftermath of Activities but all very very implied) and also on ao3.

The thing is, Tess wasn’t a people person before this end-of-the-world shit.

Which is not to say that she would describe herself as a jerk, exactly, just… not outgoing, by nature, and the expected bouquet of trust issues courtesy of spending her twenties consistently sleeping with if not exactly dating the expected bouquet of male wildlife, and… fine, this whole plausible apocalypse thing didn’t help anyone’s social skills, but hers were already close to the right level. Getting perma-stuck in a city she’d only meant to spend a weekend in was also not a plus, and-

She’s done okay, somehow. Four years later, still alive, still more or less the person she was before, still some kind of functional, still… if she’s honest with herself, in what passes for the quietest part of the night, desperately alone.

That’s the miracle her life hinges on, her ability to blend in and be just uninteresting enough to do okay on her own, adapt and survive and try to have as much of a normal life as possible. Normal, as in she’s on the other side of thirty now and her taste in men hasn’t improved, as in she can hear the voice of her long-dead mother telling her to find someone Nice and there are days Tess wants to scream, there are days she-

Admittedly, her latest fabulous bad idea at least has the potential to be a recurrent one. That could be a bigger problem.

She’s such a cliché, she knows, another morning waking up in a bed that isn’t hers, another evening of questionable decisions quickly recapped in her mind as she tries to decide at what point she’s going to regret this. At least this one happened for relatively innocent reasons; she’d heard an accent less common up here, she’s got eyes, and apparently desperation went both ways. It had been a couple of weeks for her, usually the point where she gets bored, and she would’ve said yes to about anything, and-

At least these choices look alright the morning after. At least she can explain herself. At least this one – just enough older than her to be hot, beautiful eyes, more obvious sadness than she’s gotten used to – understood her boundaries clear enough. At least…

She’s half-tempted to leave now, let this be the petty mistake it should stay, but there’s something unusually compelling about this one – she really should’ve caught a name but she was a little distracted last night – something that makes her curious like she hasn’t been in so damn long. Like that part of her  that called bullshit on princess movies twenty-five years ago had a point, but at the same time-

“You stayed.”

Somehow his voice is even lower half-awake and it makes Tess feel some type of warm, and that useless part of her mind that realizes she hasn’t had a boyfriend in about fifteen years may be a little vocal right now, like-

“A girl can only collect so many curfew violations in a month before it looks bad,” she replies, shifting her body for better eye contact. “Besides, you apparently have quieter neighbors than I do. Just because I can sleep through domestic disagreements on either side…”

She’s starting to see options here, starting to see an element of a future that looks so damn normal despite the external circumstances, some part of her that could be the desperate annoying woman, that could be-

No. That ain’t her. There’s some midpoint here, maybe, but she’s made it this far without latching onto the nearest thing with a pulse and a dick and she’s not about to start now.

She should leave, at this point, but this isn’t looking like regret yet. Besides, there’s not even anything here worth taking on her way out, and-

“Not quite sardine accommodations up here, huh?”

“Not quite. Almost boring, really. Good for you, though… first new face I’ve seen in months that didn’t have a uniform attached…”

He gives her a blank look like where is he even supposed to start with that, and she decides in that moment that she likes him. Fuck her.

The thing is, she has her life, her predictable routines, and her survival plans these past four years have hinged on doing it alone as much as possible and dealing with her physical needs as separately from the rest of her life as possible. And it worked, that’s the beautiful part, it’s worked fine, she is still here and every morning she gets to deal with the dark euphoria of seeing what exactly one more day will throw at her, and she’s gotten fearless and she’s gotten complacent, and-

She should leave. Finally, finally that thought is enough to make her do something.

She slips out of the bed that should not have been able to hold two bodies and slowly re-dresses, re-tracing movements from the night before. She feels eyes on her, appreciative but not leering, and… dammit, this’ll be the end of her, that occasionally self-destructive little corner of her brain is going this one at full volume and who the hell is she to say no to that and-

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

Tess turns to take one last look, and the rational part of her brain is saying that she should say something noncommittal if not unnecessarily mean, and the rational part of her brain is pointing out that even now Boston is a large enough city that it would be easy to lose someone who didn’t care to be found, and-

“I won’t,” she says instead of any of those better ideas. Not pathetic, no promises, but-

She’s not that girl, she thinks as she leaves, as a closed door gives her peace, as she realizes she still didn’t catch a name and nor did she give hers. If there’s anything worth tethering herself to, it’ll find her, not the other way around.

(She’s thirty-one. She doesn’t know herself at all. This’ll be fine.)

#ebf writes fic #joel x tess #queue

[llawlieta]

Death Note could've made Light an evil genius™ with no connections even to his own family, willing to let them die if the plan requires it, simply too isolated from the rest of humanity to feel anything for them...

but instead allowed him to have completely normal, warm interactions with his family and made it clear several times that he loves them dearly

AND there are still people coming out of consuming Death Note and not understanding that

#😭 #Death Note #Light Yagami #Light #txt #lau.txt #it's so sad... #there are so many stories where the Evil Genius character feels nothing for their family and like #that can be boring and cliché or it can be compelling if done right and bring home just how isolated they are from humanity etc #BUT. Death Note is not that story. Light genuinely does love his family let us have that lmao #and I'm so thankful for that..... I think it becomes so much more compelling when you realize that...... #I'm so glad I rewatched the show and decided to read the manga 😌🙏 #anyway. I am so scared of being annoying every time I make a post but I'm being so brave about it

[some-dr-writings]

Izuru, Hajime, and Kirumi x SHSL Military General

Izuru Kamukura:

·       Boring. That was what he had thought of you at first. You had no new talent he didn’t… and yet, despite your fearsome rumors, it seemed all those under your command adored you. He already knew it was not the cliché case of ‘oh you just need to get to know them’ nor you were secretly going about your work in a cult like fashion. No, there was something else, and he decided to snuff it out.

·       “It’s been several days now. If you wish something of me you need but speak, or at the least walk by my side. How much longer do you plan on tailing me?” You stopped in your tracks, turning around to face the man who was but a few paces behind. Both your expressions perfectly stoic, blank. “As long as it takes to find out why everyone loves you. That was my initial objective. But you’re boring. You’re nurturing. Your tone alone is enough to compel others to follow your lead, to not disappoint you out of respect. Now… I want to know why you’re different from me.” You needed but a glance to find your answer. “The difference… I thought a being exactly akin to myself, a person made to be a weapon would already know that.” You walked a few paces, stopping right before him. It was as if he were a statue, not moving at all as you cupped your hand on his cheek, the smallest, softest, kindest of smiles pulling at the corners of your lips. “Good luck old friend. Even with a luck talent you’ll need it.” You then walked away, Izuru following just a few paces behind.

·       “Come now. If you’re going to stick around, work out with me. Surely, you’ve figured out by now that simply observing me, you’ll not get the answers you’re seeking.” Still, Izuru simply stood beside you as you were finishing your pushups atop that mountain with the sky just barely starting to show the signs of a new day beginning. “Why do you speak with me casually, unlike all others? You don’t even speak this way with those you call friends.” “I simply find it natural to speak this way with one so harmless. Just as I find it natural to speak with others in a more formal tone.” “… Harmless.” Hopping up from your pushups you began your climb back down the treacherous mountain. “You find Komaeda to be a weapon of mass destruction, and me, harmless? That’s incomprehensible.” “To you, perhaps.” You kept going for a few moments before deciding to give him some extra help. “You’re an innocent child, myself before I became who I am now, before I rejected the idiotic notion of a weapon being more powerful than man.”

·       He pondered over that brief conversation for a long time. Man being more powerful than a weapon. He knew you were not speaking of how man creates weapons and are the ones who use them, so…

·       “Oh! Hey, Y/N! So, your sidekick finally decided to join us!” The first day Izuru had begun to follow you, you stopped him when going for those nightly training sessions saying he would either participate or go away because you were not going to allow any bystanders. All nights after he’d disappear at some point as you made your way to meet up with Kaito and the others. But he stayed by your side that night, training with the others, giving you and Maki a run for your money when it came to endurance in these exercises.

·       “You’re making everyone uncomfortable just standing in the corner. Come play with us.” Izuru did as told and joined the card game you were playing with your classmates.

·       “Izuru, teach them how to set up the stall, while I take care of matters here.” He helped out your class set up for the school festival.

·       “Huh…” Truthfully you were half expecting Izuru to show up to the beach his usual suit and not swim trunks, let alone playing volleyball with the others already.

·       The others had already left back for school, the field trip long done, but you stayed behind to fit in some of your own exercises… Izuru did as well. “So, finally out of your emotionless emo phase, or are you still insisting everything is boring?” “… I thought by copying you I’d find why we’re different.” “And have you?” “…” He actually thought about it for a moment an answer not immediately puzzled out in his mind. “I’m still gathering information.” “I see.” Seems he was growing up faster than you did, then again you didn’t have anyone to help guide you.

·       For a long time you continued your stretches. “I must admit though, I thought it’d take longer before you’d take this first step.” You stopped, beginning to jog in place, slowly picking up your pace. “This world, with how awful it is, I still find it boring myself at times. But that’s not the good part of it all. Being alive. I’m anticipating to see what you’ll find in people. For me, it’s not a certain aspect of them, but everything. True, humans are creatures of patterns, but focusing on the individual… seeing them as people and not objects, or weapons, or patterns… seeing what they actually are…Connecting… that’s my answer at least, why I gave up being you, a husk intended to be a weapon. Humans no matter how they try, can’t be anything other than human. A human being… strange and funny creatures I find us to be at least.” You placed a hand on his shoulder, lightly chuckling to yourself. “Be sure to tell me when you find your answer. I’m sure someone skilled in more than war will find something I could never hope too, and that sounds exciting to me. But for now, back to training.”

·       Then you dashed away, down the shore, to that brilliantly bright sunset.

·       And he ran. He didn’t even think about it. He was still unsure of what he was doing or what exactly he was searching for, but… something inside him was calling out to you, he just knew he needed to be with you. So he was going to keep chasing after you and perhaps one day, he’d figure it out and finally walk beside you.

    Hajime Hinata:

·       To Hajime, each and every last person who manage to be invited to the academy was an amazing person. How else could they be described? They were individuals who all had already changed the word in some way or another, but there was one individual who arguably made the largest impact to the world, more than any present or past student, the Super High School Level Military General. Nothing of their personage was known, a complete mystery, not even their name. They were solely known for their accomplishments, a child, seemingly appearing out of nowhere quickly rose up through the ranks, becoming a general, and swiftly putting an end to any war they touched. Wars still appeared, but not long and they’d appear putting it to an end with little life being lost, most countries began fighting in less direct ways because of this. What else could they do? The fighting did stop, but not the conflicts that were the root of them. Still, putting an end to so much fighting so quickly was unimaginable to most. Some say their appearance only made conflict worse, some say they saved the world. No matter what one thought, it was undeniable the Super High School Military General left an unmistakable impact that had forever changed the world.

·       And such an amazing person, was the very first friend he had made at the academy, despite him just being a reserve course student.

·       He didn’t even know who they were at first. The school year hadn’t technically started yet, but students were allowed on campus to move their belongings into their dorm rooms and such and that was exactly what Hajime was doing. He didn’t have much, so he was finished quickly and decided to just walk around for a bit. He found himself just looking at the main building off in the distance. So close, yet so far away, just barely out of reach seemingly when he knew deep down, he truly was nowhere close. Then suddenly he spotted something. Not far, just within reach.

·       “Is the vending machine jammed?” “Not as far as I know.” Hajime looked to the machine in confusion, not noticing anything off with it, so why were you just standing before it? “What do you recommend?” Though you hadn’t done much something about how you looked to him, how your voice seemed to resonate in him, he was taken aback for a moment before collecting himself, quickly looking over the options. “Well… I like the orange ramune.” He pointed to it, showing exactly where it was. Not saying a word you placed in some yen and pressed the button for it. How you carried yourself mesmerized him. He couldn’t quite place his finger on why though. It was stiff yet seemed effortless. A rather strange combination to him. Before he knew it you had the drink and… were just looking at it, flipping it around. You had taken off the cap but seemed lost as to what to do next. “There’s a plunger in the cap, you take that out and place it on top where the cap was.” You followed his instructions without question. “Then you push it down, releasing the marble and there you go.” You seemed surprised, your eyes widening a little as the soda kinda exploded as it usually did when being opened. Then you held it out to him? “I can tell you haven’t drunk anything in the past several hours. Take it.” “Oh, thanks.”

·       Your whole demeanor seemed off, somewhat alien. As you got yourself another drink, he couldn’t help but ask- “Are you a foreigner? This soda is rather common in Nippon.” “I suppose one could say that of me.” … Well, that was a strange response. “Seems like we’ve both had a long day. I saw an arcade nearby. Want to just relax and hangout there for a while?” You looked to him in what he assumed was surprise, you didn’t seem very expressive, but he could still see these small shifts in your eyes. For a moment, when he had asked, they seemed to sparkle. “Certainly, lead the way.”

·       The pair of you had a rather fun outing to the arcade. So much of… well everything you seemed unaccustomed too. “What’s this?” “The prize corner? We can win tickets to trade for stuff here.” “Huh… so a transfer of currency, to test skill, to gain a new currency…” Even rather basic things. “How did you do that?” “Do what?” “Make that bubble from your mouth?” “I just blew a bubble with the bubblegum.” “There exists food to blow into bubbles?” Hajime wondered if you grew up extremely sheltered. If that was the case, you were probably from an extremely rich family considering you’d have to pour so much money to get into the reserve course. He felt rather sorry for you. “Have you been to the movies before?” “Never.” “We could go watch some if you’d like, get some more candy and some popcorn.” “I know not if I’d like it, never having experienced it before, but I am curious.” “Let’s go then!”

·       For the next several days Hajime would find you around campus and you’d just go out and have fun in the town. Strangely though, he never saw you at the dorms. He did most often find you exercising so he assumed you just woke up very early.

·       You sat beside him on a bench, passing an orange ramune his way. “So Y/N, feeling ready for class to start tomorrow?” “Yes, I’ve made all necessary preparations and more.” “Still doesn’t feel real that I’m even here, I think it will be a few days till this sinks in.” “… Hinata.” “Yes?” “When class stars… Well, before I ask how schools work, I find a matter more pressing. Will we still spend time together when class starts, like going to the mall, or the park together?” “Of course, we’re friends. Sure, we might get busy with schoolwork sometimes, but we can make time. If you’d like we could study together.” You were silent for a moment, mulling over his words as you took a sip of your soda. “friend…” It was strange to hear that new tone. There was no power or commend to it, it was but a faint unconscious whisper to yourself. “I wonder if we’ll have separate curriculums since we’ll be in different classes.” You knew you’d be in different classes. Maybe you were taking advanced courses or something. That was what Hajime had assumed at least. “Maybe, but we still have break and lunch to chat, we just can’t go out. At least we have holidays.” “Yes, we do have break and lunch. Then you’d be alright if I schedule to spend my breaks with you?” “I don’t mind.”

·       “… Thank you Hin-… Friend. I give you my thanks, Friend. For being my friend… I’ve never had one before. There are so many things I know not, but I intend for you to know I’ll do my utmost to keep improving. You’ve… changed my view on things in such a short amount of time. I find it remarkable.” The new spring breeze rolled past, carrying along the fresh scent of flowers. The sun beamed down, warming the cool world. “Ah, I haven’t done much, but I’m glad knowing our time together means so much to you.” “It’s strange… getting the chance to live as a teenager. Never before have I had the opportunity to be anything over than a military general.” Wait… military general? “For as long as I can recall, I’ve been molded to be a weapon and nothing more. I was the top candidate in the project, which allowed me access, well more so forcibly having me join the army. I believed myself to be unfeeling, emotionless for a time. After all, the soldiers could react with horror and fear at taking life, even celebrating when a battle was won, but I didn’t, to me, it just seemed to be more training. I only ever perceived humans as more targets. That was all my existence was, fighting. But as I was trained to be smart, tactical, I had noticed their reactions. I could not relate to them, but I could sympathize with them. I thought I knew not emotional pain, only physical, but somewhere in my mind I made the connection of physical, mental, and emotional pain as all one in the same. I could not understand them directly, but at the time I knew pain was bad, and so that was what started me beginning to see humans as people, more than bags of flesh. I listened to their stories of their friends, family, and loved ones. I did not understand directly, but I knew then I wanted to protect them, just as they wanted to protect their families, and so I began to think of them as my friends. The project runners soon caught on to my realizing I was human too, and began to torture me to make me believe humans were nothing but bad… bad, good, black, white, they had such an archaic, rudimentary view of life, it’s pitiful. As I realized the humans I worked with were people, I realized those we were fighting were exactly the same. We’re all human, all people, people with causes and more importantly others to fight for… Even if I was but an outsider looking in, not truly able to understand, I knew with all that was thrust onto me I was going to change the system. Be a humanitarian. Save all I could. I would mold my soldiers not in my image, but make them strong enough so they can protect others and themselves even without my leadership, to draw out their true strength from being human… but now…” You looked to the ramune bottle you held. “Before I saw humanity, but now I’ve experienced it, even if but a fraction.” You turned to him, cupping your hand on his cheek, the smallest, softest, kindest of smiles pulling at the corners of your lips. “Simply doing things others do everyday I find so exciting, but something I found with my soldiers, hearing their stories of their loved ones, connecting with them, and now, connecting with you, connecting with other human beings… I think this is the best part of being alive. You’ve shown me the world from a new perspective. I can now finally understand. I had some semblance of it before, but… I was still fighting, not… whatever not fighting is, what you’ve shown me, playing at an arcade and watching movies. THIS is what they were all so desperate to protect. I just wanted them to live, but I didn’t know what being alive was. And so… I suppose I fear us not getting to have our outings as often. This, being friends with you… It’s the most… My vocabulary has failed me, I can’t even begin to describe this, but, I will do whatever it takes for you to not just see, but understand how much I appreciate and treasure all that you have done for me… You are my very first friend after all. I want to treat you right. And I will.”

·       “Wait… so, you’re the Super High School Level Military General?” “That is a title I have been christened recently, but it is not all I am. After all, I’ve more recently gained the title as your friend.” This… was a lot for Hajime to take it. Now he felt a bit weird about telling you so much about his adoration for Hope’s Peak and it’s students, who you were one of, how he wished he could belong there and not just paid to be on the side lines. Yet… despite you being one of those students… he was just talking to his friend… remembering that made this feel less awkward, though a little embarrassing still.

·       It was strange having the stares of his classmates as they just watched him eating with you, to the point you’d often walk around till you found a quieter place to just enjoy your time together in peace.

·       You’d still hangout outside of school, it was both of your favorite time together. You could just be together and be happy without this strange divide that others forced between you two.

ENDING 1:

·       When Hajime befriended Chiaki and her class, he dragged you along, helping you to connect with the others. You both became honorary members of the class.

