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cellsshapedlikestars · 3 years

Note

Dark Jonsa Ideas

Sansa was kidnapped by Ramsey and is readjusting to her life Modern AU

Jon was wrongfully imprisoned (the Starks bust him out) AU

Ned and Cat betrayed Sanaa’s trust/didn’t believe she had a traumatic experience. The Stark Siblings try to heal their relationship AU

USA Gymnastics AU (ft. Petyr Baelish in a Larry Nassar esque role)

Harry Potter AU (maybe Sansa is a squib?)

I have lots of random ideas lol I’ll keep sharing them and maybe something will click :) I love your work

Jonsa HP AU/Squib Sansa AU

Well... THIS has been sitting in my inbox for a while (not as long as that one last prompt from when I asked for them last December, though. Yikes.)

I'll be honest, I wasn't ever going to do a Harry Potter AU. It's been done a million times before and by better writers than me. But today I sat down and went, you know what? I don't think I've read a Sansa-the-squib one before. So here we are.

A disclaimer, I am no HP expert. I was when I was a kid, but I went a solid decade without ever touching it or the fandom because I got salty about the ending, and have only recently re-watched the movies. I have not read or seen any of the sequels/prequels. But also I don't think I go too deep into HP lore here, so it probably doesn't matter.

on AO3 here

Sansa is on the couch reading Pride and Prejudice for the hundredth time when she hears the distant pop of a portkey outside.

It's about time, she thinks. She's never sure why her siblings have to ride that train from Hogwarts all the way down to London, only to portkey back up to Scotland, but she has learned over the years not to question things too much. She may have grown up around magic, but she understands that there are some things that are not meant for her.

There's a bark of Robb's laughter and she feels herself smile as she slips her finger in between the pages of Jane Austen as a bookmark. She may be a squib, an outcast from wizard society, but her family has not disowned her – not like the stories she has heard of other families with squibs. No, Sansa is lucky. And Robb? Robb is her biggest supporter.

She hears Rickon start moving upstairs, also having heard the portkey, and mom comes out of the kitchen. Sansa has just stood up, book still clutched in her hand, when the door opens and dad comes through first, followed by Arya, then Bran, and finally Robb.

Except – not finally. Behind Robb is a boy she's never seen before, with dark hair curling around his chin, wire-rimmed glasses, and a fully muggle outfit just like the rest of them.

Robb freezes and his eyes go wide. “Sansa,” he starts, “I thought you'd be in France.”

Sansa herself attends a very prestigious all girls school outside of London, and one of her best friends, Margaery, is taking her to France with her family this summer. “I'm not leaving for a few weeks,” she corrects Robb. She thought she'd explained it well enough in her last letter.

Its then that she remembers mom mentioning that Robb's best friend would be visiting this summer, though Robb had written no such thing in his own letter. This must be Jon – Sansa has heard enough about him in the six years Robb has been at that school. She has never met him, though she knows Robb has gone over to Ireland to visit him the past few summers.

Robb is silent for a few moments as she waits expectantly for the proper introduction to his friend. Finally it comes, a hesitant, “Jon, this is my sister, Sansa.”

She watches Jon's brow furrow, his mouth turns down, his eyes go from Robb, to Arya, to Bran, before he says, “I didn't know you had another sister.”

Sansa feels like she can hear her blood pumping through her veins in the silence of the room; soon it's all she can hear. Jane Austen falls to the floor from her suddenly limp fingers and she barely hears her mother's scolding sigh of, “Robb.”

And then she runs.

She shoves her way past mom and through the kitchen and out the back door. She doesn't pay attention to where she's going – all she can hear is that horrible little voice in her head.

Robb doesn't talk about you. Robb is ashamed of you. They all are.

Somehow, inexplicably, she ends up at the little shed where they keep the quidditch supplies. She hates this building. It isn't meant for her.

She yanks open the door anyway and slams it shut behind her, finding a spot on the floor to sit. It's only then, when she's finally stopped moving, that the tears come, hot and fast. She pulls her knees up to her chest and buries her face in them and tries to be as quiet as she can. In the distance, she can hear her family shouting her name, but they will not be able to find her. She has no wand to trace, and tracking spells don't work on her, either.

Some things are not meant for Sansa. She has always known it.

She doesn't know how long she spends curled up in the quidditch shed. Eventually she stops crying and she wishes that she could call Mya – one of her best friends from school and the only person who knows about magic. They'd gotten drunk one night from vodka that Margaery had snuck into the dorms and she and Mya had been the last ones awake. She remembers Mya pinky-promising her that she would never tell.

But she can't call Mya, because electronics don't work at Winterfell Manor. It is too old, too infused with magic. If she wants to make a call on her mobile, she has to bike into town. She has all her friends convinced that it's just poor reception.

(And that only reminds her that the Starks are one of the old families – a long line of proud witches and wizards. She does not belong here.)

The door to the shed suddenly opens and she gasps a bit in surprise, which makes Jon's eyes move to the floor, where she is. If she'd just stayed silent, perhaps he would have never seen her.

“Hi,” he says, like he's not sure what else to say. “Your family's looking for you.”

“I'm a squib, not deaf,” she bites back, feeling a fresh wave of tears rise up in her.

Jon sighs, then looks off to the left and in the distance, she can still hear her name being called. Then he comes inside and lets the door swing shut behind him and he sits on the dusty floor beside her.

After a few moments of silence, he says, “I don't want to say that I know what it's like, but I think I can understand a little.” She gives him a glare, and he winces a bit. “I just meant, I'm muggleborn.”

“Congratulations,” she balls her hands into fists and looks away from him.

“What I mean is that my family doesn't talk about me either,” he explains, speaking slowly and carefully. She likes his accent. “It's not the same, not totally, but my mom spent so many years lying to people, I think she just found it easier to stop talking about me altogether. She can't tell anyone that I made the quidditch team, or how many O levels I'm taking.”

That makes Sansa turn her head again to look at him. He's got a rueful smile on his face, it looks a bit sad.

“She got a new job last year,” he continues. “I don't think any of her new coworkers know I exist. I know it's not totally the same, she isn't allowed to tell people about what I am, but I still... it still sucks.”

“At least you have magic,” she whispers.

“So what?” She levels another glare at him and this time it makes him smile. “Magic doesn't make anyone inherently better, no matter what those weird blood purists say.” His face twists into a scowl and she wonders if he's had run-ins with them before. She knows the type – families like the Targaryens who think magic should only be kept in the old families. No muggleborns, no half breeds, and certainly no squibs.

She used to think her own family was different – hasn't dad been championing for the rights of house elves and goblins and werewolves and other magical beings? She has never doubted it before, but suddenly she wonders if dad is the same – if dad doesn't talk about her, either. He sent her away to a boarding school in a different country - what if dad doesn't talk about her, just like Robb doesn't?

Robb, who always told her it didn't matter whether she had magic or not, she was still a part of the family. Robb, who encouraged her painting and writing and told her she could be whatever she wanted to be. Her older brother, her protector. He's ashamed of her.

“My mom doesn't have magic," Jon says, his voice fierce. "I've got friends back home that don't. They aren't any less of a person than me. And if I'm being honest, there's stuff from the muggle world I miss when I'm at school.”

“Like what?” she sniffs, trying to subtly wipe her nose on the knees of her jeans, which are still pulled tight to her chest.

“Like phones. Like movies and football and good music. Good music,” he emphasizes, “have you noticed that all wizard music is just about magic? It's like they can't sing about anything else.”

To her surprise, a bubble of laughter builds in her and it escapes from her lips. Jon looks a bit pleased with himself.

“I do like muggle music better,” she admits, something she has never even thought to say to any of her family before.

“We'll have to compare,” he says with a soft smile. “Swap playlists or something.”

“Electronics don't work here,” she tells him, and he nods.

“That's right, Robb told me I'd have to go into town to ring my mom.”

“I do that to talk to my friends.”

“Well,” he shrugs, and his eyes dart away from her, “maybe we can go into town together and go to a movie or something. Robb doesn't really get them, he says. It'll be nice to go with someone who does.”

“I'd like that,” she whispers, then presses her face into her knees because she thinks she might cry again.

“Robb might be weird about it,” Jon continues. “But honestly, I'm kinda pissed at him for never mentioning you, so he can deal with it.”

Another burst of laughter, mixed with tears – she is a swirl of emotions and she's too muddled to try and figure out what she's feeling. She's not sure how long they sit there, but eventually she notices that her name is no longer being called.

“We should probably go back,” Jon murmurs at some point, and when she looks up, she can see that the sky through the little shed window has turned orange.

He helps her stand, and they leave the shed and walk back towards the house. The kitchen door opens and mom appears on the landing, hand pressed to her heart. Robb is right behind her, looking pale and withdrawn.

“Sansa-” he starts, but she holds her hand up.

“I'm not ready to talk to you yet,” she tells him, but it comes out shakier than she wanted. She wanted to sound strong, cold even. Instead it just sounds like she's about to cry again. The stricken look on Robb's face doesn't make her feel any better, though she wishes it did. She wishes she took comfort in hurting him, but it just makes everything worse.

“You missed dinner,” mom says softly, “come inside, I have some warmed for you.”

She follows her mom in and sits at the kitchen table as mom sets a plate in front of her. She notes that mom doesn't use magic at all to do any of it, though she does suspect there was a warming spell. Mom always tries to do things the non-magic way when she can.

“Jon and I are going to go to a muggle movie in town,” she tells mom, picking up her fork and pushing some peas around on her plate.

Jon gives an uncomfortable cough before he says, “I just thought it'd be nice to do something...” He trails off, running a hand through his hair awkwardly.

“You missed dinner, too,” mom says softly, gesturing at another seat at the table, and then another plate appears in her hands.

“I think a movie is a fine idea,” dad says. He and mom sit at the table with her and Jon - Robb has disappeared, like he understands she can't bear to even look at him right now.

“Dad?” She still hasn't eaten a thing, she's not sure she can. When dad looks at her, she asks, “do you talk about me? At work?”

Dad sits back in his chair and mom reaches across the table to take his hand.

“Do you know, when I was young, I never thought much about the rights of non-witches and wizards. And do you know why I've made it my mission now? I'm ashamed to say it took you to open my eyes to it. You're all I talk about, Sansa, even when I'm talking about werewolves or muggleborns or centaurs or... anyone.”

“I should go,” Jon murmurs, pushing his chair back and standing as Sansa presses her hands to her face. He leaves the room, though there's a part of her that wishes he would stay. He understands her, and he seems to understand that she needs to be alone with her parents right now.

“You aren't ashamed of me?” she asks, voice wobbly and low. She sounds so pathetic, but she needs to know.

“Never,” dad says fiercely.

“But you sent me away.”

“We thought it was best,” mom sighs, and then her chair scrapes back and suddenly Sansa is wrapped in her mother's arms. “We looked for the best school that we could send you to. We wanted you to have everything. Any opportunity you wanted. You couldn't have that here at Winterfell.”

“I think perhaps we should have explained it better,” dad says, just as soft. “I think there's a lot of things we could have done better. I think there's some things we should talk about more, with the whole family.”

Sansa thought, perhaps, that she was all out of tears, but she isn't. She turns and buries her face into her mother and cries for what feels like hours. She cries until she is too tired to cry anymore and then dad picks her up like he hasn't done since she was a child and carries her upstairs.

Maybe one day she can forgive Robb, she thinks. Maybe one day she can forgive Arya and Bran, though their betrayal hurts less. She and Arya never really got along, and Bran likely followed the example set by his older siblings. It's Robb that hurts most of all.

But maybe one day.

Maybe one day dad will succeed, maybe one day being a squib won't be the shameful thing it is now. Maybe one day the world will be different.

For now, though, things are the same. For now, she'll focus on the things she has – her trip to France with the Tyrells. The new set of oil paints she had picked up in London before she came home. A muggle movie with a boy that might understand her better than her family ever could. She thinks she's looking forward to that one most of all.

That's her last thought before she finally slips off to sleep.

#jonsa #jonsa fic #this got a bit sappy at the end #and i honestly don't know how i feel about it #but i'm gonna post it anyway because why not

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rivalsforlife · 3 years

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Phoenix Wright: The Truth Reborn: Oh No We’re Doing This Again

hi.

Nearly two months ago, I wrote an essay summarizing and making very wild conclusions about the second Takarazuka Musical. I did this about two and a half years after watching the first Takarazuka musical. As such I did not have the full context for many things from the musical and was relying mostly on my memory, which blocked many things from this musical for my own safety. However, just this week, I decided to rewatch it, because I enjoy tormenting myself. I said I wouldn’t write anything on it. Here I am writing something on it.

Here’s the youtube thumbnail so that you know what you’re getting yourself into. And here, of course, is the link. This is the HD version which may be slightly more pleasant to watch. Maybe.

It was not quite as cringe in a funny way as the second musical to me, and therefore this essay may be less funny, but I feel like I’m doing a disservice to people by providing a summary of the second musical while completely neglecting the first. Quite possibly doing this is even more of a disservice. I just eagerly await the day that the third musical is translated because *that* will be the day that I finally shuffle off this mortal coil. Either way, I want to write this stuff down so that I never have to watch the musical again out of curiosity.

The following essay will contain major spoilers for both the first and second Phoenix Wright Takarazuka musicals, as I will be using many points from this musical to argue my thesis of the second musical. ... like you were going to watch them anyways.

This one broke 8k. I’m dead inside.

Introducing The Director

Again another disclaimer that I don’t have anything against the actresses or the theatre troupe. I DO have something against Suzuki Kei, who I recently learned is the writer and director of all three of the Ace Attorney Takarazuka musicals, and is quite possibly my mortal nemesis.

This man is the one who brought this monstrosity into the world.

This man, allegedly, cleared the first four ace attorney games *seven times* before sitting down to write these musicals. He played these goddamn games seven times and did not take in a single word. The man clicked through them mindlessly while watching a badly written legal romance drama in the background and got them completely confused. I genuinely have no idea how this man could have played these games more times than even me and yet managed to get so many characters (MAYA!!!!) completely and utterly wrong. This haunts me every day, truly.

This man played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations, and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney seven times. SEVEN TIMES EACH!! and was told to create a musical based on the series. He played these games seven times each and you know what he said?? You know what he said?? “This sucks, I’m getting rid of all of Phoenix’s backstory, butchering half the characters, and writing Phoenix/Lana fanfiction, but also rewriting all of Lana’s backstory so that she was Phoenix’s childhood friend, and you know what, I’m changing her name for good measure.”

I think this man played the games seven times each and then hated it so much and was so sick of it he tried to write something that destroyed as much of the series as possible while still being vaguely recognizable. And then somehow it became a massive hit because people like me see this and go “what the actual hell” and watch it, or people who haven’t played the games see this and go “wow what a great musical!” and then he wrote TWO MORE, destroying EVEN MORE every time in his wake, until finally, finally, he stopped after making Edgeworth straight and time traveling into the past to face off against a corrupt Gregory. I guess that was the last straw.

I have to issue a disclaimer here that for legal reasons this is a joke. I don’t actually hate this man and would not punch him in the face if I met him because that would be rude, and he is entitled to his wrong interpretation of the games. I don’t know what his thought process was. But allegedly he did play the games seven times according to the wiki. This whole essay here is satire and not slander and I don’t want to offend this guy if he somehow stumbles across my nonsense tumblr post. At the same time: Suzuki Kei blink twice if you need help.

Anyways half the reason that I’m making this essay is because I want to share my fake ao3 page for this musical. The other half will become apparent later.

Sorry if that’s illegible because of tumblr quality it’s not really important. All you really need to know is that it’s a fake ao3 screenshot for the musical. Also in the author’s note I said he played the games four times but it was actually seven I just remembered wrong because I didn’t want to believe it.

at this point you may be like “Grace shut up and get to the actual musical” and okay, fine, let’s start this nonsense. Also note that I may be referencing things from my essay on the second musical very frequently; I’m not going to force you to go read that though because the fact that you’re reading this is enough of a torment already.

The Musical Begins

Unlike the second musical, this one opens with some narration from Phoenix.

Transcript:

Phoenix: I’m reviewing a particular case at the moment. To me, this case... is one I’ll never forget.

Immediately I think this is important because it establishes that this whole musical takes place in a flashback that Phoenix is reflecting on. Why is this important? Because we know, by the time of the second musical which takes place three years later, Leona is dead.

Knowing that Leona is inherently doomed to die of her Sad Woman Disease paints this whole musical in a different light. It’s not Phoenix reflecting on how he got back together with his lover; it’s Phoenix dwelling on their past together, and the opportunities they had, before her life was so cruelly and inexplicably taken away. We don’t know if Phoenix’s reminiscing takes place before or after Leona’s death... but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was after.

Phoenix, still in the present, starts to sing. “A wave appears on the horizon like a mirage, it trembles, then vanishes. Your voice, carried upon the waves, fades upon the shore, erasing the splendor of the past.”

This line actually shows up in the second musical, sung by Lucia about her imprisoned fiance quite possibly. It’s kind of hard to tell what the meaning of these songs even are. They’re too abstract for me I think. But this line appears very frequently in the first musical when Phoenix is thinking about Leona.

Then we enter the flashback time.

Phoenix inexplicably yells at a newspaper saleswoman. This is not relevant to anything whatsoever. Then Larry barges in to the office, looking for Maya. Phoenix describes him as “A real trouble maker, but you just can’t hate the guy”, the latter part of which I think many people would disagree with.

Well, afterwards, Maya comes in. Phoenix describes her like this while making exaggerated “can you believe this shit” gestures.

Transcript:

Phoenix: She’s as ditzy as they come. Oh, and about the outfit... Apparently she comes from a family of spirit mediums. Try not to make fun of her, okay?

Suzuki Kei personally has it out for Maya and I can never forgive him for it. Maya in these musicals is here for pure comedic relief but it’s not even comedic because I just get so angry. How can you play the trilogy seven times and think this about her?? The girl who figured out DL-6?? The girl who told Phoenix to sacrifice her life in order to find the truth?? The girl who put on a brave smile in order to try and cheer up her younger cousin even after she saw her own mother murdered right in front of her eyes?? That Maya Fey?? Ditzy as they come??????

Ugh. Moving on.

Maya and Larry run off, leaving Phoenix to watch the American Broadcast.

Important things to note here are the Godot mug, the little line up of what I think are the messed up little ace attorney figurines beneath the screen, and the fact that while this broadcast is supposedly from and to America the screen is actually not at all showing America. Like literally almost everywhere in the world except North and South America.

The broadcast says that Leona Clyde, age 24, was arrested for murdering the senator Robert Cole! Leona Clyde -- that’s Phoenix’s ex-girlfriend! He runs off to the detention center.

She is not happy to see him.

Leona: Mr. Wright... I’m not the woman you once knew.

Let’s Play A Matching Game

Sorry for the abundance of screenshots that are going to be throughout this section. Phoenix convinces Leona to let him defend her. Some of the conversation seems... familiar.

Leona: No one would defend someone who admits to killing a senator. I’m waiting for a court-appointed attorney.

Edgeworth: Every defense attorney I’ve talked to has turned me down.

Phoenix: In that case, let me defend you.

Game Phoenix: Let me defend you.

Leona: Don’t be ridiculous!

Edgeworth: Don’t be ridiculous.

Phoenix: I’ll never accept that you’re a murderer. Let me prove your innocence!

Game Phoenix: Huh? Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to prove that Miles Edgeworth is innocent.

Leona: I’ve already confessed my guilt.

Gumshoe: He confessed that he did it! In court!

Leona: It’s foolish to think you can win this case.

Edgeworth: My case is near hopeless, Wright.

Leona: (in response to phoenix offering to defend her) No you won’t! Don’t ever come here again.

Edgeworth: Look, just go away, and leave me alone!

Phoenix: You of all people should know. Once I decide to do something, I see it through to the end.

Edgeworth: Once you start on something, you always see it through, don’t you?

Leona: I never thought that you’d be representing me.

Phoenix: Ah, who could have guessed this day would come?

Edgeworth: Not me.

Phoenix: You believed in me. You saved me. And this time, I swear... I swear I’ll save you!

Game Phoenix: Edgeworth believed in me, and I believe in him. I’m the only one who knows the real Edgeworth. I’m the only one who can help him.

I could’ve done a few more, but tumblr is already threatening to murder my laptop.

So long story short, Phoenix manages to convince his lover to let him be the defense on the case. Then immediately after swearing to save Leona, he starts singing a song, which I’m not screencapping because this is enough:

“As long as there are people in this world, there’s only one path I will follow! As long as there is love in this world, there’s only one path I will believe in!”

Edgeworth sings this in the second musical after saying that he returned to California because of Phoenix. Phoenix sings it now after swearing to defend Leona. You draw your own conclusions.

And then we finally get the opening credits. Eleven minutes in.

Just Pretend This Is Narumitsu Fanfiction

Following the credits, we see a beautiful beach. Couples (exclusively heterosexual, of course,) dance and embrace in the background for some time, before revealing Phoenix and Leona, in the Even Further Past, before the LSATs or whatever the ace attorney universe’s excuse for law school exams are.

Phoenix establishes his absolute hatred of change, an important characterization moment.

Phoenix: The view here never changes, huh?

Phoenix reminisces on when they were kids. Leona’s parents were both lawyers (they’re both lawyers) and sometimes they would be like lawyers with her when she was a kid. This inspired her to also become a lawyer after their tragic death of Sickness. They never specify what the sickness is that caused two people who must be relatively young to die while Leona was in her early twenties at the latest. It may be whatever sickness claimed Leona’s life later. Sad Woman Disease. (Sad Man Disease for her father, I guess?)

Phoenix also talks about why he’s becoming a lawyer.

Phoenix: Watching you chase your dream inspired me to become a lawyer too.

So, it’s not “my childhood friend looked sad in a newspaper” because I guess that makes no sense or is too gay or something. But this is another important piece of Phoenix characterization. His entire life so far has been focused around Leona. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and then Phoenix decided to become a lawyer solely because Leona was becoming a lawyer. Not even to try and get back into contact with her after she moved away or anything; just because he’s so obsessed with her that he wants to have the same career as her, then they can run a Mom & Pop Law Firm or something, years in the future, after years of happy marriage and a few children or like whatever the hell.

Well, there’s a few steps they’ll need to get to that. At this point Phoenix still hasn’t confessed his feelings for Leona. He does so here, on this beach.

