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yellow-mapleleaves · 3 years

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Realistic Personalities in Characters: Alice in Borderland

⚠ Spoilers ⚠

Short Summary

Alice in Borderland 今際の国のアリス is a Netflix original series about a young boy called Alice (Arisu) and his two friends who happens to find themselves trapped in an abandoned version of Tokyo in which they must take part in many life threatening games to survive.

I wanted to do a review on this series because I noticed that there were some characters that possessed very accurate and realistic behaviours and others that didn’t convey any emotion the entire show. I found it interesting that the mix of very different levels of well-displayed people was able to add to the already amazing plot of the series.

Characters Present:

Alice, Karube, Chota, Usagi, Kuina, Chishiya, Niragi

Alice - Protagonist

The main protagonist of the series is not always the favourite in most tv shows, but from looking at different reviews and people’s comments about Yamazaki’s character Alice, I’ve noticed that he is actually rather popular in his own fictional world. He is honestly probably one of my favourite characters as well, and that’s based on how realistic his behaviours and emotions are conveyed.

Some aspects and scenes of Alice that makes him a more convincing and realistic personality:

Being a normal young boy with no incredibly amazing skills

Not having god-like survival abilities just from being able to play battle-royal videogames well

Having flaws

Having only two close friends rather than a huge friendship group

Not being incredibly attractive and well-groomed

Not having a close relationship with his brother (not all siblings get along)

Having a bad relationship with his father

Having the very human instinct of survival by becoming willing to kill his friends to save his own life out of panic

Reacting badly to watching someone being killed (vomiting, screaming, trauma etc)

Not being incredibly serious all the time; actually having a sense of humour

Showing respect towards Usagi’s privacy

Having a very average style of clothing

Being awkward around people he doesn’t know

Excelling in one area (puzzles) but being quite disadvantaged at the rest

Making mistakes E.g. during the distance game, he doesn’t realize the trick of the game until it ends

Not being able to defend himself physically due to lack of strength

Not moving on after his friends’ deaths immediately like as if it doesn’t happen (it takes him a few days to even develop the energy to get up off the floor)

I would say I personally believe that Alice’s character has a strong and realistic personality, as Yamazaki’s acting and Alice’s reactions to certain experiences creates a sympathetic response from the audience.

____

Karube - Deuteragonist

Let’s be honest, everyone loves a bad boy character. During the short time that Karube was present during the show, I think he conveys both strong and weak personality traits. At some points I think the producers were trying too hard to bring a “tough man” façade to him, when I think he could show more realistic emotions and reactions.

Some aspects and scenes of Karube that makes him a more convincing and realistic personality:

Having a fiery and defensive personality (although it can more than often come across as immature)

Having a sense of humour even in tough times

Having obvious advantage in strength related survival skills

Not being invincible to fear E.g. running from the tagger during the “Tag” game and not even trying to fight back at first

Dealing with work related issues

Actually having a realistic dream life rather than one that sounds almost impossible

Being flawed but not too flawed

Having a love interest that he is forbidden to love (she is with another man)

Conveying fear through anger when Alice tries to kill him to save himself

Not having the nicest of personalities (not everyone is friendly to everyone)

Not having a overly selfless personality

I think Karube should’ve been included in the series more than he is, because his character is very lovable and many fans of this show obviously show sympathy when he dies. His character has a big, extroverted and blunt personality, and I think it is conveyed very well during the time he is present.

____

Chota - Tertiary

Although Chota is one of the main three characters in the beginning of the series, I honestly never felt that sympathetic for him. His character comes across as rather more annoying than weak to me. I understand that the point of his character is to have a weak and smaller personality to match Karube and Alice’s loud energy, but I think this person is kind of just there. He doesn’t do much, considering he almost loses his leg in the first episode and having to use crutches for the rest of the time he is alive.

Some aspects and scenes of Chota that makes him less realistic:

Being friends with people who obviously have dodgy jobs or no jobs at all when he is a successful technician himself

Doesn’t seem to have much of a life outside work and his friends, what are his hobbies?

Not exactly having much of a purpose in the show

Constantly having his guard up and being anxious or worried

Having too many flaws

Following a very different religion to that of his mother

Generally being incredibly different to Alice and Karube (I believe if their personalities were actually friends in real life, they would have too many arguments).

During the short time on the show that Chota had, it was more the point that his personality felt incredibly unneeded. It didn’t exactly serve a huge purpose in the storyline. As well as, he was hard to sympathize for.

____

Usagi - Love Interest / Deuteragonist

Usagi definitely has my most favourite back story of the series. Although, when researching about her I noticed that she is actually one of the characters that get the least recognition by the viewers, despite being in basically every episode and always being beside Alice. I have mixed emotions about the realism in her character, so I made both a positive and negative list to state both sides.

Some aspects and scenes of Usagi that makes her a more convincing and realistic personality:

Having a tragic yet realistic backstory

Using her mountain climbing skills as a huge advantage during physically challenging games

Showing obvious signs of grief for her father, even during the time she was placed in the game

Being insecure of her body

Fighting back against Niragi even when it’s obvious she won’t win

Having good survival instincts from past experiences

Willing to help others out when they need it E.g. during the “Tag” game she went along with Alice’s plan for everyone to work together

Having a obvious more introverted personality

Being too trusting, which ends up getting her hurt

Some aspects and scenes of Usagi that makes her a more unrealistic and poorly convincing personality:

Having too serious of a personality, not seeming to lay back and laugh for even a second

Seeming to have an unrealistic bravery E.g. during the tagger game, she didn’t seemed frightened at all despite that the tagger had a machine gun

Doesn’t react to graphic violent sights that would be traumatizing to humans

Not knowing what “The Beach” was despite being in the game for god knows how long

Overall, I think she is the awesome strong female character that a lot of thriller genres have. Although, I would love if for once a strong yet bad ass character didn’t act so mysterious and quiet all the time. But regardless, she is a good character that shows very human qualities.

____

Kuina - Confidante

Kuina is one of the more popular characters in the show, which I honestly can understand. She has obvious very strong manipulation skills as well as physical strengths like martial arts. Although, I believe her backstory is what truly shapes her as a character and is the reason why the audience develops such an emotional connection with her.

Some aspects and scenes of Kuina that makes her a more convincing a realistic personality:

Having a trusting and good relationship with Chishiya

Having a personality that conveys carelessness

Both social butterfly and keeps to herself

Being a character part of the LGBTQ+ community

Having a realistic backstory

Although having a bad relationship with her Dad, she still respects what he taught her

Having a parent that accepts her rather than just being abandoned, which is what a lot of Transgender characters have been stereotyped as

Being able to defend herself incredibly well

Giving her a human flaw (smoking addiction)

Having a elaborate hairstyle

Showing that she is not mysterious, she just has a lot of walls up

Showing care for people she doesn’t know E.g. warning Alice and Usagi about the militants

I really like Kuina’s character for her strong personality and her ability to build good relationships with the members at the beach paradise. Although she is not featured a lot during season one, the times we have seen her have obviously been enough to make her character very loved by the audience.

____

Chishiya - Confidante

I honestly could not find a more loved character if I tried. This character is such a small part of the show and yet you’d think he was the protagonist. I honestly think anyone would love a sly fox character though, because that’s exactly what he is. Although his personality would probably become annoying if he was a real person, in a genre like this he fits perfectly. So personally, I have mixed emotions about him, because I honestly didn’t get that emotionally attached to him as other audiences may have.

Some aspects and scenes of Chishiya that makes him a more convincing and realistic personality:

Having a cocky attitude at times

Has a underdog appeal to him

Mimics that of a selfish manipulative personality

Showing obvious signs of high intelligence, yet doesn’t blab it around like it’s a trophy

Gives the audience some entertainment

Having a sassy remark, even when his life is on the line

Going out of his way to do things that only benefit him

Having a personality that everyone loves and hates at the same time

Having that personality in which you can’t tell if he’s a good guy or a bad guy

Having a trademark, his white hoodie

Having a caring relationship towards Kuina

Some aspects and scenes of Chishiya that makes him a more unrealistic and less convincing personality:

Attempting to kill Niragi with no hesitation after knowing him personally for so long (that would be difficult to do even if you hated the person)

Not showing human emotions such as fear, worry or anger

Sometimes his personality came across as too selfish to be realistic

Not showing any signs of fear E.g. when Niragi waved a machine gun in his face, he didn’t even flinch

Sometimes his fancy words became a bit annoying

Everyone trusts him, regardless of how manipulative they know he is

Overall, he is a very entertaining character. In my opinion he’s like the personality that throws a match into gasoline then walks away like he didn’t start it. Although his realism in character isn’t exactly good, he is definitely loved for his good looks and sly actions by the audience.

____

Niragi - Antagonist

As much as I dislike this guy as a person in general, when it comes to creating a interesting and great character, he hit the nail on the head. He has one of the most realistic evil character developments probably in the whole series. His personality is so complicated and psychotic, which is what makes him an amazing antagonist and probably the second most popular character among the audience.

Some aspects and scenes of Niragi that makes him a more convincing and realistic personality:

Has a tragic backstory, making the audience believe that’s why he’s so psychotic

Having the delusional mindset that human nature is violence

Makes the audience feel bad for him, despite being a horrible person

Being a hidden antagonist (didn’t expect him to cause all the trouble in the end)

Showing obvious signs of psychological trauma

Conveys positive (yet destructive) emotions and behaviour, which is always a good break when all the characters are serious 24/7

Hits a breaking point in his emotions and goes on a killing spree

Shows loyalty to Aguni

Being awful to everyone, probably due to the fact that everyone was awful to him when he was younger. It’s a way of revenge

Becoming embarrassed when someone challenges him

Scaring people into submission (tactic for some leaders)

Conveys no care for anyone, honestly just uses everyone for either his own entertainment or his own benefit

Has a trademark, his machine gun and checkered shirt

Being self-aware of how evil he is

As evil and bad as he is, he’s one of the most endearing antagonists I’ve seen in a while. He is a very psychotic and emotionally wrecked personality to him, as if you know something traumatizing must have occurred in his life for him to be able to murder anyone without batting an eye.

#characterreview #character #aliceinborderland #alice #aib #writing #netflixoriginals #netflix #tvshows #characterreviews #usagi #karube #chota #kuina #chishiya #niragi

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four-loose-screws · 3 years

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FE8 Novelization Translation: Book 1 - Front Cover & Other Introductory Pages

Happy 2021, ya’ll! We made it! Who knows what this year will bring? At the very least, we can get excited about another FE novel translation!

The title this time around is.... the Sacred Stones! This was the most requested title outside of Jugdral.

This novel, unsurprisingly, follow’s Eirika’s journey, as her route has more details essential to understanding the overall plot, and is in the third person, but primarily told from her perspective.

Also, for the names of the writer and illustrator, note that I usually tend to write Japanese names in “given name -> family name” order, as I personally find that that’s the most simple for Westerners to understand. Plus, that’s what the previous novels have done as well. But this book takes the “retain the ‘original’ order and write the family name in capital letters” approach, so I decided to stick with that and stay consistent with what’s printed on the book.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Book 1

Written by TAKASE Mie

Illustrated by SUZUKI Rika

Published by Square Enix

(inside flap)

Author

TAKASE Mie

TAKASE Mie was born on July 31st in Tokyo. She graduated from Waseda University. Her recent hobby is the cello, which she was inspired to start learning after watching a certain sailing movie. Though she has dreams of one day being able to play Bach’s cello suites, she still has a hard time with even basic scales.

Cover and Obi Design: atelier THiRD

Long ago, the Demon King was sealed away within the five Sacred Stones, and the continent of Magvell has since enjoyed a long period of peace. However, that peace was shattered in an instant. The Grado Empire, honored as the most powerful of all the nations guarding the Sacred Stones, began to invade the other lands of the continent. Grado had always maintained friendly relations with the surrounding countries, so why invade? The kingdom of Renais falls without the answer to this question. Because those still in Renais have lost contact with Prince Ephraim and the front line, Princess Eirika is entrusted with reviving her country, and flees on a journey to their ally, the Kingdom of Frelia...

(inside flap)

Illustrator

SUZUKI Rika

SUZUKI Rika currently lives in Yokohama. She is a freelance illustrator who has contributed to titles such as the Monster Collection TCG (published by Fujimi Shobo) and Angels of Dawn (written by KAYATA Sunako and published by Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc.). She also created the manga Tableau Gate - Volumes 1 & 2 (published by Kadokawa Shoten).

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Book 1

Written by TAKASE Mie

Illustrated by SUZUKI Rika

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Day That Decided Her Fate

Chapter 2: The Blood of a Warrior

Chapter 3: The Stolen Bracelet

Chapter 4: The Pursued Cleric

Chapter 5: Fog of War

Chapter 6: The Castle on the Lake

Chapter 7: The Girl with Wings

Chapter 8: At Port Kiris

Chapter 9: The Heroes at the Fort

Chapter 10 The Secluded Sage

Character Introductions

Eirika

The Princess of Renais. She is kind, and does not like war itself, but still dedicated herself to the current war without hesitation to retake her country, a goal entrusted to her by her father, the king.

Fado

The king of the Kingdom of Renais. In his youth, he was renowned for his military prowess, and he is adored by his people as an honest statesman.

Seth

Though he is the youngest of all Renais’ generals, his loyalty and superb skills in both combat and discernment make him the ideal image of a knight.

Franz

He may have just only become a full-fledged knight, but he has a very serious and earnest personality, and is skilled in combat as well, ensuring him a promising future.

Valter

A general of the Grado Empire also known as the Moonstone. He was discharged from the army for the crime of massacring ordinary citizens for fun. However...

Gilliam

A devoted knight of Frelia with a long history as a fearless soldier. He is a man of few words, but his power is known throughout the entire Frelian Army.

Tana

The princess of the Kingdom of Frelia. In contrast to her friendly personality that is beloved by all of her retainers and servants, she also has military experience, and is an active member of the pegasus knight unit.

Hayden

The king of the Kingdom of Frelia. His resourcefulness is unparalleled, and has earned him the title “The Wise King.” He is a long time friend of Fado’s and spares no effort in aiding Eirika and her allies.

Vanessa

An outstanding knight, even among the prided Frelian pegasus knights. She is very serious, but kind.

Moulder

A priest. Within his calm appearance lies a very intelligent mind. He can not only heal with staves, but is also knowledgeable in medicine.

Selena

A mage general of Grado, also known as the Fluorspar. One of the empire’s three generals. She has vowed her undying loyalty to Emperor Vigarde.

Ross

A boy living in Ide Village in Renais. He is saved by Eirika and her allies when his home is attacked by bandits.

Garcia

Ross’ father. A former troop commander in the Renais’ army known for his dauntless courage. When his wife passed away, he retired from the army to raise his son.

Neimi

A girl born in Lark Village in Renais. Her home was burned down by bandits. She cries easily, but undoubtedly inherited her grandfather’s famous skills with a bow.

Colm

Neimi’s childhood friend. They were the only two to survive the bandit attack on their hometown. He has sticky fingers, but is kind to Neimi.

Artur

He meets Eirika and the others while carrying out the orders given to him by his church to purge the lands of monsters. He has a deep love of learning and is a devoted monk.

Lute

Artur’s childhood friend. Though it is true that she is an exceptionally skilled mage, the words and actions she chooses as a result of her confidence in that fact are a bit detached from reality.

L’Arachel

A young woman with a strong sense of justice on a continuing journey to take out the monsters roaming the lands. She actually appears to be of noble standing based upon the way her companions talk to and act around her.

Dozla

A warrior traveling with L’Arachel. He cannot hide the fact that he is her loyal retainer, though perhaps it is more accurate to say that he is not really trying. He’s not one to sweat the small stuff.

Rennac

He is actually a master thief, and just under contract with L’Arachel, but all she does is drag him around everywhere.

Natasha

A cleric being pursued by the Grado Army because she was deemed a traitor. She asks to travel with Eirika so she can spread the word to other nations about the strange things occurring within the empire.

Joshua

A skilled mercenary who loves to gamble above all else. He becomes Eirika’s ally after losing a bet with Natasha.

Ephraim

The prince of Renais and Eirika’s older twin brother. He is blessed with a strong sense of justice and decisiveness. He also excels in spearmanship, and his skills are highly respected by the cavalier unit.

Kyle

A loyal retainer who has served Ephraim ever since he joined the cavalier unit. An exceptional knight who’s skilled in serving as a guard.

Forde

Like Kyle, he serves Ephraim as both a guard and close confidant. He and Kyle have been rivals since they were young. He is also Franz’s older brother.

Orson

The commanding officer of the Renais cavalier unit. He is a devoted cavalier who has served the royal family for years, and that King Fado trusts deeply, however...

Innes

The prince of The Kingdom of Frelia. He always has a strong sense of duty towards his role as a member of the royal family. He is extremely confident in himself, and has the strength and abilities to back it up.

Myrrh

A girl who is neither human nor monster, but a member of the dragon tribe. She leaves The Darkling Woods to tell the humans about the abnormalities occurring across the continent.

Amelia

A girl who became a soldier because of her respect for General Duessel. However, she feels lost when she learns that he opposes the war.

Gerik

The brave leader of a band of mercenaries. He joins Eirika’s army because Prince Innes hired him as his guard.

Tethys

A dancer whose bewitching dances attract the soldiers around her and heighten their morale. Once she joined Gerik’s Mercenaries, she became an indispensable member of the group.

Marisa

A female mercenary is rare enough, but her beauty and skills make her even more of a diamond in the rough. She is registered in the guild as a member of the same mercenary group as Gerik.

Ewan

Tethys’ little brother. He aspires to become a mage, and convinced a renowned sage to become his teacher. He is at the age where he cannot help but want to be treated as his own person.

Saleh

The sage of Caer Pelyn, and the only person of this age to associate with those of the dragon tribe. His abilities are very widely known. He is also Ewan’s teacher.

Glen

A general of the Grado Empire who is also known as the Sunstone. One of the empire’s three generals. He also questions the current war…

#fire emblem #fe #fe8 #sacred stones #nintendo #game boy advance #gba #japan #japanese #translation #novel #light novel #fe8 novelization translation

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hermitcraftheadcanons · 4 years

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[COMPLETE]

Hrrmitcraft AU (Hermitcraft villager AU)

...this started as a throwaway joke, but I guess we're doing this for real now! Might as well go with it. (I'm going to put summaries instead of direct quotes this time to help with length)

- The Hermits all live in or near a large Minecraft village

- Xisuma is a wandering trader who stops by every few days to trade and share stories of his travels. Nobody really knows where he lives, and they've never seen him actually sleep.

- Cleo was zombified a while ago and cured only partially. She is safe to be around now, but she still looks like a zombie and has occasional thoughts of attacking her neighbors.

- Stress is a witch who got lonely and moved into the village with her cat.

- Cub and Scar are villagers who were turned into illagers (1/10 chance of happening when a villagers health is brought low enough). It is unknown whether this was an accident, or if they orchestrated the incident in an effort to gain Evoker powers.

- Grian is a nitwit who spends his time pranking the others

- Joe works two jobs as a leatherworker and a librarian. Why? So he can have both a lecturn and a full cauldron.

- Beef is a butcher

- Impulse is a workaholic carrot farmer who just. Doesn't. Stop.

- Zedaph is also a farmer, but he spends most of his time 'farming' things that aren't actually farmable in the hopes of discovering a new crop

- Doc is a cleric, and so was Cub before becoming an illager. They take a scientific approach to potion brewing, and they developed the potion that cured Cleo. (Cub is still pretending to be a cleric after becoming an Evoker to blend in. Doc hasn't noticed yet.)

- False is a reformed pillager who now guards the Hermit village, crossbow at the ready.

- Iskall is a weaponsmith

- Bdubs is a mason. He really likes fancy and interesting blocks, and he's one of the first and most excited to greet Xisuma when he comes back with new trades

- Mumbo was originally an armourer, but he switches jobs a lot. Nothing really seems to fit, and he's a bit distracted by trying to mess with the redstone Stress gives him sometimes. He hasn't managed to create anything usable yet, but he's heard players can, and he's determined to try.

- Mumbo likes to help out when the others are overwhelmed with their own jobs, since he doesn't have a set profession

- Zedaph lives next to the sheep pen and has an understanding with them. He's figured out how to lead them with wheat and he uses them in pranks sometimes.

- in his experimenting, Zed discovered how to farm mushrooms in caves. He now gives them to Beef for making stew.

- in addition to being a cleric, Doc is also an armourer and the only one mentioned so far with the ability to make redstone work. He uses this skill to make cybernetics for anyone who needs them. He must have made some deal with something powerful to get his abilities extended like this, but at this point it's unclear who or what that might be or what the cost of the arrangement was.

- Beef isn't actually a shepherd, but he really wants to be. He spends a lot of time with llamas, getting them to trust him. He especially likes hanging out with X's llamas when he's in town, even if it makes him run a little behind on his travel schedule.

- Doc got his arm when a player found him injured after a creeper accident and decided to fix him up. He learned redstone using the arm as an example, but was missing the ability of a player to actually make it work. He made a deal (implied to be with Herobrine) at great personal cost to recieve this power. (Unclear exactly what that price was)

- there is at least one player in the Hrrmitcraft world, but the Hermit village is very far from spawn so the player has never been there. Doc and possibly Xisuma are the only ones who have seen the player.

