#And how that contrasts with both his expectations in the league and his role as the saviour last hope of a whole country | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

junker-town · 2 years

Text

Predicting the WNBA’s big questions for the 2022 season

As the WNBA enters its 26th season, the Chicago Sky look to do what no team has done in 20 years: repeat as champions.

But with the talent pool in the league overflowing — to the point where recent first-round draft picks and rookies of the year can’t even stick on rosters — the competition is tough across all 12 teams. Connecticut and Phoenix will look to avenge their postseason defeats to Chicago, while Seattle and Minnesota have retooled in the (supposed) final seasons of superstars of Sue Bird and Sylvia Fowles.

To try to make sense of what is to come, we asked our staff to make predictions for the 2022 season. Picks are made by Sabreena Merchant, Zack Ward, Avery Wiggins, Eric Nemchock, Cat Ariail, and Ricky O’Donnell. If you’re curious, here’s how we did last year.

Keep up with all things WNBA by following our women’s basketball community, Swish Appeal.

Which 2021 lottery team (if any) will crash the 2022 playoffs, and in whose place?

Avery: The Washington Mystics will bounce back this year with the return of Elena Delle Donne and several new additions. They will take the place of the Dallas Wings in the playoffs.

Cat: Presuming Elena Delle Donne is on the court for the majority of games, it’s gotta be the Washington Mystics. Not only is the 2019 MVP expected to be back on the court, but we also get to see Alysha Clark in DC red, white and blue for the first time. Combined with a continually improving Ariel Atkins, a Myisha Hines-Allen with an expanded role, an intense floor general in Natasha Cloud and a sturdy defensive presence in Elizabeth Williams, among others, Mike Thibault has the pieces needed to vault his squad firmly into the playoff picture. In contrast, questions persist about how the Dallas Wings personnel fits together, which could lead the Wings finding themselves back outside the postseason.

Eric: The Washington Mystics. A lot went wrong for Washington last season, and while the Mystics certainly don’t look bulletproof entering 2022, they’ll have a much better chance at making the playoffs if Elena Delle Donne and Alysha Clark are in better health. A team that could fall out of the playoff picture is New York; the Liberty only barely made the postseason last year and didn’t do much to address their ineffective defense.

Sabreena: The Sparks and Mystics will both join the postseason party in place of the Liberty and Wings.

Zack: I think the Mystics will make the playoffs if Elena Delle Donne is healthy. But for now, I’ll go with the Sparks replacing the Wings. Dallas got better, but LA improved even more with the additions of Liz Cambage, Chennedy Carter, Katie Lou Samuelson and Jordin Canada.

Ricky: It’s a boring pick, but the Mystics seem like the obvious pick among the four teams who missed the postseason last year. Elena Delle Donne can still be one of the very best players in the world if she’s healthy, and there’s more than enough talent in her supporting cast to crack the top-8.

Which player will be a first-time All-Star?

Zack: Myisha Hines-Allen. She made the All-WNBA Second Team in 2020 when there wasn’t an All-Star Game. Her numbers were down last year, but, with Tina Charles off to Phoenix, she will play a big role on the Mystics in 2022, and I expect her to reassume star status. She can play point-forward and do it all on offense.

Avery: Former No. 1 overall pick Sabrina Ionescu will finally take a big leap this year and become an All-Star for the Liberty. She’ll become a more efficient shooter and increase her scoring average and become the kind of star that everyone was hoping that she would be out of Oregon.

Cat: Kelsey Plum has the potential to crash the All-Star party. Coming off a Sixth Woman of the Year campaign and a 3x3 gold medal, and an appearance on Wild ‘N Out, Plum has the public profile, in addition to the on-court production, that often correlates with an All-Star honor. The Las Vegas Aces getting off to a hot start to the season could further enhance Plum’s chances.

Eric: Chennedy Carter. The Sparks showed faith in Carter by trading for her this past offseason, and with world-class frontcourt talent like Nneka Ogwumike and Liz Cambage, Los Angeles seems like the ideal place for the dynamic point guard as she enters her third WNBA season.

Sabreena: I had four players on my WNBA top 30 (check out the full Swish Appeal list!) who haven’t been All-Stars, and the one I had ranked highest was Allisha Gray. Dallas has a ton of guard depth and bigs, but not much on the wing behind Gray. That makes her super important to the Wings, and a strong start after 3x3 success a year ago will get her to the All-Star Game.

Ricky: Kelsey Plum. The former No. 1 overall pick finally lived up to her pre-draft hype in her fourth WNBA season last year. Plum averaged double-figures (14.8 points per game) in scoring for the first time in her career, and did it on impressive 58 percent true shooting. While she’s still projected to come off the bench, there should be more offensive opportunities in Vegas this year with Cambage’s departure. Plum’s three-level scoring ability is as impressive as any player in the league who hasn’t yet been an All-Star.

Who is Chicago’s biggest threat to repeat?

Sabreena: The Aces. I don’t think Las Vegas is necessarily the favorite to win the title, but I don’t like this matchup for Chicago at all. The Aces have strong defenders everywhere on the court and can play a variety of different defensive styles. They also have the size up front to contend with the Sky’s frontcourt. Chicago should hope to avoid Las Vegas in the postseason.

Zack: Connecticut. I think the Sun have the best top 5 in the league: Jonquel Jones, Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner, Courtney Williams and Brionna Jones. I know they fell to the Sky in the semifinals last year, but I think they have what it takes to overcome that mental hurdle and challenge Chicago.

Avery: I know that this is the easy pick, but it is true that the Connecticut Sun are the biggest threat to the Chicago Sky’s chances of repeating. The Sun have the talent that matches that of the Sky. The only questions are can they get it done when it matters and do they have the depth for a deep playoff run?

Cat: It’s the team that Chicago upset in their run to the title: the Connecticut Sun. The Sun have improved their talent and depth and, presumably, learned from last season’s shortcomings.

Eric: The Seattle Storm. It’s a star-driven league, and the Storm have arguably the best duo in the WNBA in Breanna Stewart and Jewell Loyd. With Sue Bird and Briann January likely retiring after the season and a potentially volatile free agency period on the horizon, you can bet the Storm will do everything in their power to win one more ring with their current core of players.

Ricky: Seattle. This pick mostly comes down to Breanna Stewart still being my pick for the mythical title of ‘best player in the world’ + Jewell Lloyd arguably the best second option in the W. Their depth is a bit worrisome, but I’m thinking this could finally be the breakout year for Gabby Williams. Can you imagine Sue Bird going out with a title? It would be a proper ending for an all-time great. We just might get it.

Awards picks: MVP, Coach of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Sixth Woman

Eric: MVP: Breanna Stewart, COY: Noelle Quinn, ROY: Rhyne Howard, Sixth Woman: Azurá Stevens

Sabreena: MVP: Breanna Stewart, COY: Noelle Quinn, ROY: NaLyssa Smith, Sixth Woman: Chennedy Carter

Zack: MVP: Breanna Stewart, COY: Sandy Brondello, ROY: Rhyne Howard, Sixth Woman: Brionna Jones

Avery: MVP: Breanna Stewart, COY: Becky Hammon, ROY: Rhyne Howard, Sixth Woman: Brionna Jones

Cat: MVP: A’ja Wilson, COY: Becky Hammon, ROY: Rhyne Howard, Sixth Woman: Rebecca Allen

Ricky: MVP: Breanna Stewart. COY: Becky Hammon, ROY: Rhyne Howard, Sixth Woman: Kelsey Plum.

Give me one bold WNBA prediction

Cat: Questions will begin to be raised about Sabrina Ionescu and her expected “superstar” upside. At moments, Ionescu has looked like the triple-double queen she was at Oregon. However, largely due to injury and a prolonged injury recovery, Ionescu has not established herself as the “face of the league”-caliber player she is imagined to be. After a healthy offseason and with a new, experienced head coach, the time is now for Ionescu to become that player. If not…

Sabreena: I’m worried about the Minnesota Lynx. I shouldn’t be, considering Sylvia Fowles and Cheryl Reeve are still there, but pinning all their point guard hopes on Odyssey Sims concerns me. Granted, Sims was great in 2019 during her first stint in Minnesota and only really faltered in 2020 after giving birth shortly before the WNBA bubble. But she's the lone lead guard on this roster, and if she plays like she did in Atlanta, the Lynx are in trouble.

Zack: The Liberty will finish in the top half of the league. I picked them to finish seventh last year based on the potential of their big three (Betnijah Laney, Natasha Howard and Sabrina Ionescu). Ionescu had an underrated season last year and is poised to break out even more this year. Plus, the team has added Stefanie Dolson.

Avery: The Aces will the league’s top scoring team. Becky Hammon was an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs under head coach Gregg Popovich, who were known for their team-oriented offense. That, combined with superstars like A’ja Wilson and Chelsea Gray as well as promising young players, should make Las Vegas an absolute nightmare for opposing defenses.

Ricky: The Sparks’ season will mirror the Lakers’ in terms of a star-studded disappointment in LA.

Who meets in the Finals and who wins?

Avery: No surprise that I think that the final two teams will be the Chicago Sky and the Connecticut Sun. It will be quite the battle, but I believe that the Sun will prevail in the end.

Cat: Give me the two teams that experienced playoff disappointment last season in the Connecticut Sun and the Las Vegas Aces, with the Sun, finally, finding a way to win the franchise’s first championship.

Zack: Chicago and Phoenix. I think it will be a rematch of last year even with the Mercury missing Brittney Griner. Tina Charles was at her best last regular season and Diana Taurasi was at her best last postseason. I’m also a big fan of the Sky’s top 7 players, including additions Emma Meesseman and Julie Allemand.

Sabreena: Seattle and Connecticut. As long as Breanna Stewart is around, I’ll keep picking the Storm.

Ricky: Sun vs. Seattle. Give me the Storm and a Hollywood ending for Sue Bird.

0 notes

miss-choco-chips · 3 years

Text

Favorite color

Ever since he was born, his world was filled with colors, a beautiful rainbow at his fingers. He’d look down at them at night, or when his parent’s leaving made him want to cry, or when a horror story told by a classmate in the playground scared him half to death, and find comfort in their silky touch and bright hues.

He was seven when he learned the meaning behind them. And the blaring lack of red signaled the first, but not last, heartbreak of his life.

Blue, green, purple, black… and bright yellow. A teacher, a missed opportunity, a first love, life and death… and friendship. No eternal love for Tim, it seemed.

Well. He hadn’t really expected any different. Who would love him forever, when his own parents didn’t?

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He had forgotten it, and it escaped his notice for many years. Until one night, following Dick Grayson as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, when he noticed his purple string moving in synch with him. Pointing towards his hero, the boy who had given him his very first hug that night at the circus. His First Love, his Not Meant to Be.

That night, Tim packed up early and went home. He just couldn’t stand the red uniform contrasting sharply with his purple thread.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When Dick left, he thought maybe now he could go back to his old habits, to run the streets looking for flashes of the new robin without the baggage of avoiding to look at his own hand.

No such luck.

The green made a whole lot of sense when news of Jason’s death reached him, tough.

It wouldn't be the last night he’d cry himself to sleep, holding the frayed ends of his fated Almost.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Becoming Robin was both easy and painful. Comfortable, because the blue string pointing him towards Bruce meant this was always supposed to happen; heartbreaking, because it took a kid dying. Because Tim might not have a romantic soul mate, but his hands, that had made a green string break to grant him access to the blue path, were stained red nonetheless.

Wearing Robin’s red, with all the hurt and bad memories it carried, felt like a subpar punishment.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Meeting his Yellows almost passed his awareness. In the middle of a crisis, every adult missing, no mentor to guide him, he couldn’t exactly spare a thought for the kids looking shellshocked at him, each other and their hands.

After, when Young Justice was officially formed, he firmly avoided looking at Bart, Superboy and Wondergirl. Their eyes followed him, pleading, but he’d learned no good ever came from strings that weren’t red.

And the red in his soul wasn’t from love.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Despite himself and his best efforts, they grew closer. Life or death situations had that effect on people, after all.

His own reluctance, which had in turn provoqued Kon’s anger, Bart’s dejection and Cassie’s confusion, slowly began to crumble. He was helpless in the face of their unrelenting friendship.

The strings grew shinier, stronger, healthier, the yellow a stark contrast to frayed (dead) green, cold blue, distant purple. Scary black.

Tim still despised the rainbow in his fingers, but… he could maybe withstand the sparks of yellow he’d catch from the corner of his eye, knowing just who were at the other end.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It wasn’t exactly team training. Greta, Anita, Cissie, Slobo and the others didn’t join them, for whatever reason. It was always the four of them, leaning on and learning from each other.

When Kon’s strength frustrated him, when the world around him seemed to be made of bubbles and sea foam, Tim stayed late at night every weekend to help. Every spare moment directed towards coaching him, again and again, through exercises he had to come by himself (Clark was no big help, here), until exhaustion made his muscles tremble and Kon’s anger had burned out from frustration to soft acceptance that he just wasn’t like the rest. Until he could hold still and let Superboy trace the side of his jaw with a careful finger, and exchange proud little smiles when his face remained unbroken.

Bart being raised by video games had the expected outcome; he had little to no practical, day to day life knowledge. He was the closest living thing to a Looney Toon. Which was fun and good when crime fighting, his crazy ideas often saved their ass last minute, but unacceptable if integrating him into society was to be considered. So Tim would take him out, hand in hand so he didn’t forget himself and ran on his own, to leisurely stroll down busy streets, arcades, schools, libraries. Talk to people in parks and visit recreational centers, barter with street vendors and ask the little boy selling flowers on Jump Street how his mother is doing. Whatever Tim could think of that would soften Bart’s cultural shock.

In that regard, Cassie was a godsend. With her own attentive mentor, and raised like a normal girl until she obtained her powers, she was the most well balanced member on their team. Tim had started to feel a little restless (how can he help her, how can he convince her to stay…), when he noticed her frustrated, sad face whenever Donna was mentioned on Tv, when any reporter or older hero compared the two Wonder Girls. Familiar as he was with imposter syndrome, Tim would rest his arm around her shoulders and turn to the rest of the team, loudly reminding everyone to ‘speed up guys, Cassie here’s already done with her training routine’ or slump tiredly against her while complaining about ‘how immature they are, I can’t deal, thank God you’re here to remind me competent people do exist’.

It was familiar, to help them along. To nudge them forward and watch their backs as they went, firmly making their way towards being the awesome men and woman he knew they’d become. Lending a hand here and there, working on steading their foundations, so he’d be remembered fondly when they inevitably took off and went on with their lives.

He was used to that, to looking for ways his fated people would want him around. Being a good brother to Dick, an eager student to Bruce (a good mourner for Jason).

