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robin-josephette-biden · 3 years

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A Statement Through Horror: BDG and YouTube

In his video announcing his departure from Polygon Bryan David Gilbert [BDG] stated, “I want to make things that one day people will make a show like unraveled about.” [Paraphrasing here]. Since that announcement he has made some of the most interesting and engaging comedy videos on the platform. On Bryan’s channel, there is a section called “bdg’s scaries” that contains three videos. The first how to make jorts was released April 27, 2019 and will not be part of this analysis, as we are focused on the other two videos. These two videos are Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss which was released on October 25, 2020 (two months before his final Unraveled video and departure from Polygon) and Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97 which was posted March 3, 2021. If you have not seen these videos yet you should stop reading immediately and go watch them both (honestly everything on his channel is amazing, especially the surprisingly compelling and personal Dances Moving! series) before continuing to read this as I will be spoiling both of them. The position of YouTube celebrity has been the source of a good bit of commentary as short form online media has become more and more central in our culture. Bryan has created two videos that I feel do an excellent job of exploring the relationship between youtuber and audience. I should also point out that this is merely my interpretation of these videos and is in no way BDG’s intended message. I’ll start by going over the first video. Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss opens with BDG outside an apartment building, standing in front of a black car. BDG points up at one of the windows and says, “Three years ago I was living in that apartment right there. Third floor, leaky windows, cockroaches, the worst.” I do not know if the real life BDG actually lived in that building, but the 3 years timeframe does line up neatly with his beginning to work at Polygon. BDG continues to bad mouth his old apartment and mentions how he has turned it all around stating, “But just last week I paid off my very first Subaru Impreza. And I own my own house in Nebraska.” This radical change in life-style he credits to, “. . . [working] from home, [making] my own hours, and [being] my own boss. And you can do it too.” I think that it is interesting that BDG’s career up to that point mirrors that of his character, going from newly graduated content creator making small videos in his apartment to one of the most popular creators on Polygon. And all that being accomplished through work that many (rightly or wrongly) would not see as fitting into the mold of the traditional 9 to 5. The idea of making millions working from home, at your own pace, and with no boss is intrinsically tied to the mystique of the YouTube celebrity. Moving into BDG’s office he explains that he makes $20k a month working on spreadsheets. A massive spreadsheet appears behind him that is dated, 01.12.88 (nothing of note happened on January 12, 1988 and the only thing that happened on December 1, 1988 is a large cyclone that struck Bangladesh, January 12, 1888 is the day of the Schoolhouse Blizzard which struck the midwestern US and killed 235 people (remember this for later)) and is filled, seemingly randomly, with garbled nonsense symbols. Many of the cells are the same as other cells and there are empty cells scattered haphazardly throughout the spreadsheet. BDG explains that he got this strategy from Dorian Smiles. In exchange for working on these spreadsheets BDG receives $10k - $20k a month (an amount that lines up pretty damn well with the amount he should be getting through his Patreon page currently, I don’t know if this was true when the video was made though) from Dorian. Wanting to know where the money is coming from BDG asks his bank and they explain that he is wiring the money to himself from another account he has. He grows confused as to the nature of this work and the disproportionately large amount of money it brings in, explicitly mentioning his confusion as to how the money is coming from someone with, “. . . my name and my voice.” and sets about to find and confront Dorian Smiles. BDG sets off for Center Nebraska, which is close to where Dorian lives (a small town in the northeast corner of Nebraska). He states that Dorian’s address hasn’t existed since 1888 (that’s a familiar year isn’t it?) when it was supposedly condemned during an enormous blizzard and is, “. . . just woods now.” The video then transitions to BDG walking through dark woods while his narration talking up the Dorian Smiles program continues becoming increasingly broken. He comes across a figure sitting in the woods that is convulsing strangely, when he calls out to it the figure turns and is him (heretofore named Dorian). Dorian slowly puts his hands over his nose and mouth while staring at BDG at which point the narration cuts out. BDG copies Dorian and when Dorian removes his hands in a flourish, BDG does the same to reveal that he no longer has a mouth. The video quickly cuts back to BDG in his office talking about the program, he asks the viewer, “Why don’t you join me?” and then sits back and smiles while that line repeats without him moving his mouth. The most pressing mystery is who Dorian Smiles is. I think the most likely answer (and one I know I am not the progenitor of) is that Dorian is a reference to The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, the story of a young man that has a portrait that ages and takes on the ravages of the debauched life its subject lives while Dorian himself does not. BDG would therefore be the unwitting recipient of that blessing, reaping massive rewards while his double, Dorian, lives in poverty and solitude. I like this explanation for Dorian, but I find it to be far more mechanical than thematic. On a metatextual level you could read that Dorian represents the character of BDG. The person that is in all of BDG’s videos, and the one with whom so much of the audience forms a parasocial relationship. In this lens the parallels with BDG’s own life make more sense. By this point in BDG’s career it is not difficult to imagine him feeling stifled creatively at work (I feel comfortable saying this given how soon after this video came out that he departed Polygon). His character had grown too large, potentially becoming alien to him, no longer reflecting the art he wanted to make and so he made a video about a distorted version of himself stealing his voice. In this way the video becomes a statement on his artistic integrity and his desire to test new boundaries and go in different directions. In hindsight, with the knowledge of his departure and then success after leaving Polygon, the video becomes almost heartwarming (if it weren’t terrifying) in the same way that a before and after picture of someone improving themselves can be. We will return to the Dorian Smiles system, but now we must move to the second video, Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97. I’ll save you the blow by blow breakdown and aim for a quick summary instead. This video is a simple stationary shot of an old CRT tv. A VHS tape is inserted and a video of a man teaching his, evidently young, son how to use a camcorder plays. It is relatively wholesome and corny in that way that all home movies are and when it ends the tape rewinds and the segment plays again, this time with a few deviations. Over replays the father becomes aware of what is happening and begins trying to reason with Jake through the camcorder begging him to stop watching the tape and move on. The father is menaced by a large shadowy figure that does not speak or move when confronted. Eventually the father resorts to simply taking the camera and recording his own screams of pain. On the final rewind the father simply says, “Attaboy.” before calmly walking out the room and into the dark hallway, a doorway opens at the other end, filled with orange light, and the father walks through and down stairs. The final shot of the video is of the television, showing the hallway, as orange light begins to flicker in the background of the left side of the TV. The sound of the father descending the stairs transitions from the TV to diegetic and a shadow appears briefly in the light. On one level the video is clearly a statement about loss and about trauma. Jake is losing himself by watching these videos on repeat, trying in vain to relive a happier time. In that desperate desire to regain what was lost he is distorting it, making it into something it isn’t, hurting it. At the beginning the father says, “Never ever press the rewind button, otherwise you might record over a precious memory. We always keep the recording going forward . . .“ I think there is an additional, and more personal for BDG, reading however. The father is the modern character of BDG, and we, the audience, are Jake. He is pleading with us to leave the past behind and move on. This was only his 3rd video that he posted after leaving Polygon. It is a plea from him to leave the old character behind and stop trying to make one into the other. To stop obsessively comparing the new videos to the old. To let the future be the future and let the past be the past. He is telling us that his new work will not be like the old, that he has progressed past that and that now his viewers need to as well. The detachment and confusion of Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss has transformed into a desire to move forward. But he needed to ensure that his audience was ready to come with him, and so he made a video about loss and the dangers of sinking too far into it. I know that there are some of you that feel I am reading too much of what I assume to be BDG’s thoughts and emotions into these interpretations, and I am the first to admit that I might be. In no way am I trying to say these are the only interpretations of these videos or even that they are correct. I think there is so much more of an artist that they put into their work than they realise. I do not know the mind of BDG, only he does, but these videos made me feel that I had a glimpse into the feelings of a man whose work I admire. These videos are either longer or a drastically different tone to the material he has put on his own channel and as such they stood out to me. They felt different, and they seemed to ask for a different level of scrutiny. On some level maybe BDGs videos can not be divorced from the story of BDG as a content creator, the same as any modern internet semi-celebrity, or indeed any artist. I guess there was also a part of me that wanted to answer the call to action I heard when BDG left Polygon, to unravel his work. I hope in some small way I’ve been able to do that.

#bdg #brian david gilbert #analysis #youtube #scary #When the dad screams towards the end of Teaching Jake I felt that in my soul.

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years

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This is the most offensivly ignorant comment I’ve ever had the misfortunte of reading

Unsurprisingly it comes from the King of ‘What you just said is so aggressively idiotic I feel like you just insulted everyone’: RDMacQ.

For context you need to read this statement from someone else. Whilst I do not agree with this statement I’m not addressing it’s merits or demerits.

“Let me say that I don't like Evil Superman as a concept, but when written well, like Tom Taylor's Injustice comics, where the guy who wrote it clearly has love for the traditional version of Superman and tries to humanize him even at his worst so you can relate and feel for the guy, I accept it, I enjoy it. By that same token, I was always open to Peter/MJ not working out if it was done well, and not done as in the case of OMD/OMIT with the demonstrable intent of slandering MJ's character and making Peter young hip and open to dating younger girls without him coming off as a creep and sleazebag. I am not okay with it happening to preserving Peter's sainthood. I mean the reason I accepted Peter B. in ITSV is that it did that take on the direction the character went into very well. In the case of Life Story #3, you are meant to agree with MJ and she's shown as a moral force, someone who condemns Venom Peter when he is about to kill Kraven-in-Cloth Suit. And of course people need to keep in mind that in Life Story, Reed and Sue didn't work out either, Vision suffers more guilt than even Peter can fathom, Captain America made a bigger and more difficult choice and faces more consequences for his actions than Peter does. So I feel that whatever Zdarsky is doing he's playing fair in the way that other writers don't when they do the story this way. And also tonally, the story is set in the '80s, the age of Watchmen. I think in terms of decade-specific mood and trend, having a story where Spider-man becomes a deadbeat dad worried about not being in prime physical shape and so on...is quite apposite.”

Then we get to RDMacQ’s bullshit

“Yeah, I find it weird that the main complaint is "This isn't what happened in the original comics" and I'm like "Yeah.... kind of the point!"”

Here is the problem.

Life Story is intended and promoted as a WHAT IF.

The way a WHAT IF works is that it takes what DID happen and changes variables to explore how that’d impact the outcome.

With Variables A+B you get outcome 1 (the main universe).

But what if you had Variables C+D? You would get outcome 2.

Gwen Stacy died so Spider-Man tried (and ultimately refrained) from murdering the Green Goblin.

But what If Spider-Man saved Gwen Stacy? Then she’d accept him, he’d stop the Goblin, but the Goblin would expose his identity in the interim and thus ruin Peter’s life.

Kingpin’s assassin injured Aunt May so Peter beat him up.

But what If the Kingpin’s assassin didn’t injure Aunt May but simply outright killed Mary Jane? Then Peter would directly murder the Kingpin.

Life Story doesn’t play fair as a What if in the slightest.

A what if done properly is confined by the parameters of the original story. Everyone still needs to act in character within the context of the new situation as defined by the older stories.

That isn’t he case in Life Story

To begin with it isn’t changing just one variable it’s changing multiple. Spider-Man is aging in real time. The events of his life are happening in roughly the same time period they would’ve been published, but not in the same order. The level of realism is drastically higher since Marvel heroes are going to the Vietnam War.

Characters act arbitrarily differently in ways they wouldn’t do in the context of the new variables. Case in point, why exactly would Norman Osborn pull the scheme he di in issue #2 just because he’s in prison? His plan never made sense. And in issue #4 his plan was even more asinine. He wanted to destroy Spider-Man and due to being too old to do it himself he pulled the Clone Saga and got Doc Ock to attack Spidey on his behalf. But he knew who Peter was, why not just reveal the truth. Doing so couldn’t harm him as he’d already paid for his crimes as the Goblin and his identity was public knowledge.

That doesn’t make sense. That’s not an opinion that’s just self-evident by the story. The cause and effect of it doesn’t add up.

But RDMacQ doesn’t believe in that. According to him Norman’s actions are justified because ‘ a crazy person did something that didn’t make sense’. That’s the laziest most pathetic attempt at analysis. And yet this cum bubble of a human being has the audiactity to claim I don’t analyse.

To him authorial intent is everything unless he doesn’t like it.

Because the point is that it’s supposed to be different from canon that means that characters can act in ANY way that’s different. ANY thing that is different is a viable option. Which obviously defeats the entire object of the project. If you are going to do that what is the point of rooting it in 616 canon in the first place? Why rely upon familiarity with the canon universe if you are going to randomly change anything on a whim as opposed to in logical response to a changed variable?

In doing that all you have accomplished is a weird and unfocussed Ultimate Universe, not a What if.

But then ol’ Big Mac starts to step up the game.

“I think probably my issue arises due to certain recent fan outrages, and a lot of the rationalizations and justifications that came from them. The latest episode of Game of Thrones, for example, had a lot of people- and I mean a LOT of people- decrying a character's "Heel" turn and their "Out of character" moments- while at the same time showing a bit of a misreading of the material or the subject matter.”

Bear in mind when he wrote this the latest episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones was the penultimate episode of it’s eighth and final season. In it, key protagonist, Daenerys slaughtered a whole city full of civilians with a fire breathing dragon and her army. Throughout the show she’d previously been defined as being unwilling to kill innocents on principle, once claiming that each enslaved person in a city was a reason to conquer the city and liberate it’s people. She was so horrified that one of her dragons inadvertently killed a child that she locked them up. She once affirmed that she did not want to be ‘Queen of the Ashes’ amidst her campaign to retake her homeland.

It’s fair to say the overwhelming majority of viewers AND professional critics took major issue with this and declared it a travesty and out of character.

Behind-the-scenes stories also heavily point to Emilia Clarke (the actress portraying the character) being upset and disenchanted with her character’s direction.

youtube

For my money these two videos are the best examinations of the disaster that was Daenerys heel turn in this episode of Game of Thrones.*

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Also please bear in mind the ‘man’ saying people are misreading things is the same man who has continually insisted that Norman Osborn merely wants to kill Spider-Man in spite of me citing examples to the contrary, including this page.

So you know, not exactly demonstrating great analytical skills there.

“I think it's far too easy to cry "Out of character" when a character does something different, or simply questionable, because it's an easy catch all phrase that sounds like you know something, but in reality it's just a cover for a lack of understanding of things like characterization or plot development.”

Says the ‘man’ who genuinely once said Norman Osborn doing something nonsensical is justified because ‘he’s crazy’.

Says the ‘man’ who leaned incredibly hard on the idea that Miles Warren in Life Story would not have intervened in Gwen’s marriage to Peter Parker even though his entire character revolves around his jealous obsession over her.

Says the guy who once said a writer can randomly decide all of Mary Jane’s character development since the 1980s didn’t matter.

Says the ‘man’ who once claimed Doc Ock at the end of Gage’s Superior run was he real Doc Ock even though he was literally a clone of his mind in a clone of his body…and then he refused to listen to me when I repeatedly spelled that fact out for him. His rationale was ‘Marvel are treating him as the real guy so he is’.

Says the ‘man’ that in his ‘interpretation’ Spider-Man regarded Ned Leeds as a ‘viper’ after he was revealed as the Hobgoblin, in spite of literally no evidence supporting that interpretation and you know Spider-Man literally saying otherwise multiple times; including in the issue he learned Ned was a villain. In fact when I pointed this out to ol’ big Mac he referred to such things as ‘arbitrary’.

Says the guy who once said it’s better for stories to be in multi-parters because before the rise of decompression al stories had rushed endings. Remember how Amazing Fantasy #15, The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man, Sensational Annual 2007, The Conversation and When Commeth the Commuter all had ‘rushed’ endings?

Says the poor excuse for a ‘man’ who once claimed there was nothing wrong with the JMS run having magic but who also lambasted Peter David’s Spider-Man work for involving magic and time travel, even though JMS wrote ASM #500 which is literally about magic time travel.

What I am trying to say is this ‘man’ has systemically demonstrated immense hypocrisy and stupidity but a staggering deficiency when it comes to literary analytical skills.

“The movie reviewer Bob Chipman mentioned this in one of his videos where he talked about the problems that a lot of "Modern" viewers have is that they believe because they watch a lot of movies in a year, that somehow makes them film buffs or gives them insight into the storytelling process, when in reality what they are doing is watching all the Marvel movies or all the big releases, and assuming that gives them the same sort of insight that people who go to school to learn this sort of thing do. And I kind of think that's also true of comics as well.”

Oh boy, is there a lot to unpack here.

Keeper of the Gate

For starters let’s call this out for what it is. As much as he might be softening the statement by saying ‘kind of’, what he is actually doing right here is GATEKEEPING.**

He is saying unless you have ‘gone to school to learn this sort of thing’ you don’t COUNT as a critic.***

Okay let’s dive into that one.

Schooling ain’t everything

Gone to school to do what exactly? How to make movies? That’s what film school is for right? So you can learn how to write, produce, direct, etc movies. Correct me if I am wrong but film school does not teach you how to CRITIQUE movies.

So by this logic going to film school wouldn’t qualify you to critique a movie, just how to make them. Except no one argues that. Bob Chipman himself studied film at school and it is from that point of view that his analyses come from.

So by RDMacQ’s own logic Bob himself isn’t qualified for his own job, let alone RD himself. At which point why does Bob’s words carry any weight at all?

But wait, we can go yet deeper.

What if we aren’t talking about film school specifically? What if someone just studied film as their major in college but not strictly film school? Is that good enough to be a film critic or not? If it is are you a lower echelon of film critic?

What if you minored in film/media studies instead of majored in it? Are you yet lower on the totem pole?

What if you went to film school but dropped out?

What if you studied from home and didn’t actually GO to the school itself?

What if you studied it at A school but pre-college?

What if you studied it privately outside of an educational institution? In other words a self-taught film student?

Shit, what about the first ever film critics or the first ever film makers who pioneered techniques and the art form? If they were going through the trial and error of formulating the art form and medium there obviously couldn’t have BEEN film schools back then?

Do they not count?

Not to mention the cultural implications of this. If you are an American who attended a French film school are you unqualified to critique American films and only French ones, even if you grew up predominantly with American cinema?

Let’s change things up a little and look to TV in Britain. One of the most acclaimed British TV writers of all time was a man named John Sullivan. Sullivan created multiple beloved and acclaimed sitcoms, the most famous of which is called Only Fools and Horses. So successful was this show that it was the most viewed TV show in Britain in both the 90s and the 2000s. The latte in particular is an achievement since the show existed purely as reruns in the 2000s sans literally 3 episodes.

The show had a total of 64 episodes and ran between 1981-2003. Do you know how many of those 64 episodes Sullivan wrote?

ALL of them.

And do you know how many of them have predominantly negative reviews? Arguably just four.

Not only has the show been positively received it’s been regarded as the singular greatest British comedy of all time, a title it still holds to this day.

Amidst the praise that the show has received is it’s great characterization, it’s emotional moments and in particular it’s utter command of narrative structure. Not only do the jokes land they land with grace and make the feat seem easy when it’s all over. The cherry on his record was his OBE, an official government recognition of his positive contributions to the arts.

So you know, this guy clearly knew how to tell a good story. He did like 60 times in a row single handily.

So when and where did he study film? The answer is, he didn’t.

He never studied film. His formal education stopped at age 15 when he dropped out of school with no qualifications. Even if he had completed his secondary high school education he’d have not studied film. Film was not on the British curriculum at the time and to my knowledge still isn’t. At best you can study ‘media studies’ starting at age 16-18 before you go on to university. But up until age 16 it’s just not an available option.

He did go to evening classes for English and read teach yourself books but that was it.

By Big Mac’s standards this writer who’s been recognized by the government themselves wasn’t qualified to write anything, let alone critique it.

Additionally let’s consider one teeny weeny little fact. If you’ve lived through the formal education system in pretty much any Western country you have almost certainly been educated on how to gain an insight into the storytelling process. Because that’s a big part of what fucking ENGLISH class is for!****

MovieBob

I’d say I’m shocked and appalled at RD’s audacity and lack of self-awareness in citing MovieBob Chipman. But I’m not. It actually makes far too much sense.

MovieBob is a broken clock that’s often not even right twice a day. His credibility as a critic and as a human being is also woefully lacking.

For starters RD is a big Spider-Marriage proponent (though he’s recently turned traitor and says he doesn’t really mid if it doesn’t come back). To his credit he has often called out and deconstructed unfair and disingenuous arguments against the Spider-Marriage.

Bob however is staunchly on the other side of that debate.

He’s even said the marriage was never good, came from an illegitimate place, that Spider-Mans imply should never be married and in fact argued that a late Slott era Spider-Man and MJ were more interesting than they were before.

Thus I find RD’s citing of Bob to back up his claims about who is ‘qualified’ to be a critic the height of irony.

But you know, that doesn’t necessarily hurt RD’s argument. Hell, Bob un-ironically believing in eugenics or intelligence testing for voters doesn’t necessarily hurt RD’s argument.

Nor does MovieBob’s weird, weird views on how society apparently punishes the Big Brains like himself of course. Although it’s so telling that an arrogant prick like RD would invoke the words of a ‘brother-in-arms’ like Bob.

No, what hurts RD’s argument is where Bob was probably coming from with his initial statement.

See I heavily suspect that RD’s claims about Bob are kind of stem from his interpretations of this video Bob made called ‘BIG PICTURE: PLOTHOLE SURFERS’. Noticeably that video cites this video by another Youtube film critic named Patrick Willems. Called ‘SHUT UP ABOUT PLOT HOLES’.

The sentiments of both videos explicitly or implicitly echo Big MacQuack’s. Everyone is wrong in how they are critiquing movies except them and people like them because they are ‘professionals’ because they went to school.

None of these arguments hold up to scrutiny both due to stuff I have mentioned above but also for various other reasons I’m not going to bother unpacking here. If you want a detailed look at why Chipman and Willems (and by extension RD) are full of shit there are several Youtube videos dissecting their points, particularly Willems’.

However, I’ve found the most detailed to be this video.

youtube

There is also this video where they more directly address Bob’s video.

Fair warning they are long and get less than PC, and yet they do address why the videos don’t hold up to scrutiny.

Self-taught critic

Here is a crazy thought, if you’ve watched all the Marvel movies and big releases every year, why SHOULDN’T that give you a potential insight when critiquing OTHER Marvel movies or big releases? Those things are competing against one another, they are broadly going for the same audience. If you familiarise yourself with them then it is not beyond impossibility that you could mentally play spot the difference in the storytelling and critically evaluate them. It’s almost like in consuming that media you have formulated a CRITERIA which you are then CRITICALLY judging similar such media against.

Hypocrisy

The best part about RD’s statements? He himself has never gone to film school. Nor has he gone to a school specifically teaching him how to analyse comic books nor write them.

By his own logic he has disqualified himself from partaking in critiquing any story, as he did with Life Story or Game of Thrones earlier on.

But the best part?

If you check out the thread this is from and observe the poster called Chase the Blues Away they often disagree. CTBA points out holes in RD’s arguments and subtly questions his reading comprehension. Entirely separately they also implied they felt GoT’s writing was illogical towards the end of season 8 as well.

Why is CTBA relevant.

Because they actually HAVE gone to film school!

Furthermore, on both Life Story and most other matters related to Spider-Man CTBA and myself have been on the same page, whether this entails agreeing with one another’s statements or by coincidence having similar positions.

Now me?

I NEVER went to film school nor did I study English literature formally beyond age 18. Oh, I’ve read bits and bobs about writing (my favourite being Russell T Davies’ book ‘A Writer’s Tale’). But I have no college level formal education on the craft of writing. My analytical skills were cultivated from my school experiences and a whole load of osmosis and practice.

I have also found myself often on the same page as another person who at least studied English at a college level. They are another poster on the same forum called MacGoblin, perhaps better known as the creator of the (now defunct) SpideyKicksButt website. For many people the site was THE best source of Spider-Man analysis on the web for over a decade.

MadGoblin still participates regularly on a podcast covering new Spider-Man issues and whether or not I agree with all his assessments the manner in which he analyses (with an eye upon continuity) is similar to myself and indeed all the other panellists on the podcast.

One of the former panellists on the podcast (who I have also been on the same page with more often than not) was called Donomark and he too studied English at a college level.

So that’s three people who meet RD’s arbitrary rules for who is a ‘real’ critic. And yet I (someone who doesn’t meet RD’s criteria) have come to mostly the exact same conclusions as they have through entirely independent analysis.

As have other people I know who didn’t study film or English Lit in college.

So, either I’m just an absolute prodigy, or RDMacQ, Willems and MovieBob’s criteria for who can and can’t grasp plot and characters is full of shit.

“A lot of the complaints I've seen is that Peter wouldn't or didn't do this in the original comics. But arguing "Peter wouldn't do this because in ASM #225, on page 11..." isn't pointing out the flaw in the story.”

As always RD is devoid of nuance or appreciating the complexities of things.

If in Life Story or any Spider-Man story in canon Peter acts in a way at odds with his established characterization which is DEFINED by ASM #225 then absolutely that’s pointing out a flaw in a story.

Case in point, here is this poorly drawn satire of Superior Spider-Man RDMacQ himself made:

Most of the gags at the expense of Superior Spider-Man in this page was made through the lens of knowing the characters’ past, of knowing what they did and how they acted in older stories.

The confusion over Crazy Town Banana Pants derives from Superior claiming Peter routinely said this when he in fact never did.