Leona tries to protest.

Leona: But I’m pushy, selfish, and only care about my goals... You’d get fed up with me.

Phoenix: That’s what I’ve always admired about you. That’s who I’ve been chasing all these years. That’s the only person... I love.

Sooo, Phoenix, your type is pushy selfish people who only care about their goals...? In the first, older lower-quality video translation it was “only care about my work”, too. Hm. Things to think about.

They sing a little duet together. Then we go back to present-day of what’s technically still a flashback. Whatever. Murder is happening.

Back To The Murder

So some plot things to establish: Leona is the legal counsel of Governor Miller, who is running for president in the AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. After the flashback so that Phoenix has some time to change clothes, they show an interview of him talking about the murder.

Governor Miller: I vow to forge a peaceful country with my own two hands, and to prepare myself for whatever may lie ahead.

Reporters: Through thick and thin, he’s a friend of the people!

The Takarazuka musicals are not very good at hiding their killers.

Phoenix: Oh yeah... It’s almost time for the presidential election, isn’t it?

NEVER FORGET, WRIGHT. THIS IS AMERICA. LAND OF THE FREE! god what even was that line.

Anyways, we meet Gumshoe, who is incompetent once again. Maya runs around the crime scene, picks up the murder weapon, puts her fingerprints all over everything, moves things around, all while Phoenix is like “lol get a load of the world’s stupidest girl” or whatever. But who cares about that.

It’s time to get to the only valid part of this musical.

Edgeworth’s Gay Little Villain Solo

You may have seen this one before.

Edgeworth arrives, but not really. It’s like Phoenix heard Edgeworth was prosecuting and immediately entered a dream-like state, where Edgeworth is heralded by the sound of trumpets in Great Revival. He’s played by a different actress than in the other two musicals, since I think she retired in between the six or so months from this musical to the second. She still plays the role well, though, or as well as can be when you’re written in an ace attorney Takarazuka musical.

Shrouded in scarlet solitude... it’s Edgeworth.

Yes, those are six Edgeworths. Yes, they pick Phoenix up and carry him around and dance with him. Yes, it was probably not meant to be at all homoerotic.

He sings a song that’s called “My rule”. I only figured this out later, but it’s loosely based on a “catchphrase” of his in the Japanese version - in game 1 he says something along the lines of “All I can do is get every defendant declared guilty! So I make that my policy.” In DD in his dramatic anime introduction before the trial, he says “I intend to question the defendant with all I have. For that is a part of my creed.” “So I make that my policy” and “For that is a part of my creed”, to my understanding, are both translated from the same line, which I think is like, “sore ga watashi no ruru”, “That is my rule.” (If I’m wrong, please correct me.) In this song he sings about how he’ll reduce all criminals to ash and such, basically talks about his game 1 prosecuting strategy as “my rule”.

It’s very fun and probably if you want to only watch one number of this musical, it can be this one. It starts about 26:10 in the video I linked.

Once the musical number is done, Phoenix and Edgeworth stare at each other, and the background fades into the courtroom, so court begins. I feel like I should note that Phoenix has not picked up any evidence or talked to any witnesses in this investigation except for Gumshoe, since Maya just moved some things around and then Phoenix had some weird fever dream about Edgeworth which presumably took up the rest of the day.

The Trial, Day 1

Edgeworth: Consider it a prelude to the poignant Greek tragedy that’s about to unfold.

Maya: The real tragedy’s your pompous attitude!

Those are the only screenshots I took of this trial day. Here’s a summary, though:

The trial starts off with Leona confessing, Phoenix says “no I think she’s innocent”, and since ace attorney doesn’t care about the defendant’s wishes he’s allowed to proceed. For some reason Leona lets him do this without complaint.

Gumshoe is the first witness, he claims to have caught Leona red-handed at the scene of the crime, standing over the corpse. Phoenix tries to claim that since Gumshoe didn’t see Leona committing the crime, he didn’t actually catch her red-handed, to which Edgeworth responds “What do you think being caught red-handed means?”

Once Gumshoe is dismissed, Lotta takes the stand. She has a photo of the actual moment of the crime, where Leona is holding a knife in the air in front of the victim.

The Takarazuka musicals like to do this thing where the image is blurry and zoomed out, but then Phoenix will go “I’VE NOTICED A CONTRADICTION” and it zooms in really far as the resolution increases drastically in order to show you the contradiction that is impossible to spot for yourself, because they don’t want people figuring out the mystery in this musical based off of a video game where you have to solve the mystery yourself. Anyways Phoenix zooms in on this photo and sees that there’s blood on Leona’s hand, presumably before she stabbed the victim. How did it get there?

Edgeworth suggests the victim was stabbed multiple times. Phoenix says the autopsy report contradicts that. Edgeworth, uncharacteristically, does not update it to suit his argument.

Phoenix concludes that this photo is not showing the moment Leona stabbed the victim, but the moment Leona removed the knife! ... Which somehow casts doubt on her having been the one to stab the victim. Because as everyone knows, anyone wanting to kill someone would never remove a knife, it’s not like they’d bleed out faster that way, or anything.

And this whole contradiction is confusing because presumably if the victim was stabbed and then the knife was removed, they’d know that happened, because then the knife would not be found stuck in the victim’s body, since the victim was only stabbed once. So this shouldn’t be news to the prosecution that someone removed the knife after stabbing. But the investigation was headed by the most incompetent version of Gumshoe ever, so. sure. I guess no one knew.

That at least manages to extend the trial another day.

This Totally Has To Be Illegal

After the trial, Phoenix goes to talk to Governor Miller, aka Mr. Totally The Real Killer. Phoenix asks him why he decided to hire Leona as his legal advisor.

Basically, it’s because her parents were both renowned lawyers. Her father was a Chief Prosecutor, and her mother was a defense attorney. ... a prosecutor and a defense attorney couple... who does that remind us of...

Phoenix points out that just because her parents were good lawyers, it doesn’t mean she’d necessarily be one. Miller says that, sure, but she is actually really talented, and her law school marks were spectacular. Phoenix says “WHY WERE YOU LOOKING AT HER LAW SCHOOL MARKS”, like it’s somehow? suspicious? for a government official hiring legal counsel to look at their law school marks?

Apparently it IS suspicious because Governor Miller freaks out and asks if this is an interrogation. Before Phoenix can press much further, he gets a phone call, and leaves Phoenix alone in a big room.

So naturally Phoenix behaves like a fully grown adult running a law firm.

If all he did was sit in the chair, lift up a desk lamp, and poke his finger on a pen, that’s one thing. But then he leans over, OPENS THE GOVERNOR’S DESK DRAWER, and finds a knife that’s just sitting there casually. It looks like a butter knife. It’s not anything major. Maybe the dude just wanted to butter his toast?

I mean I know Phoenix will dig around in stuff whenever in the games, but he has no reason to suspect Governor Miller at all, much less dig through his drawer probably full of confidential government documents to lift up a knife that he thinks is suspicious. It’s not even covered in blood or anything?

Naturally Governor Miller’s assistant comes in just then, and Phoenix puts the knife. in his breast pocket.

bud. It may look like a butter knife, but putting knives up against your chest is not a great idea. Much less stealing a knife from a governor?

Well, in his panic, he accidentally knocks over a bunch of books on the desk. The governor’s assistant helps him pick them up, and they find a photo. Look a little familiar?

The photo has the assistant, the victim Robert Cole, Governor Miller, and the victim’s brother who died in an incident two years ago. He’s the “Neil Marshall” of this musical, and he died in what was essentially the SL-9 incident. Same general premise, except it occurred in the courthouse, and the names are different.

AND FINALLY WE REACH THE END OF ACT 1. They do a musical number here which is a weird sort of mashup of the main opening credits song, Edgeworth’s Villain Solo, and the love duet between Phoenix and Leona. They are all such different songs that it sounds a little weird.

ACT 2, FINALLY

The act begins on a sour note with Maya playing with the knife and showing off her characterization, which is one of the most infuriating Maya characterizations you’ll sometimes see around the fandom by people who don’t like Maya.

Maya: Let me whip up my special spirit channeler hamburgers!

sigh.

But then we’re saved (?) by the arrival of EDGEWORTH, who is presumably just here to chat. He asks Phoenix if he’s defending Leona in hopes of winning her back, then says to keep out of it, since it’s a very important case and he can’t understand the gravity of it.

Then Phoenix says this.

Phoenix: Would you be saying that if you were the one on trial? The defendant is in a dark prison, reaching out for hope... Can you imagine the loneliness and sorrow of being ostracized?

CAN YOU IMAGINE IT, EDGEWORTH? CAN YOU IMAGINE IF YOU WERE ON TRIAL AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO WOULD DEFEND YOU AND BELIEVED IN YOUR INNOCENCE??

Edgeworth responds to this by essentially rehashing his speech in Turnabout Sisters about how he needs to find all defendants guilty because he can’t guarantee their innocence and all that. Maya gets upset and leaves so that Phoenix and Edgeworth can talk about their childhood in private.

Phoenix once again complains about how people change since nine years old.

Phoenix then says that he has something Edgeworth doesn’t: the POWER TO BELIEVE! Then Maya comes in and tries to spike Edgeworth’s coffee, so he leaves.

The Class Trial

Phoenix explains a bit about Edgeworth and his backstory to Maya. Namely, the class trial. Phoenix was accused of stealing lunch money, Edgeworth stood up for him, but instead of Larry, Leona stood up for him. I guess Suzuki Kei thought “oh the class trial, if Leona stood up for him, it would be so romantic, because she’s a woman, and he’s a man”, or something like that.

Edgeworth wanted to become a Great Lawyer Like His Father! But then he turned cold as ice.

Phoenix: His father got too deeply involved in a case... and paid for it with his life. Edgeworth saw him murdered. He was never the same again. I bet he couldn’t forgive the criminal.

Yeah I bet he couldn’t ever forgive the person he thought killed his father all these years, Phoenix. I bet he really hates that person, Phoenix. I bet he has nightmares about that person killing his father or something, Phoenix.

Phoenix: He vanished, then returned without his mercy or compassion. He had become a monster. When he lost his father, he also lost the ability to believe in others.

So like... one of the most chilling things about this musical is that they never actually solve DL-6. This probably roughly takes place 15 years after DL-6, since they were about the same age when the class trial started, and at least Leona is 24 now. The next musical takes place three years from now, and in it, Edgeworth refers to von Karma as his mentor, implying he’s still around and doing things.

So, in addition to everything else going wrong with this musical, DL-6 still happens, but von Karma never frames Edgeworth for it fifteen years later. The statute of limitations runs out, and von Karma forever gets away with his crime. And Edgeworth has no idea.

What changes did they make to DL-6, though, you may ask? I’m desperate to know as well. In the third musical, which I’ve watched because I hate myself but am unable to fully understand because I don’t know much Japanese, there is a scene where Miles flashbacks to DL-6. It’s abstract, but he makes gun-throwing motions at Gregory, followed by a gunshot sound.

Therefore, in this musical’s internal canon, either Miles Edgeworth shot his father, or he believes he did for the rest of his life.

... moving on.

Phoenix: But he still has his humanity. It’s still there, deep down inside!

At least, if nothing else, Phoenix still believes in him. Even this Takarazuka Musical couldn’t touch that.

The Feenie Sweater

Right after this, Larry barges in, and Phoenix leaves him alone with Maya. The musical tries teasing Larry/Maya, but fortunately, Maya’s having none of it.

Maya: You’re barking up the wrong tree.

Props to this musical for not being as bad as it could have been.

After this, the two sit down on the couch, and Maya asks for more gossip on Phoenix and Leona. Larry launches into a story, which turns into a flashback that ends up being narrated by Phoenix halfway through. This one’s about Phoenix and Leona’s relationship.

This is an interesting line in here, “I’ll guide you to the future”, for it loosely referencing the sort of love ballad Phoenix sings with Lucia in the second musical which is about “I’ll take you to that radiant future”, and he later sings to the memory of Leona right around the time of his big spiral into despair.

I’m sorry if you haven’t read my other essay and just said “wait what” to what I just typed.

Leona was getting ready to move to New York to defend the weak “in the big city”. This is rather strange wording because it implies that California does not in fact have a big city. She says some things in her conversation with Phoenix that probably plant some of his later issues.

Leona: This is the first time we’ll be apart since we were kids.

Leona: We promised we’d always be together.

Leona: I’ll be waiting. Waiting for you to come to me.

Haha. Sure would be a shame... if something were to happen... and they wouldn’t be able to be together anymore...

So some dancers wearing black come in and take off their outer jackets, to symbolize the passage of time. They circle around Phoenix and Leona. In this, you can just barely see, Phoenix is wearing a pink sweater beneath his jacket.

“Oh,” I think to myself, “Is that the Feenie sweater? Are they including it here as a reference to the games?”

Then the dancers keep moving.

THAT IS NOT THE FEENIE SWEATER. That is a pink sweater with a sexily drawn woman on it.

This is the other half of the reason why I decided to go through with making this essay.

This is so incredibly funny to me. Suzuki Kei Who Has Played The Games Seven Times has seen the hand-knit bright pink sweater with a giant red heart on it seven times. The sweater Iris, Phoenix’s girlfriend, lovingly knit for him that he wears all the time even though it is one of the tackiest, cheesiest items of clothing to ever exist. And so, when the costume designers were designing the clothes for College Phoenix Wright, they asked themselves: “Should we include the Feenie sweater?”

and “NO,” someone must have shouted, “NO, we can NOT include the Feenie sweater, it is PINK and it has a HEART on it and it’s TOO GIRLY. Phoenix Wright is a MANLY MAN. He would not EVER wear something PINK with a HEART on it.”

“BUT,” someone else said, “it’s a REFERENCE to the original games, where he DID wear a pink sweater with a heart on it! We MUST include it to pander to the fans!”

“WAIT,” a third person interjected. “I have a BRILLIANT IDEA. We can keep the pink... But to make it VERY CLEAR he is a heterosexual, masculine male... we put a sexy woman on it.”

And Person Three Got A Raise.

Thank god we’re finally halfway done this musical.

We Just Have To Go On With Our Lives Now

There’s plot or something happening. Leona breaks up with Phoenix inexplicably over the phone. Probably because of that freaking sweater. Imagine wearing that. God.

Eventually we go back to Phoenix talking to Leona, and he asks about the Jack Lyon case, which is the rip-off version of the Joe Darke case. Leona is pretty cagey about it, but Phoenix proves that she was there in the gallery that day. Leona refuses to answer, claims again that she killed the victim in her case, and leaves.

This makes Phoenix sad, so he starts singing.

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

If this sounds familiar, it’s the part where I started absolutely losing my mind in the second musical because this line had never shown up before then, I’d forgotten it was in this musical, and Phoenix was screaming it alone in a red room, so I thought he was like desperately resorting to a necromancy ritual in hopes of bringing Leona back to life.

Instead, this line actually has CONTEXT, though it does just end up enforcing my theory. This is Phoenix mourning what he used to have with Leona, wanting to bring the “old her” back, because he’s devastated that people sometimes change. There are several flashbacks of their college days where he’s wearing his Sexy Woman Sweater. He does succeed in winning her back at the end of this musical. Before she dies, of course.

Phoenix in musical 2 still believes that he can bring back what he used to have with Leona... even beyond death. That’s something affirmed by this musical. I’m very grateful to it for somehow managing to enforce my nonsensical theory.

Doctor Ema

After this, Phoenix returns to his office, and meets with someone new.

That’s right! Only now, halfway through the musical, do we actually get to meet the Ema-equivalent to Leona’s Lana-equivalent. Her name is Monica Clyde. She has little rainbow heart stickers on her briefcase, which is the closest thing this musical has to acknowledging that gay people exist.

But what does this little briefcase contain, you may ask? Scientific investigation tools? No.

A full surgical toolset. Because you never know when someone’ll get sick, or when someone will need an entire operation in front of you. I guess.

So yes, Monica Clyde is not a forensic scientist in training, but a doctor! She decided to become a doctor because of her parents, who passed away of The Sickness, and so became a doctor in order to save lives like theirs.

Once more this has much darker and deeper implications than the musical is even aware of, because Monica is so anxious about treating sick people that she carries a full surgical toolset around with her at all times, scared to lose someone like she lost her parents... and then sometime in the next three years, Leona, her big sister, is going to die.

Of what? The strange Sickness that claimed her parents? A car accident? A botched spur-of-the-moment surgery? Whatever it is, Monica was unable to save her, even when she’d been training her entire life for it.

Monica is not mentioned at all throughout the second musical. It’s as if she does not exist.

Because unlike Ema of Rise From The Ashes, Monica is not at the heart of this story. She is, primarily, a plot device here to make Leona not trust Phoenix so that he can angst about their relationship.

What a mess this world is.

The Trial, Part 2

Rather than try to prove Leona’s innocence, Phoenix wants to link the current case to not-SL-9, the Jack Lyon case. He does this by showing this picture.

Senator Cole, the victim, is in this picture. His younger brother whose name I’ve forgotten, the victim of not-SL-9, is also in this picture. They are brothers. It is apparently novel that they are in the same picture, and somehow makes their cases linked.

As well, Governor Miller is in the picture. I guess you could say like... Governor Miller’s legal counsel is the defendant, so that’s another link? Even though the Governor would presumably know a Senator, so this isn’t an unusual group. Right now Phoenix has absolutely nothing to prove that these two cases are linked other than “hey, these two victims are brothers”, but apparently it works. So they spend a lot of time talking about not-SL-9, since Leona has confessed to the murder on day 1 and there is absolutely nothing indicating that she can’t be immediately declared guilty.

They hid the fact that Monica was a hostage in this not-SL-9, meaning that some of the case records were forged. Here’s Edgeworth’s reaction when this comes out.

Edgeworth: This is an outrage! I’m the most influential prosecutor in America! There’s nothing I don’t know!

In RFTA, when Edgeworth learns he’d been using forged evidence to give a man the death penalty, he is devastated, his entire worldview is shaken, he sees himself as a monster who could end up becoming horribly corrupt if he isn’t stopped.

Musical Edgeworth goes “I DIDN’T KNOW SOMETHING???”

It’s certainly strange characterization, but I guess Edgeworth is further behind in his character arc than in RFTA, so... ugh. Fine.

Phoenix calls Monica out as a witness to prove she was involved in the case. This causes Leona to panic, and try to dismiss Phoenix as her attorney, like Lana in RFTA, but Edgeworth interjects to call Monica in anyways. He and Phoenix have a little moment.

Edgeworth: You said to believe in others. I suppose I’ll try believing in you. Try to keep up.

Phoenix: Edgeworth!

So Monica comes to the stand to testify. We get to see this picture of Monica being held hostage, and not-Joe-Darke’s incredible eyeliner.

Lots of it is very similar to the actual RFTA, except instead of the victim being stabbed on the knight with the giant knife, he’s instead stabbed with a regular old knife. Leona still refuses to admit to what really happened, until Edgeworth convinces her to believe in Phoenix.

Edgeworth: Your attorney is a runaway train with a one-track mind. Yet he placed all of his faith in you. Believe in him. You owe him that much.

Leona testifies, and says that when she found the victim, he was stabbed with a scalpel.

Here is where things get weird.

Scalpels Can’t Kill People

So basically earlier in this trial, they talk about how Leona knew that the knife that stabbed the victim was double-edged despite being buried in his chest. The judge questions if this means Leona killed him, but Phoenix is quick to say no, she was searched when she entered the courthouse and couldn’t have concealed a knife.

Yet, Monica was able to bring in her surgical toolkit which contains several sharp knives, scalpels, scissors, etc.

This is the first major contradiction.

Leona continues to say that when she found Monica, and the scalpel stabbed in the victim, she also ran into Governor Miller, who if you haven’t been able to tell yet is the Gant-equivalent of this musical. He offered to help her with the cover-up, etc.

The next bit goes a lot like RFTA. Phoenix accuses Governor Miller, who barges in, says Phoenix has the decisive evidence in his pocket. This is the “butter knife” that Phoenix took from his office when he dug around in confidential documents and stole it for no particular reason. It has Monica’s fingerprints on it! ... And Phoenix’s and Maya’s too probably because they were handling it without gloves, but they don’t mention that part.

Leona cries about how she shouldn’t have trusted Phoenix because he was apparently now blaming Monica, Monica looks terrified, she and Leona have some good sister moments but it’s not as good as it could be if the story was actually about Leona and Monica like how RFTA was about Lana and Ema. But Phoenix has the decisive piece of evidence that can turn this around.

It is this:

Phoenix: Scalpels are made for medical incisions, not stabbings. So how did it stab the victim?

...

... What?

So like. Yes, scalpels are made for medical incisions. Medical incisions often involve cutting through flesh, very easily. As a result, they are sharp. Extremely sharp. As in: their purpose is literally to stab people, very specifically.

Yes, they’re easier to control, so that surgeons don’t regularly stab people how they’re not supposed to be stabbed, but it’s not like, impossible to stab someone in a killing way with a scalpel? Admittedly, I have never tried to kill someone using a scalpel. And I do not have experience using a scalpel for surgeries because I am not a surgeon. But I’m pretty sure, if you take a sharp scalpel, and you stab someone in the chest with it with a reasonable amount of force... they die.

Like, is this a particular kind of scalpel that is not very sharp? Is the problem that the blade doesn’t match up with the initial wound? But even then, we don’t have the original unforged autopsy report or even a picture, so how would Phoenix know what the original wound looked like to say it didn’t match up? And even then why wouldn’t Phoenix say that instead of SCALPELS CAN’T STAB PEOPLE???

This is his decisive contradiction and it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ME!!!

Well Darn I Guess Scalpels Can’t Kill People

This is such a decisive piece of evidence, that scalpels can’t kill people, coming from the man who thought “caught red-handed” does not involve being caught standing over a corpse with blood on your hands, that it causes Governor Miller to confess.

Unlike Gant, who created the murder with Neil Marshall both to ensure that there was decisive evidence to convict Joe Darke, a serial killer who had not left any decisive evidence behind, and gain control over the prosecutor’s office in order to pull similar stunts to get criminals convicted using false evidence, Governor Miller does not have that as his motive. After all, he’s not a police officer. Instead, he ended up accidentally killing not-Joe-Darke, and then set up the incident in order to get Leona on his side. As her parents were both influential lawyers and very respectable, having her and her parents’ reputation on his side could help him become President of America Where This Takes Place.

