#like fine it was more open-ended than a cliffhanger but you SET UP ANOTHER SEASON SO NICELY | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whump-a-la-mode · 3 years

Text

Magician’s Assistant - Trance

I heard you liked cliffhangers so here’s a cliffhanger for your cliffhanger. Much thanks to @nightfrostshadow for requesting another piece of this, you’re really a cheerleader for this series!

The rest of Magician’s Assistant can be found linked to in my info post, pinned at the top of my blog. I hope you enjoy!

CW//Some dehumanizing language, food

Villain was scared.

Of course, Friend had expected that. Anticipated it, almost taken a moment to imagine just how it would appear, nerves twisted upon such a feeble countenance. Civilian had warned them as such over the phone, warned them to be gentle, to go slow, to avoid any sudden movements-- as though they were talking about something dangerous, something feral.

In a way, they were.

But, now, as their new charge stood before them, there was something almost unbelievable about the sheer depths of their terror, and the way they presented it.

Villain was small, short in stature and so awfully thin that a stiff gust of wind could more than likely shatter their twig-like bones to shards. They looked upwards like a scared puppy dog, bag held in front of them with both hands like a shield, as though, if they simply kept it there, they would be safe, forever and ever.

And, hopefully, they would be. It was perhaps only a minute or so ago that Civilian had coaxed them through the door, shoving a handful of messily written instructions into Friend’s hands with a hurried ‘thank you.’ That meant that they had a week. A week to keep this- this thing calm, comfortable, and, more importantly than any of that, under control.

They could balance the most complex of equations, withdraw patients from near-death, turn caustic chemicals to life-saving medicines. But taking care of someone so anxious? And without...

No. They didn’t back down from a challenge.

“Hey, bud.” They tried to smile, trying so desperately not to terrify their charge. Not yet. They gestured with a hand to the bag they held, knuckles clenched so tightly as to turn a pale hue. “What’s in there?”

It felt stupid, but at the very least, their ward seemed to respond.

“Um...” Villain glanced downwards, to their burden. Their voice was almost inaudible, whimpering in form. “It’s- Spouse gave it to me. To help.”

To help.

“Can I see?”

They held it close to their chest, shivering turning to all-out shaking. Based upon the look in their eyes, if they ever lost their grip on the thing, they would simply perish.

“No.”

“Okay.” Friend sighed, biting their lower lip. There went that avenue of conversation. They supposed that making conversation with a failed attempt was somewhat of a lost cause in the first place. They needed to stay calm, not necessarily entertained. “Well... How about I show you to your room?”

“M-My room?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

Villain dipped their head. It was a display of respect, even as fear made them defy everything, up until the very concept of staying still. Gently, their caretaker reached forward, hand looping about their wrist with an ever so ghostly touch. They shivered, but abided.

“Let’s go then, okay?”

“Okay.”

They had set up the room quite some time ago, as soon as they had gotten Civilian’s call. As soon as they learned what they needed to do, to keep the world ticking over as it was supposed to be. The guidelines had been as simple as they were detailed, leaving nothing to chance, to whim.

Moving to the hall and creeping open the proper door, Friend found themself nodding to themself in satisfaction. They’d checked so many times, verified it all, but knowing that it was still arranged properly was an awfully grand relief.

Dim and cozy, Civilian had said. “They don’t like windows, be sure to cover them. They’re used to the kennel. Anything too big will scare them. Give them a bed, but know that they’re going to end up sleeping under it, assuming they don’t wind up in the corner. Other than the bed, the room should be empty. They can’t read, and they’re afraid of books. That includes any signage or decorations. Think of it like a kennel-- anything unnecessary is an unnecessary risk.”

And, it was so that friend had designed their ward’s living space. A small thing, perhaps ten feet by fifteen, with grey-painted walls and a bed with beige comforter. The singular window was covered in its entirety with an off-white curtain, allowing only enough light to seep through as to allow the room to not be entirely dark. And, that was it. Just like a kennel.

“Do you want to hang out in here for a little while?”

The question seemed to bring Villain quite an extreme relief, as they nodded frantically. They crossed the threshold into the space, nearly disappearing within the dim shroud.

Friend almost left, before remembering a piece of their instruction that Civilian had insisted on being terribly vital: The cuffs.

“Do you want your mitts on, buddy?”

A nod. And so it was done.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“They’re pretty good about eating, nowadays. They can eat the same food as the rest of us. My partner says they like chili, and things that look more like what they’re used to eating. But, more or less, it’s fine, so long as they eat.”

Civilian’s instructions regarding their ward’s mealtimes had been far less specific than those for their habitat. Anything that normal people ate, but specifically chili. It was certainly an odd favorite food to have, given what their diet had once been, but it was something.

Thus, with a quick mix, Friend’s kitchen had quite quickly been filled with an overwhelming aroma-- beans and spices, seasoned meat and the mixings to go along with it. Villain was still scared, even a slightly above average monkey would have been able to see that.

The whole quest, the whole effort, was a farce. They knew that. But, at the very least, perhaps they could make their charge somewhat less frightened for the time which they had them. It would be better to see them smiling, after all, instead of screaming. They’d spent too much time, listening to Villain screaming. It really did get grating, after a while.

When the hot dish upon their oven as last appeared to be finished, they picked it up by the pot’s handle, swirling it around for a moment before reaching a point of satisfaction. A few moments of pouring, and two bowls were equally filled with heaping helpings of meat and beans.

Eating the same thing as a failed attempted. That was a thought.

Friend placed the dishes upon their dining table, on opposite ends, and finished the assortment with a small variety of other offerings-- baby carrots for vegetables, and dinner rolls to nibble upon. The kitchen filled with scents and steam, they turned.

Villain was still in their room, they assumed. Civilian had mentioned that they were quite reclusive, which made sense. They would have plenty to entertain themself.

With jostling steps, they made their way up the stairs, feeling as the aroma of herbs practically followed them up. The room in which their ward was housed was just at the top of the staircase.

The room that-

The room that’s door was opened.

With a raised brow, Friend peered inside. Certainly, Villain was absent, nowhere to be seen. Not in the corner, not upon the bed, nor under it-- they checked. Yet, the bag had been left behind, stim toys and plushies placed neatly and piled to categories.

Perhaps they had only been looking for the bathroom? With a more cautious air about them, they moved forward, along the hall. The corridor existed in an L shape, its shorter side at the top of the stairs, and its longer side around a sharp bend.

The bathroom stood at the end of the hallway’s shorter piece. The empty bathroom.

A bated breath.

Friend turned the corner.

Civilian certainly hadn’t warned them about this.

The longer end of the L-shape was definitively emptier than the other, edges lined not with doors, but with sparse decorations, bookshelves and meaningless paintings. It was all a vessel, a vehicle, for the door at the end.

The door before which Villain stood. There was an odd stiffness to their legs, their whole body. Not a muscle of them moved, not even their eyes, so it seemed as they stared. Stared at nothing.

A closed door, from which creeped the barest scent of antiseptic.

Villain most certainly was not allowed in Friend’s lab.

#villain whumpee #whump #whumpblr #whump community #hero villain whump #civilian caretaker

43 notes · View notes

murasaki-murasame · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep15 [FINALE]

For better or worse I think Ryukishi achieved exactly what he set out to do with this series, and I guess everyone’s just gonna be forced to reckon with how they feel about his own perspective on this franchise versus how they feel about it, lol.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus Umineko spoilers.

I’m not entirely sure where to even start with this, but I guess the TL;DR is that I honestly think Gou/Sotsu was ultimately just fine despite it’s issues, and part me of can’t help but be like ‘I told you so, lol’ about how this really did end with this episode, and also committed pretty hard to the Umineko prequel elements.

It’s not like all of my theories were correct in the end, but I at least think I was pretty spot on in my prediction last week that this would end with the miracle of them side-stepping the sword issue entirely and choosing the third option of forgiveness and reconciliation. And also them ending it with an epilogue where we go back to the Matsuribayashi timeline and get a happy ending for Rika and Satoko that provides a ‘non-magical interpretation’ for the story while also giving us an idea of how Bern and Lambda formally split off into their own entities and start the relationship we see in Umineko.

I didn’t quite expect them to go down the route of having them agree to just spend a few years apart and accept that they don’t need to literally always be together, but I think that was a really good way to wrap things up between them. It’s pretty much the healthiest compromise to their conflict that doesn’t come across like it completely invalidates one of their dreams. I get why it feels too anti-climactic and convenient for people, but when you pull at that thread you get into wider topics of what the entire story is about, since this was always going to end with Satoko being redeemed and forgiven. People might not have taken him seriously, but Ryukishi was 100% genuine about his regrets about Matsuribayashi’s ending, and how part of why he came up with this new story was to create a better ending, while also doing more with Satoko as a character.

Basically I think a lot of the fandom negativity towards this boils down to people fundamentally disagreeing with the idea that Matsuribayashi was even ‘flawed’ in this sort of way to begin with, or that Satoko was badly written. It’s valid to disagree on this stuff, but at the very least we all have to grapple with how Ryukishi has his own specific relationship with this series.

People like to focus on how he’s a troll who likes to mess with people, but I feel like this is a bit of a wake-up call for people about how he’s actually extremely sincere, almost to a fault, and he likes to use his stories as a vehicle for expressing his personal philosophies and ideals.

This whole story is also a good example of how he just sees this as ultimately being a fictional story about fictional characters, and not literally a matter of real people who need to be sentenced for their crimes or whatever. As early as the original VN he was almost being outright preachy about the message that nobody is irredeemable, and that philosophy carries through to this. But to be more specific, nobody *in this story* is irredeemable. He’s pretty open about the fact that in practice you can’t apply this sort of ideal to real life, but fictional stories are their own separate matter.

I think this whole issue of how he views this as a story first and foremost is also the central reason why this ended in a way that comes across as Satoko being let off too easy for her crimes. One way or another, Ryukishi’s made it clear that he sees this as being no different to how other characters had arcs where they committed crimes but still got forgiven, or how Takano is basically a straight up war criminal who also got forgiven for her crimes.

Anyway, this episode at least committed to the Umineko stuff, so that was satisfying. Sure there’s people that still want to deny it, but at this point I think a lot of people are just being stubborn, so it’s not like anything would have really convinced them, lol. I’m also genuinely not sure what people even would have expected them to do beyond what we saw her, aside from having the two of them literally put on their gothic lolita outfits and turn to the camera and go ‘we are literally Bernkastel and Lambdadelta from the video game series Umineko When They Cry’. I almost feel like there’s some kind of misunderstanding from people who aren’t familiar with Umineko when it comes to the idea of what it even means for this to be ‘an Umineko prequel’, or ‘a Bern/Lambda origin story’. I mean, this is quite literally exactly what I expected and hoped for in that regard. It’s not like I was expecting them to incorporate anything related to, like, Beatrice or the Ushiromiya family.

I think this is also one of those things where you just have to decide for yourself whether or not you want to earnestly engage with the story that’s being told, or if you want to assume that there’s some level of malice or trickery going on.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting them to literally have Rika and Satoko recite part of Bern and Lambda’s final conversation with each other word for word, lmao. Combined with the scene at the end where ‘Witch Satoko’ talks to herself about how she’s going to give her body back to Satoko while she goes chasing after Rika, it was literally just the exact origin story of their relationship as it’s depicted in Umineko.

I still feel like this would all only really be ‘worth it’ if we actually get something like a full on anime remake for Umineko, but at this point I can’t help but feel satisfied with this part of it all.

It’s not like I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is perfect or anything, though. I don’t hate it as much as basically everyone else does, but I think Ryukishi’s the sort of VN writer who really struggles with the shift to writing for an anime. I think a big part of the frustration people have is just from how this is formatted as a weekly anime series spread across basically an entire year, instead of being something like a stand-alone VN chapter that you can read at whatever pace you want, even if it ultimately takes the same amount of time to read as it would to watch all of Gou/Sotsu.

There’s also the whole issue of this being a sort-of-remake, which snowballed into a whole list of structural problems. They absolutely tried too hard to have their cake and eat it too, and they should have just committed to it being made for old fans only, instead of trying to sincerely incorporate elements from the VN that old fans don’t care about anymore because they’ve gone over it already.

And as I’ve said several times before, it was a major issue for them to decide to put Nekodamashi in the middle of Gou and then spend like 20 episodes on flashback answer arcs until finally getting back to that cliffhanger. I’ve been waiting until this all ended to decide exactly how I feel about that, and now that it’s all over I still think it was a really bad idea. I don’t think it was an issue for them to reveal that Satoko’s the culprit that early, but having the gun cliffhanger specifically happen that early just gave people misguided expectations and tainted the answer arcs because people were just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. And then the cliffhanger itself ended up being somewhat anti-climactic, which is what I’d been fearing would happen. It would have worked fine if they shuffled it around so that the cliffhanger happened right before Kagurashi and was followed up in the very next episode, or if this was a VN where you could binge your way through the flashback stuff, but spending like half of an entire real-life year to get back to that point only to have the resolution be ‘Satoko just shoots Rika and the death loops keep going’ just didn’t really work properly.

I’m a lot more generous towards the Akashi arcs than most people are, since I think they really over-estimate how much re-used content there is there, but they still suffer from the central issue of the show trying to be accessible for new fans. It could have been heavily condensed otherwise, without losing anything in terms of Satoko’s whole character arc.

On the other hand I think the first half of Kagurashi was awful specifically because it highlighted how bad of an idea it was to put Nekodamashi so early in the story. They still ended up having to go back to that arc and repeat it anyway, in the most 1:1 recap-y way in the whole show, but that wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place if that was instead the first time that arc happened in the show.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would rearrange the story to make it flow better while still following Ryukishi’s intentions, and I think they could have condensed it into a 2-cour season with this sort of structure if they did something like this:

-First arc where Rika gets thrown back into the loop and quickly figures out that somebody intentionally caused this to happen, and it’s not Takano because at least in this idea of mine she’d try and investigate her only to find out that this version of Takano regrets everything and is planning to flee the village with Tomitake.

Basically I think this could tie into the idea of Satoko initially wanting to just concoct an idea world for Rika so that she won’t want to leave this time, but sort of like what I think happens in Saikoroshi, Rika would still reject it, and this time around there’d be the additional layer of her knowing that somebody did this to her for an unknown reason. Maybe they could even initially market it as a new adaptation or a remake of Saikoroshi, and then reveal that it’s a sequel, to keep that whole element to the series. Either way I think this would end with everything going to shit when Rika rejects that fragment and wants to go back to St. Lucia’s, and Satoko basically snaps and kills her, and that way the audience can find out about her being the culprit without Rika finding out about it yet.

Maybe there could even be some dramatic irony where Rika’s attempts to meddle with certain ‘trigger events’, and her displaying her looper side, inadvertently triggers people around her to get paranoid, and the whole fragment would start to spiral into tragedy from there. I think they could at least use the whole conflict in Tatariakashi about Teppei actually being good this time as a starting point for that sorta thing.

-Second arc, rounding out the first cour, which is basically just Satokowashi. I don’t think there’s much that you’d need to change here, but like I said above I like the idea of her initially trying to just invent a perfect world for Rika and her to live in, instead of jumping straight to murder. But maybe instead of her literally just watching Rika’s loops, she could instead just be stuck using her looping powers to try and figure out how to create that ‘perfect world’ in the first place, by personally investigating all of the different tragedies and how to prevent them.

-Staring the second cour, a third arc where we basically just get to see those loops Satoko goes through, and her whole process of solving the tragedies and ‘purifying’ characters like Teppei and Takano, until we eventually see her perspective on the first arc, and how she reacts to Rika ultimately rejecting the world she tried to make for her.

-A fourth and final arc which is basically just Nekodamashi + Kagurashi, where she just totally snaps and tries to just torture Rika into never wanting to leave the village again, and eventually Satoko gets exposed and they have their direct confrontation with each other.

With that sorta story structure, you’d keep all the relevant bits of Gou/Sotsu as it is now, while being more focused on Rika and Satoko instead of doing kinda half-assed reruns of the Rena and Shion arcs. It’d also push the big cliffhanger between them until near the end of the show, while still revealing to the audience relatively early on that Satoko’s the culprit.

I’d also like them to do more with Satoshi and Shion, so maybe like with how Teppei gets redeemed and Satoko almost gets to have a happy life with him in Tatariakashi, the central question arc of this hypothetical story could also involve Satoko making sure that Satoshi wakes up from his coma, and Shion also gets to have a good relationship with all of them. You could probably do something interesting with the idea of Satoshi and Shion being in the camp of not trusting Teppei and his whole redemption arc.

Honestly I could spend a long time talking about how I would have done things differently, lol. For one thing, I think the Akashi arcs would have been much better if they just changed it so that Satoko used psychological tactics to make people paranoid, and we completely cut out the whole syringe plot device. I get how it fits with Satoko’s whole certainty gimmick, but it made those arcs way too predictable. Even if we knew the outcome, it’d at least be entertaining to see exactly how Satoko might go out of her way to set up the different tragedies. We kinda got glimpses of that sorta plot point in Wataakashi when things seemed to go outside of her control, but they didn’t really do much with it.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of words to say that I think that in spite of the serious structural issues going on, I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is fine, and was at least working with a lot of perfectly good ideas that could have been executed much better.

Also, on a side note, that one scene during their fist-fight at the start where the art-style changes a bit was kinda weird, but I really liked how it looked, and part of me almost wishes the whole show looked like that, lol. I like Akio Watanabe’s character designs, but I feel like that sort of stylized, almost TWEWY-ish art style would have been really fitting for this series, especially in the horror/action parts.