(edit: there are two players in the world: the more compassionate one Doc encountered, and a much more efficiency-minded one who imprisoned Wels in a trading hall)

- Bdubs goes around the village every night making sure everyone is indoors and safe from mobs. He ends his rounds each day with the long, excruciating task of trying to get Impulse to stop farming and actually go to bed. He is hilariously and annoyingly persistent.

- as a consequence of his deal, Doc is very slowly developing creeper-like traits (an aversion to cats, slight gunpowder smell, green veins creeping up his arm). He hides it from the others and tries his best to deny or ignore it. (This may not be the only or the most severe consequence, but it is the most immediate)

- Grian has a pet parrot that X brought him from a far away jungle. He talks to it and has trained it to do simple tasks like pulling levers.

- Cleo used to be a leatherworker before her zombification, but can't do it now

- Tango is an iron golem who was accidentally given the ability to speak. He protects the village with False and hangs out near the farms with Impulse and Zedaph

- Keralis is an ex-wandering trader who got tired of life on the road and settled down. He used to travel with Xisuma sometimes, or at least their paths would cross often. Now, Keralis is a mason who spends his spare time trying to figure out bees.

- Etho is a cartographer who keeps to himself, often going days without seeing anyone other than Beef, Bdubs, and Doc. Xisuma uses his maps on his travels, and is willing to overlook how impossibly accurate they are in spite of Etho never being seen leaving the village.

- xB is a fisherman who's heard tale of Guardians in the deep waters. He wants to go find them, but Xisuma won't let him, fearing for his safety on the open sea and on the journey to get there.

- Wels uses his experience of being zombified and cured over and over again to help Doc and Cub cure Cleo

- Hypno is a fisherman, and he has a rivalry with Jevin the leatherworker. They argue over which is the smelliest after a long day of work.

- Hypno and xB talk on the docks sometimes while mending nets and lines. Hypno claims to have traveled the sea before, but won't say what happened. The hope of hearing the story gives xB a reason to stay, and the way Hypno gets when he asks about what happened gives him a bit more caution about following the horizon just yet.

- Ren is a shepherd. He's named all of his sheep, and his house is the first place they go for shelter in a storm. He has multiple outfits that he makes out of their dyed wool, and he loves to try out new colour combinations. He may or may not have taken some of Jevin's dyes for this....

- Joe picked up leatherworking after Cleo's zombification, since her fingers are now too stiff for delicate tasks. She's still very knowledgable though, so they work together a lot. Being able to keep doing her job with a friend is one of the main reasons she was able to accept and adjust to her new way of life.

- Evil X is a pillager captain who tricked Xisuma into leading his patrol to their village. They camped out on the edge of town and started launching raids on and off for several weeks. Tired of the attacks and feeling guilty for his part in causing them, Xisuma eventually lead the patrol on a chase after himself and trapped them in a cave.

- Scar was a cartographer before he became an Evoker, and he still does some of the work. Etho is the only one who knows his secret, and he's agreed to keep it if Scar helps him with mapmaking. Scar is the one to research for the details of the maps, since hostile mobs see him as one of their own, so he can leave the village safely.

- TFC is a (technically) retired weaponsmith who moved to the Hermit village after his own village died out. He makes weapons to help False guard the town, and he has a friendly rivalry with Iskall.

- TFC started out as a toolsmith, changing jobs after he left his original village. Before that, he made pickaxe after pickaxe and dreamed of exploring the caves, even though he knew it was far too dangerous.

(this AU was created by multiple lovely people through asks! I encourage you to scroll through the #Hrrmitcraft AU tag to see more details)

#hcraft #hermitcraftheadcanons #hermitcraft #hermitblr #mod shade #Hrrmitcraft AU #i still don't really know why this is happening but I'm here for it #long post

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thephantomofthe-internet · 4 years

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Read Into Me Chapter 3: The Scarlet Letter

Steve Harrington x Reader

CATCH UP ON THE SERIES HERE

Word Count: 4,420

Warnings: Bad grades, swearing, anxiety, bullying

Tag List: @divinity-deos @thecaptainsgingersnap @wolfish-willow @scoopsohboi @herre-gud-nej @clockworkballerina @maddie1504 @i-am-trash-so-much-its-scary @bajino-in-the-hole @buckysarge @wildcvltre @stanleyyelnatsiii @t0rmenta0 @10blurredsmoke10 @unusuallchildd @n3wtscaseofniffler5 @alwaysstressedout @peterparxour @linkispink1995 @asharpknife @a-big-ball-of-idk @used-avocado @mochminnie @sledgy14 @the-creative-lie

Steve arrived first to Mr. Lawrence’s homeroom, his paper shoved to the back of his notebook. He was happy to have the distraction of Vicki and Tina jabbering at him. He didn’t want to think about his paper. English wasn’t his best subject, but he could hide it from his peers when it was just the teacher and him going back and forth on essays, him writing and them marking. Now, somebody was going to know that he wasn’t good at this. Nancy knew, of course, and while she didn’t say it she always seemed a bit judgemental over his lack of essay writing skill. She was good at everything; it made him feel like he was in good hands when they were together, like they both had something to offer. Apart, it made him feel stupid and secondary, like he was awful at everything. Truth be told, he didn’t exactly know what he had even offered to that relationship, looking back he couldn’t understand why he thought he was worth anything in a relationship at all.

When he sat down, the desk next to him was empty. Steve wasn’t usually early to class, so he was a bit relieved to not see you there. Maybe he could avoid the eminent roasting of his work.

You got to school late. You were absolutely drenched from head to toe. You had walked to school that day, and a sudden rainstorm hit you halfway through, soaking you before you could make it to the building. To make it worse, you’d decided to wear white for the first time in forever. You rushed to your locker in the hopes to change and luckily you’d left a stained sweatshirt there from the previous semester. You’d pushed your wet hair up and away from your face and rubbed away the bits of black eyeliner that had flaked down you cheeks. You looked like shit and you knew it. It was turning into a less than successful morning. You hadn’t even had a chance to look in your locker mirror once you’d changed. You were already late enough for class and didn’t need the write up. You rushed to your English class.

Everyone turned their attention to the doorway when you opened it. You hurried to your desk, keeping your head down and ignoring as Vicki and Tina laughed. You heard Tina say “She looks like a drowned rat.” But you chose to pretend that you didn’t. You were freezing; Hawkins High turned off the heating system mid-March and left the school to stew in whatever weather the state was dealing with to save the county a few bucks a month.

Steve slid his paper onto your desk, keeping his eye on the front of the room as Mr. Lawrence took up attendance. He’d written on the board in chalk ‘how to peer edit’ in thick block letters. You weren’t exactly enthused by the topic, but you were glad to have the dull class to doodle instead of actually listening. You flipped the paper in front of you, looking over Steve’s chicken scratch without really taking in any of the information. You slid it into your trapper keeper, passing Steve your own typed copy of the assignment. You’d made sure to keep the original at home, edited just in case Steve didn’t give you any edits. You left in some mistakes so he could get a grade, but you didn’t want to have to rely solely on him.

You flipped open your sketchpad slowly, keeping your eye on Tracy Lords curly mess of hair piled high on the top of her head like Medusa’s snakes trapped in a golden laurel, or in this case a braided headband. You pulled your graphite pencil from the pink pencil bag you’d sewn in freshman year home-ec. You started with the shape, trying to capture the exact strangeness pile, making little tight curls in the centre of the oval and spiralling in all directions. You felt a pair of eyes on your neck and you turned to see Steve staring over your shoulder. You pulled yourself and the pad inward, trying not to blush. You didn’t like people looking at your art; you hardly showed your work to anyone, even Samantha. All of your drawings sat in their pads, which piled up as the years went by, untouched and forgotten. If Samantha wasn’t allowed to see the pictures of her, Steve Harrington was certainly not allowed a peak.

“Alright, today if you and your partner are ready to begin, we’ll start editing our papers. If you aren’t ready, that’s fine but today is the only day that we’re doing in class editing so I would spend today trying to finish up so you can at least pass your papers on.” Mr. Lawrence explained. You sighed, closing your pad and pulling Steve’s essay from your trapper keeper.

“Now, we want to look for not only spelling and grammar problems, but also sentences that don’t make sense and confusing details within the essay. It’s not about how many big words you can use, it’s if you can accurately and dynamically give your reader information.” Mr. Lawrence explained. He took to the board, writing key points for his marking, specifically to edit in pen and give a letter grade for the paper.

Tina’s hand shot up “You want us to grade the paper? Isn’t that your job?” she asked, smacking her gum violently. Vicki snickered into her palm, reddish brown hair away from her face.

Mr. Lawrence shook his head “No no, I’m not taking your grade on the papers into consideration for my grade, instead I want us to give each other grades to mark the progress of an essay, to give your partner an idea of what the paper might be worth. It’ll be up to them as to whether or not they are comfortable with the grade or if they want to improve.”

You didn’t like that. Who the hell wanted their classmate grading their paper? This was a recipe for disaster. You uncapped your red pen with your teeth, chewing on the lid nervously. You looked over the page. You had made up your mind that you’d be nice. You’d want Steve to be nice to you. It was the least you could do.

But it only took a few lines to understand that this was not a good paper. Spelling and grammar mistakes galore, run on, confusing sentences, no clear subject. It wasn’t even a good story, hell it wasn’t even an essay it came off more like a point form list. As you added more and more red ink to the black, white, and blue it started as. The paper started to become a Jackson Pollack more than a lame essay for an English class, it almost felt beautiful instead of shitty to destroy his essay. It was as though you were turning into art.

Out of curiosity, you looked over at your paper to see how it was fairing. Steve was, as expected, chatting up Vicki from across the aisle, and he’d made two corrections on your page, both small mistakes you’d left in. You rolled your eyes, a pit of annoyance making itself known in the centre of your stomach, as bitter as the cyanide in a peach pit. You made your last two corrects before scrawling a large ‘D’ at the top of the page and initialling next to it.

You flipped the paper over and pulled back out your sketchpad and brought it close to your chest, pulling your knee up to your chest and adding more curls to the back of Tracy Lords’ head, then focusing in on the braided headband until the bell rang. You flipped your pad closed and slid Steve’s essay back to him, quickly putting your stuff away.

“You mind if I take this home and give it to you tomorrow?” Steve asked, waving your essay in front of your face, nearly giving you a paper cut on the bridge of your nose.

You pushed the paper away, squinting up at him. “Yeah, whatever…” you replied, turning away from. You didn’t feel bad for giving him a bad grade now. He was still a dick head. “Don’t forget your paper.” You added, quickly making your way into the halls. You didn’t usually have the confidence to be snarky with anyone you didn’t trust, but something told you that you could handle Steve Harrington. Maybe it was just how awful his essay was, you felt like you could talk your way out of a fight.

Samantha grabbed your arm as you left the room, the pair of you thankful to have the same lunch period every other day. You hurried into the cafeteria. You knew well enough that she was on the prowl, eyes scanning the room for a certain figure.

“I think the band’s practising today, dude.” You said, taking an extra tray for Samantha and getting her serving of lumpy mashed potatoes and chicken surprise slopped on the plate. Samantha was looking for Robin Buckley, a junior on her soccer team who had drawn her attention as of late, and had been trying to get closer to her as of late, inviting her to join them for lunch every time she saw her and leaving you to third wheel.

“Yeah, probably.” She replied, taking the tray you held out for her and paid for her meal. “So, how’d talking sweet, sexy assignments with King Harrington?” Samantha crooned, batting her eyelashes up at you.

You rolled your eyes “Well, for one, we don’t talk period, and for another it’s fucking awful.” Taking your places at the table closest to the emergency exit, you settled into your routine of trying to choke down the awful cafeteria food. You grabbed your trays and had them filled with whatever horrific concoction the lunch ladies had come up with that day. You carried your grey and brown mushy mess to your table, a small four seater near the edge of the room, out of view from the popular assholes who liked the throw food.

“Oh? Is that what makes it awful? Not getting to enjoy the charming conversations he has to offer?” Samantha was trying hard not to laugh. Watching you squirm was hilarious.

“More like because I have to read his writing…” you replied. You jabbed your fork into what was supposed to be pot roast, but seemed to be ninety percent instant gravy and ten percent meat from an undetermined animal.

“Since when are you such a snob?” Samantha’s mouth was full of mashed potatoes, but the words rang clear.

“Since I spent my morning reading absolute dog shit about a vacation to Miami beach. It was pathetic! I mean, and I’m no critic, but if you’re going to write me an essay on your vacation, can you at least make it interesting?” you ranted. The more you talked about how awful it was the angrier you got about it. You spent so long on art and creating, you spent your time working hard and for someone to slide through life made your blood boil.

Steve didn’t usually spend his free time searching through the cafeteria for people, people usually found him. Tommy and Carol had already motioned him over, their new friend Billy already gone somewhere else, and Vicki and Tina had called for him to join them, but Steve had to handle something first. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, he wasn’t certain he’d find it in there, but there wasn’t any shame in searching. He would ask someone for directions, but it seemed that nobody knew or cared where you were at any time.

You gave him a ‘D’. A god damned ‘D’! He was flummoxed, he thought his essay was shit, he wouldn’t pretend that he didn’t, but he had expected you to be a bit kinder. That was like the unexpected rule of everyone in the class, to grade on the curve. But you went in hard. All he wanted was some answers.

He saw first a flash of pencil stained hands in the air, then the shine of your hair under the florescent lights. You were talking with your hands, making Samantha Cameron laugh hard. He’d never seen you that animated, it made him smile for reasons he didn’t quite understand.

He chuckled, coming up behind you in the hopes that your ease would stick around if he didn’t announce his presence. “You really gave me a D on my paper? What did I do to deserve that?” he asked.

Apparently, you really couldn’t smile when he was around. Both you and Samantha’s smiles dropped, your punky friend dropping her gaze as you were forced to turn around. “Oh…um…well I mean it…maybe I need to look it over again, I was probably being too harsh…” you stuttered, unable to keep yourself from burning up. You prayed that he hadn’t heard what you were saying. That would’ve been awful.

“Hey, it’s cool, the paper’s no good, it’s no big deal.” That was a lie of sorts, when Steve saw the big red ‘D’, his heart dropped. And he really didn’t believe that you were as innocent as you seemed. You seemed guilty over something.

“Well…I’m sorry anyway. I didn’t mean to bother you…” you apologized. You hoped he’d go away; you’d never been more uncomfortable around a person than Steve Harrington. You didn’t know why, but something about him made gave you more butterflies than other people did, he scared you for reasons you couldn’t quite understand.

“You didn’t bother me, don’t worry.” Steve chuckled awkwardly. You wouldn’t look him in the eye, it was throwing him off. “So, listen, I don’t want to fail this class,” he huffed out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck “Could you maybe help me rewrite this thing?”

You looked to Samantha, unsure if you could even speak words anymore, but she was smirking into her pot roast. Absolutely no help at all. You tried to smile “Um…sure, I can’t promise I’ll be much help though…” your voice was hoarse and unsure of itself. You hated that you’d said yes, but you couldn’t bring yourself to refuse. What if he got mad? Or yelled at you? You couldn’t handle being ridiculed or yelled at, you’d die.

Steve chuckled “Any help I can get is good enough. I can meet you in the library after school, okay?” he said, turning his gaze to Tommy’s hollering from across the cafeteria. He waved him over with both hands, like a sailor on a sinking ship, trying to beckon Steve back to where he belonged. Steve nodded, holding up his index finger, he only needed one minute.

“Sure, yeah that’ll work.” You said, fiddling with a thread hanging from the edge of your grey sweatshirt. You’d painted a little pink flower on the inside of the sleeve. When Steve saw it, he couldn’t help but smile at it; it looked so sweet and earnest.

“Alright, I’ll see you then.” He left after that, heading over to Tommy, who was frustrated beyond belief. He took his seat easily, stealing the pudding cup off of Carol’s tray wordlessly.

“What did that freak want?” Tommy asked loudly, his eyes blown wide. Carol was painting her nails, not even bothering to look up from her work. Tommy made no attempts to hide his dislike of you. He’d expected his best friend since the second grade to feel the same.

“She’s nice, we’re doing an assignment together.” Steve replied with a shrug, pulling the plastic covering off the cup, sticking the plastic spoon into the vanilla pudding.

Across the room, Samantha grabbed onto your hands with a giddy grin. “Look at my little girl! She’s got plans, with a boy!” she squealed, swinging your arms back and forth over the table.

“Jesus, can you please stop acting so straight? You’re gonna scare Robin off.” You yanked your hands away, watching with a grin as she turned her attention back to looking around the room excitedly. You let your eyes find Steve in the cafeteria, the buzz of fear filling your ears. You couldn’t believe that you agreed to meet him anywhere. You wanted to disappear.

You couldn’t focus on anything for the rest of the day. Your mind had gone into a feral sort of panic mode, pumping fear through your veins and turning your palms cold. When the final bell rang, it took all your strength and courage to not run all the way home. You knew that if you didn’t show, the problem wouldn’t go away. You’d just have to deal with the results of ditching the next day, and if not done now, then you’d have to deal with it another day. You clutched your books tight to your chest, sitting on the bench outside the library, trying to keep the butterflies from bursting out of your mouth. Your hands kept coming to your hair, trying to fix it or keep it away from your ears, maybe just to comfort yourself. It had dried weird and you worried that it looked ridiculous.

You saw his shoes come up to yours before you saw his face, royal blue Adidas with white and red details and dirty laces. You noted your own dirty white Converse, marked with mud and lyrics to songs that Samantha wrote on the toes. “Hey, you ready to do this?” Steve asked. You looked up and nodded, swallowing hard.

You wouldn’t make eye contact with him again. It was really starting to freak him out. He didn’t know what he did wrong, but it seemed like you really didn’t like him. Still, you’d agreed to help him and he wouldn’t take that for granted. He’d read your essay twice and it was good. He didn’t know much about good writing, but he knew that Mr. Lawrence would like it, that it would get a good grade. And he wanted decent grades too, so he could get into college and get his dad off his back.

The Hawkins High library was fairly quiet after school, most students headed back home or to after school clubs. Only a few stragglers remained, mostly using electric typewriters and returning books to poor Mrs. Mueller, who always kept the library open till four, waiting for her husband, the head of custodial staff, to finish his work. She smiled at you when you walked in. Mrs. Mueller was a nice woman who let you sit in the library during lunch and always checked in on you when you seemed alone. She was your favourite teacher, despite never having a class taught by her.

Steve chose a table in the dead centre of the room, dropping his blue bag on the wooden chair next to him and pulling out his papers. You carefully followed suite, folding your hands in your lap, unsure what to do with them. Steve smiled at you, sliding the essay towards you “So, what am I doing wrong?” he asked.

You narrowed your eyes, unsure where to begin. You picked up the paper, and then open your notebook, writing down everything the story seemed to be about. Steve watched you, utterly confused. Once you had every down, you set down your pen. “Okay,” you didn’t look up from your paper, sliding the essay to the middle of the table. “Tell me what your paper is about.”

“What? You read it, you should know.” Steve laughed awkwardly.

“Humour me.” You replied, looking up slowly to meet his eye. Steve’s smiled dropped, looking at you for a second. You broke eye contact first, but he wished he had been able to hold it for a moment longer.

“Okay, well,” he took a deep breath “I wrote about my family’s trip to our cottage on Miami Beach, and I talked about what I did. Nothing much.”

“Okay, because what you actually wrote isn’t really about that. What you told me is that you went to Miami Beach, your parents own a dirty beach house that was your grandparent’s house and that they’re both dead, that your grandfather fought in World War Two and that the medals were framed in the house, that you met a girl on the beach but she didn’t like you, and that the flight was long.” You explained. You still couldn’t believe that he’d fit all of that into a page of work.

“So?” Steve asked. That was all true of his last trip. Mind you, that was way back in middle school and the details were hazy.

“So, that’s a lot of information that I don’t care about. You can cut all of the stuff about your grandparents, which takes up like half of it. And when you cut that, all I know is that the beach house is in Miami Beach and you met a girl and the flight was long. That’s not bad, but I’d like to know a bit more about it.” You said, taking back the essay from the middle of the page and crossed out every line about his grandparents.

“What do I say instead then?” Steve asked, watching as you crossed out half his page, trying not to sound defeated. You were basically saying that he had to start all over again.

“Well, tell me about the beach? Pretend like I’ve never been. What’s there to do, what’d you like about it?” you shrugged. You found yourself feeling a tad bit calmer; the butterflies had calmed their intense flapping and had let you breathe.

Steve sighed “I don’t know, I’m just bullshitting.”

“What’d you mean?” you asked.

“I mean, I didn’t go on there, I haven’t been to our beach house since I was a kid.” Steve looked away. He was embarrassed to have been caught in a lie, even more knowing that now he’d have to rewrite his whole paper.

“Oh…what’d you actually do on your break?” you hadn’t expected him to be lying about anything, a snow bird spring break trip sounded about right for his family, they were always bragging about their money.

Steve chuckled “Oh no, nothing worth writing an essay on.” You looked up at him again. He seemed a bit sad. You pulled another sheet of paper from your trapper keeper, setting it overtop the last one.

“Tell me about it.” You smiled at him despite yourself. He was bit easier to talk to than you’d imagined.

Steve swallowed, nodding despite himself. “Well, I mean my parents went to the beach house and I tried to throw a party, you probably heard about how that went.” He rubbed at the back of his neck.

“No…” you shook your head. Steve wasn’t expecting that. Everyone had heard about the failed party, he’d gotten shit about it for weeks.