So, let’s just take a moment to run over some of the things that made the original Rise From The Ashes great, in my opinion. Just for fun.

1 - The heart of the story between the Skye sisters. Lana closing off to protect Ema, Ema wanting to get through to her sister and get back to the way things used to be. Phoenix, in this story, is more of a bystander to this plotline rather than in the heart of it himself.

2 - Edgeworth’s Character Development. Basically RFTA creates an interesting transition between Turnabout Goodbyes and JFA. It causes Edgeworth to re-evaluate everything he knows about being a prosecutor. So quickly on the heels of Turnabout Goodbyes, it crushes the last bit of hope in him. It compares him to Gant, who also hates criminals, and forces him to wonder if his hatred of crime will one day lead to him being a criminal himself. He’s already convicted one person on forged evidence; how many others could there be?

3 - The Ends Justify The Means. ... wait come back, don’t leave. What I found neat about this case was also Gant’s motive. At one point he was presumably an honest person who hated crime and wanted to stop criminals. But over time in the police force, he became corrupted. He wanted to have all criminals convicted. So what do you do when you don’t have the evidence to convict them? Joe Darke was a serial killer who has killed several people and may have killed more if he’d gone free. The only way to stop and convict him was by using forged evidence. Other criminals could hide evidence to get away with their crimes, so people like Gant would make it up to catch them; but then when do you stop? What happens if there’s no evidence because someone is truly innocent? When does the line between “this person is a criminal and I want to stop them” and “I just want to convict everyone I’m dealing with” become blurred? This is also something he shares with Edgeworth and helps to advance his character.

All three of these things are either lessened or outright ignored in this musical. Leona and Monica’s story takes a backseat to Phoenix and Leona’s Love Story, with Monica only showing up halfway through, and mainly as an excuse as to why Leona is withdrawn. Edgeworth doesn’t seem to blame himself for the forged evidence he used, and doesn’t have a crisis questioning his morality over it. And Governor Miller’s motive is purely power. Unlike Gant, who would have become Chief of Police whether he solved SL-9 or not, Miller needed Leona to win the presidency. And instead of asking her to help him with his campaign like a normal person, he just blackmailed her instead.

... How do you play the games seven times and miss this much?

The Case Finally Ends

god. we’re almost there.

The case ends, Leona is declared not guilty but will still face trial for covering up murders and such. Probably less of a sentence than Lana because she was not involved in ongoing police corruption? Either way she’s dead in three years, so she’s got something a bit more concerning coming up.

She’s led away. Phoenix sings a bit about Leona before being interrupted by Edgeworth... who has something important to tell him.

Edgeworth: You awakened within me those once-cherished emotions I had discarded. I see visions of a distant, nostalgic past.

So basically this is the unnecessary feelings of the musical. Something along the lines of “seeing you again and fighting for my former ideals is making me question many things about myself.”

How does Phoenix respond?

Phoenix: Edgeworth... Try talking normally for a chance.

Sure, we were all thinking it, but that’s a little cold, Phoenix.

Edgeworth tries a smooth recovery.

Edgeworth: I don’t do... idle chit-chat.

This doesn’t accomplish much. So he leaves to allow Leona to visit with Phoenix alone. He’s got to go change for something more important coming up.

Leona and Phoenix decide that they’re going to get back together once Leona is done her sentence! They make a promise that is very funny if you know she’ll be dead in three years.

Phoenix: I’ll be waiting. For you.

There are a lot of hugs here, I’m not screencapping them all. There are also several moments where their faces get very close together and like, their nose brushes the other’s cheek or something, but they never actually kiss. Is it because the actresses weren’t comfortable with it (valid), or they thought kissing would be too much for the musical (sure, whatever), or since both characters are played by women the show staff did not want two women kissing on stage (probably the real answer)? I don’t like watching kisses, but I kept bracing myself for one and then it never happened, so.

Phoenix ends the main part of the musical with one last musical number starring my personal favourite piece:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I like to think that at this point, this is present-day Phoenix, after finishing his reminiscing, still desperately wishing he could bring Leona back from death.

But alas, he cannot. And so, after one last daydream of them dancing together on the beaches of California, singing about their love, the musical ends.

Dance Time!

This starts at exactly the two hour mark, if you’re interested in watching what is, once again, one of the only fun parts of this musical.

Seriously, Edgeworth’s actress kills it here, when I first saw this I went “oh, this is why I saw so many people being gay for her on twitter.”

Edgeworth’s song is an encore of “My Rule”, so it’s lots of fun. Afterwards Phoenix gets another fun piece.

Then we get to the love ballad part, which I can probably overanalyze, I feel like I haven’t done enough ridiculous over-analyzing in this essay in comparison to the other.

Uhhh so the fog represents how Phoenix feels lost in this world without Leona. You can see it in the second screenshot separating the two of them, representing the barrier of death between the two of them. Idk it’s midnight I’m getting worn out from having to think about this musical for so long.

But his mourning over Leona’s death becomes even more apparent in the credits, where Phoenix sings that one line again:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I’m not fixing that screenshot, I think it’s oddly fitting, in a way. That’s me right now.

Then at the very end, he sings this song.

Phoenix: I’ll spend... this eternal life... soaring through... the heavens!

Technically, this refers to his name Phoenix, but let’s dig a little deeper. He spends the rest of his life soaring through the heavens... the heavens that Leona went to after her untimely death, perhaps?

Overall, the musical becomes much more interesting when you just see it as a prequel to the second musical. This musical establishes many core concepts of Phoenix’s character: his refusal to believe in the concept of things changing, for one, and also his extreme dependency on Leona who he was never separated from since they were kids and where he based his entire life around her dreams and ideals. All he can think about is her. And in the end, he promises to wait for her in California.

Yet, to paraphrase Miles Edgeworth, all that is waiting for him is her death. Their dream of opening up a Mom & Pop Law Firm will never come true.

Thanks again for bearing with me even though this wasn’t as funny!

#ace attorney #phoenix wright the truth reborn #idk maybe someone wanted to know what the first musical was like without actually watching it?#my essays #my posts #i'm TIRED i'm going to BED goodNIGHT #this is less funny jokes and more actually criticizing the musical #because so much of this is like. wow. you really thought that was a good idea huh #just skip to the feenie sweater part honestly that's the funniest part of this musical

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janiedean · 3 years

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I feel bad for all the nice J*nsa shippers who like their ship for whatever reasons (tropes, pretty art, aesthetic appeal, whatever) and know it's not canon but get associated with the misogynistic Dany hating crowd who act like Jon being attracted to Ygritte is J*nsa foreshadowing because red hair (I guess Jon should fuck Edmure Tully too? Omg give me Dark!Jon getting revenge on Catelyn by seducing her brother!) Tell me something. I'm new to the fandom but was J*nsa popular before the show? And I've heard something about the OG J*nsa shippers being alienated by the new shippers who insisted it had to be canon and acted like the series is called, "A song of J*nsa #danysux." I don't find that hard to believe because I know people who are now ashamed of calling themselves J*nsa shippers. Like, at this point, it's not only rival shippers who hate it. Even Gendrya/Braime/Jon stans/etc have started disliking that ship. You know your fandom is a problem when people who have nothing to do with Jnsa have a problem with it.

me: reads this ask

me: iwastheregandalf.gif which I can't find now but

okay anon buckle up because I am sadly well-equipped to answer this ask but before I do lemme tell you dark jon seducing edmure to take revenge on cat is LITERALLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD but *clears throat* ALL RIGHT THEN.

disclaimer: as anon says I have no issue with like the shippers mentioned by anon in the beginning and ngl I agree, I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING STAKES in the j*nsa vs j*nerys war and the only het jon ship I gaf about is jon/ygritte and we all know where that ended up I just... have been here since 2011/adwd was over and all the fic around was just for the books under secret lj communities and asoiaf qualified for yuletide and I have... seen... things.... and I actually have like uh had... beef... with some people in there and I know things bc ppl who hated those others told me stuff so anyway *sigh* buckle up anon I'mma tell you the story of jon shipwars through the years

in order, the old gods help me here, under the cut bc this is long as fuck

when I got into fandom also given what numbers were on ao3 one ship was popular and it was sansan. no like sansan was lit. the only asoiaf ship on ao3 with more than 200 fics. jb had twenty when i checked first. jc had like around 100-ish because of the show but sansan dwarfed anything. I posted the first jon/ygritte fic on the ao3 tag and the fourth throbb fic and like the others were all reposts from lj kinkmemes. nothing was popular before the show except for sansan when it comes to huge numbers bc grrm doesn't like fic and it was all hush hush until the show made it impossible to control and that ship was the one with a huge enough fanbase it actually had numbers, so like... j*nsa wasn't popular in the way nothing else was popular until it got screentime on the show

now, that stated, j*nsa had a... fair amount of fic for a rareship which was mostly book-based and from og shippers that were there from before the show and liked it for what it was but literally none of them thought it was gonna be canon, like it wasn't huge or anything but it had a small but dedicated fanbase who did their own thing and thought it was fun/liked the idea but that was it

that fandom had their own niche of hcs that they cultivated and shit except that like... at the end of S5/beginning of S6 there was a surge in shipping for... well obvious reasons bc it was obv sansa was getting to the wall and that would have been all nice and good but a) it was the time puritanical shipping was starting to take root and the 'shipping sansa with sandor or tyrion is hella problematic' rhetoric had started to circle coming from sans*ery shippers mostly but I'mma not open that fucking can of worms here, b) while the ending of S5 had more of a theon/sansa spike, the j*nsa stuff started getting big

now here we have to mention my villain origin story ie: j*nsa fandom had this one stan whose name I won't make because honestly it's been years and if she's still around I don't want her to remember I exist who was a bnf, wrote for... the website that created the whole larry/carol thing etc who was really fixed on this thing that j*nsa was actually canon and started writing extremely popular meta about it. now you're gonna ask how do you know, I know because this person once wrote a meta named 'why robb stark is a dick' and I told her that it was really fucking bad meta and she took it so badly she kept on trash talking me on her blog/her podcast (I was apparently the insane robb stark fangirl l m a o good lord) and like that was when some sane ppl who argued with her informed me in pvt that she was basically harping on the CANON thing when they'd have been okay with like... it being crackshipping and that she was basically cultivating a hoarde of followers who were harping on them/the ogs and basically ostracizing them;

I would like to add that this person - before her tumblr got 'accidentally deleted' and remade it therefore deleted most receipts for, er, her so-called meta which included stuff like ned and cat raised sansa as a sexual object and only wanted to sell her like cattle - had at some point started a round robin fic thing where... some of the characters mocked openly said stuff that some of the og fans had said specifically targeting them and people in that side basically went harassing anyone who didn't agree with that specific notion

now never mind that this person basically coined an entire term to describe ppl who liked white guys and excused all their wrongdoings out of my conversation re robb basically lying about everything I said as if I didn't have the receipts and tried to sell shirts with it and it didn't work and like then she got kicked out of her own website because she was telling her commenters disagreeing pretty shitty insults (considering I was called psychotic for disagreeing with her that time I don't doubt it) I think at some point she stepped back from fandom bc idk wtf she's up to these days and I don't want to, but basically at that point the dam was broken and there was a bunch of puritanical shippers harping on anyone who didn't agree with j*nsa is canon endgame stuff

this also includes an incident when those ppl were like... passing themselves as throbb shippers and ended up trying to tell t*hramsay shippers off the theon tag based on moral reasons and I ended up arguing with all of them (and they were all from that crowd) which in turn landed me in contact with other og j*nsa shippers who were like detached from that fandom bc those same people harassed them away as well ssooooo fun

anyway when S6 happened everyone was high on it and whatnot but I wasn't gonna begrudge them that I mean... you shipped it for years, canon is delivering you, good for you, but then j*nerys happened

god j*nerys happened

aaand basically...... I mean personally I was there like are y'all seriously arguing about the best incest jon ship out there but like basically the j*nsa endgame side was like AH JON IS PLAYING DANY SEE IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, the j*nerys obv got defensive af and both sides were sort of alternatively shitting on jon/ygritte anyway and depicting any other romantic rship jon could have as abusive™ and during S8 it just got worse and like I tried to stay out of it but basically from what I'm seeing now idk how the j*neryses are doing but on the j*nsa one it's ah jon's gonna play dany anyway and she's going to go insane like in the show so SHOW TRUTHING EVERY OTHER WAY and like again denying that sandor exists or that tyrion exists and like I barely touch my corner (sansan) but I ended up arguing with j*nsa/th*nsa people on twitter who were antis and is2g it was white-hair inducing and I know for sure the sansa/tyrion shippers were harassed to hell and back throughout so FUN

and even if the show didn't go there now since everyone there banked on the jnsa endgame thing and admitting you're wrong is like... not a thing, they still haven't let go of it and attach to that ship any shred of evidence which honestly is grasping at straws half of the time (like... the sansa/alysanne parallels like guys please no) and which is why every other ship is starting to get fed up, attaching canon proof of stuff from other ships onto theirs see that batb argument and jb is platonic but jonsa is not nvm taking all the sansan stuff and throwing it on j*nsa but then denying that sansan has canon evidence (like guys I had to read sansa touching his shoulder when saying gregor wasn't a true knight wasn't meaningful and we were seeing things please) and blah blah blah

this also goes hand in hand with the fixation on like... villanizing dany at all costs and like is2g I have zero investment in dany or her storyline I don't even remember it and I don't particularly care abt her either way and sure af I'm not for j*nerys endgame but like.... some stuff I read is completely excessive esp when fixing on how she's a completely mad tyrant who's gonna have to be put down and like... guys no

(also there's some srs stannis hate in that corner which I honestly don't get why they even care abt stannis but I had to read stuff like ppl don't recognize that dany and stannis are the real villains in this saga and like........ idek)

I think most of the og shippers are gone or don't ship it openly bc they don't want to be attached to the drama but like I also think they're pissing off everyone else bc like... I mean a bunch of them also were down with sansa being paired with other ppl as long as it meant a good ending for her except those ppl were... like everyone but the ppl she has actual contact with in canon which meant that at some point sansa/gendry was a thing and like.... you can imagine why arya/gendry shippers & arya stans were fed up, and there's also this tendency to behave like sansa is the center of the entire saga which like these books is named a song of jon snow basically can we pls make peace with it and personally I've had it with both j*nsa and j*nerys people since they started with that dumbass JON/YGRITTE WAS AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP rhetoric but I'm also fed up with the total ignoring that sandor exists/depicting us as delusional and honestly I also was by proxy fed up from the harassing of the sansa/tyrion shippers soooooooooooo

there were also instances of 'well theon is an acceptable choice other than jon bc he can't threaten her' which... i mean we all know what that meant and I'm not even commenting it bc it's one AM and I have no force to but I don't have to explain why it's not a progressive take now do I

there were also metas about how cousin incest being legal in half of the world means that jondany is a worse incest and j*nsa doesn't count as such and I was basically there like guys please just fucking own up to it but honestly I chose to forgot where I read that and I couldn't find the link if I tried

tldr: no one wants to admit that it's not gonna be endgame which considering the amount of fic they have on ao3 is imvho useless bc they have more content than like.. anything I ship that's not jb or that's actually like canon *cries in joncon/rhaegar but I mean renly/loras is canon and has less fic than them* so idk what's the problem with enjoying that instead of insisting it's gonna be canon when not even the show validated it while show truthing anyway when the only show truthing that can be truthed is the small council made of minorities and possibly jon eventually fucking off with the wildlings but not like that but like most people who thought it wasn't gonna be endgame had left/were made to leave by the time S7 rolled by and at this point since wow isn't out yet everyone is fandom-grasping at straws to find stuff to discourse on and we're here beating dead horses *shrug*

so that's... how it is but I would again like to point out that I don't judge ppl on their shipping, I don't particularly care about this entire feud bc I only ship jon with ppl he's not related to in whichever way and I try to stay out of this mess bc I don't really care to argue with ppl who have already decided to bend canon to whatever they want and will have to realize that it's not what grrm wrote at some point but like I have a very good memory and the above rant is as objective as possible also bc again I don't literally have a stake in that race I just think romantic/endgame j*nsa is not a thing and that ppl should stay in their lane and not harping on other ppl who ship whatever in general but especially when their ship is the most popular thing in fandom in the first place /two cents

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #anonymous #ask post #anti-jonsa #anti jonsa #anti-jonerys #anti jonerys #both of them for equality

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shielddrake · 3 years

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Those Who Hurt You The Most Ch. 1 - Lull Before the Storm

Oh boy. So, like many others, I can't stop thinking about Psychonauts 2, and so I write fanfic for it. It's just that simple.

I usually outline a story before I start posting, but I'm outlining as I go for this one. I've got about nine chapters outlined so far, so this story will be at least that long. Suggestions for improvements and/or ideas are welcome and appreciated!

There's going to be quite a bit of family and friend interactions in here, both positive and negative, so be prepared for that.

Usual Disclaimer: I don't own the Psychonauts franchise. Also, I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist, so I apologize in advance for anything that is inaccurate in regards to anything in those fields. I'm trying my hardest to be accurate, but I could miss things. Constructive criticism on this is also appreciated.

Lastly, spoiler alert for Psychonauts 2! You have been warned.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy!

“Thank you all for coming today!” Truman Zanotto, the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, declared to the atrium of the Motherlobe. “I am pleased so many are here to celebrate the Psychonauts' twenty-first anniversary!”

“Psychonauts is old enough to drink!” Someone shouted from the crowd, bringing about a few chuckles from the rest of the agents.

Truman ignored whoever that was. “Now, we have a lot to go over tonight, and I’d like to start with going over a few advancements we’ve achieved in the past year.”

With a wave of his hand, Truman brought up a screen large behind him. It was big enough to completely cover the doors leading to the classroom, nerve center and agents’ quarters. He clapped his hands and the lights went down, allowing everyone to see the screen more clearly. Truman cleared his throat.

“First, we have Larry to thank for his work in the Telepathy Department,” he began. “His efforts have created a method to increase communication range two hundred percent…”

There was a long speech that went on for a good forty-five minutes, and to be honest Frazie tuned out most of it. While she was sure it was fascinating for the Psychonauts, and certainly for her younger brother Raz, she was not interested in hearing about this stuff. She had spent the last year in the Psychonauts’ intern program, learning a lot about her psychic powers and how to use them responsibly. But that was over and now Frazie was eager to get back home to the Aquato Family Circus on a regular basis.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Truman turned the lights of the atrium back on. Frazie blinked to help her eyes adjust.

“And now, I would like to invite our Second Head of the Psychonauts, Hollis Forsythe, to present our interns.”

There was a round of applause as Hollis took the stage, which was only a few steps higher than the center of the room. She briefly shook hands with Truman before turning her attention to the rest of the Psychonauts.

“Thank you. Now I know you’re all eager to get to socializing—”

“And food!”

Hollis paused, an annoyed expression on her face. “So I will keep this short. I would like to congratulate this year’s graduating intern class!”

As Hollis announced the names of each intern, they joined her on the stage to receive their junior agent badges. There was much more applauding and cheering this time around, possibly because a few of the interns were children of a few Psychonauts. Frazie recognized the name Mikhail Bulgakov, who not only was her fellow intern but also a friend of Raz from Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp. There was Autumn Harper, Gema Ayerbe, Sidney Marks, Barnaby Goldberg and Isaac Wright as well. Why they announced the names in non-alphabetical order was a mystery, but she wasn’t in charge and Frazie wasn’t about to question Agent Forsythe’s methods.

But finally, it came.

“And last but not least, Frazie Aquato.”

Thanking the stars that Hollis respected her request to not announce her full name, Frazie walked up to join the new junior agents. The crowd gave them a round of praise as they all took a bow together.

The noise emanating from where her family stood was particularly deafening. Frazie couldn’t keep the smile off her face at the proud expression on her parents’ faces. It had taken time, but both Augustus and Donatella had eventually (and with much prodding from her brother) had accepted her as a psychic and agreed to let her intern at the Motherlobe.

The applause slowed as they left the stage, with Hollis giving a few final claps once Frazie rejoined her family. She waited until the room was quiet again, or as quiet as it could get, before speaking again.

“Now, before we wrap up, I would like to announce a special award,” Hollis revealed, her hands behind her back. “In acknowledgment of both his achievements in the field as well as recognition as our most improved junior agent. Please give a round of applause for Razputin Aquato.”

The young man in question grinned as he walked up to the stage. Raz stood straight and proud she pinned another badge to his jacket. It was the same one he wore ever since his hazing at the beginning of his intern program a year ago. Frazie supposed that actually made it Sasha Nein’s jacket, but Raz seemed to have claimed it for his own. The older Psychonaut hadn’t asked for it back, so she wasn’t going to sweat the details.

Frazie noticed how her older brother Dion’s support was rather half-hearted. His clapping lasted only a few seconds before giving up entirely and crossing his arms over his chest. Gisu, Raz’s fellow junior agent, was whistling in celebration. She immediately stopped when she spotted Dion sulking.

“Is that really any way to congratulate your own brother?” Gisu asked. “Even Norma admits that the kid deserves it. He’s been working his butt off.”

Dion huffed. “Raz gets enough attention from everyone else. He doesn’t need me fawning over him too.”

Frazie stopped herself from slapping her only older sibling upside the head.

After that, the presentation ended and the socialization began. Most of the other Psychonauts avoided the Aquatos, as they were still quite…cautious about the circus family, to say it kindly. They accepted Raz eagerly enough after the whole Maligula incident, and Frazie as well to an extent. But the rest of the family? They were still an unknown. Frazier was sure their circus attire played a role in that too.

Among the number of cautious Psychonauts was not Hollis Forsythe. She kept to the Aquatos throughout most of the party, conversing with the occasional other agent who came up to them. Or perhaps she was supervising them to prevent another fire from breaking out. Frazie could never be certain.

“Augustus is not allowed in the Noodle Bowl after that incident,” Hollis explained to everyone. “The autumn decorations still need to be replaced.”

“I did offer to repair the painted pinecones,” Augustus protested, but only weakly. He still took responsibility for that. “And I haven’t had an incident like that since then.”

“Dad, what about the—” Mirtala started, but Augustus put a hand over her mouth.