What he wasn’t used to was reciprocation, though.

Tim had learned how to fly from the best, from Dick Grayson himself.The boy with no powers that looked at gravity and laughed, sayed “thanks, but no”. But there were some things only a true meta could experience, ways to move his body just so, to take advantage of wind currents to either speed or slow his movements. Kon also visited him in Gotham, unknowing or uncaring about its meta restriction, risking pissing off Batman himself just to spend time with Tim.

There was Bart, kind, cute, friendly Bart, who would stop eating and playing around to drag Tim to the training grounds and run laps around him, as silently as he knew how. Making Tim used to fighting against someone quicker than him, lighter on their feet. To count incredibly soft steps even when they made no sound, and use other senses to pinpoint exactly where the next hit was going to come from. And after they were done, there was always a warm smile and some sweet treat (always different, as if Bart was determined to figure out Tim’s preferences by trial and mistake), the new knowledge and delicious prize worth the dirt in unmentionable places.

As stated before, Cassie was an absolute godsend. But it wasn’t just because she was easier to deal with than the rest. Or because she understood the pressure he had on his shoulders, being raised in the shadow of two incredibly renowned heroes. When Tim’s position as leader had been taken away (after Bruce’s plans for taking out the league became known, and ‘what if he has the same for us’), she took him aside. Hugging him, promising him the team’s anger was going to pass, that she could see why those contingencies might be necessary, that even if she was officially in charge, she’d always defer to him when it mattered. Her trust in him and his heart was unshakable, firm as the arm he’d put round her when self doubt arose its head.

(It wasn’t supposed to be this way; if they reciprocated, they didn’t owe him, and then how was he supposed to keep them close? To convince him to stay, to love the boy with loveless fate?)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jason was unexpected, but Tim couldn’t hold it against him. Even there, bleeding out in the Tower, he felt… at ease.

His predecessor was back. Bruce’s son was back. The prodigal Robin had returned, by some miracle. Tim’s shift had come to an end; even if he died here, he had succeeded in keeping Bruce sane, and now that the real deal was in town, Jason could take over and everything would go back as it should have been. Everyone (B, Dick, Babs, Alfred) would be happier. Maybe they’d mourn him, for a bit, but with such a joyous occasion as a beloved one returning home, it wasn’t like grief could stay for long.

Someone yelled, near. Warm hands shaking as they touched his face infinitely careful, small fingers intertwined with his in a very familiar hold, a strong and slender arm around his back as he’s being held in a half hug. Cries, pleas, demands.

And while nothingness claims Tim, drags him to a well of black, yellow still clings to his eyelids. A touch that keeps him warm even though unconsciousness is supposed to be so cold.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Death and life. Damian.

Tim can see the first one, what with all of the brat’s attempts to end him. It’s the second one that has him stumped.

He knows not all strings go both ways. His purple one, for example; even if Dick was Tim’s first love, everyone and their mother knew Babs’ was his. Dick had a string pointing towards Tim, but it was a mentor-student one. Same as the one he and Bruce shared. Jason, too; Tim’s side of the string was the green of Almost, while the former Robin’s color was black (Tim taking his place as Robin, and being the only one in the family offering his hand again and again despite his murderous actions, was in some poetic sense the death of an old role, and the birth of a new family dynamic).

Damian, though… Well. He was almost sure they had the same color for each other (how else to explain such dangerous rage), but really, unless the kid was willing to share, it was only suppositions for now.

His only comfort remained the three beams of light, of a yellow almost golden in its healthy shine.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When Tim changed his suit following Conner’s death, everyone thought it was an homenage. A way to pay tribute to a hero that was his closest, dearest friend. A way to never forget (as if he could, ever, with the lifeless line of pale beige, once yellow, dangling from his twitching finger).

They weren’t wrong, but it wasn’t just that.

Red had always pained him, in a deep, almost forgotten place. A thorn on his side, scratching against his heart. For the longest part, yellow had filled him to the brim, until hurt and yearning had no place inside him. With Kon’s warmth missing, red bleed in the place between Cassie and Bart, despite their best efforts to close ranks and keep it out.

Their sad eyes followed him during the funeral, knowing what the color meant to him. Just how much he was hurting himself, right now. But, lost in their own grief, there was little to be done.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

By the time Tim got the call about Bart, he already knew.

He ignored the ringing phone, holding a sobbing Cassie in his arms, both desperately clutching at their only remaining yellow string.

Between the two of them, color like blood seeped.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Every so often, when Ra’s voice in his ear became too familiar for comfort, where lines draw in sand begane to erode and blur, he’d raise his hand, eyes locked on the three yellow strings, and watch as Cassie’s moved, disappearing end pointing always in her direction.

He was fairly sure that, wherever she was, she was doing the same. Reminding herself he was alive as well, hadn’t left her behind.

Her absence from his life was necessary, finding Bruce a priority, and the red of his new suit (his new name) was proof of just how deeply it all ran. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t yearning for her lighter color.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

They were back, and he was hiding.

He wanted to run to their arms, hug them and never let them out of his view, far from where he could protect them (keep them). He wanted Kon’s hand on his face, delicate despite his strength, un-trembling when Tim’s own would softly join it on his check and held it there; Bart’s fingers between his own, too steady and constant for the boy who didn’t know how to sit still; Cassie’s arm on his waist, his own on her back, as they shared the weight of the world in their shoulders.

And because he wanted so damn much, he couldn’t do it.

He was covered in red. His first love discarded him, his Almost died so Tim could have his Teacher, his Life and Death was so heavily focused on the last bit… his hands lacked red, but oh, how much he leaked of it in his soul.

He couldn’t let them die again, be stained by his twisted fate; even if it meant he could’t hold them close any longer.

Letting go was more painful than holding on, but he was used to it by now.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

They find him. Of course they do; even without Kon’s senses, they all have beams of gold pointing them towards him, like Dorothy’s yellow brick road.

Tim knew it, was ready for it. And as such, had prepared the words that would push them away, to where it was safer.

Or so he thought.

“We are not leaving you.”

“Who cares about fate? You are ours, Rob.”

“It’s been long enough, Tim. Time to come home, we are done waiting.”

He denies them, shakes despite his usual iron clad control over his body, heart wrenching painfully at their decided expressions.

“You don’t understand. I’m Red Robin now. I’m not… I’m no good for you.”

“I could literally snap your back with the flick of a finger, shut up with that ‘I’m dangerous’ bullshit.”

“Yeah, even Bart could be dangerous given the right circumstances, you aren’t the only one here to watch for. It doesn’t mean shit to us.”

‘

“That’s right, I- wait, what do you mean ‘even Bart?”

“Not the point, Imp.”

They don’t get it. He takes his mask off, wants to give them a good look at his eyes, to read his emotions there and finally realize what’s wrong about him.

“Almost all my strings have something to do with death, or were touched by it. Don’t you see it?” He raises his hand, despite knowing they can’t see his strings, only their own. “I have no red here, only blood. I can’t… I’m not safe to love. I’ll never be loved.”

Kon snaps, something he had rarely done since their Young Justice days, hands on Tim’s shoulders, seemingly torn between shaking him and pulling him close. The latter wins.

(As it always does)

“This is love, you idiot! WE love you!”

Tim chokes on something (saliva, his own breath, emotions). Gasps, tears coming to his eyes unbridled.

He feels two pairs of arms joining the first one, a cocoon of warmth and unconditional love forming around him.

Bart’s sad eyes watch Tim from under Kon’s hug. “I don’t have red either, Rob. Romantic, platonic, filial… who gives a fuck”, he shrugs, before hiding his face against the red of Tim’s uniform. Uncaring of all it represents for him or perhaps doing his best to defy it.

Cassie just holds them all in the circle of her own embrace, forehead to the back of Tim’s head. Her hold is the tightest, and he just realizes- she lost all of them, didn’t she? To death and grief, all too far to touch, and now that they’re back in her arms, there’s little chance of her ever letting go again.

“Love has more than one form, Tim.”

He shudders in the middle of this weirdly emotional dog pile, and thinks. About Bruce and Dick’s pride when they successfully taught him something new. Of Jason’s reluctant smile when Tim first tugged him along to some joined patrol, sneakily edging him closer to the family with every interaction. Of Damian, who would often look down at his own hands (and Tim would honestly kill someone to know just which color the young boy had for Tim) and then at him, with something like hope in his green eyes.

He thinks… yeah. And this one…

(He gives up, closing his eyes and snuggling deeper into Kon’s chest, knees buckling but staying up thanks to his three rays of sunlight holding him in place between them.)

This one’s shape might just be his favorite.

#my writting #core disaster week #day two #Red string of fate #tim drake #kon el kent #bart allen #cassie sandsmark #bruce wayne #dick grayson #damian wayne #jason todd #angst #you've been warned

133 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 3 years

Text

I love an absolutely unreasonable amount of things about Robin: Year One for something written by Chuck Dixon (and have decided to just go with the conclusion that well, even broken clocks are right twice a day, it is what it is).

But one of my favorite aspects about it is the little throwaway detail that Talia was the one ultimately behind Shrike’s little assassin finishing school for street kids, and my ensuing headcanon that this is the REAL source of conflict between her and Dick, assuming Dick also found out about her role at some point later on.

For Dick, its that like, wow, Vengeance Academy was reeeeeeeally not fun for me, thanks T, but also there’s the unsettling awareness that given where he was emotionally and mentally at the time, it came far closer to swaying his mindset to its way of thinking than he cares to admit. With this translating into his eternal grudge match against Talia.

Its 50% personal (he’s like hello, I was freaking TEN okay, I was kidnapped off the streets after running away and forcibly drafted into bootcamp for tween murderers-in-training, hi, yes, I would like to file a grievance complaint, why is that surprising) and 50% ideological in the sense that even all the way back then, it wasn’t like he was oblivious to the appeal Talia and the school’s way of thinking held, and the vehemence of his pushback against it and everything it represents and everyone involved in it is more than a little bit a forceful point to reject it in defiance of that very same appeal.

For Talia, its that she thinks Dick is an idiot and its a bit about wounded pride, for pretty much those exact same reasons. Talia is not her father, and is more than willing to approach things very differently than he does. Every operation she’s in charge of or AU where she runs the League, the result is a very different creature than what results of Ra’s being in charge. But despite those differences, it is important to note that Talia DOES in and of herself still believe most of the same ideology the League adopts and teaches in turn. She stays not because she HAS to but because she believes in its end goals, in its methodology. Their way of thinking is not without merit, in her eyes, and much of her worldview in terms of how she views power and what one does with it if one has it....she’s not just PRETENDING to think that way to play nice with the League.

Its what frustrates her so much about Bruce - that he can’t see the merits of her approaches, her own ideology, that he refuses to consider that there might be something to her way of things. Or more accurately, its not that he refuses to consider it, its that he DID consider it when he was younger, and discarded it as something not for him, a notion he rejected with deliberation. But as much as this is frustrating to Talia as it so often is what comes between them, she respects it because she respects HIM. She doesn’t like that he won’t bend on this subject, but she can’t precisely say she DISLIKES it either, because someone who could be made to give up his own ideals and accept hers simply because she wanted them to is not someone who would have ever captivated her interest as long as Bruce has.

But that rejection of her own worldview and methods is one thing to see coming from someone you respect and even admire for the steel of their own convictions, a peer, a rival....and another thing entirely to see coming from a ten year old brat that in Talia’s eyes, she was actually trying to HELP, in her own way, by taking this clearly vulnerable and unprotected child (given that there was no one to STOP Shrike from taking him off the streets) and giving him the tools he would need to not only survive in this world but even thrive. She, by way of Shrike, took a kid she saw as likely to just be swallowed whole by the streets and forgotten, and was trying to give him a way to make a difference, live a life of significance, from her POV....and Dick essentially spit on that and said no thanks and also fuck you.

From Bruce, she’ll take that, because she feels he’s earned that right of forceful defiance by way of the long, arduous journey he voluntarily took to become the man he is with intent.....a journey she’s been witness to more than a small part of. From Dick though, there was no way she was EVER going to see his rejection of what she and her perspective had to offer him as anything less than a slight she would not tolerate.....because she wasn’t about to view a ten year old as her peer, as an acknowledged rival the way she does Bruce.

So its that thing where you refuse to accept that a kid might have a point for thinking or wanting what he wants, because you’re the adult and you know better dammit, you have life experience and he still has baby teeth. Ungrateful, know-nothing little brat.

And the thing is, both Dick and Talia are just so freaking STUBBORN that they’ve refused to ever loosen the reins on their particular view of each other, cast eternally in amber from the second they were each respectively made aware of the other’s role or presence in that long ago aborted experiment known as Vengeance Academy.

They still view each other through that same lens, and likely always will, because its just a grudge match for the ages now, they’re each completely certain they were RIGHT to do what they did and feel what they felt about it, and they’re not budging on that. And nothing else about the other or how the other has changed or what they’ve become since that time, even though its been over fifteen years in comic book time since that happened, like....nothing else about the other, no new information or perspective on the other is even filtering through or getting past that initial formed response....because they’re not ALLOWING it to.

They’re both like.....yeah whatever, that’s cool and all, whenever the other does something new that contrasts with their view of them and the expectations they hold for how they’re likely to act at any given time based entirely on those events of fifteen years ago.....

But its in a distracted, offhanded sorta way like they’re not even paying attention to whatever that new action or behavior was, its not even really REGISTERING with them.....because they’re both just like, look, before we pay any attention to literally anything the other has done or accomplished in the last fifteen years, first we gotta settle up on this little matter of Vengeance Academy and the fact that I was RIGHT, and we’re not going ANYWHERE until they fucking admit it.

Bruce: Don’t you two think that maybe, just MAYBE, its time to let that go and perhaps form a new opinion of each other based on, oh, I don’t know....the present day?

Dick and Talia, still deadlocked in a glare: STAY OUT OF THIS BRUCE.

48 notes · View notes

popcornandgreenolives · 2 years

Text

pitch

Series Review (Season 1)

IMDb Summary: A young pitcher becomes the first woman to play in the Major Leagues.

These days, whenever I see commercials on Fox for The Masked Singer or Alter Ego, I can’t help but think, “they keep these shows but they cancelled Pitch?!”

I miss this show so much :(

While some people scoff at the idea of a woman playing in any male professional sport (that’s right, I have seen those asshole comments under the YouTube trailer) I think the show did a pretty solid job in depicting a woman playing Major League Baseball in such a believable way - she may not have had the physical strength, but she had that one special pitch - without it coming off as cheesy or patronizing.