“Well, I couldn’t get any supplies, so I cancelled and hung out with Tommy and Carol instead. We got drunk in my backyard and Carol fell in the pool. She was so pissed. Then, I pretty much just hung about town, helped my buddy Dustin beat Dragon’s Lair at the arcade.” Steve didn’t really like admitting how lame his life was, he purposefully left out how Tommy and Carol only hung out with him when he went to pick up some weed from his older brother and they wanted a hit off it. Admitting that his life wasn’t that great made him feel small and like it was out of his control, which was not exactly a good feeling.

“Okay, tell me about the little party you had with Tommy and Carol. What was the night like? Was it fun? Did you jump in the pool too or did you watch her fall and laugh?” You had written down the few details in a bubble tree and added more details as he explained his time more thoroughly. You managed to get a bit more information on both events, learning more about his friend Dustin and the game they played.

When he was finished, you slid the page over to him. He took it, eyebrow raised in confusion, but you spoke before he could ask any questions. “This is your blue print. I wrote down everything you told me; now just turn it into an essay. The whole trick about these assignments is that you’re telling a story, and to make it interesting you have to give us details, and not about your grandparents or other things that don’t add to the story at hand, about what actually was happening.” You explained, checking the plastic watch on your wrist. It was almost four and Mrs. Mueller had already passed your table twice, her silent warning to leave. Everyone else who had been there had long left and you became very aware of how alone you were with him. The butterflies started their flapping again, churning tides in your stomach.

Steve smiled “Okay, I promise it’ll be interesting though.” He chuckled.

You shrugged “I promise that it’s more interesting than what you had before.” You shoved your papers into your bag, standing quickly “If you want me to look at it again before you hand it in, just bring it to me in class, alright? The library’s closing so I should go.”

“You want a ride home?” you spun around to look at him, crossing your arms over your paint splattered sweatshirt. The rain storm of the morning was long forgotten and you didn’t know what the weather looked like now. A part of you wanted to take the ride, but a much bigger part of you told you to run away.

You shook your head “No, um my friend Samantha said she’d drive me after her soccer practise, she’s probably waiting for me.” You lied straight through your teeth, adjusting your backpack straps on your shoulders.

“Oh…sure, yeah, I’ll see you around.” Steve stood slowly, tucking in his chair. You waved politely and headed out. The rain had stopped, thank god, and you rushed to your locker, grabbing your wet clothes from your locker before making your way outside. The field was muddy, practise was probably cancelled. You took the long way home that afternoon, cutting through the woods and the muddy park to avoid being spotted by Harrington on the way and getting caught in a lie.

The afternoon had gone well. And that scared the shit out of you.

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witharsenicsauce · 3 years

Text

Two Hunters, Both Alike in Sympathy (SFTD/Chosen Stories Crossover)

(I know this is a couple days late, but happy belated anniversary to @grace-kohai and her wonderful story! Inspired by a year of happenings over at the SFTD Discord, thank you for giving my Gur-Rai an even bigger family!)

Content Warning: This story has mentions of relationship/parental abuse

Mordenna heard her footsteps before he saw her, and as the cloak melted away to reveal Kon-Mai Mordenna, he knew she had wanted him to find her.

He stepped away from his workbench and turned, smiling warmly until he saw her face: lined with worry. “Something troubling you, sister of mine?”

Kon-Mai nodded and stepped closer. “Mordenna…” She hesitated saying his name “-I’m sorry, it feels strange to use that to refer to someone else.”

“It’s a good name, I’m glad to share it with you.” He chuckled. “But I don’t think you’re here to discuss that.”

“No, I am here to discuss my brother...our brother. Gur-Rai.”

“Oh yeah?” Mordenna raised a brow, intrigued. “What about him?”

“You two have been spending a lot of time together.” She said, leaning on the bench. “Do you think he trusts you, Mordenna?”

Mordenna blinked. “I hope I haven’t given him any reason not to.” He said. Truthfully, he had been spending more time with Gur-Rai than the others, but that was only because the younger Hunter always seemed to seek him out, especially in the workshop. And Mordenna had to admit, Gur-Rai was a nice workshop buddy, and he wasn’t going to say no to a (particularly skilled) extra set of hands. True, Gur-Rai was also a bit more…intense than Mordenna was, but in him was a kindness that the Elders seemed not to have been able to stamp out. Mordenna found solace in that.

“I assume you have heard tell of his newest lover.” She curled her lip on the last word. “The Rookie, Emil.”

Mordenna thought for a moment. “...I haven’t been upstairs in a minute.”

“He was the one throwing a tantrum in the halls two days ago, because nobody could fix his Gewehr 98/40.”

“Oh. Oh.” Mordenna hissed. “That guy. Served him right for bringing a bolt-action to a plasma fight.” He then thought for a moment. “...Gur-Rai’s dating him?”

“Gur-Rai managed to fix the gun.” Kon-Mai elaborated. “And I suppose Emil whispered some sweet nothings into my brother’s ear that made him fall head over heels, like he does.”

“Is that why you look upset?” Mordenna asked.

“It’s why I am here to ask for help.” Kon-Mai replied. “I believe Emil is a liability to those of us on this ship, but more importantly I fear very much that he will lash out at my brother. That he’ll do something to hurt him.”

“So what do you need from me?” Mordenna leaned forward, both hands on the bench. “Because I’m not murdering someone over a tantrum. Trust me if I did, my blood trail would be thicker and stop much sooner.”

“I do not need him dead. Yet.” Kon-Mai hissed. “If it did come to that, I would not be calling on you. What I need help with is convincing my brother to let this rat of a man go before this relationship spirals into a sinkhole.”

Mordenna nodded. “And…why won’t he listen to you? He’s my brother too, but you’ve been around him longer than me.”

“That is why. I have developed a reputation for worrying about my brothers…” She brushed a strand of white hair behind her tiny ear. “...Perhaps to an excessive degree, I admit. If I confront him with this myself, I fear he will assume I’m being paranoid and disregard me, or worse: dig his heels in further.”

“And you actually think this guy is bad news?” Mordenna asked. “I’m not doubting your judgement, but if I’m stepping in, I need more proof than just ‘your sister thinks the guy is a prick.’”

“I would not trust him on a mission with any of our fellows.” Kon-Mai said. “He is volatile, he is argumentative and throws insults around like rice at a wedding. I would go so far as to say it seems like he is intentionally causing sabotage.”

Mordenna bit his lip. “Hearty claims, Kon-Mai.”

“I know they are. I have been staking him out myself but only recently, in case he truly does pose a threat. But in the meantime…” She clasped her hands. “I just want to be assured my brother is safe.”

“Well how about this, I’ll check up on Gur-Rai. If it seems like he needs help, I have ways of making sure nobody messes with him.” He shuffled forward. “But I can’t promise anything.”

“Just…as long as you try.” Kon-Mai bowed to him. “Thank you, Mordenna. I owe you so much.”

“You just owe me one thing.” He opened his arms. “Come on. Being siblings means you gotta pay your dues.”

Kon-Mai rolled her eyes and embraced him, giving him a squeeze almost as strong as Jax would.

Mordenna was originally going to find Gur-Rai when he was done with his project, but he didn’t need to. Behind him, the door slid open, and as he turned around, he saw Gur-Rai shamble inside, that stupid German rifle in his arms and eyes cast to the floor.

Mordenna’s heart dropped and his brows went up. “Hey, little brother.” He said, trying to sound casual so as not to scare him, but Gur-Rai still startled.

“Hey.” He gave Mordenna a quick, unsure smile and then took up one of the benches, quickly getting to work on the gun. Mordenna peeked over and caught a glimpse of a huge chunk of the wood splintered off, and the metal underneath was bent and peeling away.

“You still messing with that thing?” Mordenna murmured. “I’d just let it go. That gun is older than me.”

“Aw. You’re not old.” Gur-Rai muttered, his voice lacking it’s usual chirp.

“I’m older than you.” Mordenna put down his own project and slowly moved around the bench. “I just hit my fifties and am still going strong.”

Gur-Rai stopped and looked up. “...No way. You’re lying.”

“It’s true. I was in my thirties when the Elders nabbed me.”

“I think even I was younger than that.” Gur-Rai looked interested. “You must’ve been a great shot, for an old timer~”

“I would’ve taught you everything I knew.” Mordenna patted his hood, mindful not to pull it down at all. “I know your Volk is being an asshole and that’s his loss. I’d be proud of you, Gur-Rai. Even after all that, you haven’t lost that spark in your eye yet.”

Gur-Rai fell silent and stared down at the gun on the table. “...Really?”

“Yeah. You’re not as jaded as me, that’s for sure.” Mordenna chuckled. “Take my advice, now that the Elders aren’t holding your leash, hang onto that spark. It’s a wonderful thing you got there, and it makes people really happy to see.”

“What do you mean it makes them happy?” Gur-Rai grabbed some pliers and began pulling off the damaged wood. “And be straight with me, Mords. I don’t want jokes right now, and I really don’t want pity.”

Mordenna paused. “...Hey.” He put his hand closer to Gur-Rai’s arm, almost dangerously so. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t want anyone else telling me how good a person I am when clearly, that is not the case.” With a crack, the remaining wood broke into two pieces and flew across the table. “At best? I’m annoying and childish, and at worst I’m a psychopath who uses humor to forget the horrible things I’ve done, and the latter is probably the most accurate.” He tossed the pliers aside. “Nobody is getting joy from this ugly mug, Mords. Only the Elders do, when they hear me scream.”

Mordenna paused, knowing he’d just hit a huge nerve and would have to proceed slowly. Luckily though, it also seemed like he unearthed something. “Do you really think of yourself that way?” He said softly. “Or is that what someone told you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does.” Mordenna put his hand on Gur-Rai’s shoulder. “Put down the tools for a minute. We gotta talk.”

“Talk? About what?” Gur-Rai turned to face Mordenna. “I already know where babies come from.”

“Well that’s good but that’s not what I mean.” Mordenna leaned against the bench beside him. “Does all this have to do with that broken gun at all?”

Gur-Rai sighed. “...It was my fault.”

“Doubt it. But continue.”

“Emil was trying to fix a chip in the wood, I couldn’t really tell what he was doing, and I reached around to kiss him and...I guess I knocked the gun, and something came loose…” He gestured to the table.

“And your giving him a kiss managed to bend the metal?” Mordenna sounded skeptical.

“No, just chip the wood. The rest--the huge gash on the side and the metal--he did himself when he threw it at me.”

“He what.” Mordenna suddenly, deeply understood Kon-Mai’s worry. In fact, he was beginning to see red himself. “Over a scratch on a gun that should have been decommissioned before he was born?”

“I guess it’s a super important gun.” Gur-Rai muttered. “More important than me. And…yeah. I believe the exact words were ‘I could get any Muton with a dick twice your size and less of an attitude to fuck me, it’d feel exactly the same and be a lot easier.’”

Mordenna paused. “And then you offered to...fix his gun?”

“I mean, I broke it.” Gur-Rai crossed his arms. “And I just…” He pulled away from Mordenna, moving toward the middle of the room and stopping. “I’m gonna bring it to him later with some wine or something, he’ll take it all back…he’s been a sweetheart before, he made me feel…” From the crack in his voice, Mordenna could tell he was holding back tears. “Special. Chosen. And I went and fucked it up just like I did before.”

Mordenna knew of Gur-Rai’s other relationships (and the details, thanks in part to Gur-Rai’s prolific storytelling), but something about the way he said that felt different. It rang in Mordenna’s ears, loud and familiar.

“It’s not your fault that Camazotz hurt you.” Was all he said.

That seemed to do it. Gur-Rai curled in on himself like a shriveled up leaf, and began to shake violently as he sobbed into his hands. Mordenna came up behind him and put a gentle hand on his back, which then turned into him taking Gur-Rai by the shoulders and pulling him into a loose hug. Gur-Rai froze for a moment, still shaking, and then wrapped his arms around Mordenna so tight it almost made the latter cough. He buried his face in Mordenna’s shoulder and let out a weak, quiet sob.

“You didn’t fuck anything up.” He assured him, speaking to him as he would a comforting child. “Camazotz…maybe he thought he loved you, but what he did isn’t love. And it’s not how you treat your children. You didn’t deserve to be hurt by him, and you didn’t deserve a gun chucked in your face today.”

Gur-Rai sounded like he was trying to speak, but it came out as sobbing once again. Mordenna guided him over to a sitting bench and the two collapsed onto it, With Gur-Rai retreating into himself again until Mordenna unwrapped him from that knot and brought him back into his arms.

“I know how you feel.” He said. “God, I spent so long trying to get Odin to be proud of me. And sometimes he’d shell out little bits of praise, bits of affection that kept me hanging on just that much longer, but that’s not enough. It’s not enough to occasionally say you love someone until they upset you, because people who really love you will love you even when they’re angry.”

Gur-Rai flinched at that. “God, please, no. I can’t…I don’t want anyone else to hate me.”

“Gur-Rai, this ship is full of people who love you.” Mordenna insisted. “Let's start with your siblings. Your sister loves you so, so much, you know that?”

“I make her worry.”

“She worries herself, which is her own problem. But she wants you to be safe and happy. Your brother too. And us.” Mordenna rubbed his back. “You’ve been spending so much time down here with me…I feel like we’ve been family forever.”

Gur-Rai hesitated…then he looked up and chuckled. “I mean, you are old enough to be my dad.”

Mordenna snorted, then smirked. “Okay, fine. As your new dad, I’m vetoing all of Camazotz’s previous rulings.”

“Wait.” Gur-Rai blinked. “...Mords. Mords you…” He shook his head. “You probably shouldn't…you know me, I’m a trainwreck on very long legs! I’ll give you a heart attack before you hit 55!”

“Do you realize who you’re talking to?” Mordenna chuckled. “If Odin had had hair, I like to think I’d have turned him grey years ago. I’m not intimidated by the concept of guiding a slightly younger, frankly more childlike version of myself.” His face softened. “If you want it.”

“I…” Gur-Rai swallowed. “I just never had a dad…like a real dad…what do I even do?”

“First off, you sit here and let me hold you while you cry.” Mordenna pulled Gur-Rai back into a hug. “And, when I tell you I love you…you believe me.”

“...Okay.” Gur-Rai squeezed Mordenna back, burying his face in the warmth of his father’s shoulder. “Okay. I can do that.”

“Good job. I…” Mordenna swallowed. “I love you, kiddo. Just as you are.”

As Gur-Rai settled in, and Mordenna gently rocked him back and forth, he began to plan out in his mind exactly what he would do to Emil when he was done down here. It had been a hot minute since Eliza had let him interrogate someone.

And maybe he’d bring Kon-Mai along too.

(I know SFTD will be reaching it’s final act sooner rather than later, let me just say again what an honor it has been to read it, to fully appreciate the Chosen and to get inspiration for my own story too! Hoping for more wonderful writings in the future!)

#xcom #xcom 2 #xcom hunter #chosen hunter #mordenna is a good dad #gur-rai is just a boy

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akaluan · 4 years

Text

Ukitake/Starrk: Marriage of Convenience, Character in Peril Part 2

Starrk wakes the moment he senses Ukitake approaching; the man is… focused, intent in a way that Starrk’s never felt him be outside of combat, and it’s…

Well, he’d say it’s concerning, but really it’s just expected.

(Who ever heard of a Shinigami nursing a Hollow back to health?)

(Much less doing so inside Seireitei itself?)

(No, he’s been expecting his time here to end sooner rather than later.)

(Now the only question is… does he have time to escape or not?)

(And does he really care…?)

The door slips open a tiny amount and Ukitake’s reiatsu slips in, a gentle brush of question-concern-need that makes Starrk sigh; whatever the man wants, he’s not going to give Starrk the kindness of just killing him.

“Starrk-san?” Ukitake murmurs, nudging the door open a bit more. “I apologize for waking you, but there’s been a development that we need to speak of.”

Starrk grunts and carefully untangles himself from Lilynette’s clinging limbs; no matter how this conversation goes, she needs the rest more than she needs to be aware. Weeks later and she’s still not back to herself, still not as strong as she should be, and… if Ukitake is here to kill them, at least she’ll go peacefully.

Ukitake settles on the floor just beyond the tatami mats, his back straight and his hands folded carefully upon his thighs. “The Soutaicho has informed me that he’s aware of your presence,” the man says, gaze steady and reiatsu even in a way that Starrk distrusts. “He’s given me an ultimatum; kill you both or send you back to Hueco Mundo.”

“Where he expects us to die,” Starrk says without hesitation.

Ukitake inclines his head. “Where he expects you to die.”

Starrk grimaces and looks away. There’s a chance they could survive being sent back to Hueco Mundo, but… does he really want to? Returning to Hueco Mundo means returning to solitude, returning to a lonely, friendless existence where he kills lesser Hollows just by existing and… and he…

He can’t do that again.

(He can’t!)

Starrk swallows. Braces himself. Says, “I think I’d prefer—”

“There are other options,” Ukitake interrupts before Starrk can finish his sentence. “I’m not about to condemn you to death after weeks of nursing you back to health.”

Starrk stills and casts a wary look at Ukitake, taken aback by the conviction in his voice. He’d known the man was soft — the entire fight with Lilynette was more than enough evidence of that, not to mention said nursing a Hollow back to health — but to willfully disobey an order? For a former enemy?

(How had this Shinigami survived so long?)

“I’ve only thought of two other options so far, but I’m sure we can come up with others if you don’t like either of them,” Ukitake continues when it becomes clear that Starrk is waiting to hear more. “I could send you to the Living World with a letter for Urahara-san. He’s kept himself and several others safe for a century, I’m certain he could do the same for you.”

The name is mostly unfamiliar, but Starrk suspects he knows who Ukitake means; he doesn’t remember much beyond his defeat, but watching Aizen go up in a pillar of his own reiatsu is… memorable. “And the other option?” he asks warily, uncertain what else the man would offer when his first choice was ‘send a former enemy to the man who made Aizen self-immolate’.

“Marry me.”

Starrk blinks. Rubs at one ear. Tries to make sense of a world in which… in which… “What?”

A tiny smile curls the corners of Ukitake’s lips, a spark of amusement in his reiatsu, and he repeats, “Marry me. I’m nobility, albeit minor, and anyone married to me gains the protection of centuries of tradition and law. The Soutaicho can’t say a thing about it, not without calling other marriages into question as well, and no noble will stand for that.”

“I’m a Hollow,” Starrk attempts to remind the man, tipping his chin up enough to make his mask fragment more obvious. “I’d think that would be plenty of reason to call just this marriage into question.”

“You’d think so,” Ukitake agrees, expression serene but reiatsu rippling with smugness. “Except you’re a very powerful soul, and marriages to bring powerful souls into a family are explicitly exempt from question no matter the partner’s origin.”

Starrk stares at Ukitake in disbelief. “No one will ever fall for that,” he tries. “You’re proposing to marry a Hollow that your leader just told you to dispose of. No one will believe you feel a damn thing for me.”

Ukitake shrugs and shades his expression towards an innocence that Starrk refuses to believe. “Weeks of close proximity, nursing the two of you back to health… why wouldn’t I come to appreciate you?” The innocent expression fades with a short, almost harsh bark of humorless laughter, and he continues, “Besides, noble marriages aren’t about love, Starrk-san. They’re about power and prestige and potential offspring. You bring the potential for two out of three of those, and given that my line is down to me and a handful of nearly powerless relatives, no one will question it.”

“Unless I’m mistaken, we’re both male. Doesn’t seem like that has much potential for offspring,” Starrk says with a glance towards Lilynette, wondering how she’s going to fit into this scheme. He refuses to let Ukitake use her like that, even if she is a part of him—

“Well, since I’m going to declare Lilynette our child, seems like you’ve already fulfilled that portion of it,” Ukitake says, as if the idea makes perfect sense and…

It doesn’t. It really doesn’t.

“I don’t understand you,” Starrk bites out with a groan, then buries his face in his hands. This whole idea is absurd, and he has no idea why Ukitake is so… so adamant about this; going so far out of his way for a former enemy doesn’t make sense, even if the man is soft.

(Or maybe… maybe it does make sense.)

(‘Weeks in close proximity’ Ukitake had said, and it’s certainly true.)

(It’s been mostly the three of them the entire time, and he’d thought it was because of his presence, but… what if it isn’t?)

(What if… what if Ukitake is lonely like Starrk had once been?)

“You don’t have to accept,” Ukitake tells him, soft-kind-understanding in a way that makes Starrk’s teeth ache. “We have until tomorrow morning to sort something out, so there’s still time to think of alternatives.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Starrk asks, unable to believe that the other Captains of Seireitei would simply accept a Hollow amongst them. Everything he knows about Shinigami indicates that the Soutaicho’s reaction is the accurate one, which means that Ukitake choosing this action won’t do anything except… “What if they just decide that you need to be killed, too?”

“Then we’ll run to the Living World,” Ukitake answers easily, though there’s an edge of sadness to his reiatsu that Starrk dislikes. “Kyoraku-san will come with us, of course, since he’ll be implicated as well. And between Urahara-san’s assistance and all of our skills, I’m certain we’ll be able to live quite well.”

Starrk sighs in exasperation, disliking how all of these plans cycle back around to asking for help from the man who made Aizen self-immolate, but honestly… Ukitake’s words are… nice. Even if it’s just self-preservation talking, the fact that Ukitake is willing to stay with them…

(Shinigami are different, he knows they are, but…)

(It’s still strange to think that Ukitake would choose him over almost everyone else.)