·       These connections were things you were never going to allow to fade, making sure to regularly keep in contact with everyone even after graduating.

·       With the world having relative peace you retired, working as a personal trainer. You’d come out of retirement temporarily if a new war sprung up, but you always ended it quickly with as little life lost as possible… “Ah, Y/N, you’re back!” “I said I’d be, didn’t I?” Your face instantly flushed a bright red upon Hajime hugging you so tightly. “You took much longer than usual, I thought something had happened.” “A-ah… I…” ... happily returning to your husband and your peaceful life together. This was all both you and Hajime wanted, and you were happy just to be together.

ENDING 2:

·       Even still, no matter how much you tried, you just seemed to be naturally pulled to separate worlds, the staff always causing trouble for Hajime when he’d go to see you, only for you to end up defending him. Moments like these…

·       His mind was a blur, he couldn’t hold onto a single thought, and so he went out for a walk, hoping the fresh air could clear his mind.

·       “Friend.” “Oh, Y/N-” He turned around, finding you were but a few paces behind him. “- you startled me.” You were stoic, standing there stiffly, the only movement was the wind lifting up pieces of your uniform. “You want to talk about something?” “Indeed. The Kamukura project… What’s with that expression, surely one such as I would know of an experiment such as this.” “Y-yeah, I guess so.” “I but wish you to place my mind at ease, after all… I’ve never trained you, you’re not my soldier, I… know not if you’ll be safe on your own, so… I wish to know if you are informed as to what you’ll be doing from kin, one who has attempted to be molded into a weapon as well.” He looked you up and down, searching for something, though he wasn’t sure what himself. Then he nodded. “By partaking in this project, you may never return to now. They may attempt to make you a weapon, but that will not come to be. Friend, should you follow my path, I still will not take you in as a soldier for you have no need of such. They will say you’re someone entirely new, and that you may be. I know not the consequences of one following my path after being allowed to be human for so long. Likely for a time, you will know nothing but fighting, you may have to relearn what it is to be human, is that a process you are willing to go through? It is one I in fact am still stumbling through.” “… Yeah. I know you say all life has meaning, that everyone matters, but… I want to do more!” “And I shall never stop you from any endeavor for self-improvement. That is not my intention here.” You held out your hand to him. “I but wish that after you follow me, you catch up so we may walk side by side once more.” “Of course. Whatever happens next, I know I’ll be alright, I have my friend with me.” Taking your hand into his own he could feel the warmth that seeped through your glove. “Well then…” With an outstretched arm you presented Hope’s Peak. “Shall we be off?” “Yes.”

·       You followed Hajime, but a few paces behind till he stood before those doors off limits to most staff and all students but him. He looked over his shoulder having herd your steady footfalls come to a stop. You both knew you could follow him no longer. This next step he’d have to take on his own, but it was alright, he knew he’d be lost and run after you for a while, but in the end, he’d be someone better, someone who could not only walk beside you, but keep in time and never fall behind. No more chasing after you or leading you around. This time around, you could truly keep in time with one another.

    Kirumi Tojo:

·       Kirumi had met you through Korekiyo, he introduced the two of you thinking you’d make for good friends given how similar you were. You both lived to serve others, to make them as great of people as they could be. Kirumi admired the lengths you’d go for your soldiers, keeping mental and emotional health in mind, not just physical. All you wished was for your soldiers to be even greater than yourself so that together the whole world could be a safe place. Being your maid was something she had considered, but you were perfectly fine on your own, even being able to work on self-improvement without the assistance of others. Surely being your maid, she’d be able to an extent serve and help many others but given you absolutely couldn’t find someone like her to be of use, she became your friend instead.

·       Whenever the pair of you had free time, you’d share stories of the past. On occasion you’d trade advice, but the both of you felt it almost wrong to assist one another. You both loved helping others, but also valued self-improvement above all else which included your own improvement. Both of you were simply so self-reliant any assistance would simply be a hindrance from improving yourself in some way. Even so, your chats together were your favorite. You both understood one another in ways most others simply could not even begin to comprehend.

·       You always spent time with one another when you were taking breaks. Taking breaks was vitally important, even for workaholics such as yourselves. You both would change your schedule so they could align. Often, you’d make a day of it, going out and trying something Hajime had shown you recently such as going for a walk through a botanical garden, going to the cinema, or just lazing about on the beach. These were rather awkward but fun excursions, the both of you not exactly sure how to relax in a way similar to others. Often the awkwardness could looked back on with laughter at how silly it’d look to others.

·       By chance the pair of you had but a short break for an hour or so you’d most often exercise, something light for you like a thousand push-ups or curl-ups and other such things while Kirumi would speak of her past experiences as a maid. One time it’d be how she saved he client from a literal army, the next being about her setting up a whole wedding due to the caterer just being plain awful at their job. You’d so curiously ask her questions such as what catering was or how to bake a cake so you could gave one to one of our classmate’s for their up coming birthday. Kirumi loved answering your every last question, it was one of the few things she could do to truly help you without getting in the way. She’d eagerly teach you any and all skills you were unfamiliar with, and you rather liked knowing Kirumi was enjoying this so much. You’d think of any possible skill you were lacking and asked her to be your teacher and in exchange you’d teach her battle and fighting tactics even she didn’t know.

·       You adored being able to help one another, and you’d search out excuses to do so.

·       “So what you’re saying is you’re out of work.” “Indeed.” “Meet me at the front gate, sixteen o’clock.” That was all that needed to be said for the both of you to be there right on time, down to the exact second. Not a word was exchanged as you lead her down the streets through town. Though you enjoyed your chats with one another, you didn’t speak too often. Speaking wasn’t needed to build a connection with one another. Being together was enough most of the time.

·       “Hey General.” “There you are Y/N, oh Tojo? So Y/N brought you here too, that’s why they’re late today.” Kirumi found herself in a rather cozy building, many people with various injuries, along with Shuichi as well. Most of them sat at one main table where biscuits and tea sat on a platter. “So this is the General’s other new friend. Come in, come in. Everybody’s welcome to the drop-in center. Come have some tea and share some stories.” “The Generals says you have quite the yarns to tell.” Both you and Shuichi knew what was to come next. “If you so wish. And if the tea is low, I shall make more.” Kirumi immediately made herself at home, serving all the ex-soldiers so attentively. You and Shuichi simply started some training while everyone else ooed and awed at Kirumi and her skills in seemingly everything. It was fun for the pair of you to see the others amazed by the girl both of you were used too, no longer surprised by anything she could do, she could take over the whole galaxy and neither of you would bat an eye, to the both of you she could do anything.

·       Due to the both of you being rather stoic neither of you ever really confessed your feelings. After graduating high school you were just together, no matter the distance or time you’d always reunite with one another eventually. Kirumi often worked with soldiers, helping them get back onto their feet after war. You’d do the same when you weren’t fighting. You both were a perfect duo, doing all you could to make life easier for your soldiers and getting them to a place where they no longer needed your help. The pair of you were simply perfect together.

#izuru kamukura #hajime hinata #kirumi tojo #izuru x reader #hajime x reader #kirumi x reader #Mod Gundham #danganronpa #danganronpa 2 #Super Danganronpa 2 #danganronpa2 #danganronpa v3 #New Danganronpa V3 #danganronpav3 #danganronpa imagine #danganronpa imagines #danganronpa 2 imagine #danganronpa 2 imagines #danganronpa v3 imagines #danganronpa v3 imagine #dr imagine #dr imagines #dr 2 imagine #dr 2 imagines #dr v3 imagine #dr v3 imagines #danganronpa x reader

[kaibacorpintern]

hi i forgot the ship name but would u write something thats seto and ryou? (platonic or romantic) where they play a ttrpg together or somethin idk

“or somethin idk” give me an inch, i have run a mile. a mile of 4.7k words.

platonic euroshipping. post-canon. ryou applies for a game writer position at kaibacorp and makes it to the final stage. contains: dragons, swords, some very sexy things about solidvision and the virtual world, kaiba covered in blood and having a great time, me the writer having a great time, hopefully you the reader having a great time, and ryou, not covered in blood, having a very, very, very anxious time

tw for some fantasy violence

++++++

Ryou inhaled, taking a deep breath of: the fresh, sweet smell of grass, the coolness of river water, something dry and grey in the wind, slightly rotten - smoke? And sulfur. The grasses were filled with the restless susurrus of the wind, each blade quivering with anticipation. Above him, a hawk tilted in lazy, wide circles, tracking the hidden paths of its prey. He stood on a dusty path halfway up the long slope of a steep hillside, the farmlands of the valley behind him peeled back to reveal the burned, blackened devastation beneath. The village from this distance looked like the charcoal remains of a bonfire, the air still shimmering with heat. 

The sun itself was hot, making him sweat in the thick, coarse silk of his mage’s robe, every purple thread saturated with light and heat. Mopping sweat from his brow, Ryou opened his options menu, the holographic display falling open, in the guise of an illuminated manuscript, and hovering at waist-height in thin air, perfectly tilted for reading. The parchment was old and yellowed, almost velvet to the touch, the edges frayed with age, and he couldn’t resist the urge to smell it, leaning in cautiously to take an experimental whiff. Strong notes of dust, old ink, age; an undertone of knowledge, of the forbidden kind. 

He selected Player Appearance and the page turned, with weight and heft, to reveal another. Kaiba didn’t miss a beat. Ryou had no doubt if he knelt down to drink from the stream that flowed down the slope, folding in clear ribbons past the rocks, the water would run cold over his fingers until they pruned. And the magic effects?

He swallowed. It was not just the sun that was making him sweat.

He’d just changed into something more practical - a short-sleeved green tunic, a pair of white breeches, leather boots that had just a bit of bite to the fit, like the player had to wear them in - when a chime pealed out from six feet away, as though someone had rung an invisible bell. The air tore apart, in odd, geometric anguish, like a broken mirror twisting into itself - 

and there was Kaiba, standing in the knee-high grass in his customary black turtleneck and tight pants, frowning with his arms crossed.

“Hello,” Ryou said. “It’s so nice to see you again. Your technology is... this is amazing. The attention to detail is incredible. The player screen, with the parchment - it even smells like - ”

“What is this? Medieval?” Kaiba said, glancing around at his clothes, the distant village, taking no notice of his praise; Ryou bit his tongue in self-rebuke. As if buttering him up with compliments was going to help. 

“Western Europe. From the mid-11th century to the 12th. The age of knights and chivalry,” he said, deciding that maybe his best strategy was to simply be straightforward.

“I’m familiar with basic history, thank you. How... classic,” Kaiba said, in a tone that screamed disinterest, and Ryou’s heart began to plummet - already starting from behind? No, no, no, he reminded himself, straightening the slouch out of his shoulders. Yuugi had warned him about this. Kaiba was fantastically tough to impress, in general, and the Virtual World was his world, a realm he'd built with sweat and tears, and stolen back with blood. So he hand-picked every writer that wrote for Virtual World games, refusing to squander a single pixel on conventional nonsense and uninspired cliché. 

The last step - before he brought the axe down - was a short, playable demo, as proof of concept, written by the applicant and executed by the Virtual World team.

Ryou had come this far in the application process. Trust that, Yuugi said. And trust yourself.

Kaiba was looking at him, eyebrows arched with expectant curiosity.

“Er,” Ryou said. “Let’s get started, then. You’ll need to change.”

He pulled up the menu, revelling in the hovering parchment once more, and changed Kaiba’s appearance, like - like magic, the lines of Kaiba’s silhouette rippling like a sine wave from the bottom up, his modern-day clothing becoming a knee-length tunic of chainmail under a belted dark blue surcoat. Kaiba held still throughout the entire transformation, in smug admiration of the effect, his arms held out in a ballet dancer’s pose as chainmail draped down his shoulders to his wrists. 

In his right hand appeared, with a sharp, diamond flash of light, a long arming sword, the edge nicked with age and bloodspill. The hilt was black, with a sapphire gleaming in the pommel. A plain shield dropped onto his left forearm. 

He gave the sword an experimental spin, testing the heft with practiced ease, and slid it back into the leather scabbard on his belt.

“A knight, the charred, smoking remains of a village… I’m assuming I’m on a quest to kill a dragon?” he said, pushing back the hood of the chainmail so that it draped off his shoulders, and nodding up the slope to where the grasses tattered into rocky shale. 

“Yes, you can assume that,” Ryou said politely.

On cue, a child no more than twelve years old staggered up the dusty path from the village, her small torso heaving with breath, sweat and tears running in clean streaks down her soot-stained face. 

“Sir Knight,” she choked out. Flashing a look at Ryou that said cheap blow, but unable to deny his own fraternal instinct, Kaiba dropped to one knee and caught her, his hands swallowing her thin, shuddering shoulders. Playing along, at least.

“Calm down,” he said, steadying her. Ryou imagined his anxiety as a small, hard rock, packing in the twist of every fraying nerve, and leaned all his weight onto one foot, grinding the rock into the dirt with his heel. "What is it?”

“They sent me to warn you, about the dragon,” she panted. “They said only the Chosen One can truly defeat the dragon, and bring peace back to the land. Many have tried. All suffered the same terrible fate - a fate worse than death.”

“I see,” Kaiba said. “And who is the Chosen One?”

The girl glanced at Ryou over Kaiba’s shoulder, her eyes glinting with fear. 

“No - no one knows,” she said. “But all the oracles say they’re coming… a knight with a pure and worthy heart. Sir Knight, don’t go. Come back to the village. It’s safe there. What do you gain from this? Our humble lands aren’t worth the danger!”

“I think they are,” Kaiba said, thumbing soot off her face, and frowning as her cheek pixelated, briefly, and resumed a skin-like texture. "Open master commands, user ID 000002510. Initiate master log. Begin recording: skin-to-skin contact glitch reappeared during writer play-test, candidate Bakura, R. Begin patch work immediately. End recording. Disperse to Virtual World team, flag Sawada, project manager. Close master commands. Did you know, one of the most compelling unsolved problems in physics is the lack of a theory that realizes both general relativity and quantum mechanics?”

The girl gave him a wary look, wide-eyed with faint alarm. Ryou sucked in a breath, grinding the anxiety rock down, down, down.

“You - you speak in tongues, Sir Knight," she said. "Are you also an oracle? Has your future-sight failed you? Don’t you see that only death lives on the mountain?”

Kaiba snorted and stood up, turning to Ryou. “A solid response to non-standard player input. Doesn’t ignore modern concepts, but re-contextualizes them in the setting of this world via a framework of prophecy, and redirects the player to the plot.” 

“Um... thank you?” Ryou said. “I wanted this world to feel like it has a future, too, not just a history. I wanted to place it on a timeline, like it - ”

Kaiba’s attention swung back to the girl, still standing there with her eyes darting between them, full of bafflement. 

“Return to the village, girl. Tell them my future-sight never fails me.”

The girl retreated backwards, warily, twisted on her heel, and fled down the path.

"If I go down to the village, what'll I find?" Kaiba said.

"More information about the Chosen One, and an outlaw who tries to recruit you to her band of thieves, with the option to join them for a stealth-based quest.”

"Hm. You have the imagination and the decency to offer me something other than blatant bait, which I don't always bite. The cliché of the Chosen One is boring as hell, it’s both over-done and deterministic, but I think... yes. Yes, I'll bite. Let's go see your dragon."

In the wake of this... compliment?, Ryou could only offer him a small, tentative smile, his heart clenching tight around Yuugi's advice. 

Kaiba started up the path. 

“Er, Kaiba - you might want to check your inventory before you encounter the dragon."

Kaiba’s hand padded around his waist until he found the small satchel that sat on his hip. Another parchment unfurled in the air before him, listing its contents:

Two full healing spells;

Two glamour spells, for changing the guise of a person or object;

Two transformation spells, for changing a person or an object into an animal;

Two scrying spells, for locating people or objects;

Two ignis spells, for commanding fire;

Two aqua spells, for commanding water; and

Two ventus spells, for commanding wind.

Ryou watched him as he read. He'd carved a small, thick groove into the dirt below his foot. Surely, that was enough for Kaiba to get creative?

Kaiba only closed the parchment with a brisk flick of his hand. Then he started up the mountain, Ryou following nervously behind.

***

The mountain path was rougher than Ryou expected, a tightly-coiled spring of switchbacks, leading to the curved lip of a high pass. After several minutes of trudging the dust in silence, he was panting for breath, his feet aching and blistering in their boots, and deeply regretting adding this little detail to the story. Next time, he was just going to put the dragon on a rolling, grassy plain, and he’d make it like an American autumn corn maze, because it still needed to be a challenge, and when the players got to the center they’d find the dragon’s decaying, rotting corpse and realize they’d been stuck inside the maze for five hundred years and everyone they loved was dead, and if they wanted to go back to their own time they’d have to find out how to resurrect the dragon, but only at a terrible cost, a sacrifice of some kind... Not his best off-the-cuff work, but there were usable concepts in there, somewhere. If there was a next time.

Despite being laden down with the chainmail, each tiny link flashing like fish scales in the airy slanting of the afternoon sun, Kaiba seemed unaffected by the demands of the hike, propelling himself forward with long, energetic strides. How?

Ryou thought about asking for a break. Or drinking water from the stream. Or changing his boots for something comfier, but he didn't have anything else in his outfit inventory except the mage robes, and the slippers might be even worse… he stopped, hands on his hips, gathering his breath.

From here the valley sprawled below them, a wide, velvety plain, its edges rising and scalloped by mountains. The village fit in the circle of his thumb and forefinger, a smoking black thumbprint. The team had done a fantastic job: the stream ran down the mountain, flattened into a river, and ran south, lazy and serpentine, a green-blue ribbon cutting through the yellow plains, just like he’d outlined in his initial description of the world….

Wait. 

This was all virtual. 

There was no such thing as air, here, or rivers or sunshine or grasses.

His real, physical body was half-asleep in a Virtual World testing pod on the 17th floor of the Kaiba Corp Tower, and his body here was just a series of algorithms, and if he didn’t want to sweat, he didn’t have to fucking sweat! Thank God!

Up ahead, Kaiba noted the absence of his footfalls and turned around, one hand resting easily on his sword hilt. From his position on the path, he looked down at Ryou from several feet up, which doubled the intimidation of his already formidable bearing.

“I’m fine,” Ryou said. “Just... admiring the view.”

“Are you having your Matrix moment? That’s what my programmers call it,” Kaiba said.

Ryou laughed. “I think so. I was tired but I don't feel it at all, anymore. Like all the fatigue's just melted away and I could run a marathon.”

“Is that something you enjoy?”

“Oh, no. I hate sports.”

Kaiba snorted.

“So, tell me. Why do you want this job?” he said. “At my company? Writing stories with my technology?”

“Er - ” Blindsided by the swerve in topics, Ryou tripped over his thoughts. Surely he must’ve read his application? Maybe he didn’t have the time. Stick to straightforward. “I’m sure you remember my performance in Battle City?”