“I don’t think the Second Head needs to know about that, Tala.”

Augustus smiled at Hollis, who rolled her eyes but couldn’t keep the smile from her face. At least she knew he was trying. Augustus was actually one of her more enthusiastic students, as well as oldest. It was easy to see where Raz got it.

“In any case, it’s still good to see two of your children doing so well.” Hollis turned her attention back to Raz and Frazie. “Your family has produced psychics with…exceptional potential. I’m curious to see where they will go in the future.”

Frazie hummed. “Sorry Agent Forsythe, but I think I’m done with the Psychonaut thing.”

Raz spun around to look at his older sister. “What?”

“I’m going back to the circus,” Frazie explained. “I’m happy I’ve learned everything I have, but I prefer the acrobat life.”

“I thought we were going to be going on missions together,” Raz complained, giving her puppy eyes. “Two Agent Aquatos working together!”

“Raz, being a Psychonaut is your thing, not mine,” Frazie insisted.

“Come on!”

“Zip it, Raspy!” Her tone went harder as he opened his mouth to protest again.

“When do I get to join?” Queepie jumped in. Literally. He placed himself in the middle of the circle of adults and teens (and a few children) and started jumping up and down. “When’s it my turn?”

“Not for a while, young man,” Hollis answered. “You’re still too young.”

“How young is too young?” Queepie asked.

“How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“That young.”

“But Raz was ten when he became a Psychonaut!”

Raz’s eyes widened. Was his little brother trying to take the title of Youngest Psychonaut Ever from him?

“Your brother was an intern first, and there were…extenuating circumstances.” Hollis glanced at Raz out of the corner of her eye, and Raz tried to keep the grimace off his face. He knew very well what she was referring to. “An exception I’m not willing to make again.”

“You’ll be doing this soon enough, Son,” Augustus reassured him.

“There are enough Psychonauts in my family as it is,” Donatella declared, speaking up for the first time in the conversation. Frazie found this surprising since her mother was usually the most outspoken person in the room. She suspected it had to do with trying to keep the peace between her and Hollis. “Remember, we still have a show next week, Razputin. If your psychic business makes you late..."

She let her sentence trail off at the warning.

“I remember, Mom,” Raz said with a smile. He’d been doing all right balancing being a Psychonaut and performing in the Aquato Family Circus. Of course, having access to the Psychonauts’ jet made it much easier. “Next Sunday.”

"And don't forget to practice in the meantime!"

"I know, Mom!"

Donatello chuckled. “I hope so, Pootie.”

Raz somehow managed to keep the groan from escaping his mouth at the nickname. Dion, on the other hand, grunted and had to bite his tongue.

Two older guests walked up to the already rather large group. One stood far above everyone, lean as a sapling. The other was her opposite, being very short and barely taller than Raz himself. It never ceased to amuse Raz at their contrary appearances but not contrary personalities. They complimented each other perfectly.

“Congratulations on the award, Razputin,” Cassie said, giving the young man a hug. “If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

“Yes. Well done, young man,” Compton added. “I must say I’m rather impressed at the progress you’ve made in only a year.”

“Well,” Raz dragged out. “I’ve had some pretty awesome teachers.”

“Brownnoser,” came the voice of Raz’s (Sort of? Maybe?) girlfriend Lili, standing with her father Truman as she gave him a small punch in the shoulder. “You can brag about it more after you’ve perfected the Clairvoyance Jump of yours.”

“Clairvoyance Jump?” Truman inquired. Raz’s cheeks went a little pink.

“It’s a technique I’m working on that I started figuring out at the Rhombus of Ruin,” the acrobat described. “It allows for long-distance Clairvoyance through several brains in a row.”

“I’ve heard of some psychics doing that, but I don’t believe it’s been perfected into a teachable power yet,” Truman acknowledged. “It’s wonderful to see a young psychic working so hard to advance our knowledge.”

“That’s my boy,” Augustus said, rubbing Raz's hair with pride while his wife looked a little exasperated.

Donatella still hadn’t said much during the party, other than her pestering Raz about the future show. Frazie was starting to wonder if her mother was feeling ill. She did spot Donatella giving Hollis a few displeased looks, and according to Raz the two of them didn’t get along very well. Was she trying to keep the peace by keeping her mouth shut around Agent Forsythe? That didn’t seem much like their incredibly outspoken and extroverted mother.

This concern did not distract Frazie enough that she didn’t spot the small cheek kiss Lili gave Raz once Truman had turned his back. She held back a giggle at her brother's flush.

There was a sudden silence in the entire atrium. Raz raised his head to look around to see if he could find the cause, his mind immediately going to a possible threat. His guard went down when he saw exactly the cause of the Psychonauts staring at the entrance. Many of them dropped their jaws open.

Bob Zanotto stood there with a small, nervous grin. He appeared to have gotten around to at least trimming his beard, making him look not quite so old. He finally replaced his broken glasses, making his eyes look larger. He also looked like he had lost a little bit of weight, and he smelled much cleaner than Raz remembered. Raz’s eyes moved down Bob’s arm to his hand, which he kept enveloped by another.

That hand then led up to the arm of none other than Helmut Fullbear. He looked much like he did when Raz had recovered his mind from Otto’s lab. His coat was still as extravagant as ever, and he cut his hair ever so slightly. His namesake sat on his head, looking freshly polished.

Raz ran up to them. “Bob! Helmut! You found your body!”

“It certainly took long enough,” Helmut joked. He gave Bob’s hand a squeezed and the two continued into the main area of the atrium. Helmut's legs wobbled a bit in his stride. “And I’m still getting used to having my body back.”

“Brain re-integration going okay?”

“As good as it can be.”

“Bob! You’re looking well!” Cassie shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear. She gave him a tight hug. “I haven’t seen you look this good in years!”

“Well, turns out that spending months digging in a frozen lake is good exercise,” Bob jested, rubbing the back of his neck. “Lost a bit of weight doing that.”

“Honey, you are perfect as you are, but we’re still getting you that treadmill,” Helmut teased. “I worry about your cholesterol at our age.”

The group laughed at the teasing until a stuttered cough rang out through the still-silent room. Truman slowly walked up to his uncle, looking more embarrassed than Raz had ever seen Lili’s father look. He waited until Bob finally walked over to him and slowly embraced his nephew. Truman immediately returned it, gripping the older man’s back with tight fingers.

“I’m so sorry.” Raz was only able to make out the whisper Bob said to Truman.

Truman shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. I should have done more. I’m just happy you’re doing so much better.”

“Every day is a challenge, but I am doing better.” Bob released his nephew as Helmut walked up to them, and he and Truman firmly shook hands.

With that, the tension in the room dispersed. Everyone returned to their own conversations, which no doubt going to turn into gossip before the night was over.

The part continued, and Raz eventually made his way over to the buffet table. He could practically hear his mother’s voice telling him to eat something healthy and full of protein before he stuffed himself with candy or chocolate. As he was about to reach for the famous honey pepper boar bacon, Helmut walked up to him, followed by his father. Raz’s cheeks hurt from the smile that spread across his face. This was a night of joy, to be certain.

“Helmut! You’ve got to have this bacon!” he announced. He immediately tried to take it back. “But, uh, maybe a small amount at first?”

Helmut let out a big laugh. “Razputin, my boy, you have quite the heart. But I’m actually here for another reason.”

“Huh? And what’s that?”

“There’s someone else who wants to talk to you.” Helmut gestured to Augustus. “Both of you. A couple of someones actually. They’re outside by Otto’s lab.”

Raz glanced at his dad, who shrugged, looking as confused as he felt. Helmut returned to Bob’s side as father and son left the Motherlode. They hopped across the floating platforms to the building housing Otto’s lab. Even now, Raz felt a little uneasy going there, knowing that the inventor kept a vault full of deceased agents’ brains there. And the idea that Otto thought Raz’s brain would one day be in there as well…Ew.

Raz didn’t think twice about that though once he saw Ford Cruller and Lucrecia Mux, his Nona, holding hands. Both of them looked a little nervous, but they did manage to smile as the two other psychics approached.

“Nona! Ford!” Raz sprinted forward to grab Nona in a tight but still gentle hug. She patted the back of his head in response, closing her eyes as she felt her grandnephew in her arms again. Raz gave her one last squeeze before grabbing Ford around the waist. “I didn’t know if you were coming or not!”

“Sorry we’re a little late,” Ford said. “Lucy was taking her time doing her hair.”

“Oh hush, Crully,” Lucy teased back. “I had to spend half an hour convincing you to come at all. Don’t go blaming me.”

Augustus was keeping his distance, glancing back and forth between the ground and the couple. Raz watched his father with concern, knowing he still had a little trouble in regards to how Ford had modified his memories against his will as a child. Augustus had spent the last year on-and-off with the Psychonauts and their available therapists to come to terms with this and what transpired a year ago. Or at least that’s what Augustus told his family. Raz really wasn’t sure what kind of progress he had made, and he didn’t want to push the topic if his dad wasn’t up to it.

The one who finally broke the silence was Ford. He walked over to Augustus, followed closely by Lucy and Raz, and he bowed his head to the younger man.

“Augustus, I haven’t had the chance, or really the courage, to talk to you before now,” he began. He took a deep breath. “But I guess it’s better late than never to say how sorry I am—”

“Ford Cruller.” Augustus put his hand on the old man’s shoulder, prompting Ford to meet his gaze. “I have been through the gamut of emotions over the last year. I've been angry, sad, disappointed, confused, disgusted…and a lot of other things. But I have learned one very important thing: There is no point staying angry with someone who hurt you, especially if they show regret for it. It keeps bringing up old wounds when we should be able to move forward.”

Augustus put his hand forward, and Ford hesitated for a single moment before shaking it with his own. They both let out a breath that Raz was sure neither knew they were holding. Augustus then moved on to Lucy, who had stayed behind to let Ford have his say first. He didn’t even pause in kneeling and hugging her. After a moment of the two embracing each other, Augustus pulled away with a smile.

“Lucy, you may be my aunt, but the memories we made together when you were my mother, or my acting mother, were real,” he described. “You're my aunt-mother, and nothing will change that.”

The tears finally started falling from Lucrecia’s eyes, and she buried her face in her nephew’s chest. Ford hugged her from the other side, with one hand on Augustus’ back. Raz wiped away his own tears, and was taken aback when a telekinesis hand grabbed him and placed him smack in the middle of the family hug. Augustus released his son and grabbed his with his physical hand, not letting go of his family.

Once the four psychics had their fill of hugs, Raz jumped in front of Lucy.

“Nona! I have something really cool to show you!”

“Is it that…you know?” Augustus probed mysteriously.

Raz grinned. “Yup.”

“What’s that?” Ford asked.

“I’ve been practicing with Lizzie on this a lot, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it.” Raz headed to the edge of the platform. “Watch this!”

“Stay away from the—” Lucy began, out of habit, but stopped when Raz jumped over the edge and into the small lake below.

Or rather, he would have landed in the water if the Hand of Galochio hadn’t sprung up and held him in place. Raz did a couple of tumbles and flips with the Hand, followed by a matching handstand and handstand walk over the water, with flourishes of water sprays and streams going all over the place at the same time. He ended his little show a bit of juggling of small balls of water, which exploded into rain with a clap of his hands.

The three adults applauded as Raz gave a bow and used the water to step back down to the dock. He was wringing his hands as he returned to Lucy.

“Whatcha think?”

“That was amazing, Pootie!” she praised.

“A showstopper for certain!” Ford added.

Augustus patted his son’s shoulder. “He’s been working on that show for weeks.”

“You’ve obviously worked hard on it,” Lucy said. “How many hours a week?”

“Um, a lot?” Raz answered with a crooked smile. “I didn’t keep track.”

“It’s comforting to see you using water again,” she continued. “But remember how dangerous it can be, Razputin.”

The preteen nodded. “I know, Nona. I just don’t want water to be a bad part of our lives anymore.”

“We're all performing a few water acts in the circus now,” Augustus informed them. “Would you like to come see? We have a show next week.”

“It would be wonderful to see the family perform again.” Lucy looked up at her elderly boyfriend. “What do you think, Crully?”

“You don’t think they’d mind if I came?” Ford asked.

“Of course not!” Raz asserted. “I know mom’s been wondering about you. And Tala and Queepie have been asking about Nona a lot. They miss you.”

“We better not disappoint them then,” Lucy conceded.

“Even better, let’s go back inside. I think it’s about time our Nona formally introduced her boyfriend to the family,” Augustus teased. “By the way, Ford, we need to have a talk about your intensions towards my aunt-mother.”

“Gussy!” Lucy gave her nephew-son a pretend scandalous expression.

Raz groaned and rolled his eyes. “Now I know where he gets it from.”

Ford levitated the adults over the water back to the Motherlobe, while Raz did a few hops with the Hand of Galochio to join them. As they did so, a figure kept to the shadows as he turned off his psychic invisibility. He kept an eye on Razputin as he watched the boy return to the Psychonauts’ party. The figure bit his tongue to keep quiet until he was sure the psychics were out of both hearing and telepathy range. One he was sure they were, he put his fingers up to his temple.

“Minister, I have news to report,” he telepathically called. “I think you’ll be very interested to hear about this."

#psychonauts 2 spoilers #psychonauts 2 #razputin aquato #fanfiction

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rethesun · 3 years

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When 1D deny bad management and more such as closeting

I did some critical thinking for myself and realized a few things. What I wrote here is likely not groundbreaking at all. I'm just probably someone far behind catching up and hopefully, this makes sense. It’s a trust the process post because I have a feeling it may ruffle the feathers of larries and antis until you get to the end. Please note that it is not my intention to disrespect anyone at all but I can’t please everyone. I learned the hard way that I am allowed to share an opinion too.

When Niall or another 1d member denies such an issue and so causally, or Zayn in this 2015 fader interview. it confirms a fear that by speculating and I sometimes buy into conspiratorial thinking I’m in the wrong and I’m rude and I need a reality check. It also makes me feel like I need to apologize take a huge step back, and, from now on, respect what they say. Fyi, I’ve never been okay with invasiveness and I morally feel many people take it way too far. Regardless of larry, all types of fans can be invasive/disrespectful.

Now that those disclaimers are out of the way I’ll get into it.

For argument's sake, lets say,

It isn't true that 1d management or anyone else's management mistreat, e.g., threaten, harass, lie about/abuse/take advantage of young minds/closet/pr stunt people in the industry. Meaning, the norm is that artists are treated well and with respect. Then that means Rebecca Ferguson's story is just a one-time thing or a blip in the system that happens now and then; all in all, rarely ever. Seeing as that is true in this scenario, people would rush to her defense and be outraged. They would make it known it should not happen again or fight for/encourage better laws, so in the future it's less likely to happen. They would say ‘I would never work in/promote/support such a company if I knew.’ Would they not?

Note: Of course, people stay closeted all of the time so it’s entirely plausible people are advised to not be open about it or choose not to be open, and unfortunate mistreatment stories like the boy band Why Don’t We, Britney Spears', Rebecca Ferguson's, Amanda Bynes' Zayn Malik’s, Liam payne’s, Miley Cyrus' (when she was working for disney) Princess Diana (even though her circumstances were a bit different) and more exist. Sometimes these stories and issues are brought up, although it's usually mentioned for a moment, and it's easily forgotten or they blame the victim or it’s brushed off with an excuse or something to soften the harshness of it’s reality. One example of many here, here, & here.

Now let's try a different pov:

For argument’s sake, lets say,

It is true that: a) 1d was overworked and very much dehumanized. Their mental and physical health was not the priority when it should always have been, and/or b) one or more people chose/were advised/pushed (Idk which since Idk them personally) to stay in the closet because xyz.

In this circumstance, such a thing as a an industry that does the above^ is common knowledge because it’s the norm. A recent example & Adding this here again because yep.

It makes me think of when people see mistreatment in let’s say a workplace, and instead of people coming together at the person's defense, they turn a blind eye. Now why would anyone turn a blind eye to abuse? Unless you are somehow affected by it? Either that or you straight up don’t care. The former is a broad red flag and the latter is an individual red flag. Keep that in mind, I’ll come back to it.

People don't tend to overly worry about an average job loss over defending someone who is mistreated unless it's the only thing keeping them afloat/they are providing for others. In this scenario, people would go work somewhere else and/or go to someone's defense if they knew they were protected or weren't in harm's way by doing so.

This makes me think public figure people stay silent or stay in the closet for an unfortunate reason. A repetitive note: Sometimes people choose to stay in the closet and want… obviously it’s due to heteronormativity so it’s not that they want to want to but in a small way due to the circumstances they may have reasons too. They may not be ready or don’t trust everyone with that information so they only tell certain people which is 100% valid. People have every right to not share with those they don’t want to share with; that can be due to ‘perhaps privacy or perhaps conditioning or shame.’ (I am living proof) Other times people don’t want to but it’s heavily advised onto them. (as a non-public figure ordinary person most queer people can relate including me) E.g., heteronormativity, they want to keep their position as an artist. Regardless whether choosing not to be open or being heavily advised not to: People probably don't talk about it because maybe they don't want to revisit/publicly share yet/ever. Or the management they had was stressful and they don’t want to revisit that publicly. People in general may adjust to it and choose to ignore that just because something is normalized doesn't make it fair or always right.

I am fully empathetic and understanding to why people choose not to speak out about themselves or for those privacy they are respecting. It’s no ones business except theirs and the people they share it with. Whether it be about gender identity, sexuality, or abuse.

Those who don't have personal reasons not to call attention to these messed up norms are standing idle, and that speaks volumes.

What's also sad is when media and artists stay silent, people like Rebecca Ferguson go under the radar. Even though she's currently speaking out, people haven't given her the coverage that they would give to some rubbish gossip piece on the front of a trashy magazine or some fluff gossip site. If the main media do give attention (and they do sometimes) to these serious issues, it's again, for a moment, and then things are back to business as usual. That's just the media. We still don't see tons of public figures banning together outraged calling for more respect and change.

That said, I hope Why Don’t We and Rebecca Ferguson, and all others, eventually get the justice needed. Luckily Rebecca recently mentioned she is no longer in that situation and now is just working on proving her case to help others from going through the same. Significantly for younger, plausibly more vulnerable artists just starting their careers.

An afterthought: Many well-known celebrities didn't speak a word about Britney Spears' situation, if I am not misinformed, until it became headline news everywhere. (Mind everyone, her situation was considered a conspiracy for a long time) Until it became seen as a movement of the moment. That makes me wonder whether it's sometimes performative (plausible) or people are uncomfortable or worse: afraid to speak out until everyone is.

In conclusion, speculating that one or more people may be lying about management, are choosing to stay in the closet, or are being closeted are not bad/unreasonable standpoints. (If you hadn’t noticed you don’t need to be a larrie to have this point of view seeing as I’m not considered a larrie but I manage to respect larries and antis) Not everyone reading this will agree with me, but that's okay. After all, most people see/think differently in the outside world, so it is what it is.

Follow Rebecca on twitter here. She updates it regularly with information on mistreatment in the music industry.

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rosyrosethings · 4 years

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Harry and Y/n experience racism,

Disclaimer: I am a black girl and I like white guys. It's a lot of racism today from all types of people when it comes up to mixed race relationships. So that's it's. Enjoy.

“Harry please!!!”

“Y/n didn’t I already tell you no?” He questioned not even looking up at her. He continued to look down at his phone as he typed away.

“But Harry!! I have to have him!!!” She pleaded. Harry looked up at her annoyed.

“I said no.” She turned around and let out a groan. “Y/n a dog is a huge responsibility and You and I work way too much for a dog. We’d have no time for it.”

“Yea yea yea.” She mumbled as she walked away from him. They both just cane from lunch and saw a lady giving free puppy’s. Y/N’s been begging Harry non stop.

“You’re such a tight ass some time.” She mumbled at her desk.

“Wanna repeat that?” He said to her. She didn’t say anything. She just looked away from him.

“Y/n don’t be mad. How about this? Movie night me and you? I’d let you watch any movie you want.”She quickly grew a smile.

“No Bridget?”

“Nope. Just I and you and I’d cook you whatever you want.” She gave him a skeptical look.

“What do you want?” She said,

“What makes you think I want something?”

“Because our cooking me my favorite meal and letting me watch any of my favorite movies is it a bit weird. You want me to do something.”

“Fine, I want you to go with me to a business dinner.”

“Why can’t you go alone ?”

“Because the guy who I’m making the deal with is older and more old fashioned. So he is really big on marriage and I need you to play my wife.” Y/n burst out in laughter.

“Your wife? Why can’t Bridget do it?”

“She’s out of the country on business. Please Y/n”

“One condition.”

“What?”

“You take me to get a puppy after.”

“No.”

“Well looks like you’re gonna have to find a new Mrs.,” she said turning her nose up.

“Fine, we can get the dog. Just come to dinner with me.” She squealed and ran to hug him.

“You won’t regret it, Mr. Styles.”

“Larry and his wife are on their way. You have to wear this.” He said as he handed her a small box. they sat at the table next to each other. Both of them dress elegantly for the fancy restaurant. She opened the box.

“Holy shit Harry this is beautiful. Wow, I can get like 10 puppy’s with this.” He laughed as she put the ring over her finger. Enjoying the sight of the ring blinging in the room. Y/n enjoying him putting the ring on her finger.

“Do you mind if I go to the restroom?”

“Why are you asking me? I’m your husband, not your dad.” She scrunched her face at his response getting up walking to the bathroom. While Y/n went to the bathroom. Larry and his wife arrived.

“Ahh, Harry good to see you again!” He said as. He shook Harry’s hand firmly. Harry smiled “nice to see you also sir.”

“And this is. My wife Elaine.” Harry took her hand.

“Wow, Larry told me about you but he didn’t mention how beautiful you were.” Elaine blushed at Harry’s charm. “Why thank you, Harry.”

“So Harry’s where’s your wife?” Larry asked as they took their seats.

“She actually went to the ladies' rooms. Right before you guys arrived.” As he said that. He saw Y/n coming towards the table. Looking radiant as always. He couldn’t help but smile when he saw her. She sent him a small smile letting him know she was nervous about this. But she was stopped halfway by a waitress asking her where she’d get her dress.

“Actually there she is right there.” He said looking over at Y/n who was all the way across the room talking a waitress. Larry and his wife turned because their backs were facing Y/n.

