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heavencasteel420 · 2 years

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I think it’s bad writing that Nancy is so unaware/dismissive of Jonathan’s struggles with money and class. It’s not bad writing that she has this issue at all; when you grow up solidly middle-class in a society that won’t talk about that class openly and treats poverty as a problem that individuals and families can and should overcome with hard work (or, worse, a moral failing), you’re probably not going to have a thorough understanding of what it means to be poor, especially at a time when Americans were (on average) less skeptical about capitalism.

The problem is the extent of her dismissiveness. She’s not just forgetting that he has to worry about things she doesn’t; she’s actively unwilling to hear about it in Season 3. Now, her initial comments about the “Oliver Twist routine” can be chalked up to anger in a trying situation (Jonathan, also angry, had just unfairly characterized her feelings of frustration and humiliation at work as entitlement, and they’d both just been fired), but her apology to him later specifically doesn’t address those comments; she just says she shouldn’t have compared him to their sexist bosses. Then, in Season 4, it never occurs to her that money might be an issue for him re: visiting her or going to college. It’s very possible he didn’t try to explain, but she’s smart, and it’s not like it’s never come up. The overall impression the show gives is that she has a gigantic gap in her understanding when it comes to this subject. She can be kind and understanding and perceptive elsewhere, but money changes everything.

So, why is this bad writing? Some people really are just like that. Yet I don’t think the way she is about this in S3 and S4 is consistent with her actions in S1, and, while there are hints of her lack of understanding in S2, it’s portrayed with far more delicacy and subtlety as compared to later seasons. In the hotel, she expresses hurt that he didn’t make a move in the month following Will’s recovery from the Upside Down; he expresses disbelief that a month was too long, given everything he had going on with his family. Probably she doesn’t get the full extent of what he had to deal with, but there’s a lot else going on: he does kind of use his responsibilities with Will to avoid engaging with social situations that he finds difficult or painful, she probably wishes she hadn’t gotten back together with Steve at all (as it ultimately made her and Steve unhappy) and feels like Jonathan making a move would’ve prevented that, and he’s probably confused/annoyed that she got back with Steve at all (because, while I’m sure he thinks better of Steve for his interrupted apology and monster-fighting contributions, he’s still seen far less of Steve’s good qualities than Nancy has). And none of this prevents Nancy and Jonathan from being friendly with each other early in the season. She’s joking with him! They’ve obviously been talking about books and music! They want each other to be happy!

And, elsewhere, throughout the first two seasons, she’s so open to understanding him. She initially thinks it’s stupid that she has to stay home just because Will is missing, but she still recognizes how much it sucks for Jonathan. She’s the only person who outright validates his feelings about Lonnie, even when he tries to deflect. She picks up on why he won’t tell his mom about the demogorgon and tells him that it would be okay if he did. She even takes it on faith that the photo situation isn’t quite as bad as it looks and tries to understand what was going on. She’s been to his house at the most fucked-up times. She knows and seems to respect his mom. She was cool with helping exorcise his little brother. It’s one thing for her to dismiss his concerns as an attempt to play some kind of poverty card in the heat of the moment, or even to not feel too bad about it later re: him because he was being such a dick, but you’d think that later she’d be like “ugh, I should have just called him a fucking prick. It was wrong to bring his family’s very real problems into it.”

So, what’s the point of making her so hostile to acknowledging that money is a real issue for Jonathan? There are a couple explanations that have to do with the show’s general weaknesses. It has a problem writing established romantic relationships where people aren’t having big fights, and almost everyone has become emotionally stupider throughout the seasons. But there’s another explanation that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Nancy initially spends time with Jonathan and then gets together with him because he takes her goals and concerns seriously, rather than encouraging her to let them go. This relationship is reciprocal in S1—she’s always putting her hand out for him, too, as he searches for Will. It’s less so in S2, due to Jonathan being underwritten, but she’s still coming through for him in a big way during Will’s exorcism. Once they’re together in S3, though, it’s all about what he can and should do for her, with no room even to discuss his concerns. And now the show is pushing the idea that maybe it’s Steve who’s right for her. Steve, who has many good qualities and genuinely cares for her, but who has never taken her perspective seriously and shows no signs of starting now. What’s the message here? That a woman may think that she wants someone who take her goals seriously and doesn’t always have to take the lead, but ultimately she’ll run roughshod over him and won’t respect him? That what she really needs is someone who thinks she’s great but will ultimately take charge in all situations? That compromise and communication aren’t possible in a relationship? We don’t need this. Not in 2022.