My curiosity for the show was first piqued after having heard MPG on his Saved by the Bell podcast referring to Pitch as one of his most favorite projects that he’s ever done, several times expressing that he thought it was criminally cut short. Well, he wasn’t wrong. I cannot say enough good things about this show – it was so SO good – from the writing, the acting, the attention to all of the baseball-related detail – it just really sucked me in from the beginning and breaks my heart that it ended so soon.

What I liked:

The writing and production value. Is this show a sports drama or a soap opera? At times, I wasn’t sure, but I think the writers did an excellent job of balancing both. It was a believable peek into the inner workings of a Major League Baseball team, and a realistic glimpse into the lives of professional athletes – the challenges and pressure of being a rookie, contrasted by the jadedness of a veteran. The storylines were compelling and only got better as the series went on. That, along with the way that it was shot (the game footage was all shot utilizing the same cameras and angles used during real-life MLB games), the set design (the clubhouse was modeled after the real-life San Diego Padres clubhouse), and the fact that Fox had an exclusive deal with MLB to use their logos and facilities added to the authenticity of it all.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Mike Lawson. Zack Morris may have been trash but Mike Lawson is fire!!! I was completely sold on his portrayal of the veteran baseball player and the range of emotions that someone in the twilight of their career must be feeling – he was egotistical and arrogant, a leader and a mentor, but also emotional and sad knowing his days on the field were numbered. I loved, loved LOVED MPG in this role – he convinced me that he deserves way more credit than for just being a child star - he is a great (and definitely underrated) actor.

Kylie Bunbury as Ginny Baker. With regard to famous people, I always hear cliche stuff about famous people like: it’s not always as glamorous as it looks; there’s a lot more that goes on behind the scenes. The character of Ginny was the epitome of that. From the outside, she seemed to be a rock star, with tons of adoring fans excited at the prospect of the first female Major League Baseball player. But a sudden rise to fame isn’t without consequence (as was represented so well in Episode 6) – she did a great job of depicting the emotional and mental toll of essentially still being a famous kid, chasing the youth that you never had, while balancing the pressure of being in the spotlight and being expected to act like an adult and being mindful of maintaining a public image and being a role model.

Blip and Evelyn (Mo McRae and Meagan Holder). I loved their individual friendships with Ginny – he was one of her oldest friends, and she was her one closest girl friend – as well as how they treated her as part of their family. In the beginning I saw Evelyn’s character as being more of a Real Housewives of San Diego-type, but I was glad to see her evolve from being just a WAG into a more multi-dimensional and business-minded woman. Together, Blip and Evelyn seemed like #couplesgoals – I liked that while she was as supportive and loving as she could be for her husband, his career, and the kids, that it was also shown that it also takes a lot of sacrifice, understanding and flexibility being a wife of a top athlete.

Amelia (Ali Larter). I initially saw her character as mostly being self-serving and only being in it for Ginny’s fame, but as the episodes went on, I grew to like her more and more. With the revelations of Ginny’s mom being estranged, and Will becoming less and less trustworthy, she was like the big sister that Ginny didn’t have but desperately needed. It broke my heart at the end seeing Amelia leaving Ginny behind.

Al (Dan Lauria). He seemed like the grumpy old misogynist who can’t keep his mouth shut at first, but as the series went on, I liked seeing him becoming more and more of a father figure to Ginny – especially after realizing that he himself is a girl dad.

Cara the waitress (Lyndsy Fonseca). I was skeptical that she was going to take advantage of Ginny’s fame and the videos from the house party. But she ended up taking care of Ginny, making sure she got back home safely, and was genuinely concerned for her mental health. She was only in one episode, but I wouldn’t have minded her character coming back had the show continued. She was at heart a good person and I liked the idea of Ginny having one good friend outside of baseball.

What I didn’t like:

The series was short lived and was way too good to have only lasted one season. Given that the final episode ended with several cliffhangers, I was so sad that I will never find out what happens next. Are Blip and Evelyn really in marital trouble? Will Ginny ask Amelia to come back? Was Mike just using Ginny as a distraction from his ex-wife? Will Ginny ever play again? I can’t help but wonder, had the show been in a better timeslot (and not opposite Thursday Night Football) if it could have lasted just a little bit longer.

Other thoughts:

Will (BJ Britt). How did this guy go from being the one person she could trust the most to being the person she could trust the least? I hated how he almost took advantage of not only Blip and Evelyn, but of his own sister.

Charlie (Kevin Connolly). He was so easy to hate – he reminded me of people in high positions that they aren’t qualified for and where they don’t belong.

Mike and Ginny. Ugh, I’m torn because I love their mentor-mentee relationship, and I think it’s probably best to leave it that way because it would be too cliche for them to end up together… but it’s hard to ignore how much chemistry that they have. The tension in episode 9 was too good.

The actors were a bunch of 90’s throwbacks for me. Jack Arnold from The Wonder Years, Eddie Winslow from Family Matters, Matteo Santos from All My Children, Frank Buffay from Friends, and not least of all, Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell.

Mike is very confused – and I guess so am I. Despite kind of wanting to root for him with Ginny, at the same time I definitely felt his pain with seeing his ex-wife move on. And while I get that Amelia was probably a rebound, I kind of really liked them together. I was kind of surprised he ended up breaking up with her just an episode later, then almost immediately went on to stalk his wife’s dinner party, then a few episodes later had a steamy near kiss with Ginny, and then just an episode later he ended up looking to hook up with his ex-wife again. Which is it, Mike?! Make up your mind!

#pitch #season 1 #fox #tubi #television #mark paul gosselaar #kylie bunbury #mo mcrae #meagan holder #ali larter #lyndsy fonseca #dan lauria #bj britt #kevin connolly #series review #animated gif #quarantine life

3 notes · View notes

mst3kproject · 3 years

Photo

The Phantom from 10 000 Leagues

I found this movie online while looking for From Hell It Came (which I haven’t yet found – someday I will and then you’ll all be sorry) and it looked bad, so I checked out the details. Turns out it stars Kent Taylor from The Crawling Hand, Cathy Downs from The Amazing Colossal Man, and was written by Lou Rusoff, who was behind It Conquered the World, The She-Creature, and… oh god, he also wrote Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. This is gonna suck goat nads. I must watch it right away.

You shouldn’t picture me groaning when I write stuff like that, by the way. You should picture me giggling like a maniac and rubbing my hands together with glee.

A monster is killing people at sea near an incredibly bleak and depressing California college town, and the bodies and wrecked boats it leaves in its wake are scorched by radioactivity! Washington sends Agent Grant to find out what’s going on, and he soon discovers that the Pacific College of Oceanography is positively overflowing with suspicious characters. There’s the reclusive and paranoid Professor King, who is working on weird experiments in his locked laboratory. There’s King’s assistant George, who follows him around and hides in the bushes to watch what he’s doing. King’s secretary Ethel blames the professor for the death of her son and wants revenge, and George’s girlfriend Wanda is a foreign agent. Not to mention the visiting Dr. Stevens, a radiation expert with an unsettling habit of turning up just in time to discover the bodies. Someone among this motley crew has created a sea monster… and someone else is planning to sell it to the highest bidder!

You know how some movies save their monsters until the last minute, in order to build suspense? Or because what we imagine is always scarier than what we actually see? Or because the monster sucks and they’re ashamed of it? Or some combination of the above?

Phantom from 10 000 Leagues is not one of those movies. Before we’re even a full minute into it, the monster has appeared on screen in all its ridiculous glory. Stevens calls it a hideous beast that defies description but I think I can make an attempt. It looks sort of like the lovechild of a saber-toothed tiger and the Horror of Party Beach. There’s a ridge down its head and back like an iguana and a poorly-camouflaged window in its neck so the dude inside can see what he’s doing. The whole costume is also rather buoyant, and the actor is having to work hard to stay underwater. Sadly, this beast remains lurking in the depths and never shambles out onto the beach to menace sunbathers, which is the only thing it would have needed to make it a perfect bad movie monster.

The creature is not the only nuclear threat in this movie… or even the silliest one! During an investigatory dive, Stevens discovers a glowing patch on the seafloor which he says represents an ‘activated’ uranium deposit with the potential to form a naturally-occurring death ray! We finally get to see this in action when stock footage of a ship passes over it – and turns into a different ship that immediately blows up! I’m just sad this only happens once. The glowing stone itself is represented by a mirror with a light shining on it in underwater shots, and by the reflection of the sun when seen from the surface.

So the effects are not special and make an already silly threat even more hilarious. What about the story? Like all cheap monster movies, the focus of The Phantom from 10 000 Leagues is not the creature killing people but the investigation into it. There’s a large number of potential monster-makers here, which could have made the movie a bit messy – but by the time the words The End appear, we know who all these people are, how they’re involved, and what they hope to accomplish. Even the women are given distinct motivations and personalities, although those fall neatly into the ‘maiden, mother and whore’ tropes I’ve discussed in the past. The dialogue is not exactly subtle, but it seems like I can’t wholly blame Lou Rousoff for Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.

It’s also nice that, despite the preponderance of White Men In Suits (Stevens and Grant both walk along the beach in suits and ties at all hours of the day and night), the characters all look different enough that I can tell them apart! None of the cast are great actors, with a lot of stilted or awkward line deliveries, but then, a lot of the things they’re saying are completely ridiculous, so I probably can’t lay that entirely at their feet.

Unfortunately, the plot of Phantom From 10 000 Leagues is rather unfocused, and like so many of these films it’s not sure who its main character is. It seems like either Agent Grant or Dr. Stevens, who are each conducting some kind of investigation into the goings-on, ought to be the protagonist… but both are introduced in contexts that make them seem potentially suspicious. Dr. Stevens is actually significantly more suspicious than Grant, because when he first turns up he gives a fake name, and later proves to have actually performed experiments with mutating sea life in the past. Yet for much of the movie, it’s Stevens we’re watching, as he cozies up to Professor King and flirts with King’s daughter Lois. He actually gets far more screen time than Grant, with the latter sometimes being out of the movie for long enough that the audience kind of forgets he’s there.

Stevens and Lois’ love story is, as is probably inevitable for a movie of this kind, completely bland. Kent Taylor and Cathy Downs have no appreciable spark between them, and one gets the uncomfortable impression that he’s about twice her age. The movie never offers even an approximate age for either character, but Lois is still unmarried and living with her father, which in the 1950s suggests she’s in her early twenties. King describes Stevens as a ‘young man’ but between his appearance and his impressive academic credentials he’s obviously not, and when I looked up the actors I learned that Taylor was forty-eight when The Phantom from 10 000 Leagues was made, while Downs was twenty-nine. That’s… well, they’re both adults, but he’s still old enough to be her father, and the younger we assume they both are, the worse the two decade gap gets.

Once we actually get to know the characters, the solution to the mysteries is fairly obvious, but this lets us spend some actual time with these men and find out what they think about the situation. Stevens, who’s been down this road before, wants these terrible experiments to stop before any more people get hurt. King, hearing about it for the first time, is more excited about what he might be able to learn by building on Stevens’ work. This represents an interesting inversion because if you’ll recall, King is supposed to be significantly older than Stevens (though actor Michael Whelan was actually born only five years before Taylor).

Usually knowledge and wisdom are both associated with age. This is a very old trope and has some fairly sound logic behind it: the elderly have had longer to learn and to experience. In Phantom from 10 000 Leagues, however, we have the older Professor King excited by the ground-breaking discoveries made by a younger scientist and wanting to learn more about them, even when the (supposedly) younger Stevens warns him about Tampering in God’s Domain. Each assumes the role their ages might make us expect of the other.

This is reflected in their respective fields: depending on how you define it, oceanography is as old as mankind. Humanity has been mapping the seas for as long as we’ve known how to sail across them, and marveling at the monsters we pull from its depths for as long as we’ve been catching fish. That is the Professor King’s domain. Stevens, on the other hand, is a specifically nuclear scientist. Nuclear physics technically begins with the discovery of radioactivity in the 1890’s, but it seemed like a new and scary field in the 1950s, as the development of atomic weapons forced scientists to take a closer look at the phenomenon’s effect on living tissues. To King, who is an expert in another field, the possibilities of this relatively new work outweigh the potential consequences.

As sloppy and poorly-made as Phantom from 10 000 Leagues can be, this contrast between Stevens and King does make it a movie with something to say. It of course has the standard moral for a fifties atomic monster piece, about paths science is not meant to tread, but it also wants us to think about that connection between age and wisdom. On the one hand, King’s interest in Stevens’ work tells us that you’re never too old to learn something new. On the other, just because somebody is young doesn’t mean they have nothing to teach. If King had taken in Stevens’ wisdom along with his knowledge, a lot of suffering need not have happened.

Even if you’re not into that, the crappy monster, the bad acting, the ridiculous science, and all the sneaking around and backstabbing that goes on makes Phantom from 10 000 Leagues plenty of fun watch. It’s much like Beginning of the End in that it ticks all the MST3K boxes, while remaining coherent enough that you can enjoy the actual story along with the badness.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #phantom from 10000 leagues #it's beginning to look a lot like fishmen #50s

19 notes · View notes

davidmann95 · 3 years

Note

Comics this week (3/17/2021)?

Justice League #59: This issue feels like the biggest testament to the word that Infinite Frontier is just the interim before the real relaunch that’s coming, because there is zero pomp or circumstance here of the kind you’d expect even if you think Bendis sucks. Young Justice of all things felt weightier than this in its debut; this is perfectly passable mind you, but if it was anything less than Justice League I’d go “ok, this is one of those Bendis books I don’t care about” and pass it by. I’m pretty sure his more substantial plans for the title are being kept for a proper new #1 waiting in the wings, but in the meantime it’s a perfectly slick team book with a couple decent bits, a bunch of my favorite characters, and pretty Marquez/Bonvillain art so I’m fine with it. Obviously the V/Xermanico Justice League Dark backup was the highlight.

Superman: Red and Blue #1: Apparently a lot of Superman fans didn’t like this, which doesn’t surprise me - a lot of it is Clark beaten down, needing help, or otherwise on the back foot one way or another, and that triggers a lot of alarm bells for a certain type of stan at this point. For my money though these were almost all great, and I was even able to get the cover by the Final Fantasy logo artist Yoshitaka Amano.

* Ridley/Henry/Bellaire/Sharp: The big advertised presentation, I’ve been really curious in the wake of Other History what Ridley would do with a Superman solo story and this absolutely didn’t disappoint. A harrowing take on Clark as truly vulnerable and how his mindset shifts or doesn’t in response I’m kind of astonished DC let the team get away with, this came together wonderfully.

* Easton/Lieber/Chan/Cowles: The weakest of the bunch, a severe but moving tale contrasting Superman’s splashy adventures with his potential impact on those around him bookended by some much weaker stock “are you sure you’re doing enough?” material, though it’s absolutely beautiful under Lieber and Chan, especially the final page.