“Yes, I remember,” Kaiba said, which was honestly more than Ryou expected of him.

“Well, I don’t play much Duel Monsters anymore,” he said, “but I still.. every once in a while, I turn my Duel Disk on and play a few cards, just to see my monsters come out, see them breathe… you know I run a Zombie deck, full of demons and dead things, but SolidVision makes them feel so - so alive. You took these fantasy monsters that exist only in our heads and put them in our world.”

“Virtual World game writers don’t work on SolidVision products,” Kaiba countered.

“Right, I know that. To me, Virtual World and SolidVision are the inverse of each other, or opposites that contain each other, like, like yin and yang - with SolidVision, the unreal enters the real, and becomes real. In the Virtual World, the real - ” Ryou motioned to himself - “enters the unreal, and becomes unreal. We like to put walls between imagination and reality, you know, taxes are real and unicorns aren’t, but with SolidVision and Virtual World, there is no wall. That’s the world I want to write stories for.”

“Hm,” Kaiba said, the corner of his mouth curving up in a smile. “Interesting take.”

And he waited, saying nothing more, until Ryou realized he was waiting for him; and trotted lightly up the path to join him.

*** 

By the time they reached the top of the mountain pass, the air had turned a clear, dusky gold. The mountains cast long, black shadows across the valley, like dark teeth, chewing up the farmlands. The mountain pass was saddle-shaped, one side sloping down into the valley they’d just come from, the other flattening into a smaller, higher bowl, cupping a pale blue-green lake between its rocky palms.

Kaiba scrambled onto the nearest large rock, his head swinging as he scanned the lake valley. Ryou wrapped one arm around his waist and bit his thumb. They had found a deep, penetrating quiet, the kind of wilderness quiet that was devoid of texture of any kind; no bugs or burbling streams or bird song. It was not even like holding your breath, waiting, because that implied a coming moment of exhale, a sigh of relief. This was a perfect stillness. 

And hidden somewhere inside it was a dragon. 

Ryou bit harder, until he remembered the pain was fake and did nothing, and he had to come up with something else to temper his anxiety, which was definitely, definitely real.

Kaiba's gonna flip his shit when he sees your dragon, Yuugi said, from the back of Ryou's mind, Ryou's demo manuscript in hand. In a good way or a bad way? Is it too derivative? What does it matter that he'll flip his shit for my dragon when he flips his shit for ANY dragon? He's a slut for dragons. Oh my god, you can't say that! Yuugi, please, help - nope. You got this. You know what you're doing.

Even the metallic shing of Kaiba’s sword coming out of its sheath seemed small, in an unnatural way, a pointless, petty defiance. 

A shadow fell across the lake valley. 

Both of them looked up -

and an enormous dragon hurtled out of the sky, landing with thundering force on all four clawed feet, flattening trees and boulders beneath its reptilian bulk. Ryou staggered backwards and fell, in an awkward, clumsy crab pose; Kaiba threw his shield over his face and dug in, undaunted.

"HAVE YOU COME TO KILL ME?" the dragon boomed. “MISERABLE WRETCH?”

Kaiba lowered his shield, just enough for his first full look at the dragon. From his spot, crumpled on the ground, Ryou saw, in the shadow below the shield, another slender smile. The dragon’s hide was a dark, luxurious blue-black, mottled like snakeskin but textured with the heavy crags and knobs of crocodiles. It lowered its head on its long, arching neck, gracefully bearing the weight of two massive, curving horns, and stared down at them with fathomless acid-green eyes.

Even Ryou, who had designed it, sat enthralled: every movement it made - the eager flick of its tail, the claws, curling into the dirt, glinting under a layer of blood and grime, the shuddering of its leathery wings as they folded into its long body - hinted at indomitable power. It was a true creature of legend, a titan from the youngest days of the world, demanding both reverence and terror.

“I have!” Kaiba replied blithely, despite announcing it in a ringing voice.

“ONLY THE CHOSEN ONE CAN DEFEAT ME,” the dragon said. “YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF SUCH A FEAT. I SEE YOUR HEART, BLACKGUARD KNIGHT. I CAN TASTE THE BLOOD YOU’VE SPILLED WITH YOUR SWORD, BRIGHT AND PUNGENT. I CAN HEAR THE CRIES OF ALL THE LIVES YOU’VE LET EBB INTO THE DIRT AT YOUR FEET!”

“I’m here to avenge the village!” Kaiba shouted. 

“YOU COME UP HERE TO DEFEND SOME PATHETIC SCRAPS OF BRICK AND WOOD, THINKING YOU CAN KILL ME, AND CALL THAT HONOR? REDEMPTION? YOU CALL THAT COURAGE? ITS TRUE NAME IS VANITY! EMPTY AND FALSE! IT WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN BEFORE I DO!” the dragon boomed again. “LEAVE. I WAS ONCE NAIVE AND VAIN LIKE YOU. COME BACK WHEN YOU ARE MORE THAN A MERE WORM, OR ELSE SUFFER MY FATE!”

Ryou had clambered to his feet and bolted for the safety of a low ridge, which gave him a perfect view of Kaiba, head held high and proud as he gazed unflinching at the dragon, several hundred times his size. He’d written those words in his notebook on the metro, leaning his head against the cool midnight glass, pausing every other line to ferret out another piece of sour candy from his bag. Then he’d missed his stop. That trundling, light-washed world of a train car seemed impossibly distant now - a rapidly fading dream, to be remembered only in flashes and silence. To hear the words come out of the smoking jaws of this dragon, each syllable flowing in a delicious, indulgent baritone from its shining teeth, filled him with a breathless exhilaration, his heart hammering in his throat - this was real!

“Only one of us is suffering fate today!” Kaiba shouted back, a laugh in his voice, and then threw a glance at Ryou. “‘Suffer my fate?’ Is that a typo?”

“VERY WELL. COME KILL ME! THERE IS PEACE IN DEATH, AND ONLY ONE OF US CAN CLAIM IT!”

“I - watch out!” Ryou yelled, as the dragon lunged forward, its jaws snapping shut on the empty air where Kaiba had been standing half a second before. Kaiba threw himself out of the way, a nimble tuck and roll, and scrabbled across the shale towards higher ground. Behind him, the dragon swung its massive head, nostrils red and flaring, mouth curled up in a savage draconic grin, glinting with the promise of violence. 

No sooner had Kaiba flung himself behind a scattering of boulders, shield raised, than it unleashed a jet of fire so hot and scorching the boulders glowed red, their rough faces melting in sheets. Ryou felt the heat wash across his face, from several dozen yards away. 

The fire died out. The dragon snorted in satisfaction, horse-like, a loud, wet huff of smoke. The boulders sizzled as they cooled into their new, bizarrely dripping forms.

Kaiba emerged from behind a boulder, sweating and singed, his face streaked with ash and his eyes shining. He tossed the warped, melted wreckage of his shield aside, where it bounced and clattered against the rocks.

“SO YOU STILL LIVE? A MISTAKE. WHAT COMES NEXT WILL HURT WORSE!”

“For you!” Kaiba hurled back, and threw his hand into the air, a gesture Ryou had seen countless times on a duel field - a lightning rod, a summoning. “VENTUS!” 

The wind picked up, in a giddy, howling whirl, bringing with it a cloud of dust that descended gritty and blinding and pale across the valley. Kaiba and the dragon vanished from sight inside it. Mentally Ryou subtracted one spell from Kaiba’s satchel.

“THIS WON’T HELP Y - ” Cut off by a wet chop and an ear-splitting draconic scream, a raw, awful sound, torn out of an unwilling throat. Just below it, a glorious, cascading laugh. “WRETCH! WORM!”

The dust settled, revealing glistening, dark-green blood splattered across the rocks, and a single severed claw, its flesh still twitching. The dragon seethed, its wounded foot curled in agony. Kaiba was clear across the other side of the pass, by the dragon’s tail, grinning open-mouthed as he panted for breath. His chainmail and surcoat dripped with dragon blood; his hair was thick with it. 

“COME GET YOUR PEACE, DRAGON!” he bellowed, and the dragon slung its head around, tail coiling in an ominous whip. 

Again Kaiba lifted his hand, shouted “VENTUS - !”

And a second dust cloud barreled into the valley, as the dragon roared back, “THAT WON’T WORK AGAIN!”

It whipped its tail through the dust cloud, a scythe-like sweep - smacking something hard into the rocks with a thick, fleshy crunch of bone that made Ryou’s insides clench tight with terrified sympathy.

The dragon whirled around, clearing the dust with several storm-gathering wingbeats.

This was not real. This was just pixels, neatly arranged and running in rivers of algorithms - just a clever series of ones and zeroes - and yet Ryou gasped, the dragon laughing, at the sight of Kaiba lying in a crumpled, motionless heap in the rocks. He hadn’t considered Kaiba might actually fail to kill the dragon - all thoughts of jobs and game-writing abandoned - unreality aside, the mind had a way of making it real - what the fuck happened if Kaiba died?

“IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE, WORM?” the dragon said, nudging Kaiba’s limp body with its claws, rolling him over. His head lolled, his body twisted into a horrifying, broken-boned slouch. How on earth was Ryou going to explain this to Yuugi? Hell. “I TOLD YOU, YOU'RE NOT W - ”

Ryou almost didn’t see it - a hawk in a dive, arrow-straight, from the top of the sky, diving through a blinding flash of light several stories up - and out of the light came Kaiba, alive and whole, plummeting towards the dragon’s head, gripping his sword with both hands - plunging it straight through the top of the dragon’s skull. 

He left the sword hilt-deep in dragon flesh as he pitched forward with the force of impact, rolling over the dragon’s brow, flailing to catch himself - on the massive horn. Clinging, victorious, as the great dragon swayed, its green eyes filming, and finally slumped, in agonized slow motion, to the earth, body first, head last, with a thundering, bone-rattling crash. 

It released one last, rattling breath, the trees shuddering in the fetid breeze.

The valley descended into stillness once more. 

Ryou sat down on his low escarpment with a limp thump, burying his face in both hands. This was just a Virtual World, where at one point everything would power down and they’d wake up safe and sound in the squishy, air-conditioned comfort of a pod, and he had, after all, planned on Kaiba killing the dragon, but Kaiba’s sheer nerve seemed beyond that. Yuugi was right. The guy was, maybe, a little nuts. Completely off his rocker.

“Ryou,” Kaiba said, above him, and Ryou lifted his head. Kaiba rested the sword jauntily across his shoulder, the rest of him filthy with dragon blood and human blood and dirt. “I have to say, I enjoyed your dragon. A shame it had to die.”

“Your strategy... You used a glamour spell? On a... rock? To make it look like your dead body,” Ryou said. “And then a transformation spell.”

“Correct. Is that all for your demo?” Kaiba said, cocking an eyebrow, both bloody and disdainful, and Ryou swallowed. “I was hoping for more of a cha - ”

His words stopped hard in his throat, a harsh, hacking sound. His free hand flew to his neck, mouth dropping open in pain and confusion, eyes widening. He coughed - or tried to, achieving nothing more than a thin, ugly retching, his face going white - and Ryou watched, in fascinated horror, as his gamble began to play out. There was nothing he could do to help; he’d written it that way.

The sword clattered to the stones, green blood dripping off the shining edge, as Kaiba staggered sideways, gasping for breath, both hands on his neck - what was the algorithm doing to him? Ryou had only written ‘a suffocating, squirming pain, concentrated in the lungs,’ and resolved to think more carefully about what types of pain he might inflict on the player characters, if the gamble paid off... But how interesting to know even the creator of the Virtual World himself suspended his disbelief - his knowledge of the truth - sometimes, and indulged in pain...

He collapsed to his knees, stretching one hand out, fisting it around Ryou’s collar and dragging him closer - 

“What - ” he choked out, eyes glaring into Ryou’s, in baffled, furious agony - terrified - they rolled backwards, the blue sliding away to white, as he slumped over himself. 

His hand went slack and fell. What life remained slipped away in a low, shaking sigh.

Ryou took him by the shoulders and gently lay him down, passing a hand over his eyes to close them. Dead, but not really.

“Just hold on a moment,” he said. The body had been vacated. The soul - the player - was awakening elsewhere.

He waited a few moments, absorbing the stillness, the detail on the leaves of the pine trees; the way the lake water shimmered in golden flecks with late afternoon light. It was maybe his last few seconds to enjoy the world he’d written, rendered in full splendor by the magic of technology, and he’d banished his anxiety from both his mind and body, to live out its exile in the real world. It didn’t belong here.

The great dragon body began to stir, drowsily, waking up from a deep, deep sleep. The deepest sleep.

Ryou stood up and slid down the escarpment to the dragon, pebbles and dust avalanching around his feet. The stab wound in its skull was knitting back together; the severed claw was crawling back to its slow-bleeding joint. There was an agonized hiss, forced through the dragon’s tightly-clenched teeth, and a vibrating groan, deep in its chest, as it gathered itself out of death.

Its eyes opened, in wary slits - not the bright, acid green, but a stunning, oceanic blue.

“OW. FUCK,” it growled, in Kaiba’s voice, magnified and twice as resonant. “OPEN MASTER COMMANDS, USER ID 000002510. SUSPEND ALL PAIN ALGORITHMS. CLOSE MASTER COMMANDS.”

He rolled upright, flexing his wings with experimental care. He arched his neck, looking down at Ryou.

“YOU TURNED ME INTO A DRAGON.”

“Yes,” Ryou said cautiously.

“NO ONE HAS EVER TURNED ME INTO A DRAGON BEFORE,” Kaiba said. ”SO I WASN’T WORTHY? IS THIS WHAT IT MEANS TO SUFFER THE DRAGON’S FATE? EVERYONE WHO KILLS THE DRAGON BECOMES THE DRAGON, AND ONLY THE CHOSEN ONE BREAKS THE CYCLE. IS THAT HOW IT GOES?”

“That’s how it goes.”

“HOW DO I FIND THE CHOSEN ONE?”

“You choose them,” Ryou said. “You decide what makes them worthy.”

"SO ANYONE CAN BE THE CHOSEN ONE? ANYONE CAN BREAK MY CURSE?"

"That's right."

Kaiba pondered that for a moment, flexing his claws idly in the dirt, the massive slabs of muscle in his shoulders shifting as he tested the strength and fit of his new draconic body. His gaze drifted out over the lower valley, eyes clouding briefly with memories of another story, another game, another man; one who had always seemed real and unreal, all at once, no matter what world he lived in. Ryou had heard it all from Yuugi.

Then Kaiba looked at him and started to laugh, a sound that echoed and rebounded across the small lake valley, the water shivering as each delighted peal of laughter rolled across. Ryou blushed as it buffeted him from all sides.

“IS THAT SO,” Kaiba said, with dry relish. “YOU’RE HIRED.”

#sibbinthegivengibbon #fanfiction #euroshipping #(platonic) #oh my goddddddd this was a blast to write i just enjoyed myself the entire time #thanks for the prompt!! #its 1 AM i'm going the FUCK to sleep

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Nicole's Rambling: The Avengers Problem (for PS4)

Let's start with the usual chanting: ❗this is my opinion, it's biased as hell (since I grew up with Marvel comic books and movies) and you don't have to agree❗

I was wondering why Avengers game gets so hated... So I took a look and I played it myself. Let’s have a look.

SPOILERS AHEAD

First off: the game isn't in any way horribly bad. It's just a button smasher with a story that has its good and bad beats. It's not memorable at all, but it could've gone way more downhill in my opinion.

At the start of the game, you meet the mighty Avengers through child fan's eyes - it's pure fanservice and let's be honest, it's dope. It was sweet, but pretty dragged, to be honest. I really didn't need to play as all five Avengers (HAWKEYE IS MISSING, AGAIN) in the first hour of the game, but sure, why not?

For the most part, you see the squad through Kamala Khan's eyes. For those who might have not a clue who the hell Kamala is; I am not wondering about why you don't know who the hell she is. She's a Marvel heroine who outed in 2013 and who will have her own spinoff on Disney+.

And again, Ms Marvel is fine, but not memorable at all. I've never, until this day, met anyone who would say that 'Ms Marvel is my favourite superhero'. I was halfway through the game before I even realized it's Ms Marvel - AFTER SHE PULLED HER DAMN COSTUME OUT. That can be due to my utter ignorance or because I heard of her so little that I can count it on my fingers. In all honesty, I loved Kamala as the story progressed, the gal's not bad at all - but as the whole game, she had good and bad beats. There were times where I wished to play as Iron Man and the game forced me to play as her... Whatever.

Let's look at the three problems I have with this game and three positives I found in the game:

0. (Technically zero since it's a personal problem of mine) The soundtrack and the voice actors:

By any means, I am not trying to say they should hire RDJ for the role of Iron Man and Mark Ruffalo for the role of Banner... But it was so hard to distinguish the voice of Nolan North (For example: Nathan Drake x Iron Man) and Troy Baker (Samuel Drake x Bruce Banner). For me, as for a PS4 gamer, it's annoying to hear the same voices again and again in every game I am genuinely excited about (Idk how Xbox players are familiar with them). Of course, there's even Laura Bailey as the Black Widow; I feel like these are the three only people who do voice acting for games these days and sure, I should've seen that coming.

Side note: Nolan North is not a good fit for Iron Man in the slightest in my opinion, but if you like his Iron Man, that's cool as well!

The soundtrack... M A N, the soundtrack. When I heard Marvel gave a green light to the Avengers game, I expected to hear at least the iconic Alan Silvestri's 'The Avengers'. Problem with this is simple: Marvel had spoiled its consumers with good and memorable soundtracks (don't you tell me you don't remember as they all gathered for the first time). Since it was Marvel itself who gave the green light for this project, which was supposed to be based loosely on the movies' and comic book success, I hoped to get all of it.

It's not Iron Man when AC/DC song isn't playing in the background as he flies through a canyon for his life. I mean, Iron Maiden are fine; but come on. COME ON. It's not the same. It's not the Avengers (WITHOUT HAWKEYE) without their significant theme.

1. IT. BUGS. ALL. THE. TIME and the combat is incredibly repetitive:

When I was little, I was a rage gamer. I could barely play Crash Bandicoot or Rayman without losing my cool. Since then, I grew up, skilled and etc. I try not to rage when playing games since it's simply not worth it.

But when you're replaying a boring mission for the tenth part and you're almost over and SUDDENLY, the game bugs out and you lose control over the character (it starts running in circles, etc.) it sucks shit. And don't let me start on the minor bugs. Like when you don't cross the platform by one pixel and the game doesn't let you make combos when you're in the air and bug into a tree when you bug into a wall, a rock, fucking nothing... Bruh. It was released in August, shouldn't these bugs be fixed by now? The game is fucking broken, hoes. It barely feels like a game ready to launch at times.

