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relicsongmel · 1 month

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Tell me the Pokémon music thoughts??? :000

TWO whole Pokemon music asks WOOHOO!!!!! These past few days I’ve been on a kick of listening to Scarlet and Violet’s OST and downloading my faves (since I wanted to wait until the DLC had been released and then play through it fully before doing so) and it might be one of my favorite soundtracks to date. That being said here are the tracks I’m currently the most feral about:

Battle! (Team Star Boss)

The loop for this one is almost SIX MINUTES LONG which is a smart choice for how long and difficult some of these fights tend to be—and it’s six minutes of pure unadulterated musical goodness. Obviously the killer synths and guitars are a highlight here, but what really makes this theme (and the rest of the Team Star themes) special is how the harsh instrumentation is contrasted with sections containing emotional melodies and harmonies that give a sense of determination and hope—which fits in with Team Star’s storyline as former victims of bullying and doing their best to persevere in spite of that. All their themes are also composed by one of their bosses in-universe which is a fun lore detail (shoutout to my boy Giacomo I love him <3)

South Province

This one basically functions as the theme of the Paldea Region—this leitmotif (composed by our beloved Toby Fox) appears a LOT in various places within the soundtrack, particularly in cutscenes. It’s a great theme for exploring out and about in the game’s open world, and the sunny A major is a great key choice which is always a win in my book. I’m also a big fan of the piano version that plays while you’re walking in the overworld (as opposed to using your mount Koraidon/Miraidon) as well as the beautiful arrangement used at the end of the main story (if I had a nickel for every time a piano theme at the end of a Pokemon game made me cry I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice).

Showdown! (Champion Kieran)

I haven’t had a lot of time to get myself acquainted with much of the DLC soundtrack, but I wanted to include at least one in this list because there’s a lot of quality stuff worth shouting out. This is the last of Kieran’s three battle themes (technically there’s four but the final one isn’t a full battle and is mostly comprised of Terapagos’ motif as opposed to his own so I’m omitting it here) and there’s an interesting transformation that happens across each of them—it starts out mostly with traditional instrumentation and only mild chromaticism (which almost all battle themes have at least a little of) but transforms into something harsher by adding electric guitars/synths and more dissonant, darker harmonies (this one makes heavy use of Phrygian and Locrian elements—Phrygian is a mode that’s very similar to the minor scale but uses a flat 2nd scale degree, so for a piece in E minor like this one that would mean using an F natural as opposed to an F#. Locrian is the same as Phrygian but with a flat 5 added as well, meaning B♭ as opposed to B natural. These flat notes serve to darken the overall sound), which corresponds to Kieran’s arc of becoming bitter and resentful as he suffers repeated losses at the hands of the player. I’m also tickled by the fact that his battle themes are all in E minor which is the softest and gentlest minor to my ears—you can hide under those edgy guitars all you want Kieran but we all know you’re still baby :3

Area Zero

And we’ve saved the best for last because this is hands down my FAVORITE theme from this game; it’s not even a contest. I have such a vivid memory of playing through Scarlet for the first time a year ago and being incredibly intrigued about what was hiding in the massive crater at the region’s center (I tried flying/leaping in with Koraidon and lurking outside the Zero Gate yelling “LET ME INNNN” more times than I can count lmao)—and I was not at all disappointed when I got there because this is straight up one of the prettiest areas in the whole game. However. HOWEVER. NOTHING could have possibly prepared me for the breathtakingly beautiful music that accompanies this place—I remember stopping in my tracks as soon as I heard that low brass kick in, and then the chanting. Oh my lord the CHANTING. Honestly I was sold right then and there but WE’RE STILL NOT DONE MAKING THE MUSIC OF THE GODS BECAUSE SWEET MOTHER MARY THAT SYNTH????? TOOK ME THE FUCK OUT—I lose my everliving shit at anything even resembling an erhu in music because its voice-like timbre is so…raw and emotional in a way I really don’t know how to describe; all I know is it rocks me to my core to the point that I have to watch my breathing when I listen to a piece that has one lest I start hyperventilating (because it’s powerful enough to literally induce a physiological response out of me). Needless to say I was frozen in place for at LEAST ten minutes just to take it all in; that initial experience was utterly magical and I wish more than anything I could go back in time to live that feeling again.

But that very long preface aside, there are a couple other things about this piece worth noting—the first being that E♭ minor is an IMMACULATE key choice in my opinion. In my synesthesia it primarily represents what I call “the crushing black weight of despair,” but it also functions very nicely in any intense, high-stakes situation, which fits beautifully with the circumstances surrounding Area Zero in-game. It’s a walled garden filled with invasive wildlife from the distant past/future that poses an imminent threat to Paldea’s ecosystem should they find a means of escaping to the outside; in fact, we learn from the professor that some species have already managed to do so. I also quite like how the instrumentation is vastly different from every other piece of music you’ll hear in Paldea’s overworld, which has primarily been orchestral arrangements up to this point—but here, it’s a blend of primal and futuristic sounds that perfectly captures the collision of the present and the past/future. So yeah if you couldn’t tell I am so so so so unhinged about everything this theme represents and I fully expect to be just as mentally unwell about it YEARS down the line (because believe me, I’ve certainly got the track record for it).

Scarlet and Violet’s music is just so so good—and again, obligatory “this is just the tip of the iceberg that is everything I love about this soundtrack” but I hope you enjoyed my insights into what makes this music so special!

#ask #reaperofthebayleaves #pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #team star giacomo #kieran #music nerd shit #musical analysis #about me #i like scarlet and violet a normal amount #i like it so much that i literally made a whole au where denise and her mom move to paldea instead of unova #AND I ALMOST LIKE IT MORE THAN MY CANON TIMELINE. dena and arven's relationship is particular is REALLY fun to write #they bounce off each other SO well. i can't wait to replay scarlet and use her team it's gonna be SO MUCH FUN #but anyway!!!! THANK YOU for indulging my hyperfixations dearest friend i love you!!!!! <3 #forest for the tree

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miyu-hyperfixates · 11 months

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MDZS's volume 5 arrived not long ago and I've finally found the time to re-read it. And while doing so, I was struck with something that I had never noticed before. I knew both facts separately but somehow never connected them, which is super weird because it's very obvious. Anyway I was reading the part about LXC telling WWX how LWJ got his whip scars.

So we all know about the whole injuring elders thing, right? How LXC and LQR asked 33 of them to help bring back LWJ and he ended hurting them all. Which makes it a situation where LWJ went up against 35 people to protect WWX but only 2 were left out?

Now does this 33 + 2 pattern sounds familiar? Maybe not in MDZS but in another work of MXTX... like TGCF? Where a certain Ghost King got his fearsome reputation for challenging 35 heavenly officials, 33 of which were utterly obliterated afterwards?

(By the way, I tried to recall if that specific pattern occurred in SVSSS, but nothing really jumped to mind. The only time I could see it happening thematically would be either SQQ's fake trial or if somehow LBH had, offscreen, tracked down all the demons presents during the CQ invasions' arc...)

So yeah I would *have* to re-read SVSSS to be completely certain, but for now let's just say that this a common pattern between only MDZS and TGCF.

Which still sort of struck me as odd, you know, because "If I had a nickel...." and all that, but it also made me wonder if there was a deeper or symbolic meaning to either the number 33 or 35. And so here's a fun fact.

Right, so leaving aside all the western and biblical symbolism of number 33, turns out (according to wikipedia) that the second level of heaven in Buddhism is named Trāyastriṃśa, meaning "of the 33 (gods)". It is apparently the highest level of heaven that still keep a physical connection to the rest of the world.

This article reflects the situation in both MDZS and TGCF so well that I find it kinda hard to believe that it wasn't intentional.

The devas are described as beings that despite being (or reaching) a higher status (Elders that are supposed to be respected within the sect due to seniority, the 33 heavenly officials ascending to divinity) but can't avoid being entangled in worldly affairs.

I think it is very interesting that the specific "worldly affair" mentioned is the conflict with the asuras, beings who used to be devas peers but were expelled and are perceived as malicious beings trying to go back.

Now the situation fit WWX to a T, because he used to be an 'esteemed' cultivator, the head disciple of one the Great Sect, an "hero" from the Sunshot Campaign and all that, but was then exiled from the cultivation world where he was rumored to raise an army in an attempt to conquer the Jianghu and was now even corrupting their precious LWJ. From the Elders (devas) point of view that's definitely asuras materials that needed intervening.

The analogy is two-fold in TGCF in the sense that there are actually two 'asuras': HC and XL.

The most obvious one is of course Hua Cheng, he ascended once (though decided to descent right after) making him the 33 gods' peer (although rather briefly) and is considered as a very dangerous threat to the godly realms. The 33 heavenly officials of course entangled themselves in worldly affairs there by accepting Hua Chang's challenge.

As for Xie Lian.... well... he was literally banished from the Heavenly court (twice) ... and not only did he really literally "plot to get his status" but he also managed to do it twice. So like... check, double-check and triple check on that one, I guess?

The heavenly official of course didn't really perceived him as a threat that needed to be deal with, but they did entangled themselves in worldly affairs and pettiness when they humiliated and bullied him back when he found that great cultivation spot full with potent spiritual energy.

By the way I just find it hilarious that the author of the wikipedia page added that tidbit about marriage quite apropos of nothing. Like yeah "those two types of divine beings are kinda perpetually in conflict with one another but don't worry marriage is still allowed though, because who doesn't need those types of star-crossed lovers amirite? *wink wink* " .... Though they probably added it because the Ruler of the Devas married the daughter of an asura's chief, but that info wasn't mentioned in the wiki page itself so yeah...

So yeah, I don't know if that was what MXTX was referencing with the 33 thing or maybe MXTX just liked that number. (Or if it’s just that 3 is considered a “bad” number in TGCF so double 3 is just doubling the badness factor, I dunno ) *shrug*

I couldn’t find anything on the number 35 though, so if you know anything about it (or if you feel like the significance of the number 33 might refer to something else) do feel free to share! I would love to discuss it!

Also my knowledge relies heavily on wikipedia pages (and we all know how reliable it is) so if something I said was wrong please feel free to correct me! :)

#mdzs #tgcf #hualian #wangxian #throwing mxtx thoughts into the void #connecting the dots of mxtx pattern #mxtx and number symbolism

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sinisterlutist · 1 year

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Hello it me Pokemon ask meme 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 21, 22, 65, 66, 74. 75, 76

YES YES YES I AM QUAKING WITH EXCITEMENT THESE ARE SO MANY :D!!!!!

For convenience’s sake I’m gonna use a readmore cause theres many lol

5. Favorite trainer

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the question you knew the answer to already.

My absolute favorite trainer is my good merchant buddy Volo.

He’s one of the most nuanced characters I’ve ever seen come out of pokemon games, especially in recent years. Yes, he made some dumb decisions, but he’s so completely human. He laments the way the world is, the terrible things that happen, and he acknowledges that that probably happens to everyone. He was so tired before Arceus rubbed his loss in his face. When he talks about how troubled he’s been, asks about our dreams.

But no matter what else he may or may not have done, he loves his Togekiss, and I will stand by that with my whole heart. There’s a photo of the two of them in Jubilife Village. That photo was there before we came, and it has stayed there long after Volo left. There’s a lot more I could get into here, but, well, that’s a post for another time. Volo’s my favorite. ♡

(Side note— you know, if I had a nickel for every time gamefreak made a pokemon game where I ended up liking the long-haired male rival who teams up with a legendary dragon-type, asks you a question about dreams and then disappears, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird because it happened twice.)

6. Least favorite trainer

I am going with people FROM THE GAMES for this question because Ash is easy prey and I don’t care for the show in general— outside of the ever wonderful Team Rocket.

Shauna, from XY. XY had a really cool concept for a little friend group, even allowing you to give yourself a nickname from them. The execution was… less than stellar. Shauna felt sort of forced onto the player, at least to me. She annoyed me and I already didn’t want anything to do with her by the time you got to Parfum Palace, where she only irritated me more. The other members of the group, including your rival-proper, were more enjoyable, and felt more like they were friends with each other.

7. Favorite gym leader

There’s a loooot of really good ones I could use for this question, particularly some of the cool Unovan ones. There’s also Valerie, the Actual Moth from XY. But no. I have to go with Opal, Galar’s Fairy leader.

There’s nothing better than a spunky old lady who WILL catch you off guard and can move faster than you if she needs to. She was one of 5 characters in SwSh that I truly liked. Her help for Bede’s character arc was great, and frankly I don’t see nearly enough appreciation for this wild old fairy grandma. Opal’s awesome.

8. Least favorite gym leader

*walks on stage, taps mic* Whitney. *walks off stage*

9. Favorite e4 member

Gotta go with my buddy Grimsley! There’s nothing quite like having a gambler in your e4 with The Cool Uncle vibes. He really does seem like a chill guy, and I liked that he showed up in Alola, too. Runner up is Shauntal, purely bc her e4 chamber has the Most Vibes I have ever seen.

13. Favorite antagonist team

Team Plasma, hands down. The way that gen V handled the nuances of individuals within Plasma— characters you fight ONCE and never see again— was phenomenal, shown even further in BW2, when some of them changed their ways, and devoted themselves to fixing wrongs in the world. Others doubled down and stayed with Plasma, even after the truth was revealed. It was fascinating to see so much character put into the people of Unova, antagonist team nobodies included.

Plus they have an absolute banger of a battle theme.

14. Least favorite antagonist team

Does. Is Team Yell even considered an antagonistic team? They didn’t DO anything, they’re just bunch of hyped up fanboys (and girls) for you to get xp off of. SwSh made a lot of lousy decisions, as far as I’m concerned, and Team Yell was a big one.

21. Favorite legendary/mythical

Favorite legendary… well, for a long time it was Rayquaza, because Emerald was the first one I played, and therefore, Rayquaza was the first legendary I caught. Now, more correctly, I name Dawn Wings Necrozma (& more specifically its shiny version) as my favorite legendary. The colors are beautiful and it has SUCH a cute face. I’m delighted by it. (Special mention to Wo-Chien, because even though I haven’t played SV yet I LOVE that spooky grass snail, it’s got a cryptid feel to it that pokemon’s been kinda lacking.)

Favorite mythical… hmm, well, Shaymin is one of my favorite older ones, love a good hedgehog, but really I think this title is shared between Marshadow and Zeraora. I got so attached to Zeraora when it was released, and Marshadow is just a little toasty guy. I wish they had some lore attached to them, though.

22. Least favorite legendary/mythical

Hmmm… probably a draw between Enamorus and Palkia (and particularly Origin Palkia) for legendary. They’re just kinda ugly. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As for mythical… there’s been several that I’m just kinda “meh” on, but… nah, y’know what, I’m gonna be petty on this one. Arceus itself, for crimes against me, Volo, and possibly Ingo. I was indifferent to Arceus before, but y’know what? I don’t like that space horse. It’s rude, and the only time it calls is to ask me to fight its gauntlet in my sleep.

65. Favorite pokemon movie

Alright it’s time to come clean, I’ve watched exactly 2 pokemon movies, 1 & 2 (the MewTwo and Lugia ones). Of the two, seeing as it’s been a while since I’ve watched either, PROBABLY the Lugia one. The music was so pretty.

66. Least favorite pokemon movie

So you would think by merit of having only watched two movies, that my least favorite should be the one I didn’t use for the last question. It’s not. It’s the one where Pikachu speaks. Like in English. (I do NOT mean Detective Pikachu, I would like to see that one someday. I mean the one with Pikachu speaking to Ash.) I saw the clip of it speaking, and decided then and there I would not be watching it.

