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#him becoming his own person and not just a comedic device?
yeraskier · 1 year
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feels really good to be a jaskier stan right now
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foundfamyanderes · 2 months
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{yandere platonic justice league x evil scientist reader} borrower au!
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Part 1
WC: 2,172
Summary: As an evil scientist with a dream, you will do whatever it takes to make your dreams a reality. The current situation you find yourself in however is an uncalculated possibility you never accounted for.
A/n because this piece is meant to be a 'crack' fic there are going to be many updates with all the silly little ideas that come to me. This is the first part that sort of kicks off the plot! Please let me know if you enjoy it! I'm not that confident if I come off as an actually comedic writer 😭
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Two Years Ago
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Apparently It is not an easy job, trying to gain the license to a product that actually would benefit the world… But it's even harder to do given the fact it seems you have been put on the justice league's radar. You are pretty sure Green Arrow was trying and failing to stalk you. It was pretty easy to avoid him after a while. 
But with newbies popping up more frequently- You are just beginning to understand why so many Gotham alums decide to give up and become criminals. 
While your last six months have been terribly pathetic. And with no outside funding to be gained, your bank accounts were all run dry. Especially your offshore accounts.  But you are nothing if not resourceful. You refuse to give up yet. Even if it means swallowing your pride and hosting this ridiculous charity event. 
Maybe you should have signed up for Lex Luthor's skillshare classes in 'How to use Capitalism for your Advantage' before starting this endeavor…. But it's too late for you to turn back now. 
Gaining a few benefactors to your project was the only way you could move forward with your project. Unless you wanted to give up your life's work for some newbie to stumble across and take all of the credit for. 
So as sad and pathetic as it was, you had no choice but to disguise your event as a brunch hour for the rich struggling to find love. 
The idea worked- you certainly gathered a crowd to the venue. Everyone seemed quite interested in learning about you. Not that you were interested in such a thing. The thought of having to bat your eyes at any of these assholes makes you almost vomit. Maybe you should have thought more of going with the NFT route before doing this…
Before your hopes are completely crushed, out of the sea of attendees you make out one notable face who has the potential to financially fund your entire project. It was none other than Bruce Wayne- who by Gotham's own standard was an easy mark.
If you could somehow string along a teary eyed story about your device saving orphans he likely would help you. 
You are able to get close to Bruce with ease thanks to the fact he was wondering aloud if he was able to drink his mimosa due to a fruit allergy. 
After you assured him that there definitely were no Kiwi's within a mimosa, you engage in a fairly casual conversation. He told you his kids had set him up for your event. Which would be sweet if you weren't planning on possibly stealing a billion dollars from their college funds. 
The two of you are only able to talk for a moment before another joins in on your conversation. A very tall and bright-eyed woman who you can't help but feel as if you have seen her before.
"Diana Prince, thank you for keeping Brucie occupied for me. He gets lost so easily". She even ends up  offering you her hand. And it surprises you how strong her handshake is. It feels nothing short of a warning. 
Wonderful, you think.  You have likely just ruined your chances of scamming the man with his lady friend now by his side. 
"May I ask what you do for work?". She asks, all her attention placed on you now. You give her a brief explanation. 
"I am currently a freelance scientist. I used to work for  before I decided to go solo, it gives me time to work on my own personal endeavors".
You say, now well aware of the various gold jewelry pieces she was wearing.
"And what is it that you are currently studying?". 
Bruce asks kindly, trying to keep up with the conversation, bless his heart. 
It surprises your companions just how animated you get when you speak of your current project. The spark of inspiration makes you seem a lot less dull. But this does not make them forget the fact you are a very dangerous person. 
"-I have had various subjects confirm that the process is quite painless". 
It was actually returning to the subject's original size that caused the most pain. Not that your potential donors needed to know that. But to have this technology in the most desperate of situations was nothing short of a miracle. As long as it was never overused there would be no problem in recovery for the users. 
It's clear to the pair how much pride you take within your work. After all, it had taken many months for you to get the science just right. Other scientists could barely touch the surface when it came to your discoveries. 
 And most importantly of all you could guarantee the safety of those who would use the devices.
"That seems like a risky endeavor. You would be sued to hell and back if your product ever got into the wrong hands". 
Bruce chimes in ruining the feeling of momentum you had gained. 
"Like I said before, this is to be used for more domestic living situations to offset pollution and such. It has no use to any heroes or villains alike I assure you".
You say slowly. As if emphasizing each syllable would increase your chances of getting through to him. To make him understand why your work was so valuable. Whateveryone else thought be completely damned. 
"Besides that right now there are almost nine alien races near our own space sector that could benefit from such technology". 
The pair were obviously had doubtful of your words. And you pick up on that fact right away. 
"I can assure you that all the necessary research for this has been made. Supergirl herself confirmed this theory. I doubt you could find someone else more familiar with the benefits my device could provide".
This technology was needed, and it was a necessity. You weren't going to be low balled or forced to think of every way this could go wrong. 
"I see. Still, I would recommend you to be careful. You never know how the government can react to these sorts of things". He said, quite bemused. Which honestly didn't surprise you, Bruce Wayne without a doubt had difficulty operating a toaster. So the idea he would understand your work was laughable.
"I'm sorry to cut our time short Mr.Wayne and Ms.Prince. But I have some more people to speak with. When my product kicks off you will have to read about it in the papers".
You say before sauntering off to the next person with heavy pockets. 
And with that any thoughts of Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince forever leaving your thoughts by the end of the week.
With Batman and Wonder Woman now putting a serious dent in your operation how could you?
Current Time 
The day you were finally captured by the justice league was nothing short of a total disaster. And to make things worse for those who were tasked 
to catch you, you had disappeared entirely. Seemingly out of thin air leaving all of  your partners in crime to be captured and turned over to the proper authorities. 
Usually within a week of laying low villains would pop up again. In the justice league's experience most villains ego's and personal aspirations are not willing then to abandon their scheming for long. 
But this time things were different with you. You had yet to reappear in any of their feeds. The last time anyone saw you was during the fight. There was a sudden burst of light- and then you were gone. 
Needless to say, you being missing was quite worrisome. The only theory the league currently has is that your equipment possibly malfunctioned. 
They were searching your lab again, hoping to find something that would clue them in on what happened to you. It wasn't like a whole grown human could disappear without a trace. Logically it was impossible. Unless you managed to erase yourself with your tech…
 Everyone searching for you sincerely hoped that wasn't the case. 
But having searched your lab- there had yet to be any signs you had escaped. 
When the moment came and they felt like they had done all that they could by investiging. Almost all of the team was ready to leave with some prototypes to further study. Or at least they had been until Flash had broken the sound barrier to tell them that you were found. 
"Are they alright?". Black Canary asked unsure what to make of Flash's current expression. It took him a moment to decide on what he should say to the others. 
"It's probably better if you just come see for yourselves". He told the others before running right back to your location. 
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It had been by a complete fluke that they had even found you. J'onn thought that finding your escaped lab rats could provide some insight into the side effects your device possibly could cause. 
But instead he found you- small as could be, but without a doubt it was you. 
You had been dragging some shiny objects that caught your attention back to your 'nest'. The whole set-up was eerily similar to an ant farm. Thankfully it seemed like you didn't have any issues gathering your necessities given your current form. 
 You seemed to have been thriving on what looked like leftovers from one of your assistants' lunches.
J'onn quickly noted the numerous candies and raspberries you were keeping inside your small home. He would have to speak to professionals on how to create a more stable diet for you now… That much sugar certainly couldn't be good for you, he thought. 
Before he had gone to tell Flash it suddenly occurred to the martian that even then he couldn't sense you. The only human minds he could sense were his colleagues
Just what have you done to yourself? He wondered.
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Now that you had been found there was a quick meeting of all available league members to discuss what to do with you.
They had yet to find any further explanation on what had how this happened to you. 
"They definitely have amnesia. So that explains why they are so content currently". Black Canary explains before setting you down gently inside a small box.
You hadn't even tried to bite her. Which is something normal size you definitely would have tried….
"It also seems likely whatever mishap with the device has altered their personality. If not entirely shifting their demeanor as well". 
"You try getting shrinked and remembering everything right away. Give 'em a week and I'm sure they will be trying to build a death ray from toothpicks". Flash somewhat sensibly warns. 
Despite how sweet you seemed now there was no telling how long your good behavior would last.
So with that it appeared that a possible reversal was not going to be happening anytime soon… When it came to your scientific studies you had kept everything to yourself. 
None of your assistants had any possible suggestions on how to help you. Leaving then with only a few limited options on how to handle you. 
"What the hell are we supposed to do with them now?". Someone else asked, a little stunned by the whole situation. 
"We could set them up in a little hamster cage". Hal Jordan suggests the idea a little too quickly. Likely out of nostalgia he did have quite a few of the small pets in his youth.
It is clearly supposed to be a joke. But with the long pause, it's apparent everyone is actually considering the idea. Quite literally too.
"A hamster cage would be too small. The only humane option is to give them an area large enough to support their mental and physical needs. Especially during such a stressful change in their environment".  Jonn mused thoughtfully, as if the idea was something they should ever even consider. 
Someone should have shot the possibility down right away. But no one did- There was definitely a certain appeal to it... They wouldn't have to worry about you causing any trouble like this, sure. 
But also with  your current state it would be unsafe if they handed you over to the proper authorities. They probably wouldn't care to even try to give you the type of care you required. 
 And what made it worse was the obvious fact that only thought in your tiny head was the bare basic necessities of survival. 
So maybe that was a bit of a stretch… Currently you were now attempting to escape the box, but were having little progress doing so.
But the fact still remained. You couldn't harm anyone now. Not like this. 
So it was decided then that until you got better you would be watched on a daily basis- It was the only option the league had to ensure your safety. 
The current question now left unsaid is who would be the first to watch over you…
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stranger-rants · 8 months
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What you said about Steve is so true. I like him, but I do agree after season 1, his character did kind of lose what had made him more interesting there. Some people in the fandom refer to him as a "redeemed mean girl," when we don't really see him as such, you know. Like, I know it's been a year in season 2 since 1, but some part of me definitely think it would've been more interesting to see him have some relapses, where he lashes out and goes back to "King Steve" for just a minute, and goes for where he knows hurts most, only for him to realize and try to backtrack or try to fix it and feeling awful for all that progress down the drain, y'know
He does “relapse” sometimes into being mean, but it’s less relapse and more being given the room to have human emotions. He can be King Steve and an interesting character at the same time - even “a good guy,” but the narrative (and fans) have to let him be that person. The Good and Bad false dichotomy is truly killing creativity. People have complex emotions. The “good” guys do bad things sometimes. The “bad” guys can make “good” choices. Furthermore, just because a character has changed from “bad” to “good,” doesn’t mean they have had significant character growth.
Character growth is not a bad to good progression. It’s the development the character is allowed to go through within the narrative which doesn’t require any moral or ethical changes. Steve had an interesting development in season two, I think, because he had to figure out what kind of person he wanted to be without his popularity, his posse, and… Nancy, but before he could really reach his potential, they made him The Ultimate Babysitter aka the only teenager on duty to protect the party which would have been okay if it was character growth for Steve, but it wasn’t. Steve as The Ultimate Babysitter became a plot device.
Steve’s role has literally involved moving the plot forward by getting the characters where they need to be and preventing those characters from injury and/or dying. Steve doesn’t exist for Steve. He exists for everyone else, and that’s kind of the problem. As such, they don’t really know what to do with Steve. The Duffers wanted him to be The Bully but when that fell through because they “fell in love” with Joe, they didn’t really have a backup plan. To me, that becomes more obvious in the third season when his rivalry with Billy - which had the most potential narratively for Steve - was dropped in order for Steve to be The Comedic Relief.
…and when I say this, I am not saying this with a shipping lens. Steve had his own antagonist. He had the makings of a character foil in Billy, who was another up and coming “king” of Hawkins. It would have been more interesting and helpful for his character development, to see Steve really having to come to terms with the kind of person he was before through his interactions with Billy rather than Steve just existing to “make up for” the kind of person he was before by being The Nice Guy Who Does Stuff for People now. The sailor suit. The ha ha Steve is a dumb loser version we get in season three did nothing for him.
Even within the story line that they chose for him, they dropped the ball on opportunities for him to wrestle with his feelings and emotions in any way that matters. Befriending Robin could have been a great opportunity for him to reflect on his queerphobic attitude towards other people before her, but no. We skip right to Steve is The Best Ally who reacts to situations like these in a socially acceptable manner despite not really showing the steps he would need to take to unlearn his past beliefs, and to me things like that aren’t fair because Steve gets a “tell, don’t show” kind of characterization that benefits his image to fans but does nothing for his actual character growth.
Compare that with Billy who does have quite an intense trajectory in his character development which ends in a pretty significant self sacrifice, but people don’t give him the same benefit of the doubt in personal, moral, and ethical growth from season two despite there being no evidence of him going around saying and doing the same harmful things he was doing before. It feels like Billy is at least awarded with a narratively satisfying arc in terms of development, but denied humanity by The Duffers and their fan base for really callous reasons while Steve is denied narratively satisfying character development while praised for basically nothing other than being a plot device.
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sparklegemstone · 5 months
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Loki Series S2E1 Ouroboros
My thoughts (only a week and a half late 😋) --
That was...HONESTLY GREAT??!! I'm so surprised how good it was given that my expectations were set pretty low.