Oh, and the new rendition of You was so good it almost felt emotionally manipulative, lol.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi sotsu #this got kinda long but I still feel like there's so much more I could say about this if I wanted to

19 notes · View notes

shadowed-dancer · 3 years

Text

My Thoughts on the New MHA Opening and Ending

I have thoughts, and I will share them because oh boy if I don’t get this out I’m gonna explode

Vague Spoilers for the manga (up to chapter 258 and vigilantes) because I discuss the upcoming arcs, but I don’t discuss any major plot points in detail. Still, proceed with caution if you’re anime only

Keep in mind, this OP and ED will cover the Endeavour Agency Arc and the MVA Arc, so I will be judging them accordingly.

First, the OP

This is a good OP... in theory (that’s going to become my catchphrase for this post). It’s nice to look at and flows pretty well, but my biggest problem is that it doesn’t do it’s job. An OP is supposed to be a sort of... summary (?) of the Cour it plays for. That means any cool plot points, emotional beats, and important characters should be featured in some way, shape, or form. We’ll talk about that more later, but first let’s discuss the music.

The song is really good. I have a feeling it will continue to grow on me as I listen to it more often, but yeah my first impression is that the song sounds great. My only complaint about the music itself is that it ends kind of abruptly (I noticed this is the JT opening too). The previous openings used to have a bit of instrumental to “play us out” and lead us to the end card, but this one feels like it ends very suddenly and unnaturally.

As for the visuals...

Yeah alright I’ll admit, the visuals are stunning... in theory. I appreciate the variety in backgrounds and colours, it makes the OP really interesting to look at. This was actually one of my biggest problems with the JT Opening, it all took place on the training grounds, so there was no variety (everything was metal tubes with a blue sky, with only 3 shots set somewhere different). I appreciate the style of this OP.

But like I said, that’s only in theory, as in, through screenshots these are all pleasing to look at. The pacing of this OP is wild, and I truly don’t know who to blame for this.

That sunset shot above? It lasts approximately 12 seconds, zooming in every few to make it seem like something is happening (when in reality it’s still the same poses, angles, etc). While there’s nothing wrong with a nice, drawn out shot, it becomes irritating when compared to the pacing of the rest of this op.

At the 41 second mark, we are given the shot above. It has flowed directly from the previous sunset scene. We still have not moved away from the image of the trio (aside from the opening shot and the title card) yet we’re approaching the halfway mark of the OP.

The next shot is the MLA, which lasts about 5 seconds. Ok, perfect. Not too long, but also not short enough to be confusing. It cuts away a little fast once the dude on the far left appears, but does anyone actually know who that is? No, seriously, I’m asking. I don’t remember his name and he’s not on the wiki, so I can only assume he’s not important. Therefore, it’s not all that bad if the shot cuts away shortly after he comes into frame. The audience is able to take in the scene without having to pause...

... And then the problems start

While this shot is fine in theory, it pans up fast and cuts away quickly. You know how hard it was for me to get this screenshot? Really hard. You want to know why I struggled so much? Because, due to the timing of the cut and the way it pans upwards, it’s almost impossible to pause on Dabi’s face. I literally had to go frame by frame to get it, because he’s in shot for so little time that naturally pausing is guaranteed to miss him.

When watching this in real time (without pausing) the cut away makes you feel as if you missed something because “something was there, I just couldn’t register what because now it’s gone”. Unlike Compress, who wears a very colourful coat you can recognize the entire time, Dabi’s pants are more blended into the background.

It also doesn’t help that this shot is literally composed to draw your attention away from Dabi until the last possible second. Due to framing, your eye is naturally drawn to the brightly coloured Toga in the foreground, making it super easy to miss Dabi in the back (until, of course, his bright face appears and contrasts against the background, drawing your eye just in time for the scene to change, leaving you to wonder who or what you missed).

I know this sounds like nitpicking, but this shot is the only group shot we get of the League, and is also the start of a seriously weird trend for the villains in this OP getting the short end of the stick.

Anyways, then we get what I’ll call “The Carousel Shot” in which every Class 1A kid shows up and poses dramatically, as if they were on a carousel. It’s a lovely sequence and I really enjoy watching it but... why is it in this OP?

Seriously, this is a genuine question. Class 1A barely shows up in the Endeavour Agency Arc, and NONE of the students are in MVA. This sequence (not counting the three boys at the end) lasts 8 seconds. Why is this much time dedicated to characters who are barely in the arc? (Unless Studio Bones extends their work studies into fuller plot lines which oh my gosh please don’t do that, or if they do, do it quick).

We then get what I call the “Oh God I Blinked And Missed Everything” sequence, which lasts 3 seconds (not including the longer, moving shot of Shigaraki at the end) and features NINE INDIVIDUAL IMAGES, none of which are related to each other. Not only is this 3 images per second, but the fact that they are all unrelated means you can’t even use previous information to fill in the blanks.

What do I mean by that? Well, imagine if I show you 9 images of various pro heroes posing. If I play that in 3 seconds you’ll absolutely miss some of them, but as long as you catch some you’ll still get an idea of what I’m trying to show to you. Your brain is able to fill in the gaps that “I recognized 4 pro heroes, therefore the rest must have also been pros” even if you didn’t register every single frame.

That doesn’t work if every frame features a completely different subject. The shots in this sequence vary so widely that it’s impossible to find a through line. Some feature multiple characters, some feature one, some are closeups, some are super far away, some are character’s we know, others are characters we don’t. It’s impossible to get a solid read on what you’re being shown.

Now, again, there’s nothing wrong with these super quick shots... in theory. The problem comes from the fact that these shots are the only indicators for some of the major themes that will be explored during this Cour (like Twice’s growth and young Shigaraki).

That being said, let’s move away from criticism and talk about speculation, because hidden amongst this sequence are two... interesting images.

This All Might one is very reminiscent of the shot in Chapter 257, where Aizawa and All Might have a conversation while staring up at the stars. However, this is technically the start of the “War Arc” (or the “prologue”, if that’s what you want to call it), so this might indicate that we’re going to get farther into the series than a lot of us guessed.

(Many people suspected we’d get to that cliffhanger at the start of the season (if you read the manga you know the one), but after seeing the pacing for JT a lot of us assumed we’d be lucky to even finish Endeavour Agency. It seems we’re back to the cliffhanger now though lol).

This is another really interesting shot because it’s indicative of Shirakumo, meaning we might get to see Aizawa and Mic confront him some time this Cour (this also makes sense, since this confrontation technically happens before that All Might scene I mentioned in the previous paragraph).

But the cat specifically is a really strange addition. That cat is named Sushi and, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Sushi is ever mentioned in the main series. I think he’s only in Vigilantes.

This might just be a little Easter Egg for Vigilante readers, but I’m personally hoping that they’ll add at least a few Vigilante shots in there to really tug at the heart strings. I’d say I want a whole Vigilante episode but I don’t think they have the time (unless they really cram MVA, which I do NOT want).

I don’t have much to say about the last bit of the OP. The action shot between the 3 boys was nice, and it follows the sort of narrative through line they established from the early shot of them sitting at the sunset. I also like the shot of Endeavour fading in to replace All Might, even if it’s very simple.

But I want to talk about an overarching problem I touched upon earlier in that villain shot: the way the villains are handled in this OP.

This is a good OP... in theory. The problem is, it doesn’t represent half the arcs in the cour! Every shot of the League is so rushed that you can barely register that they were on screen before they’re gone.

I have no idea how many Episodes Endeavour Agency will take, but I’d assume 3 (4 if you count the Christmas episode). 12 episodes for this Cour minus 3 for Endeavour Agency = 9 episodes left. If we truly do get the prologue for the War Arc (and if we assume it’s only 1 episode) that leaves us with 8 villains episodes.

8/12 episodes (aka two thirds of the Cour) will likely be about the villains. And yet they’re pushed to the background so hard in this OP.

I want to dream, and I want to believe that this OP is going to magically change when MVA starts. The song fits super well, and I can imagine like an inversion of the OP but from the Villain side! Wouldn’t that be neat? Imagine right after the “it’s alright” part Shigaraki just freaking decays the title card... oh man that would be so cool. But, alas, I highly doubt they’d do that.

Side rant, but you know what was so fun about MVA in the manga? It’s that, for 21 chapters, we leave the kids behind and the villains become our protagonists. Suddenly Shigaraki is the one we’re rooting for, suddenly we’re learning backstories for everyone, and suddenly we find ourselves just as attached to the villains as we are to the kids. It’s an inversion that’s SO RARE to find, and I think many people (myself included) were hoping it would be reflected in the OP.

A big part of being the protagonist means featuring heavily in the OP, and a lot of us just wanted the villains to get that honour, even if only once. As is, the OP still treats them as the antagonists when... really they aren’t. Not right now, at least.

So yeah, final thoughts on the OP are that it’s good, it’s just not very representative of the arcs it’s supposed to cover. If this was just for Endeavour Agency, I’d say it’s actually really cool, but if we assume that this is what will play for the Villain Arc, then it simply doesn’t do it’s job. And it makes me sad to say that because, again, this OP is really well done.

If I had to rate it? Hmmm

If Studio Bones actually grants my wish and creates a different visual for the Villain Arc (while using the same song) and then this version only plays for the Endeavour Agency Arc and the War Prologue? I’d give it an 8/10. It’s really good, but it could use a few more elements that are clearly derived from the Agency Arc (ahem, Todoroki siblings).

But if this is the OP that will play for the entire Cour? a 6.5/10. It’s nice, but it’s not representative of one of the arcs it’s going to cover. And, unlike other arcs like Pro Hero or Summer Exams, the villain Arc is so important and takes up so much time that it honestly feels like a bit of a disservice.

Now for the Ending

I want to say that I appreciate how soft this ending starts. This cour will likely feature a lot of episodes that end on... heavier themes, and I think the sight of peaceful, falling raindrops is the perfect way to let the audience process their emotions before starting the ending in earnest.

The song itself is very nice, and I like that it’s a bit slower than the more recent endings.

(Side note, but the FUNNIEST moment in the entire series is when Sir Nighteye dies because it’s so emotional and everyone is standing around his bed in his heartwrentching silence, only for the ending to come BLARING IN out of no where. If you forgot how jarringly hilarious it was, go listen to the Eri ending and tell me that’s not the funniest thing this series ever did. Anyways yeah I’m glad that’s not gonna happen this Cour).

This ending is a bit all over the place in terms of it’s visuals, but honestly I think it works. Most endings usually have a theme tying them together (all the Class 1A girls, a fantasy AU, old photographs, planning a party, etc) but this ending’s theme is a bit harder to identify.

That being said, I think it’s just supposed to show everyone going about their day. It’s calm, it’s peaceful, and it’s just very sweet to think about

I like this shot. Actually, scratch that, I like this whole sequence. I enjoy anything that allows Class 1A to chill and have fun.

Hawks is featured quite heavily in this ending which, fair. He’s pretty important in this arc.

I really love the shot where Endeavour immediately switches to Hawks, I thought that was a lot of fun, and very good symbolism on how Hawks wants to be like Endeavour. I also love all the shots of Baby Hawks, because it’s adorable.

Something about this shot is just so cute. It’s the little domestic things like waiting for a bus that make this ending feel... idk the word, real? It shows a side of the characters that we’ll never see in the episodes, but we know have to exist.

Like yes, of course the kids have to wait for the bus. We never see it, but of course there are those moments of quiet. Agh, I love it.

The villains also make an appearance and I’m very happy about that (I’d love to see more of the villains just chilling around, I think they deserve it). I kind of wish they weren’t sitting in a dark room for the sake of being edgy, since I think it would be nice to see the villains just... sort of existing, but honestly it’s still a nice shot. I also like how this shot sort of mirrors the first one with Class 1A (someone coming in while everyone else is sitting and waiting for them).

That being said, as much as I love looking at Dabi and his stupid face (affectionate)... why is Dabi the one getting the closeup?

Mind you, endings don’t need to be connected to their Cours (they can be, like the Eri one, but they don’t have to be). But this ending does seem to be connected to the arcs it intends to cover, given all the Hawks appearances, the boys wearing their work study scarves, etc.

So, I ask again, why Dabi? Out of the six League members, we learn the backstory for four of them in this arc (Shigaraki, Toga, Twice, and we very briefly learn about Spinner). The only two left out are Dabi and Compress.

I can only assume they chose Dabi because he’s constantly in contact with Hawks, and therefore that makes him important? If the OP told us anything, it’s that Bones values the Endeavour Agency Arc over the Villain Arc lol...

... Oh my gosh please tell me that’s not actually the reason Dabi is focused on here BONES WAI-

Anyways, the ending comes to a close with Hawks watching over the kids and Endeavour. The relaxing time is done, it’s time for work studies.

Overall impression? It’s great. It’s hard to screw up an ending, so as long as you have something pretty on screen, it’s wonderful.

I’ll give this a 9/10

#bnha #bnha season 5 #dabi #keigo takami #bnha season five #katsuki bakugo #shoto todoroki #mha season 5 #mha season five #bnha op #bnha opinions #izuku midoriya #bnha hawks #ok to reblog #actually yes please do reblog if you found this interesting #I worked hard on it

30 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Ducktales Shadow Into Light (Lena Retrospective): Friendship Hates Magic! (Commission by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! And welcome, and to some of you welcome back to Shadow Into Light, my fully paid for but gladly done Lena retrospective, covering everyone’s faviorite lesbian emo shadow’s personal jounrey through all three seasons and some brucey bonuses.

So this time we pick up in mid-season 2.. yes MID season 2. Though for once taking so long to adress things had valid reasons. It dosen’t make the 8 month wait for Lena to return and for Violet to show up, her concept art having been shown off shortly before Shadow War aired during San Diego Comic Con, any less aggravating, especially since the episode did air overseas before that but never leaked anywhere properly. So I knew she’d be okay but not HOW.

As I said though.. they had their reasons. The episode was set for episode 8 in production order, right behind whatever Happened to Della Duck? which answered the other big cliffhanger from season 1, Della’s exile on the moon. So while this episode was back in the queue, along with Della’s, which had to wait till after the christmas episode to air because said episode takes place before it. So waiting on this episode was fair on the crew’s part even knowing it was a hiatus.

It ended up getting pushed back by a week once the episodes started airing.. but as outlined last time, THIS TIME Disney actually moved it for good reason instead of just doing so because shut up. See the problem with moving episodes around in season 2.. is Della’s return. Several episodes that in theory could’ve easily been pushed back instead of this one, Depths of Cousin Fethry, Treasure of the Found Lamp... couldn’t because they take place BEFORE Della came back and it’d be weird to air them after. One features Donald, the other dosen’t but still lacks Della and it’d be weird if it did> While this episode takes place before Della comes back or was at least meant to, no one appears in person, and Beakly mentoning “the boys and scrooge” at the bin could simply be her forgetting Della’s a part of things for a second. It’s not entirely in character, but it’s much easier than explaning why Della’s not there and Donald is.

They also moved one episode ahead of this.. but it’s one I approve of. See from episode 7 onward the episodes were aired in week long duckbombs, woo-ooo. I I don’t fault disney for it or the reason I suspect they had for doing this: while it wasn’t the intended way of airing, they likely did this airing style to get shows on Disney Plus quicker for it’s debut and given they’ve sunk a LOT of money into the streaming service and it’s a key part of their future, I can’t blame them for wanting the entire series thus far on the platform at launch. It’s one of if not their most popular show at the moment. They wanted it front and center.

So this one took an extra week to air, and an extra day as they aired raiders of the doomsday vault right after Della’s return in “Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!”.. which is also not a bad move. Fans wanted more of Della and her bonding with the kids, I wanted more of that so while the wait was grumble inducing, it was worth the tradeoff to get more of this character and her bonding with Dewey.. and let’s face it Glomgold. You know what i’m about at this point.

So there were delays but not the mind boggling ones that reshuffled the season last time and by next season there’d be zero reshuffling with both holiday episodes designed to go anywhere. So with the history and the agonizing wait out of the way join me under the cut as a snark knight returns, a new fan faviorite debuts and Beakly gets sucked into Launchpad’s awful fandom.

We open our story at the Duckburg Library. Man I fucking miss the library. I mean you can go by apointment and what not but I also have library card debt and stuff, and it’s just not the same.

Anyways naturally Webby is going there to research the Shadow Realm in hopes of finding something to bring Lena back. Last week was “Children’s Card Games, Dark Magic and You! by Professor Yugi Moto which while enlightening got her nowhere. Next up is “Shadow Games on Motorcycles!: How a Crimson Dragon defeated a giant Shadow Monster and brought the dead back and I helped by Doctor Yusei Fudo”.

But that one’s not in yet so she instead goes to the Librarian to get another book.. and it’s Quackfaster! Horay! As for why she’s working two jobs, she’s saving up for a retirement condo in BIRDDDBAAADDOOOSSSSS. I had to type it that way it’s ape law.

But her next book “I Went there and it Sucked, My Time in the Shadow Realm by Mayor of New Jersey Joey Wheeler” is taken by “another strange little girl”. Quackfaster, you chase people around with a scimitar. Just accept your the weird one and live with it like me. You’ll be happier that way.

And so we finally meet Violet whose introduced pitch perfectly. Webby gives out her usual “Hi I”m Webby”.. and Violet simply holds a finger up, finishes her page and gives a simple “Yes?” It demonstrates her quite nature, her love of reading and her lack of social skills all in one fell swoop. The ensuing dead language off is also pretty damn adorable reminding me of that scene from “Lisa’s Wedding” where she and Hugh fight over a book and reading it before making out.. minus the making out because these are children, no one wants that, and Webby is taken. .and even then again children. Most we get is an innocent peck and some blushing.