(Some side notes: Jonathan, in the last two seasons, contributes to this dynamic by not telling her shit and not asserting boundaries. If the show cared more than a minuscule amount about Jonathan, this could be something, especially if Nancy realized that neither guy was right for her, because Steve doesn’t really know her and Jonathan…has too much of his own stuff to deal with, I guess? I also don’t think the show’s really trying to make a point about classism, except in the most half-assed way possible. Finally, I think there is an open question about how much of Jonathan’s fear of leaving his family and spending money on college is based in practical concerns and how much is psychological, but I don’t think it ultimately matters—it’s a real problem either way.)

#stranger things #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #jancy #i think it’s possible that the byers are doing sort of okay now #but Jonathan is understandably risk-averse due to the legacy of childhood poverty #and maybe doesn’t have a full picture of what’s going on #because even a world-weary teen doesn’t always know how finances work #if Nancy was annoyed with him for assuming the worst and not talking to his mom that’d be a little different #(I went through a period where I felt horribly guilty about costing my family any money)#(during what was actually one of the most financially secure periods in my family history)#(and no it was not coming from my parents)

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rosiehunterwolf · 3 years

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Nya and Lloyd Character Analysis

So. Between rewatching Ninjago episodes and working on my post-Seabound fic, I’ve noticed something.

We all know that in season 9, Nya and Lloyd became really close. While I believe that they’ve been close since the beginning (who do you think young Lloyd would hang out with when the guys kept leaving him behind), it’s undeniable how season 9 really changed their relationship.

What do I mean by that, exactly?

Nya has really become a big moral support for Lloyd.

When the ninja team is on a mission, and things go sour, Nya is usually the first to call out his name- asking him what to do or calling him to come help her.

At first, I didn’t really think much of it- Lloyd is their team leader, after all. It makes sense that she would look to him for guidance.

But I believe it goes deeper than that. As I watched more and more seasons after Hunted, this kept happening again and again and again. And it was mostly only Nya that called his name- while the others would turn to him sometimes, it was nothing notable, especially considering Lloyd’s role in the group.

One particular example that I can think of at the moment was in Prime Empire, when they were in the Forest of Discontent, when it was Lloyd’s “turn” to go first to check for traps, he got attacked by a Whack Rat, and even though he swiftly dealt with it and didn’t even lose a life like most of the others had, Nya was quick to run up to him and ask if he was okay, when the others hardly even spoke to him. I’m not saying that the others don’t care- but Nya seems to always be keeping tabs on him during their adventures and making sure to acknowledge and include him whenever possible.

Now, this is great, but why does it matter? Why does Nya do this to Lloyd?

Like I said before, their relationship changed in season 9. Nya likely got to spend the most time with Lloyd in seasons 1 and early 2. At that time, he was a pure-hearted but spunky, energetic and reckless child. His childhood had been rough, but not as bad as it could’ve been, and he was doing mostly okay at this point. Nya’s interactions with him likely mostly involved curbing his energy and giving him something to do.

When Lloyd grew up, obviously things changed. Not only because he was older now, but between the Overlord, his father, and Morro, he had experienced enough trauma and danger to last him 100 lifetimes. Now while of course he interacted with Nya during this period, he likely didn’t get a whole lot of one-on-one time with her. When he started going on missions with the rest of the ninja, he wouldn’t get to hang back with her anymore, and even when she became a ninja herself, most of her time spent with him would also involve the other guys.

Prior to season 8, she likely still saw him as her naive little brother, and I think when the team officially made him leader at the end of season 7 is when she realized he wasn’t that little boy anymore.