When you're so lucky that you don't bug out in the middle of doing something, the combat... It isn't bad. It's not terrible, but the Avengers deserved something better. It didn't deserve mediocre combat that repeats itself in every level. Once you find yourself good combo, you're done for. You can use it to finish the game if you will.

2. There's too many missions, too much information and too much things player has to understand if he wants to play the game properly:

Okay, this might seem to be a little confusing; I didn't understand the game system at all when I first ran it on my PS4. There's story missions, HARM training sessions, daily missions for particular heroes, faction missions (SHIELD, Pym, Stark, etc.) and character-side-story missions, and a lot more.

Trust me, it doesn't sound that hard, but once you open the map menu for yourself... Oh boy, that's a different story. And if it only was the map menu. The inventory and such aren't too collected all together either. Before you can safely tell what is what, it will take you at least a whole afternoon. Also, the fact that game just spills it on you just like that, one thing after another, it doesn't help the overall feel.

On top of that, there are MULTIPLE currencies in the game; some even involve microtransaction. It mostly is involving the customization of the Avengers, so it's not THAT big of a deal; you can get one currency by collecting boxes and stuff, but it takes ages before you can buy one single thingy.

Also, if you would like to get stuff (very useful stuff) from factions (SHIELD and Pym mainly), you have to do in-factions daily quests, which usually require to do a certain amount of things as a particular hero (you can do some quests with Ms Marvel only, some with Black Widow, it usually involves the damage dealt while playing as a character etc.). And if you forget to fetch these minies? Well, no faction points for you, bucko.

The system feels overall too complicated in the begging and even after finishing the game, I am not certain by some.

3. The gameplay of the one and only... Natasha Romanov, and the entirety of Steve Rogers:

Right off the bat: IT. SUCKS. SHIT.

This was your shot in opening our mouths and showing why Black Widow BELONGS to the Avengers in the first place. Like, sure, storywise you proved the point, but gameplaywise... That's a different story.

Out of the bunch, Natasha feels the slowest, most clumsy and overall not too pleasant to play as. Mainly is because her attacks do... Nothing. The gun reloading is basically constant when I have to put it simply and it takes about 3-5 seconds for her to even reload; which can be a matter of life and death inside the game. Sure, she can make herself invisible; but that's like... It. It's not that it would be suffering when you are forced to play as Nat... But not a pleasant experience either.

On the other hand, maybe it's just me. I have friends who told me the same about her gameplay, but maybe there's someone who enjoys the Black Widow. It's my personal with the entirety of the gameplay.

Steve, on the other hand, isn't hard to play as. It's just fucking boring. At the start of the game, I couldn't wait to play as Steve's character. He seemed to be awesome - Jesus fuck, how could I be so wrong? As I said, he's incredibly boring and dry, his skills would do the same amount of work if they even weren't there. I think that Rogers is there just for the shock value (as a value that doesn't even work in the slightest) and nothing more.

As you learn to do the tricks and combos with them, it gets slightly better and skill tree and equipment upgrades can help almost unnoticeable... But really, Steve and Natasha are the absolute worst.

Now the reasons why the game convinced me it isn't a hot mess as I initially thought:

1. The characters, dynamics, chemistry and the overall story:

Sure, it is mainly a basic plotline, a cookie-cutter one, full of cliché - Avengers have to regroup after a traumatic event and you're the one who has to find them and bring them together.

Yet it is quite interesting; the game leads you to believe that Steve Rogers is dead after an event called the 'A-Day' (which you won't believe even if the game does the hardest to make you to, constantly remaining you that 'Oh boy, Cap died, did you know that?') and the Avengers had left to exile because they were considered as big bad for the people and the country. They have their emotional baggage and the banter between Banner and Stark (though it ends too soon), is just the thing that makes them human and relatable.

Even the villains are quite compelling; not like ultra super convincing, but the game can turn around when you least expect it to; which is definitely a huge plus.

The characters were done GOOD. The dialogues are full of personality and jokes you'd expect from each one of them; Banner is a wallflower cutie, Tony fishes for compliments all the time, Natasha is the big independent woman she always was and Thor? CHEF'S KISS, I swear. It hits the Shakespearean vibe perfectly and at the same time, he still is charming and quite funny to hang around.

Every time you can listen to a chit-chat between two characters, it is a great pleasure for you as a Marvel fan. Also, I need to say that regardless of my personal issue with the dub (regarding Tony and Bruce; since they're the people you spend most of your time with), the dialogues for these two characters are on point without a doubt. And I kinda grew fond of the in-game Bruce Banner throughout the course of the game, to be honest.

There are references, jokes, inside jokes, one-liners... The dialogue was done amazingly and that's a huge   T H A N K   Y O U  to the developers.

2. The mind-blowing gameplay of... Tony Stark and Thor and AI, while not being too bright, getting stronger as you do:

In what the Natasha gameplay lacks, these two give you exactly what would you expect and way, way more than you'd ask for. Again, it mainly reflects the personal gameplay preferences of the player; let me tell you why I think these gameplays are, in my opinion, the best.

a) Tony's gadgets and weaponry: The suit itself is bloody brilliant. Once you master the ability to attack and fly at the same time, you have the moments when you can not only feel like Iron Man - but really be Iron Man. It's not even that your gameplay would suddenly become 10x easier; it significantly becomes funnier.

b) Thor's heavy fist-to-fist and Mjolnir preferences: the Mjolnir is bloody brilliant as well. Thor's combat is mainly physically based, but when you want to throw the hammer around like the madman you are, you can suit yourself. You can use the lightning if you please and you can fly if this style of combat suits you. It's all in your hands. Thor can take quite a bit of damage, which is significantly supporting you in this style. If you accidentally drop Mjolnir? Well, call it back and smash them!

Also, regarding the AI... As I said, they're certainly not the brightest sparks in the flame; yet thanks to the power getting bigger as you level up and continue with your story and a huge variety of enemies - from turrets to flying men with flamethrowers. It is just button smasher, but a pleasing one in this regard, I must say.

3. The fanservice to comic book fans, movie fans and loyalty to the property:

As one IGN review once said... "This game makes you feel like Batman." And this game more or less accomplished it as well, but diluted and stripped down. Of course, in no way I can compare this to the masterpiece to the Arkham saga; these games are brilliant.

But there are moments when the game can just drag you inside the story and tell you: "You're Iron Man now, boss. It's in your hands." And it's there. I think the only issue was that the team of devs just took too big of a bite. I wouldn't mind stand-alone titles emerging into one and big Avengers game. That would be fun as well and I would spend my time with it gladly.

To end it: it's a mess, but a good mess you might like. If I was to rate it, would be 5.1/10 Wait until it is on sale, don't rush it. I'm overall disappointed and I most likely will forget I have ever played it.

#avengers #marvel's avengers #avnegers ps4 game #avengers game #black widow #captain america #iron man #ms marvel #the incredible hulk #nicole's rambling #thor #WHERE DID YOU LEAVE CLINT #WHERE IS HE #Marvel Comics #why the fuck did you do

[immaculate-benediction-batch]

Sorry this is so long......How TV Creators Are Handling Subtext And Shipping

TV series creators have a hard time not tailoring content towards a strictly heteronormative audience, refusing to lean in to queer context, no matter howlarge an LGBTQ following a show may have.

Once a fictional character is put out for public consumption, it ceases to be the one thing it’s described as on paper. This is especially the case with TV and film, where said character goes through so many hands before hitting the screen and becoming public property.

There are three kinds of creators when it comes to queer content on TV. The first (and sadly, most typical) is the creator who will deny any intention of creating queer content, and who will also refuse to acknowledge a queer audience’s interpretation., This often results in an instant backlash, as the Supergirlcast and creators experienced after an embarrassing interview with MTV last summer. When prompted to recap the latest season, the cast broke into a cringeworthy song that mocked fans’ interest in the Supergirl/Lena Luthor pairing, with Jeremy Jordan repeatedly exclaiming that the two will never get together. It continued despite Katie McGrath’s attempt to save the interview saying, “The great thing about what we do is, like any art, anyone can read into it what they want.” Chris Wood then chimed in with “Sexuality is all about others’ perception of yours, right?”

Supergirl is a show with a large female following that from the beginning has gravitated toward the female relationships it portrays, with emphasis on those relationships with strong queer energy. At first, there was a group of internet fans that were drawn to the chemistry between Melissa Benoist and Calista Flockhart, which was maximized due to the characters’ intense mentor/mentee relationship, and that was fine, and for the most part went unacknowledged by the show.

However, upon Flockhart’s exit, Lena Luthor was introduced, played by Katie McGrath. Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor became fast friends, and fans’ fascination with Supergirl’s queer vibes grew strong enough for the the cast to take notice. One would think that by having Alex Danvers and Maggie Sawyer, two queer characters already in their orbit, fan speculation about others wouldn’t be such an inconvenience that it would have to be addressed by aggressively singing “They’re only friends!” over and over, as if the pairing were unfathomable.

But Supergirl hasn’t been the only show to outright reject queer interpretations. In fact, a few years back, the long-running series Supernatural was called out by its fans for purposefully inserting homoerotic subtext within storylines pertaining to male characters Dean and Castiel, and for rather indirectly addressing said subtext in interviews. In one of them, Misha Collins (Castiel) stated that in certain scenes with Jensen Ackles (Dean) he was directed to portray his character as a “jilted lover.”

During a Toronto Con panel in 2013, it was revealed that a line was changed by Ackles — who last year specifically requested no questions about the popular pairing be allowed during the Q portion of a panel for the show at New Jersey Con–from “I love you” to “We’re family. I need you” because the Actor didn’t think it suited his character. Despite fandom’s interest in the pairing, it hasn’t been enough for Supernaturalto follow through with an actual queer storyline, aside from the one recurring lesbian character, Charlie, who was ultimately killed off. It turns out our tolerance for queerbaiting does have its limits.

Another show that failed to address the sapphic energy between its leads, in effect rejecting a great opportunity to add a bonus layer to an already complex relationship between two women, was Damages. The thriller starred Glenn Close as powerhouse prosecutor Patty Hewes, and Rose Byrne as her protégée, Ellen Parsons. The series went on for five seasons and throughout, though it benefitted from incredible writing, its highlight was clearly the tension and undecipherable relationship between Patty and Ellen.

While there was never any doubt that their connection was what kept the the show’s palpable tension dial at a 10, anytime the subject was brought up to either cast or creators it was denied or waved off as “wishful thinking,” as Glenn Close put it. When pressed further, she added, “I think there’s something seductive about Patty and she just seduces people and she’ll lead people on. I think that can come across as pure seduction.”

With Person of Interest, Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) and Root (Amy Acker) first connected under very unique, very dark circumstances in which one was holding the other against their will in a life threatening situation. But there was a sizzle there that the audience immediately responded to, and while both cast and writers admitted that was not their intention, something amazing happenedthey took that audience reaction and ran with it. In the end, Shaw and Root’s romance became one of the show’s more compelling storylines.

Jane the Virgin did the same. When a character, Petra, who wasn’t intentionally written as queer read queer to LGBTQ viewers, the writers saw no problem taking the interpretation and adopting it as canon. After years of keeping Petra as a sort of peripheral player within Jane/Rafael storylines, the character of Jane Ramos was introduced as Petra’s defense attorney and eventual love interest.

The third type of creator is everyone’s favorite. This is the one that takes whatever gay subtext or context there is, embraces it, and expands upon it, recognizing that it’s there from the beginning. In the Flesh and Killing Eve are true representatives of queer entertainment that isn’t trying to steer its characters toward a path they weren’t organically wanting to go.

In the Flesh, a BAFTA-award winning series from BBC 3, was easily one of the best shows that no one watched; a zombie show with depth, which isn’t easy to accomplish. The story takes place years after a virus epidemic that turned the infected into flesh-eating monsters is cured, and the rehabilitated are returning home. Its main character is Luke, one of the former infected, suffering from memories of the terrible things he did while sick, and tortured by his own suicide, which was prompted by the loss of love interest, Rick.

The series ran for only two seasons, with a total of nine episodes. It was inventive and creative and stands as one of the greats right next to shows like Hannibal and The Exorcist, which was unfortunately canceled by Fox this year after only two seasons of sacrilege, beautiful cinematography, Alfonso Herrera (Sense8) and a bisexual Father Marcus, played by Ben Daniels.

Killing Eve is a female-led thriller that proves that the secret to making great TV is treating characters like human beings with the capacity to change. Eve, who, when we meet her, is living a life that doesn’t seem particularly terrible, whose marriage appears to be solid, her job secure, is lured into potentially life threatening situations for the sake of following her inexplicable attraction to a female assassin. As if beneath the surface there is a dormant unrest that is awakened with the arrival of Villanelle in her life, and though she does not stop to examine exactly what she expects to get from it, she craves and wants more of these moments that have stirred her awake. She’s both excited and frightened by Villanelle’s audaciousness, by the intrusion into her life,

both figuratively and literally.

The season’s got a few episodes left, yet the most compelling, and most attentively queer moment is part of the fifth episode, in which the two women finally come face to face in Eve’s home. Eve is sopping wet in a gorgeous dress Villanelle’s purchased for her, she’s cold and visibly uncomfortable, therefore Villanelle suggests Eve should change, before proceeding to peel the dress off her herself. It is a scene that doesn’t downplay the very real danger Eve is in by having Villanelle in her home. However there is also an erotic aspect to it that is very purposeful, and as series creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge points out, the attraction is definitely mutual, “I knew that the first moment they see each other. I labeled that moment as ‘love at first sight.’ But I didn’t want it to be constrained to romance, or to lust, or anything like that. There’s something waking in Eve every day that she spends imagining what this woman is doing.”

This type of storytelling allows characters to evolve the way that they want to evolve as opposed to forcing them into a first page description. There is loyalty to the authenticity of the story, which comes from meticulous attention paid to the writing, which Waller-Green explains is all about going against cliché: “The moment something feels predictable, there’s a roar in me to just go to the most surprising place. I don’t want to bore myself.”

Often times, when female queer characters are introduced, it is done in order to titillate, and their storylines are the product of a male gaze fantasy. Killing Eve manages to avoid all of that with Villanelle, a character who seems to have no specific preference when it comes to sexual partners, and yet doesn’t feel the need to use her sexuality to get what she wants. In addition to that and the meaty tension between the two leads (Villanelle and the titular Eve, played by Sandra Oh), the attention paid to the very queer theme of the show is evident in backstories of characters that would normally go without one, like that of Eve’s former boss and best friend Bill, an older man in a heterosexual relationship who casually reveals he’s loved “hundreds” of men, much to Eve’s surprise, and further reveals he is in an open relationship, and happily so.

The series proves not only that queer characters are marketablethe BBC series was renewed for a second season before the first even airedbut that straight creators are capable of writing queer content that isn’t offensive or over-sexualized. Phoebe Waller-Bridge credits the authenticity of the series to a collaborative effort, stating, “Because it’s all about the characters, the little details that link the two worlds, everyone’s really made it a psychological piece rather than just an artistic painting of two different people’s worlds,” but it really just goes to show that that negative aspects of queer representation that include the dreaded male gaze perspective can be avoided as long as the bar is set high enough by the showrunner.

It only takes a little bit of creativity and imagination, and a willingness to challenge the idea that heterosexual-based television makes for the best and most successful stories.

Alex Velazquez is a writer, photographer, and queer Mexican living in Los Angeles, CA.

#sherlock #killing eve #supernatural #supergirl #queerbaiting #shipping #lgbt #in the flesh #jane the virgin #person of interest

[bluewatsons]

Laura Miller, Sleazy, bloody and surprisingly smart: In defense of true crime, Salon (May 30, 2014)

This stigmatized genre has much to teach us about the way crime and justice really work

Give me a book that begins with a time and a date and a boring address, something along the lines of "At 9:36 on March 24, 1982, Dep. Frank McGruff of the Huntington County Sheriff's Department was dispatched to 234 Maple Street in Pleasantville, North Carolina, a quiet, suburb 10 miles west of Raleigh, to follow up on reports of gunshots and screams."

There is nothing more generic than this sort of sentence -- which is why I was easily able to make one up on the fly -- and yet there's nothing more seductive, either. In it is promised: the regular-guy lawman (who always seems to have a new baby at home), the horrific crime scene (there is always more blood than anyone expects), the enigmatic object found lying in the foyer (marked with an X in the helpfully provided floor plan), the minute-by-minute timeline of that fatal half-hour, the witness reports that don't add up, the fractal-like multiplication of scenarios and theories and complications.

I've always felt somewhat sheepish about my appetite for true crime narratives, associated as they are with fat, flimsy paperbacks scavenged from the 25-cent box at garage sales, their battered covers branded with screaming two-word titles stamped in silver foil, blood dripping luridly from the last letter. The most famous practitioners of this louche genre -- Joe McGinniss, Ann Rule, Vincent Bugliosi -- come coated with a thin, greasy film of dubious repute and poor taste. (Can there ever be a valid reason to title a book "A Rose for Her Grave"?) True crime is also the mother's milk of risible tabloid journalism, of endless trashy news cycles in which the same photo of a wide-eyed innocent bride (where is she?); a gap-toothed kindergarten student (who killed him?); a bleary-eyed, stubbled suspect (why did he do it?) appear over and over and over again.

Occasionally, true crime is where literary writers go to slum and, not coincidentally, make some real money: Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," Norman Mailer's "The Executioner's Song." It's not the Great American Novel, yet somehow such books have a tendency to end up the most admired works of a celebrated author's career. Is it because better writers tease something out of the genre that pulp peddlers can't, or is it just that their blue-chip names give readers a free pass to indulge a guilty pleasure?

By contrast, crime fiction has a better rep. It is the most respectable form of genre fiction, the one that even the snootiest literary critics will admit to enjoying now and then. They justly praise the innovative prose styles of Raymond Chandler or Elmore Leonard as vehicles for a distinctively American voice. And crime -- transgression of the social and moral order -- is one of literature's central themes, after all. Isn't one of the greatest novels of all time called "Crime and Punishment"? Plus, from Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" to Toni Morrison's "Beloved," many novels by literary titans are crime fiction by another name.

True crime, however, labors always under the stigma of voyeurism, or worse. It's not just unseemly to linger over the bloodied bodies of the dead and the hideous sufferings inflicted upon them in their final hours, it's also kind of sick. Gillian Flynn's second novel, "Dark Places," describes the wincing interactions between its narrator -- survivor of a notorious multiple murder like the Clutter killings of "In Cold Blood" -- and a creepy subculture of murder "fans" and collectors; when she's hard up for cash, she's forced to auction off family memorabilia at their conventions. Yuck.

The very thing that makes true crime compelling -- this really happened -- also makes it distasteful: the use of human agony for the purposes of entertainment. Of course, what is the novel if not a voyeuristic enterprise, an attempt to glimpse inside the minds and hearts of other people? But with fiction, no actual people are exploited in the making.