“I don’t see anyone.” His wife said,

“Is it the waitress or is she sitting at another table,” Larry asked, the thought of a black woman being Harry’s wife didn’t even cross his mind.

“No, she’s talking to the waitress.”

“The dark one?” Elaine asked turning back around facing Harry a bit of disgust on her face she tried to hide it. But she couldn’t. She believed that people should only date within there race and so did her husband. He just turned around and cleared his throat to stop the awkwardness.

“The gorgeous one yes that is her. Is it a problem?”

Elaine looked up at Larry as they both shared a look of discomfort and confusion. By that time Y/n approached the table with all smiles. Harry was livid. How could they judge him for dating a dark-skinned woman? Y/n was twice as beautiful as the inside and out.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Stuntmen. Sorry, I’m late. I had to go to the ladies' room but now ready for dinner.” she said as she sat in her chair next to Harry.

“Actually Y/n we are gonna go.”

“What?why? We didn’t get to eat.”

“Because I said so. Now let’s go.”

“But I like the food here.” She pouted. Harry sent her a look. Her persistent attitude irritating him. She shut up. Knowing the look was serious. They both got up putting on their coats.

“Harry I’m sorry about that, what or who you do in are private time is none of our business. we could talk business.” He said, Harry faces scrunched up in anger.

“She’s not what I do in my private time. She’s my wife. No need to talk business with People like you and your lovely wife don’t deserve my business.” He grabbed Y/n’s hand and walked out of the restaurant.

They both got into the car the restaurant a while away from home. Y/n knew Harry was angry. She knew it was because of her skin.

“Did I ruin your business deal?”

“No, they’re assholes. You did amazing. An amazingly beautiful wife.”

“Why thank youu Styles. But you still owe me a puppy!!”

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut

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friendofhayley · 4 years

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ship history meme

Embrace your past and get to know your friends’ fandom origins!

Rules: Post gifs of your fandoms / ships starting with your most current hyperfixation and work backwards. (Bonus points if you share any stories about how or when you got into that ship! But not necessary!!) Then tag anyone whose fandom history you’d like to learn about!

Tagged by the most gorgeous, smartest, sweetest, and kindest person in my life @sightetsound <3 Sorry y’all, I have a lot of hyperfixations and I’m on NyQuil!

1. Katsuki Bakugo and Eijiro Kirishima, My Hero Academia - I literally can’t watch Season 4 until it’s finished because my heart will Explode if I’m left on a cliffhanger involving these too!!! (Unbreakable T.T <3) I don’t usually like animes but I fell in love with his trash bastard and his soft rock boyfriend by the villain’s attack in S1. It all started when I got a TikTok because a Very Hot Bakugo cosplayer was on there. (Literally, their rendition of Bakugo is just, umph. They have appeared in my dream.). As she got more popular he started cosplaying more of Class 1-A of MHA, and I kept wondering?? What the fuck is this anime about?? Why is there an alien girl?? I soon gave in and watched the show to gain context to this thirst trap. I have so many feels for these boys, even though I don’t post on them much here, and T.T

2. Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane, Shadowhunters - I literally almost wrote my thesis because of this ship. I got into Shadowhunters because I was depressed in a foreign, racist country where I couldn’t go outside alone because old white men would corner me on the street, and everyone was talking about how Mike from Glee was kissing a guy at a wedding? Instead of partying during my study abroad trip, I gobbled down Malec content. And like who wouldn’t?? Harry Shum Jr. was playing a bisexual warlock?? And he had lines and a main character role??? An interracial couple where the characters are both POC?? Sign me up! But then I quickly fell in love with awkward gayby Alec and immediately knew how it felt to be in his shoes. (Disclaimer: I still haven’t finished the show because I don’t want their story to end, but just seeing their wedding scene????? Tears!!!!!!!!!! Both wedding scenes! I-) I just love how soft they look at each as they realize how lucky they are to be able to fall in love against the odds. T.T They deserve the world and all the warlock and shadowhunter babies and T.T This is just going to devolve into me crying so-

3. Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale, Teen Wolf - I got into Teen Wolf to escape the hellfire that had become the Glee fandom around S3-S4. (Tbh it might have been Dereklei’s constant Sterek content on my dash that led me to give in.) Stiles was bi (through subtext) and definitely turned on by an older werewolf. What more could a depressed Gleek ask for? And listen - now looking back, Sterek is definitely gay Twilight - if Bella was snarkier, had a mental illness, and also a personality. Sterek was the ship to get me back into writing fanfiction and where I could read paranormal characters working through PTSD, ADHD, and other mental illnesses while fighting monsters and having unrealistic sex! I also love those future fics where Beacon Hills isn’t a Hellmouth anymore, and everyone’s alive and just living as one big found family. Truly, Derek deserves the world and I love him so much, and Stiles definitely agrees.

4. Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles, One Direction - If it’s a surprise that I’m a dark larrie, please read my bio. HL made me believe that love is real and exists and can last for years. I got into One Direction in 2011 through a Lilo fanfic, but as soon as I watched the Video Diaries,,,we knew. Louis has saved my life in ways I can’t describe and the songs that they’ve written for each other through their tough times are so inspiring to listen and dance to. Seeing how they’ve been dragged apart by management, Sony Entertainment, and the whole music industry as a whole even though they exist in glass closets is very disheartening to see. But their resilience that they show through their art (Only the Brave, Sweet Creature, If I Could Fly, and like so many others) is always there. If you want to fall in this rabbit hole, look at freddieismyqueen on YT and come inside lol. Larry is real.

5. Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson, Glee - the ship that got me on Tumblr! I didn’t start watching Glee until the summer before S2 came out. My whole choir was into it and I didn’t want to be “mainstream”, but Kurt was the first openly gay teen character that I saw on TV. When I heard a character played by Darren Criss, a musical theater YT legend from AVPM, I had to watch it. I ended up binging the first season with those Netflix DVDs during summer break (yeah remember when Netflix wasn’t streaming? lol). I watched every episode of that god-forsaken show the night of (or night after illegally, hidden from my parents) for that ship, and then me and my best friend would rant about it for the whole week: rinse and repeat. The episode they got together made me scream and I definitely put those Glee Rewind songs in my iPhone. (Fun fact: I used to cry at night because I wished someone like Kurt could love me like that because I heavily related to Blaine and his whole situation). I naturally stopped watching Glee the moment they broke them up and I’m still mad at their hasty attempt to marry them out of nowhere with no well-written getting together / make-up arc other than Jigsaw?? and a barn wedding?? As if Hummel would. What a trash fire. But dang, Glee fanfics have some of the dirtiest, kinkiest, forbidden fics out there. If you were ever on Glee_Kink_Meme on LJ, you know.

6. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter - the ship that started it all, the big kahuna, the ultimate enemies to lovers for 90s kids. Drarry got me into the fandom world in middle school, where I basically lived on FFN and LJ while pretending to do my homework. I used to get ready every day by watching the same playlist of “The best Harry Potter videos on Youtube!” (curated by Ariel333Lindt, who was the only queer person I knew but lived in Eastern Europe, where I could see two gay people kiss and fall in love in the safety of my room through badly photoshopped videos. Please check out that playlist). I just love how each fic is a microcosm where they have to construct how magical systems work, the backstories of pureblood families, creatures, or just wizarding culture for the end goal of having Drarry fuck and fall in love! I love redemption arcs that take 200k to achieve, I love dark!Harry takes, and every single different damn take on Narcissa, Pansy, and Millicent - because deep down that’s the writer trying to come to turns on whether or not Draco should be redeemed to get together with Harry. (I mean we all know they’re obsessed with each other, book 6 anyone?) I feel like Drarry fics have the best worldbuilding and characterizations of these characters, and I just love those moments when Draco and Harry take a moment to take a breath together and realize how far they’ve come. No one else can understand how it felt to be the pariah or the chosen one, they both interacted with Voldemort the most, and they have the most history together. They should have gotten together! But I mean the author’s dead, am I right?

So that was a lot! Those are all the ships that impacted me that I still participate with. They have shaped me for better or worse, and have made me learn more about who I am and what I want (or don’t want) in a relationship. This was the most fun essay I’ve ever written on NyQuil!

I’m tagging @homosociallyyours because I really want to know your fandom story! Also @stozierbrak because I love you and must hear you gush about your boys. I’m also tagging @iamaqualady because you’re literally the most intriguing person I know and I’m glad we’re friends even though we haven’t interacted that much? ish?

#tag #me #kiribaku #drarry #sterek

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aforgottenballad · 4 years

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Feelings on Sally Face Episode 5

Under a read more for obvious reasons, includes heavy spoilers and potentially triggering subjects.

Disclaimer: I might miss-remember some parts of the story or have missed a piece of lore that would settle minor complaints. I am however disappointed in the ending as a whole and in some of the very harmful tropes included in it. But I’m also just some dude online with an opinion, and you can stop reading at any time.

Rant under cut.

Alright ya’ll. I’ve had a couple days to digest the ending to Sally Face. While playing, I genuinely enjoyed some elements of the game. The chapter started on a dark but nearly hopeful note. Neil and Ash were still working to bring the cult down. It seemed likely Sal would be resurrected. Todd had apparently escaped the hospital, and that had potential to be either a very very good or very very bad thing. Maple was possessed by whatever fucked up the souls of the other apartment tenants, but hey! At least her and Neil weren’t in on the cult like so many fans predicted. Unfortunately, this series has a way of getting darker and darker as it progresses. First thing that bugged me was the lore drop about how the cult was founded. A Native American tribe. Right. Because why wouldn’t Indigenous peoples be in a story without being part of some mystical occult backstory, portrayed as mysterious historical props who worshiped something dark and evil instead of being portrayed as human beings.

But I continued. I really enjoyed playing as Ashley and getting some insight into her character. I enjoyed the task of planting the C4 in the temple... catacomb... thing. We get to see Travis again! I was excited that a lot of us were right about him being indoctrinated but also working to fight the cult from the inside. We knew he had some good in him after all.

When Ash tries to resurrect Sal, we get even more insight into her character, and unfortunately a lot of it is “Grieving, distraught, and full of self-blame”. I want to hug her. Sal’s spirit is apparently revived by those pyramids, and he can dimension warp. We meet Jim, or what’s left of him, and he doesn’t give a fuck about anything anymore but agrees to help Sal anyway. This is, narratively speaking, weird as hell. His entire character arc for four episodes was “Loved his family so much he sacrificed himself to save them”, and suddenly he’s just some glowy dude attached to Magic Spirit Tubes who doesn’t give half a shit. I guess it makes sense as a way to wrap up why he’s been able to drift between worlds but... if he doesn’t care about any of that anymore why help Sal? And what about Rosenberg? Is she like Jim, or do we just have to assume she’s magical because her family helped found the cult? (Explained in an easter egg later on, because this game doesn’t just drop its lore. Not even the CRUCIAL lore. You have to achievement hunt for it.) Sal can enter various doors in the House In The Void to step into alternate realities, and this was my favorite aspect of the game. Each door has a different art style, and I really liked seeing these alternate realities. Steve probably worked the hardest and longest on drawing out and coding these scenes. I genuinely applaud the man for the work put into this endeavor I’m assuming all by himself.

Meanwhile, Ash tries to unbind Larry’s soul from the tree house he died in, which doesn’t work. Did we ever find out why his body was never found? No? Ok that seems important.

After each puzzle, Sal’s body is restored a little bit at a time, but even after turning on all the pyramids and solving the mysteries behind all three doors, he can’t make it back to the “real” world. So Ashley kills herself. Or tries to. Because apparently that’s the only way to complete the ritual, and also because she feels really bad about not unbinding Larry’s soul and about not fixing Sal. Again, I want to hug her, but I have to watch her hurt herself instead, cause Steve doesn’t let us have nice things.

Okay, so this is a gorey game. We know. But one of the BIGGEST no-nos suicide prevention networks will tell you when consulting them about mental illness and suicide in media is NOT to show a graphic suicide in progress. Steve is aware a lot of his fans are A) Young teens to young adults B) Struggling with mental illness.

His main character suffers from depression and anxiety and this fact has resonated with hundreds of fans. It’s irresponsible to purposefully include a graphic suicide attempt, but he did it last chapter, showing a gunshot suicide’s aftermath, then he did it again with Ashley. Call me a wiener if you like, point out the graphic scenes from earlier in the game and call me a hypocrite for not being upset by that, but you have to admit the Spongebob-close-up-shot look to those scenes have a totally different feel. Speaking as someone who actually has a pretty thick skin, but is concerned about the fans who might be in a worse place or who could be as young as 12, that was fucked up.

Anyway, Ash’s attempt doesn’t take, because she’s struck by magic lightning, which infuses Sal’s soul into her. Now her arm is one of those stretchy sticky hands, but with bio luminescence and the ability to kick cultist ass. I actually thought this part was really cool, and was super ready to go on a cultist smacking spree. But again, we can’t have nice things and before we get to do anything badass we have to look at gruesome imagery again.

You get to see Void Larry, who is now old and a wizard or something, but first...

Surprise! Maple and Neil are dead! Not just dead, but hung up from hooks covered in blood! And naked!

Hey?? Hey Steve????? You know how they’re both POC?? And that lynching imagery is EXTREMELY NOT GOOD?!!????

“Two white people are hung up with them” YEAH? WELL WE’VE NEVER SEEN THOSE CHARACTERS BEFORE. THEY’RE JUST RANDOM PEOPLE.

I’ve seen people arguing “The white characters go through terrible things too” but it’s still really fucked up that by the end of the game, every. Single. Person of color. In the game. Has died. Gruesomely. It’s a gorey, dark, bleak game, and white characters die as well, gruesomely; but not all of them. None of them that are named are shown strung up, naked. That’s fucked up. That isn’t okay.

There are also a total of three gay characters in this game. One is Todd, who goes through the standard “bad bad stuff” the game is used to, is the white one, and he survives. One is Neil, one of the aforementioned people of color who died horribly and who only really existed to be Todd’s boyfriend and therefore a source of angst for Todd when he dies. The third is Travis, another man of color, and an abuse victim, who dies to fulfill his character arc as an abuse victim, which is also really shitty to see over and over again as an abuse survivor.

Look, I know Steve pulled a lot of inspiration from old TV shows and horror series that probably weren’t all “politically correct”. I know it’s always been kind of an edgy and dark game. I know Steve probably didn’t think about the repercussions of all his narrative choices. But I also know he actively ignored some people offering to educate him on issues he has no experience with. I know he worked hard on this game, by himself, but we as fans have paid him and waited for years and it isn’t selfish or ungrateful to be hurt and disappointed. He knows his audience is diverse, he knows a lot of us were attracted to the game because of a gender nonconforming main character, a main character who struggles with mental illness, a cast that isn’t 100% white and conventionally attractive. Of course he didn’t need to change the plot for us! It’s his game, his vision, but the least he could have done is research how to not actively hurt and alienate a good portion of us. I don’t think anyone is bad or racist for still finding solace in the characters and in what the story was before this, I’m not attacking you personally, whoever is reading this. I, personally, still have loads of Sally Face art in my queue, I still have active role plays going on, my Sal wig is sitting like 8 feet away waiting for the next time my friends want to take cosplay pictures. I still enjoyed playing the game for the most part. Without this game I wouldn’t even know most of my current friends. It’s just really shitty how it ended like this, and a lot of people I talk to daily either feel too sick to even talk about the game anymore after seeing people like them treated like trash by the narrative or try to focus on the good things they got out of just being part of the fandom but don’t feel comfortable supporting the developer anymore.

Even if there wasn’t all these hurtful tropes packed into the game, and yes, even after unlocking the epilogue, the game just feels cold. It feels rushed, probably because of how much time went into the alternate dimension gimmick. I wish Steve had at least consulted people over the script. It felt like not only did he pour all his work into experimenting with the mixed media, he also just took whatever expectations the fans had and went somewhere completely different just to have his story be “unpredictable”. That isn’t always a good thing. Plot twists, downer endings, dark and scary imagery, all of these things can be done beautifully, but in this case it felt like he just wanted the series to end. The game didn’t subvert expectations, it fed into the harmful stereotypes and tropes all the fans were so hopeful it wouldn’t.

...On top of not making any sense unless you’re able to 100% all the puzzles. And even when you do, it feels like all the bad stuff happened for no reason. The ending doesn’t conclude anything. Even when you unlock the epilogue, all it tells you is that a third of the world has died and that the main cast haven’t accomplished much besides “Trying to help”. Sal and Todd have powers now, but that isn’t elaborated on much. Larry’s spirit is missing, if he even exists in any plane at all anymore. It doesn’t even mention what’s going on with Ash. It just feels like nothing mattered.

#sally face #long post #analysis #sally face spoilers #chapter 5 spoilers

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madpanda75 · 6 years

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“Cuban Affair”

Disclaimer: It has recently come to my attention that this story raised concerns about how it’s not necessarily accurate for a Cuban, such as Rafael, to actually want to visit Cuba, given the oppression that Cubans were and still are subjected to under a Communist government.

Growing up with a Puerto Rican mother who was active in educating her children about human rights, particularly in Latin America, has truly shaped the woman I am today. I have studied Latin American politics in college; visited countries such as Peru, Haiti, Uruguay, and Argentina; walked with the Madres de Plaza de Mayo; visited La Escuela de Mecanica de la Armada where 5000 men and women were detained, tortured, and killed by their government, and worked with the Latino community in rural areas of Virginia. I am embarrassed that I would write a story and get lost in the romanticism of returning to your roots without even thinking of the ramifications that may have when the country in question is still run by a Communist political party.

So when reading this story, please understand that it is purely fictional and was never meant to offend anyone and I apologize for my ignorance on the subject.

Soft music played in the background of the restaurant as Rafael drummed his fingers against the table, turning his head when he heard the door open. He sighed when it wasn’t you, checking his watch for the umpteenth time that evening. This wasn’t the first time you were running late, in fact for the past month or so it had become a bit of a habit, you had even been coming home later than usual, blaming it on work.

Suddenly, Rafael heard his phone buzz in his pocket, he quickly answered without even checking who it was. “Cariño, are you on your way. I just ordered your favorite bottle of wine.”

“Awww Rafael, you shouldn’t have.” Sonny replied. The ADA rolled his eyes upon hearing your partner’s voice on the phone rather than yours.

“Sorry, Carisi. I thought you were Y/N. Speaking of which would you mind letting my fiancé go so she can come to dinner already.”

“What are ya’ talkin’ about counselor. Y/N left work early today, something about an appointment she had to make. She didn’t tell ya?”

“No, she didn’t.” Rafael softly said.

“Oh…..well, I’m sure it slipped her mind. Anyways the reason I called is because we’re getting close to the holidays and it’s always a slow time around the precinct. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind me shadowing you on a case again.”

Sonny continued to ramble when you walked into the restaurant. Rafael barely listened to him, waving you over from the table. “Yeah, whatever Carisi. We’ll talk tomorrow.” He hung up the phone as you approached him, kissing his cheek.

“Sorry I’m late babe. I love Sonny but, my God, that boy can talk. I couldn’t get away from him.” You said, taking your seat across from Rafael.

He raised his eyebrow at you, “That’s funny...cause I just got off the phone with him. Carisi said you left work early for an appointment.”

You looked up from the menu in your hands over at your fiancé, your face turning red. “Oh….well.” Rafael sipped his scotch, watching you squirm, he could tell you were lying. “You see….I had a doctors appointment….but I came back to work after that. “

“Sonny made it seem as if you didn’t come back to work.” The ADA said, quirking his eyebrow in suspicion.

“Well….. you know Sonny. He gets distracted. I mean the boy sees something shiny out of the corner of his eye and you’ve lost him. Anyways, let’s eat. I’m starving.” You said, quickly changing the subject as you picked up the menu again.

Rafael clenched his jaw, along with running late, you had been acting strange, always sneaking around and checking your phone. The other night you snapped at him for looking over your shoulder while you were working on your laptop. He stood there dumbfounded as you closed it quickly before storming off to the bedroom.

The last time he had witnessed such behavior was back when he had been in a relationship with Yelina, which only ended in betrayal and heartbreak. It took a while, but Rafael had managed to open his heart to you. Your relationship was built on trust and love, he never imagined that you would be capable of cheating on him, until now. Not wanting to start a scene in the restaurant, Rafael decided to drop it and focus on his evening with you.

After dinner, the two of you made your way back home. Dropping your purse and phone on the kitchen counter, you headed towards the bathroom to take a shower. Rafael collapsed on the couch, kicking off his shoes and resting his feet on the table when he heard your phone buzzing.

The ADA stood up, moving over to the phone, the vibrations causing it to dance across the counter. Although he knew it would be a betrayal of your trust, Rafael couldn’t help himself and reached for it, two text messages popping up on your screen.

[Larry 9:02 PM]

“We’re all set for the week of December 16.”

[Larry 9:04 PM]

“You were so jumpy this afternoon. Relax, he doesn’t suspect a thing.”

Rafael’s heart dropped into his stomach, his hands began to shake, the room suddenly spinning, as beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. “This can’t be happening to me,” he thought. After Yelina had left him for Alex, Rafael promised himself that he would never be put in this situation again and yet here you were cheating on him with a man named Larry. Who has an affair with a man named Larry?! Apparently you did.

Rafael poured himself a glass of scotch before deciding it was better to keep a sharp mind when he confronted you with your indiscretion. He threw the glass in the sink, glass shattering everywhere, running his hands through his hair, the ADA stood there waiting for you to come out of the shower.

You emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, surprised when you didn’t see your fiancé relaxing in bed. Walking down the hall, you saw him standing in the kitchen, his green eyes cold as they pierced right through you. “Raf…. everything ok?”

“Who’s Larry?” Rafael demanded.

You stood there stunned, turning redder by the minute, “I….don’t…….know who you’re talking about.”

“DON’T LIE TO ME!” Rafael boomed before taking a breath, trying to control his temper. “I saw your text messages. I know everything….I know all about Larry and the trip you’re planning in December. Did you really think you could hide this from me? How stupid do you think I am!?”

Now it was your turn to be angry at this blatant invasion of your privacy, “You read my text messages!? What the hell Rafael!”

“Oh so now you’re mad at me when you’ve been lying and sneaking around behind my back!” Your fiancé looked at you, a deep sadness settling into his frame, tears pooling in his eyes. “How could you do this to me after everything I’ve told you, after everything we’ve been through….you betray me.”