And when the guys (supposedly) died by the hand of Garmadon’s Colossus, Nya got to see a side of Lloyd she had probably never seen before. She saw him crumble, lose the strong front he had held all those years. She saw him battling what was likely depression as he didn’t seem to have a will to do anything anymore. All the while, Nya was suffering greatly herself, and it must’ve really stung that she only had one teammate (apart from Pixal) with her, and she felt like she had lost him too because of how distant he was being. There was also a big emphasis this season on Lloyd being the green ninja without his powers, and for a good chunk of time, he seemed to think he was worthless now.

Nya fought really hard to encourage Lloyd in those early episodes, when they thought the guys were dead. She was likely scared to see him like this, and unsure of how to deal with it.

They got through it, like they always do- but Nya would never want anything like this to happen again. The rest of the team came back when Lloyd was better- they hadn’t seen him absolutely break like Nya had.

So I think, after Hunted, Nya tries to do everything she can to acknowledge and include Lloyd because she wants him to know she cares- that he matters. He’s a very different person from what he used to be at this point- new thoughts, new emotions, and a new set of struggles- and Nya has adjusted to be the best friend she can to him even as he changes.

I just really respect Nya for that. She’s observant, and she always finds a way to make the people she cares about to feel respected and included, because they matter to her, even when they don’t feel that way themselves.

#ouch that was long #not like that’s anything new though #idk it’s just an observation I made #I’m probably thinking too far into it but hey- that’s the fandom’s job isn’t it?#ninjago #ninjago nya #ninjago lloyd #character analysis

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marieanneline · 3 years

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wait wait hold up i am actually seething about the reveal

ya boi's not a dabi stan. at all. the only reason i'm remotely interested in his character is if he's actually related to shouto and how that would affect hero society in general. i remember reading the training camp arc, seeing him being one of the villains there, him saying todoroki's full name, and thinking "SIBLINGS?????" because agshdfjlk their EYES are SO SIMILAR!! i really want to give credit to horikoshi being able to portray their similarities from artstyle alone because that's talent.

(it's more apparent in the anime since you see the eye color— but appearance-wise, shouto takes after rei and dabi takes after enji the most, so this definitely isn't the best photo to prove my point...)

anyways,,,, dabi's ideals of heroics fall in line with stain's ideals and so we all already theorized how if he was the long lost big brother touya, it would be because of the fact that his father really wasn't a hero. this makes sense. and so, we're all fucking right. props to us, really, and props to horikoshi for all the foreshadowing because i had fun :)) in terms of story and plot, i think this reveal is fantastic.

alright, on to why dabi is a dick

(i'm assuming this was his choice and no one pressured him after all)

the todoroki family is on the road to recovery!!

- shouto finally visits his mother back in season 2 and visits her every chance he gets. you see the effort he makes and it's nice to see him change from season 1 to 2 (early-roki!!)

(guys he even sends her letters- look at that sparkle by his face!! he's sweet :)) and rei's smile!!!!)

- enji (whether we wanted it or not, i don't mind much personally) is trying to atone for everything he's done to his family

- natsuo, who originally wasn't fond of shouto because he had their father's attention (although he does come to the horrible realization that shouto was one of the most unfortunate) and mother's attention (because she wanted to protect shouto), has a closer relationship with his little brother now (can you believe he didn't even know shouto's favorite food was cold soba until ch. 192?? i was sobbing). he really regrets the prejudice he had against shouto and he's trying to be an actual brother to him now.

- rei's almost recovered enough to be released from the hospital!!

- fuyumi and her idyllic "happy family"– wHICH, BY THE WAY, ALMOST CAME TO FRUITION. their mother coming home, shouto connecting with his siblings, and enji being not-the-way-he-was-before is the best outcome they could have hoped for. and it was happening.

and i realize that all of that setup is for this very moment

this? this. this. this is being broadcasted. to everyone. that means the citizens know that their new #1 hero is directly related to a member of a really bad villain organization (i almost called it a terrorist group oop-).

by ruining endeavor, the citizens faith in heroes will collapse. this also affects shouto's reputation as an upcoming hero, and i am so terrified of what this could mean for him. imagine your career ending before it even started, just when you found your passion for being a hero again. all that progress he's made for himself since starting UA could be seen as pointless to him and i would hate for him to retrogress like that because it's not his fault. i would absolutely hate it if the media starts bashing shouto for being related to a villain, when he was also a victim of abuse.