* Craig/Bennett: A fantastic little tale of parallels on the human scale existing in Superman’s wake, and while that material’s only front-and-center for a couple panels here I would kill to see Craig draw a big cosmic epic.

* Watters/Dani/Sharpe: The big standout aside from Ridley’s story, there’s kind of no excuse for this not having been the first feature of the issue given it’s about the gimmick of the format in a way that leads directly out of its inspiration in Batman: Black and White. I do wonder what colorblind readers would make of the message of this one though, even if I read it the point of what happened as extending beyond the literal physical. In any case, I desperately hope this and Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman won’t be the extent of Watters’ work in this territory.

* Bennett/Thompson/Peteri: A simple but sweet little story of a young Clark learning a formative lesson - don’t see the gimmick that often of having both caption boxes and thought balloons around for different purposes, and it’s one I’m always happy to see.

Nightwing #78: As a Taylor fan, gotta say, this sucks. Flat, twee, totally without narrative momentum or weight except for a single completely bonkers new element in Dick’s world I’ll discuss in another ask, and of all things for some reason a bizarrely shameless Fraction/Aja Hawkeye ripoff alongside its rote regurgitation of Dixon and Snyder. This is everything people who hate the guy’s (non-Injustice, non-DCeased) work think of it as, and Redondo, Lucas, and Abbott’s next level, jaw-droppingly gorgeous work here is crushingly wasted. I’m not sure I can judge this as a ‘failure’ when it’s absolutely going to succeed at its actual goals - not as a story even if I understand even more people are pulling it than the new JL, but as contextless panels to circulate around comics Twitter/Tumblr in perpetuity - but as someone who thought a lot of Taylor’s strengths have been often overlooked and was hoping he’d pull out of some of his worst habits, it’s such a downer to watch him dive in face-first. An instant drop.

Catwoman #29: Fully out of the Brubaker shadow for me at this point and into its own oddball take on crime in Gotham, it doesn’t seem to be attracting much heat but I hope the team gets the space to see its story through and I suspect this run will be looked back on very fondly as a hidden gem in years to come.

Batman vs. Ra’s Al Ghul #5: IT’S BACK BABY, AND LESS EXPLICABLE THAN EVER. So happy.

Captain America Anniversary Tribute #1: Actually picked this up for a friend of the family who was interested and it’ll be shipped to him later, but read it while we have it and it’s exactly what it says on the tin, so if a bunch of artists doing their spins on these pages appeals it’s perfectly worth your time.

Iron Man #7: I continue to be unable to believe in the best way that this is what the ongoing Iron Man comic is about now.

S.W.O.R.D. #4: Alright, alright, alright - probably the weakest issue so far (which is to say it’s still a lot of fun by most any other books’ standard), but we’re past the King In Black of it all and ready to get into the promise of that debut.

Radiant Black #2: I was really concerned whether this would live up to the promise of the first issue or immediately begin to decline, but I’m happy to report that so far this seems like it’s leaning into its better aspects even if the superheroism remains the weaker half, and I’m still curious to see where this goes.

Abbott 1973 #3: Picked up some after the last issue was losing me, I’m back in the tank for the remaining couple.

Orphan and the Five Beasts #1: Stokoe doing kung-fu horror, madness, and righteous vengeance, an easy win.

Ultramega #1: I was skeptical about this one - I’d barely heard of James Harren even as folks were suddenly talking as if him doing work was long understood as a must-see, the preview didn’t especially grab me, and this didn’t seem to much stand out to me among the increasing surge of toku-inspired material. I was ready for the hype to betray me, but while I’ve seen a critique of this as a sausage-fest unwittingly or otherwise building a lot of its narrative on the pain and death of mothers I’d like to see femme or nonbinary critics unpack further, as a reading experience (prior to seeing said critique) this absolutely blew me away. Incredibly dense even at 60 pages - where a lot of those are splash pages no less - beautifully disgusting, gut-wrenching even aside from the pages with guts being wrenched, monumental, and mysterious, a tale of what happens when we’re let down by the men forced into the role of godling-saviors and what happens next. That Harren mentions in the afterward that this is the first comic he’s written is as remarkable as its is infuriating.

#Week's Comics #Opinion

9 notes · View notes

madamhatter · 3 years

Text

reminiscentsky inquired: meta/hcs/drabble request - first I went through your headcanon tag but I didn't manage it til the end yet, so if you already wrote about it then that's completely fine. I will try to send more in the next days. and second, I haven't read the book yet so if anything is described there, my apologies I don't know yet. as for the word request: family, especially family by blood vs found family. UNPROMPTED ASKS | ALWAYS WELCOMED | @reminiscentsky

Hey there, Lisa! Thank you for sendin’ this in. It’s completely a’ight and I appreciate you reading through the headcanons (There is a lot and I’m really sorry, I just can’t shut up). By all means, anything you can send is great since any theme and word can lead to so many write-ups. Even a simple word like “red” could have several different headcanons, drabbles, and metas written around it for a character. It’s all about how the receiver interprets it–!

Preface: I am going to be generalize “by blood” family to first-determined family. This is directly acknowledging family situations that do not have all blood-relations, but are considered the “first” family the child is conditioned into. After all, Sophie isn’t from a nuclear family situation with a stepmother and half-sister. And also she’s technically the ‘mom’ since she raised Lettie and Martha and even her stepmom acknowledges that, don’t @ me.

FAMILY. Howl’s Moving Castle is a novel following fairy tale tropes and creating subversions, if not adding realistic reactions, for those who live in those tropes would face. While we may find Ingary to be a world that is capable of having so much magic and remarkable things in it from Seven League Boots to Cloaks of Invisibility, it is still very much a world full of monotonous, if not limiting, things that exist and happen.

One of those “monotonous” things happens to be the life of Sophie Hatter. While the book directly states that the evil stepmother trope is not all applicable to the Hatters, and how the evil/ugly stepsisters trope is far from applicable to the older Hatter daughters, there is a very apparent truth about the family arrangement that fits and happens too commonly in our world. At its basis, it is the case of "eldest daughter syndrome” for Sophie.

But, there’s more at the root of Howl’s Moving Castle. This novel explores family structure, family issues, and the impacts of lacking expectations, support, and stability has onto a young woman. (NOTE: I am including neglect and trauma here because of HMC’s implications and how we’re led up to the mindset and rationalizations of beginning Sophie in the novel, which is very unhealthy/concerning). What happens in this situation is the creation of someone who lives a purposeless life and focuses on the lives and successes of those around her to make herself experience something. She isn’t even being at all materialistic about it -- goodness, the woman just WANTS, an innocent desire, and that is something she knows she can’t ever have.

This can also be applicable for Howl, but his version of the story follows the opposite of what Sophie deals with. In his case, he is the youngest son who has been in a world where stability and expectations fell on him (e.g., he is a doctoral student, an uncle, etc.). His structure is intact and pressure is placed on him. Much like Sophie, there is a dread of unfulfillment and desire that he finds in his life, but unlike her, he happens to do something (hence why he is another world rather than Wales -- read into that and interpret that as you will).

Both are in roles that do not satisfy and help realize themselves. Sophie makes her role, which is detrimental to her own emotional and mental development. Howl breaks his role, but makes a role for himself, which still doesn’t make him happy. Because, for both, there are still missing elements they need to discover or realize about themselves -- be it through self-awakening or making bonds.

Family, which can be extended now to society and their norms, is an place of origin for most what most begin their socialization, development, and understanding of who they are in context to the world around them. And, in many cases, first-made family is not idealistic and is not a healthy environment for growth and discovery. They can be toxic, harmful, and traumatic, purposefully or unknowingly, for the impressionable minds by the adults who are preparing for the “real” world and how these individuals are expected to be and expected to do.

Sophie was prevented to participate in that “real” world because she was, essentially, not given any purpose or anything that made her feel qualified or worth living (originally). Instead, she made herself a role that is participating in her family’s world that she could be accepted in -- one where she had to do everything because no one else would, and also, it was a remedy (albeit a terrible one) to combat what she was feeling on the inside. So much of her upbringing informs us of her character and how she sees herself -- as an unremarkable person with nothing out there for her.

Intentionally or not, as mentioned before, Sophie’s family has taken advantage of this and didn’t raise Sophie to see herself on the same level as her peers (or even help her be aware of her capabilities). Personally, I do view the Hatter’s situation having started as unintentional. However, it was something comfortable to do (rely on Sophie as if she were an adult) and they continued doing it. More to my characterization, I do believe there IS awareness, hence Martha’s outburst at the beginning of the story -- her opinion on the matter, albeit skewed, still has grounds because she isn’t an outsider. She is someone who was raised and living in the household.

Returning to my point, this buffer is essentially a destruction towards Sophie’s potential and self. It can be seen as both self-destructive by Sophie (she believes the next best course of action is to assure her sisters’ happiness and success) and created by her family (mainly, adults) to benefit what they want.

Despite that, Howl’s Moving Castle knows that one of her greatest gifts is something she already does for a living: creation. Sophie already creates; she always created hats and outfits, being so advanced at her age that she never needed an apprenticeship to hone her skills. Her products are well sought for, even excluding the magic she accidentally imbues in them. But, her power by hands is also her actual magic (not that everything she says comes true/able to create truths/etc.) Particularly, it is the tenacity and choice to create herself to whoever she wants to be and what she can do.

The problem is that her origins made her believe to be herself incapable of anything and that misfortune was her plotted end. There was no point resisting even if she tried to as a child. Yet, it was that moment when disruption came and she found herself being given a chance to leave, she created her own journey. Though, it was originally to get her curse removed and return to her sisters, she took the first step for more.

She ends up finding herself exploring an avenues of herself that are rarely touched upon or even acknowledged by others. That, of course, changes when in contact with Calcifer, Michael, and Howl. While she might’ve crashed into the castle, dubbed herself the ‘help,’ it was the beginning of her creating herself in a place where she wasn’t restricted or made to believe poorly on herself.

In the end, she made her family. A family that she knows that is a group of those who are as out of place in this world (or the other world) because of matters out of their control. She makes a family when she decides that she could live happily ever after, a complete contrast to what she originally believed herself for. This family, now different from the one before, is the start of being her feeling found, but also continuing her self-discovery.

And, Sophie Hatter could not be any happier creating her new life.

#( checkbooks inquiries and much ; answered asks )#( in which we learn about the eldest ; headcanons )#reminiscentsky #[ HOOOOOOOOOOOO. this is a late one and you can tell how old it is bc of banners. ]#[ so the portion above the break was when this was first saved. all the stuff under? now writen. ]#long post tw #long post #[ EDIT: made edits for clarity ! ]

8 notes · View notes

dereksmcgrath · 3 years

Text

Nosu Koshu’s return combines the Black Mercy from Superman with a Dragon Quest isekai plot that doesn’t really deliver much in the way of innovative gags and, in terms of plot, only perpetuates vague hints at larger schemes by Uneras. But maybe Ren’s sister Rin is going to get to be more relevant, so that’s good.

“Nosu Koshu of Illusions,” Magu-chan: God of Destruction, Chapter 56

By Kei Kamiki, translation by Christine Dashiell, lettering by Erika Terriquez

Available from Viz

Spoiler Warning for the Dragon Quest animated film.

Nosu Koshu, the dream god, is like the Black Mercy from Superman mythos. First appearing in the comic “For the Man Who Has Everything” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, then adapted for Justice League Unlimited and Supergirl, it is an alien being that lets you dream of your most ardent desires–but usually with some catch, not just that, to remove the Mercy from yourself is to lose that perfect dream, but because even within that dream, like any utopia, there is always some dark side behind it. When Nosu Koshu popped up first in Magu-chan, she gave Ruru the dream of being reunited with her dead father, at the cost of being with Magu and living a healthier life of coping with loss and finding new opportunities despite that loss.

Nosu Koshu gave Magu-chan the best arc it has had up to this point–so bringing her back now for a parody of Dragon Quest and isekai storylines is tiresome. Hell, I hated that Dragon Quest animated film for its twist at the end regarding isekai stuff, so unfortunately that example tainted my appreciation for where this chapter was going.

I’m not being entirely fair to this chapter: there were details I liked. I admit some of those details were gags that I should have seen coming: Magu being reduced to a Dragon Quest Slime monster, or Uneras being shown as the final boss (which, as I’ll talk about in a moment, is potential foreshadowing to her being the Big Bad all along for this series). And I laugh heartedly when Ruru said they’ll just skip the maze level and thanks Muscar for the warning; as repetitive as their dynamic is, I do like the groove the series has set, Muscar struggling to be fearsome and intimidating and Ruru, not out of simpleness but kindheartedness, looking on the bright side and taking Muscar’s remarks as helpful rather than intimidating.

But isekai storylines have been done to death. “Magic technology goes out of wack” like Uneras putting Izuma to sleep, then having magic eyemasks to put the others into Izuma’s dream, are plot details I expect from some of the worst manga that repeatedly persist with that trope. If I want the mad scientist who keeps making magic-like objects that cause wacky hijinks, I’d get back to writing Mei Hatsume fanfiction, not sitting through G-rated To Love-Ru.

I’m trying to judge the series by its own previous examples: if you’re going to invoke a certain type of video game, even if it is an RPG, I am stuck comparing how this same series handled the fighting game tropes, offering a funny version of Smash Bros while also having more clever gags that invoke the invitation envelope from that franchise as well as even designing a bulkier headband-wearing Magu to look like Ryu from Street Fighter.

But even still, I think how another series would handle this kind of plotline about Dragon Quest-style RPGs and isekai plotlines–because I’ve seen Gintama do it, not only to parody the same content but to do the exact same plot, that being to get into someone’s body (more specifically for Magu-chan, someone’s mind) to help them through a health-related problem. And when there are so many isekai stories out there, it is ripe for parody–and there have been enough of such parodies in other series, or even isekai that are parodying their own genre and undermining their own narrative conventions.

The gags in this chapter also felt less impressive than those in previous chapters. The problem the series has had since depowering Muscar has been Uneras, and I hate saying that when she is, for better or worse, a character who resonates for manga and anime fans like us, someone portrayed as ostensibly a Western fan whose fixation on the tropes of Japanese comics and animation shows an outsider’s perspective that just gets details wrong and invokes cringe. Maybe it is naive for me to think this is all innocent: as a fan in the United States, who is going to misread cultural aspects of works that are created in cultural contexts outside of where I am, I really try to be aware and not make claims I cannot support.

So, maybe Uneras is a warning for people who think they are being reasonable and having good intentions but whose misreadings are doing actual harm. It’s not that difficult a way to measure her, given her other problematic behavior: her reaction in this chapter of thinking “hawt” upon seeing Izuma oppose her, after the series has already presented Uneras as a pseudo-maternal figure to Izuma, is all kinds of Oedipal squick that, no, ew, stop, please.