When I looked at creative leadership for S2, I wasn't expecting much of a departure from S1 because Eric Martin and Michael Waldron carried over as the writers from S1 to S2, but I guess what I missed was that, correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like Waldron is really just billed in name only and didn't contribute much because he got pulled onto other Disney projects, and since Martin was 2nd to Waldron in season 1, perhaps Martin with more control is able to bring a different perspective than he did for S1? Also, directors have changed, we have the Moon Knight directors now, and perhaps most of the positive changes I'm seeing I can thank them for, since I loved Moon Knight (until it got comic-book-silly in the later episodes with the purple alien-looking world ™ that's become a Marvel crutch that seems to be surpassing even the "sky portal/beam" now as an overdone device). Actually, it makes sense that a change of directors would make a bigger difference than a change in show runner / writer since again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Marvel Studios has been running their TV show productions more like films where the director's creative voice is king, whereas in typical TV show production it's the showrunner/writer's creative voice that is king and directors step in to carry out that vision on a per episode basis.
Any-hoo...
This episode worked so well for me because the setup and stakes were serious and all this episode needed to do was keep the tone serious and execute on the setup from the previous season finale, and it did! Excellent execution, yay! Serious tone, yay! I think the episode probably benefitted in my eyes from the fact that it didn't need to accomplish any character stuff (TBD whether this season can improve on that aspect) and so could not fall short in that regard, it was very much a 'doer' episode of having a concrete threat / conflict to solve and the characters just went about trying to tackle what was in front of them.
Loki's face when he genuinely thought he was going to die? They did not have to go THAT HARD with the drama and emotion and I love that they chose to go hard and set Hiddleston's acting chops free. So much emotion on his face.
Speaking of how I thought the more serious tone was handled really well, I think Mobius's recurring fixation on the "no skin" thing is a really good example of that. Obviously the fact that Mobius kept bringing it up multiple times was done for comedic purposes, and it could have been played more hokey and jokey, but the directors did a fantastic job of incorporating that while also at the same time keeping the tone serious and keeping the tension up.
Season 1 did not make me believe that Loki and Mobius would be such close compatriots as this episode portrays, the previous attempt at character work did not do it for me, but I guess I'll just try to do a mental reset, take it as a given that they very close for some reason, and see where this season goes from here.
I liked Ouroboros. He was entertaining and a good change of pace for another support TVA character since I don't really enjoy Casey. And the whole sequence of Loki talking to Ouroboros in the past while Mobius was talking to him in the present was very well-written and a clever idea. I really enjoyed that.
Almost no Sylvie was also a plus for me that I know is not going to last, but might as well enjoy it in the meantime. I even thought the actress did just fine in the mid-credits scene and wouldn't have minded her if only Sylvie was just her own person and not a Loki variant, but I'm so done with seeing her in a reproduction of Loki's armor.
For me the only weaknesses of the episode were:
Sound mixing -- I had a hard time making out some of the dialog
I wasn't really following all the sudden exposition about why both Loki and Mobius were going to die and this thing they had to do with this piece of tech to not die...I think the setup for that could have been clearer.
So I'm feeling more hopeful that I could like this season better and my interest is definitely up. I think the test will be how the new directors handle more character-focused scenes when it's not running-around-under-a-time-crunch to see if this season will improve on that.
@delyth88
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narutocharacterpolls · 8 months
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ROUND THREE
JIRAIYA vs UCHIHA SHISUI
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Reasons for submission under the cut
Jiraiya
ignored Naruto, even after becoming his mentor, unless Naruto shapeshifted into a naked woman
fantasize about, write, and publish stories based off of spying on naked women and girls
analyzes boobs in public
set an example of being a sleazy pervert to a kid who’s very attached to him
became a regular customer of a brothel when he was supposed to be teaching his godson
be a selfish, mean person in general
reminds two submitters of their uncle
had a CHILD proofread his porn novels
let Naruto be abused by the village for years
probably has lice
would make deez nutz jokes constantly
incel
horrible friend
irredeemable waste of cool character design
gives a submitter the heebie-jeebies, and synonyms
made ‘weird’ comments about Konan while under his care
could have been honest with Naruto about knowing his parents
was friends with Orochimaru and didn’t care about his murderous tendencies
deadbeat godfather
coerced a child into turning into a naked woman
stole his (young orphan) pupils money
blew off naruto and made him learn on his own, didn’t teach him anything
perverted, sex offender, and harasses women
deathly ugly
not funny in any way despite supposedly being a comedic relief
Shisui
over hyped
bootlicker
sole role in the story is to die
has negative drip
nonsensical sacrifice
nothing realistic or believable about him
just a plot device for Itachi’s sob story
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llycaons · 7 months
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ep33 (3/3): lwj earring indulgence
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people rarely make wwx as self-possessed or confident as he is in canon. I'll read fic where he's like 'lan zhan I am so sorry for breathing in your direction thank you so much for giving me a square mat to sleep on I promise to behave' and he'll be SO insecure and hesitant when that's really not him! for the most part he doesn't shy away from confronting lwj or getting into his business
it's just that lwj doesn't tell him shit bc he doesn't want wwx to feel obligated to lwj which is a great impulse but wwx also likes knowing how much people care about him so it's a bit of double-edged sword?
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they're helpfully reminding us that this kid's name is yuan too
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this made me laugh so hard. he's standing there with his ORIGINAL FACE in his classic black robes and red ponytale, playing a flute, and he thinks playing badly is a disguise? and THEN lwj gets mad at him for fumbling their song lmao
but wwx needn't have bothered bc lqr didn't realize anyway due to being comatose. until wwx woke him up with his bad flute playing
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lqr having such a strong reaction to a flute is funny bc was he even on the front lines in sunshot? they said he didn't leave the mountain very often and it's not like he's a warrior. he's probably never seen wwx play
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one of his top expressions
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lwj is quite strict with lsz, in his own way. not in an aggressive way, but VERY expectant of obedience
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there's one single female disciple here and she stayed in the back the entire conversation before coming forward for the water basin. what, are female disciples servants who are only used for healing?
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this looks so cool. green suits wwx really well honestly
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perhaps I have been unfair to lsz given how annoying his character is in fanfics and how obvious of a plot device he is. but he's a nice boy, and to my surprise he's also smart!! look at him thinking through problems!
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encouraging to see wwx express sentiments that before his death, he really needed someone to tell him
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coming back, I think he's become in a certain sense resigned to the things in his life that happened. no use getting angry or upset over them, some things you just can't change. and this is really sad, but it's also, hopefully, indicative of a more healthy mindset in his second life
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"I naturally trust you' and that's what he needs to hear, baby
also seeing them standing together makes those 'huge top' fics so funny. they are literally almost exactly the same body type and build. no lwj is not a head taller. no he is not built like a brick shithouse, his hands are not large enough to encircle wwx's waist. if anything he is slightly taller and more slight in build, where wwx is slightly bulkier. but I think his height is because of his heeled boots
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damn the jingshi is really so nice. I love hat porch area and the bridge over there.
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right after wwx said 'it's pointing at the person who told it to commit crimes' ljy jumped and then glared at wwx haha
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omg HORSES! I didn't know they used horses! wwx bouncing like a bobblehead hehe. and all the fics insisting he only uses little apple
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HANGUANG-JUN PIERCED EARS SHOT. taking this to headcanon that lwj wears earrings. let lej be a little gnc. as a treat.
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this was such a strange moment. lwj walked off and left wwx behind entirely. why???
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oh and this was funny. this guy seling ugly portraits that wwx took offense to
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THERE HE IS!!! THE MOST DISASTER BABY OF THEM ALL!!!!
this kid kicked a civilian in the chest for saying the name 'wei wuxian' in public. he might have already been sensitive and prone to fights, but clearly his parenting has been ABYSMAL
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by 'his uncle' he is talking about jc. btw. I originally thought he was referring to himself, but it just makes more sense. ha.
I hate the fairy scene possible more than any other scene in this show. why is his face so comedically twisted? why is his running so stupid-looking? unbelievable that this happened in the same episode that made me cry my eyes out
personal highlights
oh the rite of spring was INSPIRED
all of wwx's crying this episode. all of it. beautiful
cgi sword stabbing a hand my beloved <3 <3 <3
lwj's broken little 'wei ying' at the very end
everything about the jingshi opening scene. the music. the lighting. the atmosphere. the calm
wwx seeing his younger and more innocent self frolic about. as stated, I was inconsolable. I've always liked it but after today, it's going to be a very special scene to me
lwj's sexy whip scars and mysterious chest brand. can't help it. I love them. and wwx's seriousness and care during that scene was really nice too
lqr being roused by bad flute music, yelling at them to stop, then slipping into a coma and wwx sitting there like 😬 'whoops' with that funny face
wwx sitting with the bamboo background looking all cool
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your-turn-to-role · 3 years
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well into the final CR1 arc and I have decided to become a Sprigg stan account
LOOK BIG MOOD
darin de paul is my favourite guest on cr, hands down
like...
1) the sheer fantastic comedic energy he brought, no other guest comes close, you can see how unexpectedly delighted all the other players are just to see him work, and matt's having a lot of fun playing demistrik too, like... god i've tried to bring sprigg's energy into some of my own npcs while dming because there really is no character more fun to play than an absolutely unpredictable old man with weird strong opinions about everything
(and quirks like the "let's come up with a mnemonic device in case we need to jump him", that are way longer than the phrase itself, in full earshot of everyone, just, fantastic)
2) i love the legacy just sprigg as a character brings? i don't know if you know this already if you're just watching it, but, sprigg's been alone for 37 years because darin de paul last played sprigg 37 years ago, in a campaign with matt's mother
like! he's full of history because he literally is full of history, and it's a legacy that's deeply personal to the show by nature of being a family relation to the dm!
3) [and, spoilers for 106 and 107, don't know where you're up to] i've talked about this before i'm sure but... darin de paul could not have brought a better character for everyone's character arcs if he tried
especially vax and keyleth
bc like... what they're dealing with right now is keyleth's worst fear. she was hesitant about getting in a relationship at all because she knew her lifespan was in the thousands of years and she didn't want to get close to someone and then outlive them. she didn't want to let things matter to her and then risk losing them, and vax helped her get away from that
he convinced her it was worth it, and then this happened. they know one way or another only one of them makes it out of this alive, and it's probably not vax. (he even has the line in 107, "i know the chance you took on me, and i've confirmed your worst fears and then some")
and neither of them are okay, meeting sprigg, bc it's that huge reminder, because sprigg ran away, and his friends died, and he forgot all their names
and everyone else thinks sprigg is just talking nonsense but keyleth looks at him and sees a mirror, she understands him perfectly and it's terrifying
and like. vax and keyleth haven't talked about this, at this point, because they don't know how to, and they're scared to even face each other. and i think, had sprigg not showed up right here, they might have done that for all the time they had left. because neither of them knew how to face this, it was just too overwhelming
but here he is. keyleth's worst possible ending. alone, left with half a mind, paranoid, stuck in this hut in the forest building traps. everyone he ever cared about has faded from his mind. and vox machina, they just found out percy and vex got married in secret, and while scanlan's teasing them, vax and keyleth are angry and silently crying in a corner, because they can't ever have that, and what do they do in this meantime, where vax is a walking ghost and they know that time's almost up, and keyleth is so desperate not to be alone?
(and the gods, too, sprigg hates ioun, even though he's her champion, he doesn't think she ever helped him and he'd be better off without her. and keyleth never understood how the raven queen helped vax, she only saw the ways in which he got hurt, and she's never been one for gods either)
but those things aren't gone. none of them are gone, sprigg's just been distracted from them. he does come to remember them, with the right help, and that's the first spark of hope for keyleth. for both of them, because he is vax and keyleth in one, he's been the lone survivor, but he keeps his friends in his heart, and he chooses to fulfill his duties to ioun and stay with her as her champion. it's reassuring vax, too, that he's not just walking into oblivion.
and it's that that grants them the courage to face up to this and talk to each other, and actually maybe be somewhat okay with this
and i could be here all day if i detail everyone, but to briefly go into it, percy and scanlan too
because ioun's library is an important step in percy's arc, which has always been about legacy. he's deeply concerned with legacy above everything, and has been absolutely devastated by both the loss of his family, his city, and their family history (matt mentions at one point the briarwoods burned a lot of the family records and percy looks so angry at that), and the fact that, under the influence of a demon, he then turned his own legacy into one of mass murder. there's a lot of important steps in percy's character arc but all of them relate in some way to, what came before me, and what do i leave for others
and this is the first spark of hope he's ever seen! he argues with keyleth in 56 about the importance of monuments, they're not about pride, they're about remembering those who came before (and, again, percy and keyleth's arcs, incredibly interlinked), and percy has none. everything that makes him has been deliberately destroyed by someone, and that's incredibly difficult for him to deal with. but here, in this library, is a record of everyone who ever lived. he doesn't have to shoulder the responsibility and guilt of turning the sole legacy of hundreds of years of family history into one of destruction. because these records are permanent, no matter what happens, his family mattered, because they're here, and no amount of fuck ups on his part can destroy that
and scanlan, scanlan's singled out by sprigg immediately. and that may just be because he's the only other gnome present, but sprigg was right, they do have a connection. because scanlan ran away. he saw the tide turning into things he wasn't ready to face up to, and he did exactly what sprigg did, and didn't care about the consequences. and he's now realising how badly that hurt vox machina
but he has something sprigg doesn't, which is that his friends are still alive. sprigg's friends died because of his betrayal, but vox machina are here to give him a second chance. and this is the episode where he really steps up. he sees that, he makes a conscious decision to not be like sprigg, and for the first time in his life, he takes responsibility. and it's scanlan stepping up that saves them
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baeddel · 2 years
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uzumaki spoilers [again, read Uzumaki first]
i think we are licensed to say that Ito was influenced by Lovecraft when making Uzumaki. he has described Lovecraft as an influence himself, and he makes a comedic reference to the Mountains of Madness in one of the self-insert skits. the infohazard theme that was important in Lovecraft is an important theme in Uzumaki. but it’s interesting to see how they differ. Lovecraft was worried about humanity; the limits of human rationality, the development of the human species, and the fragility of human civilization. for Lovecraft only white men have access to rationality, so only white men can understand the horrors that lesser men bring into existence; this is alluded to in Pickman’s Model (“I’ve got a place that I don’t believe three living Nordic men besides myself have ever seen...”), and is implicit in stories like the Mound. Lovecraft’s protagonists are white American academics, scientists and artists who use their superior reason to uncover the horrible truths of the universe which humanity had until now been too primitive to witness. when they do reach beyond the veil they go mad, catatonic, chittering, or else kill themselves. lesser men mistake what they see for gods and make cults to them with obscene practices, or else degenerate into subhumans.