seeing this look on shouto's face is making me dehydrated istg i'm fucking SOBBING— he doesn't even look angry!! in the last few chapters he was angry and worried for his friends, teachers, father maybe, other heroes... but he just looks sad. and the fact that the panel chooses to show the left side of his face is.... there's so much to unpack.

but yeah, this is being broadcasted. does fuyumi know? the cameo she had showed her working so maybe not. natsuo's cameo showed that he was at a lecture, so he also probably didn't see.

but rei did. that's like- that's the person i would want to keep this from the most.

the effects of this entire reveal genuinely scare me. how will this affect rei's mental state? she'll realize that what enji did is actually so much worse. their first child being a villain?? i'm terrified for how she'll react, she's doing much better in recent chapters after all. her kids are visiting her, shouto sends her letters to keep in touch, and enji sends her flowers and respectfully keeps his distance. i really don't want this reveal to result in a relapse. and if she does relapse, then fuyumi's ideal of a happy family is once again out of arms reach. the future of their mother finally coming back home is so far away again and it's genuinely so heart-breaking.

plus— how will fuyumi's little elementary school students react to her being related to a villain? will the school fire her because of her connection to a villain and how that might cause concerns for students and parents????

it's also hard to say exactly how this will affect shouto and natsuo. natsuo was the closest to touya when they were kids so what would his whole opinion be of what touya's become? will he have a moral crisis?

in terms of moral crisises, i guess i'm more concerned about shouto. the boy knows he wants to forgive his father, but this is just making it so much harder. and after this, will he still want to? and finding out that his own sibling is a villain... remember the stain arc? there were some parallels between midoriya's, iida's, and todoroki's positions in the last chapter and i'm worried about what that could foreshadow. from that arc alone, we know that shouto doesn't agree with stain's views at all [i forgot what he said but it was really compelling]. we know that dabi's a stain follower though, so will this disrupt shouto's sense of justice? i hope not.

but family has always been kind of a weak spot for shouto, hasn't it? i hope this doesn't affect his resolve to be a hero because i do think that there's a way to– somehow– not have a corrupt hero society and i want him to fight for that.

touya being a villain is perfectly valid though, i don't doubt that. it's just disheartening to address that while every other todoroki was working hard to become a normal family, here's their oldest brother, who's not really dead. what's going to become of that altar at their house now?

learning the extent to touya's hatred towards endeavor is truly terrifying. we know enji is or was a horrible person and his redemption arc is based on the very fact that he can't be forgiven, despite some of his family trying their best to do so or at least get over it. but the fact that touya has even thought about killing shouto? that's just. ouch. touya's definitely gone through too much abuse, and all of the todoroki family problems are because of enji's bad parenting. but this does not justify murder and especially that of his younger brother, who also got the brunt of the abuse.

needless to say, i am a fool. i don't know if anything i just said will ever be true, but the important thing to take from whatever the heck i just shat out is that all of this is/could be a result of this reveal. it's the fact that dabi seems to have no sympathy. it's the fact that he doesn't care if his blood related family crashes and burns. really, if this is solely about endeavor and what he did, there's no need to bring the rest of the family into this. rei was sent to a hospital for god's sake. shouto has a scar. it's excessive and unmoral and although questionable ethics and values are key traits of a villain, it doesn't justify how much he's hurting the todorokis.

(look at this shit eating grin he has. no remorse. he really doesn't give a shit about the others but I DO and I'M so SAD)

and assuming that the whole "endeavor's wife admitted into hospital" was swept under the rug in terms of media, will that suddenly come back to light? because it shouldn't. maybe it should be known that she's in the hospital because of marital abuse but either way rei should not be dragged back into this disaster, and neither should the rest of them. there's also a chance that the media will accuse rei of having abused her kids too, which is messed up for different reasons. they're trying so hard to have any semblance of a normal family, and if dabi's way of revealing this to the world ruins that in any way then i hATE THIS REVEAL ASDFGHJKL—