74. Favorite Alolan version of a first-gen pokemon

Ooh, there’s a couple of these I like, but ohhh overall goes to the Alolan Sandshrew/Sandslash line! I’ve had an affinity for that little dude since I first played Emerald :) The Alolan versions look really cool and smooth and that little igloo pangolin is going places!

75. A pokemon you think is overrated

The easy answer to this is Pikachu. I’m so tired of the yellow rat in the spotlight. I was utterly delighted when its cry was put back in PLA, where it was treated just like any other pokemon. It’s not even that I hate the thing, it’s the ridiculous oversaturation. Pokemon Center has released a lot of really cool things that would totally pique my interest— were they not slathered in Pikachu shapes.

Balloon Pikachu is pretty cute though.

76. A pokemon you think is underrated

Uhhh, well, I’m not entirely sure, but… I like Hoennian Linoone. I don’t see a lot about Linoone, but it’s a good little badger and you can teach it Surf, which gives me the WONDERFUL mental image of riding my little badger around in the water :). Also very memorable for me was fighting Norman’s Linoone in Emerald, cause that thing was a tank. Currently I have a couple of Hoennian Linoones, one from X named Azi, and a shiny one I found in the Max Lair in SwSh named Kabochai (Pumpkin Tea, for his lovely color)

…. I am so sorry this took so long to answer, hoogh, but it’s done, and I had a lot of fun with it!!

As always, feel free to send in more!

「x」

#answer #AAAAAAAA THANK UUUUUU

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cyclone-rachel · 2 years

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2022 Omniverse Rewatch + Episode Ranking

Part 3: Arc 3

assorted thoughts/observations:

Is that what the Chupacabra looks like, really

Oh, so they changed the intro, but Feedback isn’t on either young Ben’s side or older Ben’s side, he’s just in the beginning

Magic is his cousin’s business, not his.

Ben *shaking hands emoji* Zak: having a nemesis voiced by Corey Burton that they fuckin’ murdered

But he still watched TV, or at least listened to the alien equivalent of the radio.

Is Mr. Baumann’s shop the only alien grocery store in town?

If I had a nickel for every time Corey Burton and Dwight Schultz played two supervillains who teamed up with each other and argued a lot in a children’s cartoon from the early-mid 2010s, I’d have two nickels. That’s not a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice within the span of 5 months.

Man. He’s still got it. I love his voice so much.

Which is exactly how long it took for this crossover to happen after the end of Secret Saturdays.

Welp, you failed at that.

That’s not exactly what he was asking.

Yeah, it is rad, thank you Ben.

So what exactly are your grades for your villains?

Ben’s destroyed a lot of those transmogrifiers.

Repeat that nickel meme, but with “if I had a nickel for every time a Corey Burton villain got murdered by Feedback”. And two in a row too, god.

I can’t believe this is how this episode starts.

I mean, how many of his villains aren’t gimmicky?

You’re really gonna put her in the Null Void? Isn’t she not enough of a threat for that?

I do appreciate the literary references, but also Gwen did make that one in I think Alien Force.

Revonnahganders *shaking hands emoji* Tamaraneans: being cat-like

Road trip!!!

Okay, this subspecies and swarm gastronomy thing is very cool actually.

I don’t think Aggregor ever did that

That was funny, I will say.

Can you really not see the difference between them, Ben?

It’s wild that he has access to them both

They both have points.

So when were you last on the ship? Was it when you were Alien X

Not that much older. Although I guess they could age faster than others.

I love that they both admit that they should’ve listened to each other.

YEAH, Rook doing the Captain America move

Did he say the Revonnahgander equivalent of “motherfucker”

Oh man, those machines look like the ones Thanos and his army used in Infinity War.

Is that the equivalent of “tough titties”

Okay, that is smart

Not going to say the V-word, but it’s the V-word.

Oh yeah that’s definitely Earth, isn’t it.

I like that we see a Pax poster in this episode, given who shows up later

Just Vaxasaurian?

I don’t think the Omnivoracious looks like a goose.

So what exactly is a roach coach?

Wait, so did Ben get a new hoodie? I thought it was ripped by Khyber in the season 1 finale.

This is a cool idea, one place that rotates through different alternate universes.

Why “take a deep breath”? Also, I miss Tetrax.

Does 23 not realize that he’s turning into aliens, just as he’s fighting “evil hater aliens”?

23 still has the original Omnitrix, too. Interesting.

He’s famous, but not rich, which is important.

I still wonder if this “Frank” is Gwen’s dad.

That was really funny (although maybe this Vilgax just hasn’t been to Earth yet?)

So I guess Ben took over Billions tower here? Or was it Nemesis tower?

I really like the sound effects used for his electricity powers.

Also, it makes complete sense as to why the Plumbers don’t seem to be a thing here, both because they don’t like aliens and because Max didn’t live long enough to be Magister and establish a Plumber presence on Earth. Although maybe Azmuth, Tetrax, and Sevenseven Twentythreetwentythree could do that eventually.

So were they just living at the end of this one street?

Is it really a nest? There’s only 3 of them.

How many Bens have lost their Maxes?

You sure about that?

Azmuth can be his substitute Grandpa, I guess. Which is a very nice concept.

Hell yeah they can explore that.

I’ve seen this episode so many times, but I still love it a lot.

Okay never mind, I’m stupid, I forgot Incarcecon wasn’t in the Null Void

So I guess they do know who they’re emptying the prison for?

His voice is still so good!

Did he have that title before this series?

Also I just realized, insert that nickel meme again but “for every time Steve Blum has played a character titled “insert name here” The Conqueror”, because he later played Kang the Conqueror in Avengers Assemble

Ben, are you okay.

Was that an attack?

He doesn’t look like a shrimp.

I don’t know, why don’t you kiss her yourself and find out?

How hard will you try?

Is it really why he has it? I mean, I guess, he did shoot Xylene’s ship

I love this so much, they’re having an actual conversation

I can’t believe Vilgax just threw him at Attea

The Incurseans have grades?

That height difference there is so good

Glad Rook didn’t Gwen Stacy him

No, seriously, what came over him?

Wait, is Gravattack magnetic?

I would have liked to see a Milleous/Max fight

Eon being a Ben does explain why he likes time puns so much

Also this is probably my favorite version of Eon, if only because the others are not terribly memorable to me

What a smooth transition

So did they just bring Rob Paulsen in to play Ditto, or is Patelliday also in this episode

What were you going for, Eon?

I still think it would’ve been very good/sad if young Ben found out teen Ben had Feedback re-acquired

Man, I’d love to see more of Paradox. But then again, I guess I could just watch more Doctor Who for something like that.

So was Eon already planning the thing he’s going to do in like 25 episodes?

I like that Paradox’s hand itself is ticking like a clock

Ah, you can see Gwen standing in the background before she first talks

I was wondering what exactly it did, and now I have the answer, thank you

So where is this?

Okay, that’s still funny

I can’t believe Paradox and Eon have never interacted before this episode I’m pretty sure. It’s a very interesting dynamic

Has anyone looked up those coordinates in real life?

This is a really good sequence, the Bens and Gwens working together

How would young Ben know what Clockwork looks like?

Also young Clockwork looks adorable

“Good seeing you… me… again.” Hmmm. Is that about Showdown part 2, even if young Ben wouldn’t remember that for obvious reasons

Is this a different version of the time war than the one we saw later?

I still wonder how the OV character design team reacted when they found out Peter Capaldi was the Doctor and looked like Paradox

Also did we ever get the first meeting between Ben and Paradox from Paradox’s point of view? Like what he was talking about when he said “you’re a lot smarter than you were when I met you later”

Again, I love this episode a lot, it’s just great

This opening is just weird

Also who prefers turkey bacon anyway? I guess people who can’t have regular bacon, but I assumed Ben could. Maybe that’s just a thing Yuri added?

“beef”, ha, nice one. Also, I guess they would make alien bacon

Well, now you jinxed it, Ben.

If there’s any time Baumann sounds like Malware a bit, it’s when he’s mad. Although he mostly sounds like Ratchet.

I do like the UAF jacket and T-shirt look in the OV style, is this the only time we get to see that?

Also skeptical that hot chocolate would be able to do that.

Are people eating these tube socks, or smelling them?

I love that people know he wrecks Baumann’s car so much

I also love that there’s just a normal-looking guy who happens to be green here

You’re auctioning her off. Okay.

So why is Psychobos there? I thought he was still on Galvan Prime.

Uh hey what’s Darkstar doing there also

Don’t you want to make sure the packages are safe?

Does Ben have a flip phone?

Ester really should have been in more episodes

That’s not that many guys, though.

I highly doubt anyone would let you near children

Man, Psyphon is kind of cool now.

So where are you going to take the dwarf star?

Well, you asked for him not to wreck your car. You said nothing about your house.

That’s… really sad.

Those are some familiar sunglasses.

So what’s the most toxic?

That’s a very cool sign

I feel like he was inspired by Rocket Raccoon. Except, you know, a duck.

Okay, that’s very cool, as well.

Not this guy again!

Uh hey, isn’t that the same design as the Null Void projector in the Ben 10K episode

Was it defenseless, really?

Well obviously, you need to get out of there

What does that even mean, man?

I’m really glad that Rook gets to go off in this episode

Did it just eat one of the Incurseans?

He means wait for it.

Okay, that was a smart plan, actually.

Could’ve at least let him have his pie

That’s not against the law

You were saying, about nothing happening on Revonnah?

Ben, what are you doing, honestly

“do you even have to ask” Aww, I love that.

So like. How do you suppose Attea got onto Galvan Prime and broke him out of jail?

He did a lot of things while Rook was away, apparently.

Rook’s dad sounds so sinister.

Okay, now you gotta know something is wrong.

So why haven’t the Plumbers asked the Cerebrocrustaceans for help at all?

Yeah, why do they need so much?

Well that’s not good.

It kind of did, they probably should’ve recognized that earlier.

Did Ben have a dinosaur phase when he was a kid

Astrodactyl’s powers do look cool.

That’s not a lot of formula.

Is that really a Plumber philosophy?

This is very nice!

I mean, he’s worked with other villains before.

He literally said last season that when he’s bored, he fiddles with the Omnitrix.

That’s a pretty good reason for traffic to be held up.

And how do they know that exactly, before anyone else does?

Uh, lady, they’ve been living among you for a while now.

Fucking Harangue is back

I really don’t want to make a certain comparison

Maybe this is a job for an alternate Ben who did think aliens were all evil before he learned otherwise.

“do I detect a hint of daddy issues” yeah, he worked with someone who had exactly that for like 5 years, he knows what that’s like

I guess Ben just has really bad luck

Is “hot buttered biscuits” an actual phrase

I’ve always thought the mummy was cool.

“he’s mine” in what way, Attea?

Rook has a point

Are you really sure about that?

Have you tried turning it off and then back on again

Oh right, he did break into the Plumber base that one time

Ben you idiot

It’s a good suggestion.

They’re just standing there.

You think?

Okay, that was funny

A classic sky-portal situation.

Goddamn there’s a lot of them.

Man. Poor Max, and Ben, and everyone in this situation

They don’t sound like they’re rejoicing at all.

Ha, goodbye and good riddance.

And right on time, things get worse.

How does he think that’s any better than what things were like before?

What exactly would he have loved?

I also love that Argit is with the team, for some reason. Also that Rook is carrying him.

What is that car, though.

Of course it’s a watch repair shop.

Gwen has anime glasses, love it.

So, after this episode, are they going to change those monuments to be back to normal?

Once again, chad Incursean right there.

I mean, Gwen is really good at tracking Ben’s mana, after all. Even probably while in other alien forms.

He’d tell you who he was, if you let him talk.

Did Ben pull that out of his ass or something?

I mean, it could be a romance.

I still really like the design for the Plumber base.

Wait, so how did Attea get there so fast?

This is just weird.

Incredibly nice of Azmuth, to do all that.

How many times has Psychobos augmented himself?

Damn, Ben.

“glorious Incursean news network”, oh boy

Is that really true?

That probably should have killed him.

Gosh that looks cool.

Holy shit, go Attea.

That’s nice, at least.

Ben’s hair looks really nice in that shot.

And of course he wants a smoothie.

Arc 3 rankings: 1. Ben Again 2. Vilgax Must Croak 3. Store 23 4. The Frogs of War part 1 5. While You Were Away 6. The Frogs of War part 2 7. Tummy Trouble 8. Special Delivery 9. TGIS 10. Rad

Original rankings: 1. Ben Again 2. Store 23 3. Vilgax Must Croak 4. While You Were Away 5. The Frogs of War part 1 6. The Frogs of War part 2 7. Special Delivery 8. TGIS 9. Tummy Trouble 10. Rad

Basic thoughts: So this is a really good arc? I do like Malware and his team more as antagonists, but Attea is also good, and we also get a fantastic re-introduction to Vilgax in this season as well as two of the best stand-alone episodes of the series which become more important later on. Even the lower-ranked episodes are at least fun and entertaining, and I found things to like about them. And I know that the crossover isn’t great, but I still enjoyed that too.

#ben 10 #ben 10 omniverse #rachel talks about stuff

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sayakxmi · 4 months

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[Magi rewatch] Episode 6: Warrior Tribe Fanalis [Part 1]

I feel like part of the reason I'm just UGH about having to do this, besides the obvious stuff I've mentioned 300x times, is the fact that I really want to get to the later arcs, which includes the upcoming Balbadd Arc. So I'm just sitting here. Impatiently. Bc I want to be there already, y'know? Oh well.

Also, I'm considering something a little different, partially bc reading the entire arc, and then watching the entire arc is kind of... Hmmm. It is a bit tedious, I won't lie. Plus it feels kinda weird to just do it twice one after another. The idea is, then, to so it more or less at the same time: x number of chapters, then the episode that covers them. It's both because I think it'd be a better experience for me, AND because the upcoming arcs can get pretty long. Like, we're talking 45 chapters/11 episodes for the Balbadd Arc, it just makes sense not to go through it twice. No matter how much I like these arcs, it's just too fucking long to do it that way.

Anyway, PSA over, time for the actual episode.

Hello there, character who's never appeared in this anime.

I usually don't comment on this stuff, but damn, I wish more characters were allowed to have dark skin in this series. Like, it'd make more sense, like, for geography-biology reasons. But lemme tell you, Ohtaka and geography... Let's just say it's not her strong suit. Have you ever seen how she draws the world maps and the Dark Continent specifically? It makes no fucking sense. The best explanation I can provide is that it's just people imagining how the DC looks, since no one was there, as in, beyond the Rift. They're just guessing.

Anyway. Geography rant over.

In the manga their clothes look more SIndria-like bc of the lack of colors, but here you're kinda wondering. But still, my money's on Sindria bc they specifically mention that their country has no slaves, and the two notable no-slavery countries are Balbadd and Sindria. And their clothes don't look very Balbadd. Seriously, sans the colors, it looks very Sindria, actually. Then again, do all Sindria people have to wear white? So it still makes sense, I guess.

Also, seeing Leila again makes me miss Thousand Miles a bit. But that story frustrated me too much at some point. Mostly bc I've lost motivation for it, but, like, aggressively, and just kept on getting notifications for it, even though I've had some stories I was actually proud of, but nope, only that one got the attention. It became annoying over time & I ended up deleting the story completely. In case somebody recalls that story & always wondered wtf happened to it.

Mor.

Also, really, Mor, bc when Aladdin says it, it's Moru-san, but if you go with Morg it's some sort of Morugi-san. Pretty different.

Also, man, Leila's voice just dosen't fit her in my head.

Walkin.

Now I kinda realize that Alibaba's probably the only one who never met these two. Gdi, he seriously always misses out on everything.

Honestly, I really love the lightning in this anime. They make choices I disapprove of, and the animation can get damn sloppy (and art, too), but the colors are always awesome.