The realization that Rafael thought you were having an affair began to sink in, you stepped towards him, arms outstretched, “Raf, please let me explain.”

He shrugged you off, walking towards the door. “Don’t bother. I’m out of here.” You ran past him, almost losing your towel in the process as you blocked the door with your body. “Babe, please don’t leave. Just let me explain. Please I’m begging you! Please!”

He glared at you for a moment, rolling his eyes and moving towards the living room, sitting on the couch. “You have 5 minutes and then I’m gone.”

You ran to your bedroom, pulling a file out of your drawer before returning to the living room. Handing him the manila folder, you sat next to Rafael as he looked through the documents.

“What is this?” He asked, looking at various itineraries with a Cuban travel guide, hotel reservations, and plane tickets to Havana, one with his name on it. “You’re planning a trip to Cuba….we’re…...going to Cuba. You and me?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise for your birthday…...so ‘Happy Birthday,’ I guess.” You softly said.

Your fiancé stared at you, a stunned look on his face. “That’s why you’ve been sneaking around.”

“Larry is an old friend of my parents, he’s a travel agent that specializes in trips to Cuba. I’ve been working with him to plan our vacation.” You explained. “We just need to make sure all of our documents, visas, and travel plans are in order before we go so he’s been helping me with that.”

“Oh my God….Y/N...we’re going to Cuba!” He shouted, jumping up and down on the couch, as if he was a kid on Christmas.

You beamed, nodding your head. In all the years you had known Rafael, you had never seen him so excited. “We’re all set for the week of December 16th. Figured it would be a nice change of pace from our traditional week of skiing in Switzerland.”

Rafael kissed you sweetly, smiling against your lips before pulling away, a somber expression on his face, “I’m so sorry I ruined your surprise, cariño and I’m sorry I thought you were having an affair.”

“Don’t apologize, I can see how you would think that but I would never cheat on you. I love you so much. You’re my world, Rafi.”

“I love you too.” Rafael cupped your face, caressing your cheek gently with his thumb. “For the record, you’re a terrible liar.” He said with a smirk.

You laughed, “I know...but it’s not easy keeping secrets from you.” Biting your bottom lip, you looked up at him through your lashes. “So…..you like your present?”

“Like it...I love it cariño.” He purred, pulling the towel away to reveal your naked form. “In fact, let me show you just how much I love my birthday present.” Rafael scooped you up into his arms, carrying you into the bedroom where he showed you just how much he loved his surprise.

A couple months later, you and Rafael were on an airplane flying into José Martí International. The ADA was beside himself with excitement, his nose practically pressed up against the window, looking out at the lush green island surrounded by deep blue water. As your plane slowly descended he could make out the colorful baroque Spanish style buildings of Havana.

He could hardly wait to explore the city that his abuela had talked about for years with such affection. If he closed his eyes, Rafael could still see the faint trace of sadness in her eyes, she had always wanted to go back, to show her grandson where he came from. “I finally made it, abuelita.” He thought to himself, holding your hand tightly as the plane’s wheels met the pavement, the sound of the engine roaring in his ears as his body was pushed back into his seat.

Suddenly the flight attendant came over the PA system, “Señoras y señores, bienvenidos al aeropuerto de José Martí Internacional. La hora local son las cuatro y 23 minutos de la tarde y la temperatura es de 27 grados centígrados.” As the flight attendant continued to speak, you looked over at Rafael, he was beaming with tears welling up in his eyes. “Cariño, I can’t believe we’re here. This is the best gift anyone has ever given me.” He said, kissing your hand. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too. Happy Birthday, mi amor.” You kissed him sweetly, before unbuckling your seatbelt, the two of you ready to embark on your Cuban adventure.

Translation: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to José Martí International Airport. The local time is 4:23 pm and the temperature is 80 degrees.

@beltzboys2015-blog @obfuscateyummy @letty-o @sweetsummertime99 @sonnysdoll @amirightcounsellor @lyssa1385 @burningsorr0ws @katmstanton @mimiashton @gibbs274 @izzythefanfreak @southern-magnolias

#rafael barba #rafael barba fic #rafael barba x reader #rafael barba imagine #barba #barba fic #barba imagine #law and order svu imagine #law and order svu fic #happy birthday raúl esparza

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allson243 · 5 years

Text

Night At The Museum: REUNTIED

(FANFIC)

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NATM

August 16 , 2021

Seven years later, 56 year old Larry Daley was still a high school history teacher. He still misses being a night guard at the Natural History museum. He still remembered the good times he had with the friends he made there. He remembered going on risky adventures with them but it was worth it. But things change and that's the change he had to adjust to. He was used to being alone now since his son, Nick, who was now 30. He became a audio engineer. Nick was also married to his high crush named Andrea.

Yeah, Larry's son was very busy yet so was Larry himself but that doesn't change the fact that he lives alone. Larry wouldn't even bother to visit the museum & it's been so long. He notices that the museum in London has been visiting three times a year but he still doesn't go visit.

Larry convinced himself that he's made the right choice by letting them go even. Although he can't bring himself to see them after all these years. Now, he feels like they forgot all about him so he doesn't see the point of visiting.

But this time, Larry will step in the museum to check on his friends to see how they've been doing. Today was the day that Tilly , the night guard would bring the other exhibits over from London.

The doorbell rang on a Sunday morning. Larry got off from his couch to open the door seeing it was Nick. "Hey Dad" Nick smiled happily.

Larry smiled back and hugs his son tightly like his life depended on it.

"Oh , Nicky. I missed you so much. We've both been so busy and...we haven't had time to hangout and talk" Larry frowned & so did Nick.

"Yeah, but I hope you're doing great" Nick formed back a smile.

Larry forced himself to smile even though he's not really fine. He's been tired of work & tired of the loneliness.

"I heard that Tilly is here. It's been so long since we left the museum. I really miss Teddy, Dexter, Octy & Jed. I miss everyone, should we go see them tonight? Um...if you already got plans we can go another—"

"No,no, we can go. I was planning on it too. It has been so long &...I just hope they would remember me" Larry sighs.

"I know that they will" Nick places his hand on his Dad's shoulder.

"Let go out for lunch , Dad. And then we can make our way to the museum!"

The father and son went out to eat for lunch & hangout at the Theodore Roosevelt Park in front of the museum.

"So, how's school?" Larry's son asked.

"It's good. Students can get off task but I do make sure they pass my class so that I won't have to see them another year" Larry chuckled.

"That's good" Nick nods his head impressively.

"How are things going between you and Andrea?" Larry asked.

"Um...yeah about me and her..." Nick looks at his Dad as he gulps.

"I've been accepted another job in Louisville. And uh...Andrea has also been accepted a job as a Case manager. We are planning to move next year" Nick smiles with so much brightness.

"O-Oh? That's...nice" Larry forced a smile.

Why? What's wrong with New York?

Oh, how Larry wishes he can smile & be happy for his son but all he feels is more sadness coming over him as a son tells him that he's going to move to Louisville. Now, Larry feels ten-times more lonely than he was before.

Suddenly, he feels tightness in his chest, he winches, and holds his chest in pain. Nick looks closely at his Dad and got into panic mode "D-Dad? A-Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, I-I'm fine. I-It's just chest pain" Larry relaxes with his chest still hurting. He doesn't want his son to worry about him.

"Are you sure? We can stop by the drugstore and grab some medicine for you" Nick suggested.

"No, it's okay, Nick" Larry refuses.

"OK but if anything is off or if anything hurts let me know we can go home"

"Okay" Larry chuckles.

When it was almost sundown Larry and Nick went inside the museum. Everything seemed the same but it's been so long.

"LARRY DALEY" It was Tilly who greeted them.

"Hey, how are you?" Larry shakes Tilly's hand.

"I've been great! You?"

"Fine, how's being a night guard?" Larry asked.

"You were right. Best job ever!" Tilly smiled happily.

"I'm glad to hear t–" Larry coughed. "Skews me, i'm glad to hear that. Anything new or anything happened while they all came to life" he cleared his throat.

"No, not really everyone's behaving, no trouble. They are all a delight to have even when they all come together like this" Tilly giggles.

"T-That's great! I'm glad as well to hear great news from you and how everyone is doing" Larry smiles softly.

"Anyways, it's getting dark. Everyone else should be up & going in 3,2,1..."

Larry turns around hearing footsteps coming down the hallway. He sees Ankmenrah holding the tablet in his hand with a smile.

"Larry I would so glad to see you again. I missed you so much" The pharaoh hugged Larry.

"H-Hey there, Ank. I've missed you too" Larry hugs back.

"It is good to see you again dangly bells!" It was Lancelot.

"Hey Lance! it's good to see you too!" Larry shakes the knights hands.

"Hey" Nick greeted the knight.

"Nick! You're a man now! It's incredible!" Lancelot hugs Nick.

"Yes! And you are still the Lance I saw seven years ago" Nick chuckles.

The Rexy & Trixie met up as well. Everything else in the museum came to life greeting Larry one by one. Teddy also agreed to Larry with a big hug "It's so wonderful to meet you again, Lawrence!"

"It's great to meet you too, Teddy. It's been so long but I'm glad I'm here now" Larry tried not to cry.

"Oh and Nick how are you? It's been so long, you're all grown up now you become a man!" Teddy hugged Nick.

"Hey Ted!" Nick hugs back.

"Larry!" It was Sacagawea.

"Wow! Your hair is down & I am glad to see you too!" Larry observes Sacagawea's hair change before he hugs her.

"GIGANTOR!" It was jedidiah shouting along with Octavius, Dexter, & Attila all together.

"Hey!" Larry smiled widely. Dexter climbs onto Larry hugging his neck.

"I missed you too buddy" Larry padded Dexter's back.

"It's been so long my friend! How are you?" Octavius asked.

"I'm fi–" Larry started coughing again.

"Eww" Jed & Octy steps away in disgust.

Larry continues after coughing "I'm fine. You two?" He referred to Jed & Octy.

"We are good!" Jedediah smiled.

Attila surprises Larry with a huge hug along with the Hun crying on his shoulder.

"Bi chamaig sanaj baina!"

"Aww, I missed you too" Larry hugs the hun back.

"We should all do something together since we have reunited with our most dearest friend, Larry Daley & his son Nick" Teddy announced.

"Lancelot has a perfect idea for us to start off with!" Lancelot smirks at Tilly. "Karaoke night!" Lancelot raises his sword in the air.

"OH YUH!" Tilly howled.

"I'm guessing you all did Karaoke more than once" Larry looks at Tilly.

"I introduced them to it & you won't believe how many of them have such nice voices!" Tilly squeals.

"DADA!" It was Laaa , the caveman.

"Laaa! Hey Laaa, missed me?"

"Dada!" Laaa hugged Larry tightly making him fall onto the floor.

"O-Okay, okay! T-Take it easy, I'm in my late 50's now. I missed you too"

Laaa helps set up karaoke with Attila & Laaa while Nick & Lancelot catches up. Along with everyone catching up with one another.

"So" Jedediah said.

"So" Octavius smiles at his cowboy friend.

"I-It's been awhile since we talked. How are you feeling about Gigantor visiting us for the first time in forever?"

"I'm glad he finally came to see us" Octavius sighs.

"Me too, I'm also happy to see you too" Jed smiled at his best friend.

"Awww, so sweet of you , Jedediah to miss me that much. It makes sense that when the sun goes down I'm the first person you look for" Octavius grins.

"M-Me? Sweet?" Jed couldn't help but smile and turn away, also blushing.

Larry was in the restroom washing his hands. He started coughing again but this time it was a very harsh rough cough. Larry held onto the sink coughing loudly then warm liquid came out his mouth, it was blood.

Larry shrugs it off and washes the blood away. He didn't want to worry about what was happening to him most of all he didn't have time to care right now. He missed his friends & he wants to spend time with them. Nothing was going to get in the way of his night.

#night at the museum #natm #larry daley #jedediah smith #Gauis Octavius #attila the hun #ankmenrah #theodore roosevelt #sacagawea #ben stiller #owen wilson #Steve coogan #robin williams #Rami Malek

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blackbeltkitten2ficsnships-blog · 5 years

Text

Bad, bad Alphonse Capone (Chapter 11)

Cher soldat.

Fandom/Movie/Series/Ect: Night At The Museum

Setting: Larry is still the night guard, several exhibits from the Smithsonian are at the Museum of Natural History

Pairing(s): Eventual Capoleon, Jedtavius, Teddy/Sacagawea

Characters: Al Capone, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan the Terrible (Awesome), Larry Daley, Teddy Roosevelt, Sacagawea, Jedediah Smith, Octavius, Ahkmenrah, Shaka Zulu, several Zulu tribe members, Dr. Richard McPhee, several Mobsters, Antonio Villalobos, Mariana Villalobos, Ramón Espina, Doctor Jess McClain, Docteur Alain Chaput, Claude Travere

Genre/Warnings: Some slightly graphic violence, Foul language, Fic inspired by a song, I’ll come up with more tags later

Notes: I listened to the song “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce about a thousand times and decided I just HAD to make a fic. The reason Al and the boys get made into color (as a plot point) is so everyone can see what happens to Al.

If anyone is OOC or this reads like a Dick & Jane, this is my second posted fic and I haven’t done much writing in the NATM field. (Disclaimer: I don’t own the song, nor the characters.) (If anything suddenly changes, I had to fix a mistake I missed.)

The title’s translation is “Dear soldier.”

I’m sorry it took so so long to update but I lost my motivation there for a bit, and I finally forced myself to finish this chapter and begin on the next one!

I proofread this thing what feels like five times and I’m honestly so done with it, just message me/comment if you notice any mistakes.

Word count: 1,495

Summary: Al and the boys practically beg (Though they won’t stoop so far as to say they were actually begging.) for him and his gang to be colored up like everyone else. Finally one day they get a paint-job, despite McPhee’s ever-present paranoia; Capone and the gang being popular in grey-scale. Several weeks after they finally get what they want, Al gets in a fight, and doesn’t come out of it well. Luckily for him Napoleon is compassionate enough to put up with Al’s grating personality to help him.

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Last Chapter

Napoleon leaves the office next to Al, and makes his way to the usual meeting room.

Napoleon had planned to meet with Frankie and Claude in the meeting room at seven, one hour before the meeting is to take place.

Napoleon and Claude find Frankie there, sitting on a stool and down to some kind of bodysuit at six forty-five.

“Set the trunk there, and return at eight.”

The trunk thunks when it hits the floor, and the soldiers march out and off down the hall.

Claude opens the trunk and pulls out a shirt. Frankie snatches it from him.

“What’s with you French and puffy shirts, anyway?”

“Frankie, if you had been in Italy during our time, you would be wearing a shirt five times as billowy as this, count yourself lucky.”

Frankie snorts.

“If you say so, Napoleon.”

He bunches it up and almost puts it over his head before Claude manages to stop him.

“Wait, take off the... Whatever that is you have on.”

Frankie’s eyes widen.

“Are you kiddin’? You want me to take off my union suit?”

“Oh, so that’s what Al was talking about... Yes.”

Frankie stares at Claude like he’s turned green.

“But... I’ll be naked...”

Claude glances over at Napoleon and visibly bites his cheek.

“Not after you put the shirt on.”

“So you go around commando all day, every day?”

Napoleon grins when Claude makes a confused noise.

“Just take it off.”

Frankie sighs and unbuttons the union suit down to his bellybutton, pulls the sleeves off of his shoulders and puts on the billowy shirt, before unbuttoning the union suit the rest of the way and letting it fall out from underneath.

Frankie cups his hands in front of his crotch and both Napoleon and Claude have a hard time not laughing.

Claude hands him a pair of stockings and garters.

“Well I know what these are-” He shakes the stockings in one hand. “But not these.” He shakes the leather garters in the other hand.

Napoleon shakes his head.

“Garters, how else will your stockings stay up?”

Frankie sighs and sits down on the stool, and pulls the stockings on, before wrapping a garter around his thigh.

“No, just below the knee, they’ll slip if you put them around your thighs.”

Frankie buckles the garters on.

Claude pulls a pair of creamy white breeches out of the trunk and hands them to Frankie, who just stares at them.

“Did anyone wear these before me?”

“No, those haven’t been worn. You draw the tails of your shirt between your legs when tucking your shirt into your breeches, so even if they had been, no direct contact is made.”

While Frankie pulls on his breeches and buttons them, Claude buttons Frankie’s collar and buckles on his stock.

Claude hands him a pair of boots, which he pulls on.

“You are coming together, Frankie.”

“You’d think that, Napoleon. I feel like an idiot.”

Napoleon sighs.

Claude hands him a waistcoat and coat.

While Frankie puts on and buttons the waistcoat and pulls on the coat, Claude dusts off a hat.

“Great, and a hat too, huh? Can’t have me besmirching the French army, can you?”

Claude tosses the hat at Frankie.

“I’m going to round up some of the men, I shall see you momentarily, Général.”

Claude bows respectfully and jogs out of the room.

“So... Would you prefer I call you ‘Frankie’, or your whole first name while you’re a French soldier?”

Frankie sticks the hat on his head.

“Call me Frankie, Francis, or Francesco, I don’t care.”

“Francis it is.”

Napoleon sees Frankie step on another soldier’s feet again and halts everyone.

“Francis, come here a minute.”

Frankie tromps up and does his best to stand at attention.

“Were you ever in the military?”

“Nah- I mean no sir.”

Napoleon sighs.

“Francis, I mean no offence, but you’re a terrible soldier."

“That’s why I didn’t get drafted, sir.”

Napoleon points him back in line and continues drills.

Napoleon only stops drilling once Frankie gets the moves correct, mostly.

“You’ve done good today, men. Find a group, set up your fire, and we’ll eat.”

Every soldier finds his preferred group, leaving only Frankie standing alone in the middle.

“Francis, join this group here.”

Napoleon points toward a group that always sets up in front of his and Claude’s tables. The whole group looks between themselves and grumbles quietly. Napoleon give them his best “Try me.” glare.

Frankie leans his gun on the wall and joins the group.

After several minutes of arguing they finally set up their fire, pull out stools, and set up the trivet.

Napoleon hears a mumble behind him and turns around to Al standing in the doorway.

“Hey, Napoleon, wanna talk?”

Napoleon dodges a few soldiers carrying his table and stool, and slips out into the hallway beside Al.

“Is there something urgent?”

“No, just wanted to talk to ya, we didn’t make much conversation while you were changing my bandages tonight. Sorry for yellin’ at ya when the door was locked yesterday.”

“It’s alright, Alphonse. Again I am sorry for looking into your life without asking you first.”

“I’m over it. What all did you learn anyway?”

“The most important would be is when you accidentally insulted a woman and got slashed by her brother, and you hate being called Scarface.”

“It wasn’t much of an accident....”

Several shouts of “Join us, Général!” pulls Napoleon out of the conversation.

“I have to go, I must converse with my men.”

Al nods quickly and turns to walk away.

“Uh, feel free to gather the rest of your men and join us, it’ll be much more interesting with some new company.”

Al turns back, grinning.

“Will do, Napoleon.”

Al salutes and jogs off down the hallway.

A few minutes before food is served, Al and his men show up, hovering awkwardly in the doorway.

Napoleon waves over a few men and has them set up a table and stool next to his own, with a bowl, spoon and knife. A few more soldiers set up some stools in other groups, away from Frankie.

Johnny, Tony and Ralph all find stools among the soldiers, while Napoleon waves Al over.

“Sit, sit, we’re about to eat!”

Al shuffles over and sits down. The stool creaks underneath him, and Al winces.

“They do that all the time, we’ve only had one break so far, do not worry u mo amicu.”

Al grins a little and drums on the table softly with his fingers.

“So what are we eating?”

A soldier comes around with a pot and a ladle, and pours bean soup in their bowls, Napoleon first, then Claude, and finally Al.

Another soldier comes up with a plate of bread slices next half of a loaf, and a small platter with butter on it. He sets the half loaf and the butter on Napoleon’s table, and three slices each on Claude’s and Al’s tables.

“Soupe de haricots and bread.”

Napoleon watches Al out of the corner of his eye, and notices him glance several times between his and Claude’s tables and Napoleon’s table.

“You sure get preferential treatment, eh Napoleon?”

There it is, the judgement. Napoleon sighs loudly. He waves over a soldier carrying platters and takes two, dividing the butter into thirds and giving both Al and Claude one.

“Général Sir, you know I don’t want butter on soupe de haricots night.”

Napoleon stares at Al as Claude slides the platter back to Napoleon’s table.

“If you want anything else, feel free to insult me again.”

“I didn’t... I’m sorry.”

“Un-training the etiquette is harder than just asking for something. Your apology is accepted.”

A third soldier comes up with three wine glasses and a bottle of wine. He sets the glasses down and pours the wine in the same order, Napoleon, Claude, Al. He sets the wine bottle on Napoleon’s table and walks off.

Al picks up his glass indelicately and sniffs it, a puzzled look on his face.

“Is it no good?”

“Nah... it’s just, I’m not good at identifying wine.”

“By the way you are holding that glass, I can tell you don’t drink it much.”

Al chuckles quietly.

“So... How’s Frankie been doin’? Hopefully he didn’t accidentally stab anyone.”

“He came close a few times, but no injuries, aside from squashed toes.”

“Mmm. He didn’t mouth off to you at all did he?”

Napoleon cuts off a chunk of bread and butters it thoroughly.

“Fortunately no... Any more pain?”

“Nah, just tingly if I bump my neck.”

“That’s good.”

Napoleon spoons some bean soup on his bread and eats it.

Al snorts quietly.

“Nice, I do that too.”

Al spoons a big pile of beans on his own bread and manages to fit it in his mouth. Napoleon tries not to laugh when bean juice drips down Al’s chin.

Napoleon watches Frankie conversing with the other men in his group.

Translations:

Général = General

Soupe de haricots = Bean soup

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

Text

Not-So-Very Lovely

by Viorica

Sunday, 26 July 2009

Alternate title: "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Rape House"~

I can't figure out what happened to Stratford this year. Last year's season was brilliant, with at least eight shows that I'd happily see over and over again. This season, not only has the quality of the productions dropped drastically, they seem to have given up on having any kind of coherent theme running through their program. Last year's playbill- which included

Fuente Ovejuna

The Trojan Women

The Taming of the Shrew

, and

Shakespeare's Universe: Her Infinite Variety

- was full of plays that examined the role of women throughout history. This year, not only do they not have any theme, someone appears to have thought that a good follow-up to shows like

Fuente

, and

Trojan Women

was a show that derives its humour from the sexual enslavement of women. Hilarity!