#tw: abuse #this is just a rant for myself i'm so sorry for those who have this on their dash #how the fuck do you add those ''under the cut'' things on mobile??#and this is a long ass post #i wrote too much #and i was redundant #and i wrote this at 4 in the morning #many many typos...#i needed to let this out though #bnha 290 #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #notey

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ramblingguy54 · 3 years

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So, you see that season 3 trailer that was revealed on Braly's Lightbox Expo panel? How much does that make you excited for season 3 of Amphibia like with Sasha's redemption (especially when she is reading Anne's journal), those scenes of Olivia and Yunnan (that's gonna fuel Olivia/Yunan being Marcy's lesbian moms idea) rescuing Marcy, the Plantars having to blend in and wear human clothing, and Anne, her parents, and Plantars on Earth stuff?

I didn't actually see it on Matt Braly's Lightbox Expo panel, but checked it out today as I've been busy with stuff on my end.

Anyways, I'm just as pumped as anyone else in the fandom currently is to get more footage of Season 3 before it airs in early October! It's very cool and interesting to see Olivia & Yunan switching sides, which people had been speculating about whether or not they'd stick with Andrias after he revealed what a cold blooded tyrant he truly is by Season 2's finale. I noticed we get a shot of Olivia showing Marcy Newtopia's environment when she first presumably arrives there in a flashback from her reflecting on feeling bad for the kid after all that has transpired currently.

It does make sense why Olivia would turn on Andrias after she devoted herself to serving for Newtopia's greatness for awhile. To see it all be risked of getting wiped out because of Andrias' lust for universal conquest was a grim reality check, no doubt. Olivia may be stuck up to a degree in how she carries herself, but this lady isn't heartless for sure. Olivia made it evident in Marcy At The Gates how much respect she has to Marcy as a person for the accomplishments and help she's lent their society as a whole. It'd be pretty strange for her to willingly go along with seeing Andrias torment a poor kid through God knows what kind of experimenting.

You can easily make the same argument for General Yunan, too. The Newt Warrior poured a lot of her passion into what she did for Andrias. Yunan was doing it to be acknowledged, hence the whole repeating her name running gag deal, where seeing Andrias' cruel nature must've been hard to accept after how kind he's been previously. I wouldn't be surprised if Olivia probably helped convince Yunan to stand up against Andrias and save Marcy, so it'll be cool to see how this all plays out.

God, I’m so looking forward to seeing what kind of dramatic stuff we’ll get for Sasha’s redemption arc in Season 3′s run time, overall. Seeing her come across Anne’s forgotten journal in the Plantar’s basement is gonna lead into some very good stuff for Sasha’s newfound remorseful nature. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she comes across an entry from Anne’s journal detailing the events of their big falling out in Season 1′s finale, Reunion. Looking at these two pics get me so emotional right now because I love we don’t get to see Sasha’s reaction to stumbling upon this item, but you can damn well bet she’s feeling so regretful after backstabbing Anne.

After seeing the level of care Anne & Marcy’s characters had in the first two seasons, I’m stoked to find out how they’ll do Sasha Waybright journey of moral improvement justice. She’s arguably the most interesting of these three girls for that serious amount of insecurity Sasha tries to cover up with strength and control. Knowing we’re gonna see Anne’s parents has me wondering about what we’re gonna see outta Sasha’s family background, considering the focus will be a lot more upon her learning to grow past whatever deep seeded issues she has.

I’m sure there will be plenty of funny scenarios the Plantars will get themselves into, although more than anything I’d say what I’m most looking forward to is seeing how they’ll further deepen their bond with Anne as a whole. Anne slowly became accustomed to their reality learning to live off the land, fend for herself, and most importantly fit into their town of Wartwood. Now it’s the Plantars turn to be thrown into the very same seat of understanding how Anne’s world exactly operates.

This reversal allows for more stuff to occur like Anne & Sprig getting more sister/brother bonding, Polly & Anne material, and Hop Pop getting some quality time with her as well after their dramatic tension in Season 2 with his lie about the Calamity Box coming out into the open. Who’s to say there couldn’t be a future episode addressing Anne & Hop Pop relationship coming into another situation requiring one another’s trust?