When you keep making Uneras’s behavior the instigation for the plot–creating the problems for the characters to solve–her role as the trouble-maker, as the troll, lacks the same complexities we saw earlier. When she first appeared, her antics inadvertently caused problems: if she had told Ruru that the cookies she ate would make her too powerful, then Ruru would not have accidentally blasted Izuma and Magu. In her subsequent appearances, she was carefully placed in alternative positions, sometimes purposefully trolling the characters, sometimes unintentionally causing problems that thankfully were harmless enough to be corrected by story’s end with minimal ramifications and no malice. Then she depowered Muscar, bringing the story back to square one in terms of giving him a potential redemption arc, and invoking colonialist imagery that shows her cultural ignorance is not necessarily amusing but dangerous.

If we don’t want to read something deeper behind Uneras’s behavior, within the plot of the manga itself, there is an easier understanding for why she is trolling people, tricking them, and now pulling such a dangerous Black Mercy god like Nosu Koshu into her ranks–and it’s been obvious since Uneras’s first introduction. When she premiered in unlucky Chapter 13, she made it clear that she is playing the humans and gods against each other, that she sided with the humans against her own kind to keep the gods in check. She is not the traditional notion of a hero, she is not a good-hearted cliche like Ruru: she is a puppetmaster, and that opens up more potential for what to do with her in this manga, and I tense up either because she will emerge as an antagonist in this story or because I am now attached to this idea and will feel disappointed if my prediction does not pan out that way (which, seeing as I am wanting to see every tiny cute creature as a potential villain–e.g., Nezu in My Hero Academia–may be my problem and not that of the stories’: “When you’re a hammer, and everything looks like a nail…”).

That leaves us with what the story does with Nosu Koshu. Since her introduction, she has been a passive character, fitting for a god whose ability puts people to sleep in the dream that best serves the reality they want to enter. That power gave Magu-chan the kind of storyline even the goofiest gag manga needs, one that showed how Ruru has mourned her father’s death and gave joke characters like Naputaaku a chance to rise to the occasion. But now that Nosu Koshu’s threat has been diminished, the manga is trying to figure out where to position her–and the conclusion they reach is to give Ren another god to look after. I had enjoyed how Magu-chan added more gods but made sure to give those gods their own human Pokemon trainer, so introducing Nosu Koshu but not giving her her own unique human is retreading whatever characterization we could get from Ren without developing a currently present human or a new human character we could add. It’s like when Transformers Prime introduced Smokescreen and gave him Jack as his human partner: Jack already has Arcee, and that choice diminished opportunities to give Arcee the spotlight, as her storyline faded more and more into the background while Smokescreen’s role got larger and larger. Diminishing the only woman-coded Autobot to the background didn’t help either.

But speaking of sidelining women characters, if we are going to have Nosu Koshu at the Fujisawa restaurant–and, as they do have a beach stand, it does make sense to apply this god’s talents there after Mother Fujisawa exhausted herself in an earlier chapter–pair Nosu Koshu with Ren’s sister Rin. While I have enjoyed Rin’s dynamic with Naputaaku, he is already Ren’s god partner, and Rin’s schtick has been rather stale: in the beach stand chapter, we did learn she desires to rise to the occasion to run the family business, belying her slacker demeanor. But if we’re going to move beyond the tiresome slacker schtick, having her be the partner to a literal sleepyhead like Nosu Koshu makes sense and could help both characters, contrasting how Rin’s passivity differs from Nosu Koshu’s, and showing that Rin has actual dreams she is trying to reach in her own way while Nosu Koshu has been content to force other people to literally dream without having any goal of her own. Like I just said, I tend to write ideas that I hope a story will take, then I feel disappointed when they don’t go there, and that unfairly influences my reviews. But I hope I got this one right, because after the previous chapter and now this one, it feels like Magu-chan needs an emotionally impactful chapter to give more direction to where the gags should go.

#magu chan: god of destruction #manga review

1 note · View note

1863-project · 3 years

Text

I’m at the end of my first-ever Omega Ruby run, and I’ve honestly had a great time getting to know Hoenn. I just have to evolve some Pokemon and catch the Regis and Deoxys before I move along (I’m waiting to trade with folks to finish the Dex properly, but I can do that at any point), but I think it’s worth doing a retrospective on the characters and Pokemon I met along the way.

As a region, Hoenn is unique in that it has a LOT of water routes. You spend a large portion of the second half of the game traveling via Surf. The Azumarill in my party, Pikablue, ended the game knowing Waterfall, Surf, and Dive (it also carries Play Rough), and it was one of the most crucial members of my party for transport purposes.

When I won the Hoenn League, the team May (named ‘Hatshepsut’ in my playthrough because we love cool historical figures in this house) had with her was her evolved starter, a Blaziken named Cluck You, along with Pikablue the Azumarill, Pangaea the Groudon, Charles II the Shiftry, Friendo the Latios, and the team anchor, Bastet the overleveled Skitty. I beat Steven because Bastet dodged a Zen Headbutt from Metagross and gave me the time I needed to revive both Blaziken and Groudon in the back, and their fire moves handled the rest. Bastet went on to become the first party member to reach level 100, way ahead of everyone else. She was absolutely incredible and I love her. Her final moveset: Heal Bell (surprisingly useful, especially in Doubles), Thunder, Ice Beam, and Play Rough. She’s a Dragon Slayer.

As soon as I got my hands on the Eon Flute I started running around to check every Mirage location that came up in the hopes that it would be a Mirage Cave. I knew that was where Tynamo was, and I needed Eelektross to complete the Submas team I was building (the other nine members are in SwSh at the moment; Eelektross will hopefully someday join them). On November 30th, my persistence paid off, and I went and caught three Tynamos so I could have the entire evolutionary line in my National Dex in Pokemon HOME. As it turns out, Eelektross still hasn’t been added to HOME because Third Rail has become a vital member of my party in postgame and I love him and he loves me. (I’m just Emmet, really.) The Eon Flute is also really nice in that using it allows you to literally fly in real time over the entire region, and I prefer doing that to using Fly because it’s just so aesthetically nice. Friendo just swoops down and picks me up, and we have a nice time exploring together. It’s especially pretty at night when everything is all lit up. It’s a lovely little feature exclusive to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and it’s so great.

Character-wise, Hoenn has produced some notables. Magma and Aqua are two of the most beloved villain teams in the entire franchise, and the reboots gave them so much more personality and gave the leaders and admins some excellent updated designs. (Years ago, when the remakes were first released, my dash was filled to the brim with Hardenshipping.) I had OR, so I had Magma to contend with, and one of the single most entertaining things in the entire game is Maxie’s losing animation. It’s perfect, it suits his character so well, and it’s just really funny. Also, shout-out to the Team Magma grunt that I met in the Extremely Obvious Hideout who told me how proud he was of kicking his soda habit whilst standing next to the vending machines. I love that guy. In terms of reformation, Magma and Aqua come around very easily when they realize that they’ve had a very bad idea - they ultimately were well-intentioned but made a really horrible mistake and set out to set things right (with the player’s help, of course). It ultimately makes both teams very likeable.

In terms of other characters, not every Gym Leader from Hoenn is a complete standout, but a few are very, very popular. Flannery is a perfect time capsule of 2003 fashion and I love that so much, and I don’t think I need to say much about Wallace. He’s just Wallace. He’s so freaking entertaining. Steven is also a very popular Champion, and he plays a pretty big role in the plot, so you see a lot of him throughout the game. (He and Wallace are also a very popular ship, with Originshipping - named for the Cave of Origin which Wallace has to grant you access to - actually being referenced in Pokemon Masters on, of all days, Valentine’s Day. Make of this what you will, but I’m here for it.) The Gym Leaders all received redesigns as well, with a lot of them benefiting greatly from it - I like Roxanne’s new school uniform so much better than her old one, for example, and once again, Wallace outshines everyone with an ensemble that would go wonderfully at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. I wish we got to know the Gym Leaders a bit more as people, because they don’t get to stand out as characters as much. Galar actually did this very well by allowing us a lot of interactions with the Leaders outside the Gyms and as teammates and rivals in the Galarian Star Tournament. A big part of the reason Wallace is so popular as a Gym Leader here is that you see him outside the Gym multiple times and can even compete with him in Contests. You get to know him as a person more and not just as the eighth Gym Leader, and it makes him a much more interesting character.

In short, here’s how the League stacks up for me:

Roxanne: Benefited massively from her character redesign, which gives her a lot more personality. Would like to see her and Steven interact since they’re apparently friends, which I imagine revolves around going out and licking rocks together or whatever geologists do with their geologist friends.

Brawly: He still isn’t very distinct. He’s a surfer who trains Fighting-types, which is a bit of a subversion since you’d expect Water-types from someone like that, but nothing about him really pops for me.

Wattson: Gives off Grandpa Vibes. Wattson actually gets a lot of expository development via his work on New Mauville and Sea Mauville, where you find out he halted the projects to protect the Pokemon ecosystems in both locations. A lot of employees were angry about this and he was even investigated briefly for stopping the projects, even being called a traitor to the company (which appeared to overwork its employees and prevent them from unionizing), but it was apparently evidently clear that he did things out of environmental concerns, and the employees were able to find work on other projects elsewhere. This actually slots nicely into the themes of the game involving environmentalism and how to ensure the livelihoods of people and nature both.

Flannery: Time capsule from 2003! I was, of course, around in 2003 (I turned 14), and Flannery was at the peak of fashion back then. Flares were in, and I miss that trend so much. For that alone, she’s one of my favorite Gym Leaders in this generation, but I also appreciate that she’s shown trying to find her footing and figure out who she is instead of pretending to be someone else. There’s a certain performative aspect to being a Gym Leader, but it needs to come naturally from them and be an extension of their own personality, not be artificial. I would, however, love to know who her grandfather is. It’s still never been confirmed. (As a side note, a lot of people headcanon her to be Kabu’s niece, since he’s from Hoenn, which is cute.)

Norman: A Dad. More specifically, the player character’s dad. There’s really nothing that stands out about him except for that damn Slaking, which gives a lot of people trouble. I did, however, appreciate the conversation he had with Wally’s father as Wally and the player character departed together, because I’m actually pretty close to my own father (who I’m very similar to in many aspects). I’m 31 years old and I still get emotional every time my parents tell me they’re proud of me. Notably, Norman is the only player character father we have ever seen in Pokemon, though, which is odd.

Winona: In-game, she doesn’t feel like she has much of a personality, although she goes off on aesthetics pretty well. It just weirds me out that that’s her hair coming out from under the helmet and not wings attached to it. She could have been really cool but she gets the short end of the development stick.

Tate and Liza: The two of them intentionally playing up the ‘weird twins’ angle by completing each other’s sentences actually comes across really cutely because they’re kids. You can also run into them in the Lilycove Department Store being children and buying toys, a good reminder that they’re still very young and evidently very skilled for their ages. Battle-wise, my Azumarill knew Surf by this point so I ended things quickly because I’m into Doubles as it is and like using spread moves when I can.

Wallace: I’ve discussed him a lot above, so I don’t need to say much else, but he really is the most notable Gym Leader in the region, and not just because he’s the last one you face. He has a lot of personality and development, you meet him outside the Gym several times, his niece Lisia is also out and about in the game and the family resemblance is notable, and you find an old magazine in Sea Mauville featuring a woman on the cover who looks like Lisia - likely Wallace’s older sister, Lisia’s mother. The entire family gets more development than a lot of the other Gym Leaders in this region.

Sidney: The first member of the Elite Four you face...I’d actually like to know more about him. He seems like an interesting person, and I personally enjoy Dark-types myself so I always appreciate seeing Dark-type users not being portrayed as evil. His upbeat nature is nice, and it’s a pleasant surprise to run into him at the Battle Resort, even if he was only there to track down Steven.

Phoebe: I love how much her appearance contrasts with her Pokemon typing. She’s a Ghost-type trainer and you’d never guess that from her outfit! Her grandmother is the old woman on Mt. Pyre, which is why Phoebe has an affinity for Ghost-Types, and I’d love to see more interactions involving them together. You can run into Phoebe on Mt. Pyre after you beat the League and talk to her briefly - she was likely visiting her grandmother - but sadly she doesn’t get much development outside of that.

Glacia: An Ice-type trainer who we learn next to nothing about. Glacia is mentioned outside of the context of the Elite Four by an NPC in the Mauville Food Court who says she was slurping down ramen so intensely that she broke a sweat, but that’s all we know about her aside from that she’s originally from a different region, and she tells us that herself. Not very memorable.

Drake: Yet another Dragon trainer late in the game, and not one of the more notable ones. Lance and Clair are remembered for being cousins and for being the first Dragon trainers you really come across in the series, and later Dragon-type trainers like Iris (who becomes Champion of Unova in B2W2) and Raihan are carried by their personalities and distinct looks. Drake is just an old sea captain with Dragon-types, and he doesn’t really jump out at me much either.

Steven: A major player in the plot - one of the most active Champions we’ve had in the franchise - and a perpetually popular character. I never minded running into Steven out and about in Hoenn, even if it meant I’d have to listen to an infodump about rocks, and his Champion battle was actually fairly difficult for the team I brought in despite having two team members with Fire-type attacks to handle the Steel. As I mentioned above, it was my Skitty that made the decisive dodge to allow me to bring in the team member I needed to deliver the final blow, meaning this is now the second time in my life I’ve beaten the Champion with an unevolved house cat. (Rick Pratt the Purrloin is a vital member of my beloved Young Ones Galar Championship Team.) Overall, Steven’s a very likeable Champion, and I did enjoy the little detail of the rocks on display in his home - he has them labeled so you can see where he found them, and they’re from every region featured in the games up to that point.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire also have the Delta Episode, which features Rayquaza (which you’re forced to catch) and a character named Zinnia, who isn’t in RSE at all and is new to ORAS. Besides being named after my favorite flower, Zinnia’s personality is actually very interesting because although she comes across as cheery it’s clear she feels the weight of a massive responsibility and that the cheeriness is covering a lot of pain. Her Whismur named Aster is evidently named after someone important to her who is no longer around, and it’s never revealed in-game who the original Aster was. Whoever Aster was, though, Zinnia misses her deeply. In a 2015 interview, Ohmori Shigeru stated that the original Aster was the person who held the position of Lorekeeper before Zinnia, but we don’t know anything more than that - a shame, really, because that makes for some interesting backstory.

Overall, I had a lovely time in Hoenn, and I’ll be moving on to Kalos in the next few weeks once I finish up this Dex business first. I just wish I got to get to know so many of the characters I’ve met a little better, but I adore the team I put together and I’m super proud of them and all they’ve accomplished.