I love crime fiction, too, but lately I've come to appreciate true crime more, specifically for its lack of certain features that crime fiction nearly always supplies: solutions, explanations, answers. Even if the culprit isn't always caught and brought to justice in a detective novel, we expect to find out whodunit, and that expectation had better be satisfied. A novelist who dares to build her narrative around a murder and then refuses to collar the perp by the last chapter -- as Donna Tartt did in her sumptuous, underappreciated second novel, "The Little Friend" -- will never hear the end of it. Readers of books and viewers of television and film demand not only to know who did it but why, preferably with a tidy little back story about a molesting uncle, bullying schoolmates or a mom who tricked with sailors in the next room. We believe in evil, but we also want pop psychology to explain it away.

Crime fiction reassures us that for every murder there is a sleuth as obsessed as we are with getting to the bottom of the puzzle. There are the formulaic clashes between the committed police detective and the self-serving brass, the feds who interfere with the locals (or vice versa) for purely territorial reasons, the nagging spouse and the occasional sloppy, time-serving colleague who just wants to wrap this thing up before he's set to retire with a full pension. But there's also always someone, the hero -- whether public officer or private dick -- who really, really wants to find out the truth and has the brains (and sometimes the brawn) required to do it.

Because most of us have a lot more experience with crime fiction -- TV and movies, but also books -- than we do with actual crime, our sense of how law enforcement works has been distorted by the imperatives of entertainment. Forensic scientists often complain that the public expects them to possess and deploy the wizardly high-tech tools they see every week on "CSI." Because the "CSI" team's gear is presented as omniscient and infallible, legal professionals must contend with jurors' overinflated confidence in forensic evidence. Even the most appalling news stories of incompetent or corrupt lab workers will never register as deeply as watching Gil Grissom and his earnest sidekicks stay up all night and ruin their marriages for the sake of seeing justice done.

For all their lingering shots of mangled bodies and gooey, maggot-ridden corpses, these TV procedurals paint a too-pretty picture. If Jack Nicholson were a true-crime author, he'd be telling the audience for such pseudo-gritty shows that they can't handle the truth. Finding myself seated next to a criminal prosecutor-turned-defense attorney at a wedding several years ago, I asked him what pop culture gets the most wrong about crime and punishment in America. After a long pause, he said, "I'm torn between two answers: How much police care about getting it right and how competent they are to do it."

True crime is not above trafficking in misleading clichés -- because, let's face it, there's not much that true crime is above. The majority of the genre is cheap sensationalism, deploying the most shopworn clichés: tragic maidens; idyllic small towns; smiling devils; winsome, doomed tots. Much true crime has achieved its goals if it gives its readers something to shiver over late at night or to whisper about at school. (Most of my early knowledge of true crime classics like "Helter Skelter" came from other girls who got ahold of the books while baby sitting and recounted the most horrific details to a breathless audience on the playground the next day.) Plenty of it offers a comforting message similar to that of crime fiction: that, for all the bewildering and seemingly random violence of this world, it is usually possible for us to know what really happened and who's responsible.

But we also live in a golden age when it comes to a more challenging vein of true crime. These books include Robert Kolker's "Lost Girls," about 14 unsolved murders in Long Island; Raymond Bonner's "Anatomy of Injustice," about the wrongful capital conviction of a black handyman for the rape and murder of an elderly white widow in South Carolina; Janet Malcolm's "Iphigenia in Forest Hills," about the celebrated journalist's inability to accept the guilty verdict against a young mother accused of hiring a man to murder her ex-husband; and Errol Morris' "A Wilderness of Error," which is in part a challenge to another milestone in the genre, Joe McGinniss' "Fatal Vision." Coming up next month is another landmark, "The Wrong Carlos," by James Liebman and the Columbia DeLuna Project, an exhaustively researched consideration of a 1980s case in which the state of Texas most likely executed the wrong man.

Even true crime books in which the identity of the killer is uncontested can open up welcome vistas of uncertainty. Recently, Anand Giridharadas' "The True American" examines the lives of two men: the sole survivor of a hate-crime spree, who forgave and tried to save his would-be killer, and the killer himself, who seems to have become a different man before his 2011 execution; who was he, really? Dave Cullen's masterful "Columbine," published in 2009, offers the most definitive account of the infamous school shooting and clears up many misperceptions, but still leaves the reader with a sense that the reasons for such acts may be fundamentally unknowable. Several years ago, when I was interviewing Margaret Atwood about "Alias Grace," her novel about a maid convicted of killing her master in 19th-century Canada, she remarked that murderers themselves often don't seem to understand their own crimes. They describe the acts as something that "just happened" or as if they were committed by someone else even as they acknowledge they did it. The true crime accounts I've read confirm what Atwood said.

Most important of all, true crime reminds its readers over and over again that most detectives aren't fantastically clever, that most investigations make dozens of significant mistakes and that even the most seemingly hard evidence can become as indeterminate as a quantum particle under sustained study. Sometimes the confusion is understandable. Jeff Guinn's "Manson," a biography of the murderous cult leader published last year, recounts how long the LAPD spent pursuing a bogus scenario in investigating the massacre at Sharon Tate's home.

Investigators assumed that because drugs were found on the premises, the motive was probably a drug deal or connection gone bad. Manson had his followers plant "clues," in the form of weird words written on the wall in blood, with the bizarre idea that the police would instantly link these words to the Black Panthers. (They instead assumed it was just crazy druggie writing, which of course it was.) Much time was lost before the cops were put on the right track by an informant. This, incidentally, is how most real-life whodunits, such as the Unabomber attacks, seem to be solved. There's nothing like true crime to dispel the notion that criminals get caught because of a detective's brilliant reading of the clues. Rather, they get caught because someone rats them out.

Nowhere is the danger of investigators' tendency to settle too early on a theory of the crime more evident than in stories of wrongful conviction. As "Anatomy of Injustice" tells it, police decided that Edward Lee Elmore, the simple-minded African-American man who had mowed neighborhood lawns for years, suddenly turned violent. Under the influence of a suspiciously meddlesome neighbor, a local city councilman, they ignored significant evidence contradicting this theory, and eventually resorted to falsifying evidence, while Elmore's own lawyers barely bothered to defend him at all. Finally, thanks to the efforts of an attorney working for South Carolina's Center for Capital Litigation, the conviction was overturned. The actual murderer has never been identified, but at least an innocent man has escaped death row.

Investigations aren't always led astray by deliberate manipulation, however. In "The Wrong Carlos," confused and inept handling of the crime scene, witnesses and hunt for the man who stabbed a convenience store clerk in Corpus Christi combined with coincidence and bad luck to lead to the unjust execution of Carlos DeLuna. He was the spitting image of the likely culprit to the degree that even people who knew either of the men quite well couldn't tell photos of them apart. Under the aegis of Liebman, 12 Columbia Law School students pored over the records of the case, producing a meticulous and highly detailed report on the crime investigation and trial -- which, while sobering, is also catnip for the amateur detective. It strongly suggests DeLuna was innocent and it's so convincing that even the victim's brother agrees.

Robert Kolker's "Lost Girls" and Errol Morris' "A Wilderness of Error" may be the most accomplished true crime narratives I've read in recent years. The killer or killers responsible for dumping bodies along a lonely Long Island road have yet to be identified. The investigation appears to be stalled for a variety of reasons having to do with the personalities and ambitions of local officials. So Kolker's "Lost Girls" focuses instead on the lives and families of the dead, young women who drifted into the world of prostitution and could not succeed at pulling themselves out again. It's a portrait of underclass life, frayed by substance abuse, domestic violence, crime and fecklessness, and it asks not what circumstances create a monster but which ones forge his victims.

"A Wilderness of Error" is remarkable not just for questioning a murder investigation and conviction but also for condemning the famous true-crime narrative written about them. Morris is a master of the genre, albeit in a different medium (documentary film) and can even claim to have gotten an innocent man out of jail by making "The Thin Blue Line" in 1988. Above all, he is preoccupied with how we establish what's true. His first book, "Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography," dismantles our faith in the facticity of photographed images. "A Wilderness of Error," his second, concerns the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of murdering his wife and two small children in 1970. The crimes were the center of a bestselling book, "Fatal Vision" by Joe McGinniss, later made into a TV movie, that pressed home McGinniss' theory that MacDonald was a psychopath.

The writing of "Fatal Vision" was the subject of yet another book, Janet Malcolm's "The Journalist and the Murderer," devoted to probing the moral soft spots in all journalists' relationships to their subjects, but Morris believes these murders were insufficiently investigated and that MacDonald did not get a fair trial. Many aficionados of the trial find Morris' arguments unconvincing, but that is partly Morris' point. Just like the cops, outside observers settle on a story about what happened and become invested in it. They then ignore or dismiss any evidence that undermines that story, often with a vehemence that increases as the counter-evidence mounts. Certainty, an emotional state all too common today, is less a testament to the merits of a belief than a measure of how much we want to go on believing it.

At the very least, Morris presents a convincing case that an uncertain McGinniss was pushed into endorsing MacDonald's guilt by his publisher because offering a conclusion would make for a more satisfying book. Later, of course, the author had no choice but to double down on that conclusion, and whether or not he believed it before his editor urged him to declare the case solved in his own mind, he seems to have fully believed it in the end. All this would be meat for an interesting consideration of the nature of truth and whether it can ever be meaningfully detached from desire, but as Morris keeps pointing out, when it comes to true crime, real lives and real justice are at stake. Crime fiction can afford to go on telling us what we want to hear, but at its best true crime insists on telling us what we can't afford to forget.

#media #true crime #ethics #errol morris #crime fiction #crime #society #detective fiction #television procedurals #Joe McGinniss

[scriptstructure]

Why is starting a chapter/story with dialogue or the protagonist waking up seen as a bad thing? I understand that it's pretty tropey, but...

First off, let’s talk about tropes. Tropes are neither good, nor bad, it is just a term that denotes “commonly recurring literary and rhetorical devices, motifs or clichés in creative works.” Just about any notable element of a piece of fiction could be described as a trope if you’re lining it up against comparable elements from other pieces of fiction, again, trope doesn’t mean good, or bad. It means repetition across texts.

Why is starting a story with dialogue generally seen negatively?

Well, in many cases, starting with dialogue requires an amount of familiarity and investment that most of the time is pretty difficult to generate at the opening moment of the story. If the reader is coming in halfway on a conversation between two characters, they had better be saying something that is instantly interesting and understandable to the reader, and something that is going to hook them into continuing reading.

Problem 1: I just don’t get what they’re talking about.

“Jimmy hooped that, he really done it loopy.” Pete said, chewing his thumbnail.

“Yeah but he’s a jammy winkler, he’ll bring it through.” Sarah sighed.

To start off with a conversation where the characters know what they’re talking about, and it’s something specific that is developed in the world of the story, but which the reader right now has no context to understand, is to begin by alienating the reader. Give us a sense of how the world works and where these characters are coming from before you toss us into the middle of a conversation with them.

Problem 2: They’re just explaining the set-up.

“Hey Charlie, welcome to your new home! I know that it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment moving into a weird house with your step-mother and me, but it’ll be great, really, you’ll get used to it in no time. And you’re going to make plenty of friends at your new school. Chin up, son.”

An exposition dump in dialogue is still an exposition dump [LINK], and it still doesn’t work, with the bonus issue of it sounding like a badly written advertisement or bot. Show the situation that’s being set up instead of having a character explain it as though no one else in the conversation has been aware of the current events of their own lives.

Problem 3: It’s just boring sometimes.

No example for this one, because it isn’t so specific, but similar to problem 1, sometimes a really deep, compelling, and interesting conversation can be really dull if there’s no context. So starting with a gripping interpersonal drama hinging on some key information about the world of the story loses some of its impact when there’s no context and the reader doesn’t know anything about the characters or the world. 

Give the reader something, anything, else to help piece together what is going on, and then get into the conversation.

Why is starting with the protagonist waking up generally seen negatively?

This is more a question of narrative tightness. Of course, there is an issue with repetition. So many stories start with a character waking up that it gets tiring to see yet another one. But there is a more pressing issue.

When does the story actually begin?

Why is it important to see the character wake up? What interest is there in it? Have they been literally jolted out of dreamland by the inciting incident? 

If you find yourself simply writing so that we know how they got to the place where the story starts, skip it: most people are familiar with the process of rolling out of bed, getting dressed, staring at their reflection and marvelling at their own bright ________ eyes and icy blonde/ raven/ vibrant red hair [LINK]. We know how it goes.

If the character wakes up in such a way that it informs us of something that we would not reasonably assume already, and there’s no more interesting way to inform us of that point, then sure. Start with waking up. But it had better be very well done, because as we said at the top, it’s been done so many times.

Now. Of course there is nothing inherently bad with either of these things. There are plenty of great stories that start with these approaches. But there are plenty of stories that could have a much better start if they took another approach.

Is starting with dialogue something that you think can be done in a really awesome way for your story? Then great, do that! If you can make it work, then make it work.

Likewise, if you think that a ‘waking up’ start is the best way to kick off your story, then go for it!

But you should be making these narrative decisions with a mind to how it shapes your story, what your purpose is in doing so, and knowing that for some folks who’ve seen it too many times it’s going to be a turn-off. You can’t please everyone!

Know what you’re doing, know why you’re doing it. 

And have fun!

I hope that helps!

#writing #tropes #canadiangold

[standsreview]

The best Stands ever

The resume: there are so many conflicting recommendations out there. Should you keep it to one page? Do you put a summary up top? Do you include personal interests and volunteer gigs? This may be your best chance to make a good first impression, so you’ve got to get it right.

What the Experts Say

“There’s nothing quick or easy about crafting an effective resume,” says Jane Heifetz, a resume expert and founder of Right Resumes. Don’t think you’re going to sit down and hammer it out in an hour. “You have to think carefully about what to say and how to say it so the hiring manager thinks, ‘This person can do what I need done,’” she says. After all, it’s more than a resume; “it’s a marketing document,” says John Lees, a UK-based career strategist and author of Knockout CV. Heifetz agrees: “The hiring manager is the buyer, you’re the product, and you need to give him a reason to buy.” Here’s how to write a resume that will be sure to win attention.

Open strong The first 15-20 words of your resume are critically important “because that’s how long you usually have a hiring manager’s attention,” says Lees. Start with a brief summary of your expertise. You’ll have the opportunity to expand on your experience further down in your resume and in your cover letter. For now, keep it short. “It’s a very rich, very brief elevator pitch,” says Heifetz. “You need to make it exquisitely clear in the summary that you have what it takes to get the job done.” It should consist of a descriptor or job title like, “Information security specialist who…” “It doesn’t matter if this is a job title you have or ever did,” says Lees. It should match what they’re looking for. Here are two examples:

Healthcare executive with over 25 years of experience leading providers of superior patient care.

Strategy and business development executive with substantial experience designing, leading, and implementing a broad range of corporate growth and realignment initiatives.

And be sure to avoid clichés. Using platitudes in your summary or anywhere else in the document is “basically like saying, ‘I’m not more valuable than anyone else,’” explains Lees. They are meaningless, obvious, and boring to read.

Get the order right If you’re switching industries, don’t launch into job experience that the hiring manager may not think is relevant. Heifetz suggests adding an accomplishments section right after your opener that makes the bridge between your experience and the job requirements. “These are main points you want to get across, the powerful stories you want to tell,” she says. “It makes the reader sit up straight and say ‘Holy cow, I want to talk to her. Not because of who she is but because of what’s she’s done.’” Here’s  that does this well (source: John Lees, Knockout CV).

After the accomplishments section (if you add it), list your employment history and related experience. See below for exactly what to include. Then add any relevant education. Some people want to put their education up top. That might be appropriate in academia but for a business resume, you should highlight your work experience first and save your degrees and certifications for the end.

And that ever-popular “skills” section? Heifetz recommends skipping it all together. “If you haven’t convinced me that you have those skills by the end of the resume, I’m not going to believe it now,” she explains. If you have expertise with a specific type of software, for example, include it in the experience section. And if it’s a drop-dead requirement for the job, also include it in the summary at the very top.

Be selective It’s tempting to list every job, accomplishment, volunteer assignment, skill, and degree you’ve ever had. But don’t. “A resume is a very selective body of content. It’s not meant to be comprehensive. If it doesn’t contribute to convincing the hiring manager to talk to you, then take it out,” says Heifetz. This applies to volunteer work as well. Only include it as part of your experience — right along with your paid jobs — if it’s relevant.

So what about the fact that you raise angora rabbits and are an avid Civil War re-enactor? “Readers are quite tolerant of non-job related stuff but you have to watch your tone,” says Lees. If you’re applying for a job at a more informal company that emphasizes the importance of work-life balance, you might include a line about your hobbies and interests. For a more formal, buttoned-up place, you’ll probably want to take out anything personal.

Make it readable Stop fiddling with the margins. Lees says the days of a one-page resume are over: “It used to be that you used a tiny font size and crammed in the information to make it fit.” Nowadays, two or three pages is fine, but that’s the limit: “Any more than three and it shows that you can’t edit.” Heifetz agrees: “I’ve never met a resume that fit on one page, even for a recent graduate. If you’re going to tell a compelling story, you need more space.” You can supplement what’s on the page with links to your work but you have to “motivate the hiring manager to take the extra step required. Don’t just include the URL. Tell them in a brief, one-line phrase what’s so important about the work you’re providing,” says Heifetz.

And stick to the most common fonts. “It’s not how fancy it is. It’s how clear, clean, and elegant it is in its simplicity,” says Heifetz. Vary the line length and avoid crammed text or paragraphs that look identical. The goal is to include enough white space so that a hiring manager wants to keep reading. For example, the opening summary could be three or four lines of text or two or three bullet points. “It doesn’t matter as long as it’s easy to read,” says Heifetz.

Get help It can be hard to be objective about your own experience and accomplishments. Many people overstate — or understate — their achievements or struggle to find the right words. Consider working with a resume writer, mentor, or a friend who can help you steer away from questions like, “Am I good enough for this position?” and focus on “Am I the right person for the job?” At a minimum, have someone else check your resume for logic, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Tweak it for each opportunity Don’t think you can get away with having just one resume. “You can have a foundational resume that compellingly articulates the most important information,” says Heifetz, but you have to alter it for each opportunity. Of course, you may need to write the first version in a vacuum but for each subsequent one, you need context. “Research the organization. Talk to someone — or ideally two or three people — who’ve worked there before, work there now, or otherwise know the organization. Then tweak it for the position, the industry, etc.,” says Lees. Heifetz says to ask yourself: What words or experiences do I need to highlight? What can I get rid of because it’s not relevant? “They don’t have to be radically different but they need to do the job for each situation,” she says.

[starstruck-thirst]

Crimson Dance Card

Illumi Zoldyck: Part 1 ‘A Waltz Macabre’

Part 2: A Dangerous Foxtrot

Warnings: dead body (super tame wow)

The avant-garde music flowed through the large ballroom with a mellow serenity that only top dollar could buy. Anywhere in the large, rectangular room the listeners were greeted by the pleasant sounds. If even one column had been built out of place, spots of deafened music would ruin the atmosphere.