Also, wonder how things would've gone if Morgiana stayed with these two.

"I have to come back to my homeland. I promised that to my benefactor." NOW, MY DREAMS ARE WITHIN MY REACH-

Good moment to put the op with these words.

Honestly, I like the scenery in the anime, too.

Gdi, I seriously miss Leila. Also, in the anime she is the one to bump into Fatima.

Lonely.

Tbh, it does look pretty.

Any time Jamil appears I'm thinking abt Ohtaka writing in these extra papers stuff like "I should've talked with Master more" or that she should've tried to talk with him in general, like, god fucking dammit Ohtaka and her dumb Forgive Everything agenda.

No Goltas? -throws down the phone-

Ok, but we have Leila looking out for her, that's actually sweet.

She's offering her some herbs for nightmares, and even calls her a friend. Gdi.

Like, I get that they're probably making up for the characterization they don't have in the anime, but I'm sending it percisely bc she talks about being saved by Sahsa and a mysterious boy. Which never happened in the anime, lmao.

Still, overall, it was a very sweet moment.

MOON

But also. What is wrong with you, why are you (always) blue.

Also, cool music.

I swear, whenever I see a male character with painted lips, who happens to be a despicable person (I'd have two nickles- finish the line), I'm just like... is it lowkey transphobic or am I overthinking it... But also, I wouldn't put it past Ohtaka. I mean, with the joke about the best courtesans looking so manly etc.

Hello.

He's about to be surprised.

And he was.

Mob vs one Fanalis is a very unfair fight. They're about to be murdered.

Whoosh.

Also, I'm starting to think that maybe Ohtaka just really likes the moon aesthetic.

Listen, it's pretty damn close to the manga, I have nothing new to say, so I'm offering you some low quality Morgiana.

Ohtaka let Morgiana wreck shit she loves it 2k23. Nearly 2k24, Jesus.

Understandable reaction.

Evil birb.

He. He has the high ground.

RIP

WASTED

#saya's magi rewatch #magi #morgiana

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dannyphantom-justiceleauge · 3 years

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As much as I believe Vlad to be an iredeemable asshole in cannon, I like the idea of a begrudging mentor Vlad. Like, say in an alternate universe everything starts of the same but he's not got some evil plan to kill Jack and marry Maddie. He's bitter and resents them for turning him into this abomonation, resents them for being happy when he can't, he tries to stay connected, but he just can't stand being near them and fears their reaction to his ghost side. (1/3)

(2/3) He takes advantage of his new powers, he steals and cheats his way to power, living life lavishly, but it doesn't make him happy, none of it fills the emptiness in his heart. He spends most of his life miserable up until one day he invites the Fenton's on a whim, perhaps in some desperate attempt to find happiness again, where he meets Danny. It goes similarly how it went in the show, Vlad discovers he is a halfa like him, see's how his parents treat him... ~ ~ ~ i think part 3 got eaten, bro, but i'm gonna work with what i got.

Vlad sees this kid who's like him who's parents still talk about killing ghosts and destroying them in front of him. not knowing that they're threatening Vlad. that they're threatening their own son. he see's these so called scientist haven't learned anything about ghosts in the years that they've been estranged and that they've managed to make the same mistake twice.

and he see Danny, a moody teenager, going through the traumatic process of dying and gaining hard to control powers on top of being a highschooler and social pariah. he sees this kid in desperate need of guidance and sees his parents who are neglectful and unaware of a fact he learned within a day of knowing Danny. and he says, "if you can't handle the responsibility of having a kid, he's mine now." yoink

except, obviously, he's really, really bad at it. being a mentor, winning Danny over, being a good person. all of it.

initially he just straight up offers to help Danny learn his powers and that works, Danny agrees, because Vlad isn't trying to kill danny's parents or attacking him, or stalking them, so Danny has no reason not to accept the help. Vlad seems okay for all his rich guy eccentricities.

but then the lessons actually start and danny realizes. oh. this guy has no idea how to teach. and oh this guy has the moral compass of a rotary fan. and Danny initially goes with it. in canon danny's can be swayed by petty stuff and money up to a point. he can let a lot of shit go and is even willing to do some soft crime if he thinks it's for the right reasons. and Vlad might beat him up when trying to teach him to fight, but that's part of training, right? and he might be changing a little under Vlad's influence but danny doesn't see that as a bad thing, until Sam and tucker basically call him out and he accidentally hurts one of them. something that Vlad had told him to do.

so danny bails. basically confronts Vlad and tells him he's a shitty mentor and that he's gonna peace out. suck eggs, fruit loop.

but Vlad had thought things were going well. he's gotten attached. he doesn't want to go back to being alone and he and danny are the only two of their species in the world. so typical villain/stalker stuff happens between them for a bit. Vlad tries to win danny over with money, with manipulation, with blackmail. and Danny isn't having it. (he has blackmail on Vlad too). Vlad is growing increasingly desperate and looks and acts a mess. this is a vulnerable Vlad. we're not getting well kept always cocky and put together except when danny embarrasses him Vlad. we're getting a pathetic man trying to cling to the only human(ish) connection he has and slowly falling further into depression and insanity.

and Danny pities him. because Danny had that human connection too. in the early days before he decided he got to see vlad's dorky and cool side. Vlad was generous with his money. vlad only swears in food. he lights up when he watches a packers game and is a total fanboy.

and Danny kinda gets how he became like this. how his isolation and loneliness and fear drove him further and further down the road of corruptness and evil. Danny learns what he would become without his friends and if anything Vlad is better than that. it's almost similar to how he is with val. he understands where she's coming from and sees that she's a good person even if her actions have taken a turn in the wrong direction. he feels the same about Vlad. he thinks maybe he can convince Vlad to be better.

so redemption arc/reverse mentor relationship because danny is gonna be trying to teach Vlad how to stop being a fruit loop and start making some friends his own age. the comedy potential of that is amazing. i have the mental image of Danny convincing vlad to go on a date with Harriet Chin and coaching him from behind her even though he has next to no dating experience either. pure shenanigans.

i also see there being several back and forth instances of kidnapping. Vlad locks Danny in his house because he doesn't want to be alone (Danny eventually escapes and gets mad. Vlad learns never to do that again). Danny kidnaps Vlad to be a chaperone at a school event, mostly to get Vlad to lie for him. another time Vlad kidnaps danny to go to a rich person party because he said he had a kid in a pathetic attempt to make a friend (moral of the episode is lying to make friends doesn't work) so he just has Danny pose as his son that whole episode and they're trying to get along and seem happy, meanwhile snipping at each other in whispers. they think no one is buying that they're related but ironically them arguing at the end of the night is one convinces the person they're family. "me and my daughter would fight all the time, especially at events she didn't want to come to." probably muddies the moral but that's common enough in dp.

just gradually develops into a weird redeemed uncle/mentor dynamic. Vlad really isn't teaching Danny much. he still occasionally has his moments to shine with explaining new powers and showing danny how to commit tax fraud or lie to the police. but he's mostly just this weird guy who's first friend in twenty years is a teenager.

- Hestia

#dpjl #hestiawrites #danny fenton #vlad masters #danny phantom

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jasontoddiefor · 3 years

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Tyki Mikk is a Clone and I can (almost) prove it

Tyki Mikk is undoubtedly a fan favorite and yet we don’t really know a lot about him. For a character that was created with the purpose of being handsome (cf. D.Gray-Man Manga Volume 5, page 150), he carries a lot of baggage and has a rather unclear past. A theory that has haunted me since I read chapter 198 and has only grown in strength with the most recent arc is that Tyki is in fact a clone of Nea. As far fetched as this seems at start, there is quite a bit of evidence supporting this theory.

1) Tyki’s visible similarity to Nea (and Mana)

One of the first things Wisely remarks on when he meets Tyki is his similarity to “a certain man” (Chapter 187).

This similarity is picked up twice more in the manga. When Allen meets Nea for the first time (cf. chapter 198), he mistakes him for Tyki at first.

And it is brought up a third time by Nea himself in chapter 225 when he says:

To which Tyki, or rather Joyd, has this wonderful reaction:

But more on that guy specifically later. Point being right here is that three different characters, or four if you want to count Road and Wisely separately, acknowledge that Tyki resembles Nea a lot, down to the man himself. How does that saying go again? Once An Accident, Twice A Coincidence, Three Times A Pattern? This is something that repeatedly gets brought up again. And this is without going into detail on how much Tyki resembles not only Nea, but said man’s identical twin as well. Just look at that dashing long hair!

And take this from chapter 158 as well

Pretty long haired boy Mana is nothing new as of chapter 218 and 219:

Another interesting point here is that Tyki is the exact same height as the Earl in human form! They’re both 188cm tall. Nea, on the other hand, is listed at being 177cm. This could just be that Nea unfortunately ended up as the shorter twin, or, we take into consideration what Mana tells Allen/Red in chapter 238:

He remembers being seventeen, which means that he and Nea probably weren’t done growing yet when the “Earl” corrupted Mana. (It also kind of makes everything about Nea more hilarious if you realize he’s just seventeen.) Tyki, however, is 26 when we first meet him and should be around 27 now. He is an actual adult and not bound to hit another growth spurt.

But to summarize the first argument: Tyki looks uncannily similar to Nea and Mana and the manga keeps pointing it out so we can assume this resemblance is important.

2) Cloning is possible in canon

Now the second point is just here to point out that we know cloning to be possible. Funnily, Tyki’s resemblance to Nea gets pointed out just before the Alma Arc, which very much deals with the concept of reincarnation – only there we have the brains of deceased Exorcists transplanted into youthful bodies.

However, it’s not as if something like DNA hasn’t been mentioned before. Specifically, it has been called “Helix of life” by no other than maybe-former-Bookman but definitely First-Nea-host Past!Allen in chapter 221:

So let’s assume that, in the aftermath of Nea’s “death”, PastA didn’t just wait around for Nea to wake again, but tried to find a vessel for him. Messing around with this helix, and whatever other dubious science and magic this world had to offer, and created a new body to host Nea. Except he failed, and the result is Tyki.

But if that is so, shouldn’t Tyki remember anything about that? Good question. Time for some more shady weird stuff about Tyki.

3) The Missing Years

In chapter 202, while the Earl is resting, Tyki talks to Road. I don’t speak Japanese, so I can’t verify which translation is more accurate, but I’ve found these two:

Now the official German one also goes with a similar translation as the second one here, implying that Tyki has been with the Earl for ten years. In any case, the fact that this decade at all gets mentioned is quite odd because it doesn’t match up with what we know of Mana travelling with Allen. Cross calls Allen a “ten-year-old brat” (chapter 208) when he looks after him. So between Mana travelling with Allen and current canon, only 6 years have passed – what are up with the other 4 that are supposedly within this decade? We don’t have a definite age for how old Allen was when he met Mana, but I’d say around 7 or older. That’s still not enough to fill out the decade they speak about here.

Now, presuming that it does in fact refer to Tyki staying with the Earl for that time, we’re either left with assuming that the Earl acted as a separate entity as we see in 218, or that Tyki’s memories are just flat out wrong.

4) Tyki Mikk’s Canon-Typical Ignorance AKA The Baby of The Family

The more often Tyki appears, the more we see how much he actually doesn’t know about the going-ons of the war, or even himself. This goes back as far as the Ark Arc in chapter 130 with the Earl pointing out that:

So this form is apparently something that all Noah of Pleasure can take on, a sort of second stage of awakening. Still, it feels significant that Tyki separates his life so much into “black” and “white”, “Noah” and “human”, going as far as suppressing a part of his Noah. It puts him in direct opposition to Skinn, who was more or less entirely consumed by his Noah memories. Though, perhaps this is also just a narrative ploy because a character with the ability to chose is, frankly speaking, fuck off overpowered and the only reason why Tyki isn’t constantly leveling battlefields is probably that he just doesn’t know how to apply himself.

Regardless, Tyki’s ignorance also becomes visible in chapter 187 again when he wonders about his Noah name:

Nobody else reacts like he does, even though the other Noah haven’t been awake as long as he has and also should have retained the same memory damage as Joyd after Nea’s murder spree. Yet Tyki feels a little like the baby of the family, still learning and growing while everyone else is already in the know, which can’t be too far from the truth if we look at chapter 225:

Wisely and Road definitely know that something went down and kept it from Tyki for so long for reasons. So besides Allen learning the truth sometime in the future, Tyki is also heading towards some kind of realization – and honestly, what better than the fact that the man who enjoys his freedom and roam so much, was artificially created?

Road could have manipulated his subconsciousness, his memories. It’s a miracle really that the Earl hadn’t had a breakdown around Tyki already given how much he looks like Nea. And if Tyki really awoke as a Noa a decade ago, then eh would have been right the age Nea was when he died. The Earl should have reacted in one way or another.

Other small details that don’t add up is a) the claim that Tyki and Sheril are actual brothers. They have different last names, which would imply that they are perhaps rather half siblings, sharing one parent, or maybe they just aren’t related at all in the first place. The other thing is that Nea recognizing Tyki’s face immediately after confronting Mana about his changed appearance just adds even more suspicion.

5) TLDR

Tyki is either a clone or something else messy went down because there’s no way that there’s a natural Nea and Mana copy running around who also just so happens to be a Noah. No way.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk I’m never writing meta again this was a nightmare to post.

#tyki mikk #dgm #d gray man #allen walker #nea d campbell #mana d campbell #mana waker #road kamelot #dgm meta #long post

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makeste · 3 years

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BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

#bnha 316 #hawks #takami keigo #lady nagant #midoriya izuku #all for one #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #manifesting 317 opening with a slightly modified version of my previous fantasy scenario lmao #'WHADDYA MEAN THEY BLEW UP THE NERD'#that's *his* job #sorry lol I kid I kid

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andavs · 2 years

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5A of 911 was really fucking weird, and I think it’s because of Covid.

We’ve been in this pandemic for a while, it seems like safety protocols have been established and have stabilized since 2020, and my theory based on no knowledge of the industry whatsoever is that on set protections tightened up for the unvaccinated, which young kids are.

911 has always had a running theme of family and togetherness. They explore all kinds of family dynamics, and kids are always included in that, both within the families of the main characters and in emergencies. Except for in 5A.

I don’t know how old all of the main kids are, but I’m assuming that Harry is old enough to be vaccinated since he had his big arc with Jeffrey and his recovery. Denny seems younger, Chris is high risk, and Jee is a baby (who requires multiple babies to play her).

They all appeared in the blackout episodes (shot during the summer when cases were low and mask mandates were relaxing), but since then, we’ve really only seen Harry and the Grant-Nash family, and Buck. Beginning in 5.04, the parents of the other kids have kind of ceased to exist outside of the job. We don’t really see their families or home lives at all.

Eddie Eddie’s arc has been struggling with his mental health and panic attacks, but between the blackout and Christmas, we only saw him on the job. We didn’t see him at home, if he’s had panic attacks there on his own, if Chris has been noticing and worrying, if they’ve been acting differently—not even how Chris handled the breakup with Ana. All of these things could’ve been a solid buildup to Christmas and Eddie leaving, but we saw none of it.

Since the blackout and the breakup, we’ve seen Chris twice: in 5.06 and only with Eddie, and then in 5.10 either only with Eddie or outside for the party.

Hen Assuming they didn’t want to continue showing her med school journey, last season set up two things that could’ve continued as even a minor ongoing plot: Hen and Karen continuing to foster, and their friendship with Nia's mother. Neither of these things involving kids were mentioned once. (It also seems like Karen wasn’t available for filming since we really only saw her in one episode instead of scenes scattered throughout the season like we usually do.)