#Pokemon #Omega Ruby #ORAS #Hoenn #Hoenn Retrospective

9 notes · View notes

linkspooky · 4 years

Text

Shigaraki and Kurogiri

As they were introduced together in the beginning of the manga, Kurogiri is the member of the League of Villains (barring All for One and Ujiko) who has been by Shigaraki’s side the longest. While his backstory and who he really is is still an enigma, Shigaraki’s relationship with Kurogiri is one of the most nuanced in the manga. It’s a lot more complicated than league babysitter as the fandom often portrays him. Kurogiri is at the same time, a character complicit in All for One’s manipulation of Shigaraki, while at the same time seeming to be the only one of AFO’s followers to geninely care for Shigaraki as a person. More details under the cut.

1. The Followers of All For One

We know nothing about Kurogiri’s backstory or his motivations. All we know of his personality that he’s cold, composed, and tends to be the cautious overthinker of the group in contrast to Shigaraki’s reckless impulsiveness. Kurogiri is the character we’ve seen talk Shigaraki down from his emotional fits and tantrums the most, and this was when Shigaraki was at his worst and most volatile before his development with the rest of the league.

However, we have a clear picture on how All for One treats his subordinates, and why they follow him. In the flashback shown to us in All for One’s dream, it’s clear he gives out favors to those who are desperate enough to rely on him.

All for One doesn’t have allies. He has servants to do his bidding. He raises people into complete sycophants who live for him. He creats people who live entirely for his own sake.

It’s shown again and again in the behavior of his followers. They act the same way a fanatical religious cult would act for the person they worship. All for one even makes an allusions to forgiving sinners, and religious doctrine when he is convincing people to follow him.

His followers are so fanatic in their devotion, they act on their own, and even kill people for just refusing to accept All for One’s words. They live to please him. There’s no law and order, there’s just what pleases All for One and what displeases him. All for One does them a radical favor which basically changes their entire lives, and as a result they change to base their entire world view around him. Everything they do from that point forward is for All for One’s sake.

As I mentioned before, cults use the same kind of tactic. They target people who are outcast by society, and offer them a form of understanding and a place of belonging only to use that to prey on them later. They use tactics like offering acceptance, assistance, in order to indoctrinate them and make them devoted to a cause.

It’s no mistake that Shigaraki fought against the Meta Liberation Army, a literal cult as a part of his challenge to step up as All for One’s successor because All for One uses those same tactics as well. If you would ask one of his followers, they owe everything of their existence to All for One, just because he stepped in to help them when they were at their most vulnerable.

Even Ujiko who seems to be mostly into villainry for the mad science aspects, owes All for One something signficant because AFO was the first person who took his research seriously. Ujiko’s research even started to develop around the concept of giving AFO a body that could handle the sheer amount of quirks he had. AFO takes people in that no one else trusts, no one else believes, but then he assistance he offers them at their most vulnerable point as a tool to manipulate them.

Just look at the way Gigantomachia acts, he’s a body guard but despite being a person who just has a lot of quirks he’s mentally regressed to the point where he acts like a pet more than anyhing else. So, all of that being said with the way All for One’s followers act, it’s highly likely that Kurogiri was loyal to AFO first and foremost, and Shigaraki would always come second.

2. Raising Shigaraki Tomura

Kurogiri was a part of all of AFO’s manipulations of Shigaraki. Whatever feelings he might have had for him, he was still a willing participant. This might be surprising but sometimes villains do bad things. However, at the same time we are shown that Kurogiri’s feelings for Shigaraki exceed the “role” All for One has given him. There’s clearly a relationship that has developed between the two. My point is to outline the nuance of their relationship, not to dismiss it as something wholly good or bad but rather explore the complexity of it.

At the start of their relationship, Shigaraki seems to have no particular fondness for Kurogiri at all. He even threatens to kill him for failing him. The only worth that Kurogiri has to Shigaraki is his use as a warp gate, and absolutely nothing else.

Kurogiri similarily showed almost no conern when Shigaraki’s arms and legs were shot. His first priority was to report to AFO what happened. The extent of their relationship at this point is that they’re both cooperating for AFO’s sake. The entire rest of the League of Villains was also considered equally expendable, and the only reason Kurogiri wasn’t was because he was there ticket home.

However, during the Stain arc when Stain starts to threaten Shigaraki in front of Kurogiri, we see Kurogiri grow concerned and try to call the meeting off.

Though, in the end he listens to AFO’s orders over his concern for Shigaraki and because of that simply watches as Shigaraki is attacked and nearly killed by Stain. Because in AFO’s words this is “Something Shigaraki simply needs to learn for himself.” As AFO poses himself as Shigaraki’s educator.

However, when Stain was threatening his life Kurogiri did want to intervene but was simply unable to because of the Hero-Killer’s paralysis quirk. So as a consequence of him deciding to wait and watch on AFO’s orders, he was pwoerless to help Shigaraki when he actually wanted him to.

We also see when Kurogiri is giving him coolheaded advice, it’s always in the name of increasing the league of villain’s, and AFO’s power, not in the name of Shigaraki’s own well-being.

Kurogiri is a devoted follower of AFO, but he doesn’t show quite the same complete and total devotion for Shigaraki. We see Kurogiri disagreeing with him, and also criticitizing him at times. He goes out of his way to tell Shigaraki of the positives that Stain’s “crusade” has done for the world. In other worlds instead of absolute obedience, he does tend to interact with Shigaraki much more like a person.

By the time we reach the camp raid arc, their relationship has developed to the point that Kurogiri is the only one who can calmly reason with Shigaraki. Kurogiri does not just use his quirk to interfere with the fight, he goes out of his way to talk Shigaraki down from his momentary urge to destroy.

This is the exact opposite of what AFO has always done, which is encourage Shigaraki to do whatever he wants. AFO’s nurturing always pushes Shigaraki to be more destructive and unstable, so he’ll be less of a person and more of a symbol of fear that only lusts for destruction. Kurogiri’s influence is the opposite he’s clearly a calming presence on Shigaraki. He can advise Shigaraki not to hurt himself, not to hurt others based on his momentary rash emotions.

However, at the same time the words Kurogiri uses to persuade Shigaraki are still inextricably linked to All for One. He says that Shigaraki has to be patient because they both owe it to AFO to make the best use of what they left him. He’s also not encouraging Shigaraki to make friends, or have genuine attachments with people, but rather to make the best use of his subordinates the same way AFO did.

However, at the same time unlike Ujiko and Gigantomachia who never accepted Shigaraki. Kurogiri is someone who has had faith in him from the start. He emphasizes that Shigaraki is someone who is going to grow to understand other people, and himself. Unlike the others who only see Shigaraki as the successor and nothing else, it’s clear Kurogiri has been watching Shigarkai’s growth as his own person.

Kurogiri seems to expect Shigaraki to use people the same way that AFO does. When they’re discussing his plans for the Camp Raid, he immediately jumps to the idea that Shigaraki is just using all of their new recruits as sacrificial pawns.

At this point Shigaraki has gotten to the stage with Kurogiri where he treats him much more casually, and even shares his plans and bounces ideas off of him.

The next time we see Kurogiri in canon he’s captured after following AFO’s last order to go searching for Gigantomachia. The way AFO phrases this is interesting though you’ll be the only one to protect Tomura it’s clear that Kurogiri sees that as his role.

He also claims that when he’s doing this, he’s sacrificing himself for Shigaraki’s sake.

After he is gone, Toga even comments that Shigaraki misses him. So, there was genuine affection for Kurogrii on Shigaraki’s side.

The only person we’re not so clear on is Kurogiri himself. We’re presented with a conflict. What is more important to Kurogiri? Following All For One’s orders tor raise his successor? Or the well being of Shigaraki Tomura? Does he care for Shigaraki as a person after watching him slowly grow up all this time, or does he only care about Shigaraki as the one to succeed AFO. Is he only there on AFO’s orders or is he acting on genuine affection for his charge, now?

There is at least a clear distinction in the way Kurogiri treats Shigaraki, as opposed to all of AFO’s other subordinates we’ve been introduced to. Kurogiri has believed in Shigaraki’s growth and development unconditionally from the start, whereas Shigaraki had to prove himself as something other than worthless trash to both Ujiko and Gigantomachia.

He’s also genuinely concerned for Shigaraki’s well being and safety at times. Unlike Ujiko he never casually concerns that they just disect him, or tinker with him a little bit to fix his memory problems.

If you would allow me to put my analysis cap on, I would say Kurogiri does genuinely care for Shigaraki. However, he uses his loyalty towards AFO as an excuse for his feelings. As polite, and calm as he is Kurogiri is still a cold hearted vilain who feels little remorse for what he does. It’s probably strange for him to feel any attachment at all, especially towards this brat. AFO”s followers don’t do things for themselves, everything is cenetered around what would benefit AFO and what would please him. Excusing his own growing loyalty towards Shigaraki as “This is the best way to follow AFO’s orders” is one way to escape from his own feelings. Kurogiri may have grown soft for Shigaraki but at the same time he doesn’t admit that, and is pretty complicit in AFO’s every scheme to manipulate Shigaraki and groom him into a proper successor.

Doctor Ujiko even says that Kurogiri spoils Shigaraki and coddles him. Kurogiri’s clearly partial to Shigaraki and treats him differently than his exact orders tell him to.

Kurogiri appears in one of the splash pages, which suggests he’s likely going to come back from his imprisonment at some point. If Shigaraki is going to develop into his own person and break free from AFO’s plans for him. At that point we’ll likely see Kurogiri be forced to choose, between his affection for Shigaraki and his servitude towards AFO.

#kurogiri #shigaraki tomura #all for one #league of villains #mha meta #league of villains meta #my hero academia meta #my hero academia theory #shigaraki meta #meta

289 notes · View notes

oosteven-universe · 3 years

Text

Infinite Frontier #0

Infinite Frontier #0 DC Comics 2021 Written by Brian Michael Bendis, James Tynion IV, Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad Joelle Jones, Tim Sheridan, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Joshua Williamson, Geoff Johns, Geoffrey Thorne, Scott Snyder Illustrated by David Marquez, Jorge Jimenez, Alitha Martinez, Mark Morales, Joelle Jones Stephen Byrne, Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona, Jamal Igle, Alex Maleev, Todd Nauck Dexter Soy, Howard Porter, John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson & John Timms Coloured by Tamra Bonvillain, Tomeu Morey, Alex Sinclair, Emilo Lopez, Jordie Bellaire, Stephen Byrne, Alejandro Sanchez, Hi-Fi & Brad Anderson Lettered by ALW’s Troy Peteri The next phase of the DC Universe begins here! Dark Knights: Death Metal presented the darkest threats of the Multiverse. DC Future State revealed what may lie ahead. Now it’s time to look into the Infinite Frontier of the current-day DC Universe. In Gotham City, The Joker jolts citizens awake with an attack even the Dark Knight never expected. In Brazil, a young woman discovers her destiny and her connection to the Amazons. In Belle Reve, Amanda Waller plots an invasion of Arkham Asylum. In the far reaches of space, Mongul dreams of galactic domination, while the Green Lantern Corps hosts a summit of its greatest enemies. At the Hall of Justice, the League joins forces with Black Adam. Beyond the mortal world, Wonder Woman settles into a new role in the godsphere. And somewhere in the DC Universe-it’s the return of Stargirl, in an all-new tale written by Geoff Johns! This oversized, all-star issue kicks off the next great era of storytelling and excitement as top writers and artists reveal what’s next for the World’s Greatest Heroes and opens the door to some of the greatest stories of 2021. Alright so here’s the introduction to next thing in DC Comics. Am I impressed, not terribly and here’s why. We’ve had so many reboots and iterations since the Original Crisis on Infinite Earths and this is an attempt to take aspects of all of them and merge them into one. There are questionable choices being made here, yes my opinion, along with this Quintessence which I guess I supposed to be their version of the omnipotent cosmic tribunal type deal. Is there any good reason Nubia is an angry black woman, Amazon? Sigh the gay Alan Scott is a mistake, again my opinion as I didn’t like that run and with Obsidian around why do both of them have to be gay, asks the gay man. I do like the Birds of Prey reference as Barbara is once again taking the mantle of Oracle. I do like seeing Jade and Obsidian and hope they will be a part of a new JSA series. I’ll reserve judgement on Titans Academy until I see more. There is so much with Jonathan Kent that I don’t agree with but hey it is what it is and that’s he conceived on one earth, born on another and raised on yet another well there’s a lot of convoluting going on there. Oh Green Arrow and Black Canary sigh yes please we need a series starring these two. Happy to see Stargirl again and with the potential of having a long lost group back makes me wonder why no All Star Squadron? That was one of the best series before Crisis and of course I want to see my Freedom Fighters as well so let’s get on those alongside a real Legion of Super-Heroes title. Simon Saint and Scarecrow hmm interesting duo but why does the latter now appear to be a cross between Edward Scissorhands and some crazy medical experiment? I also kind of want Saint to be Simon Dark but that’s my fanboy coming out. The Spectre taking Diana on a tour through the new changes was highly reminiscent of the Kingdom Come journey. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that either but I guess it was co-opted because it was an easy way to show us all the new changes. By contrast there is one arc that I am looking forward to seeing come to life in its own series and that is with the House of Heroes. Maybe we’ll finally see Captain Carrot get to be part of a team? The interiors here are wonderful as usual. Though I will say th

#Comic Books #Comics Reviews #DC Comics

6 notes · View notes

the-final-sif · 5 years

Note

Ooh. Consider a film crew BKDK story. They could both be actors; actor and crew member; or both crew members. If Katsuki were a crew member I see him as a pyrotechnic or stuntman. For Izuku, I think a script supervisor or stuntman - but tbh I prefer him as a first time actor hanging out with the cute angry pyrotechnician/stuntman during their break. The rest of Class 1-A can fill in for other roles like cameraman, director, etc.

I think for a film crew story, Izuku would be an actor who insists on doing all his own stunts because they’re risky and he doesn’t want anyone else getting hurt. As a result, he’s gotten hurt several times. The director would’ve forced him to let a stuntman do them, but Izuku has a very unique movement style that means it ends up looking wrong every time someone else tries. He’s new to the acting scene but trained under All-Might whose a well-established star.