(It’s… nice.)

“If you’re sure… very well. We can try it.” Starrk rubs at his chin and glances again at Lilynette; he knows she’ll have things to say about this decision, and especially about the fact that he didn’t ask her, but… she likes it here, he knows she does. It’s not… a terrible place to live, if he’s being honest, and he’s pretty certain he’s figured out Ukitake’s motives. If it means being able to stay in a place where he can be around people without having expectations heaped upon him, a little pretense isn’t too difficult. If Ukitake had said they needed to pretend to be in love — whatever love was, exactly — it would be different, but… power, prestige, and potential offspring?

He understands that well enough.

(Though hopefully the offspring part stays as only a potential.)

(Lilynette is difficult enough as it is, and she’s part of him!)

(The idea of some sort of… of… miniature being relying on him is terrifying.)

Ukitake pauses, shock-surprise-pleasure briefly rippling through his reiatsu, then smiles at Starrk like… like he cares. Like he’s pleased by the decision and…

Maybe he’s not too far off with his suspicion of loneliness, because what other reason could a Shinigami have to be pleased at marrying a Hollow?

“Thank you for your trust, Starrk-san,” Ukitake murmurs as he inclines his head. “Kyoraku-san should be back soon with everything we need to formalize it, so how about we spend this time going over what people will expect to see once news of our marriage gets out?”

Starrk nods sharply, pleased that he’s not going to be thrown into a new situation without at least an idea of what to expect. Whether or not he’ll have any time to use that knowledge he has no idea, but… it can’t hurt to have.

Ukitake is putting his neck on the line for Starrk and Lilynette, for no reason beyond loneliness that Starrk can discern.

Listening is the least he can do to repay that.

(Maybe this time will turn out better than the last…)

(Well… he’ll enjoy it while it lasts.)

(However long that may be.)

#i have vague ideas for more of this but this is where i'm going to end it for now #if i continue this one it'll be after soulmate au #i just wanted the actually proposal talk to happen lol

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bow-woahh · 4 years

Note

If you’re still doing the game, chapter 6 from the grocery store onward?

Send me your favorite scene/chapter from one of my works and I’ll post a DVD commentary on it.

ask and you shall receive!

Little bit of background info, this chapter is obviously part one of two, chapter six being it's better if I calm down, and chapter 7 being the rest of the line: it's better if I lash out. If you listened to the song full stop, you might have already known that lmao

I felt like these two chapters worked well being split into two parts (I mean imagine how long it would have been if it wasn't ... like no thank you) because of the overarching themes across them and most importantly, the plot line with her mom and the readers not knowing what's putting her on edge in chapter 6. It was so much fun to play around with and hint that there was clearly something bothering her. I think in my outline, before I found the official title this chapter was called "calm before the storm" because that truly is what it is, there's a lot of nice, fun moments, but it's clear there is something bad on the way.

Anyway, tangent over, commentary time!

They caught a bus to get to the closest grocery store, which was still a twenty minute journey away, so Catra ignored Diego for most of the ride, listening to music and texting Adora.

When I was originally outlining chapters and everything, the grocery scene wasn't planned in to this chapter (I just love giving myself more to do). I have a section in my outline document where it's kinda just a thought dump of things I want to happen possibly at some point, because I think it'd be cool or cute or whatever. This was one of those instances, and because this chapter felt a bit bare bones at first (the final product was not in the slightest) I added this in as it felt like a great way to introduce Adora and Diego and since Catra and Adora are still fairly early in their relationship here, it just worked so well, because they truly didn't expect to see each other.

“Hey, hi! I knew you said you were going shopping, but I didn’t think—well I guess it does make sense since you live in Alwyn but—”

Okay, time for context no one asked for! Bright Moon is the city they are in (obviously) and Frighton (the Fright Zone) is the neighbouring city. Bright Moon is kinda split into lower city, upper city and mid/center city (guess which kinda classes live where). Alwyn and Elberon (where Catra and Adora live respectively) are more lower city, so they are typically where poorer people live, though there are some nice places there I'm sure. Just not many.

Adora said, “Loser? Nah, Catra’s actually super cool, trust me.” She looked at Adora, properly, for the first time in a few minutes, and found her staring back at her with a fond smile.

Adora's piss poor attempt at flirting. Jk, but I do think this moment is v cute and I just love how Adora defended Catra, even though it's just her younger cousin being stupid. We love to see it.

Once again Diego beat her to it, opening the door and saying, “Sure!” before jumping out and slamming it shut.

[Context for this line: Adora asked if they needed help taking the bags out of her truck.] Honestly, Diego's really cute here. He really admires Adora and looks up to her so he's taking every possible opportunity to talk to her, and be around her.

“You know you could've left, like, ages ago, right Grayskull?"

“Yeah well,” Adora did that little shrug she always did. “I didn't mind.”

Narrowing her eyes for a moment, Catra said slowly, “Alright. Well, you can go now. And I should probably head in.”

She turned to go inside, when Adora grabbed her wrist. “Wait.”

Ahhh I love this whole section of dialogue so I had to talk about it. These two are just... useless. What I love about them, and writing them in specifically this, is the constant push and pull with them, how they can never just explicitly say whar they want, either in fear they'll be judged and rejected or because they don't even fully understand what they want to begin with. With Catra and Adora, as much as one can say something like "You should go" the other will always hesitate to, will always have something at the tip of their tongue that they're not quite saying, or like here, will literally tell them to stay, using words or otherwise. They want each other but aren't quite ready to admit it yet. And I just think that's beautiful.

Also the grabbing of the wrist and the "Wait"? Pretty sure that was an accidental reference to the "stay" scene in Taking Control but it's so ingrained into my brain I'm sure it was subconscious.

“Do you wanna get out of here?”

This line is just so... teenage romance vibes and I love it

Even though they had been talking nonstop for days now, and had seen each other just the other day, there was a palpable tension in the air, one that Catra wasn’t exactly sure how to deal with.

The said tension was definitely more on Adora's end than Catra's, because obviously, Catra is still hiding things (or more accurately, just not sharing them) and although Adora wants to pretend to be fine with it, the closer she gets, the more she wants to know what the truth is, she doesn't want to listen to the lies and rumours anymore.

Adora studied her face for a moment, before saying carefully, “Well, I, uh, have a ton of old gear I’ve been meaning to get rid of, but maybe you could ask him if he wants it? It’d be a good start.”

Catra hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I'm sure he'd like that. I'll, uh, see what he says and get back to you.”

“Great!” Adora beamed.

Another little moment I love because Adora is just so considerate here and understands that Catra doesn't want to delve into things like money issues. She also gets Catra isn't one to accept handouts but the way she puts it isn't ‘let me help you out’ but more ‘you'd be doing me a favour’. Adora understands how she feels. She gets it.

“Why did he think you were texting your ‘boyfriend’ by the way?” Adora asked, and Catra felt her heart drop to her stomach. She hadn’t thought Adora had been paying attention to what Diego said (arguably nobody should ever pay attention to anything he says, ever) but of course she had, because once again, Catra had underestimated Adora’s observational skills.

“Because he's a stupid kid who doesn't know what he's talking about.”

Honestly Diego isn't that far from the truth he just needs to turn that 'boy' in boyfriend to girl.

Also the fact Adora is asking about this.... interesting. Catra's answer.....very defensive and also interesting. Once again they're so many unspoken words and subtext layered in all of this. It's like a tiered cake.

“That? Oh, nah. I don't—it's not really any of her business, y'know?” Catra replied, staring just past Adora’s shoulder.

Catra is replying to Adora asking whether or not Serenia knows she's a lesbian and, well, obviously what she said wasn't true. Well it was, technically, but she's ommiting the real reason. As I've already at least slightly portrayed, Catra has a complicated relationship with her sexuality, and I don't want to spoil it but that will definitely be explored more in the future, and Serenia definitely plays a part in it, being her guardian after all.

“I guess it was always kind of obvious. I never looked at guys the same way I look at girls—my first crush was some girl in like elementary, although I didn't realise at the time, and they just continued from there. I thought all girls had crushes on other girls at some point, that wishing I was a guy so I could be with them was what everyone did. When I realised they didn't, that it was weird, I spent all my time convincing myself I just wanted to be my celebrity crush and not be with them, until I actually kissed a girl for the first time. Then I couldn't exactly ignore it. I still tried to though. Especially when—well yeah, I tried to deny it for a while. But then, I guess I got tired. Of lying to myself.”

This whole paragraph is just... yes. No one has ever asked Catra how she knew, but more importantly, Catra has never wanted to answer this question, and if it were anyone else asking, she would have definitely shut it down, or answered with something short and simple. It's because it's Adora, and because she's growing more comfortable with her, to the point where she doesn't mind, even wants to share these types of details about herself. That vulnerability is even more important in chapter 7, so this was a stepping stone of sorts for her.

“So, uh, how about you? Not that I’m saying that you’re—but since you asked…” She cursed at herself internally when Adora's expression morphed into one of surprise, eyes slightly widening.

“Oh, me? I, um—I don't really know. Is that weird? I just haven't ever really thought too much about it. I guess my main priorities are school, lacrosse, and work.”

God, it's in moments like these where I wish I wrote from Adora's perspective as well. Because there's a lot to unpack here. She's not lying when she says this, I do think this is partially how she feels. But, some could argue it's so obvious how much she likes Catra, and she's definitely admired some women before. So. I'll leave it at that because otherwise I'll say too much.

Quickly though, back to the what I said about writing in Adora's perspective... saying this here and here only because I don't know if it'll happen but I did have an idea to make a sequel of sorts, from her perspective. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The smooth stream had been interrupted once Adora had asked if Catra's had any plans next week, with Halloween coming up. The relaxed, open demeanor that Adora had seen for the past few hours had almost instantly closed up again, and she could hardly focus on what Adora was saying anymore.

Now that Chapter 7 is out, why she reacted this way obviously makes a lot of sense, but to add more of a commentary to it, as we saw throughout this chapter she was trying her best to ignore her emotions about her mom's death anniversary because for once things were going well and therefore she had other things to focus on. Adora mentioning Halloween forced Catra to acknowledge it, along with the memories that come with her mothers death.

“Promise you won't ditch me?”

“I, Adora Grayskull, promise not to ditch you,” she said, hand on heart.

We love a good promise cameo.

“Did you really get kicked out? Of Horde High?”

Catra should have been expecting this to come up once again. It was bound to. With all the rumours. Especially when Sparkles seemed to be a fan with how she brought it up on Sunday.

I've already talked a bit about the rumours and how they arose in my chap 1 commentary, but really I wanted to talk about Glimmer here, since her scene was before the grocery scene and I have a lot to say about this one. Initially when I wrote it, the scene was a fairly quick altercation that kinda lacked a real punch, but after spending a little more time on it after my beta pointed some things out...it hit hard. I know there is a fuck Glimmer train at the moment because, yeah, Glimmer is pretty mean in that scene. And other scenes. I don't know why I love writing Glimmer as her S4 self so much, but it's fun to play around with okay? I like how she can take on an almost antagonistic role at times.

Glimmer thinks what she is doing is to the benefit of her own friend, by pointing out all of Catra's faults and the fact that she's from the Horde, but I also think there's a little jealousy there. No Glimmer doesn't like Adora, but she is quite a possessive friend, so I can't imagine she likes the fact Adora is spending so much time with someone she doesn't know, and to add to it, she's got the worst reputation in the school. So.

Catra thought back to the moment, and remembered what had provoked it, all the way back in eighth grade. “Yeah. I'd say they did.”

Exclusive for Tumblr gang only, but yes they did on fact deserve it because they called Catra the d-slur. This was during a time where she was really struggling with her sexuality so at the time, this cut deep.

As Catra lay in bed that night, she found her mind wandering back to Adora's handshake, how they had held on for just a little too long, mismatched eyes staring into blue ones. How such a casual touch had brought back that burning sensation, that need to be closer.

Ah...the handshake. There is literally no other reason for this other than the fact they are gay. This chapter along with the next are especially important for their development physically—they get a lot more comfortable touching each other in passing but at the same time they still have to find a reason to touch each other (hence the handshake). Either way, it helps break another barrier in their relationship, and this is even moreso the case in chapter 7. I don't know if you noticed, but that chapter is full of small touches and more, but they couldn't have gotten there if it wasn't for the little steps along the way.

Boy that was a long one! I hope you guys enjoyed this, I know I said chap 8 would be out soon but schools really kicking my ass, trying to find a balance is hard. Nevertheless, it will be out asap, I appreciate your patience! (:

#spop #catradora #micah answering asks #bloom #bloom asks #asks and answers #send anons #ty anon #again #this was fun

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squeezeofthehand · 4 years

Text

A (late) Review of Moby-Dick: A Musical Reckoning

I saw Moby-Dick: A Musical Reckoning by Dave Malloy last month, and I can basically divide it into “The Good, The Bad, and the Racist/Queerphobic/Ableist etc”

Some background: As most people who’ve ever spoken to me will know, I have a special interest in Moby-Dick AND Dave Malloy/Rachel Chavkin musicals (I truly believe that Great Comet is one of the best works of all time) and I consider Malloy and Chavkin both to be my biggest heroes and inspirations, at least when it comes to their respective style of writing and directing. That being said, they’re not perfect. I waited for this musical for about two years, and music/set/etc wise it exceeded my expectations, but it also majorly let me down in a lot of ways.

The Good: The cast! The crew! The set! (It was literally The Pequod - like, they got rid of the stage.) The lighting design in particular was really good - thank you, Bradley King. Manik Choksi, Andrew Cristi, and Starr Busby are gods. I do not have a singular bad thing to say about the cast or the design team! Even the stuff that was tacky/campy (i.e. some of the puppets) was tacky/campy in an enjoyable way. And the “fun” parts of the show were REALLY fun - the fact that they invited the audience on stage, the fact that they TRIED to make Moby-Dick more accessible even if they didn’t do it perfectly at times….the music, when not problematic, was BEAUTIFUL. Listen, I’d be lying if I said Dave Malloy wasn’t one of the best composers when it comes to skill. Everyone in that show sure can act, and sing…the band too, was marvelous, I heard no errors from anyone. This is, what, a three hour long show? And the cast/band was just like, “oh, no big deal.” Which makes “the bad” and “the racist” even worse because these people deserve better. This show deserves better, it deserves to be better.

The Bad: Well, as a book fan, I disagreed with a lot of characterization…most of which can fall into The Racist etc, so I’ll just focus on the “bad but not inherently problematic” here. I really didn’t agree with a lot of things about Ahab’s characterization, i.e. I did not read him as just a bad white guy who’s the epitome of privilege. Stubb, on the other hand is, a canon white supremacist in the book and that barely gets acknowledged in the ways that it should. I do get what Dave was trying to go for, especially in re: Ahab & climate change, but this wasn’t the show for it - or at least, Ahab wasn’t the character for it. Which brings me to my next point: Most of the time, I’m a fan of the quirky Malloyian anachronisms and parallels to modern day issues, but I feel like he was trying too hard here and stepping out of line. Loose adaptations can be fun, anachronistic adaptations can be fun, even INACCURATE adaptations can be fun…but this just wasn’t. It didn’t feel like Moby-Dick, but more like a story vaguely inspired by it. If that had been what he was going for, it would’ve been fine, but he really acted like this would be an accurate adaptation of the book, so I felt let down. The only anachronism/breaking of the fourth wall that I somewhat liked were the talks of Melville and Hawthorne, honestly, and even those I’d sacrifice in favor for accuracy to the source.

And now…The racist/etc.

So.

Where to begin? I suppose chronologically. Queequeg. Who, according to Dave Malloy, is a stereotypical flamboyant queer person of color! and also a quirky cannibal! He’s trans in the musical, apparently, but there’s not much indication of that in the show beyond from him wearing a binder and a skirt. Now, I am all for trans Queequeg of course, but he was a caricature in this particular adaptation. I do not blame Andrew Cristi. I blame Dave (and mayyyybe the costume designers to some extent). I felt baited. Also, early production rumors and quotes said that there would be a song in which Queequeg saved someone from drowning. That never happened. It pains me to say it, but he didn’t feel that much like an important character (due to the bad writing -- again, it has nothing to do with the actor).

Additionally, Dave Malloy said that Queequeg and Ishmael would be a clear gay relationship…but the musical left so much room for them to just be interpreted as friends. It somehow became less gay than it is in the original Melville novel. The marriage was excluded, as were the quotes about them being a cozy and loving pair and about Queequeg holding Ishmael like a wife. They were replaced with the “I don’t wanna sleep with a cannibal” song, which was fun to watch at first but way too grossly stereotypical for me to genuinely enjoy it. Queequeg deserves a fun and light-hearted song, but he does not deserve a racist/homophobic one. My advice? Replace it with the actual chapters from the book, please. I do like the fact that The Pacific was a romantic duet and that they sing directly at each other during Squeeze Of The Hand, but those two songs are mere scraps especially compared to, for example, the Bosom Friend chapter of the book. It looked like they were going to kiss during The Pacific and I was very disappointed that they did not. Perhaps the team should keep the songs the way that they are for future productions, but add more romantic staging.

Pip-not-Pip/Elijah/??? (Ashkon Davaran’s character) and Fedallah were also major, major, issues. Not the actors, I love them. Not the book characters, I love them. But the musical characters.

Basically, Fedallah gets this 20 minute long monologue that can be summed up as “religion is bad” and a lot of other things including but not limited to egotistical fake-woke praise on color conscious casting and how badly America is fucked. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that Fedallah is Parsi and Zoroastranian in the book (and it is NOT good rep in the book by any means, trust me, I’ve been calling Malloy out on his racism but I can’t act as if book!Fedallah was anything less than an ~exotic caricature~ either). However, that’s beside the point, at least in this review. Musical!Fedallah is not Parsi nor Zoroastranian. Don’t read this the wrong way, I’m all for Black Muslim rep! But with a character who is already canonically something else? Take a white character and make them a Black Muslim, I encourage that, but when a character is already something else, no.

If the monologue was influenced/written by the actor, that’s one thing and I’d have less issue with it, but I think Dave wrote the vast majority of it, which…yikes…

My constructive criticism: Cut the Fedallah monologue. If the creative team still wants the actor/character to have the same amount of stage-time as he does now, replace it with a different monologue, maybe something from the book? Something about whaling history?

Another thing that needs to be cut or at least completely rewritten: Tambourine. The song starts off with an ableist verse that can be summed up as “you think you’re crazy because you get nervous on the subway? No! I’m more crazy than you!” Don’t take this as me saying that Pip’s trauma/PTSD shouldn’t be addressed at all, but this is the absolute worst way to address it. The song also has a lot of performative lines such as “is god cisgender?” Which, considering this is the same musical that also has trans bait, I truly hate it. Not that I think God should ever be viewed as a cis white man, but much like the “America is awful” stuff in the Fedallah Monologue, this is an offensive and fake-woke way to address such a topic.

Part IV was really heart-wrenchingly beautiful. No criticism there.

To summarize by part-

Part I: Cut/replace the campy Queeqeug song, but otherwise keep it as it is.

Part II: Cut/replace the racist and xenophobic Fedallah monologue.

Part III: Cut/replace Tambourine. The rest of the Ballad Of Pip (starting with Kim Blanck’s beautiful song) is alright. Good, even.

Part IV: Great! No editing needed besides from the typical tweaking that writers may choose to do after their first draft.

In general: Make Ishmael/Queequeg more obvious, make Queequeg less of a caricature, do some major editing to Fedallah and Pip-Not-Pip/Elijah/???. Tambourine and Fedallah’s Monologue need to be completely rewritten, but I get that the creative team may not want to take scenes away from the actors, which is why I encourage them to remove all of the racist bs and create something completely new/different for the actors to perform.

I understand that Moby-Dick is clearly a work-in-progress on all levels. I do not dislike for the show for being a scrappy rough draft. I judge it for its racist, homophobic, ableist, etc messages. Dave has acknowledged that this first copy is far from perfect, and I sincerely hope that the racism/etc. is the first and main thing that he fixes.

#moby dick #moby dick: a musical reckoning #dave malloy #call me sky #reviews

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jinsai-ish · 3 years

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I have very long, complex dreams as anyone who's read my journal before knows. I dream in novels/full-fledged series. (I also have a lot of dreams staring a transgender character.)

So, background information first. It was AU-Gundamverse, only without any actual Gundams. The colonies in this functioned more like planets in, say, Star Trek or Firefly, in that they are each run by independent governments only loosely united through a ‘federation’ of sorts. Some colonies are tied very closely, others barely if at all.

L2 in this case is a fringe colony with little to no Federation-influence. It has a strict caste system in place, with a rich elite class at the top and casteless ‘untouchables’ at the very bottom (street people basically). The casteless are barely considered people, have pretty much no rights, can be used as slaves by the elites, aren’t allowed to hold legal jobs, enter certain areas, etc. (Think DragonAge casteless dwarves.) Right below the elite caste is the military, which is also pretty much the only way someone can advance their caste. Any caste can enlist in the military, except casteless of course.

(The Federation maintains trade relations with L2 despite not agreeing morally with their whole thing. People from the Federation can travel and do business but must abide by the rules of the colony. This ties in later.)