Crème walls helped spread the low light, aiding in the high-class atmosphere. It was as rich as silk cake, and twice as decadent. And it bored you.

This was the third party you had to attend this week, though by far and large it was the most lavish. Naturally it had to be since it was the last party of the weekend, and no respectable man of this much wealth would be outdone. The taste of the alcoholic drinks that came around on silver trays only added to the sense of how much he felt compelled to swing his pride in the face of others.

Women laughed in a corner nearby, talking most likely of the attending gentlemen or perhaps another lady’s embarrassment. Having been to so many of these parties your entire life you could almost recite word for word what they would be saying without hearing any of it.

The song ended, and polite applause rose throughout the room by those that deemed that particular song worthy of praise. Hardly ever did every hand clap, sometimes people wouldn’t clap all night as they turned their nose up at the poor performers in their incomparable righteousness.

Briefly, you considered that actual death would be more pleasing than continuing with this party.

But- ever dutiful in your own role in this elaborate game- you instead took a fresh drink from a passing tray, sipped it, and moved deeper into the ballroom. A new song began, and several attendees switched from the sidelines to the center floor to show off their pretty clothes and well-bred dancing. You skirted along the edge of the dance circle, being careful to not touch anyone as you went. Just the slightest brush against shoulders could draw attention to you and force you into a conversation you didn’t really want.

You were looking into each face you passed. Just a flick of your eyes, again to not create a conversation, in a vain attempt to find someone that you could speak with that didn’t make you want to slit your own wrist.

You had only made it a quarter of the way around the floor, skirts hardly even brushing another person as you went, before you slipped up and your shoulder met another. You were confused at the impact. How had you hit someone else, when there hadn’t been anyone there?

The force of the bump wasn’t much, but in this social circle it was enough to warrant a harsh word about carelessness- or be mistaken for some form of forward advance. Surely, you were in for a most unwanted conversation now.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you,” you confessed, cursing yourself as it sounded like the most cliché opening into a flirt you had ever heard.

The tall man did a quarter turn to look at you and your breath caught. Unmistakably, he was beautiful. His hair was pitch black, long, and pulled into a ponytail that moved with his turn in a way that seemed surreal. His eyes were nearly as dark, and it felt as if they could see completely through you.

He looked you over once, in a manner that was socially acceptable but made your breath catch for a moment. “It’s fine. Are you alright?” It was so simply said, but just that taste of his words made you want to hear him speak more.

It had been trained into your mind to always consider your looks, how else would you ever attract a suitable partner, but in this moment you were hyper aware of how your limbs were posed and how each strand of hair fell around your face.

“Yes, I’m fine. Sorry, I don’t think I’ve met you before,” you replied, keeping your tone normal and conversational.

Once more, eyes looked you over with a quiet consideration. He must have come to some conclusion as he turned his body completely to you, did a polite bow, and offered out his gloved hand. “No, you haven’t. I am Illumi.”

You placed your hand into his and introduced yourself as he brought your hand to his lips, giving it a chaste kiss.

“It’s a pleasure,” he said righting himself once more and letting your hand slip from his own. He paused thinking over something, head tilted just a little to one side as he did so. “Your surname. Your father owns a large pharmaceutical company.”

Managing not to sigh at the mere mention of your family’s line of work, you nodded. “Yes. It has been in my family for many generations.”

“Are you here for that reason?”

You chuckled. “Unfortunately. It’s part of my duty to my family to come to these things. Especially when my father doesn’t have the time. But I’m the eldest child so, it is to be expected.”

Illumi nodded, and you got the sense that he completely understood. “I’m sure there is a lot of responsibility.”

A feeling of something washed over you. You had never felt it before, so it was hard to identify. Relief at being understood? A warm sincerity at a genuine conversation? “It is. Sometimes it’s a bit suffocating. But you have to do what you can for your family, right?”

The song ended behind you and you turned to clap politely. You hadn’t heard much of it to be honest, but you needed the distraction to regain your full composure. Something about this man made you uncomfortable. But not unpleasantly so.

“Understood,” he said behind you.

You looked back at him, confused who he was speaking to. A tall man with silver hair in a matching black suit to Illumi’s was walking away from him and towards the conversation hall.

“Is everything alright?” you asked gaining his attention once more.

“Yes, everything is perfectly fine. Would you mind letting me take me this dance?” he asked, doing another polite bow.

It felt so sudden compared to how the conversation was flowing, but for once you actually wanted to dance. You set your glass down on a passing waiter’s tray before responding, “You may,” with an appropriate curtsy.

Illumi took your hand and led you to the dance floor. You hadn’t been paying attention to the pattern of the songs played so far, so it was somewhat embarrassing when the beginnings of a slow waltz started to slip over the room.

As if he had done this a million times, Illumi gripped your left hand gently and pulled you closer to rest his right on your waist. Your own hands reacted instinctively: your left going to his arm and your right clutching his hand with enough force that you wouldn’t slip away on the turns.

While you weren’t yet touching bodies, you still felt a slight tingle up your spine at being so close as the song swelled, and the actual dance began. You had been trained to dance from a young age, every type of song that could be possibly played in proper society, but this felt new somehow. Illumi led you in the dance with a level of cool elegance you envied, each step falling perfectly with the music.

His arms pulled you into his pace, turning you around sharply and causing your thighs to touch for the briefest of moments before the polite distance was regained. Usually you could dance with little thought, but an idle part of your brain thought about each step and how to make it as accurate as possible. But not this dance.

Your mind was as swept away as your feet. Each turn of your bodies was almost a surprise, and you lost track of where you were as you stared into his large eyes that never left your face. When he lifted his arm and spun you for the first time you felt a spike of thrill. The world blurred; crème, white, light, and faces all becoming a smear across your vision. When he caught you mid rotation, his arm wrapped around your waist to steady your feet, you almost sighed.

Illumi rotated you outward before pulling you close once more, continuing the circling dance around the floor. You held your breath unknowingly as he manipulated your movements. Another rotation that pulled your legs to his, chests pressed together before coming apart again. It all made you somewhat dizzy.

You had never gotten dizzy during a dance before.

The music picked up. Tempo increasing at a steady pace with the rising volume and Illumi matched it.

Another twirl.

More rotations.

An oversway turn.

Your hand slid up his forearm and back to the shoulder as you returned to your position in his arms. The moves were all streaming together seamlessly, and Illumi’s face showed no signs of it being difficult.

The song was almost over, somehow five minutes had passed as you whipped around the floor.

Illumi spun you once more. This time he caught you with your back to his right arm, his left hand on your waist. He held you tightly, and you barely had a moment to plant a foot to the ground before he dropped you into a backwards dip. Even taken by complete surprise, you had the thought to balance yourself by keeping your left arm on top of his shoulder and your right hand around the back of his neck. Your body was crossed over the front of his as he looked down at you in what- very suddenly- felt like an intimate move.

The quick rise and fall of your chest gave away how breathless you felt, though you managed to not audibly pant. All at once the rest of the world came back into focus around Illumi. The other dancers moving apart, the hands clapping for the orchestra.

With a swift movement, Illumi righted you onto your feet once more. His left hand slipped from your waist to your right hand as he did the final bow. Working on pure trained habit, you curtsied in response, bowing your head as was customary. You hadn’t wanted to look away. Especially because- and you couldn’t have been sure- but it almost had appeared that he smiled just a little right at the end.

Keeping your hand in his, he led you back towards the watching crowd. You hoped that your hand wasn’t sweaty.

“Thank you for the dance,” you said after you two were safely on the sidelines once more.

Illumi nodded, and though you could only see his side his profile you were sure this time that his lips turned into the tiniest smile. “You’re welcome. You were an ideal dance partner.”

He released your hand and looked into the crowd as if distracted. “Illumi?” you asked.

“Sorry. I thought I saw someone I knew,” he replied, still looking into the crowd.

“Thank you all for coming!” A loud male voice echoed throughout the room now that it was devoid of music. You turned to see a tall, skinny man standing where the orchestra had just been playing from. He was recognizable from his pictures, though you had never met him personally, as Vojtech Feliks.

A few times you had attended his parties, but he very rarely made appearances at them. He was notorious for keeping his distance from groups of people so his blatant show tonight was unnerving. “I thank you all for attending this party, and I am sure several of you are curious as to what the occasion might be that I would finally address you all directly.”

On cue a beautiful woman with blue hair stepped up next to Vojtech. Her hands were clasped in front of her and a small smile in place like the perfect doll. Vojtech started to announce his engagement, but you hadn’t really heard much of it as you felt Illumi next to you slip away.

Trying to not draw attention to yourself, you slowly turned your head to catch sight of where he might be going. It took most of Vojtech’s speech to finally spot Illumi as he left the ballroom for the conversation hall beyond. No one really seemed to pay much attention to his going other than you.

“Please! Feel free to drink me dry and celebrate my wonderful luck at finding the perfect woman!” Finally, the speech ended as the entire room applauded for the first time. Half of the orchestra returned to the platform and began playing a more energetic song as Vojtech and his fiancé exited.

Bodies began moving about once more and you took the opportunity to slowly slip your way around them towards the conversation hall. It took you longer than you would have wanted, but you emerged into the much less crowded space in time to see Illumi’s hair and coat tails disappear around a doorway.

It struck you as odd that he would be going anywhere that wasn’t exclusively designated for guests, yet something inside of you demanded that you push forward.

The elaborate food tables served as adequate distraction to the other guests, and no one seemed to notice you as you slipped through the door in question. Closing it firmly behind you to hide your trespassing as much as possible.

A hallway with many doors stretched out before you. A door on the right far ahead opened and you held your breath, pushing yourself to one wall behind a decorative statue. “I can go to my office alone, thank you, Ptah,” Vojtech’s firm voice chided before shutting the door he had come through. It must have been a short cut from the ballroom you surmised as Vojtech adjusted his suit jacket with a heavy sigh. “A man can’t go anywhere without someone breathing down his neck.”

You could barely see him around the statue as he moved across the hallway to another door on the opposite wall and disappeared inside. You counted to five before daring to move again, creeping slow enough to keep your footsteps as quiet as possible, towards the door.

Briefly you wondered why you were doing this. Why had you followed Illumi? Why where you still following Vojtech? None of this had anything to do with you.

But you realized that for once you were at a party and you didn’t feel like literally dying of boredom. You felt alive, excited, curious. You had to know what was going on in this isolated hallway.

Vojtech had been sloppy and the door was open a crack to reveal a sliver of the office that laid beyond. Being very careful to not even breath loudly you peered through, listening closely for any sounds from inside. But it was completely quiet. No footsteps, no more complaining, not even the rustle of papers on a desk.

Gently you placed your hand on the door, pushing it a little more open until you stopped seeing an arm slung over the desk top. You were sure it as Vojtech’s from the size and color, plus who else could it be?

Caught off guard by the sight you gasped, putting a hand to your mouth to try and quiet yourself too late.

The door opened completely, and you took a step back as if it would free you of your obvious guilt. Illumi came around the open door, eyes looking directly at you as if he had known exactly where you would be when he did so.

You looked from Illumi to the slumped body of Vojtech. There was no doubt in your mind that he was no longer living. And that same feeling that had forced you to follow Illumi without turning back pushed you one more time as you entered into the office, passing him in silence.

“Is he dead?” you asked stopping short of the desk.

There was no response for many seconds before he finally responded, “Yes.”

 “Oh,” you replied. “Did you kill him?”

You could feel Illumi come to your side, the same way you had sensed his presence moving without looking at him before. Somehow you knew he was looking at you. “Yes.”

“Oh.”

It was a new feeling again, for the second time that night. You didn’t feel sadness or any sense of empathy for the man that was growing whiter by the moment. “Illumi, you never told me your last name.”

“Zoldyck.”

That explained everything. Everyone knew that last name, especially if you had money. Illumi was an assassin.

“Are you afraid?”

You tilted your head at the question. How to describe how you felt? “No. It’s all just business.” Now you looked at him.

He was watching you closely, dark eyes taking in each of your movements. “That is correct.”

“Will you kill me too?”

He thought a moment. “If I said yes, would you be scared then?”

“No.”

The smile that came this time was the most genuine. “I haven’t been paid to kill you. So, no. I’m not going to kill you.”

You wondered what it would be like to be murdered, more so you wondered what it would be like for Illumi to be the one to do it. “I see.”

“How long were you following me?”

You had looked back to Vojtech’s body once more, trying to figure out still what it was you felt. “Shortly after you entered the hallway. I watched Vojtech come into the room.”

Illumi made a ‘hm’ in thought but whatever he might have said next was interrupted when a very quiet noise rang out. Reaching into his coat he retrieved a cellphone and answered it. “Yes. I will meet you outside.”

He hung up the phone and put it back into his jacket as he turned to exit the room. You followed his movements, watching the way his body moved with perfect poise. You didn’t know what to say, but you wanted to grab his arm and say something.

“You’ll want to leave this room before one of his body guards finds him,” Illumi warned when he reached the door.

“I’ll go a few seconds after you,” you confirmed. Was he concerned about you getting pinned for the murder? Was it friendly advice?

He stopped with one foot out the door to look back at you. “I enjoyed our dance. You were an ideal partner.”

“I’m always willing to give you another,” you responded with a smile. Extruding all of your normal confidence again, despite the dead body behind you and the murderer in front.

Illumi nodded. “Maybe, one day I will ask again.”

Then he was gone. You didn’t even see him move from the doorway this time, no flash of coat tails as he went. Nothing. He was just gone.

You kept your word, counting slowly to fifteen in your head you left the room and quietly shut the door behind you. You still felt nothing about seeing a dead body, but many other things about the mysterious Zoldyck assassin.

Once back in the communication hall the noise of conversation blasted your ears and you went forward with a satisfied smile.

Someone called your name, and you stopped as the man approached you to ask for a dance. Not caring to keep a polite façade, you didn’t even look at him in response. “No, thank you. I believe I have had the best dance possible. And it would be a shame to dirty the memory with one that wouldn’t come close to measuring up.”

If the man looked visibly shocked you didn’t know, nor care, as you continued your way back to the dance hall in search of another silver tray of drinks.

You had danced with an agent death, and now you only wanted more.

#illumi zoldyck// #hunter x hunter// #someone wanted some sweet green tea? #I didn't want to prattle on forever about dance moves #so if you know how to dance know that I kept it simple and short for the sake of fiction #character x reader #star fic #crimson dance card #star fic series

[shizuumi151]

A criticism of Free! DTTF

As a preamble, let’s get disclaimers out of the way. I genuinely like Free! a lot. I’m a fan of it. It’s a show that’s very near and dear to me. When it used to be more active, so was my enthusiasm for it; now that it’s come back, so have I. I watched seasons 1 and 2, read the synopsis for the middle school movie, and didn’t watch Timeless Medley. With that background, I’ve kept up with season 3 and watched episode 4 a day after it released.

Having brought this up as context, I want to say this season of Free! has been very disappointing. And if it continues the way it’s going right now, I think it will keep being disappointing.

Of course, this judgement I’ve formed is only one that applies to how it’s done so far. It also mostly concerns the quality of the main arc, i.e. Haru, Asahi, and Makoto trying to reconcile with Ikuya. Maybe come episode 5, everything that’s contributed to my disappointment turns around and the show soars for me once again. I acknowledge all this, and even hope for it. But for now, I feel disappointed enough that I want to express exactly how the show so far has disappointed me.

Three words: juvenile, unoriginal, and scattered.

Let’s start with juvenile.

Typically, the word is supposed to be ‘youthful’, which is supposed to befit sports animes. The underdog high school student from the underdog high school team avenges their retired third years in the local interhigh qualifiers to compete for nationals, powered by training, teamwork, and camaraderie. It’s a tried-and-true story-line that brims with youth, and is supposed to. On top of this, Free! is unique in sports anime as being one that is not really one. The sport itself, swimming, is not so much the focus as the characters are, as their friendships are, which is especially true of season 1. Aiming for prefecturals is the plot vehicle that by and large plays second fiddle to Haru rediscovering his passion for competitive swimming with reviving the Iwatobi Swim Club, and reconciling with Rin who has lost his way. Maybe they should focus more on their schoolwork, or on their training, rather than getting lost in banter, marvelling at constellations, or ruminating about old friends. But that is youthful. That’s the charm of Free!: it focuses on friendships, and fits comfortably with that youthful tone.

There was also a maturation in the through-lines of the main seasons. The first season was simple, youthful, yet powerful. The second one on the other hand was a bit more mature, a bit more relevant. What does it mean to have a dream? What does it mean to pursue it? What does it take, and where does one even begin? This is the main struggle Haru goes through when he is a year before graduating into university, which is a pivotal moment in his life being (and becoming) a young adult. This is a season where you have him lashing out, even arguing with his best friend Makoto of all people, out of the stress his aimlessness gives him. Season 2 is more mature in its themes, but like season 1, it has the main character grow. Over time, he comes out of a shell of apathy and cares about his friends more openly than he used to. As the themes of the main stories become more mature, so do the characters.

But come season 3, that maturity has regressed to not being youthful, but even further into being juvenile.

What is the main story of season 3? What are the themes we can see so far? At the moment, it’s about the fight for friendship once again. Haru, Makoto, and Asahi are butting heads with Hiyori to be able to find closure and reconcile with Ikuya. Over what exactly? A flashback sums up Haru’s motives neatly: a pinky promise he made with Ikuya to race freestyle with him that following summer. A promise broken by circumstance and time. He cites this to Hiyori as the pressing reason to see Ikuya when Asahi’s hackles and Makoto’s diplomacy fails to gain headway.

And I’m like, really?

Here’s the thing; it’s obviously important to Haru, Makoto, and Asahi to see Ikuya again, and it’s clear that Ikuya needs to talk to them to get closure, too. But the nature of youthful sports anime is to make the relatively unimportant very important. In season 1, Nagisa must get Rei from the track team into the swim team, because he has a girly name too. Also his form is beautiful. A whole episode is dedicated to this. It’s establishing a new character in the form of shenanigans, but it’s still shenanigans. It’s childish, but it’s okay that it is. Because it fits the tone of the season, it’s entertaining.

For season 3, not so much.

Like Kisumi said, isn’t it kind of childish for them to bet things on swimming like this? And for the writers to spend three episodes to have this conflict culminate in such a manner? At the characters’ age, with Hidaka U’s priorities to go national, and the whirlwind that is university life in general, there’s a whole array of other things that could be focused on that gives the writers even less reason to have the characters circle back to a single-minded intensity about camaraderie that is, ultimately, immature. In a moment of interaction with the Hidaka U swim team with Haru and Asahi analysing their teammate’s form, potentially focusing on the team dynamic that so far received precious little development, it becomes hijacked by the arc of Saving Ikuya again with another regurgitation of what happened with them in middle school. This plot point consumes them to the point that all other affairs, which could be and really are equally, if not more important, are lost on the wayside, and that is clumsy writing.