Carlie’s suspicions over Superior’s behaviour stems from he fact that the older stories have established how Peter acts and established that Carlie knows how he acts. Therefore Carlie not realizing the truth when she’s been told is illogical. That’s the gag from someone who’s stamped his foot on the ground and angrily refuted that human beings are capable of being logical.

The same is true of this next page too.

Captain America refers to ‘usual’ people involved with the Avengers (super scientists, etc.). Usual means there is a precedent and a precedent can only be defined via a pattern. A pattern of what? A pattern of older stories!

The second panel is bringing up the OLDER STORY ‘Ends of the Earth’ to prove the hypocrisy of Doc Ock

The final panel references SEVERAL past events. The Clone Saga. The Alien Costume Saga. Every time the Chameleon or another shape shifter has impersonated him. Kraven’s Last Hunt.

It’s also referencing the fact that MJ would KNOW about them and even goes really specific by referencing the events of a few pages of one specific issue of Kraven’s Last Hunt. Not the gist of the story, not the climax or the most famous moments. This one scene in the middle of everything else.

RD is using that very specific moment to draw a comparison between it and the events of Superior in order to point out how MJ is not acting consistently.

Almost like she’s, I dunno, OUT OF CHARACTER or something?

Oh, and or the record declaring Peter would or wouldn’t act this way because of ASm #225 p11 is bullshit because Peter isn’t even on that page.

“That's just spouting comic book trivia, which isn't the same thing.”

But referencing events in the middle of KLH which are hardly iconic and immediately memorable and pointing out how MJ didn’t act consistently with them in Superior Spider-Man?

Oh no, that’s NOT ‘spouting comic book trivia’.

Can you see the hypocrisy of this creature now?

Can you see how BROKEN it is to argue a character being established as acting a certain way by an older story DOESN’T mean it matters thereafter?

And he says I am bad at analysis, Jesus Christ.

“Knowledge of trivia isn't the same as understanding plot structure, foreshadowing, character development, or knowing or accepting that just because something happens in issue 1 doesn't mean it will stay that way throughout the entire book.”

First of all the sheer audacity of someone with such non-existent analytical skills to DARE fucking throw shade like this is astounding. That’s like Michael Bay trying to explain how you make a movie with substance.

Second of all he’s right and wrong here.

Knowing the history of the characters is not the same as knowing those things.

But that doesn’t render it trivia because it’s the fucking histories of the characters that define who they goddam are!

Everyone agrees Spider-Man would not have acted the way he did in One More Day right? And that MJ wouldn’t have acted the way she did in OMIT right?

Why? Why do people feel the characters would not behave that way?

Because they read older stories that depicted them acting in certain ways in certain situations that were then contradicted by OMD and OMIT.

You know like MJ not realising Superior Spidey wasn’t really Peter even though the situation was incredibly similar to Kraven’s Last Hunt and both entailed imposters pretending to be Spider-Man.

No, knowing the history isn’t the same as knowing all that other stuff.

But it is undeniably an integral PART of being able to analyse something because if the prior events don’t matter, if they are merely trivia (or worse trivia when he wants it to be but not when he doesn’t) then NOTHING matters.

Why the fuck should issue #1 matter when reading issue #2? Or issue #3 when reading issue #5?

What does it matter if chapter 1 established our protagonist as an adult black man with a wife but by chapter 10, with no explanation they are a teenaged white woman claiming they’ve never been married?

Hey, chapter 1 is just trivia right. Why should that matter?

By the way, go ask Harry Potter fans if those little details are irrelevant and see how that goes.

He’s also (unsurprisingly) disgustingly disingenuous in his final point. Yes, things between issue #1 and issue #25 will change. But there is a world of difference between something changing via development vs. lazy contradictive writing.

Case in point, in ASM #1 Peter Parker doesn’t have a job, is a pariah at school and runs away crying from a failed adventure. In issue #25 he has a freelance job, isn’t running away crying and 2 ladies are interested in him.

WHAT? Isn’t this a contradiction? Doesn’t accepting this change mean you accept that issue #1 was mere trivia?

No, because between issue #1 and #25 we saw how and when Peter got a job, those two ladies became interested in him and we saw his skills, experience and confidence grow. The end result is that issue #25 was different to issue #1 because we’d been on a JOURNEY to get us there.

In contrast in ASM #700 Doc Ock is seemingly turned into a good guy because all of Spider-Man’s memories were beamed into his head, teaching him Uncle Ben’s famous mantra. But in Superior Spider-Man #1 he’s randomly reverted to what he was doing back in ASM #698.

So that stuff was just trivia? But that stuff was the resolution of ASM #700 and therefore the set up for Superior #1. The latter couldn’t exist without the former and yet it doesn’t make sense.

And you see that? You see how that cause and effect problem exists? Yeah, that’s PART of critiquing plot structure and foreshadowing. It’s ALMOST like the older stories aren’t merely trivia but actually very important and play a factor in the other forms of analysis RD listed off.

Not to mention, the idiocy of saying knowing the trivia doesn’t mean you understand foreshadowing. Motherfucker, the entire concept of foreshadowing is that you establish details in the present because you want to hint at readers about where the story is going to go later. It practically HINGES upon readers remembering that ‘trivia’.

If ASM #225 p11 had Spider-Man pass by a black cat and say ‘Boy that reminds me of Felicia Hardy.’ THAT would be foreshadowing for the next issue, but you couldn’t appreciate that UNLESS you remembered what happened in ASM #225 p11.

And the imbecility of bringing this shit up whilst referencing Game of Thrones too? As if Daenerys heel turn was actually foreshadowed and not just created from splicing old voice overs together in the previously segment of the show.

The next bit is in reference to Life Story again by the way.

“I mean, one of the best bits of subtle foreshadowing here is what happens with Peter and Reed's relationship. In issue 2, Peter reflects on how Reed pushed Sue away with his actions, and how he doesn't want to end up like that. But come issue 3, Peter ends up doing just that, despite his best efforts to the contrary and knowing what happened to Reed beforehand. That shows smart plot structure, which doesn't come out and yell at you "THIS IS IMPORTANT!" or hold your hand in any way. That shows that this story is pretty smart with the narrative choices that are being made.”

No it doesn’t.

Because the way in which Peter pushed MJ away contradicted his character and made no fucking sense. He had a mid-life crisis in spite of being well under 40 years old.

Also, you can have, by skill or by fluke, a dash of GOOD writing amidst your shitty writing.

A LOT of people would argue the podrace or Duel of the Fates fight in Phantom Menace were legitimately good sequences in an otherwise bad movie.

People broadbrush 90s Marvel as wall to wall trash but equally everyone praises Spider-Man 2099, Joe Kelly’s Deadpool run, Ron Marz’s Green Lantern run, etc.

Goddammit, 99% of all Doctor Who is fans celebrating the bits that were great amidst the bits that were bad. There are no end of Dr. Who stories were fans will praise the set design or costumes whilst shitting on the over all writing.

Shockingly a piece of media can have good AND bad elements!

Whenever someone says a story is good or bad they are almost always speaking OVERALL. A New Hope is OVERALL good. It’s not claiming there aren’t flaws to it.

Dan Slott’s Spider-Man run was OVERALL bad. Even I have said there are good elements to it.

But the mere existence of good elements doesn’t prove that something is overall one thing or another.

In Life Story’s case, let’s pretend RD is right. Then Zdarsky executed a good bit of foreshadowing.

Key word there: ‘bit’.

It doesn’t PROVE the over all story is smart with its narrative choices.

That’s such an utterly childish manner of analysis. ‘Well this bit is good that means everything else has to be good’.

Like how the fuck does doing a good bit of foreshadowing prove that Life Story wasn’t mischaracterizing anyone or knew how to tell a good alternate history story?

Shit, DAN SLOTT had foreshadowing, sometimes it was even competently executed. Didn’t mean it wasn’t happening within the context of mischaracterization.

Trust Bobby Mac to have no grasp of nuance.

“But rather than acknowledging that, instead we get stuff like being concerned with that because Gwen finds out Peter's secret identity at the end of issue 1, that therefore means that Peter is going to be hooking up with Gwen throughout the rest of the story, that this is going to be one big Peter/ Gwen book, that Chip Zdarsky is somehow a Gwen shipper because he wanted to just have her as a best friend in Spectacular, that MJ only having two lines in the first issue means her importance will be diminished overall, and that the whole series is going to try and be a rewrite to push that ship.”

None of the allegedly great foreshadowing RD spoke of above was in issue #1

Even if it was nobody could possibly have talked about that as a point of praise because the nature of foreshadowing is we wouldn’t have realised it was goddam foreshadowing until we finally GOT to the bit it was setting up in later issues

RD has been one of the most involved people in discussions about the Spider-Marriage, frequently clashing with a fell named Mister Mets on CBR and on the linked message board. He knows that Marvel from OMD onwards used to spite fans over OMD and the Spider-Marriage and that circa 2019 when Life Story was being released the latest of such instances had occurred maybe just 1 year earlier in Slott’s Red Goblin storyline. He also knows Zdarsky pissed in the well of the Spider-Marriage fans with his FCBD 2017 Spidey story which involved Mary Jane. So for a heavily burned and abused fanbase to suddenly be concerned that Zdarksy would be pushing an agenda was a totally natural and justified reaction to have at the time even if it was proven incorrect in the long run.

RD is being a shithead again. ‘Ugh, look at these overwrought FaNz. wHy CaNt dey celebrate the GUD stuff and not focus on the WRONG stuff’.The wrong stuff being Zdarsky shitting on the Spider-Man marriage, which he clearly did by breaking up Peter and Mj in the 80s when they didn’t break up then but he needed to ship Peter with Jessica Jones I guess

“Yet here we, two issues later, and Gwen is dead, Peter married MJ and now they have kids.”

And in LF #3 their marriage was in a toxic place and they split up. In issue #4 they get back together but only by Peter giving up being Spider-Man. Almost like the story was saying having a family and being Spidey are incompatible or something.

Shit issue #3 BEGINS with MJ griping about Peter.

“All the reactionary nonsense turned out to be for naught, since the story was going in a different direction, and just because Gwen was prominent early on didn't mean MJ wasn't going to play an important role later.”

It wasn’t reactionary nonsense it was entirely justified reactionary concern. People weren’t concerned that MJ wouldn’t be important but that Zdarsky would be pushing a pro-Gwen/anti-Mj agenda which he at least debatably did and certainly seemed to be doing in the first 3 issues.

“And yet we still continue to see that reactionary nonsense continue with decrying because Peter and MJ leave off on a bad note here, it therefore means the rest of the series will be an unending slide into misery.”

Which was proven partially true.

Issue #4 Harry dies, Peter quits like a coward.

Issue #5 Peter’s child is crippled, his identity is outted, ben Reilly dies and he becomes a fugitive as a super human civil war breaks out.

Issue #6 the world has turned to shit because of that civil war and the only way to fix it is for Spider-Man to die.

But again, he’s missing the point like the fool that he is.

People were concerned and upset BECAUSE the series split Peter and MJ up in the first place. Both because that defied the mission statement of the series but also because they know Peter and MJ WOULDN’T split up and the circumstances engineering it were fucking contrived shit.

“Which then unfortunately leads into bashing the creator himself, which I find incredibly unreasonable given the tremendous job Zdarsky is doing.”

He didn’t do a tremendous job.

Chase the Blues Away, the film school student, had been saying so and continued to say so after RD made this comment. So I guess by his own metric he was full of shit.

This is one of RD’s fundamental and fatal flaws. He’s a hypocrite. Everything is subjective unless it’s the shit HE likes or hates. Then it’s objectively good or bad.

Not to mention no one had been bashing the creator personally. He can’t grasp this either. He doesn’t grasp the distinction between bashing the work of a writer vs. bashing the writer personally.

E.g. he falsely claims I’ve sworn at him. I have sworn at him…here. On my own blog here I don’t feel the need to play nice.

On a public forum? Never. I’ve sworn in the course of conversations with him. I’ve sworn in regards to his argument but never sworn to attack him personally.

“Decrying Zdarsky as some form of hack because halfway through a six part story he's had the protagonist go through a rough time and that he is just putting out "Fan fiction," or- as I saw someone else argue- that the reason Zdarsky did this was because he himself went through marital troubles at one time in his life is just silly.”

It’s really not. He admitted that he wrote MJ in FCBD 2017 as his ex wife.

Fanfiction is exactly what LF was. Peter hooks up with Jessica Jones because…no given reason. It’d make infinitely more sense for that to have been Felicia but it was Jessica Jones. Zdarsky invents his own personal new spin on the Goblin who’s wearing kewl black because why not. He has characters randomly act in any way he wants for the story to happen regardless of how little sense it makes. That’s bad fanfiction 101. He has logic holes you can drive a truck through. FFS Russia launched nukes on America in issue #3 and this DIDN”T result in all out nuclear Armageddon. That’s amateuris

“Just like it's silly to say that D&B from GoT are purposefully destroying the show because they hate it and they hate women and they just want to move onto Star Wars,”

This is at worst a strawman.

At best an utterly myopic oversimplification.

The MAJORITY of people crying out against GoT season 8 weren’t claiming D&B were engaging in deliberate sabotage but rather they were ruining the series via their incompetence and RUSHING to get to the end.

Additionally the idea that they are misogynists is REALLY not a ‘silly’ argument. MANY people throughout the show’s history have made that argument, long before the popular opinion was that the show was bad,

A season 4 subplot that was heavily embellished (to the point of being called practically original) from the books entailed rogue Night’s Watchmen raping a household of women beyond the Wall. The most infamous line from the subplot was ‘Fuck them all to death.’

In that same season Jamie Lannister makes sexual advances on his sister Cersei even though she was saying no.

Sansa Stark, in a scene not in the books, was raped by Ramsey Bolton with the focus being upon Theon Greyjoy’s horror at the situation.

And of course there is ever so slightly a dash of gratuitous nudity involving women in the show.

Look, I’m not even saying for sure that D&B hate women or that that was at the root of how they fucked up Daenerys’ character in season 8.

But it’s idiotic to just dismiss the idea as wholesale silly as Smac a Mac is doing above.

“when in reality D&B were the reason the show got made in the first place and all those great female characters were brought to television for a wider audience to experience.”

Hollywood had been wanting to adapt George R. R. Martin’s books for years before he let D&B do it

Their first pilot was so bad they had to reshoot it.

They weren’t the reason we got those great female characters. Martin’s writing was why we got those characters and those good stories and why anyone wanted to make his books into a live action property at all.

Again, RD FAILING at nuance. A female character can have good writing AND bad writing. They can be good over all but drop the ball in certain moments. They can be great for 7 seasons but then fumble disastrously at the finish line. An opinion shared by all those critics that went to film school

Writers can be capable of doing good female characters even if they are misogynists. Writers who are not misogynists are capable of still being sexist at times. Friggin Stan Lee had sexist female characters in spite of also inventing Mary Jane who is lauded as a great female character even in the 1960s. Again, nuance. Mac Attac ain’t good at it.

“We can dislike or criticize a work without having to demonize the creators,”

It’s not demonizing D&B or Zdarsky to call them incompetent writers.

“and I think it's just become far too easy nowadays for people to rationalize their statements by making the creators themselves into remorseless villains, since that justifies them acting however they please in response.”

And it’s become far too difficult for me to stomach any more of this piece of shit.

*For what it is worth, these events are also listed on TV Tropes under the Face Heel Turn page:

Daenerys herself falls victim to this in the final seasons. Her actions in Essos had the purest of intentions: fighting against the Dothraki's misogyny and ending slavery in western Essos. Even her morally questionable acts still had these goals in mind. But when she set her sights on conquering Westeros, which is more or less a standard medieval European setting, her only goal was conquest. Even her claim that the Iron Throne is her birthright falls short since her father was killed due to his madness and love of burning things. Dany really doesn't help her case by burning alive any captive soldiers who don't side with her. This culminates with her slaughtering most of King's Landing's civilian population in the penultimate episode. Had the show started with the sixth season, there'd be no question that she is Daddy's Little Villain, her tragic backstory and past heroic deeds being a footnote at best.

**This is especially ironic as he’s accused me of doing the same.

Me, I’ve called people out or corrected them when they have gotten facts wrong. I’ve even said they don’t know what they are talking about. The difference is I’m not doing it just on principal as he is here.

I’ve never said someone doesn’t belong in the fandom or is not a real fan. Yet here RDMacQ is outright disqualifying people from having the legitimacy to critique comic books unless they’ve gone through what he deems the ‘appropriate steps’.

If I have told someone they are wrong or don’t know what they are talking about or don’t understand the material I have corroborative EVIDENCE to back it up. Their own statements prove that point.

E.g. RDMacQ doesn’t understand Norman Osborn’s character. Why? Because his statements contradicts the clear cut TEXT (not the subtext) of the source material. See? The source material is the EVIDENCE that supports my accusation. But RDMacQ doesn’t believe in analysis that way and has told me so himself.

***This laughable in he modern day and age where film criticism is so transparently ideologically driven as opposed to sincerely critiquing the merits of a film.

Hence why Bob Chipman and most other professional critics laud works like the Last Jedi which a fifth grader can see has little internal consistency.

#RDMacQ #Catharsis #Spider-Man #Game of Thrones #Dan Slott #Mary Jane Watson #Superior Spider-Man #MovieBob #Bob Chipman #daenerys targeryan

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pandawritespoorly · 5 years

Text

With Time: Chapter 1 - First Week Back

Author’s Note: Okay, so this is the first fanfic I've ever written. Somethings might be a little weird/off, and if so, please let me know! I'll do my best to explain it or smooth it out.

Fic Summary: Marinette returns from summer vacation to find that Lila is still in her class. Even worse, she finally made good on her threat to turn Marinette's friends against her. With Marinette still reeling from her sudden loss of friends - and trying to figure out where she went wrong - transferring schools seems like the only option, so that's what she does. Doing her best to hide her bruises - both emotional and physical - she adjusts to her new school life. A (mostly) friendly and eclectic group of kids allow her into their group, but she's can't bring herself to call them friends, not when she is certain she doesn't deserve any. Featuring a Marinette who blames herself for far too much, a very worried Adrien, and some very nice and very protective quantic kids (+ Felix).

Chapter Summary: Marinette returns to school after the summer to find that her expectations and assumptions were entirely wrong.

Marinette was worried about the new school year. Last year had ended ...poorly, to say the least. Lila had tried to make good on her threat, but hadn’t succeeded completely. So while her friends were distant now, they were still her friends.

That said, they hadn’t spoken in a while. After another heated disagreement , Alya and Marinette had agreed to spend some time apart. Take some time to cool off, and hopefully have the other see sense.

It wasn’t like the whole Lila situation was all bad. She and Adrien were much closer, and she was actually friends with him, rather than so obsessed. Being the only two who knew Lila was lying forced them to stay together, for the sake of their sanity. Adrien had tried to talk to Alya and Nino, but they hadn’t listened, telling him that he'd “been spending too much time with Marinette”. Hearing about that had certainly hurt, but at least he’d tried.

He stuck with her, as he said he would. A few weeks after her return, Lila had tried to make some snide comments about Marinette, Adrien had shut that down immediately. Doing so prompted some of her classmates to spend some time with her, and they’d had a fun day. Despite Adrien’s interference, Lila had still cornered Marinette often to insult her when no one else could hear, and while the comments stung, Chloe had made her used to this sort of verbal abuse.

Still, Marinette missed Alya. Knowing her and the rest of her old classmates like she did, she knew they would see the truth eventually. They were good people and knew her well. Given all the time they’d been apart, they probably missed her. It would be good to see them all again. Due to this, Marinette was determined to be (cautiously) optimistic about the new school year. This was a mistake.

Marinette lasted one week in her old school when she came back after the summer. One week before she transferred schools.

---

Monday

Marinette had only just arrived in Ms. Bustier’s class and sat down next to Adrien when Lila walked in. This prompted the classroom to break into excited babble as everyone (with the exception of Adrien and Marinette) greeted her. Not one to break tradition, Lila immediately claimed that she was responsible for keeping the class together.

Marinette scoffed internally. Françoise Dupont kept most people in the same class. While some switches weren’t uncommon, in all likelihood you would stay with the same group for years. This was common knowledge, but her friends ate it up, showering Lila in praise and thanks.

Tuesday

Marinette was surprised that Lila didn’t speak to her at all on Monday. So when Lila approached her just before lunch she wasn’t entirely surprised.

“Marinette, I was surprised to see you back at school. I honestly thought you’d get the message - you’re not wanted here.”

“Back off Lila, I’m not scared of you. Your little threat in the bathroom never came true, and do you know why? Because my friends won’t abandon me for some girl with fancy stories!” Marinette wouldn’t get shaken up by this liar this time! She knew her friends had her back.

“Oh that’s so cute, you think they care about you. I know what I’m doing, but you’re smart, so I’ll give you a final chance to join me, otherwise your ‘friends’ will regret ever even seeing you.”

“I’ll only ever ‘join you’ when you stop lying, Lila.”

Lila smirked, “Have it your way then. Ciao, Marinette!”

Ugh, that brat. She really got on Marinette’s nerves. At least now she knew that Lila’s threat was nonsense. Marinette’s friends wouldn’t abandon her, she was a good friend.

Lila was gone for the rest of the day.

Wednesday

Lila is absent Wednesday too. People start to worry about her, considering all her ‘disabilities’ and such. Marinette and Adrien appreciate the break, and without Lie-la hovering around 24/7, Marinette gets to spend time with Alya. Turns out they both missed each other, and though Alya is still sort of distant, it’s nice to be back together again.

Thursday

Marinette is late for her first class, and with Adrien being gone all day for a photoshoot, obtaining notes will be a bit harder. Rushing into class, she doesn’t notice the glares directed at her, how Alya is seething in her seat, or that Lila has returned. Then, after class before she can leave, Alya corners her.

“Marinette! What is wrong with you?” Alya is furious and Marinette is confused. Just yesterday, they’d been planning times to hang out after school and now this? The whole class was around, they stared, some glared. Everyone seemed to understand except for Marinette. Had she done something wrong? Was there a misunderstanding? If she could just get a chance to sort this out…

“A-Alya, I-” She’s stammering. She can feel they eyes of the rest of everyone else on her, hard and judging.

Nino speaks up, “We knew you were jealous of Lila, but attacking her? Seriously uncool dude.”

“I-” Attacking her? What? Then, for the first time that day, Marinette spotted her. Lila, still in her seat by the chair, with Rose and Juleka comforting her, was covered in scratches and bruises. They all thought she’d done that to Lila?

“Save it Marinette! She told us everything. How you threatened her in the bathroom on her first day back last year, how you threatened her again on Tuesday. She didn’t even feel safe coming back to school because you’ve been bullying her all summer! Looking at her now, I can certainly see why!” Alya was not about to let this go.

Marinette was too stressed to properly process that whole chunk of information, but she’d gotten one part she could disprove. Maybe that would be enough to make it all fall apart?

“B-bullying? I-I didn’t even s-s-see her all su-” That was as far as she got before Alya cuts her off again.

“Don’t play dumb, she showed us the messages. I can’t believe I ever called someone so cruel my best friend.”

Once again, Marinette has no idea what she’s talking about. She glances back at Lila, wondering how she pulled this off. The girl in question visibly winces under her stare, prompting Rose, Rose, to glare at Marinette. They all were. They hated her. Somewhere, somehow, she’d messed up, and now, she’d lost them all. She was having trouble breathing. She had to get out, but as she moves to the door, Alya grabs her wrist.

“Oh no you don’t. You do not get to just run away . After all you’ve done?”

“Like, seriously dude? Teaming up with Adrien’s dad to spend more time with him? You know my bro barely gets enough freedom as it is.”

Marinette is stuck there, held in place by Alya’s hand on her wrist, stuck halfway between her desk at the back and the classroom door in the front. More voices are joining in. She doesn’t hear all of it, but she definitely hears enough. It’s everyone now, not just Alya and Nino.

“Can’t believe you would do that….”

“How hard is it to be a good person?...”

“I’m disgusted that I ever considered you a friend….”

“Bullying? I knew you were crazy, but that was too far. ...”

“Why are we even surprised? We know how obsessive she got over Adrien...”

“Why was she our class president again? Even Chloe would have been better…”

“Poor Lila…”

More and more, the comments never stopped. She couldn’t breathe properly, she couldn’t see straight. She might have been crying but she wasn’t sure. All she could do was stand there and take it as they yelled at her, too many of them echoing some of her own doubts about herself. How long would this go on? How long had it already gone on? She was both grateful Adrien wasn’t here, and wishing for him desperately.

The door to the classroom slammed open. Someone new was talking. A distraction. While everyone was looking at the newcomer, Marinette took her opportunity. Twisting her wrist, hard, she freed herself from Alya’s grip, and spun around. She tripped, landing on that same wrist, but losing no momentum, falling down the stairs until she arrived at the bottom. Picking herself up, she rushed out of there and ended up in the bathroom. The newcomer followed.

She was hiding in a stall when she heard them come in. Both of them. There were two sets of footsteps.

“Dupain-Cheng? I know you’re in here.”

Chloe? Now? Nononononononono. Marinette couldn’t deal with her right now. Weren’t ladybugs supposed to be lucky? A barely audible choked sob echoed in the bathroom. Marinette didn’t know what to do.

The footsteps approached her stall, and pushed it open gently. She hadn’t even locked it, what a moron.