when Ligotti takes up the same things he uses similar characters and similar devices but with new coordinates. his refernces are not racial scientism and theosophy but structural anthropology and German idealism. the horrible wisdom of the world was not out of reach of Ligotti’s humanity but inescapably evident to it; all of our discourses and social institutions are ruses and devices through which we can hide from it. his protagonists uncover the truth because they are curious, knowledge-hungry fools. impulsively following the intellectual riddles that preoccupy them they disturb things that were better left alone. if they leave with their lives then they find their own way to avert their gaze and put the truth away.
in Uzumaki i think the relevant comparison is shūyō, self-cultivation. virtually every strain of East Asian discourse (religious, philosophical, etc.) has some version of this. what it means to cultivate yourself varies according to tradition but you should have the idea from the name. it’s about developing one’s learning, one’s habits and morals, or one’s te, inner power. everything from Buddhist meditation to martial arts to alchemy to keeping a rock garden is built on a theory of self-cultivation. while self-cultivation isn’t uncommon, there is an expectation that a very cultivated person will be strange (especially outside of Confucianism). sages are different from ordinary people; people can’t understand them, they have a different sense of right and wrong from other people, etc.
the first character in Uzumaki who has any idea about the spiral horror is Suichi’s father. he has renounced everything and devoted himself to the spiral; he spends all of his money on spiral merchandise and sits in his room staring at them. he learns, just by looking at the spirals, how to work miracles; he can move his eyes independently, extend his tongue unnaturally and curl it up, and finally extends and twists up his whole body into a spiral. he achieves a sort of twisted immortality in the spiral. you can easily read this as a dark paroday of self-cultivation; he is a middle-aged man who gets taken by fanciful ideas and spends a lot of money on it. it could as easily be green tea or anything else. his contortions are like a sort of evil tai chi.
Suichi is the second character who knows about the spiral horror. he knows, perhaps, more than his father; he knows how terrible it is. he withdraws from the world, sits alone in his home and does not eat. he rejects whoever comes to him except his lover-disciple; he teaches her how to avoid the spiral, though she cannot learn from him. he is one who has “drowned in the midst of dry land.”
Suichi’s father introduces Yasuo, Kirie’s father, to the spiral horror. he calls pottery “the art of the spiral,” a phrase Kirie’s father repeats for the rest of the manga. he turns his pottery into a form of spiral-cultivation. yet unlike Suichi’s father he doesn’t kill himself doing so. he listens when his family express their troubles and he goes on working on it quietly; he functions well even in the finale when everyone else is losing their minds.
when we get to the bottom of Dragonfly Pond we collect the fruit of cultivation. correct me if i’m wrong but i don’t think we see Suichi’s father in the underground structure at all. he remains in Kurôzu-cho, in the mud, the trees and smoke. Yasuo joins the tangle of bodies and is petrified next to his wife. Suichi basks in the light of the spiral without being petrified; he embraces Kirie and they become a spiral together in a happy infinity.
Uzumaki contains something of a self-cultivation manual. it shows us three sages, but also three lovers, and their different routes to immortality and also love. Suichi’s father cultivates himself excessively; he achieves a restless immortality within a few days but he never learns the truth of the spiral. as a lover he neglects his partner, and then calls to her from hell. he drives her insane and then condemns her to share his fate, all the while she begs him to stop. i don’t know about a Japanese parallel but in the Daoist system you would say that he shattered his shen and lost his vitality. Yasuo cultivated himself slowly, doing a little bit every so often by gathering the clay and firing it. he listened to his wife’s concerns and moderated his practices. he and his lover were petrified by the light of the spiral below Dragonfly Pond. as he lived a normal life, he met the same fate as the townsfolk. now Suichi: where common people are mesmerized by the spiral, and the other sages sought to harness it, Suichi rejected it. he withdrew from society into a reticent life of skeptical contemplation. he advised and mentored his lover so he could protect her from the spiral horror. thus he united with his lover and became immortal with her. it was because he rejected the spiral that he found a peaceful immortality in it.
interestingly we already find a lot of what we like about Bloodborne’s use of Lovecraft in Uzumaki. whereas in Bloodborne the Cthulu cult and its horrors are carried out not by primitives but by the Church, the hospital, and the repressive organs of the state, in Uzumaki it’s done by fathers, teachers, doctors and so on. whereas in Bloodborne it takes the form not of shamanistic religion but revealed faith and academic science, in Uzumaki it takes the form of self-cultivation. and in Bloodborne we also find a sort of practical-philosophical manual which stands along with the best tetsugaku, with its own failed sages (Micolash’s delerium, Rom’s ignorance) and ultimate successes (the Hunter in the third ending).
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anolyso · 3 years
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Utena thoughts...about 2 weeks later
I've been putting it off for way too long and so most of my thoughts stopped being fresh. On top of watching way too many analysis vids post-watch, but still I do at least want to put my 2cents of Revolutionary Girl Utena out there for the world.
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Utena is perhaps one of the most famous "magical girl"/shoujo action shows out there for not only it's transgressive themes of relationship abuse and low-key pretty much being the poster girl for like actual feminist perspective on/in anime...but also just doing it all in both a heavily allegorical and understated, yet super over-the-top stylish fashion
But that's it's reputation preceding itself, is Utena worth while all these years? The answer is Yes, but it also really shows it's age and budget in pacing and repetition, tho as an appreciator for "behind the scenes" compromises in art, it's more showcasing Ikuhara's talent in working around both taboo and long-form budget constraints with just well-thought out and iconic imagery that - while episodic and formulaic - is just very good at filling the 39 eps with feasts for the eyes.
Utena broadly is about tomboy Utena with memories long ago after her parents died being "saved" by a princely figure like a princess...except she's so enthralled by the nostalgia that instead she becomes a full on Prince herself and receives a dueling ring to fight in the Ohtori Acadamy secret duels for "engagement" to Rose Bride Himemiya Anthy.
Utena is divided between 4 arcs, only the first and last being Manga adapted from hearsay:
1: Student Council Saga
2: Black Rose Saga
3: Akio Ohtori Saga
4: Apocalypse
From back to forth I'd say that Akio + Apoc is more just escalation into the finale while Black Rose being anime original comes off as a glorified side-character study which while complementing the secondary cast, feels like one of those Anime movies that has to say "but if you don't watch this part, it's pretty much optional for the main plot" despite it also actually introducing the most important antagonist within it's margins.
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More importantly, it's the Student Council (arc and the actual people) that lay the foundation but also a large part of the show's focus which ironically puts Utena in the background until like almost the finale and some in-between developments, so it's less "Utena (and Anthy Himemiya)'s story" until the very end, but more like a showcase of how fucked up the system at large is (pin in that).
By the Council themselves is:
Kyouichi Saionji: The biggest jobber, like actually introduced as the most despicable loser ep 1 and proceeds to be a complete arrogant joke for the rest of the show. Honestly in another shojo "love" story, they'd find some way to redeem him but semi-compellingly they turn him into like an Aqua-lad type pathetic brat with an inferiority complex to the actual Student head
Miki Kaoru: the naive "nice, non-threatening soft boy" that also just never actually listens to the girls around him. Probably adds more complexity to the whole patriarchal idea on analytic reflection since yeah, the whole "nice guy finishes last" plays up better when the kid comes off as that "ally" energy of wanting to save Himemiya from being the Rose Bride but also low-key won't actually not just do the duels and win her cuz he's that sorta wishy-washy hypocrite. Arguably the least hateable guy in the cast (minus mascot Chu-Chu)
Juri Arisugawa: TRAGIC LESBIAN TRIANGLE LOVE. Probably the biggest point to of both "not-explicitly homosexual" but also really freaking obvious since her entire story is her girlfriend stealing her "boy crush" when actually she was crushing on her and being pretty much frustrated throughout her story as pining most of it. It's quaint by today's standards but also like damn girl, get over her she was like the worst back stabbing bitch (literally if Black Rose counts)
Nanami Kiryuu: SPEAKING OF QUEEN BITCH, it's been a long time since I've watched a High School girl bully and honestly it's kinda refreshing. If Miki is "soft-boy uwu" Nanami is a brat that gets her come-uppance often, featured prominently as an anime only with the MOST filler/comedic episodes but also not low-key, being the most out-spoken actual brother complex ironically spins perhaps the biggest twist and ironic relationships of "I love my brother but not-like-that but also like-that" by the end. Mostly comedic relief but I find her inclusion to actually add a lot more to juxtapose...
Touga Kiryuu: Big Student Council Prez himself, the first arc antagonist and also a strong foil to Saionji and later a stepping stone for Akio. Touga is THE image of a Princely Playboy Heart-Throb that in any other Shoujo romance would have the main girl win him over from all those "other girls" despite him being apathetic if not outright manipulative of them. Good thing Utena is better than that and really puts a spotlight on just not-actually-ok his power hunger for "the power to bring the world revolution" that leads him to heavily objectify Anthy, arguably even more than Misogynist Trophy Girlfriend beater Saionji, since he doesn't even see her as more than a means to an end despite professing and looking the Prince part but lacking all the actual virtues.
The Student council matters more since they're characters and subsequent tragic flaws are the ACTUAL meat of the show and on second rumination actual shows more how fucked up the system/gender dynamic/power hierarchy is since - while it blatantly fucks over Juri who can't just outright say who she likes - also show almost it's own sub-text of Masculine failings: Saionji desperately clinging to being TOXIC MASCULINE™ and completely falling short underneath Touga; Miki's "nice boy" act belying him trying to replace his low-key nostalgia for his sister (also a bitch, but apparently was more like Nanami in the manga); and best yet Touga being the quintessential "Prince in all but actual behavior" by emulating a cutthroat and Machiavellian world view but coming up empty because well, he's just an illusion of a prince...but that leads in way more to the big finale piece where I'll reintroduce the actual story's main trio
Utena Tenjou: Tomboy Prince with brain empty except for lesbian thoughts. Honestly probably what every western "STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN" archetype wishes they were since while having very tomboyish personality in athletics, blunt speaking and also VERY oblivious to the actual plot for REAL DRAMATIC IRONY, but also never actually demeaning her being feminine partially due to her love of an childhood prince and how she maintains her relationship with both her friend Wakaba and later Anthy. Honestly mostly a plot device after S1 until she gets ACTUAL development by the very end and instead kinda bumbles her way into undoing the entire REVOLUTION OF THE WORLD. I kinda wish she felt either more cognizant or at least felt like she was developing/properly rebuking the rest of the cast's power obsessions but I guess that's for the movie.
Anthy Himemiya: Actual Trophy Wife with a dark secret (darker than ski- wait no that's terrible scratch that). Set-up very much as an immediate princess in distress while also being the most femme Yamato Nadeshiko, Anthy being the Rose Bride as a literal prize who acts and behaves as whom she's "engaged" with desires while otherwise being quiet, wry, mysterious and noticably submissive, by the end it actually plays up into THE BIG REVEALS of just how abused she's been into a hopeless acceptance...like y'know actual abuse victims.
Akio Ohtori: Grade A Antagonist, probably the most insidious I've seen a villain in a while, Akio is notable for, back in 1997, being perhaps the big go-to of actual deconstructing the facade of a whole shoujo genre's "hots for a teacher/sexy man putting the moves" and highlighting how actually exploitative and abusive a person like that really is. Being Himemiya's brother (somewhat justified in the manga by both being a weird Sailor Moon-esque reincarnation of gods/godesses of Dios), despite how much of his motives are runing the background and how the entire back story is  uh...brought up in like barely in the last arc with little lead up (some scenes feel like they'd be a full melodrama season and they just have like 1 scene in the final arc episodes) he manages to one-up Touga (in the plot as well) by instead of "just" objectifying girls, not-just-flat out saying Utena looks best as a princess, but y'know the fact that he is implicitly yet constantly exploiting and victim-blaming Anthy for her own suffering for "the power of Dios/Revolution of the world" turns it on its head
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I've spent all this time on characters but in truth a lot of the meat of the show relies again on the Council Members fleshing out the issues of system leading to outright divorcing "being a Prince" (heroic altruistic virtues) and "being a man" (considering like all but maybe the comedic relief have some deliberately misogynistic behavior) and beyond just the plot (or rather character) synopsis, the talent goes far more in how it's framed, the symbolic/allegorical shots, the repetition adding a good episode formula flow to character showcases, probably the most "tasteful" allusion to uh...*ahem* sexual abuse that so many other edgier/prentious shows fumble. Both in how intimidating yet understated it's foreshadowing is until they hard-reveal it despite never explicitly naming it even tho it sends Nanami into hysterics
Really it's both a massive blessing and reason for it's cult beloved status for it's aesthetics but also it's burden, for being a full 39 episodic season by season character development study of everyone BUT the main trio except for snippets and the very end that makes it greatly appreciable as a legitimate work of art.
What I wanted more to say however (long overdue) is that a large part of following is, visibly at least, western feminist critiques and yes while it almost seems like Utena fits the "deconstructing patriarchy" story like a glove...it's weird how almost none of them actually can give a good historical account of actual Japanese female/gender/sexuality norms nor Anime contemporaries actually were. Like Tenchi Muyo and Berserk came out the same year (Cardcaptor Sakura the next) and despite how you can "feel" the influence in lots of modern shows like SHAFT's signature visual imagery cuts or many WESETERN shows having straight scene references to Utena....almost no one has a similar feel to Utena until like Princess Tutu comes out.