So Violet, finding out Webby needs it and is researching the arcane too offers to research together tonight, bringing a sleeping bag just in case it goes on long... to Lena’s unheard objections as she’s rattled by the break in her normal routine with Webby, and the possibility of Webby falling for someone else. I mean this i framed as a friendship thing... but you can only say “friend” so many times in a work before you sound like a retired grandma in denial about their granddaughter.

Later at the Mansion, Beakley is enjoying a nice quiet afternoon to herself. Turns out once a month Scrooge has “Binventory Day” where he and the boys catalogue the bin for hours giving her a night to herself and Webby. Webby loudly interuppts the peace as is Cartoon Law, but Beakley is pleased Webby is getting back on the friendship horse.

Bentina ends up ruining it a bit though by bringing up her previous slumber party disasters... which even Lena at her most jealous admits were her fault and only agrees to in the hopes Webby’s going to cancel. Instead Webby decides to make this the most normal sleepover ever! The one where her new friend is coming to specifically help her with magic.

Bentina tries to back her grandaughter/daughter down from this insane logic, but Webby does, if innocently clap back well to her being the one to give her “Be yourself” advice. “I’m not like you Granny, I need to have friends”

And while Webby quickly flees after Beakley tries to deny it.. she’s not wrong. She has exactly one friend who she works for and no social life to speak of.. and as far as I can tell she’s fine this way. Beakley is happy with her work and raising Webby and has someone to talk to in Scrooge. She has everything she needs, while Webby is a social butterfly.. a socially inept social butterfly. She needs people and loves meeting new people and needs friends and not just her family. One’s an introvert the other’s an extrovert. I’m both at times, and before you ask why yes it is a living nightmare thank you so much for asking. I get where both are coming from. And Beakley clearly had friends at one point it’s just a long war with FOWL and a sudden granddaughter probably whittled it down to just Scrooge. It’s okay to be yourself.

So this is where the plotlines split off, so as usual, i’m splitting the up.

Launchpad and Beakley in Getting To Know You And Getting Sucked INto Your Strange and Lovely Fandom

So Beakley naturally cries out “name one person I don’t get along with.. and in walks Launchpad , Nature’s Perfect Himbo, having destroyed the gate and at least being honest he probably will again. Why he’s here when the boys and Scrooge are all gone?

But I don’t care as this subplot is just.. a nonstop delight. Starting with Beakly inviting Launchpad to sup with her.. which just confuses him. Look Bentina you have to use small words.. it’s a miracle he gets up in the morning, dreses himself and hasn’t died in a tragic gasoline fight accident. You have to know your audience. Still funny.

And “not knowing your audience” continues as Beakly serves them pea soup but Launchpad is intimidated by the spoons and while she does offer to help instead tries to use all of them then a straw and then falls facedown in his soup. And this is the SECOND TIME Beakly’s left someone living at the mansion to die. I mean that’s not a lot but it’s still weird it happened twice.

Finally they sit quitely, Beakly reading the Scarlet Pimpernell, and Launchpad doing a coloring book. And besides the odd couple energy what I really like about this subplot.. is that it fleshes Beakly out> This is one of her ONLY plots in the entire goddamn series, yes really. 70 episodes and she only got five spotlight episodes/plots. But it does at least show her off: her upperclass pedigree we really don’t see often, showing that while she applied to the job as maid out of necisity she knows her stuff, her love of classic literature and her being out of touch with the common person. It’s not a ton but it’s more than ninja butler or “stop having fun with your kids della and be a parent”. I mean she wasn’t wrong but she could’ve been nicer about it given the circumstances.

So Launchpad, given Beakley’s never shown any interest in him as a person before, assumes she’s going to fire him and was just softening him up. I mean Scrooge himself outright said he never would and if he did he’d do it to your face, hard as it’d be. But that aside, he’s fine with getting to know her once he knows that no he’s not being fired she just wanted to hang out, he’s everyone’s friend. But naturally an upperclash british former super spy and a dumb as a bucket with a heart of gold pilot have nothing in common, not even aircraft as “plane go up, plane crash going down’ is about the extent of his actual knowledge on aircraft that isn’t instinct or dumb luck.

He does manage to break the ice though, mistaking her book for a Darkwing Duck book and deciding to show her the show since it might be something they have in common. At first she’s as unintuhsed as you’d expect a british lady who never watches the telly watching a 90′s kids show would be.. but by the end she’s gotten all the way into it.

It’s really endearing, showning that two vastly diffrent people with nothing can common can be brought together by something as simple and glorious as liking the same show. I’ve had it happen with me. She naturally is all for filiming his fanscript after the finale provides no answers, being the one to suggest it and the two end the episode shooting it with her in full darkwing duck cosplay. I’ts a cute and entertaining subplot and a nice contrast to the main plot which while not super dark, does have a fog of tension over it. Speaking of which.

Webby, Lena and Violet: In Two’s Company, Three Accidently Creates Monsters That Nearly Take Your Girlfriend Off Into The Shadowy Abyss So the slumber party gets underway with Webby shooing away Duckworth after clearing out her room to greet Violet herself and violet having brought pie... a great callback to an earlier joke where Webby wondered if pie was normal at a sleepover. No but it should be. So Webby welcomes her in to her totally normal room devoid of anything. Nothing suspicious about that.

So Violet tries to get her into research, specifically Tulpas, an actual magical concept, a mental construct of some kind created out of desire, imagination or what have you. Gee I wonder if that will come into play this episode. Webby.. wants to play baggle or what have you or do makeovers and drags Violet along to do the second thing after Violet asks about Magica. Lena then finds something glowing in Violet’s bag...specifically, her old amulet, cracked but still working and flowing with Magica’s power.

Lena assumes Violet is Magica and goes to warn Webby only to find her HORRIBLY MUTATED! Naturally it’s a misdirect, as it turns out Violet is just REALLY good at special effects makeup. It’s something I honestly forgot about her... i’m betting one of her dad’s is an effects artist. Just saying that’d be neat. But Webby gives the “i’m normal really even though I live in a giant mansion with my dad I don’t know is my dad and my grandma whose actually my adopted mom” game away by pointing out the demon’s fang is crooked and Violet is curious and heads to Webby’s room finding a picture from said demon. He signed it and everything. Good man that Rakshaka.

Webby is worried Violet will be freaked out by all the weird but nope, she enjoys it. And it’s not a suprise: violet is actively researching the shadow dimension. Why WOULD she be scared off. The conflict was in Webby’s head all along.. and partly out of PTSD, but we’ll get to that. Webby still tries to get her to baggle but they settle on ancient rune dice baggle and summoning some spirits. Lena scoffs.. until it actually works. It does make sense though: As we’ll see in her last starring role, Lena is kinda like Wanda Maximoff: she has an extreme amount of power but she has no idea how to use it and is simply making up most of her magic as she goes along or took magica’s lead. But the spell means Lena can touch the dice so she spells out don’t trust her.. but forgets she’s dealing with two nerds who love unlocking puzzles and assume the message is on the dice themselves.

Webby and Violet decide they need more clarity and resume the seance.. which summons mysterious white shadow creatures Lena saw before.. .some now taking Magica’s shape. And Lena’s panicked “Oh not again” says it all. So Lena tries the tried and true bedsheet ghost cliche, grumbling about it but showing up as a ghost without any abillity to speak or talk to webby dosen’t do anything and Violet tackles the sheet before deciding to grab the amulet to dispiate the spirit.. only for Lena to show up for a breif second before she does show making the panicked child look incredibly supscious.

Webby naturally tackles and interrogates Violet wanting the full story. And it turns out the big secret is.. Violet is entirely normal. Nothing to do with Magica, no possesions or secretly being her or a minon of hers... she was just a logic obsessed 12 year old who thought magic was a myth.. until the Shadow War proved “Nope it’s real everything you know is wrong. Up is down black is white and short is long”. She just happened to be close to the bin and found the amulet when the remains of the staff fell near her and compacted back into it.

It’s a brilliant reveal. See first watch around your genuinely unsure if Violet is a real person or not.. unless you went in knowing she is, but semantics. Point is most first time viewers didn’t know she’d be a beloved member of the supporting cast and didn’t know what to expect. But looking back... it makes no sense. If Magica had the amulet.. why would she need to infiltrate the mansion. Revenge? Possibly but she’d want Scrooge there too. Even being evil on her own Violet had valid opportunity to pilfer Webby’s magical items, she has an entire box of magic rocks right there and then simply zap her with the amulet. But she didn’t.. because Violet is a person. When she DOES use it she’s utterly terrified, and we can see her breathing heavy, scared.. something Magica has NEVER been of Lena. To Violet it was just a ghost. Webby hadn’t told her about lena and any information she had about her was second hand from newspapers and the like.

Webby is sympathetic, as Violet’s feeling of being sheltered from this greater world naturally resonates and while Lena is still supscious, having reincorperated, it’s clear Webby trusts violet and simply dosen’t want to loose another friend to magic. Here trying to hide it now takes another tone.. she knows Lena was behind it.. but is so afraid of it consuming violet the way it did Lena, she forgets almost ALL of the weird magic stuff in sleepovers was magica’s manipulation, and that Lena died because her creator was a monster, not because of magic. Magic is not inherently good or bad, it just is, and that will come back as a theme in a few episodes. It allowed Magica to ravage the town and kill Lena.. but it allowed Lena to exist in the first place and while the terrible events with Magica clearly shook her.. it also shook violet out of her complacency and got her to research a world she never would’ve considered. Good can come from bad.

And it’s with this in mind that Violet.. does not give up. She’s stayed in her box enough.. and now she knows the spirit is a friendly one.. she figures they can bring Lena BACK using the amulet. After all it was lena’s and the source of her powers.. it might be the key to reiviving her. And while Lena, if invisibly as always, remarks it’s dangerous.. Webby, with no hesitation agrees to get her girlfriend back. It’s risky sure.. but what Lena hasn’t gotten is she’s WORTH the list. She’s so full of self loathing from both her manupations of webby and Magica’s gaslighting and abuse that she can’t see herself being worth anything even as Webby spent MONTHS trying to save her, clearly still loves her, and only didn’t want violet getting hurt because she misses her. Webby still loves and needs her for who Lena is.. Lena just can’t it and it hurts to think about that.

So the girls once again try to summon Lena and it starts to work.. but also summons the Tulpa’s back... this time taking Magica’s form and causing a suspcious lena to panic.. and suck both of them into the shadow realm. We get the reunion we’ve been waiting for as Webby tackle hugs her happily.

But it’s soon cut short as Lena still thinks Violet is just manipulating Webby, lying to her and that “she’s mine!”

For the record Joss Whedon sucks, not taking that out on Anthony Stewart Head or the guys who actually wrote the episode. Moving on.

I feel Lena’s jealousy comes from the aformentioned self loathing, mixed with a life of having to live just to surivive at the beck and call of a throughly awful person who didn’t consider her a sentient being worthy of anything especially love. She can’t fathom anyone else loving Webby the way she does because she feels once webby has anyone else.. she won’t need her. It’s toxic and wrong.. but it’s easy to see why that’d happen when sh’es only had one healthy relationship. She barely knows the boys, Beakly only grew to tolerate her and she was only friends with Scrooge for like.. a minute. Webby is the only person she knows, loves and trusts and she just can’t risk loosing that and can’t convince herself to share.

In a realistic scenario Lena would have to simply learn to trust and let her girlfriend have other relationshps and that hogging her all to herself is inhernetly toxic and bad. And while she still does we’re talking about a living pile of shadows smooching a clone, so yeah instead the tulpas come out and drag her off..and take Lena’s form. While Lena tries to blame Violet, Violet has absolutley none of that and makes Lena see the hard truth: Lena is so worried about being forgotten, she created the tulpas by accidnet. As I said her power is raw and unfocused.. so she didn’t do it on purpose nor did she realize how toxic she was being. This finally snaps Lena back to reality, and see Violet geniunely cares about Webby and any ulterior motives were just in her head, so the two agree to work together, using a similar chant to the one from Jaws to destroy the Tulpas and save Webby.

So the shadow realm is disapated and our trio are returned to the human world.. but Lena, not being part of it and no longer having a tether.. starts to disolve, with a really heartbreaking scene of Webby holding her hand, as does violet. But.. then a miracle happens. Since the Bracelet was Lena’s link to Webby, and to her own magic, with it and the amulet close by.. both swirl around Lena, and the power of love.. for a new friend and a first love... revivies her. Mist parts.. and we get one heartwarming sign that after all this time “I’m back?!” Lena is confused.. but once again part of this plane of reality. She’s free and WEbby triumphanthly hugs her with Violet joining in. By letting go of her hate.. Lena returned to who she loved. They also run into the end of the other subplot and Launchpad’s casual hey lena is just great.

So our heroes are reunited and doing horror makeup and I really love Webby’s updo here and wish more works fan nd otherwise used it. WE get a final fakeout as Lena seemingly disovles and Violet reveals herself as magica.. only for it to be a prank and Webby to just be glad the love of her life and her new best friend get a long. We get one last hearwarming image and we close out.. with Lena finally having what she always wanted freedom. And while she may not know it yet in accepting violet.. she’s finally found family. More on that in a few weeks.

Final Thoughts: This episode is excellent. It’s not the best of the Lena arc, that comes next and it does drag once or twice.. but overall it’s a really great character piece, with a nice ballance betwen the tense main plot and the funny and goofy subplot. It adds more to Lena’s character, finally brings her back, while giving us a new and throughly fascenating new character to rave about in Violet, as well as giving Webby her own personal squad. It’s a great episode.. and only leads to a better one. But we’ll get to that in a week or so. First we have a bit of a detour and my plug.

If you liked this review, follow for more, spread it around, and join my patreon. It’s almost time for new patreons to pay up and if you hit my stretch goal i’ll review a darkwing duck episode next month and every month! We’re just five bucks away people! And if you’d like to just comission a review directly it’s just 5 bucks an episode and avaliable via my dms, ask or discord.

Next Time on Shadow Into Light: We take a break from the last two Lena episodes to go to one of her sources as we head back to Ducktales 87 with Magica’s Shadow War! I know almost nothing going in so... Shadow betrayals and stuff? Yay?

Tommorow: It’s Fenton’s birthday! And since i’ve done a LOT of ducktales recently and can’t do super ducktales till I hit my next stretch goal at 25 bucks, we’re going back to ST Canard at long last for Gizmoducks second apperance.. which can’t possibly be worse than the first so i’m excited. Let’s get dangerous tommorow!

#lena sabrewing #webby vanderquack #ducktales #weblena #violet sabrewing #shadow into light #friendship hates magic #great title by the way #bentina beakley #launchpad mcquack #darkwing duck

43 notes · View notes

votederpycausemufins · 3 years

Text

I finally know how this thing is going to end, but it might go over 30 chapters. Whoops! This chapter could also be longer, but I wanted a bit of a cliffhanger.

@petrichormeraki @helleborusangel

“That isn’t fair! I found him so you have to keep up your end of the deal!” Grifter yelled at Death, but he barely reacted.

“That wasn’t the agreement.”

“The agreement was I was supposed to find out what happened to Theseus, and I did that! He kidnapped the wels version of his admin and revived Nightmare and it backfired. He screwed up and you wanted to know how he was doing, so I brought him here so he wouldn’t fucking die without you around. So, now you know what happened, how he’s doing, and I kept him safe. That’s like, three times what you wanted. Now uncurse my husband or you won’t be death anymore.”

Death glared at Grifter. “I thought you said you weren’t after that.”

“I said I wasn’t going to try and kill you for your power because now I have Sense, but if you cursed him so I can’t easily be around him, that’s gone. If you’re not planning to reverse the curse, then I’m going to get something out of it.” Grifter smiled at then pulled out a crossbow. “Now, you’re going to uncurse Sense, or you won’t be around much longer.”

“You still need to finish your end of the bargain.”

Grifter froze, his brain trying to comprehend what had been said before he growled in anger. “We just fucking covered I already did and more! I don’t need to do anything more!”

“Part of it was making sure Theseus was safe. You haven’t done that. He may have moved to a new dimension, but he refuses to officially unlink himself from Nightmare’s world. Nightmare, in his hubris, has decided to try and claim his wels dimension world in his current revived state. I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen if he fails, and at this point, he will.”

“So I need to keep the bastards alive, sure. Is that all?” Grifter sneered, crossing his arms.

“Not quite.I would prefer Nightmare dead, but no one will take his title, so Theseus will just try again with no one stopping him.” Death explained. “Listeners are quite powerful on their own and can link worlds, so you wouldn’t lose Sense, but I’m sure your kids would love to meet their family.”

Grifter rolled his eyes. “Like they would want to meet Wile and Euro. They’re only still alive since you keep them from dying. They’re too cowardly to do anything right.” Death glared at Grifter, who scoffed. “Fine, whatever. I guess they might like Fleur and Sadie. At the very least trying setting it up for me while I’m gone. I’m gonna be busy backing up the wels world before I do anything.”

“I can agree to that.”

“Oh, and can you pause the curse while I deal with Nightmare? It might be the only chance for us to do something so fun and I don’t want to miss out on that opportunity.”

Death glared before answering. “If you stop on your job, it’ll kill him, but sure, I can do that.”

“That’s great!” Grifter smiled, bouncing a little. “I’ll just make a little stop and then I’ll start! See you soon enough!” He started to walk off, but then paused to turn back to death slightly. “Oh, and remember to warn Euro. We don’t want him exploding again!”

The moment Grian was in the SMP, he started using his Watcher magic to look around. At the very least, it didn’t look like Grifter was around. It should have been obvious with his name not on the comms list, but if he had messed with the list before, he could have done it again. Fortunately that wasn’t the case.