“Marinette?” Sabrina now. “You need to calm down…” she trailed off, but even in the midst of this, Marinette knew what she meant. She was at risk of being akumatized. Paris was doomed if she was under Hawkmoth’s control. She didn’t want that, but she wasn’t able to focus on anything to keep herself from feeling negative emotions. What was she supposed to do? If she couldn’t stop herself from being akumatized, Hawkmoth would win. Chat Noir could get badly hurt, and might even blame himself, her parents would be disappointed, Fu would be disappointed, Tikki would be disappointed. Everyone would be disappointed. She was a disappointment. Lila was right, she couldn’t even be a proper friend, how was she supposed to be a proper hero? All because she couldn’t defend herself from some liar, everything would go wrong. Everything had already gone wrong. This was all her fault.

Her mind was buzzing, repeating everything over and over, this was all her fault. Her breathing got worse, her vision blurred as more tears came to her eyes. Chloe moved forward.

“It’s alright Sabrina, I can handle this. You go back to class.” Sabrina hesitated at Chloe’s order, but nodded and left the room. Chloe turned to Marinette, she spoke, but Marinette couldn’t make out the words. Everything was muffled, and a sort of numbing sense of ‘it can’t get worse than this’ spread over her.

The rest of the day from there is a blur.

An arm around her shoulder, leading her out of the bathroom, out of the school, onto the street, and into the bakery. A muffled, short conversation. A different arm, leading her upstairs into her house.

Being led to the counter, where something cold was put on her wrist. Comments were mumbled at her. Blood was wiped off her knees, and a scratch on her face was tended to. There was little else that could be done, something was wrapped around her wrist and she was led to her room.

A high-pitched voice prompted her to change into pj’s and some part of her that could still consider wants told her to sit outside. She stayed there for hours, until she felt herself start to droop with exhaustion, and was ushered to bed.

---

Adrien hated all-day photoshoots for many reasons, but high on that list was missing things. Though, at least with it being only the first week of school, he couldn’t miss much.

At least, that’s what he had thought that morning. Now, having finally gotten back to his house that night, he checked his phone and saw a lot of messages. Several from Nino, a few from Alya, a couple from Lila, one from Sabrina, and many from Chloe, but none from Marinette. None of the messages said exactly what had happened, but he got the idea. Something had happened, and nothing good. The texts from Nino, Alya, and Lila, were supportive and comforting for some reason, and the texts from Chloe were angry. Sabrina was just telling him Chloe wanted him to talk to her immediately on Friday.

Reading through the messages from Chloe, all he got was that something had happened to Marinette, and she had gone home early. Yesterday things had been going so well. Adrien was worried, what had happened? Maybe she had just gotten sick?

Adrien couldn’t go out tonight to check on her, no matter how much he wanted to, but Chat Noir could.

As he made his way over rooftops to check on his best friend he tried to convince himself that he was overreacting, Marinette was fine, just a little sick. He smiled when he spotted her sitting out on her balcony, she was just-

Oh no.

From a considerable distance, sure, she was fine, but any closer and she was not okay. Her right wrist was in a brace, and there were large bandages on both her knees. Large bruises spotted her arms and legs, and a small cut on her cheek outlined the nearby bruise on her face.

The closer he got the worse she looked, but the worst part were her eyes. Her eyes, which were typically big, and bright, were dull and unfocused. She stared out at nothing and didn’t react at all when he landed in front of her. His usually fashionable classmate was wearing mis-matched pajamas, and her hair had devolved into messy and loose pigtails. There was an untouched plate of food on her table with a glass of water to match it.

“...Marinette?” No response. She didn’t even blink. What had happened at school today?

He stood for a few moments, unsure of what to do. Part of him wanted to keep watch for akumas, but another part reasoned that if Marinette was to be akumatized, it would have been earlier. Not ...now, while she was so concerningly numb. Another part wanted answers, to rush to his classmates’ house and interrogate them. Yet another just wanted to watch Marinette, silently keeping his princess company, maybe that would prompt her to speak.

The latter was the option he ended up going with. Leaning against the side of her balcony, he watched her, while occasionally glancing around for akumas, or even Ladybug. He noticed when, after some time of them sitting in silence, her eyelids started to flutter, her breathing slowed, her already limp body drooped further. Of course. She’d had a long day, she was tired. It was probably impressive she was even still awake.

He stood, and approached her slowly. Mumbling nothing in particular to her about how she needed to rest, he gingerly scooped her up, careful of her injuries, and slipped into her room. Placing her carefully in her bed, he slipped out and went back to his own house.

He didn’t sleep well.

Friday

Marinette wakes up on Friday feeling off, it took a moment for everything that happened yesterday to catch up with her. Not long after that, the feelings came rushing back in too, feeling like a punch to the gut. Tears came to her eyes, and she gasped quietly. Tikki floated up to her face.

“Marinette? How are you feeling?”

How was she feeling? Bad, definitely. Scared? She wasn’t in any danger, but some part of her refused to drop her guard. Upset, hurt, sad… she was feeling a lot. Yesterday had been… what had she done wrong? Her friends had just abandoned her- no, it was worse, they believed she had been capable of hurting Lila, bullying and attacking her. Hadn’t they called her their ‘everyday Ladybug’? Did they think Ladybug was horrible too? If they thought both sides of her were horrible, did that make her twice as bad? Did-

“Marinette! Hey, it’s okay. Can you focus on me?” Tikki was in front of her face, patient and calm, even amidst her clear worry.

“I-I f-f-feel-” Those two stuttering words were as far as she got before she shook her head and put her hands over her face. Tikki sits with her, comforting her holder the best she could.

When Marinette went downstairs, her parents told her not to worry about going to school, they pulled her out the day before. They were worried and curious about exactly what happened, but didn’t press her for details, which was good because Marinette wasn’t exactly sure what the details are. They said that they’d start the search for a new school later that day or the next, and that later they’d take her to a doctor, but for now she could rest. They gave her a new phone, her old one needed to be replaced anyways.

She went back to her room, shoving her old phone in the back of an empty drawer. Tikki suggested cleaning, and Marinette nodded, putting her hair in a messy bun, and changing into more comfortable clothes that make her feel …safer, somehow. She missed Tikki’s sad smile at her choice.

Wrapping herself in a blue blanket, she went to work clearing her desk, the walls, bulletin boards, everything. Photos, mostly, but also little trinkets, mementos from years of friendship. She worked in silence mostly, smiling softly at Tikki as thanks for the Kwami’s assistance.

After a few hours, there is a soft knock at her trapdoor and Adrien poked his head in.

“Hey Marinette, how are you feeling?” He entered her room completely, giving her space, which is good, because that one part of her was still on guard, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I… don’t know” She still hadn’t figured that out, but he seemed to understand. He looked at her bruised body and sprained wrist in concern.

“Mari… I get if you don’t want to talk about it, but what happened yesterday? Everyone at school seems to think I’m a victim, and Chloe says she only heard yelling before she intervened.” he paused, gesturing at her, “What happened? What led to this? ”

Marinette was quiet, then, “I tripped.”

He gave her a look, then sighed, “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“I did.” It was true. No one had hurt her, she had tripped down the steps, not because anyone pushed her, but because she’d spun too fast. It was her own fault. Her own stupid fault.

He was silent for a moment, then, “Chloe says she thinks Alya tripped you. Or pushed you.”

“No! No, Alya wouldn’t do something like that! We’re- She- I-” Marinette’s reaction was immediate, but she slowed, stumbling over her words as she realized she didn’t know what to say in Alya’s defense. “She- she’s a good person. She w-wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t.”

Adrien looked doubtful, but left it alone. They talked for awhile longer then his phone beeped, he glanced at it and sighed.

“I’m sorry, Mari. I wish I could stay longer, but Father… “ He trailed off, but Marinette understood, he had to go.

The two said their goodbyes, and Marinette looked back at the pile of memories. She didn’t feel up to sorting through it then. Grabbing a trash bag, she stuffed everything in there, putting the now half-full bag inside of the case she used to keep the presents for Adrien in. She had gotten rid of most of them when she gotten less ... obsessed with him.

The rest of her day was fairly uneventful, the doctor’s visit went well, as did the search for potential new schools. She had to wear make-up to patrol, in order to cover up the bruise on her cheek, but that was fine. Chat Noir noticed she seemed off, but all she said was that she was transferring schools.

She missed his concerned look as she swung home. She had schools to research.

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #lila rossi #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #quantic kids #ml felix #transfer fic #miraculous tendencies #miraculous side effects #chloe redemption #chloe bourgeois #chameleon salt #with time #fanfic #🐼✏️

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randomahsheadcanons · 5 years

Text

Galangdon Headcanons

• They’re like a gay version of Gomez and Morticia Addams.

• Gallant likes to count Michael’s rings.

• It helps him fall asleep.

• Michael gives him one of his rings every time they have to spend some time away from each other.

• He takes Gallant’s hand, puts the ring on his finger and then kisses it.

• Gallant kisses the ring after Michael leaves.

• It’s like an indirect kiss.

• They have very different styles.

• Michael only wears black outfits and Gallant has the most fabulous clothes, most of them being pink or magenta.

• He doesn’t like wearing black but he still wears Michael’s coats and claims it’s “for the aesthetic”.

• Michael doesn’t mind.

• Gallant likes to put on pink lipstick and somehow it always ends up on Michael’s lips (and other parts of his body).

• Gallant likes to braid Michael’s hair and do his makeup.

• Michael allows him to use his hair to practice.

• “I’m gonna do a french braid”

• “You’re not expecting me to wear it, are you?”

• “Please? For me?”

• “Ugh, fine. The sacrifices I make for you…”

• “I’ll suck you off later to repay you”

• “Oh, you better!”

• Gallant’s soul and body literally belong to Michael and he’s surprisingly okay with it.

• Michael says there’s a special place in hell for him.

• “Don’t worry, doll. It’s not as hot as you think”

• “It’s not? I thought it was lit”

• “…I hate you”

• They’re the kinkiest motherfuckers.

• Gallant moans louder than a professional porn star.

• They kept the rubber suit.

• Gallant is supposed to call Michael “master” or “sir” but he always ends up forgetting and calling him “Mikey”.

• Michael slaps him every time he does that and he keeps doing it on purpose.

• He’s a masochist.

• Actually, they’re both into BDSM.

• Bible Discussion & Study Meeting.

• Gallant is not allowed to go to the Folsom Street Fair anymore.

• Not since… last time.

• But that’s okay because Michael is a good dom.

• And Gallant loves to be his sub.

• He’s really into being tied up and spanked.

• He has a tattoo somewhere that says “sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me”.

• Michael loves to whip him.

• Especially because he moans loudly every time he does it.

• Ritual sex? Ritual sex.

• Blood play; knife play.

• Gallant likes to be humiliated and praised at the same time.

• Ritual sex it’s the wildest sex they have.

• Michael always brings someone for them to kill.

• Gallant has no problem with killing people as long as they’re bad.

• For example: Michael is not allowed to kill a random innocent guy but if he wants to brutally torture and murder a pedophile, Gallant’s on board with that.

• He actually enjoys to watch Michael murder people.

• Especially if he eats their heart.

• Yes, Gallant has a heart eating kink.

• Michael does that Tongue Thing and it drives him crazy.

• They have a special day of the week where they have hearts for dinner.

• It’s Heart Tuesday.

• Obviously Gallant has his cooked, like a normal person.

• It’s a beautiful scene.

• Gallant is a gentleman, eating with knife and fork and using a napkin.

• Michael eats like an animal.

• He practically chews the beating heart, eats with his bare hands and gets blood everywhere.

• It’s like that one scene from Beauty And The Beast.

• Gallant casually sips wine and stares at Michael with a contemplating look on his face.

• Michael and Gallant are both extremely needy, although Michael at least tries not to show it.

• No one has ever loved him and needed him as much as Gallant does and it’s a relief to be with someone that he knows won’t leave him.

• Gallant needs constant reassuring that Michael loves him and doesn’t consider him disposable.

• Mallory and Michael became friends because Gallant and Coco are always hanging out.

• They go shopping and drag their lovers with them.

• Mallory and Michael bond over the fact that they both hate shopping.

• Michael is not a huge fan of pet names but he calls Gallant “Gal”, “doll” and “sweetheart”.

• He also calls him a lot of pet names in Latin like “cara”, “deliciae” and “pulchra”.

• Gallant loves it.

• He went to a very prestigious catholic school so he’s practically fluent in Latin.

• They speak Latin to each other all the time when they don’t want other people to understand what they’re saying.

• Gallant is basically an attention whore.

• Michael has to kiss him all the time otherwise he’ll cross his arms and pout.

• “Mikeeeeey! Why don’t you ever kiss me anymore?”

• “We were making out five minutes ago”

• He’ll interrupt an important meeting with the Cooperative just to sit on Michael’s lap.

• Michael lets him stay and play with his hair.

• “You have to stop distracting me in the middle of a meeting”

• “But it’s booooring!”

• Michael is a sucker for Gallant’s cute little pouty face.

• He can get anything from him if he just pouts: money, car, jewelry, dick.

• He’s kind of a dumbass so Michael has to be the voice of reason in this relationship.

• He also gets easily distracted by shiny things, especially diamonds.

• Michael gets him a ton of expensive jewelry that he doesn’t even wear, he just likes to admire it.

• If he has a stressful day and cries about something, Michael just gives him the shiniest jewel he can find.

• “You don’t understand! I never- t-they didn’t even payed for my h-hard work!”

• “I understand, doll”

• “And s-she still wouldn’t gi- oh, is that a RED DIAMOND?!”

• Gallant has an unhealthy obsession with Michael’s hair.

• He likes to sleep with his face buried on his hair.

• Sometimes they shower together and Gallant spends most of the time washing Michael’s hair.

• He grabs his hair to sniff it before going to work and it’s really creepy.

• “I want your hair inside of me”

• “For the love of Satan, get some help!”

• When Michael told him his hair was starting to bother him because it was too big and asked him to cut it, he almost cried.

• He agreed to give him a haircut but he cried the whole time.

• And he saved every single piece of hair he could find.

• “All of this precious hair on the floor of MY salon? Nonsense, I’ll keep it”

• Their fights are intense.

• Sometimes they scream at each other’s faces in Latin and no one understands what’s going on.

• Michael gets childish when they fight and starts throwing stuff around.

• Gallant just goes full on sarcasm mode.

• “Nice, Michael. Break everything! I’m sure that’ll help me understand how mature you are”

• Their fights mostly end when Gallant gets tired and starts crying.

• Michael stops yelling immediately.

• “Oh, don’t- don’t cry, sweetheart. Please don’t cry, I’m sorry!”

• Michael hates seeing Gallant upset about something.

• When he’s sad, Michael wraps his arms around him and absorbs all of his negative emotions.

• Gallant doesn’t notice it.

• They always talk about how awful their grandmothers are.

• “Nana used to lock me on the closet… literally”

• “Grandma smacked me every time I told people how old she really was”

• They had pretty shitty childhoods so they try their best to be there for each other no matter what.

• “I love you, Mikey”

• “You know I absolutely adore you, pulchra”

• “Oh, really? I thought you wouldn’t fuck me if I was the last man on earth”

• “Shut up”

#american horror story #american horror story: apocalypse #ahs #ahs apocalypse #mr gallant #michael langdon #galangdon #michael x gallant #gallant x michael #ahs headcanons #headcanon #cocollory

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sapphireemeralds · 5 years

Note

For my DnD character ask meme...odds for Eliot and evens for Mo—And you can pick a letter 💜💚

Alrighty, let’s do this! :D

1) What would they consider to be their biggest failure?

Eliot: She feels responsible for her younger siblings, and sees their refusal to leave the family business and come clean as her failing. Bill’s descent into even more despicable shit really gnaws on her - she loved him dearly and defended him from Margaret’s abuse and her full siblings’ insults as best she could, and she tried so hard teach him to be compassionate and look for the goodness and inherent worth in people, not just the money and favors he could cajole or squeeze out of them; when she joined the Valoran police force, though, that drove a wedge between them and drove Bill closer to Angus.

2) What’s the story behind their name?

Mo: Named after his great-great-grandfather, who was a valiant soldier and famous fencer. Gramps would not approve of our Mo’s uh, significantly less artful swordsmanship or fondness for bludgeoning weapons.

3) What’s their relationship with their family?

Eliot: Loves Fiona and trusts her whole-heartedly, though they’ve drifted apart a little as they’ve grown up and gone about their lives. Forgives Margaret (Mom) for most of the pain caused, but doesn’t trust a single word Margaret says and struggles to control her temper around her. For younger siblings, see (1). Tuk Tuk is her baby, her buddy, her lil’ sunshine.

4) What’s one song that describes them or is them?

Mo: Whoo BOY I actually don’t have a character playlist for Mo, but for now let’s go with “Spoilin’ for a Fight” by AC/DC

5) Who is their best friend?

Eliot: Mireth in the Crazy Campaign, and... honestly, I’m not sure who yet in P&C, but she is drawn to very charismatic, composed people, so she’s gravitating toward Caspian and Talise. Dealing with Quiggley’s awkward earnestness is too much like looking in a mirror; she likes and respects Jax, but doesn’t quite know how to connect with him; and she hasn’t spent enough time with Brax or Briony yet.

6) Why are they their class?

Mo: When he joined the army, he basically had three choices - stab/slash/smack shit (fighter), pray a lot and heal shit (cleric), or study a lot of arcane shit so he can stand at the back casting fireballs (wizard). A straightforward man, he chose the most straightforward option.

7) What do they think of their party members?

Eliot: In essence, “I would sooner throw myself in front of a charging behemoth than stand by and let you weirdos deal with this nonsense alone.” They’re the closest thing she’s had to home, and she just wants them all to be safe and happy.

8) In what ways are they similar to you?

Mo: He’s very forthright about his opinions, and those opinions don’t change easily; we both hate being wrong. That said, we’re both usually fine going along with a group consensus. Usually.

9) In what ways are they different from you?

Eliot: She has a more optimistic world-view and greater faith in the divine, and she’s far braver than I’ll ever be.

10) What do they look for in a romantic partner, if they have a romantic orientation?

Mo: Easy-going, sensible, sociable, adventurous but not too wild, loyal but not clingy

11) If they had a patronus or animagus form, what would it be?

Eliot: I was trying to think of something cooler that would still fit, but nah, let’s be real... she’d have/be a Golden Retriever.

12) What do they smell like?

Mo: Leather, sandalwood, and cedar

13) What is their secret skill?

Eliot: Once she’s heard a song all the way through a couple times, she can henceforth recognize it almost instantly.

14) What is their relationship to spirituality?

Mo: Decidedly meh. Mo’s no atheist - he’s met enough devastatingly effective clerics on the battlefield to think otherwise - but he’s not deeply interested in the gods, nor does he think they’re as interested in mortal affairs as people claim they are. He’s the Forgotten Realms equivalent of someone who only goes to church on Christmas and Easter and prays, like, twice a year at most.

15) If they were to be remembered for something, what would they want to be remembered for?

Eliot: For everyday acts of mercy and kindness, and for standing up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves.

16) Why did they become an adventurer?

Mo: He found that once he picked up a sword, it was hard to put it down; for years, settling back into civilian life simply seemed unthinkable. Age and a narrowly-missed apocalypse finally changed that.

17) What’s one thing about their backstory that came to you after you already started playing the campaign?

Eliot: THE WHOLE THING.

18) Do you have any headcanons for them that haven’t come up in game? Or headcanons for other party members?

Mo: As Elemental Evil is basically an extended dungeon crawl with a clear goal and limited opportunities for characters to just... talk... AND I joined that campaign late, basically none of my headcanons for Mo came up in-game. In fact, my headcanon for him is still a little sparse. Two tidbits, though: he has a stamp collection, and he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket to save his damn life.

19) Any ships with your character? If a PC or NPC, what interaction launched it?

Eliot: For the Crazy Campaign, Eliot/Keegan, obvi - god bless poor unsuspecting Drew for tapping into my latent obsession with consensual possession as a character dynamic/basis for a ship. As for P&C, Eliot is crushing HARD on Giulietta, although potential spoiler alert, it’s unlikely anything will come of it.

20) What would your character consider their biggest success? Or what is your favorite success your character has had so far?

Mo: Helping stop the apocalypse ain’t half bad, he’s pretty pleased with that. ^w^

As for the letter, let’s go with B: Hogwarts Houses! :D ( * indicates some serious uncertainty; also, I’m excluding characters I haven’t played yet, or only played for one or two sessions)

Gryffindors: Flora, Bells, Mo, Diantha, Skylar*, Fae, Ace

Slytherins: Bao, Takara

Ravenclaws: Jamie, Kiya

Hufflepuffs: Eliot, Theron, Jheri, Flint, Idris*

#thejenesaisquoigirl #memes 'n' shit #just trpg things #ask

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hollowedrpg · 5 years

Photo

CONGRATULATIONS, ROMAN! — You’ve been accepted for the role of Xenophilius Lovegood, with a face claim change to Cody Fern. I was a little worried people would struggle with the vagueness of Xeno’s affliction and how he’s been affected since he was attacked during school, but you wrote it beautifully. I also really enjoyed reading your head canons about his relationship with Pandora, and everything else about Xeno. You really brought his character to life outside of the bio, which is exactly what I’m looking for in an application.

Thank you so much for applying. Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the follow list. Welcome to Hollowed Souls!

ooc.

name: Roman

age: 26

preferred pronouns: they/them

timezone: EST

activity: medium to high; I’m around to answer messages and plot every day, and am usually able to do at least some replies every other day or so depending on how work is going!

are you applying for more than one character?: not at this time!

how do you feel about your character dying?: I would be comfortable with it as long as it’s discussed and I’d have a chance to pick up another character! The possibility of the death is cool to think about; having a grand ending would be satisfying, especially if it was something that was a long time coming, and contributed to the plot in a big way, which I feel it actually could with Xeno. I’m a sucker for a good slow burn with some angst!

anything else?: (questions, concerns, etc.) I did some assuming on some bits about Pandora and Xeno’s relationship that I’m definitely open to changing or revising if accepted! Also, this has nothing to do with the app, but if missing characters make an appearance later on, I would love to express my enthusiastic interest in seeing Ted Tonks!! I wrote Ted in Port Montrose and I’d LOVE to see what he’s like in this other beautiful AU!!!

ic details.

(cw throughout for ableism, vague mental illness discussion)

full name: Xenophilius Prometheus Lovegood

Xenophilius: from the Greek xenos and philia, respectively meaning strange and love; together, the love of the strange. Klaus and Else Lovegood were never going to choose an average sort of name for their child. Believing in many old practices of the wixen world, upon learning they were pregnant, they sought out a Naming Seer to learn the future of their child, and, therefore, what sort of moniker they would fit. They used what little of their savings they had left from the move for the appointment, as it was an important tradition in Else’s family. The Naming Seer projected a strange life for the child, full of wonder and mysticism, a longing for knowledge and a mind open to the belief of the other that most would reject easily. The Naming Seer suggested Edmund, for the prosperity they saw the child could achieve if encouraged, through academic success. The two laughed, thanked them, and left to do their own research. They came across the word xenophile in one of their very old muggle books about cultures of the world and knew immediately that was the name for their child. If they were going to have an open mind, their name was going to let all who heard it know so.

Prometheus: Greek mythological figure, a titan known for creating man from clay, as well as stealing fire from the gods and gifting it to humanity, starting civilization. Xeno’s parents made this choice very soon after landing on his first name. Klaus had a certain fascination with mythology, and what better than to give her child a name to encourage intelligence and creation at any cost?

Lovegood: As it sounds, a combination of the two English words love and good. This was a surname of the Lovegoods’ own creation upon their immigration to the United Kingdom during the muggle’s World War II. They had no shame in their former surnames, but wanted a blank slate to start over with good fortune. They settled on something to show the simple and true quality of their affections, that their intentions, while some might find them strange, were always good.

date of birth: January 20, 1952

Capricorn-Aquarius cusp

The definition of this contrasting cusp, Xeno is a combination of both signs, hardworking and idealistic, with the ability to view the world in strange ways that few others can, and the intention of opening the minds of those around them. The mind is constantly working, creating brilliant, exciting thoughts and ideas, but the constant flow at times makes him come off as distant or uninterested in the ordinary people and things around him. Speaking with someone born on this cusp can be jarring and intimidating, although intriguing, always prepared to discuss the most outlandish of concepts, but rarely able to stop and process the more mundane, often times forgetting about thinking of what others are feeling.

former hogwarts house: Ravenclaw

There was a brief debate, as Xenophilius approached his eleventh birthday, of whether it would be best to send him to Durmstrang, as that was where both Else and Klaus went, and consequently met each other, but that thought was quickly silenced with a visit from Dumbledore himself, offering a place at Hogwarts for the young prodigy. Xeno researched the schools obsessively during the months this debate was going on, and insisted that he had to be at Hogwarts, because he was clearly a Ravenclaw student. Upon his entrance, the hat barely touched his little blonde head before shouting just that, a self-satisfied grin on the child’s face as he joined his new classmates.

sexuality: demisexual panromantic

For all of his youth, he was much too preoccupied with researching anything that was able to hold his attention for longer than a few minutes to worry about things such as dating and sex. People are not what he truly cares about, as harsh as that sounds, and it takes a great deal for him to feel that sort of attraction to someone. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he is fairly certain part of it has to do with what he saw his parents go through as a child. He can’t remember them ever truly seeming to love each other, despite the stories of their own youths they told him. All he remembers is the shouting and the pain they caused each other, all because of the most mundane problems, as if they had forgotten who they truly were once they had a family. That made him wary of that sort of very human connection, not wanting to lose himself more than he already had. Until things changed, of course…

gender/pronouns: agender + any pronouns (primarily he/him & they/them)

He has no great attachment to any gender at large, and therefore feels the label of something closer to nothing, defying any sort of binary or spectrum, fits him better than anything else could. His being feels unexplainable and it’s something he accepted from an early age. As such, though, he doesn’t truly care what anyone calls him. In fact, a lot of the time he’d rather people just wouldn’t refer to him at all, but that has very little to do with gender.

face claim change: Cody Fern, Jason Ralph, Boyd Holbrook (If for some reason, Cody Fern isn’t approved anymore and I get accepted, I’d love to brainstorm other alternatives with you before settling on one, as Cody is very much how I envision Xeno!)

more.