Okay, back to the military. This isn’t like a modern military set-up but more like SPARTA. Children can be enlisted as young as 10 and as late as 13, and some begin training at home even younger. Enlistees attend a central academy for five years where they live, study, and train until they ‘graduate’ as full-fledged soldiers, anywhere between age 15-18. Training is very strict and regimented, but the majority of low-middle caste families have children enlisted because again, it’s like the only way to advance. The military is controlled by the elite caste, but not many elites enroll. Those that do are highly respected, however. Within the military, things are pretty much egalitarian/achievement-based. Males and females train together and have the same standards, although they do have separate sleeping and showing quarters. During their time at the academy, trainees are forbidden to leave except for being released to their family at holidays, and only then if the family requests it. Post-graduation, all soldiers are enrolled for life or until injured past ability to serve. They serve as police force, quash rebellion, and have the potential to combat wars in the colony’s defense, although it’s been a generation or two since that’s been necessary.

The reward? Status, pay, and basically the ability to do anything you want to anyone lower than an elite. In fact, at the Academy, there is a ‘Game Room’ staffed with lower caste ‘employees’, open for use by both trainers, soldiers, and trainees in good standing. Think light stuff like food and entertainment, but also things like gambling, porn, and prostitution.

Okay, so character stuff. Duo starts out more or less the same: an orphan on the streets of L2. This means he’s casteless. Solo cares for him, before dying of the plague. Duo survives and is taken in by the Maxwell Orphanage, which is run by volunteers from the Federation to care for casteless children. This is border-line following the colony’s rules so while it’s allowed by L2, they don’t have support from the Federation government. This means that when rebels shelter there, and the military destroys the orphanage, the Federation can’t really do anything except pass some pretty ineffective sanctions. Same as the original, Duo survives. He’s caught at the ruins, having stolen military weapons (his canon) to get the rebels to leave, and when the military attempts to capture them, he attacks them and does pretty damn well for a kid. The commander grabs Duo and notes that the kid has no fear of death and no computation about killing and decides on a whim to make Duo his new pet project.

The commander is also an elite and concerned to be a little eccentric but brilliant and effective, and he’s able to use his influence to get his way. There’s no actual LAW about casteless not being allowed to enlist, just custom. He overrides everyone’s protests and forcibly enlists Duo in the academy. Duo HATES it and tries to get away numerous times but is well and stuck. He’s also brilliant at it, so despite all protests, he continues as head of his class for years.

So, some complicated stuff in the mix here. When the commander – we’ll call him Commander G… He’s not G, but maybe like his son (but, you know, handsome)? When Commander G gets Duo back to the academy and scrubbed up clean (they let him keep his hair… it’s anime military, all in uniform but crazy hair everywhere), it turns out Duo is a GIRL. More accurately, Duo is biologically female but has never identified ‘herself’ as such, which Solo, Sister Helen, and Father Maxwell were always very accepting about, so ‘she’ hasn’t really had to deal with too much. Despite the caste system, L2 is pretty loose about homosexuality and gender equality. So, actual gender identity isn’t a huge deal in society, but it obviously for Duo, who at age 10/11 is suddenly bunked up with a bunch of women and not able to quite put his finger on why he feels so uncomfortable with that. ‘She’ also hasn’t hit puberty yet (childhood malnutrition + the extensive training at the Academy = delayed puberty and a lot of female trainees never getting their period), so dysmorphia hasn’t quite become a thing yet. In addition, at the start, the casteless thing is a bigger deal. Despite the military being pretty much egalitarian, a lot of that develops the longer trainees are together, plus casteless is not just low, but pretty much untouchable. Like, no one wants to sit near Duo, or be on ‘her’ team for assignment, she has to bunk on her own way over in a corner, etc.

Eventually, this starts to improve a little. Duo still passionately hates being forced into the military that slaughtered ‘her’ family but knows the skills will be useful and is basically just biding ‘her’ time. But like I said, Duo is brilliant when it comes to training. ‘She’ still keeps to herself mostly but eventually a group of other trainees take Duo with them to the Game room, half as a joke on the misfit. Duo eventually becomes sexually active and Does Not Like. To clarify – Duo is bisexual and capable of enjoying sexual activity but at this point is starting to develop so the body dysmorphia is coming into play. He starts to become more aware that his body doesn’t match his identity and starts to have issues with this that affect his training. THIS grabs Commander G’s attention who’s been keeping a distant eye on his little pet project. Duo obviously doesn’t trust anyone and isn’t about to talk about it, so Commander G pretty much gets to the bottom of it by raping Duo (not considered rape in L2 because remember, Duo is casteless and still effectively has no rights).

Next? Now that Commander G knows the issue, he solves it. He gets Duo top surgery and moves him to the male dorm. Easy-peasy if you’re an elite and have endless wealth, resources, and rights. He also basically promises to cover Duo’s full conversion so long as he behaves until graduation – ie. no more attempts to run away. This leaves Duo basically beholden to the man he hates the most in the world.

Fast-forward to Duo’s last year at the academy. He’s one of only a dozen students selected for an elite class, who after graduation will be L2’s version of special forces. This is also the first-time piloting is involved, because the special forces gets all the aircraft. Duo gets thrown into the pilot seat kinda accidentally in training and ROCKS. He’s already excelled at stealth, hacking, assassination, infiltration, etc. Piloting he’s better than his instructors and Commander G is super creepy proud. He’s become a little obsessed as one may notice, as in his mind, Duo is a resource that he’s taken and developed into a very useful, deadly tool. This is also the first time Duo actually starts to bond a bit with his other trainees. They don’t quite become friends but the closest thing to it at this point. This whole time though, he’s contriving a plan to escape on graduation day, knowing at that point security will be the lowest. He gets his surgery along with a creepy speech from Commander G about how he’s been a successful gamble. Graduation day, he hightails it out, knowing everyone is going to be occupied until it’s too late.

Of course, he’s still stuck on L2 and pretty much aware at this point Commander G at least is going to be after him.

Remember that bit about others being able to travel to L2? Well, the circus has arrived! Trowa’s circus in fact, which has travelled from L3. The dream didn’t get too much into detail about backstory, but Quatre is with them and it’s kinda inferred the Winner Corp is funding the circus. It’s also inferred that although the circus is real enough, Quatre and Trowa are also working together to travel around the Federation incognito to help people and look out for potential issues, which L2 is FULL of. Duo runs into them and is prepping himself to get turned in and is shocked when they instead agree to help him (Trowa a bit more reluctantly/suspiciously than Quatre).

The dream pretty much ended with them helping to smuggle Duo off-planet using the circus as cover. The rest was kind of like to “next time on such-and-such” preview. We see Duo piloting a ship with Trowa and Quatre behind him, implying that he’s teamed up with them. Heero is seen working on another ship with the implication they’ll be meeting up soon, and there’s the briefest glimpse of Wufei. Back on L2, we see Commander G steaming and gathering the special forces graduates from Duo’s class who he ‘betrayed’ to go after him. There’s some arguing about it between G and the L2 government which kind of foreshadows a military coup and the L2 military possibly declaring war against the Federation for ‘interference’.

And then I woke up, lol!

#gundam pilots #gundam wing #duo maxwell #epic dreams

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judyhopps934-mt-zd · 5 years

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Thoughts on Kwamibusters

Warning: Spoilers! That's all.

Plagg's cheese addiction goes too far to the point that he leaves Adrien's bag and heads to Mrs. Mendeleiev's class.

And wait, there's more! Tikki tries to talk some sense into Plagg because he apparently does this EVERY DAY! I swear, his cheese addiction has gone too far! He even calls it "magic cheese" that "reappears" everyday!

At some point, Mrs. Mendeleiev apparently spotted Plagg because she apparently had this all set up: hiding behind the desk with a net and saying "I got you now" or some sort of variation of that.

While trying to catch Tikki and Plagg, Mrs. Mendeleiev had made a fool of herself and made the Miracu-class wonder what was going on. Which is a mood when one hears a thud. Then there's Miss Bustier, who tries to get their attention, which is a teacher's mood. Overall, that was all a mood.

Tikki and Plagg (to some extent) should be fortunate that Kwamis cannot be captured on video or photographically because apparently, Mrs. Mendeleiev had set up a camera. But they are obviously not off the hook as Mrs. Mendeleiev saw them.

More Tikki and Marinette bonding please! I like how Marinette sees Tikki as the one friend she can be real with. Reminds me of my dynamic with my best friend in which we are honest with each other.

Plagg being on the roof was mood. He just chilling there as if nothing has happened. But don't worry. Tikki reminds him that they are in danger of exposing their owners' identities and in danger themselves.

"What's the worst that could happen?" Plagg, Plagg, Plagg. You truly are calm in a situation that has dire consequences. But let me explain that later.

Mrs. Mendeleiev apparently goes as far as to appear in Alternative Truth TV: Where nothing is really true or false. This Plagg. This is the worst that could happen.

Kim being obsessed with the show is relatable. Him acting as the talk show host was fun to watch and he annoys Mr. Damocles in the process. An added bonus. He's asked to sit and be quiet so many times. Couldn't help but laugh.

He's also super energetic about Mrs. Mendeleiev's appearance on the show and cheers on for Alix's brother as well.

I understand Alix being annoyed with her brother for being on the show to prove that Egyptian Pyramids are actually spaceships. I hope my brother never does this otherwise I am moving to another country and changing my surname. She's barely holding it together and I felt some secondhand embarrassment. Why must her brother do this?

I am not surprised that Adrien and Marinette are shocked that Mrs. Mendeleiev discovered their kwamis with an accurate description. Interdimensional beings that can go through matter and like aged cheese (I'm looking at you Plagg!)

Adrien saw Marinette leave during the show. Reasons for suspicion are starting to pour in.

And can we talk about the drawings? That went from 0-100 real quick. Their thought might be "Definitely my kwami".

And I gotta say, Mrs. Mendeleiev has better artistic skills than me. I am really bad at drawing.

Marinette for the first time in a while was not the one that had to learn a lesson. This time its Tikki who learns a lesson. We've never seen Tikki be reprimanded before, so take notes.

I seriously love the bond between Mari and Tikki. They are willing to forgive each other for their mistakes, no matter how serious the consequences are.

Mari also figures out that Chat Noir attends Francois-Dupont and that he must be one of the boys after Tikki mentioned Plagg. But withheld from trying to uncover more so she would not have to give up her Miraculous.

Which reminds me: WHEN DID IT BECOME PART OF THE RULES THAT IF EITHER ONE OF THE HEROES IN OUR FAVORITE DUO THAT THEY HAVE TO GIVE UP THEIR MIRACULOUS???? It was initially for security reasons that they would not reveal their identities, but if it's by accident, they still have to give up their Miraculous???? There's a major plot hole here that I'm gonna keep thinking about and no I will not stop internally screaming.

And another thing, Marinette seemed very sad about the idea of relinquishing her Miraculous. The sense of responsibility and the feeling of saving Paris I feel gave her a sense of serving a purpose. I mean who else would feel like they are serving a purpose by being a superhero, savior of [insert place]? What I'm trying to say in my confusing sentence is that she enjoys (to a great extent) being Ladybug and does not want to give that up.

Before we get to the Adrien and Plagg moment, the panel of judges for Alternative Truth believed Alix's brother with a 3/3 vote, but Ms. Mendeleiev did not get any votes, making her statement false. She does not take this well. (Because why would she take it well? She was humiliated on TV for goodness sake?) This is when she gets akumatized and Hawkmoth tells her what they are called.

Alya feels embarrassed for Mrs. Mendeleiev, whereas Chloé was humiliated for herself because Ms. Mendeleiev is her teacher??? Your teacher was humiliated on TV, so stop making it about you Chloé!

And speaking of Chloé, how did she not recognize Tikki and connect the dots??? I saw on Tumblr and on the YouTube comments that in "Princess Fragrance", she met Tikki and found out that she belonged to Marinette. She would've been able to figure out that Tikki is a kwami and Marinette is one of the superheroes at the very least. But then again, Ms. Mendeleiev's drawing was...okay.

Adrien just jumped in and said Plagg was irresponsible (me). And how did Plagg react? He was like "Kwamis can never be caught" and basically called him and Tikki party poopers. (Well, he called Tikki Sugarcube, so that leads to my next point).

He figures out that Ladybug is someone he knows already at school. This is when Plagg panics.

Adrien and Marinette leave the bathroom at the same time and Adrien noticed Mari, but both run back when they hear the news alert.

Back to Mendeleiev, she turns into Kwamibuster, which is obviously the paradoy reference to Ghostbusters (if you are into that sort of thing). And speaking of references, she reminded some of us about Mr. Crocker from Fairy Odd Parents. Although she is not the crazy lunatic that Crocker is.

May I mention that the screen was split and we ended up getting a united look at the news, with one half of the screen being from Mari's end and the other half from Adrien. I loved that so much! Can we get more of that please?

Before Adrien transforms, he asks Plagg if Marinette was Ladybug. YES YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT! Oblivious Adrien figured it out and was happy about the thought. And Plagg RUINED EVERYTHING! He was like "NoooOoo" and gave the speech that figuring out Ladybug's identity means giving up his Miraculous. Also, note how he was anxious to be sucked into the ring. And we know how Plagg normally feels about it. Also, his advice: ignore the problem. For once, that's actually good advice.

Ladybug saves Alec (I believe that's his name) from falling 50 feet from the safe and he gets out of the safe, seemingly star struck that Ladybug saved him. Either he was in shock from almost dying or from being saved by an icon. This was something new to watch since normally everyone else does not shout "Ladybug saved me!" in the way he did. I might be overthinking it.

"Ladybug defies the laws of science." -> Chat Noir. This was his best entrance line in my opinion.

Ladybug and Chat Noir argued over whose kwami is responsible for this mess. Ladybug's argument is that Plagg was irresponsible. Chat's argument was that Tikki was there too. Ladybug's rebuttal was that Tikki was trying to keep Plagg in line and that Chat and Plagg are a perfect match. You know if you think about it, superhero personality and kwami personality are sorta linked.

Ladybug gets zapped and detransforms. Chat goes to check up on her, but she says she's fine. He respects her privacy and helps her escape. See? Even Chat knows priorities. Although she would not have been caught if he didn't distract her from escaping Kwamibuster. (This is causation, I am in a Law and Society major, and I have a Criminal Law test next week. Moving on!)

Chat gets blasted too and escapes as well. And that leads us to...

...BANANA NOIR ORIGIN STORY! One of the hosts was wearing a banana suit, which Adrien found in the end to hide his identity while he escaped. And this is the origin story because...

...this episode took place before "Feast", where we see Banana Noir (I'm sorry, I'm still laughing.) Why do we know this? Because after Feast, Master Fu went on the run (to some extent). Marinette went to Master Fu's place in this episode to strategize.

Master Fu, I know you were the one who implemented the identity rule! I'm onto you!

Anyways, THIS IS THE MULTIMOUSE EPISODE! Marinette literally wore every single Miraculous that was in the Miracle Box, to which Master Fu warns that too much power could mess with her head. Now we wonder if Emeline wore the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous at the same time and something went wrong??

But we know Marinette well enough that we should trust her with her plans. I mean to echo Wayzz, Marinette had never let them down. Also, there were some Miraculous that were worn only to free the kwamis so that they'd help her.

MULTIMOUSE TRANSFORMATION ROCKS!!! I STAN! (This is just as awesome as Lady Noire's transformation)

This excitement is short-lived though because Multimouse ends up feeling lightheaded when she was about to head out. But she rises and marches forward. YOU GO GIRL!

The Kwami Swarm (Stampede?) comes flying in, to the delight of Kwamibuster and Hawkmoth.

Multimouse introduces herself separate of Ladybug, though she is flattered. Adrien trusts her to get Plagg back, which is awesome!

[Kwami 1], [Kwami 2]: unify! The unification of the Miraculous was AWESOME!

Multimouse (well, a few of her copies) were captured on purpose so she could unify with Plagg was the most genius idea ever!

The one with Chat's Ring returned it to him so he would no longer be in the Banana costume, which he was glad to ditch (even though he kept it in theory).

Mirage!

The mirage involved fixing everything and being able to show that Marinette was Multimouse, but a separate person from Ladybug. I sense the problem that because Marinette in a sense is Multimouse, Hawkmoth could use that to his advantage. But what is the possibility that she will be Multimouse again. Also, Chat was the only one there! So that's that.

Chat was like "I don't know what my kwami was doing at that elementary school." Ladybug in a sort of deadpanned tone: "It was a high school". I couldn't help but laugh. He said it was a high school before, he goes there, and it was the simplest plan to hide his identity compared to Ladybug's.

If Marinette and Ladybug were two different people, I'd ship them, no doubt. Chat, you got competition...

I am a bit annoyed at Chat because he wasn't able to recognize that Ladybug and Marinette look similar, but then again, he probably followed Plagg's advice so he'd be able to keep his Miraculous.

Mr. Cat. MR. CAT??? Excuse me Ms. Mendeleiev, but his name is Chat Noir, not Mr. Cat.

Thank you Chat for reminding Ms. Mendeleiev that she should keep it a secret for the sake of Paris. THANK YOU! Also, "wee!" as in "flying through the city is fun!" (Someone on YouTube pointed this out).

Now remember! The whole thing was a Mirage. That means the akuma wasn't purified yet and everything had yet to be repaired. This is when everything is fixed for real.

Few things to note: Marinette was tired before resorting everything to reality. She deserves a nap after this.

Also, the Lucky Charm this time was a bowl used to contain the Akuma. It is less convoluted than all the other Lucky Charmd from before. But then again, the whole plan was complex.

And to cap it all off, Marinette is the most powerful, smartest person in all of Paris, or even the world. She was mentally and physically capable of wielding multiple Miraculous at once and came up with the most genius plan with multiple moving parts. Our girl is making history in the Miraculous History books. In this essay, I will.

Overall, 10/10 because of Multimouse and Adrien hitting the jackpot on who is Ladybug. The one thing that ticked me off was the whole identity rule that seemingly came out of nowhere. Like where did that come from??? We could have had progress on the identity reveal, but no! It all has to be a secret. I feel like this will go on for the rest of the series. But everything else was awesome and I enjoyed it so much that I watched it three times today. And I spent 4 hours writing this.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Infinity Train and Manifestations of Trauma and Abuse

https://ift.tt/3b40KOO

In the third season of Infinity Train (subtitled Book 3), one single aspect among many sticks out: the shots of characters placing their hands on each other’s shoulders. In the crazy, random events that occur on this grandiose, mysterious train, characters reach out to each other, eager for connection, longing for trust, pining for affection.

Then when certain revelations disrupt understood and accepted relationships, the meaning and of these gestures shift. Suddenly, reaching out for others is dangerous, portrayed as movements of panic, fear, control, and manipulation. They become violations of personal space. These denials devolve into warnings, then threats, then all-out violence. Such events exemplify the theme and power of Infinity Train season 3. The show depicts the ways trauma and abuse manifest themselves, even in those we love, and the harrowing ways people have to elude the brunt of it.

Infinity Train’s overall development has been shocking, ingenious, and powerfully clever. It began as a broadly vague but character-specific fairytale of a young girl who had to face the truth of her past, and her relationship with her parents’ divorce, in which the train’s purpose could be distilled down into creating distinct worlds within each train car that provide assistance to help its troubled passengers become their best selves. The second season tore apart the premise and saw a mirrored doppelganger of the first season’s protagonists break free of their original train-car world, only to be confronted with the raw truth that the denizens of each car world serve no purpose but to advocate for the progress of the passengers.

The third season pushes this notion even further by taking a closer look at Apex, a group of passengers who have in effect tossed aside the story, who thrive in the train with little concern for the denizens of the train worlds–the “nulls.” They aren’t looking to get better; or, more accurately, they believe the act of getting better consists of increasing their number (humans who arrive on the train are assigned a number that glows on their hands; as they perform acts of generosity, bravery, compassion, or overall acts of goodness, that number goes down. Once it reaches zero, they can go back home). To them, improving one’s moral or ethical perspectives towards a self-actualized sense of peace isn’t how one gets better. To the Apex, becoming a raw, primal, carefree agent of chaos is true Enlightenment. (The Apex also have a complicated belief system where the conductor of the train, a small robot named One-One, is “fake,” and the “real” conductor, a human that took over the train way back in season one, is the One True conductor.)

Grace and Simon, the leaders of the Apex, take their wards on occasional missions to other train cars where they loot, pillage, and destroy the world within them with glee. It’s brutal to watch, even if the denizens–the nulls”–are just anthropomorphic objects. On one particular mission, the train “shifts” (relocating the entire car, basically), leaving Grace and Simon to traverse the cars to get back to the Apex HQ. Along the way they meet a young girl named Hazel and her large, powerful, protective companion, a gorilla named Tuba, who has literal tubas connected to her. Hazel intrigues the Apex leads, partly because she’s human, and the Apex recruits humans, but partly because the number on her hand doesn’t glow, while the others humans’ numbers do. The course of the season at first is about venturing back to the Apex car while figuring out a way to get Hazel on the Apex side and ditch/dispose of Tuba.

In the course of this mission, however, Grace grows more and more affectionate towards Hazel, opening up to her about her past and establishing an “older sister” dynamic to the girl. Grace’s careful manipulations to pull Hazel away from Tuba and towards her ends up also bridging Hazel and Grace closer. Simon, however, gradually starts to feel pushed away, particularly in an episode where they meet Simon’s former companion, a cat named Samantha, who ran away from him when he was younger and at his most helpless. Grace apologizes to Simon for her neglect, but this moment also plants the seed in which Simon’s broken, vicious downfall begins. In the following episode, Simon begins to step up his direct challenges to Tuba, and while Grace tries her best to maintain some kind of peace, Simon finds a way to “wheel” Tuba–to essentially kill her.