Really tho probably should've watched Utena and then Tutu because while it's undeniable that Utena is a major pillar of shoujo re-codification - what with everyone before Utena was saying they thought it'd be like a Rose of Versaille or Lady Knight rip-off...whose laughing now? - it's almost like there's a missing link between it and it's major western fanbase (probably with what few anime did get overseas, this one probably rose to the top), or how very noticeable there IS an influence on it's genre in Japan
Almost none of the big analyst fans actually know A) it's not "a deconstruction of Magical Girls" since despite Ikuhara working on Sailor Moon just before this, almost none of the tropes line up and instead more with Shoujo genre as a whole. or  one of the major inspirations was Takarazuka theater.
And this is not to dismiss how inspirational it is to it's western fandom, but while I am notably cynical towards placing things on pedestals, there's probably something about cultivating the whole pop-culture feminist reading commune with people making weird time-loop theories while kinda most of it is just filling in a mad-lib mostly thanks to Ikuhara just keeping things on the vague and letting the audience take away their own perspective.
Again, most of the show is completely sub-textual or visually/symbolically depicted and never stated nor properly defines it's weird key words (End of the World, Revolutionize the World, Power of Dios, Rose Bride, all things said constantly but never really said what they "mean". But that's also perhaps its charm, in it's allegory and very Death of the Author approach, it has definitely allowed it's fan theorizing and appreciation to flourish so there's something there for that.
Ultimately I'd say Utena the TV series is great more so for what it isn't...or rather I should say it's great for not just subverting Shoujo tropes and archetypes for the Japanese audience but also that despite dealing with some very serious and heavy subjects in obtuse and perhaps understated ways for the time, people have allowed it to be put on it's pedestal because they can easily fit it in themselves.
Honestly though, not that a more "straight forward" approach wouldn't detract from Utena but I will say that the movie, Adolescence of Utena, is very much the best encapsulation of what Utena strives to be (for another big blog post) and while the TV series has plenty of time and flexes it's directorial muscles with budget constraints and season pacing UNrestrained, the movie will trim a lot of the fat
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miyacchis · 3 years
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Notes from a Con Man - Musical Great Pretender Stage Report Act 1
This is a bit extremely rambly, but I want to give some description of the distinguishing features of the staged version of Great Pretender as compared to the anime, although my plan is not to give a complete recap of the plot, as I’m sure anyone who is choosing to read this has watched the anime - or so I assume, but you know you do you. I try to control myself and keep it just to what is relevant, but I’m also a wordy bitch and that will never change, so, reader beware, I guess.
 The stage is set up with three levels (the stage level, the second floor, and the third floor where the band is). Both the stage level and second floor have a couple of rooms that can be pulled out or opened, and backgrounds are projected onto the set to create different settings. With the exception of the opening theme, which is taken from the anime, all of the music is live, and there’s very good interplay between the band and the performers, and I don’t know if I’d ever been to another show that felt so vibrant/alive/idk?
First, the biggest change made for the sake of clear storytelling on the stage is the addition of a framing device: the plot is conveyed to the audience through Edamura’s (Miyata Toshiya) narration as he tells his story to a prosecutor after the events of LA Connection. The play opens where LA Connection ends with Edamura being questioned at a police station, where it’s clear that he has been attempting for hours to convince detectives to believe the team-confidence-wild-and-wacky-adventures ™  explanation as to how he came to be in possession of a bag stuffed with foreign currency. Detectives are fed up with him and ready to go berniewiththesteelchair.jpeg on his ass. Enter Kitaoji (Kato Ryo), an elite prosecutor who seems to be on track to become attorney general, although it is unclear to those at the police station why he would take interest in Edamura’s case. 
Edamura is initially reluctant to open up to Kitaoji (Kato Ryo), certain that he won’t be believed, but after Kitaoji quotes from Shakunetsu (side note: I had no idea that in English Shakunetsu was turned into Die Hot which is an absolutely incredible pun and I really commend the translator), Edamura thinks Kitaoji might be just the person to believe him and help him to make amends to all those he had harmed through his life of fraud. Kitaoji encourages Edamura to start at the beginning and goes to eat a piece of candy, prompting Edamura to question, “What would you do if this simple piece of candy was sold for $5 million?” at which point he begins telling his story, transporting us first to a club in Hollywood where we are introduced to the plot with Sakura Magic and, more importantly, Laurent (Miya Rurika, goddess, dressed devastatingly in green), who is identified in quick succession as a French trader, an arrogant Don Juan, and the “bastard who got me into this mess.” 
Edamura bumbles through Laurent’s plot to build hype and clinch a deal with Cassano (Otani Ryosuke) by having Abby (Yamamoto Chihiro) “test” the “drug,” while giving small asides to Kitaoji to explain the main players and reveal to him that this is all a con job, but when Edamura is called to sign the contract to supply Cassano with the drug for $5 million, he flips out, pulls Salazar’s (Mikami Ichiro) gun, and flees the club, without the excuse of believing that he had taken drugs as he did in the anime. It is also not at this point that Edamura makes the connection between Laurent and Kudo and realizes that he’s been set up (Miyata!Edamura is overall a bit less perceptive than Kobayashi!Edamura, as we shall see, although I think this was a function of simplifying aspects of the characters’ interactions for the sake of clarity for the stage). 
Kitaoji pops in and out of the story from this point, donning different costumes (an unhoused person, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Razzie from the Shakunetsu series, etc.) to illustrate different aspects of the main characters’ conversations, and he serves as a way to get into Edamame’s head, allowing him to express what he is thinking and feeling as events in the story play out. It is in the metanarrative that we get some of these more comedic scenes, as well as additional insight into Edamura’s character as he grapples with his own identity as a scam artist and the son of a child trafficker.
After escaping Cassano’s henchmen outside the club, Edamura rejoins Kitaoji to ask if he’s following the story so far, which of course he is not (lol), so Edamura dives into how he met Laurent and came to be in LA. From here we flashback three days, joining Edamura and Kudo (Fukumoto Shinichi) in Asakusa as they spy Laurent as a potential mark. Edamura pulls the wallet-switch trick, and this scene generally follows the anime, although parts, such as the scenes showing Edamura selling water filters and Edamura and Kudo being raided by what seems to be the police, have been cut. After realizing that Laurent pickpocketed him and saw through his grift, Edamura quickly follows and catches him as he is about to depart in a cab to the airport. Just a moment to talk about this cab because it was such a cute, clever idea; it was really just a little push car driven by one of the supporting cast, and it can be disconnected in the middle, so as the driver pulls off, the back seat can be left behind, allowing the audience to watch Laurent and Edamura’s conversation as they are taken to the airport. 
Similarly to the anime, the successive scenes are nominally delivered in English, so Edamura switches to a dialect of Japanese to represent his accented English, which I mention only because Miyata discussed Edamura’s code switching with Kobayashi (Edamura’s Japanese voice actor) in an interview in vol. 51 of Stage Square and how he was concerned that he might confuse Standard Japanese and the dialect during scenes where he has to go back and forth quickly. Kobayashi reassured him that as he got into the character of Edamura Miyata would naturally fall into dialect whenever speaking to Laurent and Abby, and I’m very biased, buuuttttt throughout the run of the show, Miyata performed this beautifully, and as someone who for several years lived in the Tohoku region, the dialect of which Edamura’s accent reminded me of, his accent made me really nostalgic. 
Anywayyyyyy
After Laurent and Edamura bet on the outcome of Laurent’s upcoming “business negotiations” and it’s agreed that they will travel to LA together, the opening theme plays, the main cast is introduced, with Edamura running up and down the set to give a sense of action, the title in massive letters is lowered onto the stage, and we rejoin the main plot with Edamura trying to elude Cassano’s gang on the streets of LA by hiding behind the title. The supporting cast gives us some great background color as like random people in LA, like we’ve got some girls with Starbucks cups, some people breakdancing while simultaneously mugging a Dodgers fan, a skateboarder shouting “STREET”...for some reason. Perfect encapsulation of America *chef’s kiss*
Laurent finds Edamura and tells him to come home because he’s a good boy (😳), and Edamura is then introduced to Abby who, just as in the anime, kicks and knocks him out, after which they collect him and take him to an upscale hotel where Cynthia/Paula Dickens (Senna Ayase) is performing as a jazz singer. Laurent greets her briefly, but we don’t properly get introduced to her character until a later, very frustrating scene, but I’m not going to get started on that yet (it’s not her that’s frustrating, but it’s how they chose to have her and Edamura meet, but anyway we’ll get there). She sings “Summertime,” and it’s a lovely performance; all of her acting choices are very clearly informed by her experience in Takarazuka - she has these really dynamic, almost over-the-top movements and she uses that to her advantage to be one of the more comedic actors - and it’s really entertaining to watch.
Laurent orders them drinks; Edamura has something pink in a little martini glass, and he splutters when he tries to take a sip because he can’t handle his alcohol, which makes Laurent laugh, giving a lot of credence to Laurent’s statement soon after that he derives a lot of pleasure out of toying with naive boys like Edamura who pretend to be tougher than they really are. There’s also some funny adlib with Abby at this point where she gets brought different plates of food like fake fruit on one day and a tower of donuts on another. Laurent explains who Cassano is and the plan to defraud him and gives Edamura a notebook with a fabricated recipe for Sakura Magic, so the notebook is not part of what Edamura prepares himself when he goes later to get himself captured by Cassano to negotiate with him. Edamura has a couple of outbursts accusing Laurent and Abby of putting on airs, pretending to be carrying out justice, repeatedly interrupting the band who give him dirty looks and Shi-won, dressed as one of the saxophonists, loudly blows the saxophone back at him, and this prompts Laurent to be like nah we’re getting too much attention here let’s continue this back at the hotel. 
The hotel scene is fairly similar to the anime, but once Edamura is left alone, we get the first instance of him thinking about his family as he reflect on what Laurent had to say about how people don’t always believe the truth that is in front of them as they would rather believe whatever is most convenient. He flashes back to his family going home together after his father finished a case (the hotel room is on the second floor with his mom and dad entering on the stage level; the younger version of Edamura is done in voice over), and of course they seem like a happy family, although it’s interesting that what his dad has to say about ethics was cut from the script. The scene focuses more on Edamura idolizing his father as a great lawyer.
Okay, so we’ve finally come to the scene I absolutely hated and did not think was necessary, after Edamura leaves the hotel room. He is approached by three unhoused persons, one of whom he at first thinks is Kitaoji coming to interrupt the narrative again, but he soon realizes that they are “real homeless.” It was really just a disgusting, cruel stereotype; one of them is playing with a rat they found, another is acting like a junkie, and the ringleader is trying to get money off of him because they haven’t eaten in three days and then they steal his little Toyotomi Hideyoshi figurine and play keepaway with it and don’t stop until Cynthia/Paula Dickens (at this point she’s Paula tho so I’m going to refer to her that way) enters and is like knock it off. So that’s how they meet. Cool. They could easily have come up with something else and they just didn’t.
But, anyway, since he got his figurine back, he explains to Paula that his hobby is collecting capsule toys, and during his explanation, a gacha machine is projected up on the stage, out of which comes Kitaoji dressed as Toyotomi, followed by a bunch of other figures from Japanese history. This part always got a pretty good laugh out of the audience, and I think it was a pretty cute way to stage it. Paula insists they go to dinner together, so she can hear more about Toyotomi, and the capsule toy figurines all follow to a diner (serving “breadfast” 24hrs lol) where Shi-won is dressed as someone named Ricardo. The figurines all start to get drunk, while “Ricardo” fixes Edamura and Paula some tacos; meanwhile Edamura explains that Toyotomi began as a simple peasant, but because of his hard work and study, he was able to climb all the way to the top and unite all of Japan as a powerful lord. 
Edamura asks why she decided to help him before and he despairs that he must seem like a beaten dog, but she explains that while she might seem confident, she faces tremendous anxiety getting on stage every day, particularly as she wants to make it big as a performer but can’t expect to get the attention of a label just because she can sing a bit. (In the background, Francis Xavier is completely sloshed and ends up drinking with Ricardo) Edamura suggests that she take inspiration from Toyotomi as someone who was able to trick even his enemies into working with him and represent herself as someone more important than she is to get music producers onto her side. She seems fired up by this proposal, and she says that she’ll follow the example of Toyotomi, “Japan’s best confidence man,” which gives Edamura his own motivation to get back to trying to win the bet with Laurent. He asks Paula to wish him good luck and runs off, and we get the first dance scene with Edamura and a number of samurai as he builds up to confronting Cassano. The scene ends with him running into a video shop, presumably to rent Cassano’s movies.
Laurent and Abby are called to Cassano’s mansion - they argue if Edamura is capable of pulling off a job like this, although Laurent insists that he has a natural talent - but they are certain that he must be dead when they hear from Salazar that Edamura was taken into their custody at the airport trying to run. However, Edamura bursts onto the scene, dressed in a new Hawaiian shirt, and at this point, Miyata looks as though he has been in a swimming pool, but it’s just sweat lmao. Cassano informs them that he’s made a new deal with Edamura for $10 million, and when they ask how, we get a flashback showing how he got onto Cassano’s good side by praising Shakunetsu with Kitaoji, as Razzie, acting out scenes from the Shakunetsu movies on the second floor of the stage. Whenever Cassano hugs Edamura in these scenes, it was really funny because his jacket would get just absolutely covered in Miyata’s sweat just ugh gross lol 
Cassano’s accountant joins them and they play out the whole bit about confirming Edamura’s credentials as a pharmaceutical scientist, at which point Edamura finally realizes that Kudo is working with Laurent, when he calls Kudo to thank him for deceiving Cassano’s attorneys. After Cassano has confirmed Edamura’s identity, he takes the crew to his factory and insists that Edamura make Sakura Magic for them right there and then so that they can be sure to properly replicate his recipe. She does this the whole play, but particularly during this scene, you can really see how well Miya Rurika portrays Laurent as always calm and and in control before Edamura but as quietly losing his shit whenever he feels like they’ve been backed into a corner, and we also get some very cute like Laurent clearly being exasperated with Edamura but the two of them starting to be able to play off one another as they convince Cassano that the factory isn’t up to snuff for making Sakura Magic. 