1. how do you interpret this character’s personality? how will you play them? include two weaknesses & two strengths.

+ determined, idealistic, brilliant

- aloof, selfish, erratic

Perhaps if life had treated him differently, Xenophilius would be considered one of the greatest minds of his time already. If life had not beaten him into the furthest recess of his mind from the moment he was old enough to understand and question what was going on around him, perhaps that person could have existed, already fully formed, by the ripe age of thirty. But life was not so kind, and even now he can say with certainty that it comes as no real surprise, having studied so much of the world obsessively, researching what he can get his hands on of every possibility that the human mind can dream up to understand the world at large.

At an early age, he retreated into his mind as a form of coping with the outside world, even as the thunderous voices, first of his parents, then of the bullies and naysayers at school, then of everyone, tried to infiltrate his thoughts. Single-minded to the core, focused and determined to solve any question proposed, any long lost mystery left unsolved, it is still so easy for him to fall into weeks at a time of researching furiously, even disappearing for days at a time on his quests for knowledge, once an idea comes to him. Because of this, he was never quite as adept as interpersonal relationships as he might’ve been otherwise, and this only worsened after his accident, when the sounds of the voices became nearly deafening in his mind.

He would much rather spend his time researching whatever concept has caught his interest than interact with his peers, causing him to come off as distant and aloof to many. When he does deign to talk to others for an extended period of time, though, his brilliance does become clear, although so does his erraticism. Enchanted with long lost mysteries, and ideas thought only to be legend and rumor, his speech rambles and raves through dozens of topics by the you’ve caught up with the first. If landing on something he truly does care about, he could speak for hours with supreme eloquence on the matter, although what he cares about and believes in rarely lines up with those around him, and thus is often dismissed as nonsense. He believes wholeheartedly, after all, that consciousness creates and therefore nothing the human mind is able to dream up should be ruled as wholly impossible.

People have always been cruel to him, and he has long ago accepted this as a fact of his life, even if he does do his best to spread good in the form of knowledge. When faced with the negativity, the cruelty, he used to do anything he could to defend himself, including the less refined solutions. He still possesses very little respect for traditional authority, but some of his light, some of the mischief has left him in the years since the fight that left him as he is. Now, it is often times easier to accept that others’ minds aren’t nearly as expanded as his, and they do not wish to be, than to try to argue his correctness. An unwilling audience will not learn, no matter how brilliant of a teacher he might be.

Do not mistake that for him thinking the worst of the world, though. Despite it all, he truly does believe in good, and hopes that one day he can bring the hope that he does feel to others as well by expanding their minds beyond the limitations of the mundane. But he’s convinced himself that he won’t be able to do so as he is now, broken and bent, a shadow of what he could be if not plagued with such a curse.

2. how has the war affected this character, emotionally and otherwise?

Upon waking up in the hospital wing all of those years ago, his mind had become a much darker place. The war was never his, never will be, at least fully, thanks in part to his own blood status, but mostly because of how he feels. It took a long, long time until he realized, truly, what was going on, and then it was only thanks to Pandora that he began to grasp the reality, the gravity of the situation surrounding them.

In the beginning, with only whispers and quiet fights taking place as two sides divided over beliefs, he was unaware, too completely wrapped up in his own quests to set them aside and worry about another battle to fight. After all, in the beginning, he was utterly devoted to finding his own cure, whatever it might take. In a way, Xeno’s selfishness kept him blinded to what was happening, or how he might’ve helped for far longer than it should have.

But then he truly met Pandora, and he fell in love as quickly as he had fallen in love with the pursuit of knowledge to calm his mind. Even without a cure, being with her cleared some of the noise, and he could begin to understand the gravity of what was going on around him. He saw how much the carnage of the war hurt her, saw how deeply and thoroughly she cared for all of these people she didn’t even know, and that is what made him begin thinking more deeply on things.

That is when it began to hurt.

The voices seemed only to grow in volume, overlapping each other, begging for his attention at every turn as he watched his wife become more and more entrenched in a fight that should not have been happening in the first place, in his mind. As the war ragged on, and things grew worse, so did his affliction, as if whatever it was that had caused this was somehow tied to the war itself. That explanation made it feel easier, for him, anyway, even if it made everyone believe he was that much further gone, tying himself to something of such importance.

He retreated further and further into himself, his research falling by the wayside, only Pandora allowed into the true depths of his madness, witnesses the oftentimes nonsensical spurts of morbid inspiration burst from the voices of war in his mind. Among it all, there was, and still is, the underlying desire to do what his wife does, to be able to care so deeply about so many others, but his mind makes it so difficult. He cares about Pandora’s safety above all others’, and those she loves, too, now, but widely is still more concerned about the personal matters first. Still, he tries to help her when he can, would do anything in the world for her if it meant she was happy and at peace, just as she tries to do for him. And perhaps, once he finds his cure, he can do the same for others.

But how could he help now, after all, when he’s so far from whole himself?

3. Where does this character currently stand? with those who wish to hide in godric’s hollow until the war ends, with those who wish to rebuild the order and continue fighting the war, or on neither side? why?

This, all of this, it was not a choice of his own.

He could feel Pandora’s desire to fight, even before the question of what came next was out in the world. And just as it came, so did offer of retreat, of refuge. It was never an offer they could have passed up, no matter how it was spun. Pandora wished to help, to do what she could for those suffering, and prevent any more death from blooming in their midst, and he has always wanted what she wants. His own involvement with the Order had been selfish from the start, anyway, and it was clear that retreating with the Order held the most potential for the expansion of knowledge, the potential of finding a cure, even after all of these years, or even just finding a moment of peace. Just as it was clear that the longer they spent out in the world, amongst the hatred and violence, the worse his condition became, descending further and further from reason.

And so it was not a choice in the first place, and now, here they are, without much choice again.

Stuck in a village full of the memory of death, without a say.

With no personal attachment to the war, and as only an affiliate of the Order, it is hard for him to form a true feeling on what is right for all of them. He has very little desire to stay here for an extended period of time, feels trapped and static without access to the world at large for his research, but the thought of rebuilding to fight is one he’s not certain of either, when the war was never his to start and he feels in no way ready to truly help yet.

When it comes down to it, he would do whatever it is that Pandora believes is for the best for both of them, trusting her more than anyone else in the world, especially as the voices become clearer and he feels himself slipping from sense, even if that meant staying until the war ends.

But he doesn’t feel good here.

It stinks of death, of vile hatred, of curses perhaps even worse than his own. And for the first time, he’s afraid.

It’s strange, in a way, that he hasn’t felt fear like this before, after the countless fights, after waking up and learning he was missing weeks of his life, after being changed beyond his own will because of some sinister magic. Not once before has he felt this fear, but it’s settled square between his shoulders now, twisting a terrible knot of tension, keeping him from finding any true peace here. He’s convinced there’s something here that he’s been searching for. But now that he’s closer, he’s terrified of what he might find, that the answer might be there will never be a cure. That maybe he is mad after all.

4. The voices in Xenophilius’ head have only gotten louder since the war began. How are they now that he’s in Godric’s Hollow? Has anything he heard made sense, or is it just a bunch of gibberish?

There were always voices in his mind, although he had never truly considered them anything to worry about until after the that fateful night when they changed. There were always whispers of unknown sources helping him along with his research, encouraging him to expand his thinking, search out new creatures and potions. Those voices helped create new spells, craft potions no one had dreamt up before, study beasts only thought of in fairy tales.

They’re different now, though, darker, jumbled. It’s rarer that there’s anything clear, so many different voices speaking at once, constantly, but when there is, it’s not as it was, inspiring thoughts and breakthroughs. And they’re all familiar; sometimes he’ll hear his parents, sometimes he’ll hear old schoolmates, Order members.

When he became truly aware of the war, something changed. The voices seemed louder, more persistent, as if determined to hold his attention because of what was going on in the world.

Coming to here, Xeno believed that perhaps being in a place of peace would change that, that it may quiet some of the voices, take the constant dull roar down to a whisper once again, allow him to feel more like himself, allow him to focus on searching for a cure. He was wrong, though.

The voices changed upon his entrance into Godric’s Hollow.

There’s something new there, in the corner of his mind, hidden amongst all of the confusion, the hundreds of voices mixed floating around his mind. It used to be so rare to have a moment of clarity, the voices only working to a crescendo so often. It happens often now, one thought or another winning out, coming to the forefront of his mind in complete clarity and bursting forth into a shock of inspiration.

These bursts of inspiration feel almost close to violent since coming to Godric’s Hollow, taking him over completely, frenzied. He finds himself scribbling in notebook upon notebook madly, frantically flipping through pages of the books they’d brought to their tent from home, muttering to himself as if he may lose the thread of inspiration if he cannot get it out into the world fast enough. It’s exhausting, feeling so much, feeling so out of his own control at times, and he’s certain it has to do with this place.

When they calm again, when he stops from exhaustion, quill drooping in hand, and glances at the pages and pages, it scares him even more. Rarely, now, does what he writes seem to be related to his own research. It seems to be what these voices want, the thoughts made concrete.

He hears them saying names, names of those lost, those gone forever. Hears them telling him to go, then another telling him he must stay, that he is oh, so close to what he needs. He tries his hardest to keep going, but it gets so hard when in the din of voices something so clear rings out, something that seems to mean more.

The most terrifying thing was the first moment he heard Pandora’s voice in his mind, clear as day, the familiar wavering whisper as beautiful as a bird’s song to his ears, one of the first days they had come to Godric’s Hollow. She told him to stay. It shook him to his core, but he hasn’t heard her since, hopes he doesn’t. He hates the thought of his curse touching the most pure thing in his life.

So Xenophilius searches for what they’re trying to lead him to, hoping it is what he needs, that the cure might be at his fingertips, if only he opens his eyes.

extra.

pinterest board!

character tag!

if i were…

if i were a season, i’d be autumn.

if i were a time of day, i’d be dusk.

if i were a place, i’d be a hidden library of forgotten knowledge.

if i were a type of weather, i’d be a thunderstorm.

if i were a scent, i’d be patchouli.

if i were a plant, i’d be a Dirigible plum.

if i were an element, i’d be water.

if i were a color, i’d be bright, warm yellow.

if i were a song, i’d be River by Joni Mitchell

if i were an item of clothing, it’d be a worn, grey duster.

if i were an object, i’d be a moleskin notebook.

if i were one of the seven deadly sins, i’d be pride.

if i were one of the seven heavenly virtues, i’d be diligence.

if i were a god/goddess, i’d be Athena.

on pandora:

He knew. The moment she first treated him in Mungo’s, he knew that he would follow her to the ends of the earth, if she would allow him. It was a strange feeling, not entirely a pleasant one when considering that all his life he had expected never to feel that way about another human being. He wonders how he had missed her at Hogwarts, but then, he had been so entangled in himself, so focused on collecting all the knowledge that he could, that he had hardly made any friends in his own house and year, yet alone others. What mattered is that he had found her now, just in time to keep him from giving up.

After truly meeting Pandora, his single-minded obsession became learning to sign as quickly and proficiently as he could. He wasn’t as fast as he wished he would’ve been, but he learned as best he could, and kept going back to Mungo’s as he learned, an excuse to see her again and talk to her more, especially as he realized that the other healers believed him mad.

She was the first person who truly believed him when he insisted it was the boys’ attack with the dark objects that had caused this, and not a dormant mental illness whose symptoms only appeared after the event. As such, his trust and belief in her was enormous from the beginning, and has not once faltered in the years since.

One of the initial reasons he was so attracted to her was for her pure dedication to a singular cause and the pursuit of knowledge, something he believes in himself. He could see how passionate she was about healing, and how willing she was to do anything to help her patients, not limited to the confines of average healing. He admires her determination and creativity greatly.

The way she cares for people stands in stark contrast to his own ability to do so, which is another reason he loves her so much. He can hardly imagine being so open in caring about others, but he likes to think that she has helped him grow in that regard even slightly. He hopes that she’ll help him grow in that even more, once they’ve found a cure.

If it were not for Pandora, Xeno wholeheartedly believes he would have given up hope of finding a cure, or even peace, years ago. She was able to show him the light in the darkness, and she continues to be that beam of sunlight coming through the clouds of a storm with each passing moment, reminding him that there’s always reason for hope left.

The only times he finds even brief moments of something close to silence is with her. Lying in bed together as they both try to drift into troubled sleep, listening to the steady sound of her breathing, feeling her heat pressed against his, it’s nearly enough to calm the war constantly raging in his mind.

His proposal to her was neither truly romantic or at all dramatic, instead a sort of passing question in the midst of the ever rambling road of his words, his fingers moving just as fast as his lips could, by that time. A question phrased in a way that made it seem more for practicality than it truly was, because he does love her, more greatly than he thought he could ever love one person. A simple it would be easier if we were married, and then the nonchalant production of a ring from his pocket, set on the table in front of her. An amethyst and celestite woven together within a bronze band, charmed to emit a sense of pease and focus, as well as ward off Wrackspurts.

details:

His parents met at Durmstang, and then moved to Berlin, Germany after graduating, working as researchers, of sorts, for a company of like-minded wizards interested in what many would call nontraditional magic. When things began to fall apart in the non-magical world, they made the decision to move to start a family of their own in safety. They settled in London, using up most of their savings to make it there and rent a small flat in Camden.

Despite being a pureblood, Xeno holds none of the beliefs of British pureblood society, in part thanks to be raised by non-British purebloods, but mostly because he can hardly fathom how it is possible to see other humans so darkly. He appreciates what muggles have accomplished without magic, and has even studied much of muggle science and technology out of interest, as well as being interested in proving for them the existence of several of their so-called cryptids.

He has never been able to hold a full time job for long, and stopped trying to do so after years spent in his early twenties trying unsuccessfully in various fields that didn’t truly keep his interest anyway. He would miss days of work without mentioning it, was perpetually late, and rarely actually helped customers with what they actually wanted when in customer service fields. Instead, he earned his money by penning essays and articles sold to various magazines and newspapers on his strange beliefs, as well as selling his research to those who would benefit from it. He dreams of starting his own magazine, if things ever return to normal, if heever finds a cure for his affliction, but right now that task feels impossible given how full his mind is.

He’s started a small garden of strange flora for his and Pandora’s use in Godric’s Hollow. Not much of it is useful to the more ordinary needs of the residents, unless they believe in the oftentimes wild properties Xeno attributes to many of the plants, but he and his wife use many of them for potions and infusions of their own needs, and gladly share if anyone has a desire.

Xenophilius is unable to produce a corporeal Patronus at this time, and has not been able to since waking up in the hospital wing those years ago. Before that, though, his Patronus was an eagle owl.

He didn’t actually seek any healing for what the other students had done to him outside of his own attempts at healing until he was well out of school. As confident as ever, he believed that he could find a cure and do so by himself. When it started interfering not only with his life, but his work, though, he sought out help at Mungo’s. Although most of the healers believed he had gone insane, and most people still do, it was the best decision he made, as it lead him to Pandora.

He hasn’t had any contact with his parents since he graduated from Hogwarts and isn’t certain where they are now, or even if they’re still living. It isn’t that he doesn’t love them, but the childhood that they gave him took too much from him even as they fought to offer him opportunity. He still hears their voices amongst all the others, hears them arguing, only now the anger feels directed at him, not each other.

As well as now being fluent in sign language, Xeno also speaks fluent German, although most of what comes to mind easily now has to do with the cursing that his parents used to do at each other during his childhood.

Not concerned with outward appearances, Xeno very often looks like he rolled directly out of bed and walked into public. While that isn’t usually the case, he could not care less if anyone thinks it is. If he owns a brush for his hair, it has long ago been lost, and many of his clothes are either entirely inappropriate for the occasion at hand, or completely mismatched. There is a method to some of what he wears, of course; the necklaces he always wears, one with a butterbeer cork dangling from it, the other with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

#hp rp #rp #marauders rp #lsrpg #roleplay #accepted

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tigerlover16-uk · 5 years

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My response to your Gohan post

Read your little post about Gohan. I’m reminded by Chris Claremont’s comment about readers’ complaints about his characterizing Wolverine from the psycho-killer to the ‘I’m a Man, not an Animal’ who wanted to progress from his violent instincts. They claimed he wasn’t cool anymore. The gist of his argument is that the 'psycho’ is cool and all that, but it gets boring; he likened that arrested characterization as an automatic toy: wind up for the big scene, etc., with no life to it. I’m further reminded by Moxzilla Vulpix and Hail Zeon’s “The Characterization of Gohan” piece, where their least favorite characterization is Ultimate, becoming Goku 2.0 without any of Gohan’s strengths. The Gohan portrayed in Kefla battle in the SUPER Manga symbolizes both these criticisms. (Yes, I do love Ultimate Gohan, but I think SUPER improved on that characterization by maintaining Gohan’s characteristics). He looks cool and…that’s it. No Gohan suffering the pain over committing Universal Genocide. No Gohan humbly apologizing to Piccolo while saving him. No Gohan who uses his brain against Obuni, Freeza/Frost, and Dyspo. Just Gohan being an automated Bad-Ass and that’s all they want.

Since that’s what they want, any characterization pieces are looked down upon. All the comments I get from the 'Playing with Pan and Satan’ scene is WTF?!? GOHAN’S POWER LEVEL IS DOWN TO SATAN?!? They self-insert their issues on Future Trunks and believe he was horribly disappointed over his Gohan visit (when it was the opposite). I saw one reaction video where Gohan hugging Videl and Pan was reacted with “Lame-O.” People complain about Goku being a Deadbeat Daddy despite his power BUT Gohan’s overtures to parenthood (giving up a promotion in order to be Pan’s parent) is shunned because he isn’t strong anymore. And then there are the comparisons between Ultimate Gohan and 'Burned-out-Tracksuit-RoF Gohan’ with “Oh how the mighty have fallen!” condemnation, completely ignoring the fact that Ultimate Gohan’s 'Fight you? I’m here to kill you! went to nothing (all he did was find Dende), while Burn-out Gohan got Goku and Vejita back to Earth! They wistfully wish Cell Games 'Teen’ Gohan was fighting in the US arc, ignoring that characterization’s weaknesses like panicking, needing motivation/hand-holding, or being so arrogantly stuck up he misses opportunities (the latter was a problem for Ultimate Gohan too; DBZ 'Bad-Ass Gohan’ and 'Fuck Up Gohan’ sound synonymous). SUPER’S mature and improved Fighter Gohan is ignored because he isn’t Bad-Ass enough.

I don’t see the point of feeling guilty for liking this stuff while the others go Boo-Hoo over their unfulfilled portrayal. Before SUPER came, I wanted to see Gohan as the devoted husband & father and I wanted him to wear the Kamesennin/Kami-same Gi, go Ultimate again, and actually be effective. All my wishes were granted. If the point of these fandom arguments is finding a Gohan to be satisfied about, then surely I’m the winner here. The complainers can rant and complain all they want and never get their way. My Gohan happened. Do I want more? Yes, who doesn’t? But I got what I wanted.

You pretty much summed up my attitude on the subject there.

I think a big part of the problem is that a lot of people never really paid that much attention to Gohan’s actual character up to the climax of the Cell saga when they were kids, or if they did he wasn’t their biggest point of interest compared to the likes of Goku or Vegeta. They noticed the build up of his hidden potential though, because that and his relationship with Piccolo were a point of interest, but most of them probably didn’t really start to care much about him until super Saiyan 2 happened, at which point everyone got all hyped up by the imagery of a jacked up, uber-powerful 11 year old that was closer to their age than the main character up to that point, and then just projected all of their power fantasies onto Gohan.

That’s what it really is. Gohan was a vessel for these people to project onto and they assumed they were promised an uber cool, macho hero that they could supposedly relate to more than Goku. And then when the story didn’t go in exactly the way they respected and Toriyama opted to let Gohan be an actual character instead, everyone threw a fit and felt betrayed.

I’ve made it clear my thoughts on Hail Zeon as a critic, but one thing I completely agree with him on and think there should be more discussion about is that the dragon ball fandom has a real problem with toxic masculinity.

There’s a very vocal segment of the Dragon Ball fandom that sees the series as nothing but violence, muscles and raw strength. That’s why Broly became so popular that they’re canonizing him in this movie, and why I suspect any possible moment in the film that might show him saying or doing something nice or having more to his character than “BIG, STRONG MANLY MAN!” is going to be met with comments along the lines of “Ugh, stop ruining his edge, Toei!” from a minority of people.

It’s a big reason why Vegeta, the aggressive and nasty eventual anti-hero became the most popular character in the American and Western European fandom to this day. (And no, it’s not the only reason and Vegeta is a good character. But let’s be real here) and why people get really angry and entitled whenever Vegeta isn’t treated like he’s the main character instead of Goku and given all the important wins, to the point that someone’s making a fan film for the expressed purpose of having him wreck everyone because the fan thought Vegeta in Z and Super was treated as a “Chump”.

It’s the entire reason why characters like Krillin, Yamcha, and anyone that’s not a hyper macho character or otherwise portrayed as “Weak” is treated like worthless trash that’s only good for derisive jokes at their expense and they need to stay out of the action and stop hogging screen time so the “Real men” like Vegeta, Piccolo and Goku can do all the cool stuff.

It’s why slice of life moments and stuff showing the characters having fun or being in silly or cute situations is met with retching and groans from some people. It’s why Ribrianne is hated on to the extent that she is, because she’s fat and “Ugly” and super feminine and everyone complains that she’s a useless nuisance that can’t fight and doesn’t live up to the hype other characters give her (Missing the point that the other characters do overhype her in-universe and the subtext that that’s a contributing factor for some of her character flaws).

It’s why so many people obsess over power levels and transformations and action while ignoring themes and character writing for anyone that isn’t Vegeta.

And it’s the reason behind a lot of other things too.

The fandoms treatment of Gohan’s character is just one of the most blatant examples of this whole nonsense because he had one big moment that fooled these people into thinking he was going to be the character that embodied everything they thought they wanted from Dragon Ball, only for the series to then have the “Gall” to go in a different direction and somewhat deconstruct that notion.

#submission #gohan #son gohan #dragon ball z

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missdreawrites · 6 years

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Far Cry 5, and How I Feel a Week after Beating It

@weekend-writer, here we go. Hold on to your butts.

I just recently finished Far Cry 5, and mid-way through the playthrough, someone asked if I thought it was worth the 60$ USD and I had originally said yes. Now, having completed the game, I’m rethinking that stance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sorry I bought the game for full price, but I’m definitely a bit - sad over it. So I’m going to go through the game point by point, in a somewhat blistering, disappointed review.

Obviously, beyond the cut, there are SPOILERS ahead.

Let me start this out by saying I enjoyed seventy-five percent of this game. The graphics were amazing, the outposts were all unique, the characters were priceless (fucking Hurk Jr, man, I love him so much and dude, I ran around with a bear named Cheeseburger). The music was fantastic. I loved the theme, and the battle music, and even the scary uber-Christian hymns that played on Eden’s Gate Radio.

Now, for those of you who are looking for a bit of a rundown, the game is about a Rookie Deputy Sheriff - hereby known as Rook for the rest of this review. You play the Rook who goes to Eden’s Gate, an uber Christian cult in the middle of Hope County, Montana. You, Deputy Hudson, Deputy Pratt, and a US Marshall go to arrest the leader of this cult, Joseph Seed.

Like in Far Cry 4, you have a choice in the very beginning of the game. You can choose not to arrest Joseph - though you have to loiter for ten minutes or so as your partners and boss get increasingly angry with you, but eventually the Sheriff decides you’re right, this is not a battle we want to fight, let’s just go. Credits.

However, if you actually want to play the game, you have arrest Joseph and bring him to your chopper, wherein all hell breaks loose, and you crash because of course you do. Joseph Seed tells you that arresting him was breaking the first “seal” and anyone who has watched Supernatural within the last thirteen years knows what that means.

The rest of the events in the game are not all that important to this review, only that Joseph Seed has several siblings that you have to defeat to get to him after you escape and are set loose on the region.

There’s John Seed, a torturer who has Deputy Hudson. He’s obsessed with cleansing people of their sins. There’s Jacob Seed, a war veteran who has so many PTSD issues I can’t actually list them all, and he’s a manipulator who believes the weak should be culled from the herd. He brainwashes you a la Bioshock, only he uses a song to do it. Then there’s Faith Seed, and she’s not actually related to them. She was a junkie who came to Joseph for help, and ended up helping him create Bliss, this hallucinogenic drug that stretches the bounds of reality just a bit too much.

There. Now.