It’s an explicit, horrifying moment, and Simon expresses no remorse. Hazel, completely distraught, rushes out, but when Grace follows, Hazel transforms into a strange, turtle hyrbid. Hazel is not human but a “null,” and the revelation instantly makes Simon a real, vicious threat if he were to find out. Now Grace has to use her skill for manipulation less as a mechanism for weaponizing and control, but as a tool for protection and survival. It’s genuinely nerve-wracking to watch Grace wrack her brain in subsequent episodes to keep Hazel’s truth a secret and to keep Simon off guard. It’s even harder as Hazel struggles to keep her true emotions at bay, bottled up due to the direct fear that Simon will kill her.

The human characters that traverse this train all struggle with some kind of personal failing or struggle, but the Apex’s worldview only exacerbates the issues. Grace, for her part, channelled her loneliness and isolation into crafty acts of desire and attention, and directing that towards Hazel inadvertently starting on the path to healing. But Simon never was afforded any potential outlet for compassion or empathy. We don’t get a backstory about him, but it doesn’t matter. Samantha “leaving” him traumatized him, and seeing her again triggers him in the very direct and honest sense of the word. With no real outlet to cope or learn (Simon doesn’t get a chance to really venture the cars to even somewhat develop; Grace at least seems to explore a bit), his trauma and pains festers, solidifying into three unhealthy, self-rewarding truths: a quasi-love for Grace, a power/status role in the Apex, and a misguided understanding in the purpose of the “true” conductor.

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So it’s inevitable that Simon wouldn’t care at all about Hazel’s loss, pain, and/or fear. Simon’s inability to provide support or empathy towards Hazel, not two episodes after Grace shows sympathy towards Simon’s traumatic relapse over losing his past “null” partner, is telling. Simon’s pain is based on what he believed to be his past partner’s betrayal and abandonment, which partly explains why he doesn’t trust nulls, but he also weaponizes his pain and trauma, wielding it the very ways abusers often do: guilt trips, passive-aggressive behaviors, snide and unsympathetic remarks (“I got through it, you should be able to, too” – never mind that no, Simon clearly has not “got through it”.)

Simon’s more committed belief into the “real conductor” narrative suggests he copes with trauma through this belief structure (and also by pouring a deep amount of meaning and vulnerability into a quasi-romantic pursuit of Grace’s heart). Other people who interfere with either of those two things are automatic threats, and ultimately disposable. It explains why when Simon sees the memory of Grace telling Hazel to keep her secret under wraps, to keep it from Simon, he doesn’t see the raw threat of real violence he has become, but the victim of some kind of audacious conspiracy against him, particularly from the person he loves.

Simon discovers the ability to “see” this memory by returning to Samantha and asking for help (Samantha possesses keener insights and access to the machinations of the train than most denizens). An uneasy, fraught alliance between them occurs when Samantha explains her past actions; while not ideal, at least had a reason. Simon asks her “why” Grace is shutting him out, but it’s remarkable how he literally can’t see–or refuses to see–the obvious: he “wheeled” someone, he terrorizes their new ward, his aggressive behavior, once proudly thrown at the nulls and worlds around him, has turned towards the one person he supposedly cares about. He’s become dangerous, but can’t grasp why people would be scared of him.

It’s the ultimate in abuser mentality. It was always burgeoning in him: a white, male nerd-type (he is introduced painting figurines and writing a fantasy novel), epitomized in his ability to manipulate his own emotions and then callously kill Tuba. Simon’s surging toxic sense of masculine control builds in a slow-moving trainwreck manner: he’s made vulnerable when he sees his original betrayer (so he thinks), he challenges himself with a unnecessary wager (“I bet I can take Tuba”), faking new found affection for her until the point he can finish her off, and when not provided with the praise he thinks he deserves, believes everyone else is wrong to react this way. Amelia’s presence (the human who once took over the train but now finds herself wandering about to try and “fix” things to make amends), destroys his entire belief structure behind the false and true conductors, specifically, the very point of the numbers. “Numbers are power,” Simon says, ruefully. “Numbers are numbers,” Samantha shoots back, calmly. But to Simon, that can’t be. Simon is humiliated, but Grace is scared. That line about men’s biggest fear is being laughed at and women’s biggest fear is being killed? It feels apt.

Watching Simon become more hostile is difficult, but at the very least, Hazel is able to escape, leaving with Amelia to learn about herself. Grace is clearly hurt, but like with Hazel, Simon doesn’t understand why. And so he gets “grabby,” in the kind of possessive, jaw-dropping, cringey way that signals instant trouble. He snatches and pulls at her arm in one deeply dark moment; in the next episode, he shakes her by grabbing at her shoulders. The following episode, he callously tries to grab at her shoulder again for her attention, and this is the point where Grace swats his hand away and unloads on him. The argument is cut short though when Simon attacks her with her own memories, a sort of specific, literal type of gaslighting that nevertheless Grace manages to overcome (“So my memories are real until you don’t like them, then they’re fake?” Grace shoots at Simon at one point during the memory venture).

Yet here is where my singular criticism of this season occurs. Grace relives both her distant and recent past and the show portrays Grace’s behavior and actions as personal fears of self-honesty instead of inherited techniques and actions to minimize and avoid Simon’s abusive reactions. Grace is far from infallible: her manipulations were self-serving early on, but she also recognized Simon as a threat at some level, so to portray this as a failing, even a little, feels disingenuous. Simon was kicking and punching at Amelia just one episode earlier, and it was a sound waves shield that protected the viewer from what very much would have been brutal. Grace was protecting all the parties involved to the best of her ability and to the best of her understanding of everything that she learned up until this point.

The final episode does address this, somewhat. Grace returns to Apex HQ a new, honest, introspective person (her number has shrunk considerably). But she finds herself at odds with the entire Apex crew, manipulated by Simon against her. They almost “wheel” her, but the Apex crew is mostly children, so they demure. But Simon confronts Grace with the uncontrolled anger he cultivated all this time. He says the words that all abusers say: “You made me do this,” attempting to force Grace to apologize for doing the very things she needed to do to ensure her and Hazel’s survival. Powerfully, Grace does say that while she made mistakes, the choices she made to lie to Simon to protect Hazel were not among them, and she stands by those, even when directly confronted with Simon at his most dangerous. She also refuses to apologize for Simon’s pain and conflicting emotional/violence state. Those two beats should have hit a bit harder though. This narrative beat emphasized what those moments for Grace really meant, not just for her, but as a broader response to the ways in which abusers justify their abuse.

Simon and Grace fight, and their battle is up-close and personal. Grace bests Simon but still saves him from being wheeled, but in the season’s most shocking moment, he pushes Grace off the train anyway. Grace, miraculously (and somewhat randomly, as it’s not common for random train denizens to leave their train worlds) is saved by a few nulls she helped restore to life; Simon, his number so high that it covers his entire face and body, is killed by a monstrous bug-creature that lives outside the wastelands that surround the train.. Grace, a changed woman whose number is now much lower than where it was when we are first introduced to her, tells her young Apex wards to seek out their own unique, special truths, and work to be better people so they themselves can be free.

Infinity Train’s greatness stems from its ability to open up its characters in the kind of ways that a lot of weighty, rich shows these days can do, like Bojack Horseman and Steven Universe, but it also possesses an inherent flaw that the writers are actually utilizing as a narrative crutch in rich, clever ways. From the question of how its train worlds portray and think of its denizens, to the question of whether the train’s purpose is genuinely beneficial, Infinity Train makes the argument that maybe it’s not.

One-One, in past seasons, fixates on the humans’ pain, trauma, and problems as algorithms, as numbers that need to be solved. But as the Apex, Simon, and Grace showed, humans are messy, complex beings that can disrupt any premise or belief or narrative to justify their behavior and actions. Simon, prior to his final fight, yells to Grace, “Why would I ever want to change, when I’m always right!?” Trauma, pain, and abuse cannot always be solved with whimsy. One of the last shots of the season has Grace crying over Simon’s body. An Apex member places his hand on her shoulder. Perhaps an honest connection like that is truly what’s needed to be better people.

Infinity Train is available to stream on HBO Max now.

The post Infinity Train and Manifestations of Trauma and Abuse appeared first on Den of Geek.

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missnmikaelson-main · 5 years

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Possessive - 18+

I do not own TVD or TO

WARNING: This is pretty much shameless Smut.

She strains against the ropes; they twist around her wrists, stretch above her head. She can use the strength her immortality provides and break free, tear the blindfold from her face, but the promise of what will come if she complies is too good to risk losing.

She will get what she wants regardless, but this guessing game sounds fun.

She's hot all over, but the worst of the heat is centered between her spread legs. Strong hands hold her thighs up and out of the way, but she can't seem to rule out a name because they all have exceptionally skilled tongues and Elijah hasn't shaved in a few days so sharp stubble covers everyone's jaw.

Free hands are also roaming over her upper body, tweaking nipples, squeezing breasts and teasing her neck. Another set of hands smooth over her smooth backside encouraging her to arch her hips and teasing the sensitive rosebud between her cheeks.

She hates that she has no idea who owns the tongue that plunges into her slick channel, or the finger that slips into her bum with ease. She doesn't know who is kissing her throat. She is clueless to the teeth that scrape over her nipple.

She thought the game would be easy. They each have their own style in the bedroom, but it's clear they've played this game before. She knows them all so well – after a century she would be a fool not to – but it's so much stimuli that she can't think.

Someone releases her left leg and it falls over her favorite Original's shoulder – she doesn't know which it is but at the moment he's her favorite because he is suckling at her clit and fingering her ass in the way she loves. At least, he was her favorite until a second finger joins his in her bum, and it so clearly belongs to another brother because there is no conceivable way the fingers could twist that way if they were on the same hand.

She moans, bucking against the mouth that's doing such a good job of eating her out. This is normally the time that she twists, grasps at the hair of her lover and tries to push them closer, but she can't even rotate her hips. She sobs into the blindfold, desperate for the release they are keeping just beyond her reach.

"Please," she whispers the word when her least favorite Original pulls away from her dripping center. The fingers keep working over her bum though and she takes that as a good sign; wonders which of them will be taking her there.

They pull back their hands and it's a moment of pure torture before two fingers glide through her folds and plunge in her ass again.

"Please," her voice comes out louder, but they don't respond. She knows why because it's a part of the game. The only way she gets to cum is if she can accurately name the brother bringing her pleasure.

"You know what you have to do, love." It's Klaus's voice, but she doesn't trust the location. He sounds like he's between her legs, but they've all moved around since releasing her body.

She thinks she can rule him out though because stubble is scraping over her flat stomach and it's wet with her arousal; she can smell it, so she knows Klaus was not the mouth bringing her to the brink. She thinks he might be the one fingering her and keeping her on the edge.

Elijah or Kol – she doesn't know which – stops teasing her stomach.

"You know the rules, lovely," Elijah's voice rumbles to her left. That tells her Kol is on her right but the frequent rushes of wind mean either one of them could have been doing it.

If only her arousal didn't smell so strong; it's coming from everywhere at once.

A thumb grazes her swollen clit, the touch too light to push her over the edge. She thinks she might go crazy from the stimulation before she gets it right.

"Come now, darling," Kol chuckles, "you just have to name your tormenter."

"I can…" her catches and its Klaus's fault for nipping at her femoral artery. "Watch the teeth Klaus," she means to snap, but it comes out as a groan. She likes a little pain with her pleasure sometimes, but that would be crossing a clearly drawn line.

"Can you do it, love?" Klaus's teeth tease her thigh. "Who's tormenting you?" He kisses down until he's inches from where she wants his attention and pulls away again.

"I've got three of them," she pants. She arches when Klaus crooks his fingers.

"You need to be a little more specific, lovely," Elijah hums.

She wants to feel the hum reverberate through her body, but he's too far away. She wants to fall over the peak they've been keeping her at for eternity; that wouldn't be a bad way to spend her eternity: tied to her bed with three attractive tormenters circling her, inspecting her, taking pleasure in her body.

She has a fifty-fifty chance of being right; it's better than her odds of one in three, so she guesses. The worst they can do is tease her for a few more hours.

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip.

"Kol," she forces confidence into her voice so it doesn't come out as a question. The name is barely out of her mouth when her lips are covered with the Original in question. She tastes herself on his tongue at the same time Elijah's hand slides between her thighs; he thrusts two fingers into her body and crooks them. With the three of them working her over she falls apart with a low keen, moaning into Kol's mouth and clamping around the fingers invading her body.

She's not sure how long it lasts but when her orgasm recedes the ropes around her wrists are being pulled free. She pushes herself up, reaches for the blindfold.

Her hands are held behind her back. They move her, guide her knee until she is straddling someone but she doesn't know who until she sinks down.

"Elijah," she moans his name. He stretches her beautifully and for a few glorious minutes she bounces on his cock, chasing the release she has earned with her deduction, while he drags his lips over every inch of skin he can reach.

Someone else is twisting her nipples though because Elijah's hands are kneading her ass, pulling the cheeks apart to expose her thoroughly prepped bum.

He holds her still and she almost whines until she feels the head of another cock pressing to the tight ring of muscle.

She relaxes and he slips inside.

Elijah stays still while the second cock moves back and forth, fucking her ass which is all the tighter for his cock in her wet cunt.

She doesn't realize she's making loud proclamations to a deity until Elijah's tongue traces the seam of her lips, warm breath fanning over her chin.

"The last thing he needs is an inflated ego, lovely," he chuckles. A grunt escapes him when he moves.

She gasps for breath, runs her hand over the chest beneath her. It's so much harder to think now. She's deliciously full; their pace is exquisitely slow. She knows from experience that they can keep her like this for as long as they like.

Stupid thousand year old vampires. Stupid self-control.

They stop moving entirely and hold her hips still to keep her from setting her own pace. She huffs in frustration.

She knows who it is now and she needs him to move. She needs to feel that wonderful burning pleasure that comes from having both of them moving at once getting closer and closer to vampire speed.

"Klaus," she shivers, her reward is a slow thrust. She would glare at him if her eyes weren't covered. "I got it right."

"Yes, you did," Klaus grunts, thrusting in time with Elijah.

It's infuriatingly slow.

She is going to let go of her dignity and beg them to fuck her, to drill her, to take her with every ounce of strength they've got but a hand pulls her dark hair. She opens her mouth, wrapping her lips around Kol's cock.

She revels in the little bit of control she has regained because while Klaus and Elijah are holding her pleasure in the palm of their hands she is in charge of Kol's.

She doesn't need to see what she's doing to make Kol groan. Her head bobs up and down as she utilizes her tongue and throat to drag his release from his body. She nearly succeeds when he pulls her off his cock with a popping sound.

She has no time to complain before the three of them move.

They trade off for hours after that, only driving her to release when she can accurately place all of them. At first it's easy because she can taste herself on the cock in her mouth but after a while she is unable to distinguish.

All she knows is that when morning sunlight warms her skin she is a panting mess with cum leaking from her cunt and ass – her body unable to hold all of the loads she has taken – and three sets of hands are massaging her sore muscles.

The blindfold is untied with gentle fingers and she knows without opening her eyes that it's Elijah.

"Was anyone keeping score?" She cracks open an eye to see Kol's smirk. "Because I believe we won."

"That depends on your point of view," Klaus chuckles.

She can do little more than roll her half open eye to where he is leaning against her headboard kneading her arm. He lowers one hand and massages her breast, flicking a hard nipple with his nail.

She moans, gives a small arch towards him.

"I think she might have one more in her," Elijah grins. He drags his lips from the sensitive skin of her knee to her thigh.

Klaus follows his lead and presses opened mouth kisses from her elbow to her wrist. Kol leans over and pays her hard nipples the attention they are begging for.

Elijah presses his thumb to her clit.

Elena gasps, but doesn't know which way to move. Elijah's teeth sink into her thigh drawing blood from her body. Klaus moves to her throat, teasing her with the fangs he won't use to break her skin, and Kol works over her chest.

She doesn't have enough strength to keep it up for long, but it doesn't matter because the three of them succeed in pulling a last shuddering orgasm from her dazed body. Her vision fades to black when she reaches her peak and when she comes back down she is being lowered into a tub full of fragrant smelling bubbles.

Elijah guides her back and catches her lips in a lazy kiss.

"I win," she murmurs against his mouth.

"You were only right thirty percent of the time," he chuckles. "I'm fairly certain that means I won."

"Come in my body," she closes her eyes.

"I did," he smooths her hair from her face, "many times last night."

She can hear the smirk in his voice.

"Get your mind out of the gutter," she murmurs, barely able to hide her smile behind the stern look.

"And here I thought my dirty mind was what you loved about me," he kisses her bare shoulder.

"If that was all I wanted in a man I'd be with Kol."

I wouldn't object to that

"Shut-up Kol," Elijah growls. His sharing mood is gone.

She knows it'll be a long time before they invite both of his brothers into their bed again. There will be at least a two year gap between incidents and that's perfectly fine with her.

"Elijah," she sighs.

"Elena," he nips at her throat.

She tips her head back and to the side so he can see the wriggling veins under her eyes, running her tongue over her extended incisors.

His smile is soft when he lifts his wrist to her lips. He groans when she bites down and lays her head on his chest taking long pulls of his blood. He smells her arousal through the water and runs the fingers of his free hand through her hair.

She lets him go after a while when her hunger has been sated and licks the wayward blood from his arm.

Several decades before, he would have asked if she was up for another round, but it was no longer necessary. He knows her limits – or rather the lack thereof.

She laughs when he moves them both at vampire speed and settles beneath her in the tub. With a wicked grin on her lips she reaches behind his head for the bottle hidden by the shampoo.

"This is a much better outlet for your possessive behaviour then growling at Kol," she grins.

"Can't I do both?" He nips at her ear.

He lays open mouthed kisses along her throat as she reaches under the water and spreads silicone lubricant over his hard cock allowing them to glide together beneath the bubbles.

"Not right now," she sighs, sinking down, "I'd prefer you're full attention at the moment."

"As you wish, lovely," he smooths his hands over her hips as she rides him and kisses her left ring finger just above her ring.

Water sloshes over the sides of the tub prompting snickers and comments from distant corners of the house.

Elena vows to call one of their witch allies in the morning and see about soundproofing the bathroom.

tags: @rissyrapp20 @elejah-wonderland @eternityunicorn @elejahforever @morsmornte @fandomrulesall @xanderling

#elena gilbert #elijah mikaelson #kol mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #elejah #elena x elijah

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briangroth27 · 5 years

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Review

This is my 200th original blog! I’m happy to make it about one of my favorite fictional characters and I’m glad to report that Spider-man: Far From Home is an absolute blast! I loved it and can’t wait to see more of Peter (Tom Holland) and his corner of the MCU. They did a great job of retaining the well-developed interpersonal relationships of Homecoming while upping the stakes and taking Peter and his classmates on a tour of Europe.

Full Spoilers…

Peter’s journey from street-level Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man to full-blown international superhero Avenger takes a solid step here, with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) drafting him into a battle with Elemental beings from a parallel universe. At first I thought it was kinda lame of Fury to be so all-in on high school junior Peter Parker suiting up instead of helping Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) fight the Elementals himself—I’ve always thought the MCU’s reliance on SHIELD to bring heroes together rather than the heroes teaming up by themselves made them less altruistic in a way, plus why do we need Fury if he’s just going to sit on the sidelines and point heroes at obvious threats?—but then I realized they were playing Fury as the parent or invested teacher in a high school movie. So, forcing Peter to help in the battle with the Elementals was their take on that kind of character encouraging a kid to step up and make the most out of their potential. He even goes so far as to ruin Peter’s vacation to get him to take his “job” seriously, and looking at him that way—with the Spider-films functioning as superhero movies by way of John Hughes—his role works really well (much like Tony Stark’s role as a parent who could say no to Spider-man in Homecoming). I also liked that Fury did agree to help Peter keep his identity a secret to an extent—that was reasonable of him—and "Night Monkey" was a fun gag (I wonder if he’ll don that simian alter ego again, given how this movie ends).

I liked that Peter’s anxiety over telling MJ (Zendaya) how he felt affected his Spider-sense—it seemed like a realistic parallel to being so stressed out that you literally worry yourself sick—and this worked much better than Spider-man 2’s Peter losing his powers just because he didn’t want to be Spider-man anymore. Making his “Peter Tingle’s” (lol!) function related to his stress and emotions also leaves the door open for his Spider-Sense to fail again, which is a nice dramatic bomb waiting to go off. Another dramatic bomb I’d like them to detonate is letting Peter realize that Tony wasn’t all great and did screw a lot of people over. Both Mysterio and Vulture made valid points about Tony and it wouldn't be a betrayal of Peter's Stark-adoration to recognize that he was a flawed person; it'd be the responsible, grown-up thing to do. Much like in Homecoming, I do worry that the MCU is playing Peter as Tony Stark's successor and heir apparent too much without fully exploring what we know to be the truth about Tony. I don’t want Peter to be the next Iron Man—he should be the first self-made Peter Parker instead—but it was a nice moment to see him take the steps of designing his new suit (even if I was hoping it’d be the classic one). Karen was fun and useful as someone for Peter to talk to in the last film, but I didn’t miss her in his new suit since he had Happy (Jon Favreau), Ned (Jacob Batalon), and MJ. I liked that Peter got to put his science skills to use and design his own web attacks instead of Stark gifting everything to him, though I’ll concede that the "moment" of Peter picking up the holo-designers did have a significant impact. Still, I loved him walking away from the Avengers in Homecoming (though I wish he hadn't gotten the Stark suit back) and I hope he eventually walks away from Stark Industries too instead of inheriting it or something. I want him at Horizon Labs and/or creating Parker Industries as a startup, inventing tech that helps the little guy instead of creating global defense networks. Speaking of, EDITH (Dawn Michelle King) was a fun addition to the film and Peter's mistakes with it felt appropriately teenager-esque (in a heightened superhero way, of course). I liked that it was way too much for him to handle and that he tried to get rid of it. I wish he’d destroyed it in the end, though my initial impression was that it’s essentially neutered now since all the drones are down and, given his reaction to seeing into everyone else’s phones, we can trust that he won’t use it that way again.