Instead, Hen has had no larger arc, but four episodes where she’s a focus, and none involve Denny:

The cheerleader mixup that was entirely at the hospital

Surgery at the prison riot, and after that she went straight to class

Eva returning at the station, Karen went to Eva’s, and then Karen and Hen talked alone in their bedroom

Toni’s past, which happened at a restaurant, and then just Toni and Hen at the house together to wrap things up

Denny was in one scene at Athena and Bobby’s in 5.01, on a facetime call with Hen at the end of 5.03, and then outside for the party in 5.10.

Chimney Chimney’s arc could’ve been Maddie getting help at an inpatient program and him learning to raise Jee on his own. Maybe digging into his own relationship with his father a little more and how that affects him as a father now that he doesn’t have Maddie there with him. But instead we have Chimney taking off, and almost zero Jee-Yun since the footage JLH shot before maternity leave (when cases were dropping as people got vaccinated). Chimney hasn’t held his daughter once this season.

They’ve shown, all very briefly:

Jee in her playpen, six feet away from Chimney for a panning shot

She was shown for a single closeup in her stroller outside, and then replaced with an unmoving doll for the rest of the scene

Jee in the car, outside, already in her carseat

She’s in the backseat for one quick shot while Chimney is driving

Chimney briefly carries her carseat in an open air parking structure

It’d be hard to have Chimney regularly shown on camera, if you can’t really show his daughter when he’s functionally a single parent to a very young baby. The Lees could constantly be taking care of her while he continues to work, but that’s a lot of telling about a huge change in his life rather than showing it. It doesn’t seem like he’s really allowed to interact with her.

Again, I have no idea how any of this actually works, I’m just guessing. But 5A has felt pretty cold and sterile, and I think that could be coming from the lack of the warm family scenes we usually get. We’ve only seen the Grant-Nash family happy this season, and without exploring the other main’s lives outside of the job, they’ve begun to feel like side characters. And not being able to show their lives and families could also be contributing to the increased focus on guest stars and adult recurring characters like Taylor.

Maybe they’re intentionally leaning into the team feeling fractured and alone by not showing their families, but there’s also been very few emergencies involving kids in 5A. Desperate Times had Luke on the ventilator. Defend in Place had the boy and his sister. Wrapped in Red had the kids of the cheating father (outdoors), the kid in the collapsed apartment, and then the outdoor party at the end.

Hopefully now that the vaccine has been approved for younger kids, we’ll see more of them in 5B and have more family scenes. Since Eddie is leaving for Chris, I would hope they’re somewhat confident he’ll be able to safely be on set more so they can actually focus on them, going through this together. (No idea how they’ll handle Jee, but at least Maddie and Chimney can interact with each other about her.)

#911 fox #911 #idk thinking thoughts

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parachutingkitten · 3 years

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Y'all suck at dissecting Kai's character, so I guess I have to do it.

And I'm not even a Kai stan. He's a bottom tier ninja for me, which I guess means you can trust me, cuz I'm not biased, but also why am I the one doing this? I don't know about y'all, but recently on my dash, the method by which Kai fans try to make him sound good is... saying the writers hate him, ignore him, and that he isn't written well? Which... I mean there is a little bit of truth to, but like yikes guys, is this the best you got? Kai is a wonderful character with plenty of attention from the writers, a meaningful piece of the cast when put in secondary rolls, fairly consistent character writing with actual progression and valuable qualities that help the team without having to be the smart one- despite what some posts might tell you.

Let's get one thing cleared up: Ninjago isn't the best written show. By high level Hollywood standards, most the character arcs are kinda weak or too heavy handed, character consistency can be iffy, and most things serve the plot rather than the characters. There is no character you can point to and say "wow, this character is written so well! No complaints!" Nya and Jay were butchered by their weird love plot, Cole's one season doesn't actually give him an arc, Zane's been nothing but the robot numbers guy for like 10 seasons now, and Lloyd seems to be incapable of doing anything but relive the same one piece of dad angst for depth. Sorry, it's true. All the characters suck when you look at it from a large scale writing perspective. So when I say Kai is well written, I mean by ninjago kids show standards- cuz that's the scale we're working on. No, you couldn't drop Kai into a well written drama, but as far as ninjago goes... he's got a lot going for him, and by no means is he the biggest victim of poor writing.

(fair warning, wall of text below)

The title is a bit disingenuous. There are plenty of good Kai character break downs. What I am presenting here is a more positive perspective. On the whole, I will tend to give the writers the benefit of the doubt, and credit for what they do right writing is hard guys. That's what I'm doing here. I don't see much sense in getting mad the writers on behalf of Kai, or any other character. Ninjago is a simplistic ensemble show that works because of the identifiable simplicity of its main characters with some deeper layers hidden underneath if you keep watching. They've given us a damn good show with some damn enjoyable characters, so here are some criticisms I feel are a little flawed:

First, let's get the 'focus' thing out of the way. Apparently there are people saying Kai doesn't have a season yet? Which... what? I mean, I get that the pilots aren't a full season, the first two seasons, though he is the central protagonist, aren't "Kai seasons" as we've come to define ninja focus seasons, season 7, though he gets majority focus, he shares with his sister. But like... did y'all just forget about season 4? You know, the season where he had the title card, was on the box sets, got the love interest, and the majority of the A-plot? not to mention it's the best season don't @ me Like... if season 4 isn't a Kai season, I can make a damn good argument that season 3 isn't a Zane season, and I doubt anyone wants to go down that rabbit hole. I really can't wrap my head around this one. And I get that the fandom hates season 11 for some reason, but like you can't just pretend it doesn't exist. Kai has a consistent arc across 30 episodes in which he takes his powers for granted, loses them, and learns that, not only does he have value within the team without them, but that his element is intrinsically a part of him that he reclaims, bringing them back more powerful than ever, and with new respect for them. That's one of the most solid arcs in the whole series- the location is even thematically connected to his element. That's some good stuff right there! (Quick plug for season 11 if you haven't watched it in a while. Give it a rewatch, you might be pleasantly surprised)

Not to mention the writers give him fun side stuff all the time. Lots of fears of tech and water to overcome, a deep protective streak with Lloyd, becoming a chancellor, having a true potential actually relevant to the plot as a whole, blacksmith responsibilities, befriending dragons, hanging out with his dad. Not to mention actual focus stuff we haven't talked about yet, like his whole "my dad is evil" phase, and his "I might be evil" phase with him and Skylor. And on top of that, even when he doesn't have an explicit side plot, he's always just a fun and dynamic side character to make jokes or give exposition.

Now, into character stuff. Let's start with Kai's hot headed-ness. Some people say he's been loosing this quality, and I will admit, that's true! But those that claim this makes him inconsistent... I strongly disagree. In early seasons, Kai's temper would lead him to snap at his friends or make stupid decisions that set the team back (see episode 2 Zane freak out)- these are bad things. These are character flaws, yes? Now, in newer seasons, people say that he's inconsistent, cuz sometimes he'll be hot headed, and sometimes he won't. I'd say, this is exactly how being hot headed... works? It flares up without warning, and as an individual gets control of it, it'll pop up less and less often because they're channeling it into productive things - like say directing the anger towards an enemy (see season 11 end freak out). Kai has gained control of a character flaw, and though it still pops up on occasion, the fact that it's a once in a while kind of thing speaks to his growth. I have a little brother who has this exact personality, and watching him grow up, I can tell you, this is how it is. He used to snap all the time, and he still does sometimes, but much less frequently, because he's a more mature person with better control of his emotions. This is a good thing. This is overcoming personal flaws. This is progression we're seeing.

And while you're hyper focused on this one aspect of him, things like his cocky confidence haven't changed a bit. I mean, that season 3 bit between him and Pixal, and his season 11 "fire maker" streak have the exact same energy. You can not convince me otherwise.

Another adjacent quality that hasn't been dampened is Kai's impulsiveness. This can be a good quality of his, he'll get into a fight without thinking, getting the jump on the enemy. Good stuff. But, this has become such a well defined trait of Kai's that it has been used in a comedic capacity. This is what happens when a character is extremely consistent to the extent that both the audience and the characters in universe would be able to predict their actions. Kai's impulsivity used to be a more serious quality that put himself and others at risk, and was a big power move whenever he did something rash, but it's become such a staple of the show that it's now being used for comedy. That isn't Kai's impulsivity going away, that's Kai's impulsivity being recontextualized for the sake of the show. The season 9 "Who's stupid enough to jump on that thing" isn't a joke at the expense of Kai just for being dumb, it's a joke at Kai's being so predictably impulsive that everyone already knows he'll be the one to put himself in an insane amount of danger without thinking twice (you know, something stupid that might get him killed). But because in this instance, the danger is warranted, this is bravery. It's a complement to his character- it's what ends up defeating the colossus. Why are some people so bothered by this joke?

Oh right, cuz for some reason people want to peg Kai as the smart one? Look, Kai isn't stupid, none of the ninja are. All of them have smart moments (all of them have dumb ones too) and Kai can certainly handle himself, but "smart" is definitely not one of his defining characteristics- I think some people are confusing smart for his actual strength. Connected to his impulsivity, Kai has very good simplistic instincts. He sees the big picture and looks at the most surface level solution- which when the situation calls for it, that does indeed make him smart. But the same logic that led him to think "This snake has a glowing target on its head, lets hit it" also led him to think "I'm in a video game, therefore I am immortal." Are you really going to look at me and say he figured out Lloyd was the green ninja through logical deduction and a careful consideration of the facts? No. He had a gut feeling, and he trusted it. Instincts- instincts paired with his impulsive following of said instincts is what leads him to solve problems- and sometimes, that can be extremely effective. This goes for other ninja too. Jay isn't the smartest ninja- I would really only classify Zane and Nya as having intelligence define them (hence their ship name). But Jay is extremely creative and crafty. He also knows his was around mechanics, and as such, this will lead him to come up with creative tech based solutions which are smart. But, idk about you, if I had to point to another ninja as being 'dumb' it would 100% be Jay. Kai is a lot of things. He's passionate and determined and confident and persistent. He's a good improvisor, he's powerful and he's charming! These are all wonderful qualities, he doesn't also have to be the smart one. I am the worlds biggest Pixal stan, and she's a smart, sassy, powerful character, but I'm not gonna sit here and tell you she's also hilarious and adaptable and strong willed. She's a straight man to all the ninja's antics, extremely tied to her samurai x suit, and lets people push her around all the time. That doesn't mean she can't be funny, or self interested, but when she does act these ways, it stems from her other more prominent qualities. That make sense?

And while we're clearing up what Kai isn't, please stop characterizing Kai as an overly protective brother - especially romantically. The only two times he's been romantically protective to Nya are in Wu's Teas which I mean, come on and in the pilots when Jay is literally a stranger. For crying out loud, by the end of the pilot, he's smiling when Jay and Nya hug. That's not overly protective, that's just normal, any reasonable person would react this way, protective. And it's such a great stereotype break for a kids show like ninjago, having an older brother who actually trusts his younger sister to be her own independent person who can make her own decisions. I mean, I guess it's fine if you HC differently but like... idk, I don't buy it.

Now, is there still room to criticize the writers? Yes. Hell yes. But not to an extent greater than any other character. Could he have had more of a defined reaction to events of the most recent season that I won't name for the sake of spoilers? Yes. But could Zane have reacted for more than .5 seconds at being an evil war lord for apparently 60 years? Yeah. Has Kai taken a back seat in the past 4 seasons? Yeah. But so has Lloyd- and he's literally the main character of the show. Not to mention two of those seasons have gone to people who had to wait over ten seasons to get one to themselves, and one of them is a 40 minute special. Kai's doing just fine.

Anyway. Kai is great. He's a fun, stereotype breaking, impulsively driven, ball of energy and confidence who gets a good amount of screen time and some fun side plots.

One last thing to clear up: no hate to anyone. This isn't targeted at anyone specific, this post has been a long time coming, I've just seen some weird overblown claims on various platforms over the past few months and I finally sat down to write about it.

I like the Kai content we have. After all, if the writers were really that bad at writing him, then no one would like him.

Wow this was so much longer than I thought it would be. Um... if you have other long winded rants you'd like to see from me... let me know I guess?

#ninjago #kai ninjago #kai smith #parachuterants #analysis #lets add this tag:#/lh

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power-chords · 2 years

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It must be doing the rounds. Twice on my dash now I’ve seen that old post that’s like, “A lot of fanfic is really GOOD, actually! As good or better than original published fiction!” (From what I understand this woman is not a troll, she’s just got weird opinions.) Every time I am like: what the fuck are you talking about? And it’s not that I’m a snob — enthusiastic King and Crichton reader, here — or that I’m goofing around in the wrong sandboxes. The quality:quantity ratio for fanfic is uniformly abysmal, almost as a rule. It’s to be expected. There’s no participatory bar to clear, zero barriers to entry. What are there, like seven million fanfics on AO3 as of 2020? Fiction writers who are good enough to get their original work published for money, who have finite amounts of time like the rest of us mortals, are less likely to be wasting it screwing around. And it is screwing around. Stop pretending it isn’t. That’s why it’s fun. Stop making it less fun, god damn it!!!!

Distribution curve aside, the standards for “good” fanfic* and “good” published original fiction are misaligned. It’s not even that fanfic audiences are more generous, or that fanfic writers are at least partially relieved of the structural legwork that forces you to develop as a storyteller, to earn a reader’s sustained interest and emotional investment. To say something meaningful and ideally vital. The basic motivation is just… sillier. Reading/writing fic is pure fantasy indulgence, it’s imaginary wish fulfillment and play, and it drives me nuts when people insist on taking it too seriously, robbing it of its essential ridiculousness and whimsy. At best you have annoying pedants sincerely arguing that Alighieri is bible fanfic, and at worst you have swarms of key-smashing Twitter psychos litigating the morality of (really, usually very mundane) erotica. Neither of those things are enjoyable for me, which is part of the reason my engagement with “fandom” is so… oblique? Hesitating? Neurotic? Like, embrace your own cringe but have some good humor and self-awareness about it, my god.

*What makes a “good” fanfic? I know what I’m looking for, personally: good prose (and it had better get its hooks in within the first two paragraphs), print-quality copy (no one cares about a stray typo here and there, but command of grammar/syntax is non-negotiable), believable characterization (you can nail all of the above and still just bomb this one, it’s the fanfic original sin of immersion-breaking, the risk you are automatically, continuously taking on), and clear mastery of the source material (writer did their homework). I want a deleted scene, or an aside, an epilogue or a prologue, some kind of in-universe expansion that allows me to spend more time in that world, to treat it as I would a theme park. If there’s some kind of identifiable, self-contained literary merit in there, that’s an added bonus. But the most important thing is that it be good enough — soup to nuts, from how well it flows to the scenario it’s pitching — to accomplish a baseline of faithful mimicry. I’m here to be momentarily fooled and taken along for the ride. I don’t expect complex narrative arcs and sophisticated themes in, let’s be real, 3k-15k words of “What if those two weird-looking dudes fucked that one time.”

But I DO expect them to fuck in a way where I don’t immediately roll my eyes and go, “Oh, come on, get real.” You know? So that’s the appeal. The challenge, the balancing act. This has gotta be the dumbest, most indulgent shit, but it also has to be like, OK, I could see it. I could envision this happening very easily, in my mind’s eye. You’ve sold me. I treat fanfic like a fictionalized research paper at the end of the semester: “Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the curriculum. You can make it horny for extra credit.”