Next he did what he could to find Grum, which was pretty easy. Grian already had a bit of tracking for Grum on his comm, and while before it wouldn’t have been enough to really help in another world, the fact that he could also track Watcher energy made it work. He was a little concerned that it felt weak, but he hadn’t really noticed it in the past, so likely Grum didn’t have much in the first place.

Either way, he knew where Grum was now, so he started flying that way. Grian wasn’t sure exactly what he would find there, so he got his sword ready for the worst case scenario. When he landed at the quartz mansion, he tried to be as quiet as possible. Peeking through a window, he couldn’t see anyone around, which was concerning. At least the demon should have still been there. This was his home, wasn’t it?

“Hey, what are we doing at the window?” someone spoke as they stood behind Grian, making the avian’s wings puff up before he whirled around and pointed the sword at.

“Wil? Is that you?”

“Hi Xel! I haven’t seen you in ages. Though other than Phil and Techno, I haven’t really seen anyone for a while. I was sort of trapped in Te-” Wilbur started rambling before Grian clamped a hand over his mouth.

“I don’t need to hear all of that. Where is everyone?” Grian asked before slowly pulling his hand away.

“Right! Well Dream showed up again, though he’s a bit different. Dad went after him along with the others and they haven’t shown back up yet. Well, I mean, Tommy and Techno are still here.”

Grian looked at the building. “Techno’s here?! But Grum’s supposed to be here!”

“You mean the robot kid? He’s okay. I’ve barely seen him, even as a ghost.”

Grian didn’t bother to keep listening, moving into the house. Techno was supposed to be a great fighter, so the only upperhand Grian might get is taking him by surprise, which was pretty much all he had the last two times. But those two times might have been enough for the warrior to get his tells. That would make it risky and-

“I’m not his unc- did you just take a picture.”

“Yeah, say that again when I don’t have this photo.”

“Delete it before I make you delete it.”

“Whoops, too late. I already sent it to Tubbo! Maybe now you’ll be able to watch Michael.”

“Why would I want that?”

“Cause he’s a piglin too? And not like it’ll ruin your image now Technosoft.”

“Tommy…”

“Ah ah ah, you might wake Grum up!”

Grian slowly opened the door to find Tommy awake and chilling on his bed, just messing around with his comm. Techno was standing nearby with Grum asleep in his arms, plugged into the charger. Grian wanted to rush in, but his first thought was that if he did anything, it would be easy for Techno to do something to Grum.

“You think I would care about that?” Techno asked after rolling his eyes.

“Bitch, this kid might affectionately beat the anarchy out of you. You’re gonna be the favorite uncle whether you like it or not.”

Techno grumbled, but didn’t actively try to refute it, especially when Grum stirred slightly, snuggling up closer to the piglin. It made Grian hesitate. They had gone through a lot these past few days. And for Grum it had been around a month. While he wasn’t a fan of Grum being near Techno right now, he didn’t really want to disturb him while he looked so peaceful.

Tommy and Techno both looked up when Grian lightly knocked on the door. “Hey Tommy. How’d you get here before me?”

“Heeey Big G. Pretty sure Grum fixed whatever was wrong with me and that brought me here. He did the same for Wilbur and he’s outside.”

“He acts a bit more like Ghostbur did if you ask me.” Techno huffed, adjusting Grum in his arms.

Grian shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen him in ages. Did see him outside though.” He then sighed and looked to Techno. “You haven’t done anything to Grum, have you?”

Techno managed not to flinch when the eyes glaring at him glinted a dangerous purple color. “Of course not. I even helped him out earlier.” He answered, kicking Tommy when he whispered another ‘Technosoft’ at that.

Grum whined a little when the piglin moved, and Grian took that as an opportunity to take Grum into his own arms. The bot stirred a little, but still stayed asleep, making Grian furrow his brows. “He’s asleep…”

“Yeah, and?” Techno asked, crossing his arms. He didn’t know what was so surprising about that, but next to him, Tommy did.

“Grum doesn’t sleep. Neither of the boys do. I mean not really. They have a sleep mode, but that’s not really like actual sleeping.” Grian explained. “Here… let me test something.” He checked Grum’s power reading before unplugging the bot. They all waited a few minutes in silence before Grian checked again, eyes widening. “He’s charging himself.”

“What the fuck?! Really?!” Tommy shouted, though not loud enough to wake Grum. “How did that happen?!”

Grian shrugged, almost at a loss for words. “I… I don’t know. I didn’t think something like this was possible. I mean… I’ll look into it more later… but now really isn’t the best time.”

“You know, I wonder if it’s got something to do with their hels versions. When I was still stuck over there with Grifter, he said their versions of the bots weren’t built.”

“How does-” “Fundy.” “Right, nevermind.” Techno huffed, finally pulling a chair over and sitting down. “Well I have no clue how that place works, so for all we know, that’s what did it.”

Grian shook his head. “No, I doubt it. Normally hels is affected by us, not the other way around. The Listeners developed after the Watchers, Helscraft has fewer seasons than us. Theseus wasn’t in Helscraft until a while after Tommy joined us.”

“Yeah, but they had their kids back when they were in their previous season.” Tommy piped up. “There was no way for them to make them after you build Grum and Jrum since Grifter was stuck in their season four. For all we know, it works both ways.” Grian rubbed his chin, thinking about it, but then he suddenly started looking around, wings flared out.

“What’s wrong?” Techno piped up, but the most he got in terms of an answer was Grum being handed to him again. The bot stirred a bit more, actually waking up this time. Before anyone could say something more, the world shuddered and a wave of green light suddenly passed through them. “What was that?”

“World backup. Watchers will do that sometimes, but it’s never noticeable.” Grian quickly explained, drawing his weapon.

“Then why the fuck did we notice that?” Tommy asked, a bit concerned.

“Because.” Grian turned around, wings shifting colors. “Green magic is what Listeners use.”

The_Grifter joined the world

PerfectSense joined the world

Grifter pulled Sense in close to him before sending out a ring of lit tnt that exploded around them. It was powerful enough it made the ground shake and rumble which just made the Listener smile more. “Oh Seesee! Look over there! A castle! Let’s go over there!”

“That sounds good to me.” Sense replied, picking Grifter up bridal style and walking towards Pride Palace. He had a little trouble getting through the newly formed rubble, but before long they were at the gates. Someone in a crown and sunglasses tried to approach them, but Sense quickly pulled out a death ray and shot them with it.

They reached the throne room and Sense set Grifter down. The Listener ran over to the throne and stood on it, a giant smile on his face. “I’m king of the castle! I’m king of the castle! Oh! Do you think there’s one just like this in the hels world?”

Sense chuckled. “Probably not exactly like this. And that’s if it isn’t rubble.”

Grifter pouted and fell down onto the throne to sit. “I guess that’s true. Well, when we leave I can throw some puzzle blocks together for this place to bring it over. Then we can make some improvements.”

“Why not start with them now?” Sense asked, shrugging with a little smile, which Grifter matched with his own grin. Sense tossed an axe to Grifter, who turned the pink metal more of a viridian. “Now, I suppose I’ll have to find someplace to sit.”

“While I would love to offer you a lovely seat up here, the throne will unfortunately have to do. I need to make sure Nightmare comes here.” And Grifter got up, summoning a communicator made entirely out of magic. “But I’m sure he won’t want to waste time, so you won’t need to wait too long.”

Sense moved to stand behind Grifter, putting his head on the Listener’s shoulder and looking at the comm. “Hmm, looks like Tommy’s here. He was the other version of Theseus, right?”

“Oh yes he was. I’m sure Nightmare would be much more convinced if we had him with us. He wouldn’t want Theseus dying by proxy, now would he? And it’s not like he knows I need bitch boy alive.”

“Have I ever told you how hot you are when you scheme like this?”

“Mmm, tell me again.” Grifter leaned back before a noise from his comm made him look back. “Hmm, seems we have a slight change of plans. Looks like Grian’s trying to interfere. Can you hold down the fort while I make a mess of things?”

“Of course. Have fun my darling.” Sense replied before letting Grifter go, the Listener using magic to quickly shift back to looking exactly like Grian, even changing the appearance of his wings. Sense held out a bucket filled with water and lined with soul sand which Grifter tossed an enderpearl into. The scientist put the bucket next to the throne before sitting down on it, watching as Grifter created an exit for himself and flew off.

#hermit!tommy au #hermit!tommy #helsmits #helscraft #hels!grian #hels!Philza #grian #watcher!grian #grian xelqua #avian!Grian #tommyinnit #technoblade #wilbur soot #ghostbur #grumbot #hels!Mumbo

24 notes · View notes

mspufflehuff · 3 years

Text

Surprise!

Pairing: Gadreel x Winchester!plus size!reader, mentions of Castiel x Dean

Summary: Gadreel finds you knitting in the bunker while listening to music. He finds out you’re making a blanket for a baby. Who’s baby are you making it for though is the question.

Word Count:

Warnings: Implied smut that happened before time in fanfic, established relationship between Gadreel and reader, some angst, mentions of abortion, mentions of death, some cursing

Masterlist!!

Author’s Note: Spoilers for season 8 of Supernatural!! Proofread by Grammarly (shoutout to grammarly), almost all of these fanfics are things I’ve thought of myself before I go to bed at night. Except the Steve Rogers fanfic, someone gave me that idea for the fanfic. Spoilers!! In this fanfic, Kevin is still alive. Gadreel didn’t kill Kevin. I hope everyone who reads this has a great day!

It was an off day for everyone in the bunker. Most of the time, you had to be researching something going on with your brothers or researching to find the next case. Today was different for everyone. Today, everyone could relax and have a calm day in the bunker. You had cooked breakfast for everyone who was staying in the bunker at the time. Kevin had gotten breakfast and went to his room in the bunker after pulling another all-nighter from researching something.

After everyone had gotten their breakfast, you set on cleaning around the bunker. It needed some cleaning as Sam and Dean wouldn’t do it as they picked researching more than cleaning the bunker, which is now your home. You regularly got on your brother’s asses for how they don’t help you clean. Aside from nagging at them, you always had a sweet angel who wouldn’t mind helping you clean around the bunker even though he could snap and the bunker would be clean. Gadreel. He was always there to lend you a hand if you needed anything at all.

Well, today was different. Gadreel had gone with Castiel to help out the other angels in Heaven. You and Gadreel had been dating for close to a year now. It was coming up on your anniversary with Gadreel, and decided to start on a little project for his present. After cleaning a fair bit of the bunker, you made your way to your shared room with Gadreel. You sat down in a chair in the corner of your shared room, picking up a ball of yarn and knitting needles. You put on your headphones and turned on your favorite band, All Time Low. You played Dear Maria, Count Me In as you started your knitting.

*Time Skip*

It had been a few hours since you started your knitting project, and Gadreel had made it back with Castiel. As Gadreel and Cas told Dean and Sam a little about how everything went, Gadreel noticed you weren’t in the war room. He looked around for you with a confused look, tilting his head like a curious puppy. “She’s in her room.” Sam told Gadreel, not looking up from his book. Gadreel nodded and walked past a cuddling Dean and Castiel to get to your shared room. As he made his way to your shared room, he could hear some soft singing. He walked closer, standing in front of the door to your room. Gadreel could hear the words, “I wanna be your lost boy, your last chance. A better reality, yeah…” He smiled and quietly opened the door to find you sat in the same chair.

You hadn’t noticed Gadreel yet, still working on the knitting project you started hours ago. You were smiling as you sang and kept knitting. Gadreel could tell you were knitting what seemed to be a blanket in a thick pastel yellow yarn. Gadreel got closer, quietly walking up to you. You soon noticed his figure getting closer, smiling brighter at him. You took off your headphones and paused your music. “Hi my angel.” You gave him a happy smile and put your knitting in your lap. “How did everything in Heaven go?” You asked, watching his face. “It went fine. Heaven is doing good since Metatron left and since Hannah is in charge. What are you doing?” He nods towards your blanket you were knitting.

“Oh I’m knitting something! I decided since there are days when I don’t have any cases to go on, I would take up a hobby and learn a new skill. So I chose knitting!” You smiled and picked up your needles, continuing with your knitting. “Who are you making this blanket for?” “A baby.” You replied calmly as you continued to work on the blanket. Gadreel sat on the floor in front of you. “A baby? Who’s baby?” He asked you, confused and with a soft tilt in his head. “That’s a surprise.” You teased and smiled happily.

After you gave him that answer, you wouldn’t answer the rest of the questions he had for you. Since you wouldn’t answer his questions, he went to ask your brothers, Castiel, and maybe Kevin if he knew. He was trying to rack his brain for a person you may know that was having a baby. You and Gadreel had an open and honest relationship and would tell each other everything, from deep dark secrets to something as simple as if either of you were jealous of someone staring at the other person.

Gadreel knew you had a close relationship with your brothers, so maybe you had told Sam or Dean something about this baby. “A baby? Who’s having a baby?” Dean asked Gadreel, sounding as confused as Gadreel. “I do not know. That is why I came to ask you. I thought she may have told you or someone here in the bunker.” Gadreel explained to Dean, after getting nothing from Dean, he was off to ask Sam. Just like Dean, Sam didn’t know anything either. He soon asked Castiel if he knew anything to do with a baby. “I’m sorry, Gadreel. I do not know. I suggest asking Kevin. Y/N has been hanging out with him since she is here in the bunker with Kevin while we are on cases.” Castiel told him, making his way to the shelves to find lore books for a case.

Gadreel walked around the bunker, trying to find Kevin. He seemed to be having trouble finding Kevin as he usually was in his room. Kevin was nowhere to be found at the moment. Gadreel soon heard whispering as he got closer to a door at the end of the hall. He got closer, hearing your voice say something in a hushed tone. He then heard Kevin reply something back in an equally hushed tone. After standing there at the door and listening to you and Kevin converse, the door started to open. Gadreel widened his eyes and flew to your shared room so either you or Kevin wouldn’t see him.

After he flew to your shared room, he stood in front of the bed. He stood there, thinking about what you would be doing in a random room with Kevin. He started having doubts about your relationship and if you were going to leave him for Kevin. He knew he wasn’t perfect like the other angels in Heaven, but he tried so hard to be perfect for you. Of course, you had told him countless times that you didn’t want him to be perfect; you wanted him to be himself. But, now he was worried those were words you were telling him to shut him up. He knew he had to talk with you, scared of your relationship ending soon.

As he turned to walk out of your shared room, you opened the door to your room. “Oh Gadreel!” You jumped a little, not expecting him to be there, and quickly gave a smile. “I didn’t know you were in here.” You noticed his face and dropped your smile instantly. He watched your face turn into worry and concern. “Angel, what’s wrong?” You asked, taking his hands in yours. He sighed and looked down at you. “Y/N, do you want to break up with me?” “What?? Gadreel, where is this question coming from?” You looked at him in shock and blinked a few times at his question. “I heard you and Kevin talking in a random room. I didn’t hear anything said, but I heard you both talking, and it sounded like you both wanted the conversation to be quiet. I understand if you wish to break up with me, Y/N. I only wish you and Kevin the best of luck in your relationship.” He moved past you, starting to walk out of the room. Your mouth was gaped open as you watched him walk out of your room.

You were so confused at his words and soon thought back to your conversation with Kevin. As you thought about your conversation with Kevin, Gadreel had made his way to the war room to tell your brothers and Castiel that he would be leaving the bunker. Gadreel soon walked into the war room, making his way over to Sam, telling him it was a pleasure to work with him and if he ever needs him, to pray for him and he will come at his call. Sam watched Gadreel with confusion but nodded and told him he wishes him the best. Everyone knew you and Gadreel had been dating but wasn’t sure what was going on.

“Gadreel!!” You yelled throughout the bunker, soon running into the war room. You grabbed Gadreel’s hand before he could walk over to Castiel and Dean. You panted lightly, standing there so you could catch your breath. “Gadreel, I’m not breaking up with you. I would never break up with you. Gadreel, you have treated me so kindly since we’ve met and since we got together. I could never leave you for someone else. I always get scared you’ll leave me for someone else as I’m just a plain hunter.” You told Gadreel, tearing welling up in your eyes. Gadreel looked at you and cupped your face, wiping your tears as they fell down your cheeks. “Why would I leave you, Y/N? You’ve treated so well even with you knowing of my history and what I’ve done.” You chuckled softly and kissed Gadreel’s palm. “Gadreel, I was talking with Kevin because he was helping me plan for our first anniversary.” You told Gadreel, holding his hands in yours. “Oh... but why were you two whispering?” You sighed and pulled something out of your pocket. You opened Gadreel’s hand, placing a small strip of pictures in his hand. “Gadreel… I’m pregnant.”

Hey everyone!! I’m sorry this is a cliffhanger. I was thinking of writing out the full fanfic, but I kept thinking and decided to see if you guys wanted a part two to this fanfic. If I get enough requests to make a part 2, I’ll make one and maybe even a little series. If this gets a lot of requests that people like it, Ill make a mini series. I hope you guys like it as much as I do. ❤ -Savannah

#gadreel x plus size reader #gadreel #plus size reader #supernatural #winchester!reader

50 notes · View notes

emerald-valkyrie · 3 years

Text

So, I finally finished Vikings and... well, that was a thing.

Below are just my thoughts on some things. If you haven’t finished or watched the last half of the series, don’t read this, spoilers ahead.