You have to liberate each region (John, Jacob, and Faith respectively) in order to unlock the final confrontation with Joseph. Each region has a bar that has little bubbles on it, once reach those bubbles, those are essentially check points of “pissing off a Seed sibling” and they send Hunters out after you.

1. Mechanic I hate number the first one: the Hunting Party

So you’ve pissed off a Seed sibling! They send a Hunting Party after you. The party arrives - even if you fast travelled to a different region, or even the other side of the map. Or like me, you’re a stealthy snipery jerkface and you kill the entire party undetected as they yell about finding me and “use the Bliss Bullets, John/Jacob/Faith wants ‘em alive!”

I kill all eight of the hunting party, and breathe a sigh of relief. There are no more red markers, Boomer says no one else is around. I venture out of cover.

Blam.

Screen goes wavery, then sparkly. Then Rook falls unconscious. Despite having killed the party, or left the party or hidden, these are scripted events, so I literally can do nothing to save myself. I have to get kidnapped by the Seed sibling, for Plot Reasons.

Annoying but manageable.

2. Mechanic I hate number the second one: The Rook

Unlike in the rest of the Far Cry series, you are not a person. By which I mean, you’re not like Jason Brody or Ajay Ghale, or even Jack. You’re still the Rook, of course but you’re not voiced, you have no personality. You can be male or female, and the only person in the entire game that mentioned my gender as female was freakin’ Hurk.

Your character makes noise - when you’re hurt or falling, you grunt and groan and cry out, but you don’t talk. You don’t emote. You are just a blank canvas. What’s worse, is they didn’t bother recording two sets of dialogue like Bethesda did in Fallout 4.

So all the cultists just call you by a gender neutral sound. “Get ‘em!”/”I saw ‘em over there!”/”I got eyes on the sinner!”

Y’all. Y’all come on.

This is especially hard to stomach when the characters are spewing just the most ridiculous nonsense at you. There’s a moment after you get kidnapped by Jacob, and Joseph is there. He goes on this - truly awful and ridiculous monologue about how he used to be a different person, he was married, a baby on the way. How happy he was. Then there was an accident. His wife died, and the doctors saved the baby but the baby was sick, probably premature, and they said he had to be strong for his baby daughter.

TW: he is not strong for his baby daughter.

The rook doesn’t say a damn thing to this horrible man who admits he killed his baby daughter instead of taking care of her. The rook just watches him, from behind bars. Yo, I was livid. I was like WHAT THE FUCK YOU MURDERER HOW DARE YOU PREACH PEACE but nope. My character was totally silent.

Y’ALL.

3. Mechanic that I hate number the third one: the Ending (collectively)

WARNING: Here be spoilers. If you don’t care about me spoiling the entire ending confrontation with Joseph, keep on reading. Otherwise, feel free to skip down to the conclusion, which I’ve helpfully put in bold.

SO THE ENDING.

After you liberate each region, gather all your Roster, finish your side quests and helping each person you find, Joseph Seed contacts you - he offers to open up his compound so you two can finally have it out. Now, I’ll take this moment to say that I put it off for a bit. I ignored Joseph so I could finish side quests, and my partner, who beat the game two days before I did told me no, go do it, you won’t want to keep playing after. Why waste that time?

I was thoroughly alarmed by that statement. So even though it was almost seven in the morning and I’d stayed up all night to play it, I drove my ass to Joseph’s compound and in a mirror of the very beginning, walked up to the church.

Immediately, I am placed in a cut scene. This has happened a few times throughout the game, Whenever John Seed implored you to say “yes” to whatever tortures he wanted bestow on you, to talking with your allies. However, the length of this cutscene dragged on, until Joseph is done preaching at you.

He says he’ll give you an offer. That despite all you’ve done, despite the fact that you’ve killed his flock and family, he’s going to offer you peace. He’s going to do the “right thing” and offer you peace. You hear something behind you - still in a cutscene - and turn around to see all your friends. The roster you helped out, minus the animals, all Blissed out of their minds (as noted by the glowing cloud around their faces) and leading tied up people into the compound. They aim their guns at Deputy Pratt, Deputy Hudson and the Sheriff, all of whom have been recaptured by the people you thought were your friends. Joseph tells you if you resist, if you don’t choose peace, then you can kiss your friends goodbye.

Then you’re given the ability to choose two options: Resist or Accept.

IF YOU CHOOSE RESIST:

He knocks over some Bliss barrels, and everything gets all kinds of fucked up, and your friends attack Pratt, Hudson and the Sheriff. After you fight off Joseph for a second or two, you’re able to revive them (not a new mechanic, you can revive anyone during the rest of the game) and all four of you start fighting Joseph. You have to fight your roster as well, but once they go down, you’re able to revive them as well - which puts them back on your side. However, Joseph will also try to revive them, which leaves them your enemy.

I guess “killing them” and reviving them is like cognitive recalibration? Either way, once all your roster-friends are revived an on your side, you turn your attention to Joseph and shoot the fuck out of him. It’s real cathartic… until you beat him and are immediately locked into another cutscene.

While Joseph monologues at you, the Sheriff (your boss, essentially) comes up behind him, declares him under arrest, and handcuffs him. Joseph proclaims that another seal has broken, and then the entire screen shakes with some kind of impact. The cutscene shows you, Hudson, Pratt, and the Sheriff a giant mushroom cloud, not too far away from where you are, across the lake.

There’s a moment of shock, and Joseph declares it the end of the world, just like he predicted. He was right, and the end is upon us, etc, etc yadda.

We all run toward a car, with Joseph in tow, and then you’re given control back just long enough to drive helter skelter away from the shockwave, as shit is getting set on fire, until you’re suddenly locked in another cutscene just in time to slam into a falling tree.

The screen goes black and red, as you come to, realizing that Pratt, Hudson and the Sheriff are dead. The car door opens and you fall out, blacking back out. When you wake up again, you’re in a bunker - the same bunker you woke up in before being set loose on the county after the prologue, and who should be with you?

Joseph. Seed.

He tells you that everyone in Hope County is dead, and it’s all your fault, why couldn’t you have just picked peace? But hey, it doesn’t matter - we’re family now and one day, we’ll walk through Eden’s Gate together.

“I am your Father,” Joseph Seed says, leaning back in his seat, and staring at you with those wide eyes. “And you are my Child.” He locks eyes with you, never blinking, as the screen fades to black.

Credits.

I was in fucking shock. According to my partner who was awake on the couch and watching me play through this, I kept clicking my mouse like I was trying to pull my guns to shoot him. Why couldn’t I just shoot him?

Now, I’m willing to admit that a lot that might have been a hallucination - the cutscenes make use of the Bliss (which is hallucinogenic) a lot - even though when you aren’t in a cutscene the drug only behaves that way in the most minorest of ways. I’ve been running through fields of Bliss for ages, and all you get is weird sparkling on the corners of your screen. Sometimes you hallucinate Faith Seed, or animals that aren’t there.

However, ultimately, whether or not it was a hallucination doesn’t matter. Because the credits roll and the game is over. Hope County is gone, your friends, your allies, they’re gone. Your only companion is the man you failed to kill, the man you failed to arrest, and you’ve lost.

You lost.

So, utterly livid, I reloaded my save just before choosing Resist, and instead chose the other option.

IF YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT PEACE:

Joseph lets you go. He monologues a bit more, but he lets you, Hudson and Pratt, the Sheriff, he lets everyone go. You retreat to the edge of the Compound, get into the same truck you’d get into if you chose to resist, and start driving away. The Sheriff talks to you a little and ultimately what he says isn’t important, because the radio turns on, as you drive away.

Remember how I said Jacob Seed brainwashed you.... With a song?

The screen goes red as your character starts screaming, and then the screen goes black.

Roll credits.

The game is over. The last time that song played, when you did Jacob’s Region, you killed one of your allies because he brainwashed you into doing it. The entire lead up to killing Jacob is one big brainwashing suckfest, and you do things you don’t think you’re doing until it’s over.

It’s very, very clear that you’ll kill everyone in that car with you.

You lose. Everyone in that car knows how bad Joseph Seed is, they’re your survivors, your witnesses. The people who could have helped you get more manpower to come back and get rid of Joseph with more than a song and a prayer.

But you kill them. You lose.

Both of these endings mean that the ninety hours I spent playing were useless. Nothing I did mattered. Either the world fucking ends, or you murder the people you spent the whole game trying to save. Nothing you did matter, you made no difference, and you lose.

I have nothing against games where you don’t win. I have nothing against games where the ending message is you lose. I have serious issues with being plot railroaded via cutscene into endings I don’t want. Why couldn’t I shoot Joseph? I shot Faith, and Jacob and John. Clearly due process wasn’t important THEN, so why are we arresting Joseph? He’s a dangerous man who knows how to use a dangerous drug to mind control people - but yeah sure, let’s arrest him.

CONCLUSION:

Am I disappointed I bought the game? No, not really. I’m glad I played.

However, I was left with this - bad taste in my mouth, a little. The endings were lackluster, I feel like a require closure to move on with my life - especially because I beat it a week ago, and I’m still stewing over the ending.

Like the original ending of Mass Effect 3, where I was left in shock, I hope that Ubisoft hears how disappointing those endings were and gives us a miniature DLC (to go along with the three weird ones they already have) that gives us a better option.

To the anon who asked me if it was worth the 60$ USD, I originally answered your ask saying yes, because I loved the game.

I hope you see this, and note that my answer has changed. If you’re a hardcore fan of the series, like me, sure - spend the 60. But if you’re not? If you’re a casual player who just liked the idea of the plot - give it a miss, until the next Steam Summer Sale or Xbox Gold Give Away.

This is a little disjointed, I started it while I was at work and then slept before finishing it but I am free and available for any questions via ask/message system. Anon hate about loving the endings will be added to the fire and will fuel the heating for my house. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

#far cry 5 #far cry 5 spoilers #review #thoughts #SO I HEARD YOU LIKE BLISS #far cry #joseph seed #john seed #faith seed #jacob seed #the rook #shenaniganry

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eirabach · 6 years

Text

Tall Tales [1/1]

A revenge obsessed pirate is visited by three ghosts one Christmas Eve. Well, sort of. Maybe it isn’t Christmas Eve. Maybe they aren’t ghosts. Artistic license, he supposes.

3.5k. Rated T. Canon Divergent from S2, sort of.

For my most beloved @katie-dub , hi! I’m your CS Writer’s Hub Secret Santa! A weird little Christmas Carol AU for you with all the love and best wishes for you and yours. You’ve been an incredible pal over the last year or so, and I’m so grateful to have you in my life - can’t wait for playdates with the hub babies!

xoxoxo Clare <3i

——

Tell me a story, she says.

Well, all right.

—-

He may as well be dead, to begin with.

The bean lies heavy in his pocket, the rum thick on his tongue. The Saviour (and what a name that is, what a name for what a woman) and her associates have run off to save the town, the realm, whatever. By now they’ll have realised what he’s done, what they’re missing, but that’s none of his concern now.

The only thing he’s interested in saving is the rest of this rum bottle from Leroy’s less than discerning palette.

“Killian?”

Her voice is just as he remembers. Soft and yet somehow sharp as a blade, sharp as the point of his hook as he presses it into the old woman’s countertop.

“Killian?”

He shakes his head and laughs. It’s a shirt, nasty little thing and he can almost see the way her lips would twist down when she heard it. The way she’d roll her eyes at his dramatics, Killian, really?

“You won’t look at me then?”

“I can’t look at you,” he tells the rum. “You’re in my head. Dead. As a doornail. And I’m talking to myself, which means I’ve either had far too much or far too little of this.” He eyes the glass critically and takes another long swig. “I’ll err on the side of caution.”

“Am I truly gone?” she says. “Are you sure?”

He looks up.

There, between the bottles and the chalkboard menus, he sees her reflected in the mirrored walls. The curve of her cheek in the steel of the machinery, the shock of her curls against the glass fronted doors.

“Milah?”

She smiles.

—-

“Don’t turn around.”

He gapes, his fingers trembling against the rum glass, but he obeys her even as his body stiffens as her cold breath skins across his neck.

“How,” he asks, and he hardly knows what he’s asking. How do the dead breathe? How does she come to him?

How does he sit so still when his heart is ready to pound from his chest?

“I can’t say,” she whispers, and he shivers to hear it. “It’s not for the ears of mortals, but Killian, I must tell you this. Your revenge, that bean in your pocket, you must give them up. Truly. Completely. Only then will you be happy.”

He scoffs, rum burning the back of his nose.

“Not likely.” he spits. “I’ve spent hundreds of years… lifetimes…. waiting for the chance to avenge you. No mere hallucination will convince me otherwise!”

“Perhaps,” she admits, but there’s that steel in her tone again, that bite that he’d worried he might have forgotten somewhere between Neverland and a never ending flask of rum and it makes him sigh, his shoulders dipping. “But I’ve been given this chance, Killian. To warn you. And if you won’t listen to me…”

There’s a flash of cold light, a terrible high pitched grinding sound, and then -

She’s gone.

“I never listened to anyone else,” he tells his empty glass, and pours another.

—-

It grows dark, but not in the way he’s become used to in this realm. The darkness seems to ooze out of the forests and up from the drains, creeping towards the diner until it’s tendrils catch at the end of his captain’s coat and wind their way up him until only his hand is still bathed in light. The rum sparkling at his fingertips.

It isn’t the rum.

“Tink?” He squints myopically at the tiny creature. “I didn’t know you did that - not - not anymore.” His lip curls, and the fairy’s light shines a little brighter, her tiny eyes narrowing. “It could have been rather… entertaining - Oi!”

He shakes his hand, hissing under his breath at the red mark her magic has left behind. The fairy laughs - a bright, tinkling thing that shouldn’t sound as malicious as it does - as he sucks at the burn.

“All right, all right,” he grumbles as she clutches at her stomach, her shoulders shaking. “How the devil did you get here, and more importantly are you aware it’s time to get out?” He leans in a little conspiratorially and she stops laughing to turn her face up to his. “Come with me,” he whispers. “It’ll be like the good old days.”

She rolls her eyes rather extravagantly and puts her hands on her hips.

“No?” he shrugs, and goes to lift the rum back to his lips. “Suit yourself. But if you’re planning on playing the hero round here be warned, it seems to end badly.”

The fairy sighs, fluttering her wings until she’s perched on the edge of his glass and lets out a series of high pitched squeaks that almost sound like words. Disappointed words, probably, going by the way she wags her finger at him as she speaks.

The more things change, he supposes.

“Nope,” he says, leaning back on his stool and folding his arms. “Afraid you’ve entirely lost me there, Lady Bell. I do like the new look though, terribly clever of you. Terribly portable.”

He winks sloppily, the rum making his eyes dip, and Tink moves to hover just at the end of his nose until he has to be practically cross eyed to focus on the way her lips form a pout.

“Always judging, fairies,” he mutters. “But if you insist, love.”

She drops the smallest of kisses to the tip of his nose, and he is engulfed.

----

“What the bloody hell was that?”

He staggers to his feet as best he can, the ground shifting strangely beneath him as Tink laughs in his ear. Sand. He’s on sand. The soft grains sinking under his weight as the tide presses in closer. He grumbles as he straightens up, stomping away from the water’s edge, and then pauses, frozen, silent, as he hears a high-pitched cry carried on the wind.

“Li-aaaaaam! Mam! MAM!”

“No,” he mutters it. A plea. “No, no, no.”

Tink glows, but the voice still continues to grow louder, more insistent.

“Mam I found it look! MAM!”

“Take me back,” he hisses, snatching Tink from midair and barely resisting the urge to shake her. “Take me back this instant do you hear me?”

Tink makes a series of indignant squarks and manages to wriggle free of his grasp, pointing furiously in the direction of the voice.

“Oh no,” he says, shaking his finger at her. “Not a chance, you can’t make me, I wo -”

The force with which she whips his head around is really quite impressive for such a small creature, he’ll give her that.

Perhaps fifty yards away along the shoreline is a small boy with wild, dark hair and short trousers that barely skim skinny knees. In his hands he holds a small piece of emerald sea glass, and he’s examining the way the light reflects from it and sends rainbows skittering over his palms.

Killian can’t see that of course, not from so far away, but he knows it to be true nonetheless. Just as he knows that the older child and the woman will be along momentarily - and no sooner has he thought as much but they appear, the boy holding his mother’s elbow as she walks unsteadily over the sands.

Tink makes a questioning sort of sound. Killian shrugs, but his eyes are fixed on their approach.

“She was the first person I loved and lost. Rather started a trend, that.”

“Look Mam! I found treasure! I told you I would and now we can sell it and pay the apothecary and Papa will come back home I told you I would!”

Even from here Killian can see the way Liam moves to dissuade him of the notion - of the nonsense - it’s not treasure, only another man’s rubbish washed up is all. Liam would have known that, straightforward, sensible Liam. He would have known even at eight that their mother’s cough wouldn’t be healed by any means Killian had at his disposal.

Liam knew. Liam had always known. But Killian hadn’t.

Killian had thought he’d saved her.

She smiles, and thanks to the centuries of remove between this time and that he can see the way she strains to do so, the way she sways as Liam lets go of her arm.

“My good boy,” she laughs, and runs her hands through the unruly hair of his childhood self. “My hero.”

Little Killian beams up at her, growing half a head taller from sheer pride.

“I’ve seen enough, sprite,” the grown version growls as he turns his back on the little doomed tableau. “Take me back.”

He feels the fairy’s disappointed exhale as soft as gossamer on his cheek as the world fades from view.

---

He lifts his head from the counter with a groan and blinks blearily into the dark diner.

“Tink?” he asks, his voice gravelly. “What’s - Tink?”

There’s another light, higher and brighter, approaching him from the back of the room.

“How in the name of the gods did you do that?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Killian starts, his hand twitching towards his cutlass, as the insufferable prince appears before him crowned with candlelight and wearing a robe far more suited to his life back home than whatever pathetic facsimile he’d been living here.

“Believe me,” says David, his face crumpled in distaste beneath his glowing headdress, “I wouldn’t have bothered showing you such a pleasant memory.”

“You may have celebrated your mother’s death, princeling, but I assure you there was nothing remotely -”

Killian coughs sharply as David’s hand closes around his throat.

“All right, all right,” he wheezes as the prince tightens his grip. “You’ve made your point, as I have made mine -”

He swings his arm back and buries his hook deep in the other man’s belly, but David’s grip doesn’t falter, his eyebrows only raising slightly as Killian looks down, his expression dropping into disbelief at the way his hook passes through the prince as though he’s made of little more than sea fret..

“Nice try,” says David. “Now, shall we have a chat?”

---

David leads him through the black, abandoned streets of Storybrooke, but where the figment - for a figment he must be - floats above the gloom Killian drags himself through it, the night thick as tar around his ankles as he struggles to keep up.

“Come on,” David calls without turning around. “We don’t have all night you know.”

“All night for what, exactly,” Killian shouts after him. “And what on Earth are you wearing?”

“Don’t ask me this is your hallucination,” says David with no little bitterness.

“So it is a hallucination then?” Killian asks, pausing to catch his breath. “Am I mad?”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” says David. “But no, not as such. It’s a lesson.”

“A lesson?” Killian snorts.”I’m no schoolboy, prince.”

“No,” says David, and he turns now, his face bathed in light. It’s somehow unnatural in the pervasive gloom. Unsettling. “You’re not. You’re a villain.”

“Says the man with a candelabra on his head. You’ll excuse me if I don’t give your opinion too much weight, won't you.”

“Do you think this is a joke?” David’s face creases in displeasure. “My family face destruction!”

“It’s very sad,” drawls Killian. “Not quite my problem though is it.”

“Isn’t it?” asks David, and their surroundings shimmer and change until they are immersed in the gloom of the mine workings.

The light here takes on an eerie quality. A cold, purple hued thing that reflects from the damp walls and casts shadows under David’s eyes.

“Watch,” he says.

“Watch what, exactly?”

David shakes his head and half smiles, his eyes downcast.

“Even now you can’t see what you do, can you? So wrapped up in yourself. Look.”

He does, half against his will, truth be told, but the prince seems to have far more control on whatever surrealist world they find themselves in than Killian himself does.

The Queen seems frozen in place, the light emanating from white, clawed hands that Killian is sure ought to be shaking. Arranged around her like so many statues are the townsfolk, each frozen in their own personal terror. The dwarfs are shrieking, he assumes, their mouths wide and their axes held high. Snow White stands before him, her chin high and her eyes sparking, but her hands are empty and even in her stillness he can tell that her defiance is a hollow, helpless sort of thing.

David - the original David, he presumes, since he’s attired in a law keepers uniform - stands at her shoulder. Killian’s companion eyes him critically.

“Two of you,” Killian says with a slightly lavicious curl of his lip as David flicks at a piece of his doppelganger’s mussed hair. “My mind is a truly strange place indeed.”

“Very funny,” growls David, “is there anyone you won’t creep on?”

But Killian isn’t listening.

Swan.

She’s standing, staring unseeing, in the gloom at the edges of the mine. Her hair has curled in the damp and is sticking to her forehead, her jaw tight.

“They’re all going to die, you know.”

Killian grunts in reply. The back of his neck itches as he examines the lines between Swan’s brows, the pale impression left on her lip by her teeth.

“And why should I care about that?”

“Do you think you’re fooling anyone?” asks David, and he almost sounds pitying. “Look at you, you can’t even fool yourself.”

Swan just stares. Accusatory as usual. It almost makes him smile.

It’s hard to imagine anyone as fierce natured as Swan doing something as banal as dying.

Killian sighs, and tucks his hand behind his back before the itch moves to make his fingers reach for her hair.

David watches them, and for a moment his eyes turn soft.

“You can change that,” he says. “You should change that. You could change that. But if you continue the way you are… they’ll all die.”

Killian looks up at him, a retort already on the tip of his tongue (he has never been able to change anything, his life is one of flotsam, they wouldn’t want him to save them, not him) but David is growing translucent, disappearing into the glow of his own candlelight until her fades into nothing but ether.

“Even her?” Killian asks.

But the ether doesn’t answer.

---

He wakes, if indeed that’s what it is, back in the diner but it’s not quite as he left it. Little pieces of the counter remain stuck to his cheek as he lifts his head, and the stool creaks, rusty and struggling, beneath his weight.

“Bloody hell.”

The walls are scorched black and crumbling, the menu boards overridden by twisting vines of dead and decaying fruit, and the air holds that sour, sick smell he recognises only too well from too long voyages with not enough water.

This is a dead place.

And in the middle of it, golden and shining in a hooded robe, stands Emma.

He is a dead man.

“Swan? What happened here?”

She smiles, beatific and snide and nowhere near her eyes, and shrugs one slim shoulder.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Hardly, love.” He stands, more unsteady than he should be, and reaches for the edge of her cloak. “This isn’t your usual attire.”

“Things have changed,” she says, “or will do. It’s up to you really.”

“What is?” he asks, tugging lightly at the cloak. The cloak tugs back. “What the -“

Emma shifts her weight and her cloak falls away to reveal a boy, her boy, the boy, his cheeks hollow and his eyes shadowed dark. The darkness seems to twist, pulling at his features and curling his hair until it isn’t Swan’s lad at all, but Bae. Bae clawing at her cloak and watching with baleful eyes as Killian sways on the spot. Bae whose lips curl into a sneer as he makes to fall.

And then the darkness breathes, and it’s Henry who turns his face into his mother’s belly.

“Why,” says Emma. “I thought everyone wanted a happy ending.”

He laughs, a short sharp bark that escapes him without his meaning to, and curls his fingers around her elbow to steady himself.

“What lunatic’s happy ending is this?”

She smiles again, her hand coming up to cover his, and for a single moment he feels warm. It’s odd. He hadn’t known he was cold.

“Yours, of course.”

The diner begins to crumble around them until it’s nothing but dust, just a grey haze that rises up and envelops them and sticks in his throat.

It tastes like magic, he thinks. Bitter.

And then it clears, and it’s bile.

It the ruins of what once was Storybrooke stands what was once a man. His hair is slicked forward over his pale face, and his shoulders stoop under the weight of the burden he carries. His left hand is a familiar curve of steel, and in his right -

“No.” Killian shakes his head, scrubs at his eyes, but the other man, the creature, only smiles a thin, crocodile’s smile and lifts the dagger toward him.

Killian Jones.

“Why hasn’t anyone stopped him?” he half whispers. “Why haven’t you?”

“There isn’t anyone,” says the boy who could be, isn’t, is, Bae. “No one left to care. Not for men like you. This is where you end up. Where we all end up.”

“Welcome to your happily ever after,” says Swan, and there’s a line, a thin, red line, that marrs her throat. It drips when she inclined her head, her eyes flashing. “Hope it’s worth it.”

This time when he wakes up, he’s screaming.

—-

It takes a moment, several actually if he’s being honest, before he can gather himself enough to be certain that he’s truly awake including both the judicial application of the tip of his hook to the palm of his hand and a long swig from a flagon of water. He eyes the rum bottle suspiciously before gingerly lifting it between finger and thumb.

“What in all the realms does she put in this? Laudanum?”

Nobody answers him, of course. He’d rather forgotten they were in the midst of a crisis.

He slips his hand back into his pocket and runs his fingers over the smooth edges of the bean. It would be easy, he thinks. Run back to… well, anywhere really. No one would live to find him, and his vengeance would be if not complete, at least somewhat satiated. And he’d never have to risk seeing David in that ridiculous get up again.