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

is one of Sondheim's lesser-known musicals, and for good reason- the majority of the songs are rather bland and forgettable. The show's main "appeal"- if you can call it that- comes from the jokes. The story revolves around Pseudolus, a slave living in Ancient Rome, who wants nothing more than to gain his freedom. Pseudolus belongs to Hero, a dopey young man who still lives under the thumb of his overbearing mother. One day, his parents leave for a visit to the country, and Hero confesses to Pseudolus that he's fallen in love with a girl who lives in the neighbouring brothel. That is, it's referred to as a brothel- since the show repeatedly establishes that the women within are the spoils of war, who are bought and sold with no say whatsoever in the matter, it's actually more accurate to call it a rape house. Hero promises Pseudolus his freedom if the woman can be freed and united with Hero, and hijinks ensue, culminating in a revelation from Hero's long-lost neighbour, Erronius.

You can probably spot the musical's first problem just from the paragraph above- the entire plot revolves around

a fucking rape house

. Not only that, but nowhere in the text is it ever suggested that the existence of this place is in any way wrong. On the contrary, the fourth musical number takes place in said house, whilst the women therein are paraded in front of Pseudolus and Hero, and Pseudolus barely restrains himself from groping them. Each of them women fits into a different stereotype- the Cleopatra-wigged Egyptian twins, the dominatrix, and even a goddamn African warrior princess, complete with a leopard-print bikini, spear, and war whoops. Sexism: now with bonus racefail!

But, you might think, it can't be all bad. So the courtesans are one-dimensional sex objects- what about Hero's love interest? Surely she has a vested interest in freeing herself, and is canny enough to see Hero as a way out of her situation?

You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Philia (as she turns out to be named) is in fact a total ditz, the dumbest of dumb blondes. Her big musical number, "I'm Lovely", is all about her complete uselessness at doing anything besides being ornamental:

I'm lovely, All I am is lovely. Lovely is the one thing I can do. Winsome, What I am is winsome, Radiant as in some Dream come true. Oh, isn't it a shame? I can neither sew Nor cook nor read or write my name. But I'm happy Merely being lovely, For it's one thing I can give to you.

Now compare it to Pseudolous's first big song, "Free":

When I'm free to be whatever I want to be, Think what wonders I'll accomplish then! When the master that I serve is me and just me-- Can you see me being equal with my countrymen? Can you see me being Pseudolus the citizen?

Not only is she useless at pretty much everything, she has no willpower. Although she falls in love at first sight with Hero, that doesn't stop her from flinging herself upon anyone who she thinks has a claim to her. You see, Philia has been sold to Miles Gloriosus, and shows no emotion whatsoever about it. If someone tells her that he owns her, she'll automatically flop to the ground and spread her legs apart, adding even more of a disturbing submissive subtext to the whole thing. Of course, she ends up trotting off into the sunset with Hero, but I doubt she'd have shown any kind of resistance if she'd ended up being carted off by Miles.

Everything resolves itself eventually- Philia is freed, as are the rest of the courtesans (though as their pimp gleefully informs the audience, "I'll just get more!") Pseudolus is freed

and

gets the dominatrix courtesan into the bargain, Hero's parents (who consist of a long-suffering father and a shrewish, domineering mother- gotta squeeze more negative female stereotypes in there!) bless their son's marriage, Miles Gloriosus gets the Egyptian twins, and Erronius is reunited with his long-lost children, allowing the show to squeeze in one last rape joke:

Erronius: My virgin daughter!

Hysterium (a slave disguised as Philia): I'm not a virgin!

Erronius: Those filthy pirates!

Ha ha! Gang rape is hilarious!

I suppose it's pointless to indict a musical written in 1962 for lack of political correctness, but that's no reason not to blame the people who keep it alive by routinely staging it. Apparently, it's very popular as a school production. Want to trivialise women who are raped and sold into sexual slavery?

Funny Thing

! Because

The Boys From Syracuse

just didn't have enough rape jokes.Themes:

Theatre

Minority Warrior

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~Comments (

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)

http://francoisdillinger.blogspot.com/

at 05:46 on 2009-07-26Not much to add. But here's a

here's a link

to some fail at Comic Con.

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Rami

at 07:00 on 2009-07-26That doesn't sound particularly savory, I'll give you that -- and you would have thought that by the latter half of the 20th century they would have known better.

I've not seen it, and I know very little of Sondheim in general -- I've seen a couple of productions of Into the Woods and that's about it. Is there any kind of way in which the play could be seen as ironic?

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Nathalie H

at 15:00 on 2009-07-26I would say that the song

Lovely

is definitely supposed to be quite ironic. However, that doesn't necessarily vindicate it, and from what I remember of seeing this show (albeit a few years ago) I'd say that the Power of Irony ® does not save this show from its general sexism fail.

(Disclaimer: not seen this for a few years. Didn't notice most of this stuff when I did, and am slightly ashamed of that. Therefore, comments I make are mostly based on knowledge of the song 'Lovely' rather than much I remember about the show of a whole. However, I do agree that the score's not that great.)

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Viorica

at 16:37 on 2009-07-26

Is there any kind of way in which the play could be seen as ironic?

According to Wikipedia, some directors have chosen to cast Pseudolus as female, which *could* be seen as ironic- one female slave attains freedom through the enslavement of other women. However, it's mostly up to the direction, not the text itself, which doesn't have any nudge-wink "We're really deconstructing all this sexism!" moments. So it's up to each individual production to draw attention to it. The one I saw didn't, though when I raised the issue afterwards, several of my (female) group members said that they'd felt the same way.

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Jamie Johnston

at 19:40 on 2009-07-26Ladies and gentlemen, a Defence of Sondheim on Three Fronts. These will be Point Out The Parody, Concede The Worst Parts, and Shift The Blame.

Yes, this is not the jewel in Sondheim's crown. It comes very early in his career, only slightly after

West Side Story

I think, and, more importantly, it isn't really a full-blooded Sondheim musical. It's a play by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart with songs by Stephen Sondheim. The original idea was Shevelove's, and though Sondheim was involved from an early stage he always felt that his work on the show didn't really fit what the other two writers were doing. When he asked his friend James Goldman about it, Goldman said, "The book [for those who aren't musical buffs, this is the term for spoken dialogue, and sometimes also the general plot, in a musical] is written on a kind of law-comedy vaudeville level with elegant language, and you have written a witty score, a salon score". Sondheim found it was too late to really address the problem, but he later used to advise people, "Make sure you and your collaborators are writing the same show". (I'm getting this from pp.151-152 of

Meryle Secrest's biography of Sondheim

, by the way.) So to some extent one needs to look at the score (including lyrics) separately from the book, because the same criticisms may not apply equally to both. Having said that, he did collaborate on a show which is undeniably pretty much Carry On Up The Tiber (even if it does have what I maintain is a more than averagely sophisticated score), so clearly a certain amount of fail there. But before I entirely leave the blame-shifting part of the defence, let me observe that really the only criticism that's made above for which Sondheim himself is responsible is the song

Lovely

, which I suggest doesn't deserve the criticism.

As Nathalie's already said,

Lovely

is definitely and quite transparently ironic. It's principally Sondheim taking the mickey out of himself, specifically out of the lyric he'd written a few years earlier for the

West Side Story

number

I Feel Pretty

. The song is, as Viorica says, "all about her complete uselessness at doing anything besides being ornamental". Philia is a spoof of the standard one-dimensional love-interest. What Sondheim didn't like about

I Feel Pretty

was that it was the female lead singing un-ironically about how she derives her entire feeling of self-worth from the fact that a boy likes her and this makes her feel attractive. Which is what

Lovely

is sending up. And, to be fair to Shevelove and Gelbart, I think Philia is written fairly consistently throughout the whole show as being utterly useless is every respect, and her admirer Hero is similarly written as a rather feeble adolescent who is fixated on her for no better reason than that she's pretty. Remember that he's played in the film by Michael Crawford, and this was before

Phantom Of The Opera

, opposite Annette Andre who had mostly played dumb blondes in TV series like

The Avengers

and

The Prisoner

. You don't cast it that way if you want the audience to see the leading romantic couple as anything other than complete nit-wits. The point is rather missed by comparing Philia's big number to Pseudolus'. Pseudolus is the main character and drives most of the plot. Philia is a comic device whose purpose is to be completely passive and uninteresting. A much fairer comparison is to Hero, whose

own solo song

is an equally feeble and empty-headed genre-self-parody.

... Forum

as a whole is an uncomfortable combination of homage and piss-take, with Sondheim being almost exclusively on the piss-take side but the other writers hedging their bets. The plot and the characters are cut and pasted together from Plautus, and some of the humour comes from caricaturing the already exaggerated comic tropes of Roman comedy (which was still worth doing in 1962 when a reasonable number of people had studied Plautus in school). That's one of the main reasons why Pseudolus is the only really interesting character: in Roman comedy the slaves are the only remotely multi-dimensional characters. Now in a sense

... Forum

is a step backward from Plautus because Plautus actually has some reasonably well-developed female slave characters; but that, I suspect, is because the other thing the show is trying to parody is the post-vaudeville tradition that in the UK produced things like the

Carry On

franchise, which went mainly for the one-dimensional female leads that

... Forum

parodies (and which is also where the ghastly parade of racially-stereotyped sex-slaves comes from, because although there is national stereotyping in Roman comedy it has quite a different character). The show is a commentary on one ancient comedy tradition and one contemporary one. It isn't a very successful commentary, largely because its non-musical writers spend at least as much time simply indulging in the bad habits of both traditions as they spend making fun of them. But you can't really look at it outside the context of Roman comedy and 1950s low farce because it makes no sense without that background.

And that's why Viorica is entirely right to suggest that it probably shouldn't be staged any more, except for audiences who have some familiarity with Plautus and with '50s comedy. It doesn't make sense any more in the same way that

Avenue Q

won't make sense in 40 years' time. But that's also why I don't think it's right to accuse it in quite the way this article does. In particular I think the criticism that

... Forum

doesn't "suggest[..] that the existence of [Marcus Lycus' establishment] is in any way wrong" falls a little flat. (I replace "rape house" with "Marcus Lycus' establishment" in that quotation not because I want to suggest the establishment isn't an abominable thing but because "rape house" is too tendentious, "brothel" is, as Viorica observes, too benign, and "place where men pay a pimp to have sex with slaves who clearly never consented to their involvement in the enterprise as a whole and are clearly not getting paid but who apparently do expect to and are expected by others to consent to specific acts of intercourse" is too long.) What, one has to ask, is the alternative? Point out that slavery is wrong? I would be more worried, frankly, if anybody had felt in 1962 that that might not be taken for granted by everyone in the audience. Replace the sex-slaves with free women freely choosing to have sex for money? That would be a flagrant anachronism, would entirely destroy the plot, and would in any case only make it 'okay' provided one took the view that entirely unexploitative prostitution is possible and acceptable, which is far from universally accepted. Have no such establishment in the story at all? Sex-slavery is so central to Roman comedy that its removal would make it completely pointless to do a musical based on Plautus in the first place. I guess you could say that in that case they just shouldn't have done a musical based on Plautus. That's a respectably coherent view, I suppose, but a little puritanical for my tastes. As it is, they do almost as well as anyone could do without abandoning the whole project: the pimp is clearly not meant to be a sympathetic character; the only character who seriously proposes to exploit any of the women in question is Miles Goriosus, who is as close to a villain as the play has; and the sex-slaves are indeed all freed at the end. To object that the pimp will only buy some more is effectively criticisizing the show for omitting to abolish the whole system of slavery as part of the ending, which is a bit like criticizing

Rent

for daring to have a happy ending without having one of the characters discover a cure for HIV.

... Forum

has problems, and probably shouldn't be done any more - certainly not in schools - but one has to look at it as a parody, albeit one that intermittently falls off the wagon when Sondheim isn't writing it.

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Viorica

at 21:02 on 2009-07-26

Philia is a comic device whose purpose is to be completely passive and uninteresting

So . . . she goes from being a one-dimensional female character because the creators didn't bother to flesh her out to a one-dimensional female character who is such because the plot demands it? That's not much better.

the only character who seriously proposes to exploit any of the women in question is Miles Goriosus

Not quite. During "The House of Marcus Lycus", Pseudolous drools over each of the women as they are paraded in front of him, and only turns them down (with visible disappointment) when Hero points out that they aren't who he's looking for. Even in the most throwaway jokes, like Hysterium's "Isn't it amazing?" in the clip you linked to, it's being played for laughs, and given the actual nature of what

does

go on there, it sits very uncomfortably with me.

I never noticed the parallels between "I Feel Pretty" and "Lovely", but then I never read the former as Maria deriving her self-worth from her relationship with Tony. Rather, it seemed to be capturing the first-relationship giddiness that the character is experiencing at the time. It could have been done without the theme of "I find myself attractive because a boy likes me.", it seems, if not better, than certainly more relatable than "Lovely"

Philia's status as a parody of dumbass love interests is questionable, simply because unless you're actively looking at it that way, it isn't really obvious. Which goes back to what you said about it being a parody of vaudeville- if you aren't familiar with what the original writers were going for, it just reads as an extended dumb blonde joke. Hero is similarily stupid, but it just doesn't carry the same connotations.

To object that the pimp will only buy some more . . .

My objection isn't so much that Lycus intends to buy new girls, it's that the lines is thrown in as part of the Big Happy Finale. "I'm free!" "I have Philia!" "I've found my children!" "I'm gonna buy some more slave chicks!" It's rather jarring to see it presented as something we should be happy about.

probably shouldn't be done any more - certainly not in schools

Unfortunately, what sparked this article was the annuncement that my local youth theatre is putting it on next year. :/

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Wardog

at 16:36 on 2009-07-27I'm a bit embarrassed ... I actually saw the film of this with Michael Hordon and, uh, I wasn't offended in the slighest. I didn't think it was a great musical, to be honest, in that there was Jamie mentions above a definitely disjunction between what the songs were trying to do and what the script was.

I'm not say, by the way, Viorica, that I don't think you should find it offensive and I definitely agree that it probably shouldn't be regularly taken out of the Sondheim box but I saw it as basically not especially decent parody...

And it does have some lovely Sondheimish moments.

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http://sistermagpie.livejournal.com/

at 18:44 on 2009-07-27

I'm a bit embarrassed ... I actually saw the film of this with Michael Hordon and, uh, I wasn't offended in the slighest. I didn't think it was a great musical, to be honest, in that there was Jamie mentions above a definitely disjunction between what the songs were trying to do and what the script was.

I can go you one better--I was in this play in high school and wasn't offended by it. The four male leads were played by the four buddies who were the most talented in their senior class and it was fun to watch. (The four leads not including Hero.) I think it just played as so vaudevillian it didn't occur to me to read it that way. I have only positive associations with it just from that production.

In fact, when I think of "I'm Lovely" I rarely remember Philia singing it. I mostly remember the scene where Hysterium sings it in drag.

It's not all that memorable for songs, certainly. The two that mostly survive are Comedy Tonight (a song that starts out saying nothing should be taken seriously) and Everybody Ought to Have a Maid, a celebration of sexual harassment on the job. Which is pretty bad, but probably beaten out by even more blatantly sexist songs in other musical.

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Nathalie H

at 19:07 on 2009-07-27Jamie: Thanks for all the background, you've really illuminated what's going on here - why I always felt it was a poor show compared to Sondheim's usual fare, with which I am fairly familiar although not quite in that level of detail, and also why anyone felt the need to write the bloody thing in the first place!

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Dan H

at 10:49 on 2009-07-29

I'm a bit embarrassed ... I actually saw the film of this with Michael Hordon and, uh, I wasn't offended in the slighest.

I think the thing about the film is that it's so clearly of its time that it's quite hard to be offended by it because it was so clearly made in the 1960s and is so clearly parodying a style of comedy that was very popular at the time. Of course as Jamie observes part of the issue is that it's not an especially good or consistent parody.

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Jamie Johnston

at 18:55 on 2009-07-31

- Viorica

Sorry, I seem not to have explained very well. My point is not that the plot demands her to be one-dimensional. That would, as you say, be no excuse. My point is that the show itself is making a point about the fact that the plot demands her to be one-dimensional. This is actually one of the few points on which I'd argue that

... Forum

rises above being iffy but often enjoyable to actually be a rather clever and admirable piece of work, because here the parody isn't just of 50s comedy or of Plautus but of an extremely common fictional trope. How many stories have there been throughout history, and continue to be, in which the leading boy falls in love with the leading girl based solely on her beauty, sometimes without even having had a single conversation with her, and in which her beauty is therefore her sole relevant characteristic. Usually it turns out that she does have many other attractive features, and sometimes even some unattractive ones, but when you look carefully you still find that these make no difference at all to the boy's love for her or to anything else in the story, so they're entirely irrelevant and are really just after-thoughts added on to disguise the fact that the writer has no interest in her as a human being.

... Forum

mocks this type of story ruthlessly and, I'd suggest, fairly effectively, by making it utterly explicit that the leading girl's beauty is not only her sole relevant characteristic but in fact her sole characteristic. D'you see what I mean?

I'll concede the point about the scene's in Lycus' house. Yes, we're being invited to laugh at the fact that these various men are leering over women who haven't chosen to be leered over, and that probably isn't a good thing, even though to a great extent we're laughing not at the women's predicament but at the way the men's brains entirely stop working as soon as they see a bit of thigh. Similarly it's a fair point about Lycus' comment in the final scene, although I'm not sure that we're necessarily supposed to be glad that he's going to buy some more slaves; but nor is it supposed to totally spoil our enjoyment of the show, which it would if we really thought about it, so yeah.

As to

I Feel Pretty

, yes, there are certainly much more charitable readings of that song, but the one I mentioned is, as I understand it, more or less Sondheim's own feeling about it, which is what lies behind his spoof of it in

Lovely

. My own feeling about the song is somewhat different though still not altogether positive, principally because it makes Maria seem a bit obnoxious. But I try not to think too hard about

West Side Story

because the music is so utterly fabulous and the story is so utterly bleh.

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Arthur B

at 19:09 on 2009-07-31

But I try not to think too hard about West Side Story because the music is so utterly fabulous and the story is so utterly bleh.

I think this is a common problem with most adaptations of

Romeo and Juliet

, since the motivations of the characters are simply baffling to modern audiences. (Then again, I think

Romeo & Juliet

works best if you assume that Shakespeare's attitude towards the young lovers is absolutely cynical, and that the tragedy isn't in the woeful and awful things that society does to people in love so much as it's in the idiotic and ridiculous things that people in love do to themselves.)

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http://sistermagpie.livejournal.com/

at 19:54 on 2009-07-31

My point is that the show itself is making a point about the fact that the plot demands her to be one-dimensional. This is actually one of the few points on which I'd argue that ... Forum rises above being iffy but often enjoyable to actually be a rather clever and admirable piece of work, because here the parody isn't just of 50s comedy or of Plautus but of an extremely common fictional trope.

That's how I've always taken it--it hits that idea pretty hard, I think. And that's very Sondheim. It reminds me of "Kiss Me" from Sweeney Todd, another song that sends up the trope of young lovers in love for no other reason than the girl has yellow hair. And in that song, imo, he manages to mix the mocking of the trope with real sympathy for the girl's predicament. Anthony comes across as maybe a bit foolish for claiming to be in love with a girl he's only seen, but Joanna is grasping at her only chance to escape a horrible fate.

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Shim

at 22:29 on 2009-07-31

...the motivations of the characters are simply baffling to modern audiences.

It's a shame the way good stories of their time end up seeming nonsensical. Admittedly people do adaptations, but some don't lend themselves to that either. For example, farces are a problem because the embarrassments characters are trying to avoid are often irrelevant now. The old chaperone, breach-of-promise and so on school of things is out too.

On that note, I feel modern comedy sometimes struggles because you have to stretch things further and it's hard to do that well. Being found by the Bishop visting another woman's husband doesn't cut it any more - now you have to be in your underwear and covered in caramel. Or whatever.

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http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/

at 19:51 on 2009-08-02OK, I'm rather late to the conversation here, and I haven't seen the musical, but: it would be completely anachronistic for any of the characters to suggest that sex-slavery was anything other than The Way Things Are. And a completely straight portrayal of a morality that's so alien to our own could, if done well, be both deeply unsettling and very good. I'm reading Plato's

Republic

at the moment, and I'm getting that sensation a lot.

Incidentally, it was interesting to hear about Miles Gloriosus. I've noticed a tendency for characters called Miles in fiction to be villains.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:38 on 2009-08-02Of course, anachronism and its geographical equivalent (what's that called, anyone? anatopism?) were themselves notable features of Roman comedy, so one could do quite interesting things with that...

When you've finished with the Plato, try to find Betrand Russell's summary of it in his big ol'

History of western philosophy

: it'll reassure you that no, it isn't just you, Plato's ideal state really does sounds absolutely horrifying.

Villains called Miles? Interesting. In this particular case the name is actually lifted directly from the plot of one of Plautus' comedies,

Miles gloriosus

, meaning 'the full-of-himself soldier' (which is what the character in

... Forum

is).

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Wardog

at 22:54 on 2009-08-03Hehe!

Anyway, I think you can count yourself lucky, Miles. Characters called Kyra are invariably prostitutes.

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Viorica

at 01:45 on 2009-08-24My mother went to see it this afternoon, and brought back a program. This passage (from the director's notes) stuck out:

All great musicals have serious underpinnings, and this one is no exception. It involves a love story, of course, as most musicals do, but the driving force of the plot is the quest of the central character, the slave Pseudolous, for his freedom. For all its zaniness and goofiness, Forum has at its core a real concern for human rights and human dignity, and it is from that essence that the show draws its emotional life.

. . . yeah.

#Ferretbrain #A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum #Minority Warrior #Viorica #Theatre

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mdwatchestv · 6 years

Text

Emmy Blog 2k18: Monday’s Revenge

That's right it's that very special time! Except this time that very special time falls on a MONDAY AFTERNOON when I will be at my job working hard to craft non-Emmy nominated television for you all. I feel personally attacked by this scheduling.