On the whole, the Spider-man films are the most enjoyable in the MCU (I also love that so much of their screentime is about Peter’s non-superhero life; we don’t get to see that from many other MCU heroes), but ignoring major dramatic moments keeps them from topping the Cap films as the MCU’s best. My biggest disappointment here is that we didn't—and apparently won't—see the fallout from May (Marisa Tomei) finding out that Peter is Spidey. I would’ve thought she’d be concerned about how being a superhero will affect his future (not to mention his safety), though I guess not since she fully encourages him to take his suit to Europe (also playing into that "embrace your potential" parental space Fury operates in). Was there a period where she worried about him before they came to this "everything is fine!" place? Did they compromise on ground rules for his superheroics vs. getting his homework done? The fallout from that reveal was a necessary piece of their arcs and it’s a mistake to skip it. I wish we hadn't had to detour into Infinity War after Homecoming (or that May walking in on him in the suit had also been Peter’s introductory scene in IW) and that we could've seen more of Peter and May's paths to get to this point.

Regardless, I liked seeing a new role for May now that she's in the know. It would've been nice to use that role to help give Peter advice or something, but it’s OK that that mainly manifested in her pushing him towards being a hero (and giving him an alibi to ditch the trip). Peter asking her for pointers on how to tell MJ he liked her would've been a solid route to take too (like when she helped him get ready for the dance in Homecoming), and it could’ve been a chance to bring up Uncle Ben and how he first told May about his feelings. I love that life for Peter and May hasn't ended with Ben’s death, but it would be nice to directly reference him. Continuing to mourn him would've been too much with Peter also mourning Stark's death (and it would've made Happy and May's flirtation awkward), but both Peter and May have clearly moved on so it would be OK to reference him without always being a downer. Ben’s initials on Peter’s briefcase were a nice subtle touch, but my friend pointed out that the suitcase getting blown up should’ve had more meaning to May and Peter instead of getting played off as joke (“Where’s your luggage? Oh right; it got blown up!”). Even a moment to say that physical things don’t matter when they can remember Ben and live as he did would’ve been enough. Speaking of Happy and May, I thought they were cute and I like where it's going (it if does go anywhere). At one point I thought not Snapping May would’ve been a way to bring the classic May into the MCU, but I wouldn’t have liked putting her through five years of hell with Peter having vanished. I like this May much better than the classic one who might have a heart attack just by finding out that Peter is Spider-man, and taking him away for that long probably would’ve led to that version so I’m glad they didn’t. I liked May helping the homeless shelter rather than sitting at home worrying about Peter being Spider-man: it’s nice to see her being a hero in her own right. I wonder if that job will bring us Mr. Negative sometime down the line; he could make things even worse for Spidey's rep.

Speaking of, this was an excellent rendition of Mysterio! I can't believe I didn't realize how perfect a villain he is for an era full of Fake News, where our leaders lie to us so casually and very few citizens bother to fact-check what they say. I hope he’s not dead and I don’t believe it. Faking that death would be a hard needle to thread with people clearly believing that he died a hero—so there must be a body, right?—but I’m sure there are ways around that. If he really is gone, what a way to go out! I definitely didn't expect him to announce Peter's secret to the world, but I'm glad they did: that’ll open up a lot of story potential and we’ve seen Peter do the secret identity thing in seven movies now; we can do one where he fights to put the genie back in the bottle and has to deal with the fallout. Gyllenhaal was very good in the role—the perfect mix of heroism, menace, and self-important ridiculousness—and while I knew he was a villain, he had me wishing that he wouldn't follow his comic book roots. I liked that he was the adult who let Peter slack and indulge in what he wanted rather than what was (arguably) best for his future (and certainly best for the world), and their chemistry allowed for a quick development of their brotherly bond. I liked the idea I saw online a while back about Quentin Beck having been a special effects guy on the "really old movies" Peter is always referencing who lost his job because of CGI, but his backstory here was so much better and it was very cool how they tied him and his cronies into the history of the MCU. I'm also so happy we got a comics-accurate costume for him! They really drove home the point that it would be impossible to fight Mysterio if you didn't have Spider-Sense and the sequence showcasing that was fantastic. Yes, that CGI was noticeably CGI, but given how he creates his illusions and the fact that it's a filter over real-world dangers, I thought it totally worked. The point wasn’t to create a photo-realistic illusion at that moment anyway, as there were several images that didn’t make logical sense in the “real world:” Beck was trying to scare and disorient Peter, getting him to hurt himself on real-world dangers, and the kid fell for it. I've never seen that threat level from this character before and that was a standout sequence of the entire MCU. I'm sorry that it looks like Sandman, Hydro-Man, Molten Man, and Cyclone are just illusions in this universe, but the Buzzfeed theory the gang finds means they could still be out there. Maybe Mysterio based the Elementals on them in the first place!

I'm of two minds about Nick Fury in this film. On one hand, I like the role he played in Peter's life here. On the other, the post-credits reveal that he was actually Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) acting as Fury while the real Nick was on vacation undercut the genuinely interesting character development Fury got. I really liked that he went from knowing everything about the world to knowing nothing. It's also more impressive if Mysterio dupes the real Fury instead of a stand-in. If Talos was sending Fury regular reports, then both those things are still at least halfway true, but it's not as effective or clean IMO. I’m glad to know Fury is a human who needs a vacation sometimes—the always alert, always prepared, always badass character the early MCU films painted him as would get boring and one-dimensional—but with these character developments maybe this wasn’t the best time to play the Skrull card. I hope the Skrull reveal is a one-time gag about Fury taking some time off (which does explain his insistence that Peter jump into the battle instead of doing it himself) and not a prelude to Secret Invasion. There just isn't time in these movies to sacrifice a whole film's worth of character development for a Skrull reveal. Secret Invasion would totally work in an MCU show, but the films aren’t like the comics where we have decades of time spent with the real characters plus a significant amount spent with their replacements; if they decide a character was a Skrull for an entire movie, that’s like a ninth of their total MCU screentime and development (if not more) erased.

I was happy that we got to spend a lot more time with MJ in this film. She's awesome, Zendaya plays her perfectly, and I really like this direction for her character! Her interest in the morbid history of everything is very endearing and I also like her obsession with telling the truth. At first I thought that might be a fun and interesting challenge for her once she found out about Peter (a twist the trailers shouldn't have revealed...classic Sony!), but now I'm thinking it could drive her towards journalism like in the Ultimate Comics universe. I would love to see her, Peter, and Ned team up to prove Peter's innocence and tell the world what really happened (while covering up Pete’s ID, which would bring that challenge aspect back to her). I liked that she played an integral role in discovering the truth about Mysterio and that she figured out Peter was Spider-man on her own; now I'd like to see that applied to her future. Her burgeoning relationship with Peter was sweet and felt well-developed given how long they’ve known each other; they are very cute together and their first kiss felt very teen-realistic. I can't wait to see how they work as a couple! With Midtown’s mascot being a tiger, I wonder if we'll get the "Face it, Tiger..." moment at some point.

Ned and MJ's low-key competition about knowing Peter's secret was fun too. I'm glad Ned has grown out of wanting to tell everyone Peter's secret (though that did create some fun drama and obstacles we wouldn't have gotten from the more responsible Peter by himself). I really like his friendship with Peter (and Batalon’s rendition of Ned) and even though he didn't get to be the Man in the Chair this time around, they could easily bring that back next time to help clear Pete's name. Ned and Betty's (Angourie Rice) trip-long summer romance was a funny subplot and a nice nod to their comic book marriage. I'm glad Betty got more screentime here, even if it's still weird to me that she's so visually patterned after Gwen Stacy (if they are saving Gwen for Spider-Gwen, I'm all for it!). I loved that the school news reports Betty and Jason (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) anchor are still so hilariously (and realistically) bad! They were the perfect vehicle to recap The Blip and I really liked how it was handled. This film isn't the place to look at the massive problems such seismic shifts in the global population would cause, but I firmly believe the MCU needs to address them somewhere (Agents of SHIELD and the other shows would be my choice). They could get literal years of great drama exploring the fallout of both snaps, the global upheaval, the extremes surviving heroes went to, surprising heroic turns from villains that were left behind, etc. and while I'm glad they didn't just erase Thanos' Snap, it's a massive missed opportunity not to mine the fallout for all it's worth somewhere. Global changes like this should be felt in everything going forward, even if they're not the main focus. Still, the kids’ frustration that they had to take their midterms over again and the weirdness over some kids having aged five years while the rest of them didn’t worked perfectly for the corner of the MCU this movie was playing in. Those felt like realistic teen complaints and they’re all I needed from this film in terms of the Blip.

Flash (Tony Revolori) was funny and I liked the surprise beat at the end about his parents not arriving at the airport to welcome him back. His adoration of Spider-man and jerkiness to Peter is still a fun combination too, though I would like to see Peter ruminate on that dichotomy a little more. Give Peter a moment where he feels like he’s getting one over on Flash because his bully idolizes his alter ego or something, then pull the rug out from under him with Flash being Flash (they almost have this moment here, but it’s more about establishing Flash’s Spider-fandom than Peter really considering/laughing at it). Still, I can't wait to see how he reacts to the knowledge that Peter is Spider-man! The teachers (J.B. Smoove, Martin Star) were great again too! Peter has one of the best supporting casts in the MCU and this film was no different. Mr. Harrison's tragic and over-shared love life was great fun, as was science teacher Mr. Dell being convinced the Elementals were the work of witches. Even though they do care about the students, the teachers being so inept goes a long way towards justifying how easy it is for Peter to slip away to do his hero thing. It’s also very funny; I wouldn’t change a thing! I liked that they made a point of joking that there had been very little science on this science club trip, but as excuses to get them to Europe go, it didn't bother me at all that they never got to study science.

I was delighted to see JK Simmons return as J. Jonah Jameson! That was a great bit and the evolution of the character into a Fox News-styled conspiracy theorist pundit who peddles lies is a perfect direction to take the character. I can't wait to see where he goes next! It would make total sense for him to hire the Scorpion (who already wants revenge on Spidey) or Kraven to take down the "menace" of Spider-man (perhaps as a dry run for the Sinister Six) in this context. I'm also wondering if we'll finally hear "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" as a rebuke to JJ from Peter: with such a large platform that commands power and implies trustworthiness, Jonah (and the press in general) has a responsibility to tell the truth, especially in an age where people will believe anything. As bad as our leaders are, the press enabling them by publishing conspiracy theories and not calling lies out as lies is an equally enormous problem and that would be an excellent “villain” to tackle in the next Spider-man. I wonder if they’ll let Peter re-establish his secret ID, or if he’ll end up accepting his pubic status as a way of showing he’s different from the liar leading the Daily Bugle.

The world of this film was great and I'm eager to see more of Peter's corner of the MCU. I liked that they continued to emphasize the diversity of the real world through Peter’s classmates; we definitely need more of that (in addition to getting more diverse characters as leads). I thoroughly enjoyed the acting from everyone in the cast. The pacing was perfect and they balanced the romantic drama, decisions about Peter's future, action, comedy, and stakes very well! There was a cool variety of fight scenes and I really liked Peter working to secure buildings and civilians while Mysterio took on the Elementals. The CGI was great and well-used. Michael Giacchino’s score was excellent once again! I really like his orchestral version of the 60s Spider-man cartoon theme (and hope we get a similar rendition of the 90s X-men theme for their reboot), as well as the other themes Giacchino developed for this series. The pop culture songs they used are great, but they shouldn't shy away from songs today's kids like as well. As a kid in the 90s, I listened to songs from the 60s on an oldies station along with current music so it doesn't bother me that Peter's music also spans decades, but there should be a more even mix of the two. I’ve seen comments online about how using modern music would date the film, but a major reason the 80s classics are “timeless” is because the people who grew up with them now use them in their films. Peter and his tastes shouldn’t be limited to what a 30-40 year old thinks is cool; they should be what the current teens think are cool.

I wonder how Peter being unmasked will affect Vulture for keeping his ID a secret, to say nothing of how it's going to wreck his personal life. This should be a seismic shift in his status quo and I hope they don't skip over it again like with May finding out. Maybe Black Cat could help Peter navigate the “criminal” lifestyle and make things even more complicated for him when he’s seen hanging out with an actual thief. Maybe Peter will get snarkier because of all this (since these movies are already so funny I didn’t notice his lack of quips until I saw author Gail Simone mention it on Twitter, but this turn of events could be a way to sharpen his comedy a bit). How will it affect May? Regardless of my (ultimately small) misgivings with certain aspects of this Peter’s development, Tom Holland is excellent in the role and they're telling their story very well, so I’m happy and excited to see as many adventures as he’s willing to suit up for! Who knows; maybe they can make Miles Morales the self-made, homemade Spidey instead of Pete. If he were Peter's contemporary instead of his multiverse counterpart here—do their team-up like a buddy cop movie with them as competing teenage Spider-men—they could make a statement out of Peter getting handed the keys to Tony’s kingdom while Miles has to resort to homemade methods, which would be pretty cool and socially relevant.

Whatever the future of the MCU has in store for Peter, I can't wait to see it! Far From Home is an absolute blast that's neck-and-neck with Homecoming for best live-action Spider-man film (Into the Spider-verse is still the best Spider- (and superhero) film overall) and you should definitely see this while it's in theaters!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!

#spider-man #spider-man far from home #far from home #peter parker #mysterio #quentin beck #mj #ned leeds #aunt may #tom holland #jake gyllenhaal #jacob batalon #zendaya #mcu #marisa tomei

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

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The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Ex-Aid & Ghost, Part Two

Okay, back to it for part two of who-know-how-many of my Dr. Pac-Man liveblog!

Time for more gamers, doctors, ghosts, and terrible examples of science that people should in no way, shape, or form try to emulate!

––– –––

When last we saw our doctor heroes, they were escaping from Dr. Pac-Man with the victim-of-the-week, and the Ghost team was coming to their aid, leaving Shinnosuke back at the precinct.

We pick back up with Emu, Asuna, and Tougo running, but being blocked from one direction by Doral and Giril, and a still very glitchy Dr. Pac-Man on the other.

Turns out, the Pac-viruses aren’t technically bugsters at all – they’re just… er. Viruses, I guess, that Dr. Pac-Man used to set up a virus detection program. Specifically, to track the Bugster Virus, so that he could hunt down Tougo, who’s a carrier of a new strain.

Wait, so, the fevers that are hitting the people throughout the city aren’t the game disease, then? Or are there more forms to it than the bugster virus? …I may have to go into this in my fics at some point, but not now.

But anyway, it’s a new strain, one that comes from Hatesate Puzzle, so naturally the GenmCorp systems wouldn’t have any information on it – it’s not one of their products, so there’s no reason to expect it to spawn a bugster of it’s own.

Takeru, Akari, and Onari show up, with Takeru accusing Dr. Pac-Man of being Zaizen Michihiko. Fortunately for all of us, he is, and admits such as soon as Takeru brings it up. This means I no longer have to type ‘Dr. Pac-Man’ nearly as often, and we don’t have to deal with his squeaky voice changer anymore.

That thing was obnoxious.

Zaizen, who should have died six years ago, has managed – somehow – to revive as a Bugster. Which, as we know now, is foreshadowing for what happens down the line in-show. (Actually, this might be where Kuroto got that particular plan from in the first place.) He’s come back to finish his plans from back then.

He and his ‘team’ were working on a ‘genome project’, to create a new life form via operating on a patient infected with the game disease. A project to create a bugster.

But things went wrong.

Something happened, and we see the ‘patient’ – his face tactfully hidden by scenery the entire time – bucking on the table, the four ‘doctors’ drawing back in surprise. As a swarm of orange lights emerges from him and form into the shape of a person, lines of light form a game area around the room, while the four ‘doctors’ are dissolved into fragments of data.

And now? Now they’re back from being banished to the shadow realm game world, and ready to fulfill their ‘master plan.’

Emu – sweet, blissfully unaware, ten-episodes-in Emu – says that he may not know anything about this so-called master plan, but to use Pac-Man for this, to endanger all of these people… how can they call themselves doctors?! Doctors are supposed to help people!

Zaizen declares that anyone who stands against him must die, and Hatena – the latest Bugster – summons a massive number of enormous falling blocks. That would be bad enough, since said blocks are approximately person sized, and could easily crush someone.

Except that Hatesate Puzzle is a match three puzzle game. When three blocks of the same color line up? They explode.

Makoto and Alain show up from… somewhere, just in time to see Takeru make a dive to cover Akari with his body to protect her from another wave of blocks.

They are both caught up in the explosions. When the smoke clears, Takeru manages to wake Akari up, barely.

They both start to turn transparent, bursts of static crackling across them, at which point Akari passes back out.

Takeru, having had some very traumatic experiences with being transparent, makes the very natural assumption that they’ve both just died.

Fortunately, Emu is there, and able to yell that no, no, you’re not dead, that’s the bugster virus, please calm down!

Well, they’re not dead yet, according to Hatena, who says that unless someone manages to defeat him in the next 24 hours, they’re done for. This, naturally, pisses Makoto and Alain the hell off, and they go on the offensive.

I love civilian outfit fights, because you can get more of a sense of how the characters really move. I hold to the theory that putting on Rider armor, in any series, enhances the wearers usual abilities, so while you can see how they fight, you can get a far more accurate idea of it when they fight out of suit.

Against Giril, for all that the first part of the fight is more of a dance between her, Makoto, and Alain, you can tell that they’re skilled at this – that they’ve been through battles. They do eventually wind up getting hit – her fighting style is very different from the ones they’re used to facing, and Alain in particular takes some nasty palm strikes and kicks to the chest, but they’re still putting up a good show. (Especially for a pair who lost the majority of their effectiveness in battle once they joined up with Takeru, but that’s a complaint for a whole different season.)

On the other hand, Emu’s fight against Doral can barely be called a fight. He’s getting beaten, badly. Doral barely has to move to dodge Emu’s punches, and when they do connect, he doesn’t even flinch, moving with the punch to soften what little damage there would be.

Emu takes numerous blows to the torso, and I’m pretty sure at one point he just barely avoided a groin shot. He does manage a sweet flip and a roll, but it looks to have been accidental, given he then very quickly gets thrown several meters through the air.

Compare this to his first fight in-show, when he’d just gotten the belt, and had no idea what he was even getting into. In level one, he didn’t take a single hit from the Bugster Union, and when he fought Salty directly, he got hit maybe two or three times, but no more than that, and they didn’t effect him at all.

Early Emu has no idea what he’s doing in a fight, without actively being Ex-Aid.

Onari and Asuna carry Akari off to the hospital, escaping, while Makoto and Alain manage to literally hold Giril back, telling Takeru to ‘take care’ of Hatena.

Takeru’s punches do nothing, aside from make his knuckles hurt, and make Hatena chuckle. CHUCKLE. Not even LAUGH, just a quiet chuckle.

Emu gets grabbed, and Doral is trying to choke him out, when freaking Tougo – who is, admittedly, in a bit of a bad way, seeing how he’s rather see-through at the moment – yells at Emu. He’s a doctor, right?! Then why isn’t he saving him?!

You know, never mind that you said it was pointless earlier, or that Emu’s getting his ass kicked and currently is having a bit of trouble breathing, just go ahead and guilt trip him. That’s totally a way to make people like you.

Oh, and then Zaizen tells this asshole that nobody can save him, and pulls Tougo into a bugvisor. Because that totally makes sense.

All four riders present – Emu, Takeru, Alain, and Makoto – get hurled down by their respective opponents, Emu internally apologizing to Tougo. Doral advances on Emu…

And is met with a spin-kick to the face.

Kiriya, Hiiro, and Taiga have arrived. Here’s their basic reactions to the scene:

Kiriya: More research data! Yes! (Also, time to save the Ace, because he’s the only person in this show who has even remotely tried to be a decent person, and was the only one who bothered trying to trust me.)

Taiga: Okay, shows over, freaks. (Why do people keep using Protogashats?! Are they all just stupid?!)

Hiiro: You look pathetic, intern. Also, here’s the new Legend Rider Gashat, the CEO wanted you to have it, for some reason.

Doral’s all ‘oh, so you want to fight, do you?’, and he and Giril pull out their gashats. Kiriya gives a sarcastic whistle, before Makoto and Alain shove their way in front, saying that this is their fight. I mean, it’s not, technically, but I get their reasoning. Also, Makoto literally shoved Hiiro to the side, and Hiiro takes a moment to come back to facing front, looking incredibly offended. Kiriya tries to point out to them that they’re already pretty beat up, and maybe they should take a back seat for a bit, but let if never be said that Makoto and Alain are anything but stubborn.