The ground rocks beneath his feet, the Queen’s Work, he presumes, and he clutches the bean a little tighter.

Be part of something.

My good boy. My hero.

You’re a villain.

Bae.

Swan. Swan and her sardonic little smiles. The incline of her head. The obnoxious habit she has of making him want to do better.

The diner shudders once more, and he chooses.

What sort of man do you want to be?

(It’s such a little thing, in the end. Choice.)

He turns on his heel and leaves the bottle behind.

---

What are you telling her now?

Only stories, my love.

That’s not very comforting you know. I’ve heard your stories.

How rude, Swan. I assure you the moral of this tale is impeccable.

Yeah right. I’ve heard that before.

(Is it true, Papa? The story?

Of course my little love. Aren’t they all.)

#captain swan #killian jones #cs ff #cs mafia #katie-dub #clare vs writers block #character study #references to millian #killian jones flirts with ghosts #angst: its whats for christmas

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asromaworld · 6 years

Text

Totti’s interview with the Corriere dello sport

So, what has changed?

“Everything – my life, my mind, my body… I was used to the same routine for such a long time, waking up early, having breakfast and then going to training. Now I have to plan my days. The impact has not been easy.

"I asked the club for some time off to recharge my batteries. I wanted a break to clear my head and enjoy spending time with my kids. They agreed and I thank them for that; now I’m able to start this new journey on the right foot. I have stayed in football, which is my life. It’s everything to me.”

Will you always be in football or is it a case of never say never?

“I will always work in football, I’m convinced of that. I’m lucky enough to be around the team, the coach and the directors – I watch matches with all of them. I travel on the team bus and I stay with the squad before games. I do a bit of everything.”

What can you bring to the role of director as someone who never trained to be one?

“I was a footballer and I understand all the dynamics that go into that. I know how to treat the players. Only someone who knows what to say, can read people’s looks and understands the right moments should go inside the changing room. I have this advantage over other directors: I experienced the dynamic of a changing room. I’m in there every day, just like before, only now I don’t get changed.”

How does wearing a jacket and tie suit you?

“At the beginning, I was talking to myself like a madman: ‘I’m injured, I’m suspended, I’ll be back [in a kit] soon.’ I’ve got used to it now, though.”

Let’s rewind the clocks to 28 May and your goodbye to football, a goodbye that moved half the world.

“I didn’t expect it to be like that, it went beyond football. It was so emotional because of my love for them and their love for me. I wasn’t Totti or the Roma captain at that moment; I was everyone’s brother. The people’s faces full of love were for me.

"This might sound bad, because Roma are above everybody and I’ve always put the club before myself, but just then I understood the result of that game didn’t really matter to the people.”

The new stadium is almost under way – why don’t you play the inaugural game?

“Enough now, otherwise it will become too difficult. However, owning our own stadium is fundamental. It will also improve how the fans follow the team. Currently you park three kilometres away and you have to pass through ten turnstiles. It wears on you.”

Can you ever see yourself not at Roma?

“I could have gone to Real Madrid once, as I would never have played for another club in Italy. When I made the decision, it came from my heart and my mind and I’ve never had any regrets.”

Was there ever a second opportunity to leave?

“The last few months under Spalletti were difficult. We had a good relationship before he left the first time in 2009. When he returned, I put myself at his disposal. I would have preferred to play more often, seeing as it was my final year, because I don’t begrudge him anything. I accepted his decisions with dignity. It was upsetting, but I know it’s up to the coach and ultimately, they’re judged on their decisions.

"I had offers to go to the Emirates or the United States. I would have made lots of money, but I would have ruined 25 years of love as well. It could have been a good experience, seeing as I was out of favour with the coach at that time, but I chose Roma on this occasion as well.”

How’s your relationship with Jim Pallotta?

“A bit rocky at the start, but then we cleared things up. He was looking at things in white and I in black. Then we found middle ground for the good of Roma.”

Did you watch Italy v Sweden?

“I didn’t think such a football tragedy could happen. I’ll turn on the TV in June and Italy won’t be on. It’s surreal.”

Would you have put Lorenzo Insigne on?

“I’d have started him. He’s one of the few players who could have won that game.”

Where does the Italian FA need to start again from?

“Damiano Tommasi. Firstly, because he’s my friend and secondly, because he’s talented. He looks the part: young, transparent and clean. If he’s representing you abroad, you’ll come across well.”

And who should be the coach?

“Vincenzo Montella. I’d bring Roma’s title-winning side back together.”

Do you have any regrets in football?

“Not having played with Ronaldo, during that period when he was on fire at Inter. It was my dream and his as well. He scored loads of goals, but he would have scored more with me.”

Should your mate Gianluigi Buffon continue playing or retire?

“You can play just as well at 39 as you did at 22; it’s all a question of mentality. However, in Italy we’re obsessed with people’s age. When Buffon makes a save, he doesn’t look 39.”

Who will win the Ballon d’Or?

“Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, but I’d prefer Messi.”

Do you like VAR?

“Yes, but we need to know how it’s used. Who makes the call?”

Would you have got a few more penalties with it in use?

“Yes, but they’d have picked up a few more of my moments of madness.”

Do you know the most watched video of you is when you kicked Mario Balotelli?

“There was no need for VAR there. It was building up for years because of everything he was saying about Romans. Going on and on… But even so, it was a bad thing to do.”

What happened to Daniel De Rossi?

“It was instinctive and unfortunately these things can happen in games. Afterwards you say, ‘How on earth could I have done something like that?’ It’s hurt him more than anyone; all we can do now is be close to him.”

How’s it going with Eusebio Di Francesco?

“Everyone’s happy with him, it’s a united group of players. He’s open to dialogue and doesn’t mince his words. He’s a no-nonsense Abruzzian and says what he thinks.”

Will you ever turn to coaching?

“Let’s say that it’s not my priority right now.”

Who will win the Scudetto?

“There are three or four teams at the same level, but Juve will always have the edge. As for Napoli, they’re a great side to watch and they can win the league if they avoid too many injuries.”

It’s Napoli v Juve on Friday. Who will you be supporting?

“I’d like a draw because if we win we gain points on both of them.”

Apart from Roma, who would you like to win the title?

“I’d prefer Napoli, just for a change. They’ll be tired of celebrating in Turin, while in Naples they’d dine out on this Scudetto for 100 years. I’d like to see a team from the South crowned champions.”

And what about Inter?

“No, not Inter.”

On your 40th birthday, Spalletti gave you a model of the DeLorean from Back to the Future. If you could, would you prefer to go forward or back in time?

“I’d go back in time. I was at my best between 2000 and 2010, they were fantastic years. I’d be happy to relive just one of them.”

When did you realise you would be a footballer?

“When I signed my first professional contract at 16. That’s when I understood it was a proper job.”

Your son Cristian is 12 years old and plays football. What kind of football dad are you?

“I’m a model father. I teach him what my parents taught me: respect and manners. For sure, his surname weighs heavily on him. When he’s playing, people hope that I come along to watch him. I let him do his thing and I don’t say anything to him. In about three or four years, I’ll see what he’s truly made of.”

Could you ever tell him he won’t be a legend like his dad?

“Better the truth now than a lie that might hurt him in the future. As for having any other children, never say never: maybe a little brother for Cris.”

#Francesco Totti #interview

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ladyjonquilinthenorth · 7 years

Text

Stormb*tch

Before I begin my unsolicited recap of the episode, I beg you to please excuse the disorderliness of the piece and lack of direct quotes. I’m at work at the moment and I can’t fact check the quotes right now, so this post is pretty much based off of my impressions of last night and general scrolling through Tumblr. Please excuse the following incoherent jumble of thoughts.

Dragonstone

Ok. First impression, Fire Beast Castle is straight up sinister. It gives me the creeps. It’s all dark and brooding and I don’t know how those poor Targs of Valyria the Old were holed up in there for 100+ years. I would have gone crazy.

D is headed down the path of insanity and I HAVE NO REGRETS. Her little speech to Varys was vaguely threatening AF. Be my dude and bow at the altar of my greatness, and you may live. Poison me like you advised Good King Bob and I will feed you to my dragons. Tell me, o readers, is this what one calls a kind, benevolent, and just queen? It’s becoming clearer and clearer just how opposite Jon and D are. One is, like I said, just and benevolent, and the other is ruthless, power hungry, and much much much too self-confident.

I gotta say, though, I have a soft spot for wise old ladies, and I loved the little conversation with Olenna, and how she inspired the great and mighty Mother of Dragons to listen to her sage advice. Ignore the men and you’ll survive. Advice that I wholeheartedly agree with, though at this point, I’m kinda rooting for D to disregard said advice because *whispers*I don’t want her to survive. There. I said it. Make it quick, GoT Fandom. I don’t want to suffer.

And don’t even get me started on the Lady Mel’s sudden appearance! Did you see how D’s eyes light up when she hears that the prophecy may not necessarily be referring to a prince?? That lady is headed down the rabbit hole and I am here for it. And D, from one gal to another, you are NOT Jon Snow’s QUEEN until he kneels to you (which I hope and pray that Jon will not be stupid enough to do). He has his own kingdom and until he decides to proclaim you as such, you really need to get a hold of that self-titling obsession you’ve got. It’s not pretty.

Ok, but GWxM killed me. KILLED ME. “I have one weakness” ahjdhflhlsfhlgsjlgsjlgjslg. But to be honest, you know how it is when you play the Game of Thrones. They’re both basically walking corpses now :(

King’s Landing

“In Essos, her brutality is already legendary. She crucified hundreds of noblemen in Slaver’s Bay. And when she grew bored of that, she fed them to her dragons.”

Cersei, pal, I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with you, lady. I agree with you! This woman knows of that which she speaks.

@heathergee25 has a Tarly theory that looks to be on the right track. Go check it out!

Otherwise, idk, bored.

Oldtown

Ew, Samwell, ew. That scene was basically me browsing through another window on my screen while crackling flesh and unholy grunts made their way through my headphones. Poor Jorah and his love letter to his Khaleesi.

But I love the fact that, as JBW pointed out, bookish, shy Sam was never good at anything, yet here, in the library, here he finds his battleground, and I firmly stand behind all those underappreciated BTS players who ultimately save the day!. Sam “I killed an actual White Walker with a blade of glass” Tarly is not here for your “no can do” attitude. Looking at you, Maester Slughorn.

Arya

My baby Arya is going home!!! Hot Pie called her pretty!!! I think that’s the first time in her life she’s been called pretty and she liked it!! And her face when she finds out that her beloved Jon Snow is now King in the North!! Damn you, D&D, making my baby Starklings just miss each other. Can’t say I’m surprised, though.

I don’t cry often when watching things, but I literally had tears of joy welling in my eyes when Arya spotted Nymeria and she let herself be petted. Man, that wolf if huge! And then, of course, when Nymeria backed away, my heart cracked just that wee bit. *sniffs* WHY?????

Somewhere in the Narrow Sea

I’m not one for battle scenes, so I didn’t really follow along. Sorry if that’s your thing. BUT, Yara and Ellaria get it on, obviously, mere moments before their ship is ransacked by Pirate Uncle Euron. Obviously. Never really cared for the Sand Snakes, so I’m glad they’re gone. And Theon. I don’t know what set him off, but that guy has some serious PTSD and that breaks my heart. Are you dead, Theon? Please don’t be dead, Theon. I have so many questions.

Winterfell

Saved the best for last. *rubs hands gleefully together* Let’s get down to it!

I’mma be honest here for a sec, we got wayyyy too few North scenes and they were much too rushed. I would be happy to watch an entire 8 seasons of just my Starklings home in their ice castle. But that’s just me.

Boy, they are really laying it on thick with the Ned/Cat parallels. They’re not even trying to be subtle at this point. The first scene begins just the way the Ned/Cat scene begins in S1. An arrow hitting a target with the lord and lady figures looking down from on high. I swear though, that’s a scene straight out of a Jonsa future-fic. Mother and Father gazing down proudly as their Stargaryen babies become the best archers and swordsmen in the land.

Jon looking to Sansa for her take on Tyrion great and if you still think StarkBowl is an actually feasible possibility as cast and crew love to claim, just watch the episode. You’ll have no doubts whatsoever.

Ok. Meeting scene. I know that we all may not agree with Jon’s decisions all the time, but he is just, benevolent, and decisive. All good things in a king. Now, if he would only listen to his platonic-hot-sister-wife-hand-queen, that would be even better.

He makes his decision with listening to the dissenting voices and you know what, I understand him. “The North is my home. It’s part of me and I will never stop fighting for it, no matter the odds”. Jon has no desire to meet D. He has no desire to bend the knee. He needs the dragonglass and that is the one and only reason why he is going south. Sansa knows that he needs the weaponry and the army that D can provide. She knows that the WW are the biggest threat right now. But she protests because she’s SCARED. The last two times that the Starks rode south, they never returned. Also, kinda awkward that one grandfather roasted the other one. Oops.

But that look when Jon turns to Sansa, looks her straight in the eye, and says “I will accept”, did me in. It’s like no one else exists in the room and Hubby just asked Wifey for her consent in their secret married language. But what absolutely killed me was Sansa’s face when Jon leaves her the North. Props to Sophie and Kit, you guys, I have no words. Sansa haters will say that this is all she wanted, for Jon to leave her in charge to do with Winterfell what she wants. I say no. Sansa has been through so much, and as another blogger pointed out, they both have been constantly told that they know nothing. To suddenly have her experiences acknowledged and validated, and to be put in a position of trust by the ruler of Winterfell, I think that is the most gratifying, humbling thing she has ever experienced. And that all is clearly written on her face. Sophie, I love you.

One last thing. When Sansa gives her speech that Jon is abandoning the North, his people, etc, I SWEAR it’s on the tip of her tongue to say “you’re abandoning me”. I swear it. Fight me.

THE SCENE which I have literally been looking forward to since the trailer came out was everything that I could have wanted, and more! Jon staring teary-eyed at the statue of his “father”, LF creeping up behind him like the creepyfinger he is, muttering unnecessary nonsense about Cat and how she never loved Jon. Jon is all like “why are you here, tho. Go away, asshole”. And as he’s about to leave, LF let’s slip about Sansa. And Jon FLIPS OUT. My lords and ladies, let me tell you, LF had a suspicion and that suspicion was just confirmed. The most fascinating thing about this episode, TBH, was watching Jon’s face transform from calm, annoyed indifference to snarling dragon-wolf hybrid ready to attack. I mean, his lip twitched and he actually snarled! I am always here for baby Jon going all Crazy Grandpa Aerys when somebody insults his platonic hot sister wife. Always here. And that smirk on LF’s blue face as Jon exits the crypts in a huff, that man knows things.

Not gonna lie, super bummed that we got no formal goodbye scene, and Jonny galloped out of Winterfell way too fast. But I do have some thoughts on what we did get. That wave. Now, I don’t remember the Jaime/Brienne scene, but seeing the gifs floating around, yep, I agree. But what I got from that brief moment was that there was a general feeling of controlled, conscious restraint. Sansa agrees that it’s necessary for Jon to leave. But she’s freaking terrified, and I think that if she lets slip something more that a curt wave and shy smile, the whole dam will break loose and she’ll never recover. That’s what I got.

Ok, time to wrap it up. Thanks for getting this far, hope you enjoyed my ramblings, and tell me what you think.

Love ya, Jonsa fam!

#jonsa #stormborn #season 7 #game of thrones #recap #littlefinger #spoilers

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littlehollyleaf · 7 years

Note

P, T and X?

Backwards (because P is gonna be looooong, damn you for asking :p)

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom

Big big fan of the Tinman trope - characters who think they are emotionless due to suppression/repression or sci-fi/fantasy characters that were created not to have emotions discovering or re-discovering feelings.

This is why I love the angels in spn so much!

This can apply to, like, stoic and/or soldier type characters as well, but it depends… because I can quickly tire of those kind of characters if I feel their repression is being dragged out… like, I love Aeryn Sun in Farscape for this! But Dean Winchester’s bravado thing… grew tiresome, sorry! (although I am delighted with certain ways the show has been explicitly exposing that bravado for what it is lately, even if I’m too detached from the show now to really care like I once did).

No real examples of this in Gotham yet, alas… though this may explain why Foxy has become such a quick obsession :)

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

GABRIEL AND BALTHAZAR ARE ALIVE AND WELL AND RUNNING A CASINO TOGETHER!!

Other than that, not really :p I try to be flexible with headcanons because I know how easy it can be for canon to break them, and I like to keep as canon compliant in my fandom musings as possible. Also, it’s fun to jump between multiple ideas :)

(Foxy being in love with Thomas Wayne is fast becoming a ‘ride or die’ deal though…)

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

*rolls up sleeves, clicks fingers* okay, well, you asked for it - the ‘Foxy and Eddie at Uni together AU’ that apparently the fandom is refusing to indulge me with (rude!)

They meet in a bar -

Eddie is at a table with a bunch of textbooks and a notepad trying to study, because the couple in the room next to him are having really loud sex and he had to get away, but nowhere else on campus was open so late.

Foxy is reluctantly joining in a bar crawl with his older brother and his friends because the uni team won some football match that he doesn’t care about (didn’t know Foxy had siblings? well he DOES NOW, hush!).

Foxy bumps into Eddie’s table while trying to escape for a moment of peace and nearly spills water all over Ed’s notes - Eddie is suitably irate.

Cue conversation where Foxy is bemused that Ed is studying in a bar, Ed is defensive and probably asks a riddle, Foxy gets it right because he’s a smart cookie and Ed starts to warm to him, they introduce themselves, Foxy chuckles over Eddie’s name…

Foxy’s brother and friends finally track him down and try and get Foxy to leave with them for more frat boy shenanigans so Foxy latches on to Ed as an excuse to escape - saying he forgot he had a study session with his friend ‘Enigma’ (because a nickname adds weight to the lie that they have been friends for a long time, yeah? :p), Eddie plays along and berates ‘Foxy’ for being late, older brother and friends shrug and leave Foxy to it.

While Foxy could just leave at this point, he can’t help looking over Eddie’s notes and it turns out the topic is one he knows something about, so he actually does stay and help Ed study.

They become regular study buddies after that.

At some point Foxy’s nickname for Ed becomes ‘Riddler,’ because I ADORE the idea that in another life that name was created for and adopted by Ed out of love and not madness.

After a year or so Ed trusts Foxy enough to admit his real name is not ‘Nygma’ and tell him about his dad and Foxy is all supportive and stuff.

When they graduate Eddie is all alone, except for maybe a rude telegram from his father calling him a cheater, so Foxy insists he come celebrate with him and his family (which I imagine being very large, for some reason - like, a doting mother and father and two or three successful older brothers, with Foxy actually being lovingly mocked by his siblings for being supposedly the ‘least smart,’ because the rest of them are, like, doctors and lawyers and serious obviously helping people stuff, while Foxy is interested in computers and machines and corporations and things…).

There’s maybe been a running gag that Foxy’s mum keeps trying to set him up with different neighbourhood girls whenever he goes home… but all it takes is one dinner with Ed for her to realise that Foxy likes him and they have a cute little heart-to-heart about it.

Only Ed is all in denial about liking guys because of internalised shit from his dad, so Foxy thinks he only likes girls and it’s all very tragic, noooo!

Jump ahead some years to start of the show time and everything is basically the same, but Eddie and Foxy have been friends the whole time and just IMAGINE HOW THIS LITTLE THING WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING -

After the Wayne murder Eddie would rush to see Foxy, because he would know that he and Thomas were close (and how Foxy wished they could be closer), and it would be all emotional and stuff! And maybe Ed would talk about new guy Jim who is on the case and perhaps convince Foxy to talk to him, helping put Jim onto the fact that there is more to the murder than meets the eye sooner.

And Foxy would help Ed with his attempts at courting Kristen - mocking him thoroughly for thinking putting a bullet in a cupcake without explanation was a good idea :p

But more to the point - Ed would obviously tell Foxy all about Tom abusing Kristen and how wrong it is and Foxy, who knows Ed super well by this point, would probably pick up on Ed having foolish ideas and end up finding him lying in wait for Tom with his knife and STOP HIM KILLING TOM, meaning Ed never has his post-murder break down.

Then maybe Foxy convinces Ed to talk to Jim about the abuse and Jim finds a way to arrest Tom. Which makes Kristen mad at first, because in her shame over being a victim she lashes out at Ed for getting involved in her business.

But then the whole Jerome attack would still happen and Eddie would still save her, so they’d end up still going out. Except Foxy would have rushed to the station after the shooting to make sure Ed was okay and there would be hugging and stuff :) And everyone at the GCPD would maybe be a little - oh, wow, the weird guy actually HAS FRIENDS WHO CARE ABOUT HIM and A LIFE outside work, maybe we’ve not been giving him enough credit…

…my scenario is about to fall down a little bit now, because I want to involve Penguin, but without having killed Kristen (which ofc Eddie doesn’t do here!) there is no reason for Ed to discover him in the woods…

So, let’s assume Eddie is still in the woods because he is having a romantic picnic with Kristen and they BOTH end up stumbling on wounded Penguin.

Eddie thinks they should help, Kristen thinks otherwise because Ozzie is a criminal. This prompts the end of their relationship.

Eddie nurses Ozzie back to health. Alas, without Mr Leonard… but maybe Foxy helps. For Ed’s sake, as opposed to Ozzie’s.

In this scenario then, since Ed has committed no murders, he is not distracted by paranoia about Jim and actually goes to visit Ozzie in Arkham, leading him to discover pretty quick that things are Not Right at the Asylum.

But when he tries to get Jim etc to investigate they are reluctant (what with Jim not wanting the truth about Galavan to come to light and stuff), so Eddie sneaks in to investigate alone and promptly gets kidnapped by Strange!!

Um… I’ve lost track of what else is happening in canon at this point… but I’m building up to a climax, stay with me!

So, Foxy would be frantic because Ed is now missing, but… whatever other canon stuff is happening is happening, so Ed’s disappearance is tragically not a priority…

Oh yeah, Foxy and Bruce and Jim and their plan to investigate Arkham - so that happens, and it’s also about finding out what’s happened to Eddie now as well.

Foxy and Bruce end up in the gas chamber as in canon, with a now BRAINWASHED!ED sent by Strange to interrogate them.

Cue a dramatic Power of Love moment between Foxy and Ed, where Foxy breaks through Ed’s conditioning and it’s awesome!

Only Ed has no way to actually free Foxy or Bruce, so he still has to gas them… And still ends up locked away in a cell afterwards…

Clayface!Jim, Selina and Firefly, Firefly fighting Freeze etc all plays out as in canon, as does the bomb.

Selina tells everyone where Eddie’s cell is - cue emotional reunion between Eddie and Foxy and Eddie apologising for the gassing etc etc.

Only this time when Jim and Foxy go to defuse the bomb they TAKE ED WITH THEM because Ed KNOWS STUFF and insists he stay and help.

They defuse the bomb, probably still as a result of misinterpreting Peabody’s request for water because I thought that was GOLD, and in the resulting relief and celebrations EDDIE GRABS FOXY AND KISSES HIM!! Because in thinking he was gonna die he realised how he really felt about Foxy and Foxy, ofc, has loved him FOREVER, so everything is YAY! YAY!

Phew…

THE END

(well… I can imagine more -

like, picture S03 with a Foxy/Eddie subplot

Foxy still joins the GCPD

Ozzie still recruits Ed to work for his mayoral campaign - Eddie agrees because he believes Oswald might actually be good for the city perhaps?

minor differences to everything else but crucially - Ozzie would still fall for Ed, but instead of killing Izzy to win him he would (try to) kill FOXY!

drama! pain! excitement! etc etc. :p

but I’ll stop because this nonsense has gone on far enough!)

#about me #meme #foxma #vampirebillionaire

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karaokeadvice · 5 years

Text

No One Is Paying Attention And It Actually Doesn’t Matter

So last month, I (Sarah) made a super quick trip stateside. Karen organized a karaoke night at our regular haunt in Cambridge, and we had a surprisingly wonderful time. The surprise elements were all the things we normally can’t control: the vibe of the venue, the host, and the other people in the crowd. Karen and I thought this anomaly was worth parsing further; WHY is it so hard to have a great, easy night like this, and HOW can we replicate this experience again?

The host:

Sarah: We had a private hour from 8-9, with a host who did a perfectly serviceable job. The cook was singing when we got there, which is always a good sign. I was admittedly nervous when the “regular” host took over at 9. He was new to us, and his name is apparently Owen (which I only know because we texted about him the next day. Without this record of note, I would most certainly have called him Gene). Here’s the thing about Owen: there was absolutely nothing remarkable about him. He just DID HIS JOB. People put their slips in, he called them in order. There was no needless banter, no “old singer, new singer” malarky, no strange nonsensical system involving tables and singer order (I’m looking at you, Victor), and definitely no playing favorites. It was KJing as it should be, harkening back to a simpler time.

The crowd:

Karen: A good mix of obviously seasoned karaoke regulars and people who are maybe not quite so obsessed with/picky/jaded regarding karaoke. One fellow oldster actually did a Dramarama song, of all things, (”Anything, Anything, Anything”, great choice, in my opinion, if not a little obscure for a primarily younger audience) and she seemed slightly nervous about it but performed with aplomb. I should have explicitly congratulated her on her bold decision but instead I just gave her the ol’ perimenopausal enthusiastic nod/awkward salute combo (if you don’t know it yet, you will, you will); I hope she deciphered it. A group of Sarah’s friends did “Don’t Stop Believin’” and we joked that they obviously hadn’t read our advice and sighed belabored sighs, but guess what? The audience loved it and we realized that not everyone has been going to karaoke for 20+ years and seeing a continuous cycle of Journey sunrises and sunsets and maybe we should just chill out and let [streetlights,] people hold onto that fe-ee-ee-lin’ for as long as they can.