Katsuki is also an actor, the co-star of the film and playing an antagonist (an anti-hero who ends up saving the group at the end). He also does all his own stunts but unlike Izuku he can actual do the stunts without getting hurt. Katsuki was a child star (starting at like 4-5), and so far he’s managed to avoid the path a lot of child stars go down with getting addicted to drugs or alcohol, it left him pretty jaded and a bit of a jerk. He doesn’t put up with the media’s bullshit even a little bit, and he has few fucks to give in general. People have been trying to take advantage of him and suck up to him since he was old enough to know that’s why they were doing, and he’s got no damn time for that. He and Izuku were childhood friends, but grew apart after Katsuki’s acting career kicked off because he was traveling so much. In this AU they wouldn’t have as much of a negative history, it’s mostly just Katsuki being jealous that Izuku had someone to guide him through all this while he went through all this alone.

Despite being a bit of a jerk, Katsuki is well-loved among the set design, costuming, and makeup crews. One of the ways he kept himself sober as a child star (beyond pure stubborn will power) was he picked up a number of hobbies and real life skills. People expect him to be pampered and spoiled, and somehow he’s the opposite. His favorite thing is backpacking on his own with low-tech equipment. If he can do something himself, he will do it himself. Cooking, cleaning, building things, etc. He has a particular interest in pyrotechnics and he’s damn good at them. When he’s not acting he can often be found helping out the set design crews, he’s the makeup crew’s favorite because he not only knows how to make their lives easier, but he also has a lot of good suggestions. Costuming and him get along well too, with him having helped them out with more than one last minute sewing rush. Some of the crew that have known him longest will actively seek him out to consult on particularly difficult set/costume/makeup designs for scenes he’s in. He’ll almost always have a workaround, either for the problem itself or changing up his performance to make a different solution work.

If it involves pyrotechnics, Katsuki is absolutely consulted for any movie he’s in. Not only does he know a lot about it, but he’ll bully the other actors (see: Izuku) into not being morons around fire.

For this imaginary movie, Uraraka is playing the role of the forced love interest. She and Izuku are trying their best but it’s just not happening. Meanwhile, Katsuki and Izuku have a ton of chemistry despite Izuku playing the hero and Katsuki playing the anti-hero (Or because of it). Currently there’s an ongoing fight between the director (Aizawa maybe) and the producers who are against any queer romance on screen.

Izuku and Katsuki hear about that, and the two of them talk about it and decide to do everything in their power to imply a relationship between their characters despite not being allowed to explicitly say it. It seems like the perfect plan.

Problem: Izuku is very gay & has had a crush on Katsuki since he was like 4. This was kinda of manageable when Katsuki was being a jerk/avoiding him on and off-screen. It is much, much worse now that on-screen Katsuki is going out of his way to be flirty/kind and off-screen Katsuki has chilled out a bit. His heart can’t take this.

As for the rest of the class:

- Uraraka & Iida are both actors playing the love interest and sidekick respectively.

- Sato is the head caterer & everyone’s favorite person pretty much.

- Kaminari is a lighting tech who works closely with Sero in rigging.

- Asui and Shinsou are both script supervisors.

- Momo heads up the set department, with Shoji and Ojiro working under her.

- Aoyama and Hagakure both work in make-up

- Tokoyami is in costuming and he’s very dramatic about everything all the time. He wears a bird-head mask everywhere and everyone has just accepted that’s his look.

- Koda is the head guy for animal handling. He’s just got a way with them.

- Shouto isn’t actually a part of the crew at all. Instead, Endeavor’s is on the company’s board of directors and is grooming him to take over that role. All Shouto’s older siblings were deemed unfit for the job by their father. Shouto was sent to observe the film production side of things as a training exercise. He still has his scar.

The league of villains in this AU wouldn’t be actual villains, but some of them play the villains in the film:

- Dabi was originally supposed to take over the company position. He and his father got into an argument, and he stormed off. As a result he got into an accident that gave him a lot of nasty scars. He got taken to a hospital and treated, but couldn’t be identified. When he finally woke up, he decided to run away. Since his parents never found out he was in the one in that accident, they didn’t recognize him when he started working as an actor. He plays one of the films villains, and took the role as a favor to his boyfriend. He didn’t know that his dad’s company was involved, and he had no fucking clue Shouto was going to be there. So for the entire time he’s trying to not get figured out by them.

- Tomura is Dabi’s boyfriend and playing the other villain in the series. He’s kinda a weird guy, but nice enough. His agent (All for One) makes everyone very uncomfortable though. The other issue is Tomura is really clumsy & breaks nearly everything he touches. He’s got coordination and balance issues which causes part of this, and the other part is just really bad luck.

- Toga and Magne both work in Makeup, Magne’s the head of the department & everyone loves her both for her astounding work and because she gives good life advice when you need it. Toga has weird vibes, but she’s absolutely amazing at what she does so, and like, she’s generally pretty nice too, so everyone just ignores the fact that sometimes the things she says implies she has killed someone and would do it again.

- Twice works in costuming, and even if his ideas are little sporadic and contrasting, he still does good work. Spinner works partially in costuming and partially in props.

- Mr. Compress heads up the props department. If you need something he has it. He seems to be able to make stuff appear from thin air, and he’s always carrying way more than you think he ought to be able to.

#bakudeku #film crew au #shigadabi #league of villains #dabi is touya #ronlett #katsuki bakugou #tomura shigaraki #dabi #midoriya izuku #class 1-a #shouto todoroki #endeavor #endeavor's a+ parenting #sif speaks #sif answers

304 notes · View notes

jamie-vanderan · 4 years

Text

Jamie Vanderan

IDENTITY

Name: Aoibhinn “Jamie” Vega Vanderan, born Aiden Vega Hearthwood

Gender: Female (trans), She/her

Age: 17 (sixth year)

Birthdate: Oct. 28th, 1972

Species: Human

Blood Status: Pure-blood

Alignement: CG

Ethnicity: Irish, British

Nationality: Irish

Myers-Biggs Personality: ENFP - The Campaigner

THE MAGE

1st Wand -> 11 3/4, Ebony Wood, Unicorn Hair

This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic and to transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix and among the Death Eaters. The ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.

2nd wand -> 10 1/4, Blackthorn, Dragon Heartstring

Blackthorn, which is a very unusual wand wood, has the reputation of being best suited to a warrior. This does not necessarily mean that its owner practises the Dark Arts; one finds blackthorn wands among the Aurors as well as among the denizens of Azkaban and Death Eaters. It is a curious feature of the blackthorn bush, which sports wicked thorns, that it produces its sweetest berries after the hardest frosts, and the wands made from this wood appear to need to pass through danger or hardship with their owners to become truly bonded. Given this condition, the blackthorn wand will become as loyal and faithful a servant as one could wish.

Animagus: Red fox (vulpes vulpes)

Misc: Not a legilimens. Occlumens.

Boggart Form:

Voldemort. This form is more for what he represents as opposed to the man himself. He is the reason for the war that Jamie grew up in. His mere name caused terror to anyone who heard it. It reminds her of the rumors that her dear brother ran away to join his ranks, something she refuses to believe. Her mother fled with her and her twin after Voldemort’s fall, fearing the aftermath. The boggart taunts her, in a way, casting doubt on her belief in her brother and reminding her of her fear of losing him forever.

The Portrait Dragon. The dragon represents the first real challenge from the Cursed Vaults that she struggled to overcome, even with her twin and friends’ help. Her friends were directly hurt by her near-failure. It was also where Rakeprick, her mentor, betrayed her. It represents failure, recklessness, abandonment, and the dangers she brings to those close to her.

Riddikilus form: Voldemort > Explodes into confetti and giggle noises. Dragon > turned into a stuffed dragon plush that then starts acting like a puppy.

Amortentia: (what she smells) Some kind of wood (it’s pine but she doesn’t know that), honeysuckle, and a familiar perfume she can’t quite identify

Patronus: Fox

Patronus Memory: 1) When she was five and Jacob was running around with her on his shoulders while she directed him to chase imaginary dragons. 2) Her father teaching her to ballroom dance (standing on his feet and everything) after the hired instructor cancelled last minute. She was looking forward to it and was crushed, until he offered to fill in instead. 3) Lake-side impromptu theater with Rose, Penny, and Rowan. Penny said she had never seen a specific play that the others had, so the other three spent the next hour or so (very terribly) reenacting the play for her. None of them could remember half the lines collectively, so it quickly turned into an improv session based on what they remembered. Much laughter was had. 4) Talking with Talbott at night in the astronomy tower. Both were up and out of their dorms past curfew, neither able to sleep. They talked about anything and everything except why they couldn’t sleep.

Mirror of Erised: Her family, together and whole. Her twin standing on her right; Jacob on her left, looking how she remembered him; and her parents standing behind her.

Specialized/Favorite Spells:

Diffindo (signature)

Incendio (favored dueling)

Levitation Charm (from constant practice)

Depulso (signature/favored dueling)

Bluebell Flames (ooo, pretty)

APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Billie Eilish

Voice Claim: Linda Cardellini (as Wendy from Gravity Falls)

Height: 5′10″

Eye color: Blue

Hair color: Blue (naturally brown)

Skin tone: Medium cool

Body modifications: Magic-based partial transitional body transfiguration (MtF), magically changed hair blue

Scarring: A scar on her stomach from a gash caused by the spikes on the tail of the dragon in the portrait vault when she was swatted aside. She asked to keep the scar. She has a few small and faded scars that were not erased with magic, gained from an active childhood, but aren’t significant enough to mention.

Inventory (what’s something they value): Her wand. Leather bracelet bought from a muggle shop. Dragon tooth necklace bought from Diagon Alley after 3rd year. Self-inking quill with shiny blue ink (gift from Rowan). Prefect Badge.

ALLEGIANCES

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Affiliations/Organizations: Circle Khanna

Profession: She plans to become an auror after graduation.

HOGWARTS INFORMATIONS

Class Proficiencies

Astronomy: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: E

Charms: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: E

DADA: ★★★★★★★★★☆

O.W.L. Achieved: O

Herbology: ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: E

History of Magic: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: A

Potions: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: O

Transfiguration: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: E

Flying: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

Electives:

CoMC: ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: E

Divination: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: O

Muggle Studies: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: E

Ancient Runes: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

O.W.L. Achieved: E

Quidditch: Joined team as beater in 6th year

Extra-curricular: Muggle music, dancing club

Favorite Professor: Flitwick. He’s highly skilled, engaging, patient, and fun.

Least Favorite Professor: Binns “Seriously, why does Dumbledore keep him?”

RELATIONSHIPS :

Sister: Rose Vanderan (fraternal twin)

The twins weren’t as close growing up as twins commonly are. From the age of five, both were raised and taught differently: Jamie (Aiden) was raised as a spare heir, as the second-born son, and Rose was raised as a proper young lady of the house. The separation continued once they reached school as both were in separate houses and made different friends (with the exception of Rowan and Ben who were shared with both). However, in their school years they were away from their mother, allowing more freedom from their “roles”. Since arriving at school, she and Rose dealt with all the expectations and concerns their brother left in his wake. Rumors, both good and bad, surrounded them and a lot of the weight was placed on their shoulders by Jacob’s larger shadow. Around their third year Rose became more involved with the search for the Vaults, and from that point the two became closer, and by their fifth year they were nearly inseparable.

Brother: Jacob Hearthwood

Born July 10th, 1963

Slytherin

Expelled Oct. 1980

Natural-born legilimens

Face Claim: Cody Christian

Since the beginning Jamie looked up to Jacob. He was cool, fun, brave, and strong, a great older brother. He was everything that she wanted to be. With a nine year age difference, she would always be a kid to him, but he always made sure to spend time with her during school breaks. She’d marvel at the stories Jacob told her of the adventures and mischief he’d get into at school, although he rarely spoke of the Cursed Vaults. Looking back she really doesn’t have any bad memories involving Jacob.

She, like her twin Rose, refused to believe the overheard whispers among the adults that Jacob had joined the Death Eaters: That he was young and impressionable, that he followed the wrong crowd and did a lot of questionable or illegal things that made him an interest for Voldemort’s efforts. Her brother would never. The rumor that he was dead she refused even harder; If he was a Death Eater, at least he was alive.

As she investigated what happened to Jacob in Hogwarts, she started to build a different image of her brother. Many people loved him, saying that he was a great student and a great friend. Others thought him a delinquent that brought nothing but trouble. It was the latter thought that surprised Jamie.

This Jacob was not the big brother she knew, or more accurately, the brother she remembered. Nine years is a long time, both as an age difference and a time to be separated. At first she believed that Jacob had changed, that the Cursed Vaults had really messed with his mind, made him mad like everyone claimed. But when she considered everything that she'd heard about her brother before he disappeared, both good and bad, she started to wonder if she ever really knew him to begin with. This was first evident when she hesitated to approach him in the Portrait Vault. Was this really the Jacob she remembered?

In mirrored contrast, her hesitation was also due to how different she was from what he remembered. He remembered Aiden, his younger brother. Rose tried to help explain, and Jacob understood the general idea from Rose’s memories due to their legilimens connection over the years. While he seemed to have accepted, Jamie didn’t have the chance to really say more--or anything she wanted to say the past nine years--before he ran off after Rakepick.

She was a stranger to him, just as he was to her.

Mother: Vassendra “Vassie” Vanderan

Born August 24th, 1943

Pure-blood.

Slytherin.

Lady of the Manor.

Work for the Dept. of Magical Games & Sports (Quidditch League Headquarters).

Face Claim: Charlize Theron

Vassie was often cautious and controlling, and at times overbearing. She had high expectations for all of her children, especially so for Jamie--who was Aiden then--as the only remaining male heir after Jacob’s disappearance. Jamie was relatively close with her mother before attending Hogwarts, but after Jacob’s disappearance their relationship was strained as she drew into herself more and more.

As the dangers of the Cursed Vaults grew with each year and the twins’ insistence in being at the center of it, Vassie threatened to pull them both out of Hogwarts. She very nearly had after their fifth year and the events of the Buried Vaults, but the twins managed to convince her that they would stay away from the Vaults, stating that they had learned their lesson the hard way. But a month into their sixth year, after they both turned 17, they broke their promise and threw themselves back into the search for the final vault. Jamie refused to give up on Jacob or just forget what Rakepick did. This is what finally estranged their relationship.

Jamie felt that her mother, like many of the other adults, had given up on Jacob and written him off as dead. She understood that her mother mourned Jacob’s absence as she had, as they all do, but while her mother was trying to move on, Jamie refused to let him go. Perhaps part of her, the still childlike and naive part, thought that if she could find Jacob and bring him back, that everything would go back to the way it was before.

Jamie’s estrangement from her mother was largely due to Jamie’s stubborn pursuit of the Vaults, but it began before she first arrived at Hogwarts, with her mother’s dismissive refusal to accept that her youngest “son” is actually one of her daughters. It wasn’t until just before Jamie’s second year at Hogwarts that her mother relented enough to allow a dorm change, and another year until she legally changed Jamie’s name from Aiden to Aoibhinn.