What rubs more salt in the wound is that the characters are supposed to be past this. They’re supposed to have grown past resorting to swimming challenges and spending days grouping up and strategising how to meet up with an estranged friend, like having gone through the same beats in high school wasn’t enough. The writers could have, and should have, continued to develop the maturity of the characters as well as the story, and they pointedly miss the mark. And to their credit, they could’ve been much more lazy; they could have had Kisumi tell them Facebook exists. But they were lazy in a different way; they relied on clichés to drive the main plot and conflict forward.

Which leads to my next point: season 3 is unoriginal.

Let’s cover the main conflict of the three seasons. Season 1: Rin swimming hard but aimless and needing saving. Season 2: Haru swimming hard but aimless and needing saving. Season 3: Ikuya swimming hard but aimless and needing saving. Adding insult to the injury, season 3 even takes The-Overprotective-Best-Friend plot device of Sousuke in season 2 and pushes it to the extreme with Hiyori.

Even the execution of this conflict in season 3 is an inelegant mish-mash of the ways seasons 1 and 2 handled theirs, and not even in a creative way. The repetition kills how compelling the narrative is and my ability to look forward to what happens next. Having a working memory of those past seasons, I feel very bored with the direction the new season is going in, and I’m worried that I feel that way. There were already the recap movies of Bonds and Promises; I don’t want brand-new content to be some lazy remix of them with the characters shuffled around, which is how season 3 is shaping up to be.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is at least similar to how other fans familiar with the franchise would feel, which means the strongest case in which this wouldn’t happen is with new viewers or those who have only heard of Free! in passing. They won’t need to worry about repetition if it’s their first time getting to know the world and its characters. But the chances of this are slim, because season 3 is only intelligible in character motives if the viewer knows what happens in its predecessors. And even if someone decided to watch season 3 first, going back to prior seasons would have this problem of repetition and lack of originality resurface, but just out of the expected sequence.

Lastly, season 3 is very scattered.

So far my beef has been with the content and execution of the main arc of season 3. But I will say the current side arcs are very promising, and, though this is another worry in itself, they’re miles more entertaining than the main one. Rin training in Australia and meeting Natsuya is new and interesting. Sousuke’s shoulder is shaping up and he could rejoin the fray. Rei, Nagisa, and Gou are continuing to do their best with new team members to make sure the Iwatobi Swim Club thrives with Haru and Makoto having gone to university. These side arcs show signs of progress with roots in the previous seasons. This progress is what the main arc lacks, and what make these side stories more promising.

Of course, these side arcs are pretty hit and miss. I don’t know what to think about how the person Mikhail wants to swim with is quite likely the mysterious advisor stuck in Movember who shadows Haru and co., so I elect not to think about it. Not to mention most of the villainous-looking characters being foreshadowed with 50% transparency in the opening haven’t even been introduced yet. But this dovetails with the final, main problem I have with this season.

Far from looking forward to how these side arcs will tie in with the main one, I worry if they even can in the first place.

As I mentioned, the minor arcs, while promising, are hit and miss. And with many old characters returning and new ones coming in, there are also a lot of them. That they, their motives, and side-plots have to be established and rounded off in presumably the standard 12 to 13 episodes, the concern that the writers are biting off more than they chew is a looming and well-placed one. Another impact this has is that the predominant theme of the season is murky, or even non-existent, to accommodate a multitude of different goals and plot-lines. Compared to its predecessors, season 3 is unfocused and lacks direction. This is what I mean by scattered.

So that’s me roasting the season so far on a spit. With a mismatch in tones that has youthful spirit come off as immature, the obvious repetition of previous major themes and story beats in the series, followed by a variety of story arcs and character both current and upcoming that threaten messy storytelling and coherency in theme, Free! Dive to the Future as it stands now is utterly disappointing.

Worst of all, the main story’s not entertaining. It doesn’t grip me like past seasons of Free! did. For this to happen to biggest franchise that Kyoani owns, for them to flop this hard on the first series they’ve done a third season for, it’s a nagging reminder that the series is no longer the labour of love it used to be. In the first season (that to the best of my knowledge was supposed to be standalone, or at least could have been regardless), there was a small cast with a lot of heart, with fleshed out relationships that made the viewer want to keep watching, and want to see how they were resolved at the very end. The second season, while far from perfect, was witnessing that beloved cast of characters undergoing key growth with a some new friends. The current season as it stands now is a faint shadow of what made Free! charming and good to watch, and I only hope that it improves from here on out.

#free! #free! dttf #free! dive to the future #review #personal #i like free! a lot and will keep watching #but ultimately it's been a disappointment so far #which really saddens me! #i hope the writing team really wrangles it around properly the next episode onwards

[buzzdixonwriter]

Chillin’ With Netflix (2018 edition)

LOST IN SPACE

Really well done, family friendly space opera.  Top notch production values, good / smart writing, superlative cast.

And despite all this, it couldn’t keep my attention past episode 4.

I put the blame on me, not this new series by writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless.  

As a preteen, I was in the prime target audience for the original Lost In Space back in the mid-1960s, and that series -- despite its wildly varying tone -- created an iconic show that, try as they might, every subsequent re-make struggles to overcome.

Seriously, it’s like trying to remake I Love Lucy only without Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley.

Yeah, it can be done, but why bother?  Use that talent and energy to do something in the same vein but different.

That being said, I deny no one their pleasure.  If you haven’t seen / loved the original, try this version; you might very well like it.

. . .

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

Excellent production / writing / cast / performances.

I started out really liking it.

That enthusiasm faded.

I ended up enjoying this new retelling of The Haunting Of Hill House but came away feeling it fell short of 1963’s The Haunting, the first and still best adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s classic ghost story.

First off, a definition of terms (which will explain my enthusiasm fade):  In order to work, a ghost story must take place in the audience’s head.

That is to say, the reader / viewer must be left with two equally possibly yet mutually exclusive possibilities:  There are such things as ghost, or the haunting is purely psychological in the mind/s of the character/s.

Even in stories such as the original novel or the 1963 film where the possibility is presented that at least one of the characters is mentally unstable and is either imagining / causing the manifestations, the book / movie / series must never come down concretely in either camp.

To make it purely psychological turns it into a drama about mental illness, the make it supernatural moves it from the realm of “ghost story” into “monster movie” where the monster happens to be a ghost.

A ghost story doesn’t have to be scary, simply…haunting.  Portrait Of Jenny is a bitter-sweet romance that despite a lack of spookiness remains a bona fide ghost story.

(Ghost comedies such as Topper, Blythe Spirit, Ghost Busters, etc. are a different genre entirely akin to leprechaun / alien comedies where a fantastic being disrupts the lives of the human protagonists.)

This version works well, even though it doesn’t maintain the high level it starts with.  The family dynamics are well done, the performances excellent.

For the first couple of episodes the series tries to walk the line, raising the possibility and eventually confirming that mental illness runs through the family that moved into Hill House, but the moment the ghosts begin manifesting themselves, it paradoxically stops being a ghost story and becomes a booga-booga story).  Virtuosity for the sake of virtuosity also works against the production, occasionally dragging audiences out of the story to admire how clever the film makers are.

It also gets a little too convoluted and overly melodramatic towards the end, however (ghost stories work best at their simplicity.

And it is not an upbeat ending but a really horrific one as the family in question literally consumes itself.  

This version inhabits a godless universe, and the apparent “good” ending is really a terrible one of eternal damnation (albeit not in the Christian sense).

I recognize and appreciate the level of craftsmanship that went into this, and recommend it to people who like scary stories.

But it ain’t what I’d call a ghost story, and it sure ain’t what Jackson would call one, either.

. . .

SHE-RA AND THE PRINCESSES OF POWER

I'm not the target audience for She-Ra in either incarnation.

That being said, I watched episodes 1-3 and 12-13.

It looks good to me.  The story was familiar, but like old B-Westerns it's the kind of genre where familiarity breeds affection, so no complaints there.

Pacing seemed slow, but the design and animation was good, voices top notch. Clearly a heavy anime influence.

Really liked the wide range of physical types and acknowledgement of LGBT characters. Lots of fun with the various interpersonal relationships and characterizations, especially Swift Wind, the smartass flying unicorn.

They did a really good job with this show and the characters seemed more like real teens than the previous incarnation.

. . .

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

Well, this one I can recommend whole heartedly and without reservation.  

Joel and Ethan Coen have shown a remarkable penchant for period films and a strong affinity for Westerns in the past, and this anthology film offers a dazzling grab bag of good / off beat stories that range from the ridiculous to the realistic, though a couple of them are Westerns by location only as they don’t really rely on any of the themes that define the Western genre. 

The stories are:

“The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs” -- a hilarious send up of old Hollywood Western clichés starting with the quintessential sing cowboy trope and spiraling into full bore craziness from there.

“Near Algodones” -- a would-be bank robber has a really bad day.  Despite its dazzling editorial style, one of the more conventional stories -- and yet it manages to evoke both classic Buddhism, the crucifixion, and the ultimate sardonic joke all in the last 30 seconds.

“Meal Ticket” -- a Twilight Zone-ish story about a backwoods impresario and his limbless performer, told almost entirely silently except for quotes from poems and dramatic works and the occasional song.  While it makes good use of its Western locale, there’s really nothing in the story to tie it to the West; it could just as easily occur on a Mississippi riverboat, the back alleys of White Chapel, or the slums of Mumbai.

“All Gold Canyon” -- based on a story by Jack London, it’s a look at how hard and demanding a prospector’s life could be (with a virtually unrecognizable Tom Waits as the grizzled old prospector).  The Coen Brothers use their location to the fullest advantage, recreating the feel of what such land must have felt like before the first settlers moved in.

“The Gal Who Got Rattled” -- the longest, most realistic, and most bitter-sweet of the stories, set on a wagon train heading to Oregon, and focusing on a young woman who is definitely not the sort who should be making such a trip.  While we can look back from our safe vantage point in the 21stcentury and recognize the Indian Wars were the direct result of rapacious land grabbing by Western settlers, this story does an excellent job of showing just how terrifying it would be to sit on the receiving end of a tribal attack.  The ending is a morally complex one, well worth pondering, and especially ambiguous given the nature of the story’s framing element.

“The Mortal Remains” -- weakest of the stories, but salvaged by strong performances.  Another Twilight Zone style story, and if you didn’t guess the ending by the one minute mark I’ve got a bridge in Florida made of solid gold bricks I’d like to sell you.

. . .

AMERICAN VANDAL

Yowza!  This is one of the best series I’ve ever seen, and it’s perfect in damn near every way.

On the surface it’s a parody of various true crime documentary series, especially Netflix’ own Making A Murderer.  It’s told from the point of view of two students in their high school’s audio-visual club who make a documentary about an act of vandalism directed at the school’s teachers and the student who is blamed for it.

Of course, as they investigate, they turn up evidence that the accused student did not commit the vandalism, and in their pursuit of the truth uncover several more secrets on their way to the big reveal.

At first blush, the makings of a solid show.

But what co-creators Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault manage to pull off with this is nothing short of astounding, a fun parody of a genre that raises interesting questions about both the genre they’re parodying and the issue of truth and guilt, while on top of that adding an incredibly complex yet easy to follow overlay of conflicting characters and emotions.

They get every single detail right, and even seemingly throw away lines / scenes / characters get fleshed out in amazing and unexpected ways (for example, one extremely minor character, with no significant dialog, who appears only briefly on camera as comic relief in one or two early episodes is later revealed to be severely alcoholic, and in recalling his earlier appearances, one realizes the character must be suffering through a genuinely hellish existence).

Dylan, the accused student, starts out as a character of fun and amusement, a high school goofball of Spicoli proportions, only to come to a sad and ultimately terrifying end as he realizes just how dumb and dead-end his life is.

I cannot praise thise series enough.  Very rarely will I look at someone else’s work and say “I wish I had done that.” American Vandal is one of the rare exceptions.

The series has two seasons, the first involving Dylan and the vandalism of the teachers’ cars, the second involving a food poisoning incident at a private school the original two students are invited to investigate.  Season two is very strong but lacks “the shock of the new” that season one provided; it’s high quality and entertaining, but not as compelling as the original.

. . .

© Buzz Dixon

#television #media #comedy #Netflix #Coe Brothers #Lost In Space 2018 #The Haunting Of Hill House 2018 #She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power #The Ballad Of Buster SCruggs #American Vandal

[ars-komodia]

Quotes from Judd Apatow’s “Sick in the Head” (unfinished)

”“I’m not sure why I was so drawn to comedy. Part of it, I think, was frustration. Looking back, I was an angry kid who didn’t feel like the world made sense.”

“More than one told me that it takes seven years to find yourself and become a great comedian.”

When I was a kid, I noticed that all of the comics I was speaking to shared a common humanity. Some were solid as a rock, some seemed on the edge of sanity, but all were filled with love and kindness.

“It was like a blueprint for how one should go about pursuing a career in comedy, and how to write jokes. For the first time, it dawned on me that comedy is work, and precision and care.” (Judd on his 1983 interview with Jerry Seinfeld)

“Anything can be done either in a classy, interesting way or in a junky, easy way. It’s not the form itself, it’s the way someone approaches it. I mean, David Letterman has a hemorrhoid routine, Preparation H routine. It’s classy and brilliant. No cheap jokes in it.” (Seinfeld)

“I like jokes and laughing more than anything. Everybody has an appetite for a different thing. And comedy is something that I have an endless appetite for.” (Seinfeld)

“I never thought I’d be any good at it. But that turned out to be an advantage because it made me work harder than most other people.” (Seinfeld)

“But if you’re good, people notice you. That’s the greatest thing about comedy. If you’ve got talent, it’s unmistakable. No one misses it and you don’t have to wait around for a break. It’s very easy to get a break. It’s very hard to be good enough.” (Seinfeld)

“The lesson here, for me, was that you have to have a dream before you can execute it. That the people who succeed are the ones who think through what the next stages of their careers might be, and then work incredibly hard, day after day, to attain their goals. They don’t just flop around like fish. They have a vision, and they work their asses off to make it a reality.” (Apatow)

“The most important thing a comic can do is write from his insides. As cliché as that sounds, a lot of comics start out thinking that they just should write something funny. Which is not the answer. You have to write from personal experience.” (Garry Shandling)

“When you’re first starting, it’s just important to be on the stage. It doesn’t matter if people respond, because you just have to get over your stage fright.” (Shandling)

“That’s when I realized I wanted to take the self-discovery path. I figured that would fit naturally into whatever project I felt was right, where I could continue to search this human condition thing we always talk about—because the human condition is hilariously awful.” (Shandling)

“Whenever you turn to what the organic state of any given character is, the fears and the anger and the struggle, you’re going to get conflict and a lot of hilarious stuff.“ (Shandling)

“It also led me to realize that certain stories can be very small, but if you’re incredibly honest about them, there’s so much to do there.” (Apatow)

“I think comedy is a freeing thing. It’s not even an escape. It just feels good.“ (Louis C.K.)

“And comedy was this amazing thing because comedy is like saying the wrong things—when you see a grown-up do it and they succeed at it and get applause…” (Louis C.K.)

“You want it to be compelling, that’s all. The likable thing is not really worth much. It’s a low-wattage bulb, you know.” (Louis C.K.)

“And that was probably the turning point for my whole career, realizing that the little moments that I thought were boring or just not interesting to other people are actually the things that people would be most interested in.” (Apatow)

“They had a stance on why the world didn’t make sense, and they would call everyone on their shit. I couldn’t get enough of those people.“ (Apatow)

“He said the reason why people are comedians is to have control over why people laugh at you.” (Apatow)

[internetandnetwork]

Analyzing the Psychology of PPC Ad Copy

Everything has changed since the prehistoric era, but what remained constant is the initial drivers that inspire people to take action.

PPC professionals often find themselves searching for what appeals the most to their target audience. However, it turns out that the answer was right here, in our behavioral history. Let’s explore the psychology of PPC ad copy.

What do you think is common between oranges and diamond rings? – Well, they both became a part of our everyday life as a result of ad campaigns.

De Beers was facing challenges selling their diamonds during the Great Depression period in the 1930s. So, their ad agency came up with a slogan associating diamonds with eternal love – “A Diamond is forever.” As a result, even decades later, people fondly propose with diamond rings.

Again, during the 1900s, California’s orange farmers were stuck in a situation where they were picking more oranges than they could sell. So, once again, an ad agency came up with a new use for the excess oranges – Juice! As a result, even today, orange juice remains a very popular, widely-used drink.

With the above examples, we can understand how powerful and vital advertising is, and why it’s been utilized ever since the prehistoric era. But, the modern generation is increasingly becoming anti-advertisements, and the reason is pretty apparent; wherever we go, we are bombarded with ads.

While some people think that nowadays people have a very little attention span, we believe otherwise. Let’s see why.

How many people do you think stream Netflix shows every night regularly or binge-watch series? So, attention span is not really the issue because people will spend time or pay attention to things they actually care about.

And that is the key. Apart from fire and clubs, not much has changed about things that drive people to take action or things that they care about.

So, something that has worked in the past will still work today, even in entirely new forms. Thus, it is safe to say that human nature is perpetual, meaning psychology principles are enduring and fixed.

In this blog, we will discuss some ancient persuasion principles that have always been a part of human nature. Marketers should consider remixing these principles for the “ad-weary” audience today.

Present an irresistible bargain

Ever since the barter system, humans have learned going back, looking for good deals. Although what’s interesting is that humans don’t like “cheap.” What we do like getting is a bargain regardless of the actual price.

Let’s see how cheap as a core benefit of your product can put you in a troublesome situation.

Back in 2009, Tata Motors, which owns luxury cars like Land Rover and Jaguar, decided to manufacture a car designed especially for the Indian market, which is still a developing economy.

Now, one would think that getting a car under $1600, probably the cheapest car in the world, is a pretty good deal. And we also know that for most people owning a car is associated with prestige and social status.

Instead of launching an ad campaign that focuses on the prestige of owning a car, theirs just went out, focusing on how this was the cheapest car in the world. And this terribly backfired as one can imagine because nobody wanted to be seen driving the “cheapest car in the world.”

So, the point is, how can you make your next offer an irresistible one?

For that, one must realize the power of reason. According to numerous experiments, people are more likely to say “yes” when they know “why.”

But how does this apply to PPC Ads? Let’s understand this with an example:

“All Shirts on Sale – Get 80% Off | Over-Stock Sale.”

What came to your mind when you saw this? Probably that something must be wrong with these shirts; the deal seems too good to be true… Right?

Now let’s see another one.

“All Shirts on Sale – Get 80% off | Over-Stock Sale

All shirts on sale because we ordered double the stock. Enjoy the best prices and help us to free up space in our stockroom!”