General vibe:

Sarah: I’m not actually sure how this is different from the crowd, but it was my idea to differentiate them when I started writing this week’s column so here goes. For lack of a better expression, it was just an easy, breezy, beautiful night. I think this was largely because Owen wasn’t freaking us out with some unknown system. During the private hour we held an Abbreviated Tribute to James Ingram featuring “Somewhere Out There” and “Yah Mo B There”. Once the room opened up, I made a vodka-fueled decision to sing a song I’ve never done before, and it turns out I DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW. But at some point early in the evening I thought “Come Clean” by Hilary Duff (AKA theme song from “The Hills”) would be a fun crowd-pleaser. Turns out the song is a lot more than just the chorus. However, it also turns out (as we have mentioned before) that no one is paying attention and it doesn’t actually matter! I was so disappointed in myself that my second choice was kind of an old chestnut (“Alone” by Heart, if anyone cares) which is easy for me but boring for my friends because they have heard me sing it 100 times.

Karen: We all need to go back to basics and recalibrate every once in a while, though--no shame in that. Fun crowd-pleasers are unpredictable--I think it’s pretty rare to find and perform one on purpose, similar to the way it’s hard to give yourself a nickname. It really has to come from other people, for better and for worse. Take Reggie’s performances of “River of Dreams”--I believe there’s been three of them now and somehow, every single time, it just SETS PEOPLE OFF, regardless of the crowd. The first time he did it the people singing along the loudest were, I think, juggalos. The clown is very much down with early 90s Billy Joel--how could he or anyone else have predicted that?!

In terms of why our last karaoke sesh was so easy-breezy, the crowd was supportive and enthusiastic without any of the pitfalls of an especially fervent audience, which often includes hijacking strangers’ performances to scream the chorus into the microphone or grind up on the singer or otherwise attempt to steal the scene. Furthermore, no groups made the unforgivable decision to put up individual song slips and then, when, say, Cody is called to the stage, all rush up in a group of nine to scream-sing “I Want It That Way” into two overworked microphones, only to do the same thing during Brittany, Tyler, and Kayla’s songs. None of that to be had. As you’ve mentioned, Owen was the consummate K-J. In control, on the ball, organized, fair, encouraging, but low key. He did sing a few times--very well, in fact--but he didn’t showboat, by which I mean no props, no golly gee whiz I’m SINGIN’ fake modesty, no calling out audience members for any reason, no “clever” original lyrics, no goofyballs song selections. If you must do any of that, save it for the nights when you’re a paying customer, I say.

Sarah: Oh, that’s a really good point. The surprise cast of thousands is always an unpleasant game changer, for both audience and host. I think you hit the nail on the head here--the reason it was such a great night is because it was unremarkable. There were no game-changing performances, no wild moments (good or bad), just a bunch of weirdos in a room singing their hearts out. And in the end, isn’t that why we’re all here?

#karaoke #song choices #life choices #streetlights #people #juggalos4joel

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welllpthisishappening · 7 years

Text

Out of the Frying Pan (6/?)

“Put them down, love,” he said softly. “You don’t have to make it seem like there was a choice.”

“I would say that I’m sorry, but I’m absolutely not.” “And here I didn’t bid on that knife set for you.” “For me?” Emma repeated. “I think you just wanted to save your money. Isn’t that why you got cheap at the end here?”

AN: This is another massive update because I couldn’t figure out where to split it, so there’s just 8K of cooking competition here. We might be a bit shorter on Friday. @laurnorder continues to be the word hero I do not deserve and you guys are all fantastic for reading this.

Living on Ao3 and tag’ed up on Tumblr.

He was right. Emma wouldn’t tell him, but he was. The photo shoot was fine. It was, almost, fun. They played music and made her pose with Belle – something about being the two women in the competition or some other gender-based nonsense that would have been offensive if Emma didn’t like the pastry chef so much.

And, two hours and one quick lunch later, Emma was almost excited at the prospect of cooking on a TV show that had cutthroat in the title.

She was third in line at the top of the stairs that led to the kitchen studio, tasked with the job of walking down without, one, falling and, two, looking vaguely competitive while she moved.

“How’d it go?” Killian muttered, glancing over his shoulder at Emma while Belle walked down the stairs first.

“How’d what go? And stop talking, you’re going to get me in trouble.”

“First of all, I’d get both of us in trouble because we’re both talking. Second of all, we won’t get in trouble because I regularly feed Regina’s entire family so she can’t yell at me and run the risk of losing that. And third of all, I am genuinely curious.” Emma narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, looking for some trace of a lie. There wasn’t one. “You regularly feed Regina’s entire family?”

“Almost every night, actually.” “What?”

Emma didn’t get an answer, cut off by Regina hissing Killian from her spot at the top of the stairs. He grinned at her, raising his eyebrows quickly and marching towards his spot in a few steps, the confidence practically radiating off him. He glanced at Emma again, raising his right hand and crossing his fingers at her before winking at Regina and walking down the stairs, onto the set.

“I’m going to kill him,” Regina muttered and Emma bit back a laugh.

“Is he always like that?” Emma asked, moving up towards the mark. “All cocky swagger and everything?” Regina looked surprised that Emma was even talking to her and blinked a few times before she answered.

“No,” Regina said quietly, eyes darting between Emma and the main studio floor. “Not always.”

She waited for more of an explanation, but it never came and Regina simply nodded towards the stairs when it was Emma’s turn to walk down. They weren’t slated to film their talking heads until later that afternoon, so there was no voiceover when Emma moved like there would be on the show and she bit the inside of her lip tightly, doing her best not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

Emma made it to her station without falling or otherwise making a fool of herself, which she counted as a victory, and laid her knives out in front of her.

“You did good, Swan,” Killian muttered from the station next to her. “Looked super menacing and competitive.” “Good,” she said simply and she saw his smile grow more pronounced out of the corner of her eye. Graham was the last chef to come down the stairs and Emma was glad she hadn’t had to watch everyone come out, because this whole thing was bordering dangerously close to absurd.

Emma chanced a look in Killian’s direction to find him staring pointedly at the counter in front of him, shoulders tense with the laughter she somehow knew he was trying to hold in. “I didn’t look like that, did I?”

He beamed at her, eyes meeting hers quickly and, now, Emma was the one biting her lip. “Look who’s talking now.” “You started it.” Killian nodded solemnly at her, still smiling as Graham sorted out his own cutlery and Belle did something that sounded vaguely like trash talk. They’d been told to do that too – Emma was slightly preoccupied.

“No,” Killian said, brushing off her slightly-teenage accusation. “As mentioned you looked super menacing. Made me reconsider my whole cutthroat strategy for a few moments.” “That so?” “Well, I was thinking that I’d try and take you out first, you know, get rid of the fine French chef from the get-go, but I don’t know, maybe I’ll let you stick around for a little while now. Keep things interesting as it were.”

“You don’t need to go soft on me,” Emma shot back. “I’m not planning on taking it easy on you.”

“I have no doubt, love.”

Regina cleared her throat – somehow making her way down the stairs without anyone on set noticing she was there – and stared at the four chefs in front of her. “You all know the deal about being on camera, so I’m not even going to talk about that. There won’t be retakes because we’re all actually cooking here. Archie will give you instructions on what to prepare for each round and, I’d like to remind you all, that the money you’ll get in a moment and the sabotages you bid on will all be very, very real. So take that into account when you’re bidding and tearing each other apart. Enjoy!” Emma stared at the woman as she walked away, moving to the side of the set to stand next to Ruby and Anna, before glancing questioningly at Killian. “She’s very focused when she’s on set,” he whispered. “I promise she’s not always evil.”

She smiled at him – completely charmed against her will – and only stopped staring when Archie Hopper, the absolutely ironic host of Cutthroat Kitchen walked into the studio.

Once upon a time, Archie Hopper had his own cooking show on the network, something to do with science and how food actually cooked that Henry was obsessed with – watching through the episodes on Netflix as soon as they were added a few months before. He looked the part too, sweater vest on and thick-rimmed glasses and a nervous energy that made Emma want to laugh again.

Killian already was, lips twisted up as Archie explained the rules that they’d all already heard from their respective producers. Emma did her best to focus her attention on Archie and his instructions and what she was supposed to be cooking in this first round.

“What I want for this first round is something I’m sure you’ve all had before, plenty of carb-loading during school,” Archie said, smiling at the four of them. Emma trained her eyes ahead of her, ignoring the stare she could feel from Killian’s direction. “You four, the best and brightest this network has to offer, are going to cook us the greatest potato skins you’ve ever made in the history of your cooking-lives. You’ve got 30 seconds to grab everything you need out of this mini-market and your time starts...now.”

Emma barely registered the words Archie was saying before her feet were moving, dashing across the studio in a move she was positive Henry would make fun of once the episode aired. Her mind was moving faster than her feet and she started grabbing food off the shelves around her – potatoes, salt, pepper, three different types of cheese, bacon. She bobbed on her feet in front of the refrigerator and tried to rack her brain for something that would set her food apart from the three other chefs around her.

“Don’t forget the scallions,” Killian muttered, nudging her shoulder with an overwhelming sense of familiarity. “They’re nothing without scallions.”

“I don’t need your help.” “I’m not suggesting you do, love. I’m only pointing out that every good, traditional potato skin, which incidentally appears to be what you’re making, has scallions on it.” “I know that,” Emma hissed, reaching forward to grab the bag in front of her.

Archie started counting down the seconds left on their shopping-clock and Emma made a face, sneering slightly at Killian as she walked out of the room quickly, him just a few steps behind her.

She glanced over at his basket on the station next to hers, only to be taken aback by what she saw. Sweet potatoes. He didn’t have a single regular potato in the basket – just sweet potatoes and cinnamon sugar and gouda and something else. “Is that turkey?” Emma asked. Killian’s head snapped up and he smiled knowingly at her.

“When’s the last time you made potato skins, Swan?”

“That’s not important,” she brushed off quickly and his smile got bigger. She’d never made potato skins – he was right, of course, it wasn’t on the menu at any fancy, French restaurant she’d ever worked at before and it certainly hadn’t made an appearance in her latest cookbook.

“Of course not,” he agreed.

“And when’s the last time you made potato skins?” she asked. “It not exactly high-brow food.” “I’m not exactly a high-brow chef. Contrary to the reviews. And, as mentioned, I regularly feed a six-year-old cheeseburgers, so I’d wager I’m a bit more familiar with potato skins than you are.”

She turned her head to stare at him, a mixture of surprise and interest and open book on her face and Killian did something with his eyebrows.

Emma only hoped their latest interaction – and, maybe something that was certainly starting to take on a flirting-type shape – hadn’t been caught on camera.

Archie was still talking, dolling out bundles of money and explaining how the auctions worked in each round. She only started to pay attention when he tapped on the small window on the side of the studio, opening up the wall to pull out a Swiss Army knife. “What the fuck,” Emma mumbled under her breath.

“Language, Swan,” Killian whispered, eyes flashing towards her and, God, he needed to stop smiling at her like that.

“Bid on this,” Archie said, holding the knife up for display. “And you can confiscate one of your fellow chef’s entire cutlery set. They’ll have to cut and slice and figure out how to make potato skins with just this do-it-all device. We’ll start the bidding at $500.” Emma had a system – she and Henry had come up with it the night before. Only bid to drive up the cost. Or, if she absolutely could not handle the sabotage. And she could handle this sabotage.

Belle and Graham bid each other up to $3,000 and neither Emma nor Killian made a move, except to occasionally glance at each other conspiratorially. There was something going on here and Emma wasn’t sure she’d call it an alliance – mostly curiosity. She wanted to watch him cook.

Archie yelled sold and Emma turned on the spot – surprised that anything had happened while she was busy having some sort of internal conversation with herself – to find that Belle had won the knife. Archie handed her the contraption and she walked slowly in front of the three other chefs, eyes landing on Emma.

“I’m sorry about this,” she said softly. And she looked it, putting the knife slowly on Emma’s station as the perfect set of cutting tools she’d specifically washed the night before were removed.

Emma did her best not to sigh. Damn. “Tough break, Swan,” Killian said next to her. “I know how attached you are to your knives.” “Shut up.”

He laughed softly and this was going to look so bad when it aired. They were blatantly flirting – Belle practically ran back to her station as soon as they started bantering back and forth again.

“Alright,” Archie said, gazing pointedly at Emma and Killian. “If you two are done being painfully adorable, we’ve got one more item for you all to bid on before you start cooking.”

Emma’s lips pressed together tightly and she knew her face was red. Killian rolled his shoulders and ran his hand through his hair again – a tell. He had a tell and, now, Emma had picked up on it.

Archie tapped on the wall again and was presented with a plate – filled with actual potato skins, crudely peeled off in tiny pieces, and a bowl of skinless potatoes.

“Win this,” Archie said, “and you can swap out one of your opponent’s potatoes, all of them, for these almost-potatoes.” He laughed loudly, pressing his hands together tightly. “Now, let’s see who’s the most cutthroat.” “A thousand,” Killian said immediately, hand still tugging on the piece of hair behind his ear.

“Fifteen hundred,” Emma added quickly. He shot her a glare and she just grinned, shrugging. She couldn’t have that garbage. She was barely certain she knew how to make a potato skin to begin with – she couldn’t cope with scraps of food. And Killian, very clearly, had a plan and potato skin experience.

She was just taking out the competition. That was what she was doing. It was Cutthroat Kitchen. It was part of the rules.

“Two,” Killian muttered softly.

“Four,” Emma countered.

“That’s cheating, Swan,” he accused, but his eyes were almost amused. “You can’t just jump up on the numbers like that.” “It’s called strategy.” “Bad form.” “I am playing the game.” “Anyone want to go for five?” Archie said. “Probably pretty difficult to make potato skins without whole potatoes.” “What do you say, Mr. Iron Chef?” Emma asked, doing her best to infuse her voice with as much sweetness as possible. Killian smiled sarcastically at her in response. “Ball’s in your bidding court.” “Mind games,” he muttered, shaking his head and reaching in the basket to pull out the half a dozen sweet potatoes he’d taken out of the mini-market. “You win, Swan. Let her have ‘em, Archie.” Archie nodded and called Emma forward, handing her the tray with the instructions to give the items to the chef she thought would be hindered most by the potato scraps. She put on a pretty good show of trying to decide, walking in front of the stations until Killian sighed dramatically, rolling his head forward and widening his eyes at her.

“Put them down, love,” he said softly. “You don’t have to make it seem like there was a choice.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, twisting the Iron Chef emblem in the left corner, and leveled her with an almost-serious gaze. “I’m choosing to see it as confident. I’m simply confident that I can still beat you, even with scraps of food.” “Asshole,” Emma mumbled, slamming the tray down on his station and earning an appreciative chuckle for her emotional outburst.

And, suddenly, she realized, he was still playing mind games with her – that cocky, confident bravado a cover-up for how much she might actually be affecting him. That was unexpected.

“And, anyway, I hate sweet potatoes,” she said, turning on her heel and marching back to her station without another word, ignoring his slightly stunned expression and how blue his eyes were when he got surprised.

“You’ve got 30 minutes to make the most delicious potato skins in the history of culinary competition,” Archie said. “Go.” Game on.

What was he supposed to do with these?

Killian stared at the scraps of potato and skins sitting in a bowl in front of him and ignored Emma’s quiet laughter from the station next to him. He’d had a plan – sweet and savory and set to make their debut on The Jolly Roger’s fall menu later that month. And Emma Swan had seen right through it, handing him this garbage with a smile on her face and a challenge on her lips.

And he’d fallen for it.

I hate sweet potatoes .

It shouldn’t have made his head hurt or his breath catch, but it did both and, Killian knew, very suddenly, that Emma had taken the lead in the unspoken mind games they were playing. He took a deep breath and glared at the stupid food on his station again, determined to come up with another plan.

Deconstructed. Deconstructed potato skins. With turkey and gouda and maybe a few stolen scallions from Emma’s station if he could keep her distracted for a few seconds.

“Everything going ok over there?” she asked, voice doing that sugary-sweet thing again and Killian bit his lip tightly before answering. “Everything is fine, Swan, but thanks for looking out.” Her head snapped towards him – wide-eyed and lips slightly parted. He’d said something, that much was obvious, but for the life of him, Killian couldn’t figure out what it was. He took a step towards her out of instinct – not quite sure when he’d picked that up – and felt his hand move towards her, resting on her wrist again like it had in the makeup room a few hours before. “Swan?” he asked softly, ducking his head so he was in her eyeline. “You ok?” “Fine,” she said quickly, stepping back. She shook her head, like she was trying to refocus her energy and looked at him like they barely knew each other, which, Killian was disappointed to admit, was actually true. “You better go cook. I can’t wait to see how you deal with bits of potato skins.” “I’ll figure it out.” “I’ve got no doubt.”

Emma blinked once, nodding again before refocusing her energy on her own food and Killian got the distinct impression that she’d said more than she anticipated. He smiled at her back, laughing softly under his breath as he ran his hand through his hair and moved back to his station, Emma’s words ringing in his ears.

He was fairly positive 30 minutes had never gone so fast in his entire life and by the time Archie counted down the final ten seconds of the round, Killian was barely able to get his food on the plate in time. He’d done it though – deconstructed something that he’d have to sell a bit during judging.

“What is that?” Emma asked, leaning up on tiptoes to glance at his station.

“A win,” he said simply.

“You’re something else.” “And what would that be, love?” “Too confident for your own good.” “There’s no such thing.”

Emma huffed slightly, falling back on her heels and crossing her arms tightly. She flipped her hair, pulled up into a ponytail while she was cooking, back over shoulder – something Killian noticed she did whenever she was feeling something.

A tell – Emma Swan had a tell and Killian had just figured it out. Maybe they did know each other a little bit.

Archie introduced the judge for the day – Tink Greenburg, another Iron Chef – and Killian smiled pointedly at Emma, drawing another hair flip out of her in the process. The host was still talking and Killian was still staring at Emma. He needed to stop doing that.

He chanced a glance at her plate and grinned before he could stop himself – they looked perfect . It wasn’t anything out-of-the-culinary-box and she’d clearly focused on the traditional, but even Killian had to admit that the food looked good – and smelled even better.

“Color me impressed, Swan,” he muttered. “Those almost look edible.” “Not only are they edible,” she responded in stride, “they’re ten times better than whatever you made with your slop.” “Slop?” Killian laughed, turning to face her as he leaned his hip up against the counter in front of him. “In case you’ve forgotten, you gave me that slop.”

“Worth every penny.”

Tink finished trying Graham’s food, commenting on everything from taste to texture to plating and Killian strained to hear what exactly she’d said. It didn’t seem positive – at least not if Graham’s frustrated sigh and sneaker-scuff along the linoleum floor of the kitchen were any indication.

“Emma,” Archie said, approaching her station. “This is Tink, Tink this is Emma host of one of our most popular instructional shows here on the network, The Kitchen, and her latest cookbook was a New York Times bestseller.” He didn’t know that. Killian was staring again, but now he was mostly impressed.

“But, you, of course don’t care anything about that,” Archie continued, waving his hand over Emma’s dish. “We care about this. Tell us your potato skin tale, Emma.” He watched Emma take a deep breath, linking her fingers behind her back and smiling at the two people in front of her. “I decided to keep things traditional here, except for the cheese. Three different cheeses – cheddar, mozzarella and pepperjack. Then, of course, bacon and a couple of scallions for taste and some color.”

She glanced over at him at the mention of scallions – or maybe he just wanted her to glance over at him. He did.

He wanted her to look over at him. And he absolutely shouldn’t.

Emma Swan was a distraction – one Killian was almost positive would be worth it.

Tink commented on the food, throwing out words like delicious and simple and perfect , but Killian couldn’t have cared less about the critique. He watched Emma the whole time, eyes practically boring a hole into the side of her face, waiting for every miniscule movement, every tiny response. He noticed the way her teeth pressed into her bottom lip and how her thumb kept tapping on her hand behind her back and how she kept shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

And goddamn if he wasn’t completely charmed by it.

“Tink, I’m sure you’re already well acquainted with our fourth and final chef,” Archie said, appearing at his station seemingly out of thin air. He’d been too busy staring at Emma to realize they’d moved on to him.

Tink nodded. “Nice to see you again, Killian.” “Always a pleasure,” he muttered. Tink smiled at him and Killian’s right hand ghosted over his left – that rarely happened anymore.

“And what exactly do you have here?” Archie asked, eyeing the plate in front of him with trepidation.

Killian took a deep breath, pulling his hands away from each other and staring straight ahead – he could feel Emma looking at him. He straightened his shoulders again and plastered a smile on his face – falling into the TV personality with practiced ease. Tink waited patiently, one side of her mouth tilted up with interest.

“Deconstructed potato skins,” Killian said simply. “You’ve got the crunch of the potato skin on the side and then the actual potato itself holds all the fillings. So you can get as much as you want of each one whenever you take a bite.” “And the filling?” Tink asked, reaching forward to grab some of the food.

“Turkey and gouda. Simple. Good. Kind of like half of Thanksgiving in your mouth.” “Half of Thanksgiving?” “The best half.” “Of course.” Tink finished chewing and Killian waited for the ensuing critique. It took a few painful seconds – and he had to stop himself from looking at Emma more than once – but the judge finally opened her mouth. “I wouldn’t have thought of deconstructing a potato skin,” she said, with a hint of laughter in her voice. “And I have to be honest, I was a little skeptical when I saw your plate. But the flavor is there. That’s what I care about the most and it’s here. You just kind of have to build it yourself. It’s crazy, but it kind of works.” “Thanks,” Killian said. Tink nodded, walking back to her mark to announce the first cut chef, and he, finally, looked over at Emma. “Anything to add, Swan?”

“I didn’t eat your food,” she pointed out.

“That’s a very good point.” He reached across the counter, grabbing the half-eaten plate and holding it in front of him as he turned towards Emma. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“I don’t think that’s the phrase you’re looking for.” He held the plate up higher, smiling wide at her – God, this wasn’t going according to plan. She was supposed to flirt back or at least play along slightly. She wasn’t supposed to completely call him out for the line it totally was.

Mind games.

“Come on Swan,” Killian said. “Let me try your food.”

She stared at him, lips going thin at the request and Killian understood – it was a personal thing. Cooking had always been as much an expression as it was a job and, for some reason, he got the idea that it was very much the same thing for her. And those walls he could practically see around her weren’t helping much either.

Emma tugged on the bottom of her hair quickly and Killian heard her exhale of air before she grabbed the plate on her station, leaning over towards him and dropping it, without ceremony, on the counter.

“Bon appetit,” she said softly, grabbing Killian’s plate of his hands. They ate quickly, trying to stay off the camera as Tink announced that Graham had been eliminated.

He was right. It was good. Really good. Classically-trained and worked her way up the New York City culinary ladder good.

“Well?” Emma asked and Killian grinned at her. She was totally upfront and he was totally charmed by it.

“It’s delicious, Swan,” he said honestly.

“Yours isn’t so bad either.” “Another compliment?” “Another?” “You said when we were doing the promo stuff that my food, and I quote, ‘smells really good’”

“You remember that?” Killian stopped at the tone of her voice, the question within the question and the uncertainty that someone could actually remember something she’d said. The walls made a bit more sense now.

“I do listen when you talk, love,” Killian said, glancing up at her to find her staring like she’d never quite seen anything like him.

Emma nodded slowly, only turning around when Archie announced the next challenge. Chicken noodle soup. Killian did his best not to groan – trying to make soup in an hour was a challenge alone, doing it in 30 minutes was close to impossible.

Archie swung open the door the mini-market and the sound of sneakers moving next to him made Killian dash towards the pantry. He skidded to a stop once he’d made it through the doorway, grabbing everything he could get his hands on – chicken broth and chicken and pasta and half a dozen vegetables he was certain he would only use half of.

“Got enough there?” Emma muttered, sliding up next to him in the corner of the room. Killian made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. She blinked a few times, lips twisting in confusion as she grabbed eggs out of the open fridge next to her.

She was gone before he had a chance to come up with some kind of response and Killian barely made it out of the room before Archie closed the door once the countdown was over. He felt like his head was spinning a bit – knocked off course and out of the plan by Emma Swan and her ridiculously good food.

He managed to get out of the first round of auction sabotages unscathed, but he did lose a bit of money. All of three of them had bid on the cookie pan – terrified by the prospect of having to cook their food on the flat surface – and Killian had given up $2,500 to hand the stupid thing off to Belle.

He did feel bad – she was probably the nicest person in the entire studio – but he couldn’t bring himself to put it in front of Emma.

She’d absolutely gotten under his skin.

Killian’s pasta was almost done, his vegetables were cooking and his chicken broth was working on the stove when Archie announced another auction. He only half-listened to the explanation, something about tied together and getting close to your enemies , far too focused on his chicken actually cooking to pay complete attention to the sabotage.

He should have.

“Killian,” Archie called a few moments later, finally drawing his attention away from the stovetop. “You’ve got to come here.” “What?” “Were you not listening?” “I absolutely was not.” “Killian,” Emma sighed and his eyes snapped to hers automatically. “Be serious for two seconds.” “I am being serious. I absolutely was not listening.” Archie held up something in his hand that almost looked like rope, but, upon closer inspection, was actually an exercise resistance band. “What is that?” Killian asked.