Father: Damian Hearthwood

Born July 28th, 1929

Pure-blood.

Gryffindor.

A businessman and threat analyst.

Natural-born legilimens

Face/Voice Claim: Jeremy Irons

Hearthwood was a fastidious and daring man, a strict but rewarding father, and a devoted husband. He cared greatly for his family and did what was necessary to provide for and protect his family. Like Vassie, Damian held high expectations for his children, and made efforts to ensure that they were raised to meet them.

Where Jamie had a closer and stronger relationship with her mother, she had a more distant but emotionally complicated relationship with her father. Her memories of him are mostly vague and sort of dull mixed with a desire for recognition and pride. She has several happy memories with her father that she treasures, but she also has memories of his disapproval and disappointment that she can’t let go. She sought his approval, to have him speak of her with the same pride as he had with Jacob.

When he was arrested in 1981, shortly before Voldemort’s fall, it came as a shock to her. Her father was a businessman, but he never spoke of specifics and her mother insisted it all be kept away from the twins. The adults would whisper, as they had when Jacob disappeared, but they were far more quiet and careful when it came to Mr. Hearthwood, as if they were afraid. Jamie, however, was angry with her father for being sent to Azkaban and leaving behind the backlash and danger great enough to make them leave the country. Her mother kept much of the details about Mr. Hearthwood’s arrest from the twins, shielding them the same way she did with anything involving what Mr. Hearthwood did.

Her emotions toward him are complicated.

Love interest: Talbott Winger

Best Friends: Charlie Weasley, Ben Copper (until his distance in 6th year)

Rival: Merula Snyde, Penny Haywood (in Potions)

Enemy: Rakeprick, R., the trick step in the staircase behind the tapestry on the fourth floor corridor

Dormmate: Barnaby Lee, Linden Flint (background angry blond Slytherin boy). From 2nd year on: Merula Snyde, Ismelda Murk, and Liz Tuttle.

Pets: Waffles Cooper (ginger tabby cat), Whiskerfitz (Jacob’s old owl)

Closest MC Friends: Penny Haywood, Ben Copper, Rowan Khanna, Andre Egwu

BACKGROUND/HISTORY

Vassendra met Damian when she was young and she was instantly swooned by his charm. He had money, charisma, influence, and good looks--well approved by her family as a satisfactory suitor. Within a year of their marriage, Jacob was born on July 10th, 1963. Aiden Vega Hearthwood was born shortly after her twin, Róisín, on October 28th, 1972. Jamie spent the majority of her childhood in the Hearthwood family estate, a manor built by her father, in Gloucestershire, England. In 1980, early into Jacob’s final year at Hogwarts, he was expelled and declared missing shortly after. In 1981, Mr. Hearthwood was arrested for selling contraband (illegally imported magical items) to Death Eaters, and was imprisoned in Azkaban. After Voldemort’s downfall a month later, Vassie took the twins and moved to Ireland to live with her father’s family, thinking distance would protect them.

PERSONALITY

Positive Traits: Strong-willed, charismatic, cunning, resourceful, adaptive communicator, empathic, confident

Neutral Traits: Observant, insightful, ambitious

Negative Traits: Jealous, manipulative, over-thinks when it comes to others’ reactions, lack of focus, meddlesome, scheming

MISC

Able to see thestrals since fourth year, after witnessing a student affected by the Sleeping Curse die from an unknown poison/venom in the hospital wing.

Learning to play guitar, is okay at it

Whiskerfitz is a small, crazy looking, and easily ruffled owl that used to be Jacob’s. He was an excitable and charming owl, but since his owner's disappearance he’s become neurotic and scared of people. It took the better part of her third year to get Whiskerfitz to trust her enough to approach him. Now he adores Jamie.

She managed to pass History of Magic thanks solely to Rowan and Rose’s help.

Inspired by a text glitch in-game, Jamie had trouble remembering whether Ben’s last name was “Copper” or “Cooper”. To fix this, she named her cat Cooper, so that Ben’s name is the other one. He probably doesn’t know this.

Notes:

The nickname “Jamie” was born of necessity from so many people mispronouncing Aoibhinn (ee-vahn). When asked, she’d tell people it was short for Jasmine, instead of James, because it’s feminine and fits with her twin’s name, Rose.

Her alignment started chaotic neutral, but it shifted as her goals became less selfish and more bigger picture, as it were. The Cursed Vaults affected more than just her and her siblings, and she started fighting for more than just her own personal reasons.

Jacob is nine years older than Jamie and her twin. He went missing shortly into his seventh year, three days before their ninth birthday.

The dragon tooth necklace was a gift reward from her mother for her high exam marks at the end of her third year.

Yes, that is a fourteen year age difference between the mother and father.

Used @hogwartsmysterystory‘s HPHM MC template.

#jamie vanderan #hphm mc #vanderan twins #jacob's sibling #hphm mc profilfe #mr hearthwood #talbott winger #hphm mc profile #ben copper #hphm ben copper #rose vanderan #madam rakepick #charlie weasley

8 notes · View notes

obscure-sentimentalist · 4 years

Note

for ya boi tate 2, 3, 10, 18, 30, 38, 44, 57, 64, 70, 80, 92, 100

For the original character asks

Oh, Tate, my sweet boy who wasn’t even supposed to be an original character, but evolved on his own and silently demanded that I tell his real story. He was entirely unanticipated, and now I can’t shut up about him.

Character context: Tate Merlyn, hailing from the being-reworked-and-written Distortion ‘verse. Tommy’s twin brother in a world where Malcolm decided to bring his young sons to the League of Assassins and train them for his own purposes. It takes many years for the brothers to get out, but they eventually settle back into Starling City, falling in with a certain vigilante operation and forming a tight-knit friendship (and later become roommates) with Felicity.

2. Do they like animals? Well, Tate doesn’t not like animals. However, the circumstances of his life didn’t give him a chance to have a pet, nor put him in contact with domestic animals often, and he never really let himself feel anything about that lack. At first impression, he’s ambivalent about animals.

But find him in a brighter future and give him a kitten to hold or a dog to run into on the street, and he’ll melt the second he makes eye-contact with them. Lots of soft, dopey smiles all around.

3. How do they dress? Ah, yes, a topic that honestly shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

Given that this is a universe where Malcolm is an even shittier father than in canon and has two sons who he’s shaped into his personal weapons from a young age, Tate doesn’t have a fashion sense for much of his life. When he isn’t in League uniform, his clothes are all black and gray, meant for utility and nothing more. The most he’ll allow himself is whatever excess warmth he can get from an old sweatshirt or hoodie, if one is on hand.

Even once he’s free enough to choose for himself, for a long time, Tate just… sticks with his wardrobe and its utter lack of character. Practical is fine, and it saves him time if he just grabs whatever’s in his drawer without looking--it’s about all the same, anyway. Why add another step?

It takes active intervention from Tommy and Felicity (and an incident involving a laundry mix-up) for Tate to start introducing more variety to his closet. He still opts for deeper, darker colors (more autumnal) for everyday wear, but at least it’s color. He’s also into flannels, though he has to be careful with any facial hair he might have, because he’ll make himself ripe for lumberjack-related playful mockery.

There are also plenty of warm sweaters and sweatshirts, because Tate loves being cozy, though the colors of those tend to lean on the lighter, softer end of the spectrum. He loves them, and over time begins to wear them more often than just around the house.

10. Do they have any nicknames? “Tater Tot.” There was no escaping that one, especially with a brother like Tommy. It’s often met with a fond “asshole” in reply, because these boys are such children.

He’s been called a few other silly things by those around him, though not quite to the level of a full-on nickname. Still, they’re often said quite lovingly, which fills Tate with a sort of warmth.

(He can’t say the same about the other names he’s gone by, so… he’ll take this.)

18. What flaws do they have? Tate’s biggest flaw is that he’s self-sacrificial as hell. It’s a character trait that sets up his whole role in the story, one that’s evolved painfully over time and the consequences of which are hooked deep in the narrative. Tate is just a dear, tragic boy whose attempts to protect and save his brother at the expense of himself go catastrophically wrong sometimes, and it takes him a very long time to unlearn that behavior.

Tate has plenty of other heavy-stuff flaws, but in more lighthearted terms… he can’t cook an edible meal, no matter how hard he tries. He can bake a little, if it’s just cookies or box-mix cake, and he’s a tea-making master, but any actual entree stands a fair chance of being toxic for human consumption. His archery skills are also abysmal--despite it being his father’s forte, and later surrounding himself with so many bow-wielding vigilantes--to the point where a plate of pancakes is more likely to be lethal than arrows fired by Tate. The people in his life lovingly refuse to let him live these foibles down.

30. What music do they enjoy? For the most part, Tate likes whatever songs make him happy, or simply jive with him. He’ll dig into some artists if more than a few of their tracks already appeal to him, but by and large he’ll rely on stumbling across individual songs that have a nice sound, no matter the genre.

He does tend to favor pieces that are more instrumental or have subtler, simpler vocals, though. It’s partially because that’s best suited to his quiet demeanor, and partially because lyrics are a bit of a tough spot for him, especially with more emotional, introspective songs. He can certainly appreciate well-crafted songwriting, but every once in a while a line will strike him in a particular, relatable way, and it makes him uncomfortable. Tate’s also a bit of an old man with a lot of top hits, grumbling about how he just wants some fun tunes, but here’s everyone talking about their bodies and other people’s and what they’re going to do with them, can he please just get songs about platonic affection every once in a while.

38. Are they the hero, or anti-hero? Definitely a hero, even though he won’t think of himself in those terms for a very long time, and his introduction in the present of the narrative--catching him at his lowest, darkest, most threatening point--sure doesn’t make it seem that way. His journey from that stage to the soft, heroic boy he becomes is messy and complex, but so meaningful.

44. How do they speak? Examples - Are they soft spoken, hot heated, vulgar Truly, my favorite part of this precious boy, the most defining Tate trait. He just… doesn’t speak much.

It’s not that he’s not good with words, or doesn’t pay much attention--Tate is pretty damn eloquent when he wants to be, and is observant to a fault. He’s merely incredibly selective with when and how he uses his words, which is a very distinctive contrast from Tommy’s frequent need to say something. Tate is fully capable of getting his point across with his body language and expression alone, or lets his brother do the talking for both of them.

To some extent, this is his nature, to be quiet and lean more into the nonverbal, but it was certainly exacerbated by the conditions he grew up under. In dealing with Malcolm and any sort of League business, Tate’s instinctive defense was to keep silent and speak only when expected--typically in response to or in clarification of orders. Quiet became less of something calming and wanted; and more of a necessity, a protection, a falling-in-line.

Tate may speak more often--not by much, but somewhat--in better times, but that’s because he feels comfortable and free enough to do so, and he’s leagues from being as talkative as Tommy. Still, even his silence is different, more expressive of his current mood instead of just serving as white noise, a smothering and muting of his feelings.

57. What do they do when they are happy? Tate is just a very tactile, huggy guy when he allows himself to be, and that often becomes particularly clear when he’s in a good mood. The happier he is, the more octopus-like he gets with his clinginess, but it’s sweet.

Either that, or he just dives head-first into his love of tea--making it, organizing his collection of it, buying more of it...

64. Do they like to dance? If he’s asked, Tate won’t answer that question--he’ll just silently raise his eyebrows and stare pointedly back at whoever brought it up. (If it’s Oliver or Roy, there’s another layer to the look, a clear returning of the question to them in challenge.)

The truth of it is yes, he does like to dance if the music and time are right, but he looks like a suburban dad at a barbecue when he does and he’s well aware of that fact. Better to act like he’s a townsperson from Footloose than hint that he even attempts to have a sense of rhythm.

70. Do they like themselves? Oof.

Tate… he’s done things. Granted, most of them were because he never actually had a choice unless he was willing to risk the consequences (if he was the assured sole recipient of them, he’d be more likely to; unfortunately, this was rarely ever the case, so Tate would fall in line for Tommy’s sake), but Tate is still accountable for how they went down. For as much as he can attribute his actions to trying to keep himself and his brother alive and free from as much harm as is avoidable, there’s still literal blood on his hands.

The thing that burns Tate the most, though, is the one decision he made of his own volition with the direct intention of hurting Tommy--again, for his safety, but that doesn’t make it any better. While the twins reconcile and rebuild their brotherhood even stronger than before, it’s still a blackened spot in their history even with the truth of it unraveled.

The question of whether or not Tate likes himself will be met with a vehement no for longer than anyone around him might expect, even as he gets more comfortable in his new life and knits himself into a group of people he can trust and who care. It’s recovery from the harm of the past, but Tate won’t feel comfortable in saying he likes himself until he figures out who that even is.

It’ll take time, but one day he’ll have a positive response.

80. How would they fare in a zombie apocalypse? Oh, Tate has the necessary skills down pretty darn well, knife expert ex-assassin and survivalist that he is. His biggest problem in that situation would just be the bitter frustration that he spent nearly 20 years of his life just trying to make it through a terrible situation, and he gets out only to be dumped into this? It’s another long fight for his life, which is disheartening for a guy who’s finally let himself admit that he just wants a chance to actually live. But he’ll handle it with grim determination, and hopefully with his brother at his side.

92. If they were given minutes to live, what would they do? Who would they want to see and say? Tate wouldn’t say much of anything here--he rarely ever needs words to express himself to the fullest.

Depending on the timeline--even solely focused on his better days--the number of people he’d want to see varies (thankfully, it grows as the years pass). But if he’s on a tight time limit and can only choose a few, then it’s without a doubt Tommy and Felicity. The three of them are the core found family (well, the twins are obviously twins, but still), the foundation of Tate’s life free of his father’s plans. And all Tate would want from his last minutes is to have the two of them present, to hold and be held in a tight group hug.

Tate is truly a simple man--just give him his people and a hug, and he can make peace with the situation.

100. Are they a day, or night person? Tough to say with Tate. For most of his life, he’d never really had that luxury--he’d be up at the asscrack of dawn or wide awake under the night sky depending on what was required of him. He’s adaptable by necessity.

But if we look to his better future… he’s still kind of middle-ground. He’ll generally be up at a reasonable definition of early in the morning, but also likes to take naps around the house when it’s particularly sunny and he’s not busy. Likewise, Tate will be fully alert at night for the amount of time he needs to be (whether it’s for crime-fighting-related activities, or just movie night), but will pass out the second he drops onto his bed, if he feels safe and comfortable enough with his surroundings to do so.

#obscure-sentimentalist writes sometimes #and cries about Distortion 'verse #and yells about her sweet boy Tate #truly I have not had my heart stolen by an original character like this ever before

2 notes · View notes