Now, this ad is more relatable and catchy than the first one. Do you see the power of presenting a reason?

Conclusion: We all are used to getting bombarded with hundreds of discounts and offers, but adding a reason can make your ad more compelling. 

2. Utilize the power of surprise

Although, we might get the idea that people are “ad-weary” or “ad-blind,” but that’s not the case. The truth is people are bored with the regular sales stuff. So, all we have to do is surprise them.

Surprise has the power to supercharge other feelings, both positive as well as negative. We need to focus on the good to boost positive emotions and drive people to take the desired action. Let’s understand this with an example.

Suppose you work for a Vitamins & Supplements company, and you knew that most of your customers take about three months to finish up a protein shake box on average.

Now, during the second month, your company can run an ad offering a compelling deal, right on time while also showering them with a little love for being your loyal consumer. This goes a long way in increasing customer lifetime values. When customers come across this ad, they will, more likely than not, consider reordering.

Conclusion: When creating an ad, brainstorm ideas of bringing the unexpected to surprise and delighting the searchers.

3. Showcase your personality

Appealing personas work for companies even today. The reason being they bring up sentiments and make brands more memorable.

After all, most of us purchase based on our emotions and justify it with logic. At this point, this is almost a cliché. Yet marketing to the logical brain is still the default for many, and it’s only because it is pretty tough to not think of ourselves when creating an ad.

But one must understand the power of personality and how it can help you stand apart from the ordinary. When making a PPC ad, the focus should be on earning both trust and likability points.

Let’s understand this with an example.

A few years back, when Apple launched its iPhone 6s, Samsung had a model with a similar name “S6.” So, they decided to run an ad campaign.

Whenever someone searched for the iPhone 6s, their ad “Awkward You Obviously Mean S6…” would pop up.

Conclusion: Personality is additionally helpful as it helps in establishing a brand preference because it adds an emotional connection. Therefore, let your personality shine to build a connection and attachment with your audience. 

4. Deliberately include

Every human feels the need for a connection and inclusion, which is applicable to our advertising efforts.

Inclusive marketing is the key to loyalty, especially for brands that have millennials and Gen Z as their target audiences.

When done authentically, inclusive advertising feels like connection and family as it creates feelings of trust and joy.

According to research, companies that represent diversity in their ads are more credible and authentic.

So, how is this applicable to PPC?

When making ad copies, campaigns, and keyword lists, we are often subject to our own blind spots or unconscious biases. But as an industry, we need to cast a light on that because our unconscious biases or blind spots can mean that a vast section of the audience may not be served at all.

Often we are looking for ways to expand our reach and audiences, and find a new segment to get a step ahead of our competitors. Inclusive Marketing can help you with this.

Try being more inclusive with who you target your ad campaigns. Start by identifying whose voice is missing. Think of all the potential groups that you might have left out accidentally. This varies by business, but if you think about traditional groups, that would include gender, age, language spoken, ability, race, etc.  

These quick tips can come handy:

Scoop out inclusive keywords using a keyword planner.

Identify exclusions in your ad copy and keywords using Dynamic Search Ads.

Don’t forget to optimize your shopping campaigns too – your ad title must include your product details with the crucial data upfront i.e., Adaptive, Ethical, Sustainable, etc.

Conclusion

Few simple optimizations can yield greater rewards and grow brand loyalty.

This was all about it. Marketers can use these age-old persuasion principles to improve their PPC ads. We hope this information was useful for you. Share your views on this psychology of PPC ads in the comments below. Thanks!

Hariom Balhara is an inventive person who has been doing intensive research in particular topics and writing blogs and articles for E Global Soft Solutions. E Global Soft Solutions is a digital marketing, seo, smo, ppc and web development company that comes with massive experiences. We specialize in digital marketing, web designing and development, graphic design, and a lot more.

SOURCE : Analyzing the Psychology of PPC Ad Copy , E Global Soft Solutions

#E Global Soft Solutions #digital marketing #website designing #web development #PPC professionals #ad campaigns #PPC Ads #graphics designing #wordpress development solution #e-commerce solution

[junker-town]

Why ‘The Oklahoma City Dolls’ is the best sports film of all time

A huddle in Oklahoma City Dolls (1981). | Oklahoma City Dolls/Sony Pictures Television

Clichés get new weight when they’re about equality.

The best sports film of all time is a 1981 made-for-TV movie called The Oklahoma City Dolls.

This is not an assertion made lightly. Sports have inspired countless memorable films, and I, for one, certainly can’t profess to have seen them all. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine that any of the others tell as smart — and as progressive — a story as the mostly-forgotten Dolls, which you can only currently watch via YouTube bootlegs.

Name another movie that articulates class struggle via a group of blue-collar women fighting to form their own football team, complete with thoughtful, but not forced, discussions of gender politics and labor rights. In that light, Waylon Jennings’ on-screen debut as the befuddled love interest is just the icing on the cake.

Photo by Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

“It held up better than we would have thought,” says Susan Blakely, 71, who starred as Sally Jo Purkey — a disgruntled factory worker turned quarterback. She and her 76-year-old husband Steve Jaffe, who was among the film’s producers, watched the movie for the first time in almost 40 years before speaking with me. The couple had done Dolls as part of a three-picture deal Blakely had signed with ABC after the success of miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (for which Blakely won a Golden Globe). “They gave us a bunch of scripts, and I thought this one was just terrific,” she adds.

The movie, which was written by Ann Beckett, is loosely based on a real team. The Oklahoma City Dolls were a semi-pro team that played for three years in the late 1970s, as part of a larger vogue for women’s football during that period. Though the Hollywood version, produced in part by an all-women company called Godmother Productions, is heavily fictionalized, the liberties taken make the Dolls’ story more — not less — controversial. The team’s battle to get on the field serves as both a broad metaphor for equality and an allusion to a specific, timely fight.

“I was very political,” Blakely says. “That was what attracted me to the script.” She’s been outspoken since her days as a model in the early ‘70s, when she organized the “Models for McGovern” group — “Ford [Models] was furious,” she says, laughing — and had a particular interest in women’s rights. “I was definitely a feminist,” she adds, in case you couldn’t tell as much from the picture of her onstage alongside Gloria Steinem.

A 1978 clip from the Ithaca Journal.

Blakely had spent much of the late 1970s pushing for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment — a period that coincided with her greatest visibility thanks to Rich Man, Poor Man. When Cosmo asked her, “What’s your worst fear?” in 1980, she quipped, “That the Equal Rights Amendment will pass and we’ll elect our first woman president and vice president: Phyllis Schalafly and Anita Bryant.” Oklahoma City Dolls was filmed that same year, when the bill’s passage before the revised 1982 deadline was looking less and less possible.

An ad that appeared in TV Guide for the movie.

The movie begins with Purkey, a single mother working the line at a valve factory (they filmed in a real factory) for $40 a week, goofing around with her female coworkers. Where are the men? Well, they’re out playing for the company football team — which they get time off to do, while the women have to “pick up the slack” back at the factory with no extra pay. “You know what I’ve always said about you?” the middle manager tells Purkey when she has the audacity to have a conversation with a colleague. “You’ve got no company loyalty.”

As it turns out, her lack of loyalty should be the least of his concerns. Purkey files a complaint about the unequal conditions with the EEOC, and because the company is a potential government contractor, the agency takes it seriously. An official shows up and tells the boss they’ll have to give the women equal time off.

The boss, Mr. Hines, thinks he’s got it all figured out when he tells the women on the factory line that the only way they can get time off is if they play football, too. The trouble starts (for him, at least) when they take him up on that offer.

It’s not an easy road for the women, but you can probably guess where it ends. The strength of the dialogue, though, turns what might have easily been trite into a piece that’s quite powerful. After their first attempt at a practice, for example, the women are discouraged: it’s hard, and they’re already facing resistance from the men in their lives. “I’m afraid Ray’s going to kill me if he finds out,” the most promising wide receiver says quietly.

But Purkey’s response to the general dismay isn’t just a pep talk — it’s practically a consciousness-raising.

“The problem ain’t in our muscles, it’s in our heads!” she shouts, clutching her own in her hands. “There’s no reason on this Earth that a bunch of women can’t learn to run a ball back and forth between four goal posts just as easily as a bunch of men! Heck, I used to play football when I was a kid and I was pretty good too! Baseball, basketball, kickball — you name it! I loved all that stuff, until one day some adult told me it wasn’t feminine. That a woman has to act like a lady, flouncing around.

“Seems to me now that giving birth to babies ain’t particularly ladylike,” she continues, to chuckles around the room. “And making love ain’t necessarily ladylike,” Purkey adds as the women whoop.

“So what’s wrong with a little football, eh?”

Oklahoma City Dolls/Sony Pictures Television

Sally Jo (Susan Blakely) tells it like it is in Oklahoma City Dolls.

That scene was one Blakely says she tweaked to better reflect her own experience. When they were just a week or so into filming, the Screen Actors Guild went on strike — so she had six weeks to work on both her football prowess with the assistance of Jaffe, who had played in high school, and to revise some of her scenes.

“That was a scene that I worked on the most of any of them,” she recalls of the “ladylike” monologue. “I played a lot of sports as a kid — I was a gymnast, a runner, a swimmer, a tennis player, a golfer. I did try and play a little football with my older brother, but he was like, 6’10 when he was 13, and he would only play tackle. Anytime I’d get the ball, my brother would come right at me.

“But my father would always say, ‘You don’t have to win all the time when you’re playing against the guys. I would be like, ‘Well, then why are you even telling me to get better at it at all?’”

Blakely translated that feeling — the acute sense of unfairness women and girls face in sports, and beyond — into the scene, and most of the movie. Even though she says regrets coming off “a little too angry,” she’s just as frustrated now by the fact the injustices shown in the film haven’t been resolved. “We’re still dealing with women getting less money for the same jobs,” she points out. The Equal Rights Amendment still hasn’t been passed.

During the six-week strike, Blakely found herself mirroring Sally Jo: The women who had been cast as football players were crammed in hotels near the Columbia backlot where they were filming, seemingly six to a room as Blakely recalls it, with no cars. “I wouldn’t go on shooting until they got them two to a room, and cars,” she says. “I became like my character. Persona non grata at Columbia but …”

Oklahoma City Dolls/Sony Pictures Television

Sally Jo (Blakely) steps back to pass in Oklahoma City Dolls.

She and the other actors had to learn football, although a male stunt double handled Purkey’s play in the game scenes. The stunt coordinator, Allan Graf, was himself a retired football player — he started on USC’s undefeated 1972 team, and briefly signed with the Rams. He would go on to manage stunts for just about every memorable football movie, including Any Given Sunday, The Waterboy, The Replacements, Jerry Maguire and Friday Night Lights.

Jaffe himself had toyed with the idea of doubling Blakely on the field just to get a chance to play again, but ultimately decided against it. Like Blakely, though, he has fond memories of his time on set. “The idea that I would watch two full-fledged women’s teams playing against each other was phenomenal,” he says now — offering nearly the opposite perspective to Jennings’ character in the movie, whose skepticism compels Purkey to direct one of her signature barbs his way: “If you can’t hack being a quarterback’s boyfriend,” she tells him on a date, “I suggest you go find some frilly little thing who stands around in the kitchen all day and doesn’t embarrass you. I hope she bores you to death.”

“Having my wife be the quarterback was really wonderful to watch,” Jaffe adds. “To see her blossom as a real quarterback … We would throw the ball around in the backyard, and she got better and better at pinpointing her shots.

“One time she actually ran me right out of the backyard and into our Jacuzzi,” he recalls, and they both dissolve into laughter.

The warmth with which they remember Dolls’ filming is echoed on screen, populated almost exclusively by women who find enormous camaraderie in solidarity — and sports. It’s a story about plucky underdogs triumphing on the field, yes, but with bold and very nearly intersectional takes on all the unfairness happening off it. By the end of the film, a neighbor woman has named her newborn baby Sally Jo, and frankly, it’s easy to understand why.

[pearmainht-blog]

Did You Order the Code Red

“You don’t have to wear a patch on your arm to have honor.”

I recently rewatched A Few Good Men (1992, Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson). On the surface, it is a well-paced and engaging court room drama. This is a standard genre of American cinema, but A Few Good Men creates uniquely compelling and timeless subtexts by placing the events within a military court room setting.

SPOILER ALERT The main character arc focuses on Tom Cruise’s protagonist “coming of age,” so to speak, as a military lawyer emerging from the shadow of his father (who was also a lawyer, because, of course).

But as with many stories, A Few Good Men’s greatest success derives from a relatable villain. Colonel Jessup (played by Jack Nicholson) exits not as part of the classic (read: boring) good vs evil dichotomy, but instead inhabits the real-world gray area of morality.

Through Colonel Jessup, as well as the other military characters passing through the courtroom, the film expands a theme far bigger than Tom Cruise’s self-discovery. A Few Good Men explores the complicated, oft misunderstood, relationship between America’s civilians and its military.

Tom Cruise’s team of lawyers – who spend their lives in Washington, D.C. playing softball, shooting hoops and watching baseball games from their couches – are officially military officers. But in the context of the story, they are the stand-in for America’s non-military citizens.

Colonel Jessup and his loyalists offer a clear-cut contrast, spelling it out to Cruise’s team in the most explicit (and condescending) terms from the very start of the investigation. One of Jessup’s common rhetorical strategies is to assert that rather than be questioned or hassled by DC lawyers, he should instead be treated with abject deference. He presents an attitude of “I protect people like you, so all that you should say to me is ‘Thank You.’ ” It is a compelling argument, which creates viewer sympathy for the protagonist, Jessup.

Crucially, the Colonel and his right-hand man never employ this attitude as some sort of legal argument. The fact that it creates sympathy from the court’s judge and jury is more a side effect than an intentional consequence. Jessup and his cohort genuinely believe in this version of morality. And through this superior morality they justify (to themselves) the underlying crime that they committed (and the subsequent cover up).

This eventually leads to their downfall. Jessup is so convinced of his own righteousness as the soldier/protector that he doesn’t bother to hide his misdeed at the center of the legal proceedings.

The climactic court room scene became famous: “You can’t handle the truth!” This conflict is not driven by anything having to do with the trial’s defendants, or the soldier whose death is being investigated. Cut down to its purest elements, the scene is Tom Cruise’ lawyer character, representing non-military citizens, challenging the idea that Jessup’s military service puts him above reproach.

Jessup is so put off by the notion that a non-combatant has any sort of moral authority by which to judge a decorated military officer such as himself that he gets caught in a fury and confesses to his crime. At this key moment, the film’s morality contest is decided.

As Jessup is carted away in handcuffs, the only emotion he is registering is shock. Literally the entire courtroom turned on him instantly. Deeply and comfortably seated within the notions of his own heroic virtue, he cannot fathom why. What has he done wrong?

Honestly, the audience may have a similar confusion during this moment. The case that he laid out for himself was firm, sensible and patriotic. Yes, someone in his unit got killed (as a result of his order), but it is a tragedy, not a murder. Indeed: what did he do wrong?  

The question is answered a moment later when the trial’s verdict acquits Cruise’s clients of all charges except one: conduct unbecoming. The younger soldier pleads with his mentor, the older soldier, “We followed orders. We did nothing wrong.”

In this moment the older soldier realizes the morality at play here. “Yes, we did,” he says. “We swore an oath [to become Marines] so that we could protect those who cannot protect themselves.” He explains that in following the order to gang up and physically assault their weaker, ailing, and now-deceased fellow Marine, they violated that directive.

He further understands what Jessup does not: wearing the Marine patch on your sleeve does not put a soldier above the law. That was never part of the bargain. Jessup acted as if he was above the law, willfully obstructing an investigation, tampering with evidence and lying to investigators, not to mention that he disobeyed his own superiors who specifically banned the type of self-policing that he had ordered.

Not to dabble in clichés, but it is a cautionary tale. It is tempting, as a society, to put military members on a pedestal. The impulse to do this derives from gratitude, something that is undoubtedly earned by those who serve our country, but gratitude can – and in fact should – be expressed without offering the pedestal.

As I said, being set aloft above reproach, as Jessup wanted, was never part of the bargain. No person, despite whatever medals, parades or heroics they can attribute to their service, is above the law.

In America, the “bargain,” so to speak, is actually the opposite: our military serves the country to ensure that no person gets put on a pedestal. All Americans are subject to the rule of law and the governance of the people. That is how the founders have always intended it. Recall that when they were creating this country, they were fighting back against a form of government with very explicit pedestals.

The founders’ actions were the first step toward creating a country in which no person was put on a pedestal. All would be equal in the eye of the law. Moreover, the public did not exist to serve the military; quite the opposite. Here in America, the military exists to serve the public.

[[ I say “first step” because obviously in 1776 the founders neither achieved nor granted equality for everyone. There were still plenty of pedestals; they were simply removing the first and largest of them, the monarchy. ]]

The Second and Third Amendments were motivated by this very morality that the founders created: the public does not serve the military. The public’s fundamental rights shall not pay subservience to or be infringed by the military. This includes, especially, the rights described in the First Amendment.

Put another way, the morality to which Jessup and other officers were clinging – that they were above reproach by a bunch of lawyers – is not only wrong, it is explicitly prohibited by the first three amendments of our constitution. When soldiers take an oath to serve the constitution, they are pledging themselves to this morality. They are forsaking the idea of any sort of pedestal… for anyone and everyone, including themselves.

The word “bargain,” as I used it above, may be concise and illustrative, but it is not entirely appropriate. Military service is not so much a bargain with your fellow citizens, as it is a choice. It is a choice for your fellow citizens. It is a statement, too. A statement that you believe in the constitution and the morality laid out by the framework of this country. You believe so much that you desire to protect it, and you desire to protect the citizens who practice it.

There is no “bargain” in the sense of any pedestal or exemption from the law. That’s precisely why we use words like “dedication” and “service”. These words more correctly imbue the sense of selflessness that is required of a military career. The word “bargain” implies some sort of exchange, which may end up being self-serving. But that’s not how it works in the United States.

Jessup forgot that, and made his military service about himself. In his mind, he was exempt from attack, and therefore his actions needed no defense. The other members of the military court ultimately insisted to him: No, that’s now how this works.

It is right and necessary to appreciate our military members. It is right to celebrate them and attend parades on Veterans’ Day. There is plenty more we can and should do to support them (especially with regard to suicide prevention and maintaining access to the VA system).

The caution of A Few Good Men is to not blind ourselves in awe of a uniform. Gratitude should not give way to reverence. Respect should not give way to deference. Once we choose to lose sight of the Constitution, even when it is in pursuit of such ostensibly noble goals as “honoring our military” – once we blind ourselves to the moral framework on which America was founded – we are betraying the very cause for which our soldiers so selflessly serve.

#America #A Few Good Men #Military Service #US Constitution #USA #90s movies