Speaking of me, this is my second annual Emmy blog which means I have maintained this blog for over a year now! Yes that is correct I have actually shown commitment and follow-through on a project, I would like to thank the Academy.

Last year I was wildly unprepared for how long it would take to type such a blog so I'm not going to mess around with all the loving analysis of yesteryear. Also last year I simply had no idea how tired I would be this year, because I was too tired to imagine that far into the future. So you will get your analysis up front and then nothing but pure, unadulterated nominee sass.

As always we must mention last week’s Creative Arts Emmys- Congratulations to the casting winners Nina Gold + Robert Sterne (The Crown), Meredith Tucker, Jeanie Bacharach and Cindy Tolan (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel) and Courtney Bright + Nicole Daniels (The Assassination of Gianni Versace). See these casting names, know them, learn them, love them. Also it's bullshit Megan was not given an Emmy For Megan #justiceformegan

Last year I commented on how the Emmy's were beginning to reflect the increasing diversity in the television landscape. While progress on that front continues to be frustratingly slow, this year did boast a remarkable number of incredible roles for women! Not only are we seeing roles for women that extend beyond wives, mothers, and girlfriends, we are also seeing more series that STAR women! This year boasts some VERY EXCITING Best Actress categories, and I am HERE FOR IT. In contrast though most of the male categories are a total snooze fest, and the fact that AMC's The Terror wasn't nominated for ANYTHING shows that absolutely no one cracked the seal on their screeners. With an increasingly populated television landscape, it seems like voters went to old favorites rather than branching out and discovering some new gems. On some level this is to be expected, but at that same time there is an increasing disparity between what is recognized at these kind of events, and what is airing.

Okay on to the main event! Disclaimer: Once again these predictions are based on nothing but flights of fancy and raw gut instinct.

Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Sara Bareilles (“Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert”) Penelope Cruz (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”) Judith Light (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”) Adina Porter (“American Horror Story: Cult”) Merritt Wever (“Godless”) Letitia Wright (“Black Museum” (Black Mirror))

God, wasn't AHS: Cult like six AHS's ago? Letitia Wright should win this because she won't get any other hardware for stealing Black Panther.

Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Jeff Daniels (“Godless”) Brandon Victor Dixon (“Jesus Christ Superstar”) John Leguizamo (“Waco”) Ricky Martin (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”) Edgar Ramirez (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”) Michael Stuhlbarg (“The Looming Tower”) Finn Wittrock (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”)

There are plenty of actors I like, like in life here but.......sorry I fell asleep.

Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie:

Antonio Banderas (“Genius: Picasso”) Darren Criss (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”) Benedict Cumberbatch (“Patrick Melrose”) Jeff Daniels (“The Looming Tower”) John Legend (“Jesus Christ Superstar”) Jesse Plemons (“USS Callister”)

This category is insane. What do we got, a second Jeff Daniels nomination, a Black Mirror, John Legend for acting, Harry Potter, Benedict Cumberbatch who always seems to sneak into the Emmys, and Antonio Banderas. I am trying really hard to have an opinion about this. I’m going to pick my boyfriend Darren Criss just so I can put a gif of him on this blog.

Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie:

Laura Dern (“The Tale”) Jessica Biel (“The Sinner”) Michelle Dockery (“Godless”) Edie Falco (“The Menendez Murders”) Regina King (“Seven Seconds”) Sarah Paulson (“American Horror Story: Cult”)

Okay now here we go! Now this is a category! However the Laura Dern rule is in effect here, which is whenever Laura Dern is present in a category the choice MUST be Laura Dern.

Best Limited Series

“The Alienist” “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” “Genius: Picasso” “Godless” “Patrick Melrose”

Can none of the above be an answer?

Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Louie Anderson (“Baskets”) Alec Baldwin (“Saturday Night Live”) Tituss Burgess (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”) Brian Tyree Henry (“Atlanta”) Tony Shalhoub (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) Kenan Thompson (“Saturday Night Live”) Henry Winkler (“Barry”)

Are we really nominating Alec Baldwin for that Trump impersonation? What a time to be alive. Tony Shalhoub is an Emmy darling, I think if he wins another he gets a free one on his punch card. Henry Winkler was pitch perfect on Barry, Kenan Thompson has been on SNL for a million years, and Brian Tyree Henry's performance on Atlanta is deceivingly effortless. I think Shalhoub, the Academy will likely have missed voting for him, it just comes so naturally to them.

Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Zazie Beetz (“Atlanta”) Alex Borstein (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) Aidy Bryant (“Saturday Night Live”) Betty Gilpin (“GLOW”) Leslie Jones (“Saturday Night Live”) Kate McKinnon (“Saturday Night Live”) Laurie Metcalf (“Roseanne”) Megan Mullally (“Will & Grace”)

Yes once again the ladies are LIT, tearing it UP. But no one tore it harder, and more literally, than Betty freakin Gilpin.

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series:

Donald Glover (“Atlanta”) Bill Hader (“Barry”) Anthony Anderson (“Black-ish”) William H. Macy (“Shameless”) Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) Ted Danson (“The Good Place”)

This is a tough one, there are a lot of golden oldies here. I was surprised by how much I loved Bill Hader’s performance in Barry, but I think it was too weird and too dark to garner the votes needed. Atlanta had a lot of momentum and buzz last year, not sure if the Academy is going to pour the same love two years in a row. I’m going to go with Ted Danson, he’s impeccable on The Good Place and he’s also Ted Danson!

Lead Actress in a Comedy Series:

Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”) Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) Tracee Ellis Ross (“Black-ish”) Allison Janney (“Mom”) Lily Tomlin (“Grace and Frankie”) Issa Rae (“Insecure”)

Ray Bro.

Best Comedy Series

“Atlanta” (FX) “Barry” (HBO) “Black-ish” (ABC) “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO) “GLOW” (Netflix) “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon) “Silicon Valley” (HBO) “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (Netflix)

Unlike the Best Drama Series category, which I am going to drag through the dirt at the end of this post, there is a lot of goodness here. These shows are not only very different, but also compelling in their own ways. (Although The Good Place absolutely deserves to be here). While I fell in love with Barry this year, and think Atlanta has maintained a consistent brilliance for two seasons, I think the delightful confection that is Mrs Maisel has the awards momentum to take this category.

Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (“Game of Thrones”) Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”) Joseph Fiennes (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) David Harbour (“Stranger Things”) Mandy Patinkin (“Homeland”) Matt Smith (“The Crown”)

And just like that my Betty Gilpin high has dissipated. I can't believe Homeland is still on. Do we reward David Harbour for having the perfect dad bod, or Matt Smith for being the perfect fuckboy? Decisions, decisions. If Matt Smith wins he needs to break that trophy in half and give it to Claire Foy. He can keep the globey part, but she gets the body and the stand.

Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Alexis Bledel (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) Millie Bobby Brown (“Stranger Things”) Ann Dowd (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) Lena Headey (“Game of Thrones”) Vanessa Kirby (“The Crown”) Thandie Newton (“Westworld”) Yvonne Strahovski (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)

I had to consciously uncouple from The Handmaid’s Tale this year, but that doesn’t mean those actresses stopped being brilliant in their performances. Ann Dowd is a Laura Dern in the sense that I will usually always pick her in a category, but Thandie Newton did arguably carry season 2 of Westworld almost on her own. There are a lot of good unique performances here, but I am going to say Vanessa Kirby because she crushed on The Crown (and for the last time).

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Jason Bateman (“Ozark”) Sterling K. Brown (“This Is Us”) Ed Harris (“Westworld”) Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”) Milo Ventimiglia (“This Is Us”) Jeffrey Wright (“Westworld”)

Guys can we be really, really honest with ourselves, like look in the mirror and come face-to-face with cold hard truths honest? WERE these the best performances this year? I love all these guys, but are they really turning in their best performances on these shows? Truly? The only exception is Matthew Rhys who is in his final year of a tour-de-force role on The Americans so my money is on him.

Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Claire Foy (“The Crown”) Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”) Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”) Keri Russell (“The Americans”) Evan Rachel Wood (“Westworld”)

Now, this, THIS IS A CATEGORY. LOOK AT THESE WOMEN. I love all of these actresses, and some of these performances are truly among the best I've ever seen on television. That is not a hyperbole, it is a true. I would be happy with almost anyone winning this slot, but I really feel like Sandra Oh is going to take it. I FEEL IT OKAY.

Best Drama Series

“The Handmaid’s Tale” “Game of Thrones” “This Is Us” “The Crown” “The Americans” “Stranger Things” “Westworld”

KILLING EVE IS THE BEST DRAMA SERIES OF THIS YEAR AND ITS EXCLUSION IS A HORRIBLE MISTAKE!!!!! Like IS Westworld REALLY the Best Drama Series??? IS IT? Is Game of Thrones??? Yes they are highly enjoyable and I watch them both, but are they THE BEST? REALLY? Was Stranger Things season 2 THE BEST, or are we just charmed by the children? Was The Handmaid’s season 2 THE BEST, or did we just vote for it out of habit and a misguided feeling that it’s win would stave off Kavanaugh’s confirmation? The Americans should win.

Okay I feel good now that that’s off my chest. I have a lot of thoughts of feelings, and please let me know yours! Phoebe Waller-Bridge forever!

xo Martha

#martha writes #emmys #emmy predictions #emmy snark #tv writing #tv gifs #other tv #emmy awards

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bellshellsrage · 6 years

Text

Magical Difficulties

[DISCLAIMER: I don’t own AH or HP in any way. ]

Word Count: 2,736

Pairing: AH x OC

Summary:

It’s the first day of the school year. What adventures await the motley crew?

Chapter 2: September First

Rummaging through my trunk one last time, I frowned. Something was missing, but I couldn’t put a finger on what it was. My wand was in my pocket along with my list of required items for the year. I glanced to the side as my cat jumped up beside me, her tail twitching in annoyance.

“Alright, Salem. What am I forgetting?” She meowed at me and left me to my own devices. “You’re no help!” I called after her, getting an angry meow in reply.

“Sweetie? I found this in the hall.” I turned to see my mom in the doorway. She was holding my black and yellow striped scarf, and I grinned.

Crossing the room, I nodded. “Yeah. I knew I was missing something important. Thank you!” She handed me the fabric and she smiled slightly.

“All set? Do you have everything now?”

I glanced at my trunk again before nodding and closing it. “All set! My friend Jack is coming to pick me up so you don’t have to worry about the traffic around King’s Cross.”

“Oh. Okay then. Do you need help with anything?” Her voice wavered slightly.

I shook my head. “I’m good. You know, I’ll only be gone for-”

“Renee! Your friends are here!” My dad’s voice carried through the house, along with the muffled voices of our visitors.

“Go on and have a good year.” My mom smiled as she hugged me.

Geoff appeared and grinned as he grabbed my trunk and disappeared again. “Salem! Time to go!” I called as I followed down the stairs.

Jack was standing in the entryway, my silky black cat in his arms. We waved at each other before I hugged my dad.

“You’ll call when you get there, right?”

I wrinkled my nose slightly as I shook my head. “Phones don’t work at Hogwarts, Dad. But I’ll send an owl as soon as I can.”

With one last wave, I left the house and got into Geoff’s car. He drove off as we all talked about what was to come this year.

Stepping onto the platform, I was instantly surrounded by all of my friends. Most were still saying goodbye to their families and I smiled as I found our car. Ryan was already in there, and he grinned when he saw me.

“Hey! Welcome to the fun car.”

I nodded as I looked around. There were plenty of seats, and no one except our close friends would be sitting with us, making it a safe place.

“I love it. How’d you and Geoff pull this off?”

Ryan gave me a sly look. “I have my ways. And he has a lot of friends outside of Hogwarts.”

“Should I be worried about your “ways”, Ryan?” I glanced at him as I sat down across from him.

He chuckled darkly as the door opened and the train car started to fill with everyone. Jeremy and Matt were already laughing about something while Gavin and Michael were bickering. The girls all grinned as they swept me up and away from the growing group of guys.

“Come on! Get away from the stupid boys!” LIndsay laughed as she and Meg pulled me.

Larry scowled. “I’m not stupid!” The others started to say differently and he frowned.

“Leave him alone.” Neal muttered as he sat off to the side, a book already in his hands.

Alfredo stepped into the car and everyone turned their attention to him as he closed the door behind him. “Hey guys! Am I the last one?”

“The Sauce has finally arrived!” Andy called.

I laughed and waved before looking over at Trevor. “Hey, Trev! Your twin is here!”

“My brother!” Trevor cried in an anguished tone. “I am so very glad that you are here!”

Alfredo laughed and waved at me before sitting with Michael and Gavin.

The train started to roll, making all of us smile and set in. Small conversations were started, but I didn’t join in. The view was always amazing as we sped further away from the city, and I sank back into my seat as I watched the world go by. Salem had finally left Jack and opted to curl up on my lap, purring as her eyes closed.

“The view keeps getting better.”

I jumped slightly as Jeremy spoke from where he stood in front of me. He motioned to the seat beside me and I nodded.

“How was the rest of your summer, J?” I tried to keep my voice low as to not wake up the black bundle on me.

He shrugged. “It was alright. Managed to talk the parents into letting me stay for the holidays. How about yours?”

“I couldn’t ask them. I’ll try in a letter.” My tone was soft, but had an underlying edge that said that I wasn’t happy.

“Why couldn’t you ask?”

Turning my head from him, I sighed. “My parents like to keep me close. If I wasn’t a witch and they had a choice of where I went to school, I would live with them forever.”

“Man… That sucks. Smart move asking when you’re already out of reach.”

I scowled. “Can we not talk anymore? At least about that?”

“Yeah... “ An awkward silence filled the air between us. “So that view huh?”

His nonchalant tone made me laugh, which woke up the sleeping cat and made her jump down. Jeremy smiled as I shook my head, his grin making my heart leap.

“Anything from the trolley, dears?”

We all jumped up and crowded around the sweet old lady, practically clearing her out as we chatted with her. Geoff asked about her hip, Jack patted her back with a warm smile, and I hugged her after she handed me my sweets. When she left, her cart and spirits lighter, we all settled back in. The only sounds were wrappers and the occasional question of ‘Can I have some?’ followed by a muffled ‘yes’ or ‘hell no’.

Time went on and we got closer to the magical school. “Alright. Get your robes on, folks!” I called as I stood. “We’re almost there.”

Suddenly, the room was filled with excitement and mayhem as we all rushed to get ready. Some accidental punches were thrown as we all tugged on our long, black robes over our Muggle clothes, which range from hoodies and jeans, to sweaters and heels.

“Oi! Get off my robe!” Gavin screeched.

Michael growled. “What is your robe doing on the floor?!?”

“Boys, boys!” I called as I went over to them. “Why don’t you just kiss and get it over with?”

Both of them pushed me away slightly, trying to ignore the others as they agreed with my question. “Come on, we all know you two love each other!” Matt grinned.

“You shut your damn mouth!” Gavin scowled as Michael silently grew red.

I patted their shoulders lightly. “You know that we’re just joking.”

“You started it!” Kent shook his head at my statement.

I glanced around. “And now I’m finishing it!”

We all quieted down again, waiting for the small station to come into view. The sun had gone down, and the only speck of light was the full moon. My heart ached for a moment before everyone stood and gathered their things. The train slowed and another spot of light appeared as we came to a complete stop. Rushing out, I waved to the tall man who was waiting to welcome the first years.

“Good evening, Hagrid! Save me a cup of tea!”

He grinned, his voice booming as he called over the heads of the other students. “Will do, Renee! Good to have you back.” With that, he turned to usher the small children to the boats.

“Come on, the carriages are filling up quick.” Trevor rose his voice above the murmur of the crowd. He reached for my hand and guided me through the crowd. When we got to the wooded path, I hid my smile as I saw the thestrals that pulled the carriages. “You’re with the girls I guess.”

I glanced at Trevor’s crestfallen face before squeezing his hand. “We’ll have plenty of time together this year.”

“I’ll take your word for it. See you at the castle.”

I watched as he climbed into a carriage before glancing at the front, where Kent stood. He turned and met my eyes with a sad smile before walking away. The girls weren’t there yet, so I took the time to say hello to the creatures at the head of the carriage.

“Hey, guys. Long time no see.” I kept my voice low and forced my hand to not reach up and pet them, knowing that most people didn’t see them like I could. With a sad sigh, I climbed into the carriage and waited the few short minutes for the rest of the seats to be taken.

“Did you say hello to them?” Steffie half-whispered, noticing the reflective look on my face and how quiet I was being compared to the others. I nodded and she sat back. I listened to Meg and Steffie talk while Lindsay and Ashley struck up their own conversation.

I sat alone and watched the horizon, gasping when the castle finally came into view. “Guys… We’re here.”

“Fucking finally.” Meg grinned. I smirked and got ready to jump out as the carriage came to a stop.

“Thanks, guys!” I muttered without a second thought. Lindsay heard me and shot me a worried glance. “I’m fine, Linds. Let’s go eat.”

Ashley lead the way as we joined the guys. Kent and I hung back and I glanced at him as we walked up the stone stairs. “They look healthy.”

I nodded. “Hagrid must be taking care of them.” We fell back into step with the rest of our friends and I grinned when we walked into the Great Hall. “Man, it’s great to be home.”

“Hell yeah it is!” Geoff agreed as we sat beside each other. Kent, Jack, and Matt sat around us, and I searched the room to find the others as they sat with their houses.

Michael, Gavin, Alfredo, and Ashley sat just behind us. I laughed and made faces at them, which they returned tenfold. Behind them, Ryan was glaring at everyone as he sat beside Larry, with Neal across the table from him. I tried to catch his eye, but he was on the lookout for the bullies from the alley. I couldn’t see the Slytherin table, but I knew that Steffie, Meg, and Lindsay were holding their own against Jeremy, Trevor, and Andy.

The doors opened again and the first years were paraded in to be sorted. There were a few Hufflepuffs that joined our table, and they were as timid as I was when I started. One girl was sitting on the other side of me, her long hair covering her face.

“Hey, I’m Renee and welcome to Hufflepuff.” I greeted, my voice soft. She smiled slightly and I glanced at the four guys sitting nearby. They introduced themselves and the girl said her name. “Well, I know that we are all looking forward to this year. How about you?”

She was about to reply when the Headmaster drew our attention to the front. “Welcome to another year at Hogwarts!” I grinned as I clapped. “This year, the last surviving members of the War are leaving us, but first, we have to learn new things and celebrate those around us.” Her voice shook, and I felt her eyes on me. “Here’s to a new, wonderful year!” We all cheered as Headmaster McGonagall rose her hands to calm us. When we were silent, she smirked. “Bring the feast!”

As soon as the words left her mouth, overflowing platters appeared on the long tables. A smooth string of music started to play as we ate and talked, most forgetting that we have food in our mouths as we told stories about the summer.

“Wow. That must've been a real bummer.” A monotone voice cut off a story about a dog that was hit by a gnome. I jumped as a figure appeared to go with the voice.

“Ray, if you weren’t dead already, I would kill you.” I shook my head at his indifference.

He was wearing a hoodie with the hood covering his dark hair. I glanced at the black spot on his chest where he was clawed, causing his death. “What’s with the new kids?”

“This literally happens every year.” Geoff replied. “Or is your dead-ness starting to affect your memory?”

“Very funny.” His face shifted and he stopped smiling. “I’m fucking dead not stupid.”

I shook my head. “No one said that you were stupid.”

“I don’t like seeing the little ones.” Ray muttered before he disappeared.

Jack and Geoff exchanged knowing looks before digging back into their meals. I sat in silence for a moment, deep in thought.

“Hello, earth to Renee!” Matt waved his hand in front of my face and I blinked.

“What? What’s up?” I questioned, noting that the hall was quieter.

“The feast is over. Time to go.”

I nodded and stood to follow before I shook my head. “I’m going to go down to Hagrid’s.”

Matt stopped and gave me a worried look. “You sure? Want me to go with?”

“No, you go on ahead. I’ll be there.”

He nodded and started to walk away before he stopped again and turned towards me. “You know that you can talk to me, right?”

I smirked. “Yeah, Matt. I know.”

He seemed satisfied with my answer and left. I sighed as I took in the silence of the giant building around me. The stones all told their own story, as did the paintings that covered the walls. Walking into the night, the stars twinkled in greeting as the trees waved. The air was cool compared to the stifling atmosphere of the hall when it is filled with students. I smiled to myself as I walked down the path leading to Hagrid’s hut, the faint glow of candles inside guiding me.

After I knocked, the giant man swung the door open. “Renee, how good it is to see you!” he wrapped me in a hug before welcoming me into his home. Fang jumped up and lumbered over to slobber on my legs, making me laugh. “How did you enjoy the feast?”

I took a sip of my tea, not wanting to answer the question yet. “Ray showed up.” I muttered, hiding my expression behind my oversized mug.

“He usually does at some point.” Hagrid chuckled before he saw the tears welling in my eyes. “What’s on your mind?”

I took a deep breath. “The last of the War kids are leaving, but Ray can’t. He was one of them and he can’t move on like the others.” My breath was ragged. “And he said…” My voice broke as I refused to continue my sentence. “I can’t help him, and it hurts.”

“Oh, dearie. The first days back are always tough for him, and the professors. And me. But we get through it the only way we can; by helping others.” Hagrid’s voice was tender as he spoke and calmed my anxieties.

“Thank you, Hagrid. I should be getting back.” We stood and said our goodbyes before I walked away. The light from his doorway never left, and I smiled knowing that he was watching to make sure I was safe.

When I got back into the castle and into the common room, I was surprised to see that the trio and Matt were still sitting by the fire.

“Matt told us where you went, so we decided to stay up.” Kent supplied, answering my question before I could ask it.

Jack stood and crossed the room. “You’ve been crying.” His tone was laced with worry.

“She always cries on the first day back for different reasons. And I bet I know the reason this time.” Geoff watched me.

I shook my head. “I’m tired guys. Can I just go to bed?”

They were all silent for an uncomfortably long time before Geoff nodded. “Yeah. We all need sleep.”

I mentally thanked him as we parted. Salem was curled up on my bed, and after I changed, I snuggled in beside her. “Night, Salem.” He offered a quiet meow. “Night, Ray.”

“Goodnight, Renee. See you in the morning.”

#my fics #achievement hunter x reader #magical difficulties

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