Emma groaned again. “You really weren’t listening, were you?” “I’ve got soup to worry about.” “Well, now you’ve got Emma’s soup to worry about as well,” Archie added, smiling at the two of them. “Stand back to back.” “What?” Killian stuttered, doing as instructed anyway. He could feel Emma breathing against him, the jut of her shoulder blade pressing into his back when she moved her arm. Archie wrapped the band around them, forcing them to get even closer and Killian tried to keep his breathing level even.

That was easier said than done – especially when Emma’s back seemed to fit against him in a way it absolutely shouldn’t and her arm inadvertently moved against his brace as she tried to reposition her body.

He felt her gasp softly when her skin brushed up against the contraption and Killian hoped they weren’t on camera for this. He squeezed his eyes tight slightly and realized, with the metaphorical weight of the world landing in the pit of his stomach as he did, that it was the first time she’d actually acknowledged his hand. Or lack thereof.

“It’s ok, Swan,” he said softly. Emma’s back stiffened against his and she shook her head – trying to move her hair of her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to…” “You didn’t,” Killian promised.

Archie was either ignoring them completely or absolutely oblivious – Killian wasn’t sure which one was better – and he turned his attention back to them, glancing down at the band holding them together. “So you’ve got to deal with this for the rest of the round,” he said, smiling at Emma and Killian’s frustrated faces. “Have fun!” Emma groaned, hair brushing against Killian’s neck when she leaned her head back dramatically. “You can’t do that with your hair, Swan,” he muttered. “It tickles.” “Tickles? Are you eight years old?” “I am honest,” he said, starting to walk back towards his designated stove to check on his chicken. Or at least he tried to.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Emma asked, apparently cemented into the ground for how locked in she was on the spot.

“I am going to check on my food.” “Like hell you are,” she argued. “I’m going to check on my food.” “I’m afraid we might be at an impasse, love.” Emma groaned again and Belle laughed as she walked by, a bowl of perfectly cooked pasta in her hands. “I should say that I’m sorry about this,” she said. “But I’m mostly entertained. You two should probably come up with some kind of plan if you want to get your soup out for judging though.” She raised her eyebrows quickly, smile bordering on devious as she moved to her station. “At least she’s still got to cook on a cookie sheet,” Killian muttered.

“Who knew she could be so evil,” Emma added.

“Nah, not evil, love. Mind games. She’s playing mind games.” “Aren’t we all?” “Maybe.” Emma sighed again and Killian felt her nod – her hair moving against his neck again. “We need a plan.” “I’m not disagreeing with you Swan, but I would like to point out that my chicken is about to burn. And I’d really like to avoid that happening.” “Ok,” Emma said, voice falling into an authoritative tone that made it difficult for Killian to continue being, literally, strapped to her body. “Let’s go fix your chicken and then I can add the vegetables to my soup. Deal?” “Deal.”

They moved awkwardly around the kitchen, shuffling from Killian’s station towards the stove a few feet away, eyes trained on their feet so they didn’t trip over each other. He tried to speed them up, determined to make sure the chicken didn’t burn and Emma muttered several can’t-be-aired-words under her breath.

“That mouth, Swan,” Killian laughed softly. “You’re someone’s mother.” “And strangely enough that doesn’t make me any less of an actual human being. One that is currently very frustrated that they agreed to do this stupid show in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t suggest otherwise.” “What?” “What do you mean, what?” Killian asked. “Bend your knees, Swan. Chicken’s in the oven and I don’t want you ending up on top of my back.” He felt her laugh against him, but she did as instructed, moving with him as he opened up the oven door to pull out the, thankfully, not burnt chicken. “How’s it look?” Emma asked, not answering his question.

“Perfect of course.” “Of course.” “Back up, love,” he said. They were both standing up straight now and Killian was nervous his heartbeat was louder than every other sound in the kitchen – he was certain he could feel her everywhere and this was hardly fair . He’d already been distracted enough before. Now he was, literally, strapped next to Emma Swan and she was bordering close to talking and Killian couldn’t care less about the food.

“Vegetables now?” Emma asked, but Killian knew it was more a directive than a request.

“Of course,” he said, repeating her words back to him. “Lead on, Swan.” It was harder to get around to the other side of the kitchen, a mix of short steps and alternating sighs of frustration. It took nearly two minutes to get to Emma’s station and her finely-chopped vegetables sitting on top of a cutting board.

“You didn’t cook your vegetables yet?” Killian asked.

“Shut up.” “Just a question.” “Shut up again.” Emma tried move closer to the counter, coming up short when Killian didn’t immediately step with her. “You need to move,” she mumbled. “And then we’re going back to the stove.”

“So many demands,” he laughed. “I feel like we’re doing more for you than we did for me.” “If you wanted to do more when we were at your stove, you should have asked. I’m reasonable. Come on, walk with me.” “Is that what you are? Reasonable?” Emma twisted her head – her hair fell over his shoulder at the movement – trying to look at him and Killian bit his bottom lip, grinning as they moved. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Emma said softly, tossing the vegetables into the pot on her stove.

“Maybe I would,” Killian answered and it would have been impossible not to feel the way her back straightened at his response. Emma didn’t say anything else, focused on stirring her broth and leaning forward to pull her pot of pasta off the stovetop. She tugged them closer to the sink, straining the pasta and adding that to the broth as well.

Killian did his best to ignore the cameraman in front of them, no doubt focusing in on his face and the, likely, clear frustration there. He did want to know. He wanted to know everything about her and he shouldn’t and he was as much of a mess as he was certain his soup was.

“How’s it going with the two of you?” Archie asked, appearing behind the cameraman. Killian bit back a groan, but Emma wasn’t quite as receptive to the propriety of it all, not even trying to mask her groan.

“We’re dealing,” she said, trying to brush Archie off. But Killian knew better – he was here to hose and bother them and serve as a sabotage as much as the actual sabotages and he wouldn’t go away that easily.

“Ah, Emma, you look a little frustrated. Why’s that?” “Because there’s a human being strapped to my back?”

Archie laughed, throwing his head back and even Belle joined in. “Worth it,” she said, walking by them towards the stack of dishes in the corner of the room. Killian felt Emma shift against his back and, well, that was absolutely unfair.

“And what about you, Killian?” Archie asked. “How’s it feel to have a human being strapped to your back?”

Killian considered his answer for a moment, trying not to be completely bothered by the solid weight of Emma against him and only slightly troubled by how comfortable it actually was. “It’s not bad,” he said, doing his best to keep the smile on his face look vaguely sarcastic and not at all genuine. “In fact, I find I quite fancy Swan from time time. You know, when she’s not yelling at me about her vegetables.”

“They need to get cooked,” Emma muttered, shaking the pan on the stove. Killian couldn’t quite tell if it was actual cooking or just frustrated energy. He hoped it was the first.

“Swan?” Archie repeated quickly, eyebrows ticking up. Killian sighed, ignoring the question entirely and glancing over his shoulder to get Emma’s attention.

“Come on, Swan,” he mumbled, elbowing her in the side. She elbowed him back. “Your vegetables are fine. We’ve got to plate.”

She nodded, twisting the knob on the front of the stove to keep the soup simmering. “I’m going right foot first, ok?” Emma said softly, voice seemingly drifting away from as she stared towards the back corner of the kitchen. “Can you walk backwards?” “I’ve only got one hand, love, but I’ve got two feet, I can walk backwards.” She stiffened against him, shoulders pressing into his back and the tension was obvious – even without looking at her. “That’s...that’s not what I meant at all.” Killian reached his right hand behind him, thumb dragging against Emma’s wrist again and he didn’t care about Archie staring at them or the several dozen cameras recording them or what this would look like when it aired. He’d somehow stumbled over his own feet – before they’d even started walking backwards – and Killian had landed right in front of Emma Swan with his heart in the one hand he had.

“I know what you meant, love, it’s fine, trust me.” She exhaled against him, hair brushing over the back of his neck and threatening to fall underneath the collar of his shirt. “Come on, your right foot first.”

“Ok,” she said softly.

They made their way towards the corner quickly, neither one of them tripping over their feet as they moved and Killian felt Emma’s arm move towards the pile of dishes in front of her. “What kind of bowls do you want?” she asked, taking him by surprise.

He should have expected it. She never quite did what he thought she would.

“What?” Killian asked, twisting his neck to try and see behind him. It didn’t work. And now his neck hurt.

“Bowls,” Emma repeated. “To put your second-place soup in.” “Excuse me? Second-place soup?” “You heard me.” “I’ll have you know, Swan, that this soup is almost award-winning.” “Yeah, it’s the almost that makes it sound like second-place.” “Awfully confident for someone strapped to my back.” “Belle had to cook soup on a cookie sheet,” Emma pointed out, holding two bowls over her shoulder. “Somehow I think, despite being strapped to your back, my first-place soup is going to be just a little bit better. I mean, how much soup can you really make on a cookie sheet?” “Ah, but it’s about flavor, love. You could have two spoonfuls of soup and if it won’t matter if it tastes good.” She twisted slightly, pulling him around behind her and making him almost fall over. “Everything I make tastes good,” Emma promised and Killian would have given the rest of the money he had left in this stupid competition to see the look on her face.

“You, uh, you ready to plate?” he stuttered as they stopped awkwardly in between their two stations.

“Sure.”

They worked in silence moving between the two countertops, finding a way to twist and turn and ladle soup into bowls. She’d picked out blue ones for him. Killian tried not to read too much into that. Archie yelled time on the round and Killian and Emma each took a step back, hands up away from the food.

“Well done, love,” Killian muttered, rolling one shoulder back. He felt her laugh against him and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the sound.

“Yeah, you too. It, uh, wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be.” “Seems we make a pretty good team, Swan.” She laughed again as a crew tech came up to untie them. Emma took a step away from him and he heard her deep breath before he even turned around. He could still feel her against him and Killian squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the memory out of his brain. The food. He needed to focus on the food.

And not on the way he was fairly positive his shirt would smell like her for the rest of the day.

Killian barely heard Tink’s comments as she judged the three of them, eyes darting to Emma throughout the post-round taste-test. She kept her eyes focused on the bowl in front of her, hand occasionally darting up to her ear to push up that one strand of hair that kept falling out of her ponytail.

He didn’t even realize that they’d both made it to the final round until he heard Regina’s heels coming up next to him and his name hissed in his ear several times. “What?” he snapped quickly, eyes wide when he met his producer’s glare.

“We’re taking five,” she said and it was, clearly, not the first time she’d told him this. “Go get something to drink. And wipe that stupid smile off your face. And stop flirting with Emma Swan. Actually, no, keep flirting with Emma Swan. It makes for good TV.”

Regina walked away before Killian could come up with something to say and left him standing at his station wide-mouthed with a half-eaten bowl of soup in front of him. He shook his head, running his hand through his hair and turned towards the catering station, wondering if it would be bad form to just start eating his own food instead.

And then he almost ran into someone.

“Jeez,” she laughed, stepping back quickly to avoid having the two cups she was holding from spilling all over her. “And here I thought I was being nice.” “What are you doing, Swan?” “Offering you a drink.” She held up the glass in her left hand as proof and the small, nervous smile on her face did something it absolutely shouldn’t in this studio kitchen. “It’s not rum to pour over open wounds, but it at least has some caffeine in it.”

Killian laughed softly, returning her smile with one of his own and wrapping his hands around the coffee cup. He took a sip of it and lowered his eyebrows instinctively. “Something wrong?” Emma asked.

“Is there cinnamon in this?” he asked, dragging his thumb over the side of his lip.

“Oh, jeez, sorry, that’s mine.” She reached forward, switching cups with his.

“And chocolate too?” “It’s a hot chocolate, coffee, cinnamon mix,” Emma muttered softly and Killian ignored the way his pulse picked when her fingers brushed over his. “Um, it’s my brother’s concoction. Got me through culinary school.” “It certainly does have quite a kick.” “All about the flavor, right?”

“And the caffeine.” “Of course.” Emma bit her lip and Killian lowered his eyebrows, nerves hitting him quickly. “You alright, love?” “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” “Then what’s the matter?” “How do you know something is the matter?” “Open book, remember?” Emma nodded quickly and tugged on her hair again before dropping her hand like she’d been shocked by the ends of the strands. “You going to tell me what’s going on, now?” Killian asked.

“I, uh, what are you doing later?” she asked, rushing over the words like she was determined to get them out before she stopped herself. Killian stared at her – taken by surprise, again. She was asking him out.

That’s what was happening, wasn’t it? He wasn’t entirely sure.

They still had to cook another round of food.

“Sorry, sorry,” Emma muttered, taking a step back and pulling her hair out of the ponytail. It fell over her shoulders and Killian blinked a few times, trying to figure out why he couldn’t come up with a single thing to say. “I shouldn’t have asked. I just, well, Henry, you know, my kid, he, uh, wanted to go to Granny’s later and Ruby’s probably going to come to and my brother and sister-in-law will be there too and I just thought...maybe if you weren’t busy.” His mouth was hanging open and he couldn’t quite breathe and Emma looked so disappointed Killian was positive he could hear his pulse beating in his ears at the sight of her. “Granny’s?” he asked, finally finding something to say.

Emma let out a shaky laugh and bit her lip tightly. “It’s Ruby’s grandmother. She’s sort of adopted us. Henry’s obsessed with her grilled cheese.” “I do love grilled cheese,” Killian said, taking a step back into Emma’s space and reaching out to wrap his fingers around her wrist. She didn’t move. He took that as a victory.

“But?” “But I have a dinner service to get to,” Killian sighed. “As soon as I walk off this set. And a sous chef who knows I’ve been rewriting the menu in my head for the better part of the last week.” Emma smiled – and it almost took away some of the disappointment on her face and, God, she was gorgeous . This wasn’t fair.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” she said quickly, taking a sip of her returned hot chocolate-coffee combination. “I just...I don’t know what I thought actually. I don’t normally do something like that.” “Why did you?” Emma shrugged. “Curiosity?” Killian pressed his mouth together, lower lip sticking out slightly. She was curious. And he was fascinated. “What about after?” he asked suddenly.

“After what?” “After your dinner.” “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” “What are you doing after your dinner?” She reached her hand up quickly – probably trying to brush her hair off her shoulders – but then thought better of it, hand ghosting over a chain around her neck. “Are you asking me out?”

“Maybe.” “What did you have in mind?” “Well, you did mention you live, what was it? Three blocks away from my restaurant?” Emma nodded. “Maybe when you’re done with your family dinner and everything you could come by? You know, I used to be the bartender at The Jolly. I make a pretty mean drink.” “A drink? As in all of them?” “I’m a hell of a bartender.” “Is there anything you aren’t particularly confident in?” “If there is, I haven’t found it yet.” Emma stared at him, smile tugging on one end of her mouth and Killian held his ground. He didn’t admit that she might have been the one thing he wasn’t particularly confident in.

“I’d like that,” Emma said softly, ducking her eyes to stare at her feet.

“Yeah?”

Her eyes snapped up and he got the distinct impression that she realized he wasn’t particularly confident in this – in her . She smiled softly and stepped forward and her hand was on his left arm and nodded. “Yeah,” she repeated.

“We close at ten.” “I’ll be there at 9:55.”

“Time to cook,” Regina said, materializing, apparently, out of thin air. She clapped Killian’s shoulder and nodded back towards the kitchen. He widened his eyes meaningfully – trying to get her to go away , but Regina had never been particularly good at subtle.

“We’ll be right there,” he muttered, but Emma was already two steps away, spooked by his producer and retreating back behind those walls he’d thought he, finally, had managed to peer over. She was pulling her hair back up when he looked at her and the nervous smile had returned to her face as she walked back towards her station.

“I hate you,” Killian hissed at Regina, still standing next to him, one pointed heel tapping impatiently.

“You do not. And, as you so kindly pointed out before, Rol would be crushed if you cut things off with me. So, deal with it Jones, you’re stuck with me.”

“You guys going to come by later?” “Is it a day ending in ‘y’?” Regina asked. Killian nodded. “Then we’ll be by later. Rol had something he wanted to show you anyway, something about a science fair project he and Robin have been working on.” Killian’s mouth ticked up immediately and he shook his head, wondering how he’d managed to become the hero of a six-year-old. And what he was going to do when Emma Swan walked into his restaurant later that night.

He hoped she’d walk into his restaurant later that night.

#cs fic #cs au #cs ff #cs fanfic #cs #ootfp #there are even more words here #banter on banter on banter #HAPPY WEDDING WEEK EVERYONE

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orrtala · 7 years

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Let's talk about Peepers.

It's not going to be an analysis of his character, no, I'm leaving it after I watch the entire S2. I was considering if I should write this post at this point, but I had to, otherwise I'd explode. (A threat of not being to able to liveblog in the near future and lack of Internet overall also helped in writing that post.)

I should note that I got to "The Bad Hatter" and don't know what happens after this episode.

So let's talk about Peepers, his relationship with Hater, some hypotetical scenarios and how I tend to overanalyze a children cartoon.

Back in S1 he used to be a punching bag who was totally happy giving Hater all the control (to be fair Hater was competent back then in spite of his Hatey moments) and being in the shadow, doing the hard work. All in the name of the Hater Empire! …But not really. One could say the changes began back in "The Prisoner", but the real deal was shown in "The Bounty", where Peepers did draw a line - he had his ambitions and had to follow them. He still wanted to be a Commander of the empire that was supposed to rule the galaxy; perhaps even the universe itself. And after that he was shown to lose his paticence with his boss, acknowleding his flaws out loud.

Fast forward to S2 and Hater is not the greatest in galaxy anymore; despite his abilities and powers he got distracted by Wander way too many times for other villains not to notice. Peepers still follows him, though this time not without justified and verbalized complaints and screaming. And when they get to Dominator despite being the powerful one Hater is a distraction, while Peepers takes job into his hands and saves everyone along with Sylvia. "If you march in to my galaxy, you're gonna have to deal with me!" was it?

Peepers and Hater's relationship took a big step in "The Axe". We as the audience learned that without each other the won't be able to function in the villain world without each other, and Hater finally understood he needed his Commander. Peepers meanwhile seemed to be fully aware of his abilities and why he nedeed skeleton man in the first place. After he left the skullship he didn't consider the obvious 'there are so many other villains out there wonder if any of them would use a competent right hand?' No, he was looking for a job in a NEWSPAPER showing that he does believe Hater is still the most powerful conqueror this galaxy could have. Not to mention his whole flashback song, where we witnessed him caring about Hater beyond the whole conquering thing. One more thing worth the note is that Sourdough noted how Peepers is the one who 'knows what's being a true villain is all about'.

After this episode their relationship started to be much, much better, though not without its hiccups.

"A true villain turns weakness into a strength!" I love this line. He technically tells Hater how great it is that he used his obsession with the tag game in conquering planets… But what he's really saying is that he used Hater and his shenanigans to get back to the top ten. Not to mention that he considers Hater as his weakness overall; despite everything that happened not only he has some ounce of belief in him, not only he can not imagine conquering the galaxy without him ("The Axe"), he genuinely cares about the guy to some extent.

This sentence aside "The It" gave me a lot to think about (and laugh for that matter). Peepers had no qualms about freezing his boss in coldbrrnite and leavin him behind, just like he didn't have any problem with locking him up in the box to use him for conquering planets. And the Sequence happens, where it's more than obvious what Peepers wants, how he is the real villain in the Hater Empire, how he revels in his pragmatic villainy and using Hater for conquer. At the end he learns his lesson how while his boss is the instrumental part in building the empire overall, if he's busy with Wander, he's not able to carry out the mission and needs to stay away.

Time for the next Peepers-Hater episode. So what happens? "The Cool Guy" happens. Hoooo, boy, "The Cool Guy".

The figurines play from the beginning is the obvious way of explaining stuff to Hater without boring him at the more formal meetings (the way that Hater took to the heart, if his 'commercial' in "The New Toy" is any indication), but Peepers is also having fun. Until Awesome happens and takes Hater away. For almost the whole episode Commander is busy fretting over Hater's abscence and irresponsibility while phoning him like a worried mother. (Don't worry that much, Peeps, Hater is a good enough boy to use a straw and a napkin.)

And then he decides he had enough, the time for invasion was coming with big steps anyway, had to do it himself.

Two major things happen: first of all his little speech. He knows that all Hater wanted was to be popular, not to conquer planets. He says that in such a mocking tone that made me think: a) he actually doesn't really care what his boss really wants, jsut used his abilities, apperance and desires for galactic domination, b) is it just me or he sounds like a parent who dismissed their kid's desires and 'knows' what's better for them, roping them in a job they didn't really want? I'm probably taking the analogy too far here, but yeah.

The second thing is that he tried to conquer the planet on his own in his name. But wait, didn't he just try to conquer in his boss' name despite his abscence? Nope. You don't put your face-eye on the banners where Hater's face is supposed to be if you want to invade in his name.

But wait, didn't I say that Peepers acknowledged that he needed Hater to conquer the galaxy? Yes, but with Hater's incompetentence and him controlling pretty much everything he might have thought: "Alright, I'm doing all the work anyway, I'm much more capable of being the leader!"

"Bow down to your new master!" Peepers had no idea that Hater was around to watch the invasion. So who was this 'master'? Come, on, he was testing the grounds, he wanted to see if he'd manage to conquer the planet on his own, though still using the skullship which is Hater's symbol. He even had a peep pep talk with himself for flrap's sake. But then Awesome happened (whose words imply that he actualy knew what Commander was planning to do? Or he just wanted to make a joke? I don't really think he'd care any way, but still.) After that Peepers retracted and used Hater's name, but the Thing happened anyway. Commander goes back to his boss just like the boss comes back to his Commander… though not without a little Wander distraction.

After that Peepers gets Hater to the 2nd spot on the villain leaderboard, though not without problems, like partying hard with Wander or making Major Threat fake his return to villainy. Not to mention getting smacked around few times. But overall Peepers could work with that and only Dominator was the real obstacle to get back on the first place. What could go wrong?

Then "The Battle Royale" takes place and Hater falls – literally and figuratively for Dom. Which is a big, big problem for Peepers.

In "The New Toy" watchdog is absolutely fine with Hater not taking the part in the battle; in fact he's delighted he's allowed to lead the attack by himself. Unfortunately not only his boss sabotages his plans, but it's also obvious that without Hater's cooperation he couldn't get anywhere near beating Dominator.

"The Bad Hatter" is the main reason I'm writing that post. Once he finds out Hater has Wander's magic Hat he takes it to make weapons to defeat Dominator and…

(x)

…I said I was going to think about it, didn't I?

Despite the fact that he cares about Hater somewhat and is willing to call him a friend, he is absolutely, 100% ready to put him aside for his own ambitions. He wants to defeat Dom and wants the galaxy to be HIS. There are even parallels with the civil war Wander talks about for grop's sake!

So let's recap: Peepers uses Hater, though he still cares for him, he does consider the posibility of working without him to pursue his dreams, he is thinking how much better he'd fill the leader's position and he'd be glad to be done with Hater's nonsense.

You're going to ask: 'Ok, why are you telling us the stuff we already know?' Well, I'm getting there.

Given what we've seen in the S2 so far it's not without merit to think that Peepers might want to leave Hater after all. Anyone who has been following me knows how surprised I was that he didn't leave skeleton man's side after witnessing Dominator and her powers back in "The Greater Hater" and developed their reluctant friendship (which, for the record, I love, but it was still shocking to see that).

As of now they still have Dom to deal with, so while I don't think Peepers is going to do anyting of the sort in this season, but S3 is still a fair game. Hater might have a moment of clarity or whatever to get the job done, but it'll never be in the long term - Hater from S1 is not going to come back, he's still going to be distracted by Wander, he's still going to be ultimately redeemed. What would Peepers do in that situation? Would he still follow Hater into the path goodness? Possible, but not without complaining. Or some kind of story arc that would happen beforehand for that matter. Where he could at the very least think about leaving Hater to his own devices.

So let's play a game of 'Peepers gets a better job proposition where he actualy can fullfill his dreams of ruling the universe'. Maybe not even in someone's name, but his. Of course it's absolutely hypotetical situation, but still very much possible.

Ok, so in that scenario Commander leaves his Lord to work for somebody else/begin reign in his own name. So Wander would have to do someting, right? Nope. Sure, he might have few words for Peepers, he'd definitely try to do something, but ultimately he'd fall deaf on his ears. Peepers doesn't care about Wander, he doesn't consider him a threat, he'd love to ignore him entirely and for Hater to do the same. I did complain that these two barely interacted, though it made sense why. Now with the possibilty I described here it would make even more sense, especially in narrative way.

But there would have to be someone who'd talk him down, at least partly, right? There's Sylvia, I guess, they did find a common ground in "The Battle Royale", recognising that they had similiar struggles, and I was told they have more interaction in few next episodes. But I don't feel like Sylvia could do that much. Her words would have some effect, maybe, but not that big.

So who has any chance to talk to Peepers to get him out of this path?

Hm, this redeemed/almost redeemed guy maybe?

Tl;dr Peepers stop stealing the show.

#commander peepers #woy #savewoy #lord hater #wander over yonder #not liveblogging #orr blogging #non episode #orr realizes stuff #and makes them up #wander #sylvia #theory #speculation #speculations #woy meta #sfw

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