Most of the season was meh, but in my opinion, the moment Ragnar died everything, all the writing and the plots and just everything about this show became meh. Sure the first episode of 6B was... fine, Bjorn’s death was kind of cool, but like did they need to drag it out for a whole episode instead of just finishing 6A with it? That would have fit much better instead of leaving us with a “cliffhanger.” And yeah, there were moments throughout the season that were... goodish, Floki coming back and his little home and the tree carvings depicting the Viking story in North America (Ragnar’s death tree was breathtaking) was beautiful and probably my favourite bit of the whole season. But then everything else was just... meh. Like, there were so many storylines/plot lines being wrapped up, introduction of new characters just to help finish said plot lines, there just never seemed to be a definitive ending/end goal in sight. Not to mention the absolute butchering of characters *cough* Gunnhild *cough* Erik *cough.*

And yeah, granted the show did manage to actually finish off all the plot lines relatively okay and not too rushed, I can’t say I was ever satisfied by any of it. The whole Rus plot line really should have just been wrapped up in 6A, it didn’t need to be dragged on for a season and a half. The Iceland/Greenland/North America storyline ended, but I wasn’t satisfied one bit by it. The Kattegat storyline (if you can really call it that) was not overly satisfying, though it was nice to see a former slave woman end up being the Queen, with possibly her lover by her side too (who also happened to be a former slave woman as well). The Wessex plot was... well, I don’t necessarily think that needed to happen per say, but that was the one storyline that felt rushed and not properly fleshed out (maybe if they hadn’t spent so long on the Rus plot like they did, they could have given this plot some more thought). None of it left me feeling satisfied or happy in the end, just meh.

In regards to the Kattegat storyline; that could have been done better. Gunnhild could should have been Queen of Kattegat in my opinion; even though she no longer had her and Bjorn’s child, she still could have carried on the name of Lagertha (lol that she literally only had a two second scene and maybe one or two name mentions in the final season) and Bjorn. And even if they went with her not being Queen, Ingrid is an interesting character to be named Queen. She’s a former slave and now she’s a Queen and her potential lover or at least left hand is also a former slave woman too. But, they butchered Erik’s character and withered him down into just a power hungry man to do so. Don’t get me wrong, Erik’s death at the hand of a woman he sold off into slavery is poetic justice. But, in the small little bit that we got of Erik, he really didn’t seem like a power hungry “I will do anything to be King” character. His dissent into the power hungry type was so quick and sudden it makes zero sense. I’m okay with the end result of Ingrid being the Queen of Kattegat in the end, I just wish it was done and handled much better than what it was.

Ivar’s death somehow managed to move me and make me feel sad, something I never felt for Bjorn which is really sad. I was not a fan of Ivar’s whatsoever, and it’s laughable that he literally got Julius Caesar-ed in battle. Ivar “warging” into the Vikings around him before he was stabbed was probably the only badass/awesome thing I’ve seen Ivar do in the whole series. But what got me was the little brother dying in the arms of his older brother and saying, “I am afraid,” just before he died. The idea of Bjorn’s death was beautiful, a King dying before his people, bringing them all together to fight against the Rus and defeat them as one; beautiful, honestly something Ragnar would be proud of I think. But... like... he gets stabbed in some weird vision thing by Ivar at the end of 6A, and the result of that wound gets dragged out for all of the first episode of 6B only for Bjorn to sit atop his horse, shot four times by a Rus, raises his sword with his last bit of strength and then dies as the Viking army rushes forward to fight the Rus; a battle we don’t even get to really see and it’s done in 15 seconds tops. If they had shortened the amount of time the build up was, gave us some flashbacks of Bjorn’s life as he’s getting shot by each of the four arrows and then, with the overlap of a speech by Ragnar (I’m sure there’s one that would fit that setting), Bjorn lifts the Sword of Kings and the battle starts... that would have been more moving. Have the battle go on in front of Bjorn as he’s slowly dying on his horse for a few minutes (which in reality would really only be a few seconds on the battlefield) and then cut to Hvitserk saying his speech as Bjorn dies, that, that would have been much more moving and touching; add Lagertha and Ragnar calling for Bjorn as the Sword of Kings slips from his fingers and Bjorn’s children calling out for their father as the sword finally falls, signalling Bjorn finally leaving this world and going to Valhalla, god that would have had me in an ocean of tears. Not to mention, I found it really weird that it was Hvitserk to say the final battle speech thing about Bjorn; it really should have been Ubbe since I do feel like Ubbe was closer to Bjorn than Hvitserk or Ivar were to Bjorn. I get that for story purposes and the placement of where the characters were at the time, Hvitserk was the obvious choice between him or Ivar doing so, but that speech would have made more of an impact from Ubbe instead of Hvitserk, at least personally for me it would have.

Then we have Gunnhild. This badass Viking woman who was a kickass shield-maiden but was also just a woman. She had the makings of a very interesting story in what little background we got of her, and she would have made an excellent Queen of Kattegat and even Queen of Norway; she was a good leader and would have done well for the people. But then they reduced her to simply, literally, only being a love interest for Bjorn. This kickass shield-maiden literally strips naked - FOR NO REASON - at the wedding of Harald and Ingrid - after saying that she cannot marry Harald as well because she is still married to Bjorn, still loves him, her heart still belongs to him - and then jumps into the water by Kattegat, swims out into the open water and then gives up? Sinks under the water and we’re left to her drowning to reunite with her love. I’ll admit, I’m genuinely surprised we didn’t get any actual look at Gunnhild’s naked body (outside of a butt shot), but she literally didn’t need to strip naked to jump into the water. She also didn’t need to give up on life because Bjorn is dead. No where in any episode that she was in, gives us the idea that that is the kind of character and person she is. They ruined her character and instead of giving her a meaningful death in battle as a shield-maiden or just letting her live out the rest of her damn life for once, they just outright have her pull a Juliet and kill her self by drowning; kind of pulling a Siggy. So dumb and yet, somehow predictable that Vikings ruined yet another female character.

Even though I was done with Harald like two seasons ago, his death was actually really nice. Totally out of nowhere by that one Wessex soldier seemingly knowing he was in the forest, just wandering around alone, but Halfdan showing up? Giving Harald strength to kill the soldier and then die singing their song together? Halfdan leading Harald to Valhalla? That was beautiful. That was actually really nice.

My other big problem: Hvitserk. Hvitserk, Hvitserk, Hvitserk. You give us this relatively nice scene of Hvitserk sitting beside Ivar’s grave in Wessex saying goodbye, talking about how he’s looking forward to reuniting with Ivar in Valhalla and implying how Hvitserk is looking forward to fighting alongside Ivar (and I’m assuming Bjorn, Sigurd, Lagertha, Ragnar and the other Viking warriors and Gods in Valhalla) against the Christian God, “The skies are darkening, we’ve all seen it, we know what’s coming” (or something along those lines)... like, that’s so beautiful? That’s Hvitserk being a true Viking, talking about Valhalla, looking forward to dining in Odin’s Halls with his brother and friends and family and then fighting in the great battle against this new Christian God... the imagery of it all is beautiful and moving. AND THEN THE NEXT SCENE OF HVITSERK IS HIM BEING BAPTIZED IN WESSEX!? ON TOP OF THAT HIS CHRISTIAN NAME IS ATHELSTAN!? Are you kidding me!? That’s so out of left field!!! Where’s the context? Where’s the reasoning? What is the reasoning? It literally makes absolutely no damn sense. Hvitserk was done so dirty by this (not that I was a huge fan of his in the end). You set him up as having this actually nice ending, you could have just left his fate to be unknown, up to the fans to decide if he gets to live in Wessex or given the chance to peacefully return to Kattegat with the rest of the Viking warriors. But no. Instead you absolutely butcher his character and his ending and have him be baptized to “follow in Ragnar’s footsteps” when Ragnar and Rollo and Ubbe were all baptized, but for a reason, a reason that for all three made relative sense. Just stupid. By having Hvitserk convert to Christianity and be baptized, you’ve all but sealed Hvitserk’s fate to never enter and dine in the Halls of Valhalla alongside his brother and father (I personally believe that in the end Ragnar went to Valhalla, I know Travis believes otherwise) and others. You’ve all but denied Hvitserk of living out his final words to Ivar. (Even though Ragnar was baptized his final words lead me to believe he never gave up on Odin and the Gods. Yes, we know nothing about Hvitserk converting and if he gave up on Odin or if he was just converting in an odd twist of survival or whatever, but this is just my opinion).

They build up the title Sons of Ragnar throughout the series, especially after Ragnar dies but really, this is what they all come down to:

Bjorn: followed his father’s footsteps by exploring other lands, becoming King of Kattegat, partially because of other people’s actions, but ultimately it was what he wanted (if I remember right.) In the end, he ultimately died by his brother Ivar’s hands in battle (Ivar’s wound would have killed him eventually, the four arrows shot into him by the Rus archer just sped up the process.) Died as King of Norway, though the title is controversial since Harald was still alive at the time.

Ubbe: also tried to follow in his father’s footsteps by also exploring other lands and trying to be a farmer. Tries to carry out Ragnar’s dream of farming in Wessex but that fails. Travels to Iceland and then Greenland and then arriving in North America, exploring lands no one has been to before, just like Ragnar. Is successful in those travels, but ultimately the North American journey ends in technical failure when the First Nations people say the Vikings couldn’t stay (that’s my interpretation of it, please someone correct me if I’m wrong in that.) Ubbe lives, but is the king of nothing (the Seer said he’d be king one day), has no known home now, and the last we see of him he’s sitting on a beach with Floki, who will ultimately die soon.

Hvitserk: really didn’t do too much, but also never really expressed any wishes to carry on Ragnar’s legacy (if I remember right). He dicked around, killed Lagertha in the most stupid and ridiculous way (fulfilling the Seer’s prophecy). Will admit, he did kick some major ass in battle against the people of Wessex in the end, and was overall a fairly decent warrior, but leaves behind his older brother Ubbe, who cared for him and about him and gave a damn just to spend the next few years with Ivar who treated him like shit. “I want to be my own person. I don’t want to live in Ubbe’s shadow my whole life,” only to then live in Ivar’s shadow essentially. Hvitserk lives, but converts to Christianity, “following” in both Ragnar and Rollo’s footsteps and is then given the Christian name Athelstan.

Sigurd: didn’t do too much, aside from antagonize Ivar by calling him out on his shit and didn’t really follow in his father’s footsteps; though was never really given the chance to voice any desire or wish to potentially do so. Died by Ivar’s hand, literally.

Ivar: tried to live up to his father’s last words to him, messed up a lot of things including all of his relationships with his brothers save somehow Hvitserk even though he treated him horribly all because he wanted to get revenge on Lagertha for killing Aslaug and then the people of Wessex for killing Ragnar and then... because that’s all his character has been reduced to now is just to keep pushing his brothers away in his quest for power; “Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst. And corrupts the best.” Died by sacrificing himself, so to speak, in Hvitserk’s place in battle by tribute to Julius Caesar.

I don’t know really what my end goal for this Sons of Ragnar thing is, but I am left feeling horribly underwhelmed by them and their stories in the end. I wasn’t expecting all of them, if any of them really, to survive the series, but I did expect more from them all in the end. And if not more, than I at least expected to be moved more by their deaths or actions in the final season.

I do think the show should have ended after Ragnar’s death and the Sons avenging his death by bringing the Viking army to Wessex and blood eagling King Ælle, because like I said earlier, after his death I felt like the show, the writing and the characters became meh, but for the sake of the finale, I do wish they’d have finished it differently and I have two ideas for it too.

Ending One: Ubbe looks over at Floki on the beach after they talked and then the camera cuts to Floki smiling. The camera then cuts back to Ubbe, only it’s not Ubbe. It’s actually Old Ragnar who’s smiling back at Floki. Floki then smiles wider and does his little funny chuckle and then we see their silhouettes illuminated by the setting sun. The small silhouette of a Viking ship can be seen on the horizon. Fade to black screen. End of series. (The show ends with the two best friends who really started everything off. Implies Floki did build that boat Ragnar was hounding him for in death and implies Ragnar and Floki sailed off to Valhalla.)

Ending Two: Floki has just finished talking about how Ragnar never leaves him alone and is always asking him to build a new boat. Ubbe smiles a sad smile. His father Ragnar really would do that. Floki and Ubbe are silent save for the sounds of the waves upon the shore. The silence is broken by Floki tilting his head to his left and then letting out his strange little chuckle. Ubbe asks Floki what he was laughing at and Floki just chuckles again, says nothing and stares into the sunset. Screen fades to black. Screen brightens again to a lush green forest. A lake comes into view as the camera pans to the left. A wooden dock comes into view, a small cabin can be seen nearby, the makings of a wooden boat sits on stilts beside and behind the cabin. Sitting at the end of the dock are young Floki and next to him? Young Ragnar, talking about building a boat to take them across uncharted waters. (The end calls back to a scene that I’m pretty sure happened in the first season, or would at least a call back to the beginning of it all and again, how everything happened because of the friendship and bond of Ragnar and Floki.)

Either one would have been more emotional and more fitting of an ending to the series than... whatever we got; both of them are an actual, definitive ending and not a mix of the beginnings of one really. All in all, the final season really was just meh. I wasn’t expecting a lot, expected a lot less with how my friends reacted to it and told me not to even bother, so my expectations were alarmingly low and really, the final season met my low expectations. I’m happy the show is finally over, I just wish it ended better. Though who am I kidding? TV shows rarely get a good ending anymore.

#vikings #personal opinion #vikings review #vikings 6b #vikings 6x20 #personal review #text #ragnar lothbrok #bjorn ironside #ubbe ragnarsson #hvitserk #sigurd #ivar the boneless #Floki #harald finehair #gunnhild #gunnhild vikings

27 notes · View notes

allhailthemightyquattro · 3 years

Text

Laura’s Deckerstar Fic Recs (Part 18)

You can find the complete list (minus rec notes) at my Ao3 Bookmark page.

Disclaimer: These recs have no real ranking and are simply being shared in the order in which I bookmarked them. And just because I say more about some than I do others, does not mean that those fics are “better” or that I like them more.

Red-Handed by Storycat9

Rating: Not Rated Status: Complete Word Count: 3,495 (1 chapter) Author’s Summary: The Devil is not in the habit of forgiveness. Returning to the LAPD is not the same as forgiving the Detective. While he wouldn’t admit it to himself or Dr. Linda, Lucifer knows that working with the Detective also allows him to see to her punishment.

Rec Notes: This is one of my favourite examples of season 4 angst. It has a very in-character Lucifer trying to “punish” Chloe by flaunting his relationship with Eve and it fits into canon perfectly. And despite all the angst, the author still manages to effortlessly slip in a family fun day with Lucifer, Chloe and Trixie which highlights the fact that Lucifer very much still loves Chloe and is punishing himself just as much as he is her.

P.S. Although this fic is part of a series, it can easily be read as a stand alone as there aren’t any direct references to its prequel at all.

To All The Griefs I Left Behind by Pokimoko

Rating: Teen Status: Complete Word Count: 44,300 (10 chapters) Author’s Summary: It's been weeks since Lucifer returned from Hell, and Chloe couldn't be happier. They are together and—after so many years of ups and downs—everything is finally perfect. Even if the world seems a bit weirder than usual. Even if the ghosts of Lucifer's past are coming back to haunt him. Even if Chloe feels like she's losing her mind. But it's fine. It's all fine.

Rec Notes: Another angsty one. And I mean really angsty. This is a good one if you are in the mood to cry. It is also highly underrated so I implore you to give it a go and show the author some love.

The Royal Treatment by elleflies

Rating: Mature Status: WIP (last update: 3 March 2021) Word Count: 40,812 (6/9 chapters) Author’s Summary: Chloe and Lucifer aren’t married, but try telling that to the supernatural community of Los Angeles and the infernal plane full of demons ecstatic to see their boss finally tied down, literally or otherwise.

Rec Notes: This is a fake married fic unlike any other. For a start, it’s set when Lucifer is back in Hell after the season 4 finale, so he and Chloe don’t even interact (or at least, they haven’t yet). The fake marriage is the result of a prank by Maze in which she fakes documents, making it seem that Chloe and Lucifer are legally married. Word gets around and before Chloe has a chance to sort things out, the supernatural community starts calling her the Queen of Hell and she sorta has to roll with it. And down in Hell, the demons also learn of the “marriage” and are very eager to throw Lucifer bachelor parties and create gifts for their new Queen, so he too goes along with the rumour. Both Chloe and Lucifer are unaware of what the other is dealing with, and it creates some great parallels.

As hinted at in the summary, this fic has heaps of different mythical creatures (including vampires, pixies and Fae) but they don’t eclipse the story - it’s still very much Deckerstar centric - so don’t worry if you aren’t too into that sort of thing.

Time’s Up by HiroMyStory

Rating: Teen Status: Complete Word Count: 2,025 (1 chapter) Author’s Summary: Lucifer is dying. Chloe will do anything to save him.

Rec Notes: This one isn’t actually in the "Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar” tag... but it’s close enough so I’m still including it in my rec list. It is an alternate take on the season 4 episode “Expire Erect” and it has all the angst and whump you would expect. But its most unique feature is its open-ended ending. It’s so good that I simultaneously want to read a sequel and leave the fic exactly how it is. (Though I actually have started writing a sequel to it which, if I finish it, I might ask the author for permission to post.)

Believer by JCBeckett

Rating: Not Rated Status: WIP (last update: 2 March 2021) Word Count: 129,783 (17/? chapters) Author’s Summary: There are three things Chloe Decker knows: One, she is in love with the Devil. Two, the Devil loves her back (even if he hasn’t said it yet). And three, “celestial craziness” doesn’t even begin to cover what she’s gotten herself into.

Picks up right after the cliffhanger in 5A. Fluff, angst, and shameless amounts of Deckerstar within.

Rec Notes: This is a post-season 5a fic and it incorporates the few behind the scenes details we have been given about season 5b and then carries on to its own action-packed story. It’s super-angsty but balances it out by giving us small break with fluff and humour. I also love the focus on Chloe and Lucifer’s relationship and how they are still dealing with insecurities but ultimately know that they are better together.