#highbrow lowlife #I'm fixated on that concept rn #fanfiction

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shipping-receiving · 4 years

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“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

An Analysis of Hwang Si-mok and Han Yeo-jin’s Final Scene in Stranger/Secret Forest Season 2

Alright, it’s been almost a week, I’m still crying every time I re-watch this scene, and somehow I’ve written 3,500 words about five minutes of this damn show, so here we go:

As with Stranger/Secret Forest Season 1, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s final scene in Season 2 ended with a farewell meal, complete with soju. On a very basic level, this meal felt significant in a season where Si-mok was subject, more than ever, to interrupted meals or meals he didn’t particularly want to be present for – at least until he was able to have a drink with Yeo-jin in 2x12, and then lunch with her in 2x13.

More importantly, though, this scene is the most loaded scene we’ve ever witnessed between these two characters. That’s saying something for such a nuanced, detail-oriented show, in which two people placing their phones in a storage locker at a detention centre can possess such emotional weight, particularly when played by two actors who make very subtle and sophisticated acting choices.

I’m struck particularly by the way this scene bursts with subtext – things unsaid and unresolved – when Lee Soo-yeon could just as easily have written a neater, more light-hearted exchange that reaffirmed their connection, more along the lines of their final scene in 1x16. There are a thousand other ways their farewell could have been presented to us that would have given a greater or at least a more comfortable sense of finality, even taking into account their character development over this season. This lack of resolution is evident not just from what happened during the scene, but also when the scene happened within the episode itself. The meal occurred after Yeo-jin had been bullied by her colleagues, but before she met her new boss – at this point, it seemed to the viewer that her promotion would likely bring not the pride she experienced in S1, but more challenges and isolation.

More so than the Seo Dong-jae cliffhanger, this scene makes me think that this was written with a future Season 3 arc in mind, one in which Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s relationship will continue to evolve and deepen substantially (whether that will be ‘romantic’ remains to be seen). Considering they’re the core partnership of this series, there was a deliberate withholding of stability in their farewell, rather than an affirmation of it. I won’t go so far as to say destabilisation – because despite their separation, I think their bond is more profound than ever – but at the bare minimum an absence of certainty, when it could have been written otherwise.

Anyway, on to the breakdown:

The scene opens with Si-mok carefully folding a napkin and placing cutlery on it for Yeo-jin, a simple gesture of care that Cho Seung-woo plays with a startlingly gentle attentiveness. Immediately, it signals that there’s been a shift in Si-mok – how he’s able, at least with Yeo-jin, to do something that isn’t just polite, but also thoughtful. The director even snuck in a little clue that Si-mok is thinking of Yeo-jin as he’s doing this – Yeo-jin actually appears at the left side of the frame from the start, as the camera pans over to Si-mok:

In this shot, Si-mok is visually separated from Yeo-jin by a pillar. This could be read on the one hand as a kind of sectioning out of his mental space – a visualisation of his thoughts of her as he prepares her cutlery – and on the other hand, as a foreshadowing of their impending separation. (I do, however, enjoy the first interpretation more. It reminds me a little bit of her sketch of the inside of his head from 1x06.)

Back to the napkin: if you look closer, Si-mok didn’t fold a napkin for himself – his spoon and chopsticks are on the table next to his bowl – so this isn’t just a matter of neatly setting the table for their meal. In a very small way, he’s anticipating her needs, just as she has done with him in much more demonstrative ways in both seasons (helping him with his headaches being the most obvious one). This isn’t something he’s necessarily actively worked on in the past two years; he’s still the person who doesn’t instinctively say ‘hello’ over the phone, or ask after someone’s kids without being reminded. Yet, it’s a capacity for care that has expanded significantly, at least where Yeo-jin is concerned.

Compare his behaviour with the equivalent scene in 1x16 – back then, he only ordered a bowl of noodles for himself and not for her. Interestingly, Yeo-jin’s comment to Si-mok during that part of the S1 scene was, “Gosh, you haven’t changed one bit,” suggesting that he was, by nature, somehow unable to be considerate to someone else. Just from the opening to the S2 scene, we see that that comment is not or no longer true, at least when it comes to the way he acts around her. In both the S1 and S2 scenes, he was the first person to arrive for their meal; in S1, the first thing he said was, “Why are you late?” and had already ordered his soju and noodles. This time, however, Yeo-jin asks him, “Why didn’t you order something first?” – implying that although she was late again, he was patiently waiting for her to arrive.

There’s also a difference in the way he responds to her appearance. Now, I personally don’t think we can frame Si-mok’s connection with and care for Yeo-jin in conventional understandings of romantic attraction (which is not to say romance isn’t possible for them canonically, I just think it will manifest differently). Nevertheless, I’d say that he responds to her haircut in a way that is probably as close to the mechanics of attraction as we could possibly expect from Si-mok – not just the shock of “oh, you cut your hair,” but lingering looks and nostalgia for when they first met; nothing at all like noticing that she’s wearing lipstick and saying, not so kindly, that it looks weird. In fact, in a direct parallel to this moment in 1x16, Yeo-jin asks him if her haircut is “weird”, and he says, “I just meant it’s different.”

(I think the way he stares at her is not wholly due to being ‘transfixed’, but also because he’s trying to figure out what such a drastic change means, and why now, and whether he has to worry. Basically, his brain is trying to compute; part of his stare is him trying to analyse her behaviour, just as part of it is him revisiting his memories of her from two years ago, and part of it might well be an attraction he doesn’t quite understand or know how to reel in. He does stare at her for an inordinately long time.)

Switching over to Yeo-jin, I really enjoy this little routine of hers when they have meals together – how she narrows down options for him to a series of questions, and even helps him decide on occasion. It never feels like she’s trying to speak for him, but rather that she knows his likes and dislikes. Her question in this scene – makgeolli or soju – is phrased like her question in 2x02, when she asks him to choose between stir-fried octopus and hot pot; when she specifically requests a lot of cabbages, she must be thinking of how he ate lots of them in 2x12. This kind of care comes naturally to Yeo-jin – we’re talking about the person who took in a murder victim’s mother in S1 – but it’s still a form of intimacy, and one that Si-mok is clearly used to as well.

Soon, though, we have our first indication that things might not be so comfortable – not in the sense that their bond has weakened, but that there are fundamental shifts occurring in both of their lives that affect this bond. Si-mok, after a lot more staring, points out that her short hair reminds him of when they first met. (He wouldn’t have needed to take that much time to come up with that simple observation, which makes me think he was trying to choose his words carefully.) With enthusiasm, Yeo-jin responds with, “I haven’t changed a bit, right?” – echoing her comment about Si-mok in 1x16.

Perhaps Yeo-jin had meant this comment sincerely in the moment, but given context, her cheerfulness feels performative. We’ve just witnessed her crying after being bullied by her colleagues, in contrast to the warmth that she enjoys with her old Yongsan team; we’ve observed her changes – a result of maturity, disillusionment, a loss of innocence – throughout the whole season. In fact, she seems to have cut her hair precisely because she feels weighed down by all that has unfolded, just as one might after a break-up or some kind of painful life event. It’s a decision that seems to say: I acknowledge that everything has changed around me, but maybe doing this will make me feel like myself again, or the ‘myself’ of two years ago.

Si-mok, of course, isn’t quite so able to agree that she hasn’t changed. Multiple times this season, he’s observed the changes in her – “You don’t draw these days?” in 2x06, “Didn’t you want to work in police administration?” in 2x08, “You weren’t the kind of person to postpone things.” in 2x12. Now, he doesn’t respond to her question, and instead looks at her in silence, smiling only ever so slightly when she shakes her head playfully (and we know that she can make him smile wider than that). Perhaps he’s even choosing to withhold any judgment of her. But this is a moment, I think, that factors into his decision to ask her that question at the end of this scene.

Next, we have confirmation that Si-mok was the one who asked Yeo-jin out for dinner, just as he had in 2x02 once he’d settled into his new posting. It isn’t clear in 1x16 if it was Yeo-jin who’d asked to meet Si-mok when she found out he was being posted to Namhae, but it’s been affirmed twice this season that he prioritises this time with her (even more so than meeting his own mother). Then, he breaks the news to her that he is leaving for Gangwon Province this weekend.

In 1x16, Yeo-jin finds out that Si-mok is leaving from the special investigation team, without Si-mok being present. At the time, they still think he’ll be sent to the US for training, and Yeo-jin is visibly disappointed. She has the same crestfallen look on her face in this scene, in front of Si-mok. She doesn’t want to be separated from him, and when she asks about his cases, it seems she’d expected him to stay for quite a while longer to see them through. Mind you, Wonju is only about 1.5 hours drive from Seoul (yes, I mapped it), but Yeo-jin still looks like she’s had the rug pulled from under her. Perhaps, in an uncertain time, she’d hoped that Si-mok would be in her life more than the few weeks he’d spent in Seoul.

Yeo-jin’s responses in both 1x16 and 2x16 are a pretty big indicator that she has feelings for Si-mok (whether she’s aware or willing to acknowledge those feelings is another matter). I suppose one could argue that her reaction is simply out of sadness at the thought of being separated from a friend, but based on certain events in S2 – for example, Choi Bit questioning Yeo-jin about her relationship with Si-mok, and Yeo-jin deflecting – I think the viewer is at the very least meant to question whether their bond is truly ‘platonic’. This isn’t the type of show to include superfluous details just to tease their viewers, and in any case, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s connection has only deepened through the course of this season despite being on opposing sides of the council. It feels like the emotional stakes are much higher this time than back in S1.

As Yeo-jin is absorbing this news from Si-mok, there are a couple of little details here that feel significant to me, but could be nothing: first, the way Si-mok half-holds out his hand as Yeo-jin is pouring her soju, just as he’d held out his hand when she was pouring makgeolli in 2x13. Second, how she pours out a cup of soju for herself first, but not for Si-mok. In any other situation, it might seem impolite – after all, Si-mok is the one who’d chosen the drink – but here it seems that she’s pouring a drink to steady or busy herself more than anything, and she doesn’t drink from it till after their toast.

Following this, Yeo-jin confides in Si-mok that “I never thought the council would end like this. [...] Will the higher-ups be replaced with more honest people while I’m catching bad men out there?” When he replies with, “Why are you talking as if those two are the same?”, it’s yet another of his probing questions, questions she never seems to have an answer to. The Yeo-jin of old would never have assumed that all the higher-ups are dishonest – she has always seen the good in people – but she feels betrayed by Choi Bit, the one person she sincerely respected. Here, she changes the topic rather than opening up, reverting to her most comfortable mode of showing care for someone else by asking Si-mok why he looks so tired. It’s a guardedness that we’re not used to seeing from Yeo-jin; when Si-mok met with Choi Bit at the start of the episode, he describes Yeo-jin as someone who “opens up easily”, even if she doesn’t “blindly trust or respect just about anybody”.

While Yeo-jin is evasive, Si-mok is more willing to be vulnerable in comparison. His openness isn’t surprising, given that Si-mok has shared more about his life and thoughts with her than with anyone else, but it is still heartwarming to see. Instead of brushing off Yeo-jin’s comment, he tells her about his dream of the prosecutors from the Western Office. For anyone else, this might not seem like a significant conversation topic, but for someone who hardly ever dreams (which Si-mok mentioned in S1), it feels like he’s sharing something special with her. This dream, and his factual recounting of it, seems to be a means for his brain to process the traumatic events of two years ago.

Before Si-mok tells Yeo-jin about his dream, there’s a quick insertion here – a lament about seeing your boss in your dreams – that suggests that she is still troubled about Choi Bit, more than she’s letting on. Again, Si-mok doesn’t push her to elaborate, though I think he’s been absorbing all the things that seem off with Yeo-jin since she arrived. Yeo-jin proceeds to analyse his dream in her head, but doesn’t verbalise her interpretation (that Yoon Se-won might be considering suicide, since he went off in the same direction as two characters who have both passed). As she’s deep in thought, Si-mok tilts his head questioningly at her; she says that he probably won’t have time to go anywhere else this weekend, implying that she was thinking of bringing him with her to visit Yoon.

Knowing that Si-mok won’t be able to come with her, however, leaves Yeo-jin resigned. As she announces, “All right, then,” I wonder if this is the moment that she’s choosing to steel herself. The two people she treasures and respects most in her life (Si-mok and Choi Bit) are disappearing from it, and she will have to learn to move forward without them.

Now, we come to their toast. In the corresponding scene in S1, their toast is bittersweet, but has a sense of resolution; upbeat piano music plays in the background as Yeo-jin says, “Goodbye, I won’t be able to see you off,” while Si-mok echoes that with, “Good luck in your new position. Sorry I can’t attend the ceremony.” In S2, the music is quieter, and much more sombre – I’ve been describing it in my head as ‘breathy sad wooooo music’ – even as Yeo-jin laughs and says, a little helplessly: “It feels like we keep repeating this.”

Si-mok, on his part, doesn’t even echo her laugh with anything more than the barest smile. Instead, he says, with a deep sincerity: “Take care, Senior Inspector Han.” As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways that they could have written or played this scene to convey even a little more resolution – choosing different music, or having Si-mok smile along with Yeo-jin, or even giving Yeo-jin a bit more notice of his departure so that she can prepare a gift (as if to say, she doesn’t draw as much these days, but she would for his sake). But the viewer is made to feel all of their reluctance, even sadness at this separation, even if those feelings are hidden beneath pleasantries. “Well, I guess I’ll be okay,” Yeo-jin says, as if there’s a possibility that she won’t be – that this is something she has to recover from in the future.

Si-mok considers her words, her phrasing, her demeanour, tilts his head at her again and says: “Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

This, above all other lines, shows how much Si-mok has grown in the past couple of years because of Yeo-jin’s influence. Whereas he started S1 cold, guarded, and isolated from the rest of his colleagues, he has arrived at a point where he has cultivated enough of an emotional sensitivity to ask her this question – to show her care, just as she has shown care to him and other people around her. I’d even venture to say that Si-mok feels, himself, that there’s a chance he won’t be as okay with their separation as he might have been two years ago. In 2x05, during the conversation with Seo Dong-jae outside the prison, Dong-jae asks Si-mok: “You don’t feel a tad bit sad even if you’re sent far away, do you?” Si-mok answers, “No.” That doesn’t feel so definitive anymore. There isn’t anything either Si-mok or Yeo-jin can do, given that they both prioritise their careers and understand that these careers follow a certain trajectory, but parting feels a little bit harder this time.

Yeo-jin answers Si-mok’s question as reassuringly as she can, with an adorable smile and shake of the head; she lets out an “ah” after she downs her soju, as if to reorient herself. Yet, her cheerfulness in the rest of the scene – her excitement at the food, her over-enthusiastic chewing – rings empty as the sombre music continues to play in the background. For perhaps the first time in the entire series, there is something about Yeo-jin that seems feigned. Strangely, it is Si-mok’s blank expression that represents the more authentic emotion in this scene – communicating the very resignation that Yeo-jin must be feeling inside, beneath a facade that might read as comical in any other context.

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?” is, in fact, the last thing that Si-mok says in this whole scene, despite quite a few more lines of dialogue from Yeo-jin. The way he looks at her for the rest of the scene, though, is charged with meaning. It seems to say: ‘I don’t really believe that you’re okay, but I’m going to give you space because I can tell you don’t really want to talk right now.’ It’s not as if Yeo-jin hasn’t confided in him before – their phone call in 1x15 was especially intimate – so it’s not that Si-mok is incapable of listening to her. Still, he respects her choice to deflect, and continues to observe her closely while ignoring the pajeon, even leaning forward right at the end of the scene. This very overt concentration on her is something we’ve never really seen from Si-mok before; even in the rooftop scene in 2x06, which is probably the most loaded scene they share after this one, they’re standing beside each other and rarely make eye contact. Here, his focus on Yeo-jin is palpable.