They have to clear out because they hear someone coming, but Cassano promises that he will build a new laboratory for Edamura and entrusts his care to Salazar. The police bust in after everyone has left; Anderson does the absolute most to show off to everyone that he’s properly securing the scene, but he’s clearly relieved that Cassano slipped through their fingers once again oh my how does this keep happening oh well better luck next time. We get a proper introduction to Paula and Shi-won as members of the FBI who have come to investigate Laurent and his organization (Paula has changed into this beautifully tailored brown tweed pantsuit and she pulls it off so well), and Paula threatens to expose Anderson’s connections to Cassano if he doesn’t follow her lead.
After the scene in the factory, we return to the present in the interrogation room with Kitaoji and Edamura. Detectives bring Kitaoji additional files on Edamura, asking if the prosecutor has heard of the attorney Ozaki. They inform him that Edamura is Ozaki’s son, and Kitaoji is a bit shocked; he leaves, saying that he will review the files. The detectives collect the money before exiting the room, but not without getting in a dig at Edamura, telling him that he clearly takes after his father. Edamura is stricken by this statement, and the act ends with Edamura battling with this internal conflict. 
I don’t think anyone would want to read all of this, but if you have, thank you so much. I hope some of it at least was interesting or informative. I’m going to end there for now, as I’ve already gone on for too long, and I’ll finish writing up the second act in another post.
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neokonewman · 2 years
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Honestly? I think what tangled failed to do was make sure characters had good chemistry as friends. Seriously Cass and Rapunzel where like crude oil and the ocean. One single match from destruction. Season one is bottom barrel because it goes out of it's way to excuse Frederick for his shit. Season two was actually really good because Rapunzel was still herself and was making tough choices left and right. Season 3? Ohhhh boy. Season 3 was a half good half bad because while I do applaud her trying to bring her friend back into the fold? Cassandra wasn't wrong when she said "this has to stop now. This thing where you THINK you've been my friend". Cuz as far as I could tell? They were never friends. Hell even when being a slow burn villain, Varian had better friend chemistry with Rapunzel. When the show expects me to swallow "Cass and I are besties.and sisters!" whole sale? I'm not buying it.
Oooooh boy! This ask is just dripping with potential rant power. Sorry in advance for how long this answer is destinied to be!
First things first. I absolutely agree with you on how badly TTS handles chemistry amongst the main characters. Cass gets the worst of it because she is shoehorned as Rapunzel’s BFF off screen and suddenly she has equal sway on Rapunzel as Eugene? Her character can’t even be allowed to breathe most of the time because the show is obsessed with sticking her next to Rapunzel to the point that she can’t grow any further away from her. At least other show original characters like Lance and Varian have an actual introduction and a place in the world outside of Rapunzel, but even then they suffer because Rapunzel is upfront and center and there is very little wiggle room for interactions that don’t have at least have some involvement with her. It’s here where our opinions differ however.
I would make the bold claim by sayin that S1 of TTS is by far and away the best out of the three. Yes it has the glaring flaw of bias for Frederic and against Varian that makes me question whether or not it should be considered “good” but it’s much better balanced than the other two seasons that follow it. In S1 we actually get character who aren’t Rapunzel more chances to shine without her stealing the spotlight away at the last moment. In S1 we actually have an actual conflict that drives the story forward and at least pretends to care about developing the characters. Even the obnoxious bias could have still worked out in the shows favor if they were ever properly addressed in story and not swept under the rug like they were in later seasons. Heck, I would go as far as to argue that the worst parts of S1 is the fact that S2 and S3 make it worse retroactively.
S2 in my opinion is the dullest of the three, by a wide margin. With them never addressing what the mains left behind in S1 as well as taking the threat of the rocks away WAY too early, the conflict is particularly nonexistent. Not only that, but it does what I think is the worst thing a show can do during a season long journey. They never actually develop the world outside of Corona. They established that there are 6 other kingdoms in the alliance with Corona, but the most we get of any of them is the one throwaway line about them being close to the mountains of Koto in Freebird. Other than that we overstay in three separate places that end up being worthless to the plot as a whole. After spending three episodes in Vardaros right out the bat, we never return or what’s become of them afterwards. Them mains stranded on the Island is pretty dull and is only memorable to me because they had the guts of mentioning Varian again and established that Rapunzel STILL has an unhealthily delusional bias for Frederic despite of everything. The House of Yesterday’s tomorrow is just an excuse of shoehorning a bunch of magical hijink cliches that aren’t done very interesting. Heck, despite them spending a whole season getting to the Dark Kingdom, they only spend an episode and a half there and only a single night in universe. The rest of S2 is just filler that don’t even develop the characters or tell any interesting stories. Like, an enchanted forest episode even though the mid season finale takes place in another enchanted forest? A repeat of the first part of Tangled the movie with Cass replacing Eugene? Whatever the heck “Curses” was supposed to accomplish? The only thing interesting that S2 introduces is the Brotherhood, and we all know how little they are used afterwards.
I would also like to point out that at the start of S2, the mains just…. Stop developing almost entirely? Cass and Eugene never have any meaningful moments together like they do in S1, and are reduced to just taking potshots at each other to remind us that they have some sort of relationship. Lance is reduced strictly to comedic relief and in my opinion is just there to give Eugene something to do when he is removed from the plot because once again, the show is obsessed with making Rapunzel and Cass’ friendship be a thing that only matters. Hookfoot is just there to give his stand up routine about how marriage is terrible in the first episode of the season and just to exist afterwards, yet he SOMEHOW gets actual episodes focused on him while Lance suffers. Even characters properly introduced this season are cursed to never flesh out because Adira keeps pulling a vanishing act for no established reason, Hector is only gets any lines in his debut episode and never given any real focus again, and Edmund gets the same treatment as the other dads (except maybe Captain) by getting his entire character reduced to one trope later on in S3. Speaking of…
S3…. Ooooh boy S3. It’s not as boring as S2 for me, but that’s only because it’s a media equivalent of a train wreck that I couldn’t look away from. It’s like they took the two major issues of the past two seasons (the clear bias and shallow filler) and mashed them together while trying to savage it by inserting what worked in S1, (actual conflict) but completely missed the point why it worked in the first place. All pretense of caring about any other character other than Rapunzel and Cass is gone in this season. Even episodes that focus on anyone outside of Rapunzel, ends up ending with Rapunzel saving the day because she is the only one allowed to be heroic anymore.
They try to make Cass’ villain arc as complex as Varian’s but for some reason they think her blaming a literal baby for being kidnapped is enough grounds to go on a murder streak without one episode of hesitation. Lance is just there for bottom barrel dumb humor, yet the show thinks he is responsible enough to raise two kids on his own. Varian falls into the pigeon hole of just being the “kid character that hangs with the grown up mains” trope that he managed to avoid in S1 while also being just a plot device to not only give the mains access to tech, but also get shoehorned into scenes to keep the audience somewhat invested. Eugene is literal retconned in universe to be just a bland supportive boyfriend. Rapunzel, my gosh Rapunzel…. She treated is so painfully “perfect” to the point that she is completely unrelated. I’m not calling her a Mary Sue because they only ACT like she is perfect. She is still a hugely flawed human being, but the other characters just applaud her because she is “the magical, wonderous sundrop” and very little else. Also yes, Rapunzel being obsessed over Cass while playing off all the horrible actions her BFF as her being lost is the most frustrating thing ever. It’s as if she became Frederic from S1 and abandoned everyone else well being in favor of one person who doesn’t even want her attention, only worse because it’s made into a good thing. Again, S1 is made retroactively worse because of the seasons that follow it.
There is much more things wrong with S3 than S2, but honestly I find myself changing my mind a lot whether which one is objectively worse. Like making a show boring is arguably the worst thing you can do, but the choices, morals, and all around writing of S3 is just bad. Then again the writing in S2 is honestly pretty on par with S3 at times, so again, it’s a toss up.
Sorry again if this answer is a lot, but it was pretty fun at the same time. Thanks for the ask. ^^
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artxyra · 4 years
Note
What if Damian and the miraculous class are friends and they have movie nights, but since Damian is in Gotham he sneaks out of the manor and portal via Max & Kalki to participate. The Fam get suspicious and try to figure out where Damian is going every week. When they find out he goes to Paris they try to follow him but the portal closes and they use the tubes instead. They end up crashing in on them watching a horror movie which freaks the class out. Insert yelling and things being thrown.
To: Demon From: Angel
Are we still on for movie night?
To: Angel From: Demon
Yes. Just need to get away from the family.
To: Demon From: Angel
😀
Marinette looks over smiling from her phone. Today is a good day. There were no akuma that needed Ladybug’s attention, nor had she broken up a fight between Max and Kim about the latest game. So yes, she was ecstatic to know this is how her day is going.
“Hey Mars, is Damian coming tonight?” Adrien asks seating next to her playing with a strand of his hair. Ever since he came out to her, their relationship has blossomed beyond a crush to a blooming brother-sister relationship. That and Luka were more than willing to take on the blonde without a second thought. She kind of feels bad for Juleka having to see Adrien on a near-daily basis and with her brother no doubt.
“Yup,” Marinette continues to smile, “I just received word that he’s good to go. All we need is for Kaalki and Max to open up a portal at the designated time.”
“Sweet, I hear that Kim was the one picking out this week’s movie. I hope it’s nothing horror-related.” Adrien pouts causing Marinette to laugh that the poor kitty’s face.
“I’m sure it’s nothing too crazy.” Marinette hopes that it was something simple to follow and an action pack rather than horror. She may love horror games but kwami be damn if she watches a horror movie in the dark that wasn’t comedic.
“It looks like break is almost over, we’ll continue you this later.” Adrien sends Marinette a comforting smile before jumping down into his assigned seat next to Nino. Alya and Nino just walked in holding hands.
“Hey, lovebirds, who’s ready for a night full of fun?” Alya greets the two causing them to roll their eyes at the nickname that no longer pertains to them.
“Hey Als, I should be asking you that instead.” Marinette lifts an eyebrow that accompanies her smirk. Nino and Alya’s faces turn red and they side glance each other. Marinette and Adrien laugh at the couple.
“After class, I’ll be giving a quick speech regarding tonight’s plans,” Marinette states pulling out her classwork and books for class. They all nod in understanding. Just then the rest of the class filed in with matching smiles and asking pertaining to tonight’s activities.
To: Angel From: Demon
Save me from the idiots that I call my brothers?
To: Demon From: Angel
Can’t love, I’m sure it not that bad.
To: Angel From: Demon
For some idiotic reason, they are watching me like a hawk today. I’m currently in the bathroom with the doors locked listening to them bicker outside.
To: Demon From: Angel
Yikes 😬. I’m sure it will die down before you’re required to leave.
To: Angel From: Demon
I doubt that.
To: Demon From: Angel
About that, why did we move our weekly movie night from Saturday to Friday?
To: Angel From: Demon
It’s a half-day at school.
Shit. Talk to you later.
Marinette places her phone down and slowly turns her attention to Mme. Bustier. The red-haired teacher tried to keep her students engaged with the content, but she was losing them faster than on average. Marinette turns to her classmates. Alix and Kim were trying to out strength each other, Juleka and Rose was trying to pay attention but the drooping in Rose’s eyes say otherwise, Sabrina and Chloe—well doing what they usually do—living in their own bubble, Nathaniel was sketching something down in his notebook while Max was pretending to take notes as Markov does it for him. Finally, Mylene and Ivan were also in their own world.
Hours seemed to past in Marinette’s mind before Mme. Bustier concluded today’s lesson. She was so caught up in watching the time that she didn’t realize that was sketching an outfit in her own notebook. Whoops.
“Marinette is there something you would like to add?” Mme. Bustier prompts sending the class’s designated designer a smile.
“Yes,” Marinette gets up from her seat and walks down to the podium. “Tonight is our weekly movie night instead of tomorrow. Do you remember what to bring? If not, please message me before the event. Remember that we are having this event at Chloe’s family’s hotel as it a makeshift theatre room.”
“Daddy says we can have the popcorn maker also.” Chloe interrupts. The class cheers at the thought of the infamous popcorn maker that was usually locked behind the hotel kitchen doors.
“Thank you, Bee, for that tidbit. Now, Max, you are to arrive at the bakery no later than six o’clock. The demon is having a half-day today and I’m ninety-nine percent sure that he’ll want to be here no later than that. Everyone else, you are free to do.” With that and a pretend gavel, Marinette dismisses the class to their next class for the day. 
For Damian, being at school felt like a blessing even if it was a half-day. His brothers have been hounding him all morning. It’s like they are looking for something that isn’t there. Damian’s emotions? Yeah right, they all know he only shows emotions to his beloved animals or animals in general. Damian had to double, triple check the security on his phones because who knows what Drake would find if he had access inside it.
For over six months, he had been going to Paris for movie nights with his beloved and her classmates. At first, he had done it through the zeta tubes but after gaining their trust just enough to be in on the Miraculous Team of Paris, his trips became a lot more frequent. He would make up an excuse about going to a classmate, or Jon’s, house for the night, or to work on a school project. He had gotten away with it for a while, but Tim was the first to notice the lie.
Tim and Conner were having their usually meet up when the Damian had told his family that he was spending time at Jon’s, something that was no unusual. All was fine and dandy until Jon came home with a Damian Wayne. Tim, well it was mainly Dick, had grilled into the young hero about Damian’s whereabouts. Jon either lied or literally had no idea. Which prompted the Batbros to start the search on Damian's weekly disappearance.