P.S. This fic does have ties with the comics but you don’t have to have read them to understand the story (I haven’t read them, and it hasn't affected my enjoyment of the fic in the slightest).

#Laura's Deckerstar Fic Recs #deckerstar #chloe decker #lucifer #Lucifer on Netflix #lucifer morningstar #fan fiction #fic rec

28 notes · View notes

oh-i-swear-writes · 3 years

Text

February 2021 Fic Read Log

How the bloomin’ heck is it the end of February already? And yes, I’m technically posting a little earlier than I normally do, but due to @knotbang posting beginning tomorrow (and keeping me busy until the 26th, by which point I will have posted another whole 65k or so fic myself with 3 updates weekly to make it on time... pray for me, guys) I thought I’d share today what I’ve been reading this month - especially as last month’s was so warmly received <3

Please note, I don’t have everyone on Tumblr (though I’ve done my best to track authors down like the stalky stalker I am) so if you guys know anyone I’ve missed, please please tag them!

Equally, if anyone has anything I should be reading but haven’t, tell me about that too - self-rec’s absolutely welcome here! <3

So with no further rambling from me, everything else is below the cut...

A (fake) Fiance for Christmas by @darter-blue

~15k, fake dating, Christmas parties, idiots in love

Loved, loved, LOVED this! Didn’t even care I read it late/out of season, I love a decent fake-dating-turned-feels fic and this absolutely delivered. It’s fun, it involves awkward exes and how damn awkward the festive season can be to singletons. Lovely!

Love Me Tender Like What Keeps You Well & My Voice Is Back Home While I’m In Hell by @thiccbuckybarnesfic

~13k all together, A/B/O, age difference, Victorian Era

This was completely different to what I usually read, but I really enjoyed it. The world was cohesive and well written, and I love Steve’s reluctance in this whilst he slowly falls for a much younger Bucky. I also loved that it felt so period-typical with Bucky’s parents being fine with proceedings - definitely recommend!

I’m Gonna Love You Endlessly by @greyhavensking

~5k, fluff, asexual Bucky Barnes, Domestic MCU

So this spoke to me for a whole bunch of reasons, but actually a really nice portrayal of an asexual character in a relationship with someone who isn’t ace, and a lot of the frustrations that can be there especially when it is questioned. Very sweet, very fluffy, and very much showing that love can be romantic and demonstrative without it having to be sexual.

Setting out (for a new tomorrow) by racetoanyways

~31k, Smol Steve Rogers, Prince Charming Bucky Barnes, Stucky AU

Jaded Disneyland ride attendant Steve Rogers doesn’t see the magic in the park, whereas Bucky Barnes AKA Prince Charming very much does. They start off not seeing eye to eye, but they get there in the end! Lovely and fluffy, a surprising amount of background story and family life that I didn’t initially expect and you end up seeing the Disney magic (and the happy ending!) right along there with Steve.

Private Showing by @hanitrash

~21k, Ballet dancing Bucky Barnes, Costume designer Steve, Stucky AU

So, for those of you who know me, you’ll already know that any fic involving a ballet dancing character is going to get my attention. I wish I had given this one my attention a lot sooner and not just had the tab sat there open and waiting! Ballet dancing Bucky gives me life, and watching his walls slowly come down as the sexual tension between himself and Steve grows is… well. It’s gorgeous. Some nice sexy smut, some mild D/S tones and a whole lot of two idiots falling in love. What’s not to love?

The Seed and the Root by @the1918

~32k, Farmer! Daddy Steve, Baby Boy Bucky, part of a bigger series

So continuing my Lynne fan-girling as they continue with The Song Of The Rolling Earth (aka SoRE… which may have some other connotations…) Anyway. If you want the start of the smut...IT IS HERE. YES IT IS. And Steve is an excellent Daddy. Ends on a cliffhanger, but totally okay with it when there is more <3

He said Yes Daddy, I do by bangyababy with art by @callmekayyyyy

~10k, Porn star Steve, Part time porn star Bucky, Smut with feels

Usually behind the camera Bucky Barnes somehow gets dragged into starring in a porno with the actor he’s been crushing on since he saw him. One film turns into several until feels become a problem. Needless to say this features some smut, there IS some Daddy! Kink and some adorable feels <3

Make Yourself at home, and i’ll want you to stay by @its-tortle

~5k, Fuck buddies to lovers, Alpine featuring heavily in Bucky’s decision making

Bucky is pretty much the world’s proudest cat dad and has Big Stupid Feels (™) for his fuck buddy Steve. Shenanigans clearly ensue. Absolutely adorable and heavily featuring Alpine, very sweet and soft and made me smile.

Rounder tummies and asshole coworkers by unknownfin

~1k, Established relationship, A/B/O dynamics, Chubby Bucky Barnes, Caring Alpha Steve

Basically, someone makes an insensitive comment to Bucky regarding his body and Steve makes it all alright again. Very cute and very warm-fuzzy-feels inducing.

#fic read log #fic recs #fic rec list #stucky fic #steve rogers #bucky barnes #fanfiction #how the hell is it march tomorrow #I'm always surprised by how much I did actually read #send me your recs #much love to everyone

18 notes · View notes

gregorygrim · 3 years

Text

Dragon Prince Hot Takes

!!! Full Spoiler For “The Dragon Prince” Seasons 1-3!!!

So I finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince. Timely, I know, but better late than never i guess. I’m not completely caught up yet as I only got as far as S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” in this first sitting. Considering I haven’t binged any series in almost two years, I think that’s pretty respectable. This means I won’t discuss the last few episodes here, except for a couple of things I was unfortunately spoiled for already, hence full spoilers.

These are basically my first thoughts and opinions after the binge and a good night’s sleep. It’s gonna be a lot so if you don’t care or don’t want spoilers…

TL;DR: 7½/10. Generally enjoyable, there are some aspects I’m not exactly fan of, but no dealbreakers

Firstly to everyone who told me that this was the new ATLA: you all need to rewatch Avatar stat! Like seriously. There are definitely parallels and given the cast and crew I think that’s what they were going for too (which is why I think it’s fair to compare the two), but still, no.

Secondly I love most of the worldbuilding and love that the series at least tries to give it to us in a bit of a non-linear fashion, even if it is kind of clumsy at times. I know some people are put off by expository dialogue and flashbacks, but I’m an epic fantasy nerd, I need that sweet, sweet lore to live as much as you mortals need food.

I like that there was clearly an effort made to integrate the worldbuilding in more subtle ways. For example you may initially find it kind of weird that all these different human ethnicities are existing perfectly integrated in what looks like a medieval society, until you remember from the opening monologue that the Human Kingdoms are the result of a massive diaspora following the human exodus from Xadia, so obviously people got all mixed up everywhere. It’s representation with an excellent in-world reason and that just brings me joy.

I also love the magic system(s) even though we haven’t really gone into that just yet. it really feels like there was a genuine effort made to create underlying mechanics for the magic rather than just making each spell a vaguely elemental themed ability. I really hope we’ll dive deeper into that in coming seasons.

I also like the little nods to other works of fantasy: Ezran’s ability to talk with animals is a reference to Tolkien’s world where some royal bloodlines had the ability to speak with animals, specifically birds; Primal Magic and its spells being cast with Ancient Draconic runes and words might be reminiscent of the Ancient Language from the Inheritance Cycle etc.

Thirdly the main cast is great. Callum, Ezran and Rayla are all interesting and relatable characters in their own right and as a group. I’m not going into each of them individually here, but while I think the series as a whole falls short of ATLA, as protagonist parties go I dare say this one is nearly on nearly on par with the gAang.¹

And yes, I love Bait, which I really did not expect following the first few episodes. I love his weird pug-toad-chameleon design, I love that he works like a flashbang whenever somebody says a quote from Scarface (I wish they hadn’t dropped that later on) and I love how done he is with everything and everyone at all times. I’ve only had him for 25 episodes, but if anything happened to him I would kill all of my followers and then myself.

On top of that, and speaking as someone who god knows is really not into shipping, I love Rayla and Callum’s relationship. It’s believable, it’s refreshing and it brings out the best in both characters without changing basically anything about them. Just two good friends who fell in love. A++, maybe even S tier.

Unfortunately though I can’t sing the same kind of praises about the villains. None of them are terrible (as in terribly written, most of them are pretty awful people), but with one exception they just don’t stand up to the protagonists in quality.

I could simply not take Viren seriously. Even now that is probably the single most powerful magic user in the world, he just has such strong Karen energy, every time he finishes a speech I am overcome with the urge to say “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and it does not help the mood. I’m not even sure why. It might’ve been the voice because the guy who did Viren (Jason Simpson) also does a lot of kinda slimy characters in various anime dubs, it might be that over-the-top walking stick, idk.

What I’m saying is that as a primary antagonist he simply did not work for me. Which is doubly a shame because this kind of tarnishes the real “Big Bad” of this story by proxy. Aaravos, even as an invisible ghost, with his voice coming out of a caterpillar and next to no info on his backstory, has more style and gravity than all the human antagonists combined. It helps that he is by far the best designed character and Erik Dellums has the voice of a young god, but I’d argue even without that unfair advantage he has the potential to be a top tier villain. While he is stuck as Viren’s “little bug-pal” though he is just being dragged down.

(I’m aware that as of the final episode the caterpillar familiar is undergoing metamorphosis, probably to create a new body for Aaravos’ spirit to inhabit outside of the magic mirror, so I’m definitely hyped for more of him in the coming seasons.)

As for Soren and Claudia, I’ve got mixed feelings. This was one more aspect of the show that a lot of people compared to Avatar and while I see the parallels to Zuko & Azula, they are still very different, at least where Claudia is concerned. I’d also just like to mention that a lot of people told me that they thought the direction in which their storylines went were really surprising and I can’t disagree more. I predicted that Soren would defect to the protagonists on episode 5 right after Viren told him to kill the princes and I knew Claudia was going to stick with her father from episode 12 onward. My point is, it didn’t feel like some kind of plot twist, the way some people made it out to be, and which I don’t think was the intent.

I definitely got the sense that Soren was at least a Zuko-type character, though still not a Zuko clone, and as with Zuko I was consistently able to empathise and sympathise with him and his predicaments. I also appreciated that his dilemma is the result of his convictions and not him being kind of dense, which would’ve been all to easy and probably would’ve ruined his character for me. As it stands he is extremely milktoast, but perfectly functional for his purpose in the story and I can definitely see him evolving further and getting more interesting as we go on.

Claudia is where it gets complicated. Again, I can see the Azula parallels. But unlike that character, who is her father’s animal 110%, Claudia doesn’t strike me as a victim of Viren’s manipulation the way Soren undoubtably is. The way she talks about and uses Dark Magic, how she talks down to Soren and how even Viren finds it difficult to communicate with her, tells me as an audience member that she is an independent person. Which tells me that the cruelty and enthusiasm for causing harm she regularly displays is her own will. And that was before she straight up leads Callum on to manipulate him.

On the other hand I can absolutely relate to her devotion to her family, her big sister role (even though she is younger than Soren) and the way both the separation of her parents before the story and Soren’s injury in episode 16 must’ve affected her because of this. I know that, if my brother had become paralysed from the neck down and I knew a way to heal him, I would not have hesitated to kill that fawn either. Then again her relationship with her father is very different from parental relationships I am familiar with, so I can’t really say I see why she is so devoted to him, other than she promised her mother to stay with him years ago? ¯\(o_Ō)/¯

So basically Claudia falls into an emotional grey space for me. I can’t really tell how to feel about her either way and I’ll just have to see where she goes from here, which, while fine, isn’t necessarily great for an end of season cliffhanger imo.

Seeing as I’ve already talked about some of the show’s shortcomings, I think it’s time to dive into some of the what I would consider flaws.

Firstly this show needed at least 12 episode seasons. I have never made a secret out of my dislike for the modern short seasons and while I recognise that in the current climate in the industry giving everything full 25 episode seasons isn’t really doable, the pacing of this show, especially for the first season is just outright bad at times. It works as of the second season, but the first season alternately feels like it’s either rushing through or crawling along the whole way through.

The believability of Rayla’s and the princes’ relationship really suffers from this the most. It comes a bit out of nowhere on the boat ride and is then taken for granted way to quickly. Like Callum, seriously, this girl tried to kill you and your brother not even a day ago and you are currently cut off from all allies you have ever had until now. A little skepticism isn’t misplaced here. I also wold’ve liked if we’d just gotten a bit more of a sense of movement with the characters. I get that this is not the kind of show where we can just make an entire episode about the characters travelling and camping, intercut with plots centred around a more expansive supporting cast, but still I really would’ve preferred if Xadia didn’t feel quite so around the corner.

Another issue is with setup and payoff, which I think is partially a consequence of the pacing as well. A lot of smaller plot points are set up within the same episode as the payoff just wreak havoc on the narrative structure. A good example is the episode where they ride down the river in a boat and Bait tires to go into the water, but is saved by Ezran, who then explains the story behind Glowtoads and how they are pefect bait for large water predators. Then Bait falls into the water and is attacked by a massive water monster. This happens within five minutes of one episode and never comes up again. To me that looks like sign of rushed editing, which is probably not entirely the crew’s fault, given that they are on a schedule from Netflix, but it’s still a point of critique.

It unfortunately also manifests in the occasional line of horribly forced dialogue, often for things we can literally see happening on screen. Again, this is mostly the case in the earlier episodes, but it never completely goes away.

Finally, and this is where i get into serious issues that made me want to write this, we gotta talk about representation in this show.

First: disabled representation, meaning Amaya. Why is Amaya deaf? Because it’s good to have disabled representation.

Why is Amaya deaf and a high-ranking military officer? Because they didn’t think it through.

I know this may be a contentious opinion, but it is my belief that the purpose of representation, particularly of disabilities characters may suffer from, in fiction is to, y’know, represent people as they are in life. That includes especially the struggles they face and have to overcome, sometimes their whole life. This is not just me talking out of my ass either. A couple years ago I discussed this with several people that are disabled, specifically blind or otherwise severely visually impaired, in a different context obviously, and the general consensus was that it’s better to have representation that shows their life and their abilities as they are, rather than how they might wish they could be.

A mute or deaf person cannot be a medieval fantasy army general, no matter how good they might be in melee combat or who’s sister they are, because at the end of the day, they’re not able to give commands while they are holding a sword and shield. That such a massive logical oversight, especially in comparison to the extremely well done example of representation I mentioned above, and has so little impact on the plot that it leads me to believe, this aspect of Amaya’s character was tacked on in the last minute without being given any thought for the sole reason of the story having a disabled person in it. All this does is necessitate the existence of two otherwise entirely unnecessary characters, Gren and Kazi, both of which achieve nothing, aside from sometimes being literal set dressing.

That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.

And unfortunately this generally lacklustre attitude also extends to the LGBT+ representation on the show.

As of S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” we have had two onscreen gay couples on the show (onscreen in the sense that both partners were onscreen and they were somehow confirmed to be in a relationship on the show). One of these, the queens of Duren, literally die in the same flashback they are introduced in, which incidentally also features them invading a foreign nation to poach a rare animal and subsequently starting the conflict at the series’ core. Not a great look.

Aside from serving as a tragic backstory for their daughter, the most impact they had on my viewing experience was that they made wonder how the fuck royal succession works in Duren. (People who know me are rolling their eyes right now because I’m bringing anarchism into this Dragon Prince review, but I’m telling you, this why fantasy monarchies aren’t compatible with LGBT+ politics in the same setting. Dynastic governments are inherently bigoted, you can’t have it both ways.)

The other couple are Runaan and Ethari, Rayla’s caretakers, although if I’m being honest you wouldn’t be able tell based on Runaan’s treatment of Rayla in the first episode. By the time we actually meet Ethari and find out about their relationship with Rayla, Runaan is suffering “a fate worse than death” (direct quote from the show) trapped in a gold coin.

I mean come on. That’s about as “technically not ‘bury your gays’” as it gets.

I think I need to reiterate here that my point is not that this show or its creators are somehow malicious. As i stated in the TL;DR: I don’t think this is a dealbreaker for liking this show. But it does demonstrate that they are prone to slipping to some potentially harmful tropes and this needs to be criticised and pointed out to them.

In conclusion, I really love this show. It’s not ATLA, it never will be, nothing else will ever be ATLA no matter how badly (and terribly) Netflix tries. But it does and should not have to be.

What it has to do though is improve. A lot of the building blocks are already there, such as Aaravos or Claudia’s development, Callum’s father, the origin of Ezran’s ability, the purpose of the “Key of Aaravos”, the true fate of King Harrow (we all know his soul is in the bird, right?) etc. Some things like the treatment of Amaya’s disability unfortunately won’t be fixable as far as I can tell, but if they at least manage to fix the gay representation I can make my peace with that.

¹ I know I said I wouldn’t go into each of the characters individually, but a) you should never trust a stranger on the internet and b) I really want to talk a bit about Callum. Specifically the “mystery” of why the hell he is connected to the Sky Primal. I write “mystery” because I think it’s fairly obvious from whence this talent came: there is only one humanoid species we know of with innate access to the Sky Arcanum and one of Callum’s parent’s is unidentified, presumed dead. 2+2=4. Callum’s father was a Skywing Elf. That’s why he recognised Nyx’s boomerang weapon. He remembered one like it either from his very early childhood (remember that he has photographic memory) or Sarai kept one and he found it at some point.

On top of that the name “Callum” or at least the pronunciation is clearly derived from Latin “caelum” meaning “sky” or “weather” and I already mentioned that Ancient Draconic is just bad Latin. It’s not very subtle. Unless they pull a complete 180 concerning the lore about Primal Magic he’s definitely going to be a half-elf, which would also just so happen to make him the perfect mediator between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia. Hmm, it’s almost as if they are planning ahead.