As much as this scene felt heartbreaking to me (thanks breathy sad wooooo music), it actually left me with a lot of optimism for the development of their relationship in the future. Lee Soo-yeon has said that she has enough material for five seasons of the show, and while I’m not so sure we’ll get as many seasons as that, it feels like she’s pushed Si-mok and Yeo-jin out of their comfortable friendship – planting the question, “is there a chance we won’t be okay?” I wonder if we’ll see something quite different in the third season (which is apparently in discussion!), which surely won’t see them on opposing sides again.

I’ve been burned by enough ships that can potentially be read as ‘platonic’ to know that I shouldn’t hope for any overt romance, but Si-mok is such a unique character and has such a unique connection with Yeo-jin that I’m hopeful that their relationship could be deepened with nuance, even if it doesn’t become romantic in ‘recognisable’ ways. (I have other thoughts on his asexuality/aromanticism that I won’t get into here.) It’s precisely because their connection is built on mutual trust, respect, and understanding that it remains so compelling, and I think this scene promises growth, and some resolution, whenever we see them next.

#tvn stranger #secret forest 2 #stranger 2 #stranger #hwanghan

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symphonyofthewrite · 3 years

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Saw your post, getting stuff off your chest, I just wanted to say that I haven't seen the thing with the kids mentioned by anyone and it really stood out to me, I feel what you mean to some extent, because for me it was a stronger reaction, albeit you probably won't feel the same and that's, obviously, perfectly fine. I have an instant recoil these days whenever a character is around kids for like one second and everyone instantly goes "THEY LITERALLY ADOPTED THEM/THAT'S THEIR CHILD/THEY'RE A PARENT"... genuinely sick of it, and I went white as a sheet when I heard it, I wanted to pluck my eyes out. I don't know if it's an American thing but English speaking fandoms (well, those teeming with fancops that is) seem like they cannot process adult looking characters being in any near proximity to childlike characters without automatically imposing parenthood and family dynamics and it's becoming distressing to me. I feel like Alucard needed to process his trauma and learn to trust and be whole again, he's young himself too, why he needed to be a "father figure" all of a sudden is beyond me.

Thank you so much for the ask!! I don’t get many asks so it makes me happy when I can talk meta with people 💛💛 (Sorry I’m a bit late in answering.)

Funnily enough I actually do agree with you. I didn’t have quite so strong a reaction, but I definitely had a very similar one when I first hear it.

My feelings were and are a bit mixed. I was saying in my other post that I would have preferred that I got to actually see this interaction; see the kids run by him and call him father, and him smile when no ones looking. I still think that would have been a better, more touching way to do the scene, and would have had more chance of me liking it (though I probably still would have felt very weird about it). (I think it especially would have been better because it would show that Alucard himself liked it, not that Greta was forcing the role on him.) I know that it was meant to be something touching, and pretty much everyone seems to like it (and I have seen some cute posts about it), so I just tried to like it too, and focus on the fact that all they were really trying to say was he was having a nice relationship with the kids, and that was indeed sweet.

But yeah, when I heard Greta say “I heard some of them calling you father” for me it was less a reaction of horror, and more a “HUH??!!”moment. When I heard it I was like “Alucard...you agree with this???!! This is how you see yourself??!!” I almost expected Alucard to refute it and say he didn’t see himself as a father to them. Like I seriously do not see Alucard as anything remotely close to a father figure, and it felt weird and wrong to me.

Like when I saw him interacting with the kids the first time, I didn’t think “oh he’s a father figure to them.” I just thought “yay, Alucard’s playing with some kids, and getting out of his bubble!!” I didn’t have any thoughts as to what his relationship role was with them, I just thought that first interaction was lovely.

And if I saw him interacting with the kids again, I still wouldn’t go “father figure” I’d just be like “yay, Alucard’s playing with the kids again, how sweet!!”

Sometimes the relationship doesn’t need a role or a label, ya know?

And I thought it was especially strange because…he literally just met them?? Like how can they possibly start calling him father when he’s played with them once or twice? Regardless of Alucard’s side or things, what group of kids would randomly call a nice man they just met ‘father’? Is...Is this a normal thing??

Anyways, back to Alucard’s side of things, Sypha’s line about Alucard being a teenager trapped an adults body has always been something that stuck with me and shaped how I view Alucard. I definitely view him as internally much younger than he looks. No matter how much I might hate them for what they did to him, I think Sumi and Take are about the age he actually is, and their relationship with him made sense to me. He’s still a kid—or at least young—he still needs his parents in his life, really. (That’s part of why I didn’t like that Drac and Lisa don’t go to him at the end. I personally don’t think Alucard really got closure, and in my mind I think he still very much needed them, and that would have been the perfect ending to his story in my mind, where everything comes full circle; He was forced to lose his parents and grow up too early, and only when he’s started to truly grow up does he get them back.) So yeah, I really don’t see him like a father at all. One of my main focuses in my Castlevania fanfiction is his relationship with Dracula, so I very much see him as the son, not as the dad, even when Drac isn’t around.

(Sidenote, come to think of it, I think this is another reason why Greta x Alucard is a nope from me. She’s very much an adult, so I just see a discrepancy between them that makes me feel weird about them being in a romantic relationship. If we need a label I feel like she fits as an older sister for him, guiding him and giving him support. Him unloading all his problems on her within just meeting her makes more sense if he’s like a younger brother who needs to cry to his sister. I felt weird about it in a romantic context when it was so fast. I mean I know he was desperate to talk to someone, and I probably would have done the same, but still).

“I feel like Alucard needed to process his trauma and learn to trust and be whole again, he's young himself too, why he needed to be a "father figure" all of a sudden is beyond me”

^^ THIS. EXACTLY THIS.

I was honestly really hoping they’d go in depth into him dealing with his trauma, and how he’s still hurting from the wounds of it, and how he needs to heal. I thought that’s what his S4 arc would be about. I don’t think they gave him the chance to really process and work through everything that happened. (Again, I don’t think him just unloading all his problems on a nice stranger is truly working through his trauma. I would have much rather watched him struggle to trust her, and him telling her about his trauma happen later, and be difficult for him, and a deep, heartfelt moment).

Like I was saying in my other post, I think if they framed his arc in how he dealt with the town collectively, I think that would have fit better, and been more touching and satisfying. I would have liked to see him struggling to trust humans, and then see as time progressed how several different people in the town liked him and meant him no harm, and how he realized he could trust them, and that he liked them too. It wasn’t that he had a bad romantic partner and needed a new one. He believed he needed to be punished for killing his father, and in his deep loneliness he let these kids into his house and heart, and they turned on him because he was half vampire. That’s something pretty deeply ingrained, and not something a new romance just fixes by existing. He needed to work through that in a much deeper way.

I know this is gonna be a very unpopular opinion, and it's totally cool if you disagree, but in a weird way... I sort of disliked Alucard’s ending. Don’t get me wrong, Im glad he’s happy, and I’d certainly prefer it to him just getting more trauma like last season (*shudders*), and I don’t think him opening up his castle (and his heart) to humanity is a bad way to end his story, certainly not. I think that fits. And my heart did melt a bit at the "I'm weirdly happy" scene. But, where everyone else is like “*sobbing* happy endings for all our faves” ...I see the creators of the show trying to wrap everything up in a neat little bow, and while that’s certainly not all bad, I don’t love every aspect of that. Theres a time and place for that, but a show based on video games, for which there’s more content in these storylines isn’t one of them in my mind.

Sometimes some of the sadness needs to linger. At the very least, let it linger at the beginning of the season so you can work through it in a powerful way, you know? It may have been tough to see Alucard be more closed off, but I think it would have been more satisfying to see him open up his heart and go back to his old self if we saw his trauma leave lingering effects at the beginning.

To me it didn’t feel like a satisfying arc, it felt like the fairytale ending of “oh look he’s not apprehensive about humanity even after what happened! Oh look he got the girl! And the Castle’s a happy place now! Look he’s not sad anymore! He’s even a father figure to these kids! He’s totally moved on!” And all those things can be awesome when done properly, and when they have depth to them. But they didn’t work through the trauma to get there, so it felt surface level to me, and too fast. I really liked that first episode, and how we saw the two sides of him—one that's become more closed off, and the other that still buries the human despite his comments—and I also really liked the first interaction with the kids, and thought that was one of the few interactions that had depth to it and fit with his arc well. Having it go beyond “they’re helping him learn to like and trust humanity again, and displaying who he really is inside” ended up detracting from the power of his relationship with them in my mind.

Having played SOTN, I think an ingrained loneliness and sadness are, in a way, a key part of Alucard’s character. That sounds really sad and awful out loud but…there are some people that just have a sadness or a loneliness to them, and that's not entirely bad. Here’s the thing…it can make them that much more beautiful. The fact that they still fight for good, even when they see all the dark, those moments when they find true friends, despite how alone they are, those moments when they are happy, are so much more powerful. They just are always a bit…separate from other people. One of my favorite lines in anything is the line "We are connected by our darkness, not by our light" in Pandora Hearts. I think it's a line that fits Alucard well, and it’s always something that’s drawn me personally to him. Don't get me wrong, I don’t think Alucard’s all dark and sad and lonely, he’s definitely got a bright side to him too, of course he does. But I also don't think he ever is able to fully accept the vampire side of himself, and I find that interesting, and worth exploring. Personally I was honestly hoping for the show makers to come up with a bittersweet reason for why he went to sleep for 300 years, (and I thought that's why they set things up with Sumi and Taka that he’d have something against his vampire nature). Personally it felt like they were trying to say “oh he’s all better now, he’ll never be sad or lonely again” and while that’s nice I suppose…for me it sort of…stops feeling like Alucard, in a way? I don't know if I'm explaining it right, or if that sounds terrible...😅

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I do agree that’s very common of fandom that people are like “boom! Just add water! Instant father figure!” and I don’t love it either. Sometimes it can be cute if it truly fits, but it doesn’t fit every relationship between an adult-looking character and a kid character, and shouldn't be the first place people go to. In the same way every relationship doesn’t have to be romantic, not every relationship has to be parental/familial either. Sometimes it feels like fandom culture isn't really okay to have some characters just be good friends. A good friendship can be more wonderful than a romance sometimes.

If we have to put a label on it, I think he seemed like a nice older brother figure to them? I think that fits who he is in my mind. But father? Nope. Not for me. And again, I don’t think it needs a label.

Thanks again for sending me this ask!! It was nice to get the chance to work through some more of my feelings here too. Sorry if I went too overboard. And I hope I don’t sound too terribly negative, it really was a great season, and I definitely liked some parts of his arc, just not all of it.

If you or anyone else reading would like to discuss with me more, be my guest!! 💕

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misterewrites · 3 years

Text

Intro to.....????

Hello everyone! Been awhile. It's been busy and really hot for me so it's hard for me to sit down to write sometimes.

But it's here!

E here with the next chapter and the final intro character chapter! The intro chapters were supposed to introduce everyone to the main and important characters of the story, who will be driving the main plots and stories though sometimes i might use new characters or different background characters. So beyond this chapter will be more worldbuilding, story arcs and oneshots. just stories about this world and its characters. I might even use some of my friends ocs i accidentally convinced them to make for my world. It was so much fun!

Alright that's it for me! Stay safe, wash your hands, wear your masks, take care of your loved ones, get vaccinated if you can, push to release the vaccine worldwide and have a great week! Enjoy! feel free to leave likes, feedback *I love feedback and comments even if it's just a line you liked or a scene you found awesome or funny* reblogs and tell your friends! Promoting myself still feels weird haha. E is out! Byeeeeee

If you want an easier time to read the story and since I’ve been shadow banned from tumblr for like ever now, here’s the newest chapter on ao3 right over here!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/82583164

If you are interested in my work and want to read from the beginning check it right here https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/75486005

Interested in my full catalog? https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrE42/works

Summary: Jackdaw is a powerful crime lord in the magical side of Newton Haven. He is feared more than respected and he doesn't care who he has to crush to accomplish his goals. So when his lucrative club is burned to the ground with his guards piled neatly outside, battered broken but alive, he takes it personally. Of course who is crazy enough to burn down a club of a notoriously dangerous crimeboss? A mercenary paid to do so.

Obviously.

----------

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

The sound of footsteps pacing back and forth thundered throughout the silent room.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

No one said anything. No one could say anything given the disastrous failure of the night. It hadn’t mattered if they were physically present at the site of offense or that they were scattered across town in one of many locations vital to the boss’s business: Someone hit them and the boss was itching to hit back.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

“Alright” A voice spoke up, smooth yet cold.

The room was already quiet but now the air filled with a frighten tension.

The boss whirled around from the massive window he’d been staring out of, eyes narrowing on the defeated group of guards who averted their gaze from his.

The few still conscious were in varying states of dishevel and injured: Broke bones, nasty bruises, clothing ruffled and torn in places. Not a single one had gone unscratched from the assault on the club earlier that night.

Jackdaw was not pleased.

No one in the room knew much about their boss despite devoting their lives to his cause: He was in his mid 30’s, his nose uneven after being broken in a fight though no one could agree what he had been fighting. Long wavy raven black hair ran down his shoulders while his dark brown eyes glanced about, icy and piercing.

“I’m a little confused.” Jackdaw said with a menacing drawl as he approached the closest guard “Mind answering a few for me?”

The guard nodded shakily.

Jackdaw smiled, patting the guard’s cheek in a mocking manner “Good, good. Now let me paint the picture: My club is currently a smoky, charred corpse of its former self. Yes?”

The guard gave another timid nod.

Jackdaw puckered his lips thoughtfully “Okay, okay. How many guards on duty?”

“8.” The guard murmured fearfully.

“Okay. How many standing?”

The guard shot a nervous glance to the other three. They found the floor more interesting.

“F-four.”

Crack!

The guard’s limp body tumbled backwards and laid still on the ground.

Jackdaw flexed his fingers “Wrong! I count three. You!”

The next in line flinched but stared their boss in the face “Sir?”

“Since that one.” Jackdaw lazily motioned to the unconscious man “is sleeping on the job, you tell me what happened.”

“O-okay.” The next in line mumbled “Well the night started same as any other….”

----------

The Gray Waves nightclub brought in a decent crowd for a weekday: Dozen or so people lost in the dim shadows with only a disorienting array of ever changing lights for company. Drinks served and the booming, thundering sounds of music set the chaotic mood clubs thrived on.

Nice peaceful night.

Floyd, the current storyteller, had been watching from the second floor landing when he noticed the gathering of guards below. The eight guards on duty were often out and about performing their different duties ranging from gate keeping the door to making sure nothing disturbed the vibe of the club. The fact five of his coworkers were huddled together should’ve been the first red flag.

The group talked in hushed tones despite the deafening bass and techno music the DJ’s speakers blared out. Once or twice, someone glanced to the far end of the club. Floyd looked and found the source of meeting.

Someone in their forties was loudly drinking at the counter tucked in the shadowy part of the club: It was impossible to tell who they were from this distance but they clearly were enjoying themselves: Head tiled back with messy, wavy salt and pepper hair. They gestured to the bartender (A wonderful woman named Carolyn who unfortunately had school debt to pay off and mob work was the best paying.) excitedly as their drink spilled onto the floor. They wore a large, tattered dark green trench coat that had seen better decades with faded worn out blue jeans. Their black boots were caked with grime and dirt that dirtied the floor. The only thing remotely new was their black t-shirt with some words in white font.

Floyd understood what the problem was: Clubs thrived on their popularity and image. People wanted to feel like they were special, all access stars to the hottest place in the city. With such a reputation came a mighty need to uphold said rep. No offense to whoever was having fun over there but with that look, it might send the wrong message and no amount of cash would ever change that.

Evidently a plan was reached as the meeting broke up. Two guards remained behind, returning to watching the room as the pit boss made his way over to the hapless customer, flanked with back up.