Everyone took the day off to “spend time” with Damian. They wanted to trap the teen inside the manor and watch his every movement. Like that isn’t an invasion of privacy or trust.
Alfred brought Damian to the manor around noon. This gives them enough time to hide any open-source of weaponry they could find or items that Damian could use against them in battle. That was a lot of items on the list. Dick inquired for Bruce to hold off on the tracking device as a last resort. He wanted to start everything out with a discussion, but Jason laughs that idea out the window as he cleans his guns.
“The young master is residing in his bedroom,” Alfred speaks walking down into the Batcave.
The Wayne family knew this was it.
To: Angel From: Demon
I’m ready.
To: Demon From: Angel
ETA in 5
Damian smirks at his phone. He loves his girlfriend and how quickly she can manage an entire group of classmates and plan a weekly movie night event.
He had packed his belonging that he usually brings with him when he does to Paris. Which isn’t much.
Four minutes.
Damian thought his ears were playing tricks on him, but they weren’t. He could hear the stampede of footsteps that were no doubt from his family members aside from Alfred. Alfred’s footsteps are like a ghost, you never hear them.
Three minutes.
“Hey little D, since you had a half-day today, why don’t you spend it with us,” Grayson asks the second his bedroom door swings open. Alfred the cat sends a glare to his owner’s family.
“Yeah, Demon spawn, we all took the day off to spend time with you,” Jason adds gas to the fire that was already burning intensely.
“Damian…” Not his father too.
Two minutes.
Damian doesn’t say a word. His eyes bounce from one person to the next and repeat. He didn’t know who to answer them. “Tt.” Was the only word? Sound? That had escaped his lips.
“You need to leave like now.” Damian refuses to have his family find out the very secret he had kept hidden for so long. His quick need for them leaving only pushes them to stay. Worried about various reasons from teen problems to joining the League of Assassins again. They didn’t want to take any chances.
One minute.
Damian could sense the user of the horse kwami becoming active. Soon a blue swirling portal opens up behind Damian. Damian looks at his family and side glances at the portal. The portal wins. The family of vigilantes runs to the portal only for it to close.
“Am I hallucinating or did that just happen?” Tim asks wiping the sleep away from his eyes.
“No, replacement, that really just happened.” Jason states. Tim nods in understanding.
“I’ll do track him down.” Dick sulks at the thought that Bruce was right.
It didn’t take long for the results to come in.
“Uh…so how the hell is the Demon in Paris, France of all places?” Jason shouts from behind his older brother and Bruce.
“The swirling portal thingy?” Tim states the obvious, but it sounded more like a question as he sits down and drinks a cup of coffee.
“Boys we’re going to Paris.”  Bruce states over his sons. From afar, Alfred sighs and goes to prepare the zeta tubes with the destination in mind.
“Uh, civvies or uniform?” Dick asks as they all start to make their way to the zeta tube. This was one of those questions that they linger on for a hot minute.
Before they knew it, Damian had gained an hour over his family.
“It doesn’t matter, we need to know where the little demon has been hiding all this time.” Jason screeches talking over to the zeta tube and teleporting to the location.
Bruce turns to the remainder of his sons who shrugged and follow suit.
Entering Paris, they were further from Damian’s location than anticipated. They follow the tracker with some interruptions. Dick wanted to buy something for Kori, Jason wanted food and Tim needed for coffee. After all that was done, they officially made it to the supposed location of Damian’s whereabouts.
“Why would the little demon at a hotel?”
“Hum, this coffee is really good,” Tim says before taking another sip.
“Boys, focus on the mission.”
“I am focus, Bruce.”
“I didn’t say you were, Dick.”
“Touché.” Dick rubs the back of his arm.  
They enter Le Grand Paris with tensions high and were surprised by how calm and relax the employees were. Jason swears this was just a hoax and they were torturing Damian behind one of these doors. An employee asks them if they are in need of anything. Bruce states that they were looking for his son.
“Is he friends with Chloe and her classmates?” The employee asks.
“Who?” Dick and Bruce ask simultaneously. Jason had dragged Tim off somewhere to look at some things.
The employee eyes the family skeptically.
“Well if he’s not friends with Mlle. Bourgeois, then I suggest heading to the police department and report a missing child.” The employee states before walking away. Bruce sighs and pulls out the tracking device. Damian is so close to them.
“We’re going to find him, right?”
“And drag the brat back to Gotham?”
Bruce in the direction that would be location, he gestures for his children to follow.
Damian was having a blast. In his arms, Marinette sat on his arm clinging to his shirt cursing Kim’s name throughout the film. Kim had chosen a horror movie for tonight’s showing and by kwami it was fantastic. There was no comedic relief, actual horror storytelling leaving the class on the edge of their seats.
Adrien was curled next to Marinette in Luka’s arms. He was also clinging to a body, a certain musician as if he was a frightened kitten.
Just as the MC was about to open the door to the attic, a series of figures jump from the ceiling. Screams in real-life match those within the movie. Popcorn, empty cartons of candy, soda drinks are thrown at the figures. A string of curses follows not long after that.
“Damian, tell your friends to stop.” He knows that voice from anywhere, it was Grayson’s voice. Marinette slides herself off himself.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” He screeches in English. Most of the class didn’t have a clue what was being said.
“We wanted to see where you were?”
“We thought you were kidnapped?”
“I just came for the scenery.”
Damian’s eyes twitch.
“That’s nice and all, but can you move? We’re trying to watch a movie here and you’re ruining it.” Chloe stands up demanding the bat-family to move. They all look to one another before subtly moving away from the screen.
Damian places a quick kiss on Marinette’s cheek and guides his family out of the room. He was not happy that they came in ruining his night with Marinette. Now he has to make up for it with something romantic, not that he’ll do it anyway.
“What made you believe that I was kidnapped?” He asks, the second they were out of the room.
“The portal thingy.”
“You not answering any of our questions.”
Damian breathes through his nose. “You’re all idiots.”
“Well movie night is a bust, but we all agree to stay here to continue rather than going home.” Marinette walks into the hall after a moment of them talking—well it was more of a screaming match between Bruce and Damian with some input from Dick. “Will your family be fine without you for a couple more hours?”
“Habibti, these dunces are my family,” Damian states gesturing to his family,
Marinette nods, “Well then, hello, and can we keep Damian for the night?”
Damian walks over to Marinette and wraps his arms around her. “I’ll return from before it’s nightfall in Gotham, father.”
“Uh, sure. Boys lets go.” Bruce accepts the came and walks down the hall. Before either of the brothers could pester Damian about this newfound relationship, Bruce gave them all the bat-glare and demanded that they follow.
“You know you’re going to get pestered, right.” Marinette laughs.
“Don’t remind me.”
“Come on, we have a movie to finish.”
With that, Damian takes Marinette’s hand and walks back into the room.  
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scribeofmorpheus · 3 years
Text
Himmeløyne [26/?]
Pairing: Loki Odinson x Reader
Catch Up Here | Masterlist
Warnings: Thor as a poor comedic device? Speed running though important scenes honestly??
A/N: This chapter was meant to be all fluff at the end but it ended up being too long so I've broken it up.
Taglist is open! Reblog, comment or leave a like please ☺
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~Loki
 The healers rushed to his side. His peripheral bombarded with too many arms and hands. Too many strangers. He shoved them away. Now wasn’t the time to worry about scrapes and bruises. He had to get Y/N back. He had to make sure the others were alright. But first, he needed to speak with his father. Convince him somehow.
His body still felt strange. Half-asleep. As if half-drunk. He tried to open a portal to the throne room but his magic fizzled, weak. It took him twice as long to reach the large doors to the throne room. Two guards were posted by the entrance. Their lances crossed to block entry.
“Stand aside,” he commanded.
The guards barely flinched, standing their guard like rooted trees.
“Is this how it’s going to be, Father? Your son returns to you and you imprison those that saved him?” Loki shouted at the large doors, ignoring the guards’ presence, since they were so set on ignoring his orders. There was no reply. Not even a peep. He sneered. “Will you not face me?”
Again, no answer.
In a fit, he balled his fists and shouted, “Coward!”
The guards tensed, as if afraid of that very word. But when no ramifications fell upon him, Loki turned on his heel and headed for the library. If his father was to be no aid, his mother would be his last hope.
 The library looked strange. Not how he remembered leaving it. It was still drowning in a frenzy of loosened papers and books, but there was more order. Someone had tried to clean it up. Tried to make it right, but with little effort. His mind wandered to Y/N, burning the midnight oil, perusing through countless books for answers. For comfort.
The magnitude of her actions hit him the hardest in that space. The one-room in all the palace he treasured had become the one place she could turn to for comfort. She never gave up on him. She changed to save him. That was more than anyone had ever done for him. He had brought so much chaos to her life, and yet she chose to be by his side. Now it was his turn, and he was prepared to change the world for her, if need be.
 He searched every hiding place he could think of for the tome, he even tried calling out to its magic, but nothing worked. Something was blocking it from his magic, and someone had managed to magically untether it to the library. The question was: was it intentional or not?
“Where is it?” he shouted to the room, agitated.
A bookkeeper halted in his steps when he caught wind of Loki shuffling the books off the shelf, leather spines and pages ruffled by a magical wind.
Loki turned when he sensed another presence in the room. The bookkeeper seemed frozen in place, unsure of what to do. Just as he remembered himself, and his etiquette, Loki stalked close, a sharp edge to his tone. “You there, bookkeeper, where are the rest of the volumes?”
“Other volumes?” the bookkeeper stammered briefly. Then, a spark came to his eyes, a look of relief. “Oh, yes! A few of the tomes were taken out by the Midgardian wit—”
Loki narrowed his eyes at the bookkeeper, making him wince.
“T-The Midgardian woman.” 
“Where are they now?”
“The Allfather ordered all magical tomes to be sent to the scryers after the queen dis-disappeared, your highness. A few were found in her possession,” the bookkeeper kept his head anchored low, afraid to meet Loki’s gaze.
Loki dismissed the bookkeeper with a sigh. The scryers were on the other side of Asgard, in a fortress that was guarded around the clock. He had tried to enter its grounds numerous times as a child. And each time he was discovered. Only one other person had ever snuck into the fortress undetected. Thor.  It was a mystery Loki had tried to pull from Thor like teeth. But the stubborn brute never gave up the secret.
He rubbed his temple, speaking to himself, “Well, I suppose a thousandth try couldn’t hurt.” He set out in search of his brother.
 Thor was passed out in the great dining hall. Loki was thankful that the mead smell had mostly vanished from the warm space. Thor was grumbling in his sleep. His snores disturbed by faint sentences.
Loki tried to hoist his brother onto a chair but struggled. He grabbed the washbasin that was filled with chilled water and splashed it over Thor’s form. The large Asgardian prince woke up in a fright, arms swinging, a raspy battle cry dying out as soon as he saw it was Loki that had rudely interrupted his moping time.
“Loki?” Thor’s voice perked up. Some of his spirits seemed to as well.  “I’m not dreaming am I?”
Loki rolled his eyes, “Please, brother, if this constitutes a dream, you really need to get out more. Now get up, for once, I actually need your mind for something.”
Thor blinked several times, hand reaching out to touch Loki’s robes. When Loki swatted him away with a snide comment, Thor beamed at him.
“It is you!” Thor sprang up as if he didn’t have half the tavern’s supply of mead in his system and crushed Loki in a hug. “Ha-ha! Little Stormbringer did it! She said she would. I—I didn’t think… If Father couldn’t… but that’s no matter. She did it, you’re awake!”
“And you reek, let me down,” Loki grumbled.
Thor ignored his brother’s protestations and held onto him a few seconds longer before setting him down. Loki wondered how long his brother could keep that oafish grin plastered to his face.
Thor pushed his hair away from his face, sniffling. “Where is the Little Stormbringer?”
“The guards took her away,” Loki said, making a point to look out of the window so he seemed impassive. His fist was shaking, so he motioned his body away from Thor’s direct line of sight. He could feel his throat go dry. Control was becoming harder and harder to maintain the longer he stayed awake—the more time he had to settle into his body and feel the residual shock ebb away.
“What? Why?” Thor’s eyebrows drew close together, making him look serious. The energy shifted in the room.
In the back of Loki’s mind, he wondered just how much his brother cared for Y/N. He felt a little less like an outsider knowing that Thor’s first reaction was surprise, followed by anger. Much like his own reaction.
Thor picked himself up off the floor, “We must speak with Father. Clear everything up. He’ll—”
Loki placed his hand on his brother’s chest, no force to stop him in his tracks. “It was by Father’s orders. What I’m going to ask of you, what I ask of you, is to go against the Allfather’s wishes. He won’t listen to me. Chances are, even if he does grant you an audience, he won’t listen to you either. He thinks you too green. Me, too reactive. We both know how stubborn he can be when he makes up his mind.”
To Loki’s surprise, Thor didn’t argue, he just let out a grunt of affirmation.
“There’s only one person who can sway his decision. Or challenge him on equal footing. We need to get Mother back.”
Thor nodded. Then, after a moment, he looked up, quizzical brow cocked high. “By the way… where did you hide our mother, Loki?”
Loki opened his mouth but felt a flush of heat. Maybe embarrassment. Maybe regret. He cleared his throat and stared at a spot on the tiled floor before answering sheepishly, “In a book.”
“You trapped our mother in a book?” Thor guffawed. “Are you mad?”
“Relax, it’s an ancient magical tome. Supposed to house an endless labyrinth of false worlds in it. Mirror images of real places. She probably thinks it has only been a couple of hours,” Loki put on airs, pretending not to be the slightest bit worried. In truth, he didn’t really know the full purpose of the tome. He’d traversed it before, but only for a few hours. He had no idea if being inside the book tome for extended periods of time came with any consequences. For that, he’d just have to hope for the best. “I hope,” he whispered to himself.