My question: How the fuck did that happen? Or rather: how did that fuck happen? I don’t think even Harrow knew or he probably would’ve a) paid more attention when Sarai advised against poaching the Magma Titan, because obviously she’s gotten around Xadia more than him, if y’know what i’m sayin’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or at least b) put it in his final letter to Callum. Unfortunately we know basically nothing about Sarai except that she was a soldier alongside Amaya and already had Callum before marrying Harrow. So does Amaya know? This is probably the most interesting plot thread in the whole story and as far as my friends told me it’s not going to be touched on anymore in the last two episodes than it already has thus far, which is basically not at all.

17 notes · View notes

mizumelona · 4 years

Text

set me up | atsumu x reader

SYNOPSIS: You’re an ambitious career woman, who’s got everything…except a significant other. Your mom, sick of you showing up to family functions alone, sets you up on a series of (terrible) blind dates. You make these dates meet you at your favorite restaurant, Onigiri Miya, but for some reason the owner’s jerk of a twin brother always happens to be there exactly when things crash and burn.

NOTE: This chapter is dedicated to my lovely friend Sharon who encouraged me to start this blog and helps me with my writing. @Sharon I kept my promise hehe.

MASTERLIST

PREV | WFH 1 - THE TRUCE | NEXT

TAGLIST: @awkwardali6106 @kasandrafaye @veggytaled @svtbitch @stinkyobeymerat @hollypastl @differentballooncollection @o51oc @sunboikyo00 @justxanotherxshipper @kaisemieita @rizamendoza808 @tomo-uwu @sugardaddykenma

You tossed Atsumu’s sweater into the washer with your other juice covered clothes and made your way to your bedroom. You picked up your phone to text your mom.

Lovely Daughter:

I think I need to take a break from these dates

You still wanted to find a boyfriend and flex on your cousin, but this blind dating thing wasn’t exactly working out. You cringed remembering that your favorite cream shorts might be ruined for good. Taking a step back seemed like a good choice for now. Maybe you’d spontaneously run into someone worth your time. Blonde hair and a cheeky smirk flashed in your mind.

Huh. What was that? You shook your head. That was definitely not happening.

As you finished sending the message you got another notification.

Boss:

Reminder that our team is working from home this week while they replace the carpets in the office. Can you send me the updated prototype of your project by Friday morning?

Ugh. Working from home was bad news for you. Despite being an overachiever, your home was a safe oasis that was completely separated from your work life. When it came to trying to work while your favorite blanket and TV were 2 feet away, you had no self-control. You tried to look on the bright side. Who knows? Maybe this is the week you learned a little self-control.

Onigiri Miya. Thursday 6:27 PM

It wasn’t.

You had plenty of inspiration on Monday but took a break to watch one episode of your favorite sports anime and ended up binging the next two seasons. Tuesday you’d pulled up the files you needed to work on but you saw a manga spoiler while browsing Instagram and decided to binge the manga too. Yesterday you were shook about the most recent cliffhanger and got carried away reading fan fiction. It wasn’t until 5 PM that you realized that the prototype was due in a day but by then you were already fucked.

Cut to you grinding like crazy for the past 24 hours. You’d pulled an all-nighter last night except for 20 minutes at 5 in the morning when you crashed and knocked out on your keyboard. When you woke up there was an imprint of the spacebar on your chin. Finally you had most of the prototype completed, so you were crawling out of your cave for some food.

Sweats, glasses, hair messily pulled away from your face. You haggardly stumbled toward the restaurant. You’d exhausted your instant noodle supplies and had been so focused on finishing the damn prototype that you didn’t stop to eat today. You were pretty sure you were going to pass out if you didn’t get some food in your body ASAP.

You pushed the door to the restaurant open.

“Welcom- woah [Y/N]…you doing okay?”, Osamu paused mid rice ball roll and looked you up and down.

“Holy shit ya look like a zombie!”, Atsumu exclaimed from his usual seat at the bar.

You ignored Atsumu’s comment. You had no energy left for making snarky comebacks. “Osamu. Three Minced tuna onigiri and an iced Calpico please and thank you.”

“Sure…”, Osamu gave you a concerned look before turning to get started on your order.

You dumped your things onto an open table and sunk into the seat. You flipped open the laptop that you’d brought with you and started tapping on the keys. There was a big fat error alert on the screen. Great. You tried to edit the file. Another error. Ugh you were so close it was frustrating. You typed a few more edits in. Success! Loading…

Finally. You leaned back into the chair, staring at the ceiling. You heard some familiar footsteps approaching you. Here he comes.

On cue, Atsumu slid into the seat across from you. “Yo what happened?”

“I’m an idiot. That’s what happened.” You closed your eyes and massaged your temples. Your head was aching from staring at the screen for so long.

He snorted. “I know a lotta idiots but you aren’t one of them” He peeked over at your screen. “What’s with the laptop? This isn’t a coffeeshop sweetheart”

“Work.” You bluntly replied. You scrunched up your face. Sure his voice was smooth as ever, but right now anything but complete silence was making your head pound.

“You’re in a good mood aintcha?” He smirked. You glowered in his direction, your dark circles making you look extra ominous.

“Stop irritating my customers ‘Tsumu” Osamu smoothly shut Atsumu down. He placed a tray of food on the table. “I got three minced tuna onigiri and an iced Calpico”

“Bring me a drink too ‘Samu”

“Get it yourself ’Tsumu”

An upbeat ringtone started playing from Osamu’s pocket. He pulled his phone out and took the call. “Hey babe…I’m just at the restaurant…no, it’s not that busy…wait…what!” Osamu raised his eyebrows.”…Okay yeah I’ll be right there.” He turned to Atsumu. “‘Tsumu close the restaurant. I need to go help Sharon”

“Huh? Ya can’t just-“, Atsumu tried to protest, but Osamu took his Onigiri Miya hat off and shoved it on Atsumu’s head. Osamu scrawled a note about closing early and taped it to the door on his way out. Atsumu stood there looking irritated as he watched his brother run off through the window.

He turned to you. “Well ya heard him. You’re gonna hafta take your rice balls and work home sweetheart”

Wait. You checked your screen. 15%. Rip. Starting the process while you ate dinner probably wasn’t the best idea, but you needed this to finish loading and couldn’t risk it getting messed up on the trip back up to your apartment. You turned to Atsumu, “I’m sorry about earlier. Please let me stay a little longer. I really need this thing to finish loading”

“No way”

“It’ll only take a second” You pleaded with him. He turned to walk away. “Please. Atsumu”

He paused. Wait, was that the first time you’d called him by his real name? He turned back to you with that devious smile he got whenever he had one of his “brilliant” ideas.

“How ‘bout this? You help me clean, I’ll letcha stay here even though I really should be closing up”

“Deal”

Onigiri Miya. 45 Minutes Later.

“I’m pretty sure when we made our deal you said it would take ‘just a second’”. The bashful smile from earlier had long been wiped off his face replaced with the current impatient scowl. You’d finished eating your onigiri shortly after Osamu left, and you two had been sitting at the same table sipping Calpico and watching the loading bar for the last 45 minutes.

“It’s really almost done now.” You were running out of excuses to stall for time.

“Hurry it up. I got things to do sweetheart”, he said and took a noisy sip of his drink.

Okay [y/n] we need to think of a way to stall. You went through your options. Hm. Actually, complimenting people usually works pretty well, especially when that person has as big of an ego as this blondie. Okay you decided on your plan of attack.

“Hey” You smiled innocently at Atsumu. “Thanks again for waiting with me. You’re a lot nicer than I thought”

“How many times do I hafta tell ya that that creepy smile isn’t fooling me?” Atsumu set his drink back on the table. “And was that supposta be a compliment? When did I ever do anythin’ to piss you off?” He leaned back, crossing his arms.

“Says the guy who crashed not one but two of my dates”

“I didn’t do nothin’”

“You were the reason the strawberry juice was on the table to begin with”

“I’m also the reason why you’re still here even though I could’ve kicked you out an hour ago.”

You couldn’t argue with that.

“Touche” You leaned forward. “How about we call a truce then.” You held out your hand.

He looked at your hand skeptically. “Truce? That implies we were fightin’ in the first place”

“You gonna take it or not?”, You smiled slyly and waved your hand. “Let me tell you now. I’m not someone you want as an enemy”

“Jeez that’s pretty scary sweetheart.” He leaned forward with his trademark cheeky grin…and was he blushing a bit? “Fine. Truce.” He reached out to shake your hand.

“I know the perfect way to celebrate” He said, rising from his seat. He walked behind the counter and rustled around in the fridge. You heard him mutter, “Where did ‘Samu put it”, as he continued digging around. “Aha. Here it is!”, he declared, finding whatever he was looking for. Atsumu walked back and plopped down in his seat, setting two cups of pudding on the table.

“Haha. Nice.” You picked up one of the pudding cups but noticed a little note stuck to it. “Huh. What’s this?” You pulled off the note to read it. Osamu’s pudding: DO NOT EAT. “Wait a second we can’t-“

Atsumu took the container out of your hands, broke the seal on the cover, and handed it back.

“Atsumu!”, you exclaimed.

“You’re welcome.” He opened his pudding cup and shoveled a spoonful in his mouth. “Mmm”

Well it’s not like you could put it back now that it was opened. You scooped a spoonful into your mouth. Your face lit up. Osamu’s pudding preferences were on point.

“I have a question”, Atsumu asked. “Why were ya tryin’ so hard on those dates anyways? Those guys were obviously trash, and ya don’t really seem like the type that’s desperate for romance.”

What he said wasn’t wrong, and you two were kind of having a moment here. You figured it’d be fine to tell him about it.

“Ugh the thing is” You gulped down another spoon of pudding. “I’m trying to prove something to my family”

“Huh?”

“They don’t think I’m capable of romance, and my shitty cousin loves to rub it in my face. I’m trying to find a guy so I can flex on them”

He smirked. “Hah, that’s real petty”

You pointed your spoon at him. “I don’t wanna hear that from you.”

“Fair point”

Your computer chimed. You both turned to look at the screen. 100% Loaded.

“Yes!” You pumped your fists.

“Finally” Atsumu sighed, scraping the last of his pudding out of the cup. “So, ya gonna help me clean?”

“A deals a deal. Where should I start?”, you said combing your hair out of your face.

“I’ll take the tables. You’re on dish duty”

Atsumu went into the supply closet and came back with a rag. You caught yourself staring as he pushed his sleeves up. Okay the man had beautiful forearms, so what? You quickly looked away.

“You okay [y/n]?”, Atsumu interrupted your thoughts, cocking his head. Shit. You hoped he hadn’t noticed your little slip-up.

“Uh yeah! I got the dishes!”

You’d emailed the final prototype and you two were almost done tidying up. The only thing left to do was mopping the floor.

“[Y/N], How about we have a lil challenge”

You raised an eyebrow.

Atsumu brought two mops out of the supply closet, tossing one to you. “I’ll race ya. Last one to mop to the other side loses”

This was stupid there was no way you were about to have a dumb mopping ra-

“Unless you’re too scared”

You gripped your weapon. “Hah, You’re on”

You both stood at one end of the restaurant. Mops in hand.

“Ready” Atsumu clenched his mop. “Go!”

You realized that challenging a pro-athlete to a fair race was stupid. That’s why you didn’t intend to play fair. As soon as Atsumu motioned to take his first step you swiped your dripping mop in front of his foot. He lost his balance.

“Fuck!”

“Haha Loser!”, you turned to laugh at him. Thwack!

Atsumu collided with you knocking you backward. You hit the ground with a thud, securely pinned under him. Shit. He hauled himself onto his hands and knees, looking down at you.

“You cheated!”, he shouted.

“That doesn’t give you the right to tackle me!”, you shot back.

“I wasn’t tryin’ to tackle you!”

“So what!”, you grabbed his collar pulling him back so your foreheads were touching. You both paused. Shit. Did you just do something weird?

You were suddenly very aware of the nice smell wafting off his hair. You gulped. There was a pink blush creeping over Atsumu’s nose. He looked dumbstruck at first but soon a cheeky grin spread across his face.

“Wow [y/n], you’re pretty bold huh.”

“Shut up!”

The chimes jingled and the door opened. You both jumped and turned to the sound.

“Oolala”, the girl who came with Osamu was snickering.

“…is that my pudding?”

After that, you’d both apologized to Osamu, properly mopped the floor. You were getting ready to go home now. Luckily neither of you had been seriously injured in your little incident, but any time your eyes met Atsumu would shoot you an infuriating smirk.

As you were about to leave, Atsumu called out to you. “Hey [y/n] I’m gonna need my sweater back soon”

“Oh right! I forgot it at my apartment but I washed it so I’ll bring it by tomorrow”

“Sounds good. Good night [y/n].” As he turned to walk away, he looked back over his shoulder and smiled at you. It was a sincere smile like the one he gave you as he handed you his sweater the other day. You couldn’t help but smile back. This guy.

Your phone buzzed as you started walking back toward your apartment. You pulled it out.

Jerk Cousin:

Family brunch two Sundays from now. Don’t forget you’re in charge of fruit. My mom told me to remind you. She also said to tell you that you can bring a plus one, not that you’d need it lol

Onigiri Miya. Friday 11:15 AM

You’d slept like a baby that night, and woke up more refreshed than ever. It was like your 24 hours of hell never happened. You pulled open the door to the restaurant.

“Hey Osamu is Atsumu here? I have the sweater I kept forgetting in my apartment” You rustled through your bag pulling the sweater out. Looking up, you suddenly noticed that the restaurant was more packed than usual, and most of the occupants were looking at you.

“Oya?”

“Oya oya?”

#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #atsumu #atsumu x reader #set me up

215 notes · View notes

murasaki-murasame · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep19

OK this episode was actually just fucking with me by having Rika at a Western-style preppy boarding school drinking tea in a parlor and having debates with people. This level of concentrated Umineko content bait is going to literally kill me at some point.

Thoughts under the cut. [Plus even more Umineko stuff, but honestly who can even blame me at this point, lmao]

I don’t think I commented on it last week, partly because I was hoping we’d get the actual visuals for it in this episode, but the new ED theme is extremely good. I think I like it a lot more than the first one, but they’re both really good. I’m kinda biased though, since the new ED feels extremely Umineko-y, but still, it’s really good.

I’m kinda surprised that we still haven’t gotten the visuals for it yet. And instead of just having the ED theme play over the final scene of the episode or something, it was another round of having the credits roll over a black screen for the duration of the ED, which makes the continued lack of visuals really noticeable. I guess it’s possible that they just haven’t completed the animation for it yet, but I’m hoping that they’re holding back on it because something about the visuals for it is a spoiler for something that’ll happen in the next episode or two. And that makes me really curious to see what it might show, since at this point there’s only a narrow list of things that could probably be ‘spoilers’ for upcoming stuff in this arc.

Realistically I doubt it’d be on the level of straight up showing Umineko characters, but I’m probably still gonna get my hopes up anyway, lol.

At the very least, with how this episode brings us to 1987, and we know that Rika dies as a teenager in 1988, we’re rapidly approaching the point where everything goes to shit, and we already know that Satoko apparently got contacted by Oyashiro-sama, so honestly it wouldn’t be that strange for some kind of witch character to show up, even if maybe they’ll be presented in a somewhat abstract and indirect way.

Anyway, this episode went a long way to show the path of trauma that leads Satoko to initiating the new loop, but I think there’s going to be more going on in the next episode or so that really pushes her over the edge. Obviously she’s already in a downwards spiral because of Rika drifting away from her, and her being socially isolated all over again, but I don’t think this alone would make her go as far as trapping Rika in an endless torture loop.

I wonder if maybe Satoko is going to start getting directly bullied by the other girls at the school, rather than just being ostracized by them. It’d suck to see it happen, but it’d be the sort of thing that’d make her situation even worse than it is now.

From what we heard here about how the school runs, I don’t think they’d directly expel Satoko for having low grades, but if she winds up slipping into the Special Class, it’d probably make her feel more and more like everything could fall apart for her at any moment, which could also make her way more volatile.

I’m pretty sure we already know that Rika ends up getting killed in 1988, and that’s how she got thrown into the new loop, so I’m curious to see how that ends up panning out. Satoko might just end up snapping and straight up killing her out of anger, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some kind of horrible accident. With what Satoko was saying in this episode about wishing she could just have fun setting up traps around the school, I could see her setting up a situation that ends up getting Rika killed.

Either way, it feels like we’re on the brink of disaster, and I’d be surprised if it takes more than one more episode to show how everything falls apart and the loops start.

Which is also making me wonder how the arc as a whole will be paced out. In spite of being the longest arc in the show, it feels like there’s still a LOT that needs to be covered. We still need at least one more episode to conclude this big flashback sequence, then we’ll probably get some sort of flashback to show how the Gou question arcs played out in the background to solve those mysteries, and then we still have to go back to the end of Nekodamashi to follow up on that whole cliffhanger, and get into whatever the true ending of the show will be.

I still doubt that we’ll get a full second season, but I’m just not sure if five more episodes will be enough to do everything it needs to do.

At the very least, I’ve basically given up hope on Gou doing more than the bare minimum to touch upon Rena or Shion’s backstories at this point, lol.

I’m also still wondering what the ending will be like in the first place. Ideally everything would just work out fine and Rika and Satoko will talk things out and resolve everything peacefully after we return to Nekodamashi, but I’m feeling more and more like this will have a darker ending than that. Mostly because it really feels like this is barreling straight towards the ‘Bern/Lambda origin story’ route, and that just makes me feel like the ending will be really depressing and make it more clear why Bern is so messed up in Umineko.