It was oddly satisfying watching the pit boss work: He gracefully slid in and out of crowds, slipping through the lost dancers like a snake treading through water. He motioned to the others to wait then made his way to the person.

The person was singing something at the top of his lungs. Drink, clink or something like that. Maybe it was the song playing at the time but Floyd hadn’t been paying attention to that at the time.

Trench Coat slipped Carolyn something and she laid a bottle of alcohol on the counter beside them: Vermouth? Absente? Vodka? One of those probably.

She nodded gratefully and disappeared into the back.

Floyd frowned at the red flag number two he had just seen: Carolyn was a pretty woman and was told more or less to just do as the customer asked be it answering questions or a reasonable request that wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Of course this was with the strict rule of not to leave the counter unattended.

At the time Floyd thought it was weird, not yet realizing what was about to unfold.

The person poured the bottle directly into their mouth, shaking their body to the catchy beat poorly. Whoever they were could not dance to save their life.

The pit boss, Malcolm, closed the distance between himself and his prey. He snuck closer and closer, the unaware customer too lost in their antics to noticed. Malcolm reached out for their shoulder and…

The thud was loud enough to cut through the noisy club and got the attention of everyone present.

Before Malcolm could even tighten his grip, the person struck: They whirled around, grabbing Malcolm’s head and smashing it into the counter. As Malcolm sunk to the floor, limp and unmoving, the person turned to shoot a smug grin towards the guards.

“I’m on the floor, floor! I love to dance!” They sang, one hand outstretched to the sky, the other gripping the bottle upside and draining its contents onto the counter.

The back up drew their weapons, standard issue nightsticks, and made their way forward.

“So give me more, more, till I can’t stand.”

They emptied the bottle, their green eyes never leaving the approaching guards.

“Get on the floor, floor, like it’s your last chance.”

They chucked the empty bottle into the wall of drinks, broken glass and different alcoholic drinks spilling onto the floor and mixing together.

“If you want more, more, then here I am!”

They pulled a match from within their coat pocket and lit it with the backside of their boot. Without looking, they threw the match over their shoulder and smiled as a raging flame broke out behind them.

The club goers were slow to realize what was going on but the remaining guards, Floyd included, mobilized to action.

Before anyone could react, however, an unexpected shrill shrieked throughout the building: The fire alarm designed to be the most annoying and loudest thing you’ve ever heard.

Even though it had been a slow night and only a dozen or so people were here, the customers panicked with a surge of three times that number.

Screams and yells filled the air as bodies shuffled about in a mad dash. The guards were thrown about, tossed this way and that while the lights, alarm and music worked together to confuse everyone.

Luckily the club was deserted within moments, leaving only security and the troublemaker.

The person hadn’t moved an inch despite the increasingly raging blaze behind them.

The back up pair approached carefully, unsure what this person was capable of.

All of them really had no idea.

The person raised their hand to the sky, belting with full force “LET’S DO THIS ONE MORE TIME!”

Without warning, silence and darkness filled the club: The fire alarm and music died suddenly. The lights followed a moment later but the raging flames, growing hungrily, remained. Floyd’s eyes watered with a sharp pain, the stuffy air and sudden shift in lighting too much for him

Floyd paused his story, uneasy growing at the sight of Jackdaw’s tightened jaw. The poor lad could actually see the veins pulsing with barely contained rage on his boss’s forehead.

“And why did the power go out?” Jackdaw asked through clenched teeth “No one was watching the power? Or the fusebox? Not a single person was guarding what I pay them to guard?”

Floyd remained silent, unsure how to answer that. He was just one of the lower rank and file guards: He got told what to do and he did it.

“Well? I’m waiting Floyd my boy! Why did the power go out?”

Floyd felt the beads of sweat run down his neck.

“Umm sir?”

Floyd nearly collapsed as one of Jackdaw’s techies nervously stepped forward, a loaded video on a tablet in hand.

Jackdaw blew a loose strain of hair out of his face and took a moment to slick back his hair. The vain gesture was enough to allow him to regain some level of composure as he snatched the tablet from the techie. With a grunt, he pressed play.

The video was short: It was a camera feed set up to watch over the fusebox to prevent tampering. Two guards were gesturing to the box, idly chatting with somebody in a red jumpsuit with a clipboard in one hand and a toolbox in the other. The back of uniform had the words “Newton Haven City Maintenance” scrawled across it in some rather hard to read font. The guards laughed out loud, jokingly patting the stranger’s shoulder before leaving frame. The city worker opened the fusebox and began tinkering without anyone stopping him.

The tablet crunched nosily as Jackdaw’s grip sent a ripple of cracks across the screen.

He turned to the techie.

“It was a routine check up.” the techie sputtered out “Our guards called it in this afternoon. Said there was an official letter with stamps and signatures and everything!”

“Did you check with me?” Jackdaw snarled “Because I pay the city specifically so they don’t send anyone to the club. Because of my illegal business practices that I perform there.”

Floyd could see the techie’s shoulder slump, whispering quietly “You were in a meeting….”

Jackdaw growled furiously but returned his attention to the nearly broken tablet.

It hadn’t taken more than a few minutes for the mysterious city maintenance worker to finish. They slammed the fusebox closed, doing a little jig before checking the contents of their toolbox and went on their merry little way.

Jackdaw’s blood froze as the figure gave a cheeky wink to the camera, knowing exactly where it was despite the magical wards in place to keep it invisible.

“Savant.”

An eerie emptiness replaced the hostility in the room.

The fight disappeared out of Jackdaw, leaving only an intense sense of dread and paranoia.

All this was lost on Floyd, who saw the troublemaker’s face and couldn’t help but blurt out “That’s them! The one who beat up Malcolm and burned the club down!”

Jackdaw chuckled darkly “Oh. Oh this makes sense. No one wonder you all get your ass kicked six ways to Sunday. Someone sic’d Savant on me. Ya’ll never had a chance against them.”

Floyd shuddered, the memory of how brutal and efficient Savant had been against them: Grown men dragged kicking and screaming into the shadows, the crunchy noises of bones broken, bodies falling down and yells stopped mid-shout. He still remembered Savant standing over him, nightstick in hand, whistling cheerfully as they brought down the weapon and sent him into unconsciousness.

“Alright!” Jackdaw clapped his hands “Lock it down!”

Everyone glanced towards one another, unsure what exactly the boss meant.

“LOCK IT DOWN!” the snarl that escaped Jackdaw’s lips sent goosebumps down everybody’s spine “NOW! I WANT THIS PLACE SEALED UP NICE AND TIGHT!”

“But we’re 14 stories up...”

Techie flinched as Jackdaw whirled around, eyes blazing with unrestrained rage and impatience “You deaf? I said lock down the building or so help me I’m going to use you as a human shield when they start coming for me.”

Techie opened his mouth when an unexpected sound filled the silence: A muffled, cheeky yet tacky melody of a cellphone ringing.

Glances and gazes looked about trying to find the source of the disturbance. Floyd was baffled when he realized it was coming from inside his coat pocket. Nervously, he reached within and slowly pulled out a palm sized flip phone, the kind hadn’t been used in decades.

Jackdaw’s eyes widened with fear and alarm as he snatched the phone from the poor guard with inhuman speed.

“It’s them!” Jackdaw’s voice was manic “IT’S THEM!”

The mobster was torn about what to do next: Answering meant playing right into Savant’s hands and whatever the mercenary had plan. On the other hand, not answering would no doubt annoy them into far worse retaliation.

With a hard shallow, Jackdaw answered with an uncharacteristically shy “Hello?”

He could feel his heart screech to a stop when a bored, almost nonchalant voice replied “S’up.”

Jackdaw threw as much charm and cheer into his voice “Savant, buddy! Pal!”

“Don’t.” the voice sighed tiredly “It’s pathetic when the begging start. You’re a big, bad mob boss. Act like it you dumbass.”

“Fine” Jackdaw let go of any sense of civility “Good old threats: if you so much as show your face around…”

“Ugh too much in the wrong direction” Savant replied, seemingly uninterested in what the mob boss had to said “You people are all the same: False bravado and overcompensating. It’s embarrassing. Just say you’re scared of me and we can move on.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Jackdaw couldn’t help but feel irritated “Oh is that what you want? Get your jollys when powerful people admit they’re afraid of you? You think you can….you can…”

Jackdaw paused, unsure if his ears were working correctly.

“Are you eating?”

“Hmm??” the sound of smacking lips and chewing was the mercenary’s response for a few moments “Oh yeah. Get hungry when working. Normally I’d be all for the theatrics but it’s been a long night what with fucking with your fusebox, burning down your club, planting the phone on a guard. It’s like 3 in the morning dude.”

Jackdaw bit his lip angrily, a single drop of blood running down his chin “It is 3 in the morning and I’m very tired so I’d very much like to conclude our business. How much?”

“To hire me?” more lip smacking “An amount. You could probably afford it.”

Jackdaw let his shoulder’s sag with relief “So it’s agreed? I’ll hire you and we can all be on our merry way.”

“Sure!” Savant said cheerfully.

Bullet dodged.

“You can hire me after I finish this job. By the way did you like the gift I sent you?”

Gift?

Jackdaw was a powerful and feared member of the illicit side of the magical world. He climbed to his position through sheer force of will and power. He left countless of his enemies broken and defeated in his wake.

To see him reduced to a flailing, paranoid mess would be a story no one would believe.

“GIFT?!” Jackdaw screamed, unable to keep the high-pitch whine out of his voice “WHAT GIFT?! SOMEONE FUCKING ANSWER ME!”

The techie was the first to shake off their stupor “Well there was a box that came in today. It was empty and we detected no magic so…”

“Box?!” Jackdaw spat as he wildly searched the room before landing on the seemingly innocent box just sitting on his desk “You brought it the fuck here?”

Everyone backed away.

“I…”

“Wait” Jackdaw cut off the techie’s answer “Maybe they were hoping you’d take it somewhere or get rid of it. No, no this is good. We’re outwitting the fucker.”

“Sir, the box was empty. And you told use you personally wanted to inspect any and all….”

“You hear that asswipe!” Jackdaw grinned ear to ear “My people are the best! We’re ahead of you. Your game is over, you hear me?”

“My man.” Savant’s voice was infuriatingly calm “It’s just a regular old box for a boring ass mobster.”

“Stop lying!” Jackdaw roared angrily, instinctively bringing down his fist on the closet object in the room.

Which of course was the box.

The parcel collapsed under the mobster’s supernatural strength with little effort. As the box was smashed, the two inert glyph drawn in an invisible ink on both ends collided and activated each other.

The room erupted in an array of dazzling, blinding lights.

The light show hadn’t lasted long but no one knew that as they stumbled around, disoriented and lost, the display still burned in their retinas.

Jackdaw howled violently, swiping at the air blindly with long talon-like nails. Any calls for explanations or help were lost under the raging mobster unleashed.

Jackdaw didn’t hear the window break, the sound of glass shattering as it rained upon the floor. He didn’t see the muzzle flash that flared across the street, Savant’s sniping perch. He knew nothing but the sudden searing pain that filled his shoulder without warning.

Everything drained out of him, he slumped to the floor like a doll. He weakly clutched at his shoulder, steam wafting off the wound as the sliver bullet dug itself deep in its new home.

It didn’t matter what kind of werebeast you were: Wolf, bear, rat or even a raven like Jackdaw. All them were deathly weakened by sliver. The mere smell could cause nausea, touch burned worse than third degree burns and any injuries could take weeks, maybe even months to heal.

Jackdaw wheezed, the room spinning in a messy blur.

“Right.” the phone landed by his ear but Savant’s voice sounded far off like it was echoing down a long tunnel “Sorry I got the paper right here.”

Muted sounds of pockets being turned inside out: Scraping of metal on brick, shuffling papers, even rustling fast food wrappers.

“Got it!” Savant beamed “Quinn says stay the fuck off his turf. Mind your lane or the next time he sends me I won’t be aiming for your shoulder.”

“How did you know I was...I was… no one knew...?” Jackdaw murmured incoherently.

“Your heart.” Savant explained “It’ll be your heart. Okay well I gotta go so take these next few months to reflect on any sort of ill advised turf wars, domestic disputes and fighting with your rivals. If you’re still interested in hiring me for revenge or whatever, you call me at my business payphone. Bye little birdy!”

----------

Savant dropped the phone to the floor, crushing it under their boot while rubbing the tension out of their neck. Around them was the standard stakeout gear: high powered and totally illegal sniper rifle, a neatly piled trash heap and a sniping pillow (Sniping’s hard on the stomach and knees.).

They packed away the gun, kicked the trash heap to make it look more like natural rooftop garbage and went downstairs.

Savant yawned tiredly, not at all concerned with the guards that were pouring out of Jackdaw’s hidey hole. They glanced around, trying to get their bearings when they noticed a hot dog vendor across the street.

“I really shouldn’t” they pursed their lips “Especially after paying for someone to set up the pyrotechnics spells. But I am hungry. Stomach wins!”

Savant made their way over, patting their stomach lovingly “One hotdog please. Everything on it.”

“You got it!” The vendor nodded before eyeing the commotion “What’s with that?”

“I don’t talk business.”

“O-kay. Umm here’s your hotdog. That’ll be two bucks.

Savant reached into their pocket and shoved a hundred dollars into the waiting vendor’s hand. Without a second look, Savant gratefully took the hotdog and walked away.

“Hey buddy! BUDDY! You gave me way too much!”

“You too!” Savant replied, took caught up in the rapture that was their meal.

This was a really fucking good hotdog.

#my work #Original Work #original story #my stuff

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blackchessknight · 3 years

Text

Ever Blue And Red

By @blackchessknight for @michellejones-stacy

This was really fun to write, I hope you like it. The premise is not what I expected to write from your prompts but that’s how creativity works I guess.

This is for the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange

Rating: General Audiences

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark,

Summary: To be fair to Peter, he had never planned to become an Enhanced individual that protected people by being bitten by a radioactive spider and becoming Spider-Man. Really, it made perfect sense that even if he hadn’t planned it, he would turn into a siren at the splash of water by eating a weird-looking fruit he found on patrol.

If anything, it was Mr. Stark and Aunt May’s fault because they made him eat something healthy every two hours. If the rule wasn’t there, he wouldn't have touched the fruit. Ok, that was a lie, he might have tried it just because it looked weird, but maybe somebody would have stopped him from consuming it if he didn’t have the eating rule.

On the bright side, keeping this a secret from them wouldn’t be as hard as keeping Spider-Man a secret, he has experience this time.

Spoiler Alert: He doesn’t even last a week.

Read on AO3

First chapter under the cut

Tail As Blue As The Sky Enveloped In Light

Peter wants it known for posterity's sake that it wasn’t his fault.

The case could be made that it was, indeed, his fault, but no judge had made the ruling and he was sticking to that fact. Not that it does anything to persuade the jury from condemning him to being grounded for two weeks after.

It all started that fateful day on patrol, spring break only a few days away. Sure, Peter had a lot of assignments to turn in, but not anything that couldn’t be done just before it was absolutely necessary. The most annoying were the essays for English and History, but hey, even STEM schools needed their students to course them. Anyways, since Peter would be spending the break over at the Compound with Mr. Stark while Aunt May took the week with her coworkers at the Caribbean-very likely being joined by Ms. Potts at some point- the last weekend hadn’t been a Compound weekend. It’d worked great for Peter, he got to hang out with Ned before the break where the other boy would go see family, and also to spend time with May.

It's a bright April afternoon as he swings from the buildings with not much happening when Peter comes across a small playground area with a few trees and some grass parts. The little park wasn’t rundown or badly taken care of and the trees were already a bright green. A few children call him over and he swings down to greet them. He even takes a few pictures with them.