Thor muttered something under his breath before sighing. He knew better than to start an argument over at that moment. Emotions were high and everyone was still raw. Still reactive, as Loki described it.
Loki reached for a jug of water and splashed it over Thor again. His brother shuddered from the cold water.
“I’m awake!” Thor yelled.
“I know, it was for the smell.”
“Oh…” Thor shook the water from his long hair and took a deep inhale that popped a few of his joints. “So what do you need form me?”
“I need to know how you snuck into the Scryers’ Fortress when we were kids.”
Thor smirked, “That’s easy. I didn’t. There’s a hidden entrance. Father showed it to me. Told me to keep it a secret from you. Said you were too mischievous for that place. Too many strange things. Powerful things. And Mother had only just begun to train you in the arts.”
 Loki ground his teeth. He hated the fact that he saw reason in Thor’s explanation. Right now, Loki just needed to be angry at Odin. It was his right. And no amount of reason would stifle that fire. He wouldn’t let it. Not until Y/N was free and in his arms. And safe. “Just… lead the way.”
 The secret entrance was hidden in plain sight. Masked behind a pantry shelf. Loki heard a tear of fabric in the pitch blackness of the passageway. Then Thor struck a small knife against the stoned walls. An effort to make fire, no doubt. Loki smelled oil and held back the urge to sigh. With a flick of his wrist, he magically conjured flames into the hanging oil lamps that lit the way. The tunnel was a straight shot, long but narrow. Thor was forced to press his arms inward. Loki managed to walk through it just fine. Though, both brothers had to duck under the hanging oil lamps.
Loki counted sixteen until the passageway came to a dead end. Thor pushed three unmarked bricks and a concealed door lifted to their immediate right. A gust of wind welcomed them. The smell of mould and sulphur made Loki’s eyes water. They were in the basement of the fortress. A place that housed dying things—or dead things magically preserved.
“Let’s not linger here,” Loki said, generating an orb of diminishing light above his fingertips.
“Aye, I agree,” Thor held the torn fabric from earlier over his nose. “I can smell blood.”
“As long as you keep yours inside your body, we’re fine.” Loki said dryly, mind filled with questions and awe. He fought against his nature to pry further. “Don’t touch anything.”
Thor was inches away from letting his hands touch a dusty, old, shrivelled head that was locked behind a barred box of wrought iron. Perpetually frozen in a look of inconvenience. As if being decapitated and store was more of a bore than torment.
Thor folded his arms like a little boy annoyed at being told what to do. “I wasn’t going to.”
“My mistake,” Loki chided, marching towards the only other door in the room. “Hurry along. I don’t want to have to deal with any reanimated corpses or thousand-year-old curses simply because you have itchy fingers.”
“I do not have itchy fingers.”
“A toddler’s then. You crush everything and make a mess around you. Each of your fingers are practically the size of sausages.”
Thor looked down at his hands and frowned. “They are not!”
“They are too.” Loki opened the latch to the door, wincing when it creaked.
“Not!” Thor shouted, slamming the door behind him.
“Shut up.” Loki held his breath and counted to three. He pointed to the endless staircases that crisscrossed and overlapped from one floor to the next. “Save your breath for the climb.”
The guard patrols in the hallways were seemingly random, proving to be more difficult for Loki and Thor to slip past and commit their movements to memory. After passing two scryers in long, hooded robes, Loki used his magic to disguise himself and Thor. A shimmer of green the only evidence of their change in appearance. After a run-around, chasing their own tails and being lost in the complex architecture of the fortress, Loki finally felt the magical essence of the book tome. Somehow, his mother’s perfume had infused itself around the tome. It smelled of lilacs.
“This is it,” he said, brushing his fingers over the cover.
Thor relaxed his shoulders, no longer visibly tensing. Loki’s hand hovered over the cover once he set the tome on the ground, a hesitancy to his actions, the shine of glass in his eyes.
“Well?” Thor asked, impatient. A patrol cast shadows into the small recollections room.
“Give me a minute, my magic is still a little rusty,” he stalled for time. Loki was wracked by doubt, wondering if his mother would be glad to see him. Or angry. Or impartial. “Okay,” he said, steeling himself for the inevitable. With a flick of his wrist, the spell was undone, and Frigga began to form out of light and ink and pages torn from the opened book. In those brief seconds, Loki was a child again. Small. Afraid of disappointing her.
Frigga took a long, deep breath. Her face was unreadable. It took a second to orientate herself, but she wasn’t surprised, or the least bit confused.
“Loki?” she said, softly, blinking the light that poured in through the window away. “Thor?”
Loki stepped back. Now it was his turn to make himself smaller. “Mother, I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I was angry and I—”
Frigga rushed to his side, hugging him close, “Oh, Loki, I’m glad you’re alright.” She looked over to Thor and beckoned him closer so she could hug him too. Thor’s frame brushed up against them, making the hug wider. “I’m glad you’re both alright.”
Loki was shocked. He had expected anger at worst and a tongue lashing at best, but not this. Not warmth and joy and not the slightest hint of disappointment.
Loki was stumped, no words came to him. He truly was a child again, hiding under his mother’s embrace. “I—”
“Hush,” Frigga said. “I know. You have nothing to be sorry for. It is we who should apologise for keeping you in the dark, your father and I.”
 Loki hadn’t sorted through all his emotions yet. He couldn’t offer forgiveness as freely as Frigga had just done. He couldn’t quite muster anything beyond his need to correct his mistakes. One hurdle at a time until there was peace.
“Mother,” he looked up at her, thankful that her face looked exactly the same. “I need a favour. Heimdall and Y/N have been imprisoned by Father. I need you to evoke the rite of conscription.”
Both Frigga and Thor’s eyes grew large.
Frigga composed herself, thinking of the gravity of Loki’s request. “That hasn’t been evoked since the war… How do you know about the law?”
“I read a lot,” he tried to keep the atmosphere light with a smirk.
Frigga let out a breathy laugh, “Yes, I suppose you do.”
“I was searching for a loophole. In case—” he couldn’t bring himself to admit he had spent hours trying to find ways to keep Y/N close, through law if need be, in case Odin chose to send her back to Midgard. Away from him. Forever.
“You wanted to keep her close,” she said knowingly. “You care for her deeply, don’t you.”
“And whose fault is that?” he said coyly.
Frigga hummed in amusement, “Mine, I suppose.” Then her demeanour turned serious again. “But, you do know the Rite of Conscription is absolute. A life sentence. Once bound, it cannot be undone.”
“I know, but that is the only way.”
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amimons · 4 years
Text
Miraculous Sweet-ember (Sept. 23rd)
September 23rd: Chameleon, Animaestro & Bakerix
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Chameleon brings the official return of Lila causing more trouble for Marinette. Lila has a personal vendetta against Marinette and Ladybug so on top of being extremely good at manipulating and lying we knew she was coming back as a more serious antagonist for our protagonist. Her lies are so good that she has the ability to get away with whatever she wants, which deeply angers Marinette since she believes in honesty and justice. Lila made sure to spare no expense towards Marinette once she arrived back at school and immediately work to isolate Marinette from her peers. Her classmates are oblivious to Lila’s true nature because they believe she has the best intentions. Therefore, when Marinette tries to prove Lila is nothing but a liar they are skeptical of her claims of dishonesty because Marinette cannot disprove anything Lila is saying.   
Lila tries to work her charm on Marinette and offer a fake gesture of friendship. Lila told Marinette that she caught onto why Marinette was acting harsh towards her and it was because of Adrien. She extended a false olive branch to Marinette suggesting they should patch things up and she can even help her with Adrien. But Marinette is a clever girl and sees past her fake persona. She tells Lila that the real reason she doesn’t like her is because she lies and although she knows what she saids isn’t true she cannot prove it. Once Marinette called her out, Lila  dropped her façade. Lila threatens Marinette saying if she doesn’t chose to stand alongside her then she will work to tear down Marinette’s reputation with her classmates. Now alone, Marinette rushes into a bathroom stall full of pain and anger. 
Throughout the school day Hawkmoth has been targeting Marinette as his next akuma but every chance he gotten she would let go of her negative emotions before he could manipulate them. Hawkmoth finally had the opportunity to akumatized Marinette who was now face to face with said akuma. Tikki encourage her to overcome her negative emotions, telling her that she has the ability to find a solution to her situation. The affect of Tikki’s words worked. Feeling self-assured she announces that she is proud, confident, she's Marinette! Which ward off the akuma. Lila as a plot device is suppose to create the ripple in Marinette’s civilian life giving her an enemy outside of Hawkmoth. Unfortunately, people fall victims to convincing liars all the time and even though her classmates appreciate Marinette greatly they are blinded by the concept of who they think Lila is. Even though Marinette has a new obstacle to face in class, as long as she believes in herself and her abilities she can work to overcome it. 
Another thing about this episode is that it works on the slow buildup of a potential akumatized Marinette. This is the second time Marinette almost became akumatized and both times was when she felt justice was not being served. Marinette needs an ally to offer their support in this situation, someone that also can see through Lila and she found that support in Adrien. Chameleon was a good step up for a new antagonist in the school. Together Ladybug and Chat Noir work together to fight against Hawkmoth and now Marinette and Adrien have the opportunity to work together to defeat another common enemy outside their super suits. 
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Animaestro made Marinette team up with someone we least expected. Chloe Bourgeois. Even though the intention of the two of them joining forces wasn’t a good one, it was still pretty enjoyable to see due to the comedic value of it. Besides Marinette learns by the end that it was a bad idea to follow Chloe and join in on her schemes. This episode also narrows in on what Marinette will need to work while the season progresses. Which involved her feelings towards Adrien and his potential relationship with Kagami.
It’s nice to look at this episode as a starting point of Marinette’s development on that subject. She feels threatened by Kagami’s role in Adrien’s life but as the season progress she comes to terms with it and even offers her friendship to Kagami. But at this point in time we have Marinette up to her whacky antics which includes Chloe tagging along...well more like Chloe bossing Marinette along. This also give an opportunity to compare and contrast how these two characters treat their relationship with Adrien. Chloe centers the relationship around herself at least on the surface level while Marinette does go to extremes to get a chance to be with Adrien, she will always put Adrien’s happiness over her own. Chloe and Marinette have such an interesting dynamic so it was great to see them attempting to become temporary allies. 
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Bakerix is dedicated to learning about Marinette’s father side the family. Specifically her estranged grandpa. Due to a family fall out, Marinette never got the chance to meet Grandpa Rolland Dupain and for her father’s birthday she makes it her mission to rekindle that father and son relationship. Thats easier said than done because Rolland is a man who is very caught up in the past. It’s even hard for her to get the chance to come inside his house since he is so closed off from everyone. She didn’t want to ruin a potential opportunity of talking to her grandpa by admitting she was his granddaughter so she tried to come up with other excuses to get inside. Her attempts to get in are funny and emphasizes why I love Marinette as a character. Several attempts later she was still not welcomed in his house. 
Lucky for her, Rolland is opening his home up for the flour delivery person. She immediately takes the opportunity and tells the delivery man that she is Rolland’s granddaughter and she would love to pull a funny joke on her him by pretending to be the delivery person. The flour guy lets her take the bag and to top it off she asks for the hat to make it more convincing. Marinette wearing the flour hat was just adorable. Even though reconnecting her father with his father became a bigger task than she could imagine (especially since he ended up getting akumatized) Marinette is always willing to go the extra mile for the ones she loves. She will take on any tasks and figure out solutions to any problem just so those in her life have the very best. Thats very telling of just the type of person Marinette is. 
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About Sweet-ember:
For the month of September I wanted to spread some positivity and praise Miraculous Ladybug on the things I’ve appreciated/enjoyed from the show.
Everyday I’m going to select one particular moment, event, theme, etc. from an episode of Miraculous and shared what I liked from that episode. Each post will discuss 2-3 episodes (from season 1-3; 78 episodes in total).
Whether its something big or small there is something positive that I can take away from every single episode of Miraculous.
Please feel free to add a moment from these particular episodes that you loved to this post as well!
Salt towards the show, characters, ships will not be tolerated!