And on that note, on top of it just being really nice teasing, it’s actually kinda neat to see Rika entering this sort of Western-style ‘high society’ life, since it goes a long way to clarify why Bern’s entire personality and aesthetic is the way it is. They never really ‘explained’ it in Umineko, aside from it just matching more with Umineko’s more Western-style setting, and in a lot of ways it feels like this ‘explanation’ was thought up way after Umineko was written anyway, but even as a retroactive explanation it’s still nice to see them show why Rika ends up that way. They haven’t shown exactly why she’s so bitter in Umineko, but at least now we know why she’s the sort of person who likes stuff like this.

In a lot of ways, everything about this whole arc and the St. Lucia’s stuff kinda feels like Ryukishi’s sort of clumsy way of directly tying together these loose threads between Higurashi and Umineko, and showing us exactly why Bern ends up the way she does. I kinda agree with the criticisms I’ve seen that Rika apparently idolizing high society upper-class life and seeing St Lucia’s of all places as Heaven on earth feels really forced, and I think that has a lot to do with what I said about how Ryukishi probably just designed Bern as a Western-style goth lolita because that fit Umineko’s setting more, and he’s only just now trying to go back and give an in-universe explanation for it via Gou. So for better or worse it kinda has this vibe of retconning parts of her character in order to brute-force this connection between the two series.

Though I can’t help but be OK with it, at least for now, since it just makes it feel like he’d only be this overt about it if he was actually setting up for something better that justified making up all this new story stuff just to contextualize Bern’s whole character in Umineko. It might just be his way of tying things together and he’s not setting up for anything, but it’d feel like a waste at this point if he’s not, considering how many people are already feeling like he’s messing with Rika’s character retroactively to make it all tie into Umineko. So it’d at least feel more justified if it’s actually setting up for something along the lines of an Umineko anime remake, even if that’s still probably just wishful thinking.

Anyway, I think this episode is gonna cause lots of discourse about how people feel about both Rika and Satoko’s choices in this episode, but my stance right now is just that they’re both understandable, while also both being in the wrong in their own ways. Ultimately this just boils down to them not communicating with each other properly. I can see what people mean by Rika’s whole attitude here feeling out of character, but I can understand why she’s genuinely enjoying her new life, and honestly she’s always had major issues with not talking to people about things and just going with the flow, so I get why she’s not doing more to reach out to Satoko, especially since doing so would mean rocking the boat with her new friends who clearly all look down on Satoko.

And on the other side of things, I think Satoko’s whole side of things makes total sense, even though she’s also in the wrong for continuing to respond to trauma by bottling it all up and rejecting any help or communication that people offer her. That at least feels like a totally natural extension of her personality, especially when you think about how the current timeline is one where Teppei never came back to the village, and so she never had to have her whole character arc where she learns how to open up about her trauma to people and seek help. Also the end of the episode makes it feel pretty likely that this is going in the direction of her re-developing HS, which would go a long way to explain why she’d go into a full on downwards spiral, mentally. I highly doubt that she actually got completely cured for good, even if Hanyuu’s absence changed how the virus works.

Which also reminds me that we still haven’t heard anything about what happened to Satoshi, despite them talking about the virus more or less going away. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s past the point of no return, and learning about his fate might be one of the things that fully pushes Satoko over the edge.

Either way, I get why a lot of people don’t really like where this is all going, but I’m at least enjoying it for what it is [even though I’ve had to really readjust my expectations for it, lol]. But tbh at this point a big chunk of this is just me being hype about the pipe dream of a new Umineko anime, and if this ends up not leading to that, I’ll probably be a lot harsher on Gou in hindsight after it ends.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi gou #We've only got like five episodes left and I still have like no idea how this is actually going to end lmao

17 notes · View notes

avauntus · 3 years

Text

Ooof... HI blog mutuals! How are you?

Back around January 5th, I had a cloud of commitments drift over my calendar at work, and I thought: :This will be a busy week.: Two months later... well, it’s a break period soon, and I will probably sleep through half of it.

I have been getting a few drabs of writing done, but it’s pretty fragmentary. I made progress on the mc:tna WIP! *jazz hands*

I also spent a lot of time the past month or so on the couch watching TV, because I didn’t have bandwidth for anything else. I want to do a quick impressions post, in case anyone is curious about these programs, too!

Below, thoughts on:

Alice in Borderland (Japan; Netflix)

His Dark Materials (British; HBO Max)

Raya and the Last Dragon (US; Disney+)

Vincenzo (Korea; Netflix)

WandaVision (US; Disney+)

Alice in Borderland (Netflix - 8 episodes, ends on a -minor- cliffhanger)

This one really grabbed me by the throat, but in a way that is entirely about style and setting. Characters in this drama don’t have a long shelf life, and like Battle Royale, it is extremely bloody. Also like Battle Royale, how much enjoyment you get out of it depends on your tolerance for watching people group up and then be shocked when the strangers they’ve decided to trust (inevitably) gruesomely betray them. If you enjoyed the style of Cube, Hunger Games, The Game, or Matrix Reloaded, and can stand (or like me, fast forward through) the gore, you might enjoy this.

Random impressions:

I know why Arisu is the main character, but brass tacks: if he didn’t have plot armor, he wouldn’t be. Usagi, Kuina, Karube, or Chishiya the entire way.

Almost the second I turned it off, a full-formed plot bunny of how Chishiya and Kuina met jumped in to my head, so maybe that will get written someday. Because they’re the best (regrettable murder-duo tendencies aside).

Either the borderland is a simulation, or they’re all stuck in someone’s psychotic break-- there’s too much that doesn’t add up for it to be anything else (although the “aliens!” theory is fun).

His Dark Materials (HBOMax - 2 seasons (15 eps), 3rd season in production)

I really wanted to like this more than I did... If you’ve read the books, and enjoyed them, it is a beautifully filmed version of that, but the show sells the grand drama of a War for Free Will much too short. Like, my favorite things in two seasons were Lee Scoresby (Lin Manuel Miranda, surprising the hell out of me), the City of Citagazze (what?), Mrs. Coulter (...what?!), and Lord Boreal.

Lyra, Pan, Will, the Golden Compass itself, the angels, the Spectres, the Magisterium -- ehhhh. They were fine. But not more than that. And some of the things I outright loved in the books were terrible here. Whoever cast Lord Asriel, the witches and Jopari/John Perry did...not do their best work, imo. I’ll probably watch season 3, but it won’t be a “must watch” for me.

Raya and the Last Dragon (Disney+ - animated film, ~2 hours)

I shelled out US $30 to see this opening weekend, and I’m not sorry about that choice. Reviewers are saying the story is a bit “generic” and...I guess? I think it depends on what you were expecting. But for me, this movie hit all my buttons - actual characterization for its female leads; humor; enemies to lovers friends; big epic conclusion to its story; found family; basically an RPG sourcebook lite approach to introducing the world; magic with consistent rules and NOT overpowered; BIG ol’ plothole at the end if someone wanted to write for it...

There has been another criticism leveled, in that Raya tries to take a “pan SE Asia” approach with its setting that really, really bothers some viewers. I tried to keep an eye out for it when I watched, and quickly realized I don’t know enough about artistic influences from that area of the world to be able to tell. So it didn’t bother me, but in that I might be part of the problem. I will say that the setting seemed to be a little too “flavor-y” in its regions if it was supposed to be one country originally. But I mean, this was also a film with a giant rolling armadillo-- wasn’t thinking about it very hard.

Vincenzo (Netflix - airing now, new eps Sat & Sun in the US)

Ahaha, where to START? I started watching this on a whim eating dinner one night, and it’s maybe my new favorite show. Netflix labels this a “dark comedy,” and yeah, I guess? I also sent my friend a text when I started binging this midweek that went, roughly:

“Ooh, now we’re staging an Italian mini-Epcot to stop the demolition gang, and GLITTER CANONS!! Also we’re ripping off The Great Gatsby.”

...and that’s the vibe, really.

This is the rare drama where I feel confident saying: Watch the first episode. If you like it, you’ll like the rest (so far- ep. 6 just aired). I am a BIG fan.

WandaVision (Disney+ - 9 episodes)

youtube

Ohhhh, man. This was so much better than I expected, and the second trailer (above, if YouTube lets you see it where you are) gave me high hopes. It’s probably better if you have a vague idea who Wanda and Vision are, but you know I don’t know that you would really need that?

It’s about nostalgia, love, grief, and the stories we tell ourselves-- the ones that are self-serving, and the stories we think serve us, and don’t. It actually lets Wanda lead in her own narrative, for once, but doesn’t undercut what she’s had to go through to get there. Like a Korean drama, the first few episodes are going to seem underwhelming if you’re there for “big P” plot-- but give it room.

Wanda facing down the beekeeper at the end of episode 2 gave me chills like very little has on TV for a while. Elizabeth Olsen packs a lot into that 2 seconds:

And Kathryn Hahn as Agnes is delightful. She’s totally on the up-and-up, of course-

Secondary shout-out to DR. Darcy Lewis, low-key saving the day and snarking her way through it. So happy to see her again, too.

I’ve watched the whole series now (last episode twice; cried both times) -- and I think this is going to be one of my favorite things of 2021.

#TV #mini-reviews #alice in borderland #raya and the last dragon #his dark materials #vincenzo #wandavision #i have opinions

9 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Star Vs Tom Luictor Retrospective Detour: Skooled!

Dedicated to Jessica Walter 1941- 2021

Welcome back all you still mourning people to Prince of Wishful Thinking, my Tom Lucitor Retrospective... or at least a detour from it as I need to cover the Meteora arc to cover Divide/Conquer properly. When we last left off with Star she and Tom were going closer, but both are taking a break this time. We’ll get back to them in April... oh will we get back to them in april. For now we’re back to Meteora who I forgot was ABSENT for a while. not forever, but while her parantege, the cover up related to her and all of that has been vitally important, Meteora herself vanished after Monster Party and hasn’t been seen till now. But i’ts a good storytelling engine.. it ratchets up tension for her inevitable return, and gives us time to find out what happened with her and let that sink in.. granted i’td also be the last time it sunk in but I can dunk on the series decline later... I still have season 4 episodes to cover after all. So join me under the cut as we get the welcomed Return of Henious, an unexpected hero.. and Ponyhead because this series clearly hasn’t hurt me enough. And as usual for my Star Vs Reviews, i’d like to thank one of my Best Friends @jess-the-vampire for her insight on this episode. It’s always welcome and she always manages to find something I didn’t think of .

So we open at Saint O’s with Ponyhead returning to the school, having previously run it post rebellion before leaving because.. I don’t know. She probably got tired of being a leader, and out of universe they needed her to be around star more. Look the series has far more important things it never explained and never will, not explaining why a recklessly irresponsible asshole left a position of authority and responsibility I can let slide.

She’s come for brunch but things have changed... the school is still a warm, free environment for princesses to better themselves and party hardy, no longer an oppressive brainwashing gulag run by someone who as it turned out was horribly brainwashed herself.. it’s just now it actually has rules and structure.

It now also has an actual leader, Princess Patty Arms who showed up in the school’s previous appearance this season here and.. that’s it. I think she showed up in the background of the original st o’s episode. And it’s a shame because she’s a really fascinating character. No really she’s calm, dosen’t take Pony’s shit, and while a brunch exam SEEMS like a waste of time... it really isn’t. A good meal can loosen up a dignitary and some rulers have sticks up their keisters about things like this, so being able to do it just right can win them over. It’s still a touch ridiculous but given the world of star is a touch ridiculous to start with, it works.

Pony naturally leaves in a rage over this especially when no one backs her up.. but soon the School has bigger issues and we get to why we’re actually here: Meteora is back. And while she has changed, now having grown larger and stronger, easily scaling the wall, she still wants payback and we get a damn fine battle sequence as the princesses all unite against their former tormentor. It’s also sad in hindsight.. because as Jess pointed out to me almost NONE of these characters show up again. And I only added the almost because Penelope is in there. They all seem interesting, the setting of ST O’s itself is interesting, and the idea of a school for princesses of various types is a cool idea. I’ts something the show could’ve come back to to see how they bounce back from this attack.. but like most cool background elements in the show they forget about it. It was intresting to see the schools slow evolution from horrible nightmare to princess ran utopia and like many things coming up it feels like a lost opportunity.

That being said the fight is awesome, with Meteora proving to be a juggernaut in strength and outplanning her enimies, having brought an overide switch for the robots (Patty reprogrammed them to work for the school) and having them throw their hearts/ power sources as bombs. It’s a damn fine sequence as she finds way after way to keep going, with a now restored rasticore helping them simply portal in.

Pony meanwhile.. is hiding , as Patty find sout when she finds her, and Pony assumes this is about her... though for once i’ts not JUST ego.. but because she was one of the two who started the uprising at the school in the first place and THE person who tossed her out. We also get a nice character moment as while Pony tells patti she still hates her.. she puts the princess behind her when Meteora approaches. She may be a selfish twit whose massively unlikeable.. but she has a good heart.. and not just the one she keeps in a jar she got from one of her boyfriends.

But Meteora has more important buisness and finds her way to the depths of St. O’s.. where we meet the Schools namesake and her adopted mother a robot played by tress macneile.. another thing the series never bothered to care about as where did these robots come from and why?

Turns out Meteora came to find out her own personal history, with the remote from before used to find the real dirt.. and what we find .. is heartbreaking as we slowly journey back through Meteora’s childhoods as Henious.. and it’s fucking heart breaking with Tress voicing her younger versions, hence why I didn’t use this as the jessica tribute as while walter’s good in the episode, she isn’t given much.

We see her as a teen, forced to hide her tail and insulted over it by her mother.. and it only gets worse as when her cheeks glow as a kid St. O tries to wash them off and we get the poor child desperately begging that “she can be better”

We do finally get the answers Meteora saught as we see Shastacan dropping off the baby meteora, calling her “Henious”.. which St. O took as her name. Proving the spiderbites minus penelope’s dickishness is indeed genetic and why I have no sympathy for the prick getting eaten later... and hopefully globgor will do an encor with penepople’s parents. Here’s hoping.

So Meteora now knows she’s the rightful queen, and decides to go take it back.. though Pony does try to stand up for her friends... and while we don’t see it hte next episode confirms she got her horn ripped the fuck off. And this horribly traumatic injury.. is magically fixed via 3d printing next time we see her after an episode grappling iwth it instead of having pony deal with not having a horn, or her prostetic not giving her magic powers again. Because this show again really likes to leave good ideas out to rot in the sun like that package of hamburger I left out in the sun yesterday. And I actually had a reason there: I need a lot of Racoons for an elaborate scheme involving a map to tex cruz’s house, a used apache helicopter and a bulk order of tiny parachutes.

We do get some payoff to things though, as Henious comes on to rasticore who not so politely rejects her for being nuts.. before it’s revealed Gemini, her loyal servant is also a robot and she uses his heart to blow up rasticore and take the arm with her... which is ALSO never brought up again. Seriously this episode is so full of loose ends i’m suprised it just dosen’t end with Zuko asking his dad about his mother. Gemini’s death is genuinely tragic as his last words are “If you wanted my heart.. all you had to do.. was assssskkkkk”. God damn. So with that Meteora heads out to reclaim her birthright.. no matter the cost.

Final Thoughts on Skooled!: This one is decent.. but like the last episode I covered, the lack of payoff off for almost anything here, excluding the Meteora plotline and the Pony thing which instead got a BAD payoff, is really starting to rear it’s ugly head as the series greatest weakness. Yes bigger than the romance plot. And given that romance plot after this season can be best discribed as...

youtube

The show just.. forgets a good chunk of things happened to keeep things chugging along. It sets UP plots, what happens to st o’s from here, buff frog and a small caravan of monsters leaving forever, the message from shastacan, who built the st o’s robots, and on and on.. but it never PAYS them off. It dosen’t care to. It just does things so the plot can move but never bothers to think about the fucking consequences. It just gets more and more irrtating to think about as other shows throughly DO: Amphibia has the fact the characters get into shenanigans become a commented on running gag and something they grow past, and everything that happens matters. Every episode of Owl House builds on the foundation of the previous episodes. OK Ko dosen’t forget one episode had the characters not be able to turn back into humans and implies their wearing human costumes for the rest of the series. Which is fucking weird, but it was their memory. My point is other shows around the same time or right after didn’t magically forget things happened for convience sake. While it’s OKAY to loose some things in the shuffle, it happens to the best of us, it’s not okay to do it SO fucking often and with no clear care for the audiences desire for payoff. The show just ignores what plot points, like the huge cliffhanger of Star telling marco how she felt at the end of season 2, it dosen’t care about till it needs them and ignores the ones it never does. You can’t just.. bring shit up like it’s important and then try and forget it ever happened. People remember stuff, we are NOT stupid. KIDS are not stupid. When I was younger I REMEMBERED things that happened on KND, Danny Phantom, Xiaolin Showdown, TMNT 2003, because those shows, which are from decades ago, knew I would and trusted even if I missed something and was thrown off i’d tune in for the quality.

And in an age of streaming and more story based tv you can’t just.. ask kids to act like something they saw didn’t happen because your fucking lazy and frankly YOU never should have. Kids deserve better, my niblings deserve better and frankly the adults your clearly also writing for.. deserve better. This episode is eh, but the problems it represents are so fucking worse.

Next time on tom. If you thought I got angry towards the end of this one, just you wait. Next time i’ts Booth Buddies. Yeah.. yeah that one. Stay tuned.

#star vs the forces of evil #skooled #lilica ponyhead #meteora butterfly #gemini #rasticore #patty arms #rat princess #penelope spiderbite #saint olga #saint olgas #disney xd #disney plus #disney channel

27 notes · View notes