On his way out of the park he sees it. Lying on the grass under a tree is a weird-looking acorn, it's purple with an orange stripe. Peter walks over and kneels down to pick it up. The texture feels closer to a peach and just as squishy. His senses weren’t going off in danger but it wasn’t like any fruit he’d ever seen in his life.

“Karen?” Peter asks.

Karen takes a few seconds before responding. “I haven’t found a match for it, but it appears to fall under the category of fruit.”

Hhmm. Well, that just made it more intriguing. There wasn’t much that Karen couldn’t identify. If the unknown fruit lasted long enough he could even ask FRIDAY or Mr. Stark about it, maybe run a few tests on it, perhaps he just discovered a new type of fruit. That sets it, Peter’s taking it with him.

Peter sets off to where he left his backpack webbed to an alley wall. He reaches the alley and his backpack is just where he left it, which is great-it wouldn’t be good to ask for another so close to the break, it was already his second one this year. Peter changes to normal clothes and proceeds to set the weird acorn inside the backpack, he doesn’t think anything in his back will squish it. With his backpack set, he begins making his way home in no hurry.

On the way, Peter plans all the assignments he needs to do for the week. It’s still early, he can go home to eat, do some homework and go out again to patrol another hour or two before curfew. There’s that calc and chemistry homework due for tomorrow that he’ll work on today. He’ll eat whatever May left for him, hopefully, she left money for Thai. May isn’t coming home until late, they were spending extra hours at the office before the break, half leaving things prepared for their vacation and half coordinating it. His mind travels to the movie Ned and him saw that weekend and the new Lego set they built. Then it takes him to his break at the Compound where he’ll get to train with Rhodey and work on his web-shooters, he’s also gonna work with Tony on the arc reactor and their prosthesis project. By the time Peter became aware he was already in the front of his apartment building.

Inside their apartment Peter finds out May hadn’t left money for Thai, instead there was a nice healthy meal waiting for Peter to warm up and eat. He supposes he should have known better. Peter shuts the fridge door and turns to his room. When May wasn’t able to ensure Peter ate, and ate something healthy at that, they got him these nice meals prepared from a nice restaurant that Pepper had found near their apartment. They all had him about being in a routine for eating healthy, he hadn’t eaten anything they thought wasn’t good for him in weeks. He was able to have a treat once or twice on the weekends if he had followed through during the week. Peter thought it wasn’t necessary anymore, he was perfectly fine now. He’d learned since his eating disorder started, but just try and get that through to them. Apparently, they had to trust the diagnosis more, which to be fair was really accurate, but still, he thought he was already past that.

Peter sits in front of his desk and takes out his chemistry book and worksheet. Maybe he’ll get hungry after working his mind a little, he begins to work.

The alarm on his watch startles him, a big contrast to the quiet room that makes it sound louder than it is. The alarm is a constant beeping that doesn’t cease until Peter presses the shut button twice, once to know there’s an alarm and a second to acknowledge what it's for.

Mr. Stark set the alarm for him to eat something healthy every two hours. They’d also been on his back about eating often and he usually ate a fruit or a bar. Peter looks around his desk, then his room, and notices there’s nothing of his usual stash. He doesn’t want to get up to get something, usually, there are always things nearby but he probably ate them all.

Peter remembers the weird fruit in his backpack from earlier, sure he wanted to research it but his priorities changed. He still has the analysis from Karen to ask FRIDAY with. Peter opens his backpack and fishes the fruit out, it looks exactly as it had when he found it. He doesn’t know what it is, but Karen said he could call it a fruit and he was allowed to eat fruit, since he also had to eat something he saw no flaw in his logic of eating it. Besides, if Karen said that he didn’t eat anything because he was too lazy to get up he would have Happy babysitting him again. No one wanted that. To Peter, the ends justify the risks.

Peter smells the unknown fruit and it gives no distinctive smell. Before taking a bite, he searches within himself for any signs of danger but when he finds nothing he bites it. It tastes good, feels softer than an apple but not quite like a peach as he’d thought. Oh well, it's still good, really good actually. He goes back to doing homework.

Minutes after his little snack break Peter begins to feel weird, not in a Spidey Sense tingling weird, nor it feels like something is happening to his arm weird, more like the insides of his body feel funny. Peter hasn’t ever felt like this before.

At first, Peter thinks it will go away and continues with his homework, but after he finishes his chemistry workout sheet the feeling has only increased. He doesn’t feel anything wrong though, just... different. He starts feeling a little sleepy, not in the sense that his body is tired, it feels like his own body is telling him to close his eyes and rest a little. So that is exactly what Peter does, he puts away his work, goes to his bed, and rests his eyes. It will only be for a bit, he still has time to go patrol a bit after resting a few minutes.

Those few minutes turn out longer than he thought. A lot longer. By the time Peter is opening his eyes feeling rested and just… different, the sun has already set and the night has fallen. The only source of light in the room is the lights coming from the streets through the closed window of his room.

Darn it! He probably had missed his dinner time! Peter looks wildly until he finds the digital clock on his nightstand that reveals he was still just within his time frame before Karen would alert Tony, or May. He’d been asleep far longer than he'd planned.

Peter is starving like he hasn’t in months, so much so he would eat that flavorless mush of food they’d made him eat that day at the Medbay after their “intervention”. He sets for the kitchen, takes out the plate with his food, and sets it in the microwave as the instructions show in the note.

You would think that Aunt May and Mr. Stark would be lenient that he missed his meal because he was sleeping but that was actually a very important point to them. Once he’d been awoken by a blaring alarm, it had almost given him a heart attack, he had thought it was an emergency, maybe the sky had been falling. It hadn’t been anything alarming other than him missing his snack. And not even mentioning that one time in class where he’d been called to the principal’s office for forgetting his snacks at home and Mr. Morita personally getting him a protein bar. That had been a horrible day. He still couldn’t really look Mr. Morita in the eyes.

The microwave beeped and Peter went to pull out the dish. He grabs a fork and napkin on the way to the couch. Karen may tattle about his food consumption but never where he eats. To be fair, Karen only has eyes in the suit mask, the rest of her input comes from his Starkwatch and Starkphone. Peter’s little humanoid golden robot, that he built with Tony’s help, C3PO, comes forward and sets his little arms up for Peter to place his plate on. Peter turns the TV on and settles back to continue his current series on Netflix.

Peter had been starving and food had never tasted so good in his life. He basically inhales it. Something not as good as he had been told but he was hungry. C3PO leaves with the napkin, the fork and the plate to the kitchen and Peter finishes his episode as he digests his food.

When the episode ends he gets up from the couch and walks to his room. As he walks in he sees R2D2, the little robot he’d made by himself at the lab in the Compound, having what seems his own little party in his room. R2 even has some music to dance with as he moves around the room.

Peter’s idea was to change again into his suit and patrol until his curfew but he feels a tug towards the water. He already did a patrol today, it had been a calm day. Peter decides he’ll settle for the night, finish some homework, and do more time on patrol tomorrow, he’ll make up for today then. Right now he will take a shower and finish his homework for Monday, be free for the entirety of the weekend.

C3 enters the room as Peter exits it to go to the bathroom. Peter might have programmed them with some personality traits reminiscent of their movie counterparts, and it usually ends with a bit of a friendly argument between the two. The good thing is Peter will be away while they do it, the bad thing is he’ll probably still hear them while he showers.

Peter takes off his clothes and sets his hand under the spray of water to feel its temperature. Once it’s to his liking he clambers inside headfirst. The water soaks his brown curls then covers his back. Peter backs his torso so his legs get sprayed with water and the change is fast, so fast it would probably be pretty seamless for anyone else. Peter doesn’t have time to react to the sudden feel of his legs knitting together and turning scaly before he loses balance with a startled yelp. Peter reaches out to the shower wall with a hand and sticks, stopping his fall but the momentum sends his back to hit the wall and Peter slides down, landing on his butt.

He blinks several times as he stares at his legs. Or more importantly, where his legs should be. In their place is a mermaid tail, just like the movies. It's a light blue like a clear skyline in New York mornings, with shiny scales that turn white when the light hits them and see-through red shaded fins. The tail seems to start at his hips but it fades up into his stomach with smaller scales, not a clear cut. Peter can feel the tail, he can feel it as if it were his legs but they feel different.

This isn’t normal, is it? This isn’t some long overdue side effect of the spider bite, right? This shouldn’t be happening, should it? There’s no way this is normal. This has got to be in the Top 10 weirdest things to happen to him. It fights for dominance right up there with the spider bite.

Peter takes a deep breath, he feels the fins and wills one to move as if it were his foot. In front of him, the fin moves. Peter shoves himself back startled, his head hits the other wall of the shower with force and he winces. He brings a hand to rub at his head, even if it doesn’t really make the pain lessen. He makes the other fin move, makes them both move at the same time, makes them move in opposite directions.

Peter stops playing with his fins. Wow, he has fins now, he has a tail. He can move the tail too. He has full control of it. It’s rather flexible too, more flexible than he’s become with his enhancements. Okay, so, he has a tail. He has a mermaid-merman?- he has a merman tail. He has a tail that is blue, and he can move it. It is right in front of him. Peter reaches for the middle of the tail with his finger and pokes it, sure enough he feels the poke, both in the tail and with his finger. It's real.

Alright, cool. So now that the shock has worn off it’s time to figure this out. Does this mean he can breathe underwater? Is he a merman now? Does he have to live in the Ocean? Would a lake suffice? His powers stayed, he was able to stick to the wall. Does that make him a Merman-Spider? Spider-Merman? Siren-Spider? Is he no longer allowed to eat fish? Do mermaids eat fish? Does this mean mermaids are real?

You’re getting distracted, Peter. Focus.

Was he a merman forever now? How did he even become one?

Yeah, focus on that. The how.

This isn't alien tech, that's for sure. He hasn't encountered anyone with alien tech in a while. That’s one out. So then… magic? Was magic real? Were there wizards? Was there actually a school for wizards? Oh gosh, that would be so cool. Like, Wanda Maximoff had magic, right? That's what she used? Or was that something else? It could have been magic, or maybe kinetic energy manipulation, that was also a possibility; but the idea of that being magic was always an option. Wait, he's getting sidetracked again.

Right, what caused this.

Ok, well, it couldn't be the spider bite either, it'd been far too long since and it didn’t make logical sense to be a result of it. Or... it could be if this was the product of a second reactant to the DNA alterations caused by the bite. Like, sure it would be weird to get a tail as a reaction, but so had gaining the powers of a spider through the bite of a radioactive spider; maybe they wanted to gain the powers of a fish and it mutated into a tail. Peter hadn't gone swimming recently and definitely hadn't been bitten by a fish but maybe he had, or eaten the radioactive fish by accident. He shouldn't have trusted that fillet, it had tasted too good. It could also just be a coincidence from another substance, really if this was a reaction he needed to know the second reactant.

Peter sees the water fall and splash on his tail and continue down the drain as he thinks. Water! Peter snaps his head to look at the showerhead. That was the reactant, water! The moment his legs got wet he got a tail!

Ok, so it wasn't a late side effect from the bite. That was good to know. It didn't rule out a reaction from the after-effects of the bite but it did give less evidence in its favour. So far the contenders are radioactive fish, reaction to his spider DNA, and magic. Only one of which Peter actually had knowledge of.

Peter sits up and moves forward to shut the water off. The tail was cool and all but he was kind of stuck in the tub. Peter lifts the end of his tail and moves the fins with narrowed eyes. He moves the fins close to the wall and then touches it, he wills them to stick and they do. Ok, he has better mobility than he thought he would. Feeling excitement fill him, Peter uses only his tail to lift his body and it works. He balances himself on his tail. He is definitely a Spider-Siren. He can stick, has strength, he assumes it also has his superhealing.

Peter grabs a towel from the rack and sits back down in the tub, he starts drying his upper body. The scales shimmer as he moves and Peter wonders if they would look the same dry. He sets the towel around his neck. Peter lifts himself from the tub and sits on the toilet lid, splaying the tail across the bathroom floor in all its glory before he grabs the towel around his neck. Peter starts drying his tail and the feeling is weird, he feels the towel through the scales and it’s closer to feeling something through his nails.

Peter has the sudden urge that his legs come back so he could experience the difference in them. Peter is scrubbing where the body of the tail meets the fins because it feels really good when the change happens. Peter senses the change a second before it happens but he is too confused at his Spider Sense telling him about it to notice what the change is . He lifts his head, dropping the towel, and looks around. Nothing is amiss and the sensation leaves. Peter turns back to pick up the towel and continue, now to try out the feel on his fins when he stops dead on his way to pick it up. His legs are back. His legs are back as if the tail was never there.

Peter pokes his legs, and just like the tail, they’re there. He moves them to make sure he has control over them, he does. He sets his palm on his leg and is surprised to find them completely dry, not even moist.

Peter looks back towards the shower, then he looks to his recently regained legs and back at the bathtub. He turns his head to his legs then the shower. Legs, shower, legs, shower. Peter bites his lower lip.

Like yeah, it could be a fluke and he may get stuck with a tail, but it could also be like his spider powers that he has control of. The tail disappeared when he dried it, it could be that if he gets his legs wet again the tail would return, and then it would disappear when he dries himself again.

What kind of scientist would he be if he didn't test out his hypothesis? He had to try. Besides, the worst thing that can happen is he has a tail, he'll figure it out later if he can’t dry it out. He has a feeling it will work anyways.

Peter fills the bathtub around three-quarters full. This is insane and just the type of experimenting he likes, trial and error. Taking a deep breath, he positions himself above the water holding himself by his arms, legs stretched out in front of him, parallel to the water below. All he needs to do is lower his arms and he will get his legs in the tub filled with water.

Peter lets out a little nervous laugh as he looks at the water. Like ripping off a bandaid. Peter takes another breath, releases it, and lets himself fall in one motion that splashes water over the tub’s edge.

The tail returns and this time Peter knows what he’s feeling. He realizes it's his legs morphing into a tail. It takes his legs a second to become a tail and it doesn’t hurt. It’s not a feeling he can put words to, other than from now on he can call the feeling his legs morphing into his tail. A part of the tail shimmers under the translucent water and his fins stay between water and air near where he thinks his knees would be-his tail is far too long to fit in the tub- while Peter moves it a little. He lifts the end of the tail and lets it smack back into the water, making a big splash that brings a joyous laugh from him. It worked as he’d suspected, the tail appears when his lower body gets splashed with water. Peter lifts himself from the bathtub and sits on the toilet seat.

Peter grabs the towel he first used to dry himself and begins to redry his tail. The same weird feeling of drying his scales returns. Willing his legs back as he dries Peter lifts the towel and grins. Where his blue tail had been are his legs once more.

Peter grins at the water, a rush of excitement cursing through his body. He has a tail now.

Just as abruptly his grin comes it falls and his heart begins to beat loudly in his chest. Oh god, he has a tail. He can't tell Aunt May, she'll freak out and ground him. And he can't tell Mr. Stark because he'll reprimand him, then tattle to May who will freak out and then they'll ground him together.

Ok, ok, ok. He can’t tell them, no big deal. He’s Spider-Man, he’s kept that a secret, he can keep this a secret. He has to figure this out first, then maybe he’ll tell them. If this is reversible they might never find out.

Does he want to reverse this? Food for thought.

He’ll figure all that out later. Right now Peter is going to take a bath, experiment a little, and then him and Karen will have a conversation about how much of a snitch the Babysitter Protocol makes her before starting his investigation.

#the friendly neighborhood exchange #my writing #irondad #mcu #peter parker #tony stark #lab shenanigans #spiderson #facfic #spiderman #iron man

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