Sweet-ember posts
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
[18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]
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dragonsballsz · 3 years
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cannot stop thinking about whis having undetermined (not malicious) motives for wanting goku and vegeta to work together. if dbs 2 happens i would love them to have whis revisit this in the story. "thought it was about time to have you two train together" like. What Is He Planning
the only thing i can think of is that he wanted to get rid of beerus. having the last two saiyans kill the guy who ordered their extinction is pretty karmically satisfying, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re both op as hell (so it beerus tho).
it kind of looked like that was a potential twist later on, but i think the creators got too attached to beerus (which is just. why? why tho?). or it’s just bad writing.
not that dragon ball has ever been known for its in-depth examinations of the psyche (which isn’t a problem; the point is friendship and punching things), but super is a lot more cavalier about certain things (read: genocide) than any of its predecessors.
it’s possible that there was an idea to have goku become the new god of destruction, but (hopefully) that idea would’ve been shattered pretty quickly, since it’s not the first time goku has been offered godhood, and the last offer was a lot better. it’s also possible that they planned to have vegeta do that but then realized that that would kinda fuck over his whole character arc of becoming marginally less homicidal.
the issue i have with whis is that while he’s got a fun and genuinely likeable personality, his function in the story is a lot closer to a plot device than an actual character. this isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it doesn’t work quite as well in this case bc the beginning of super really did appear to be setting him up as a full-fledged active character - a dragon with an agenda, if you will, to beerus’s big bad of the first arc. that also wouldn’t be a problem, except that beeurs no longer appears to be acting as an antagonist.
i’ve gone into why i don’t like beerus (as an antagonist or as a character in general) on my personal blog a few times, but the issues with beerus also directly impact whis, and whis’ lack of any real importance outside of his job (i.e., his connection with beerus and the rest of the dragon ball pantheon) means that he’s pretty badly hurt by said issues.
dbs also has the issue of setting up some genuinely new and interesting ideas, but being afraid to deviate from the show’s status quo to properly execute them. this is becoming more and more common in anime, from what i’ve seen, and it ends up sacrificing character development, usually for comedic value. and not good comedic value either, just running gags that enough of the fans find amusing for the writers to just stick with that instead of having the characters grow and potentially lose the ability to keep the gag around.
think about fullmetal alchemist (the manga). one of the most famous running gags is ed’s height, but as the story progresses and gets more serious, those jokes begin to peter off and eventually stop more or less completely. this is in part bc ed himself has physically grown, but it’s also illustrative of how the story has progressed and the characters have progressed with it. it was a fun gag while it lasted, but it wasn’t permanent. it’s also important to note that ed’s lack of height was in part due to the weight of his prosthetic limbs, so the gag would have to be left behind eventually bc it wasn’t worth sacrificing so much of the story for. dbs and other newer shōnen don’t seem able to put the story before the jokes. and in light-hearted moments that can sometimes be okay, but when it’s consistent throughout the story (or worse, part of the story), it kind of ruins the feeling.
bouncing back to dbs, there are two examples of jokes illustrate this: mr. popo and goku. plenty of people know that the scene where popo warns vegeta not to break the hypertonic lion tamer (sorry) is a reference to tfs’s running gag of popo being absolutely terrifying. this works without knowledge of the abridged series bc it looks like an otherwise nice guy getting fed up with these assholes who keep breaking his shit, and it works with the reference bc pecking order. does it properly mesh with his kind, gentle, and extremely patient nature? no, not really. but it’s a little side joke that doesn’t really hurt anything.
compare that with goku. goku was never characterized as an intellectual genius, but the original incarnation of him in db and later in dbz wasn’t so much stupid as thoughtless, naive, and occasionally just uninformed (which makes perfect sense - he’s an amnesiac alien kid who spent the last few years alone with no one to teach him things). but he had a good heart and generally tried to do the right thing. if the world was in danger, making sure it was safe was his top priority. he was a smart and clever fighter who learned from his errors, and he frequently showed his own form of intelligence outside of battle by thinking ahead in ways that no one else had - such as realizing that the earth would still need protecting after he died for good, and choosing to stay dead after bulma pointed out that many of the recent threats to earth’s safety were there because of him. he doesn’t think the way most people do, but he certainly wasn’t a brainless idiot who didn’t care about anyone but himself. not perfect, but still.
in dbza, he becomes said brainless idiot bc it’s a parody series and that’s what’s funny (sort of like tenshinhan and chiaotzu randomly being jewish, or turles trying to steal christmas). but that characterization got popular, and super’s goku frequently leaned a lot more towards the abridged incarnation rather than the original goku. again, that would be fine if it was a one-off joke, but it often feels like the audience is getting bounced back and forth between canon!goku and abridged!goku all the time, which is.... frustrating. to say the least.
beerus and whis suffer from something similar, only instead of being related to comedy, it’s related to their roles in the story and how they affect the plot.
tldr: writing is hard, status quo is NOT the end all be all, and i apparently have a lot of unresolved feelings about this that i should probably bring up with my therapist bc wow
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emptymanuscript · 3 years
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The Cat
I’m about 9 minutes into the movie Bright, and all the criticisms are kind of crystalizing. But one of the things that’s killing me is how they’re setting up the MC, Daryl Ward.
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My bet is that the film makers thought they were setting up Ward as the cat. And they’re not.
The Cat is the term for a story abstraction from the book Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder and its sequels.
The Cat itself, is something (and it can be nearly anything that the audience will value) in need of aid that doesn’t HAVE to get it. A random cat up a tree can be the Cat. The cat that belongs to the person you want to get with, who has promised carnal relations if their cat is returned, can’t be the Cat because there is a significant reason and reward beyond simple morality for it to be helped.
If a character saves the Cat, gives it aid, helps it out, etc. when it’s just out of the goodness of the heart, that character is defined in audience perception as heroic. Most action stories will have the MC Save the Cat! in some way within the first few scenes. It’s a short hand way to show that they are “good.” And if you have a Save the Cat! moment then followed by them doing something “bad” you’ve SHOWN the audience the trajectory of the story: this person is a good person underneath but they’ve gone astray and need to find their heroism again to save the day. You’ve told the story in miniature. So it’s very useful.
But that’s not the only way to use the Cat.
In many stories the main character IS the Cat. The story in the first few scenes shows a moment where the character is clearly in need of aid and doesn’t really quite get what they need. They get enough maybe to survive but no one is saving them. This signals to the audience that this story is about growth and confidence. The MC will start out in a relatively helpless state and figure out how to come to their own rescue.
One of my all time favorite examples of that is the movie Ms. Congeniality. The opening scene, which is only about 90 seconds, is playing hard with the Cat.
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The set up starts with the typical over the top Save the Cat set up. Our hero is going to ride into the rescue, save the cat, and be awesome. And then it turns. She’s not saving the cat, remember, the cat is something helped without reward, and she very much wants a reward. She IS the Cat. The real person in need of aid in this microsmic story is her. And she doesn’t get it. To keep going, she turns to her strengths and just barrels through. But, again, in miniature, this scene has told us everything we need to know about the trajectory of her story. She has all of the wrong kind of power, she uses it to mask her need, and what she is going to have to find is the “impossible” how to get what she really needs and how to draw helpers to her.
That’s the power of being the Cat. It draws sympathy. It paints expectations. And it communicates problems very clearly.
Unfortunately, many storytellers seem to believe that injury and/or pain is enough to make a character the Cat, and that just isn’t so. Cats are about choices and character trajectories. So, if you have someone shot in the first few minutes of a story, even though, yes, they NEED help and yes, they’re going to continue to need help to get back to where they were or better, it’s a non optional help. It carries with it its own reward. They’re better for no other reason than that they are recovering.
Go back to Ms. Congeniality and that’s not true. Her “saving” doesn’t intrinsically give her her reward. It gives her the key to then go out and get what she wants. They’re two separate goals. And that’s why it works. Her choice gives her another choice and that gives her her happy ending. If the story was merely a search for feminine power and getting it, it just wouldn’t feel as satisfying because it wouldn’t get the resonance of WHY feminine power is a necessity for her. As a really excellent rule of thumb, think of the Cat as representing the NEED of a character which must be fulfilled in order for them to get what they WANT. This allows for both happy and sad endings that are satisfying because they each deliver on the premise, even if it is a radically different outcome.
Ms. Congeniality has four fundamental outcomes arcing from that initial scene.
She can get the Feminine Power she needs and a boyfriend she wants - that’s a happy comedic story.
She can get the Feminine Power she needs but not get a boyfriend - that’s an “unhappy” comedic story, which can still be funny if she still pops the new not-boyfriend in the nose, happy and unhappy are textures as much as anything.
She can FAIL to get the Feminine Power she needs but get a boyfriend who appreciates her for who she really is - “happy” tragedy. Remember that comedy and tragedy in the literary sense don’t mean funny and tear jerker. Comedy means “what makes you sick but you get better” it’s about having trouble obtaining a goal but getting it in the end. Tragedy means “what kills you,” it’s about not being able to ever obtain the goal. So this kind of ending is really about saying that the goal was stupid all along.
She can Fail to get the Feminine Power she needs and because of that FAIL to get any boyfriend she might want. This is the pure tragedy. It’s both “sad” and tragic. She gets nothing. BUT this can still be funny. If you watch them closely, a LOT of slapstick comedies conform to this architecture. The characters enter the story as fools and leave the story as fools without having been enlightened one wit.
My extreme suspicion is that Bright wants to set up this kind of situation. Since the first thing we see of Officer Ward is that he feels under threat. All of his motions are indicative of someone who recognizes he is in extreme but non-immediate danger. He’s waiting for it. And then he’s shot. And then he’s clearly still having issues after he has recovered because his wife is urging him out of bed in the afternoon. He is the Cat, right?
Well, there is another relationship to the Cat that I think they’ve actually set up harder and is overriding that narrative.
Kick the Cat
You don’t usually see Kick the Cat in genre fiction. And there’s a very good reason. Genre fiction tends to lean toward “physical” action. By which I mean that the main conflicts of the plot happen outside of the Main Character’s body. The characters either go out and do something or something comes into their lives and forces them to do something. So, even though character growth is likely necessary and choices will be based on what they learn about themselves as people, that is expressed through the exterior plot. The Detective goes and solves and crime and that action results in the Detective’s change. Which means that internal character change is relatively harder to show because it doesn’t take center stage.
This means that a flawed person becoming a kind person works. But a deeply flawed, nearly broken person, who needs to grow into a kind person usually doesn’t. Because genre fiction doesn’t have enough cameras in that area where you can show it.
So when it happens in Genre Fiction, Kicking the Cat is generally an announcement that said character who does it is one of the villains and the reader should prep themselves for the sudden and inevitable betrayal.
Now that isn’t as true in Literary Fiction. Because Literary Fiction is the opposite of Genre Fiction in this way. Instead of the conflict generally being “physical”, the conflict in Literary Fiction is generally “mental.” The main conflict happens inside the body of the Main Character. So the majority of the action and most of the cameras are there. So Literary Fiction allows that kind of deep, essentially broken, flaw because it gives the story the space and insight to work with it. So it’s not as necessarily a trumpeting warning that you’re dealing with a villain. It can mean that this MC has a long way to go to fix themselves, if they can make it at all.
Unfortunately for Bright, it’s a Genre Film. AND I think that this is much more what they’re broadcasting. Remember I’ve only seen nine minutes so far. But the first nine minutes are saying a lot.
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The opening credits play out over a visual depiction of a race war between the Orcs and the Police. This is, in visual language, the announcement that the Orcs are poor and oppressed and should be read as the equivalent of POC in our own world.
Ward, played by Will Smith, could open up a whole can of worms with that reading, and there’s clearly some intent to considering his neighbors are absolutely what you would see in a shot of the ghetto in another movie, but instead we go pretty much straight to:
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He kills a fairy. It’s not depicted as innocent, it’s clearly a pest. But it’s also not exactly powerful. He kills it with a zealous slap of a broom. This is very plausibly the Cat. Especially with the reaction from his neighbors, who also have zero affection for the fairy but all react viscerally to Ward’s aggression. The essential problem with Cats as devices is that the audience takes them in subconsciously. There’s no opportunity for a sophisticated discussion when butts are in the seats. So the only way to control what the audience thinks is to be careful not to send conflicting messages. And this is a doozy. If it is read as a Kick the Cat moment, which I’ll be honest I am seeing it as, I can’t see Ward as the hero after this. I am waiting for his sudden and inevitable betrayal because he is absolutely one of the cops meant to be depicted up in the graffiti that slid past during the opening credits.
At this point, I’m not looking for his redemption. I’m looking for how he is going to pose a problem for the advancement for the story. Which makes him a villain and not a hero.
Worse, this is set between two discussions about his partner. I have to admit what I was really expecting was an action packed version of:
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Not really the comedy aspect but that his partner was new and they had to work through their problems to get along and be their best.
There’s a reason that’s pretty much the gold standard. Because learning to get along is a standard useful storyline and commands both characters to grow. It’s the same basic dynamic as a Romance. The joy is in seeing people figure out how to click together in spite of their difficulties. The tension is ‘will they / won’t they?’ and you know they will but it’s very entertaining to see them work it out.
But that’s not what’s going on in Bright.
By the time the movie starts, Ward and Jakoby are already partners. Coming in in media res communicates that this isn’t really a story about a relationship forming. Which means they can’t really show the full arc of a relationship, and so that’s unlikely to be the focus of the story. Which communicates to the audience that they should have reason to doubt any kind of ‘will they.’
This is cemented by the three conversations immediately around the fairy killing. Ward explains to his wife that Orcs are different, not stupid, just that they think different. It is not him actually saying that the Orc isn’t stupid compared to a human just that they’re naturally different and can’t be held to the same standard.
He then tries to give that as a lesson to his daughter. Orcs are different so you have to keep Orcs in their proper mental categorization.
At which point Jakoby shows up again.
He is not welcome. Pretty much at all.
But here’s the thing, like his initial introduction:
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Jakoby is depicted as kind and considerate. Up to where I’ve stopped, I haven’t seen him commit a single act of even aggression. He wants to know what kind of sauce Ward wants on his burrito.
He wants to pick up Ward to help him along. He responds with affection and magnanimous giving to Ward’s daughter. In other words, he’s coming across as the innocent in all this. Which really starts to qualify him for the Cat category. That may be ruined in the next ten minutes but right now, I’m looking at a guy who has been insulted and yelled at for doing nothing, who has only shown concern and kindness, and who exists around a framework of his established partner killing a fairy. If Jakoby is a Cat, then what I’m being taught to worry about by what the film is presenting is that Ward is going to try take him down. Because maybe tomorrow, Orc Lives Don’t Matter.
I’m being taught by the first 9 minutes that Ward is, at best, a potential villain. But that the story is going to be from his point of view. And it’s just not a great look. And I would suspect that’s a lot of what people were responding to when this movie first hit: that it is setting up a very unpleasant story line that usually doesn’t play out in the type of story that it is.
So, no matter how it works out in Bright, which I am probably now returning to, when it comes time for you to work with your own story, be aware of the messages you’re sending and what story arcs you’re selling. Cats as an abstract concept, no matter what they are, exist whether you love or hate Blake Snyder. They existed long before he coined the name. At an even deeper level it’s simply that your character’s actions and events in a story naturally carry a “moral” weight. We, as an audience, expect what your characters do to be representative of who they are, for good and ill. Where what they do conflicts with who they are, we’ll expect an explanation and a counterbalance. So be wary of doing something else. Sending the wrong message with the wrong set up can drive away audiences who would be perfectly content with your story without the conflicting information.
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