Giril takes off one way, Makoto and Hiiro in pursuit, while Doral goes the other, with Alain, Taiga, and Kiriya chasing after. Emu is still on the floor, slightly dazed, and presumably very confused.

–––

Hiiro and Makoto Vs Giril.

Makoto’s fighting style here is very… I dunno, like he’s a brawler? I guess? It’s not really refined, there’s a sort of brutality there. He uses the mooks momentum a lot, at one point pulling one of those ‘roll with the grab and use it to do a spin kick while on the mooks back’ tricks.

Hiiro, meanwhile, is quick and efficient, focusing on disabling mooks by going for the torso. Once again, he’s weaponizing CPR, just like when he originally used Doremifa Beat. At one point, he actually just flat out does a chop to the back of one mooks neck, which I find hilarious coming from Hiiro, of all people.

Eventually, Giril transforms, and Makoto hastily follows suit. Heh, suit. Because they’re transforming heroes. Hiiro, who saw full well that Specter isn’t exactly in prime condition, tries to tell him to wait, and heads into level two to join the fight.

–––

Taiga, Kiriya, and Alain vs Doral.

Taiga and Alain’s fight styles aren’t too different, outside of suit. They both favor quick blows that are still slightly showy. The main difference is that Alain’s more willing to rely on both his arms and legs for attacks, while Taiga’s more likely to dodge attacks. Kiriya… may as well be street dancing. Like, there’s a lot of streetdance type moves going on there.

…Dark Toei, give me the forbidden streetdancer Kiriya lore.

Eventually, Alain starts getting into a slightly more berserker style, Kiriya is getting somehow even flashier, and Taiga…

Taiga stole the sword off of one of the mooks.

…SWEET.

Doral transforms, and Alain angrily follows… and immediately starts doing worse. Seriously, the Necrom suit is a definite hindrance for Alain. He was great when he was in civilian attire – because he could move. Loose fitting clothes are far better suited for his personal style than the tight, controlled movements he has to use as Necrom. I mean, he really shouldn’t keep the scarf on in battle, but it doesn’t seem to slow him down, so I guess it’s okay.

Taiga looks a little disappointed that Alain just rushed in there like that, and once again it’s Kiriya who says that he’s getting ahead of himself.

The two of them transform, and Taiga visibly enters level two, doing a sweet flip over a fire projectile before getting into the battle. Kiriya says he’s leveling up, but we don’t actually see it, or him.

–––

Takeru vs Hatena.

This fight is not going nearly so well as the others. Takeru is getting shoved around like a ragdoll by Hatena and his staff, but still struggling back up, despite the copious pain he’s in, because he’s going to save Akari, dangit!

Emu’s still down on the floor, just barely getting around to picking himself back up in order to stop Takeru from advancing.

Zaizen says that all these struggles are useless. Without Ghost’s power, they can’t possibly beat Pac-Man, and he’s going to make them fear just how powerless they are!

He then proceeds to fire his bugvisor into the air, a massive swarm of Pac-viruses emerging from it… and then they all form into a GIANT PAC-MAN. The version with arms and legs, no less, before it pulls those into itself and becomes the more classic Orb Pac-Man.

Then it sort of… shudders, and glows a bit red, and oh look, everyone, Pac-Man’s got a mouth of fangs now!

Wisely, Takeru and Emu realize that being faced with a two-or-three story Pac-Man, who is clearly intent on eating them, is the point where they should be running away.

–––

Pac-Man chases them outside. They manage to avoid his barreling into them, but also he takes a bite out of a building, so there’s that. They’ve both fallen from their dodge.

Takeru pushes himself back to his feet, struggling to walk forward to fight.

Emu tries to hold him back, because it’s too dangerous, he’s too hurt, if he tries to fight like this, he could die-

Takeru shoves him off, saying it doesn’t matter if he can still transform or not. Yes, he doesn’t want to die, but if he can save Akari, then that is far more important. He’s going to do this. He has to do this!

Ghost’s powers are intimately linked to Takeru’s emotional state. They always have been, as far back as his first episode. His resolve summons the Ore Eyecon back to him from Dan Kuroto’s desk (because of course he didn’t give that to Hiiro to bring back), and the Ghost Driver reappears around Takeru’s waist.

(The, uh, the handle on that thing’s looking a little worse for wear. You guys couldn’t have, I dunno, wiped it down or something? Given it a little touch up?)

“HENSHIN!”

:cue fangirl grin:

Takeru gets to fly again! In base form, no less! …You know, outside of the first episode, and his guest previews in Drive, I don’t think Takeru actually got to use his levitation in his base mode more than maybe once or twice until after his season. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even get to do it in his own movies, outside of the finishing blow to the giant Ganma from the Ghost & Drive film. I don’t recall him levitating at all during Ichighost. If he used that power outside of the final battle in 100 Eyecons, I don’t remember it, and I know that time it was in Infinite.

Basically, I’m in the ‘Let Takeru Use His Powers’ camp. Also, I’m thinking that this might be where he basically… re-unlocked that for his base form? I dunno, just a thought that I might use in ReUnited, might not. Hard to say.

Anyway, Ghost! He’s flying around, kicking Angry Emoji Pac-Man while dodging storms of Pac-Viruses. Emu, in the meantime, is having a slight crisis of personal faith. He’s been getting his ass handed to him all day, even more so than usual, with people berating him left and right for not being good enough at his job – as a doctor or as a Kamen Rider.

Screaming to the sky, he somehow finds his resolve. Pulling out the Kaigan Ghost gashat, a breeze blows his hair back, and he transforms.

…Okay, yes, it’s a level ONE form right now, but he still gets to fight in-air with Takeru, both of them with that cool orange glow effect, so it’s worth it!

–––

At the Next Genome Hideout, Zaizen and Hatena arrive just in time for… Uh. What was his name again? Ah, there we go. Kuruse Soji, also known as the Robol Bugster. For consistencies sake with the rest of his group, I will be referring to him as Robol from here on.

So, those two arrive just in time for Robol to finish the… I don’t even know what it is, some sort of genome re-mapping design.

Hatena is the one to ask Zaizen “Hey, are you sure about this whole ‘using yourself as a lab rat’ thing? You’re putting your life on the line, here.”

But nope, Zaizen’s determined to carry out his plan, and he’s fully intent on becoming a life form ‘to surpass creation.’

Hatena’s response is basically a silent “Well, okay then, it’s your funeral,” before raising his reality-warping staff up, and starting what is basically a reprogramming process on Zaizen.

Additionally, Zaizen seems to very quickly have at least a few regrets with regards to his haste, or at least didn’t think Hatena was going to just go ahead and start immediately. Having ones genetic structure re-written is not exactly painless.

The thing is… I don’t know what Zaizen doing this to himself would prove for any sort of proof of concept. We find out later on that his plan is to do this all over, and yeah, most people won’t survive, but the ones who do will be stronger for it. Which is all standard mad scientist stuff. However, he’s already a Bugster. He’s said as much, so his base makeup isn’t the same anymore. He has no way to prove this will actually work on a normal human! I mean, yeah, he’s trying it on Tougo simultaneously, albeit a little differently, but Tougo’s infected with the bugster virus already, so there’s good odds that the alterations are working with that more than anything else.

Basically, Zaizen, you’re a terrible excuse for a doctor and a scientist, and you should be ashamed of yourself for so many different reasons.

–––

Back at the Giril fight, Makoto uses all three of his regular Legend Eyecons to try and take her down, and even at one point using Houdini’s chains as whips! It gets to a point where we have Specter with Nobunaga preparing a finisher, and Giril sending energy slashes at him, only for Brave to use the ice mode of his sword to freeze the attacks in place so that Makoto can shoot through them.

Seriously, Hiiro, why can’t you use tactics this cleverly more often in show? It’d have gone a long way toward making me like at least watching you fight, even though it wouldn’t do anything for you as a character. The only times I can think of that were anything like this were the few occasions you used the sword to make an ice path to hold enemies still, your first time using Doremifa beat, and the way you got Taddle Fantasy by basically emulating some of Emu’s tactics, in using the energy items to your advantage.

But I digress. The two Riders switch into Deep Specter and Doremifa Beat to try and finish the fight.

–––

Brief cut to the Doral fight, where everyone is still in base forms, until Necrom gets knocked down and swaps into Grimm. I am reminded of why I would vastly prefer him to be using an eyecon at all times, because the helmet for Necrom is AWFUL without a cover.

Lazer and Snipe are still in level one and two respectively.

–––

Back to Giril.

Everyone launches finishers, starting with Specter, who doesn’t have much effect, but knocks her back a bit. Brave and Giril launch simultaneous ones, which create a huge chain reaction explosion that results in all three participants getting kicked out of their transformations.

Giril is still okay enough to run away.

Hiiro and Makoto are struggling on the ground. Makoto tries to get up to give chase, but collapses. Hiiro, in not much better state, tries to wake him.

–––

Back to Doral.

Necrom is using Sanzo for a bit, before getting dropped back down to normal. Okay, so, I may hate the transitional phase of Necrom, but it’s not fair to Alain for him to go the whole series without an upgrade. It’s even less fair for him to finally get one after the show… in the Specter V-Cinema. At which point he gets his ass kicked. By Specter. To make matters even more devastating? The single upgrade Alain gets is called Yujou Burst. FRIENDSHIP BURST. It’s ugly as all get out, and he only uses it in a single scene, in which, as mentioned earlier, he gets his ass kicked by Makoto. And you can’t even really see it in that scene, because it was so dark, which was not helped by Yujou Burst being black and gold.

ALAIN DESERVED BETTER, IS ALL I’M SAYING.

Okay, okay, lost potential complaints aside, the fight scene. Lazer and Snipe both enter level three, and I’m fairly certain Kiriya curses the day he blackmailed his way into getting a Driver, because he still has to go through the bike form anyway to get to higher levels.

Necrom and Lazer launch their finishers – Necrom with an energy punch projectile, and Lazer with that gloriously massive rain of arrows. This is followed by Snipe’s finisher, which involves a jetpack and LOTS OF BULLETS.

Man, if Jet Combat weren’t so hideous, I’d probably love it.

Doral gets knocked out of his transformation, and runs off. Necrom and Lazer drop theirs willingly, at which point Alain apologizes to Takeru, and drops to the ground, out cold.

Taiga lands. Specifically, TAIGA lands, dropping his transformation MID DESCENT and landing in a three point touchdown. He sneers, saying that Alain’s an idiot who over did it.

Well, at least the three of you came out of your transformations on your own, unlike the actual secondaries of the two seasons, who both got knocked down.

I mean, I really didn’t expect to find more evidence that Hiiro’s not nearly as good at this Rider thing as he thinks he is, but it sure looks like I did!

–––

Okay, over at the FIRST main fight, with Ex-Aid and Ghost versus a literally two story tall Pac-Man, two lads in black and orange land.

Ghost pulls out the Ex-Aid Eyecon, and we get an incredibly chaotic shot of Takeru entering Ex-Aid Damashi, and Ex-Aid leveling up his Ghost form.

Hnnnn I don’t like either of these legend rider forms. I think it’s in the eyes. Takeru winds up with Ex-Aid’s eyes on his faceplate, which makes sense, because that’s what his Legend Rider forms do. He gets their helmet’s appearance on his. It’s just weird with Ex-Aid’s eyes, is all. I’ll give credit to the jacket for being way better than his one for Drive, though.

The Ex-Aid Legend Rider forms, though… are so incredibly cursed. His chestplate takes on the appearance of whatever’s there on the OG rider, which. Okay, fair. I went to go look at his form for Drive, and the tire just Does Not Translate well to 2d. But the real problem is the helmet.

See, I’m okay with the helmets in Ex-Aid. I don’t care about the anime eye aesthetic, I’m all for it, because they manage to make something this ridiculous look good. Right up until that’s not what’s there anymore.

The helmet takes on an appearance similar to a slimmed down version of the legend rider, which I would be fine with… if it didn’t keep the frames from around Ex-Aid’s eyes. It’s unsettling, and invariably cuts across the eyes of the helmet it’s imitating, which just makes the whole thing uncomfortable.

And, of course, he still has the duplicate faceplate on his back, which makes it really weird when he’s facing away from the camera in the upcoming scenes, because we’re still getting Ghost looking at us. I don’t know why it doesn’t bug me nearly this much with Regular Ex-Aid, but this is really unsettling with a different rider’s helmet.

–––

Okay, okay, sorry, back to the show.

Emu’s gotten Ghost’s ability to levitate, and Takeru’s picked up Ex-Aid’s jumps. So they’re still able to bounce around Pac-Man, but they aren’t both flying anymore.

And then he eats them.

Like, I’m not even kidding, Pac-Man opens his mouth, they get pulled in, and WHOOPS suddenly they’re falling toward a suspiciously familiar maze!

Oh, man, I wish I were better at screencapping, but this goes by too fast for me to catch it. When they land? Takeru has a color-burst effect right out of one of Ex-Aid’s special effects. Nice touch!

Oh, and the walls of the maze, along with the dots, are an appropriate size for a two story tall Pac-Man. So, you know, the lads are a bit dwarfed by the scenery.

If you look carefully, you can see that when Pac-Man’s chasing them through the maze, the dots he passes by aren’t there anymore! He’s still actually playing by his own rules! … right up until they jump out of his way when they’re backed against a wall, and he just plows on through.

(Pac-Man, noooo! You can’t do that! That’s illegal!)

So they just start trying to slash at Pac-Man amid the rubble from the wall he just broke through – and then he starts shooting out beams of light every which way?

I don’t remember that being part of the game…

While they’re jumping and dodging, Emu’s still got Ghost’s glowing effects, and Takeru still has Ex-Aid’s impact stars, so that’s cool. They do that neat cross slash, where one rider goes horizontally around the Giant Kaijin and the other goes vertically… and it’s still not the finisher.

Emu, sweet, game-loving Emu, tells Pac-Man that it’ll just be a little longer. (Emu, he’s currently trying to KILL YOU. You don’t even know if the Regular Pac-Man is IN THERE, for all you know this is just an evil duplicate!)

So, actual finisher time.

Interestingly, the visual flairs when Emu puts the Kaigan Ghost gashat into his finisher slot and pushes the button are all orange. Nice touch. Even nicer is the touches on the emblem that appears behind Takeru when he does his finishers. Usually it’s a glowing orange, or rainbow, in the case of Infinite. But this time it’s pixellated and pink.

(please ignore the awful neon blue lines in the background, those are part of the maze.)

I’d say that “lasers don’t chase people like that” and “jumping doesn’t let you curve in mid-air”, but I don’t think the laws of physics actually apply to these two in most battle circumstances. Also, they’re about to kick Pac-Man in the face because that’s just what we’re doing today, I guess!

They land back out in the real world, where Pac-Man slowly changes back to normal.

(THE BACKS OF THESE SUITS ARE SO CURSED)

Pac-Man dissolves into the air.

Takeru, sweet precious cinnamon roll that he is, is still only thinking of saving Akari.

“I have… to save Akari…”

He falls to the ground, out cold.

–––

Asuna and Onari make it to the hospital, with him carrying the unconicious Akari, to see specks of yellow light streaming down to the infected patients.

Asuna thanks Pac-Man for curing those who were hit by his strain of the Game Disease.

–––

On a nearby rooftop, music from 2012 plays as a man with rings steps into view.

––– –––

Well, that seems like as good a place as any to cut off, narratively speaking! I’m about halfway through the movie at this point, so this should only take one or two more installments to finish.

I have work the next three nights, so I’m not going to be able to pick this back up until Saturday, at the earliest. It sucks, because I really, really wanted to watch this movie again, preferably a lot faster than this whole “three to four hours to get twenty five minutes” deal, but I guess that’s just how I’m watching Ex-Aid, now!

(Disclaimer before anyone gets on my case: Yes, I switched order of those last two segments. Partly it’s to have a better liveblog ending, and partly because that’s the order they should have been in, dang it! It flows way better to have the Pac-Man Fever subplot end before Haruto first shows up, instead of awkwardly inserting him between the last two related scenes.)

#kamen rider ex aid #kamen rider ghost #sailorcressy says

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douxreviews · 5 years

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The Princess Bride Review

[This review includes spoilers.]

Grandson: "Has it got any sports in it?" Grandfather: "Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles..."

The Princess Bride is often described as a fractured fairy tale, but I don't think that's accurate because it's so much more. In his original book, William Goldman took the standard elements of a fairy tale and twisted them off center into something exceptionally funny, while still retaining all of the elements that made it an enjoyable fairy tale. And then Rob Reiner took Goldman's story and translated it into a movie that was just as good and did the same thing, which is a remarkable achievement. The Princess Bride is a satire, a tale of true love, a touching story of bloody vengeance, and it's hilarious. It's unique, and defies categorization.

It's difficult to launch directly into a fantasy world, so Goldman cleverly encapsulated the fairy tale into a story that a grandfather (Peter Falk) is reading to his sick grandson (Fred Savage). I've always loved the skillful way it goes back and forth ("Is this a kissing book?" "She does not get eaten by the eels at this time"). Because the grandfather clearly loves the story he's telling, and at the end, his grandson does too, it bridges the generational gap between them. Lovely.

But it's the fairy tale that's important, and I love every minute of it. I want Buttercup and Westley to live happily ever after. I want Inigo to avenge his father and find peace at last. And there are so many scenes that are absolute gems. The duel at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity is probably my favorite because of the way the Man in Black and Inigo bond as they're trying to kill each other. The duel of wits with the iocane powder is priceless. I love the shrieking eels. I love the R.O.U.S.'s in the fire swamp. Inigo's duel with the six-fingered man is just wonderful, a perfect emotional climax to the movie.

The performances are also gems. Westley (Cary Elwes) is gorgeous, dashing, and ridiculous. Buttercup (Robin Wright) is earnestly beautiful and beautifully earnest, the perfect straight woman. Inigo's story is the most compelling, and Mandy Patinkin brings perfect comic timing as well as pathos to the role. It's not easy to pull off a line like "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" not just once, but many times, and to give it so much impact each and every time.

I can't say enough good things about Wallace Shawn as Vizzini; practically every line he says in this movie is terribly funny. Andre the Giant imparts such sweetness to the role of Fezzik, while still being physically imposing. Honorable mention to Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal and Carol Kane. And Peter Cook as the minister, who made one small scene unforgettable; I start laughing even before he opens his mouth. "Mawwidge. Mawwidge is what bwings us togedder today."

The sight gags are special, too. The climb up the Cliffs of Insanity. Vizzini laughing maniacally before keeling over. Inigo leaning against the tree. Practically every scene with Westley after they give him the pill. The men standing guard in front of the gate makes me laugh every time I see it. But my favorite has always been this one:

"We are but poor, lost circus performers. Is there a village nearby?"

If I have any complaint at all, it's that while Andre the Giant is well cast, Fezzik's lines are sometimes difficult to understand. The scene with the holocaust cloak in particular is almost incomprehensible without subtitles. Okay, I've always hated Inigo's hair, too. Small things, though. And I can't imagine The Princess Bride without them.

I still laugh out loud every time I watch this movie, even while I know the lines so well that I repeat them with the actors. It's that good. William Goldman is probably best known for writing one of the great movies, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I love that movie. But I love The Princess Bride more.

Quotes:

I wanted to put half of the movie in the quotes section, but I restrained myself and just listed my absolute favorites. So if I missed a line or two that you love, feel free to add it to the comments.

Westley: "This is true love. Do you think this happens every day?"

Vizzini: "And you! Friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless! Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed, in Greenland?"

Inigo: "Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?" Fezzik: "If there are, we'll all be dead." Vizzini: "No more rhymes now, I mean it." Fezzik: "Anybody want a peanut?" I love the way Inigo indulges Fezzik in his rhyming. It's so sweet.

Inigo: "You are sure nobody's follow us?" Vizzini: "As I told you, it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable ... Out of curiosity, why do you ask?" Inigo: "No reason. It's only I just happened to look behind us and something is there." Vizzini: "What? Probably some local fisherman, out for a pleasure cruise, at night... in eel-infested waters..."

Vizzini: "He didn't fall? Inconceivable!" Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." The most quotable line in the movie. I use it a lot.

Fezzik: "You be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted."

Inigo: "I do not mean to pry, but you don't by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?" Man in Black: "Do you always begin conversations this way?"

Fezzik: "Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned by acid, or something like that?" Man in Black: "Oh no, it's just that they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future."

Man in Black: "I do not envy you the headache you will have when you awake. But for now, rest well and dream of large women."

Vizzini: "You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia', but only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line'!"

Buttercup: "You mock my pain." Man in Black: "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Westley: (looking around the Fire Swamp) "It's not that bad. (Buttercup looks at him) Well, I'm not saying I'd like to build a summer home here, but the trees are actually quite lovely."

Humperdinck: "Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work. But I've got my country's five hundredth anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped."

Inigo: "Offer me money." Rugen: "Yes!" Inigo: "Power, too. Promise me that." Rugen: "All that I have and more. Please!" Inigo: "Offer me anything I ask for." Rugen: "Anything you want... " Inigo: "I want my father back, you son of a bitch!"

I'm not much for hobbits or Harry Potter, so this is my favorite fantasy movie. I love every scene and every line. Am I being too effusive? Inconceivable!

Four out of four white horses,

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

#The Princess Bride #Westley #Buttercup #Inigo Montoya #William Goldman #Rob Reiner #Doux Reviews #Movie Reviews #something from the archive

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