Anne’s parents being thrown into the mix for a new change in dynamic for her emotionally is high upon my list of stuff I can’t wait to see play out. She doesn’t have just one family to protect anymore, but two. Her parents & the Plantars mean everything to Anne, so I totally see a bunch of drama happening where she’ll try to shoulder the responsibility of handling Andrias’ ominous threat over Earth. After everything Anne has gone through these past two season the kid has a ton of baggage on her plate whether it’s watching Marcy be stabbed, feeling betrayed by her two closest friends, making her parents worry about where she could’ve disappeared off to, and most importantly learning to harness the Calamity powers to protect everything dear to herself.

Amphibia Season 3 has a ton of stuff I’m looking forward to seeing unfold throughout this final part of a great story about friendship and family. The drama has been so well written watching Matt Braly & crew top their efforts for crucial storytelling time and time again. So, yeah, I’m very happy to see it return. October is going to be a damn treat for the Amphibia community and just in time after Owl House ended it’s first part of Season 2 on a powerful cliffhanger.

#amphibia season 3 #anon asks #i'm so ecstatic to see this great show return #amphibia #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #hop pop plantar #polly plantar #sprig plantar #mrs boonchuy #mr boonchuy

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copperpieceharlot · 3 years

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Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

#mine #ask #corvidcorgi #order of the stick #oots #leverage #leverage au #oots au #au #outline #haha this thing clocks in at 1.9k words because i am LITERALLY incapable of shutting up #hope u enjoy it bc i spent Way Too Much Mental Effort mapping out how the OotS plotlines might play out in a leverage setting #and then promptly ignored Most of that in favor of making it funnier & dumber & more villain-of-the-week #(bc lbr the comic is Good but it's got an overarching plot form that the Leverage story style does Not jive with)#i'm not tagging all these characters lol

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itsonlystrange · 3 years

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It’s late and I feel like talking about ST characters trauma

I feel like most people only focus on Will’s or El’s (which both are very valid ! ) but I think we both need to remember that:

1: characters exist outside of their trauma. If you believe that all a single character is is their trauma, and that they deserve no further character depth, you’re psycho

And 2: all characters in this fking show are traumatized. All. Of. Them. At this rate, I think Lucas is the most unscathed mentally, yet he ALSO has so much trauma! Which nobody ever talks about!

I love Will and El, however I feel like other characters (especially the females) deserve more expansion on the sh!t they’ve been through.

I WANT TO ALSO SAY:

This isn’t me narrowing down characters with the “most trauma” as I simply cannot put every character in this post and go on a full analysis rn as its 4:00 am. And also, trauma isn’t a competition. I am sick of people saying “so and so is more traumatized than so and so.” Or “so and so is the most/less traumatized.”

All trauma is valid.

People will trauma of any kind know that it doesn’t matter if someone lost 2 legs and half their brain, but you only broke your foot. That’s still gonna be painful! Mentally and physically! It isn’t a race. I don’t want to see ANY of that anymore. It’s disgusting and undermining other characters traumas to benefit others. All characters trauma is V A L I D. It all is! There is no “well so and so is the most traumatized so the others don’t get to complain.” NO! NO NO NO! That’s not how it works! This isn’t a game!! And don’t ever feel bad about not having gone through as much as your friend, your trauma is yours and all experiences are valid.

ALSO REMINDER: characters exist outside of their trauma and ab*se and I know that! This isn’t me belittling or shrinking down people to only a component to their trauma. It’s me pointing out their trauma rather than having their trauma he their whole character. I just think we need more people to talk about other ST characters, especially right now.

Now, without further a do:

MAX:

Max’s dad left fairly early on from what we’ve seen, however she still had some contact with him for at least a few more years as she seems to remember him and miss him quite a lot. We don’t know much about Mr. Mayfield, but we do know Max mises him a great deal. We also know that she has most likely witnessed a lot of physical and verbal ab*se from her stepfather. It’s never stated if Max is a handle to this ab*se either, but she’s definitely witnessed it. Which is why I believe she pushes people away, she’s afraid to get latched on. Because If she does she’ll start to care, and then they’ll just leave like almost everyone else, like her old friends and her father. She puts up walls and feign strength and a somewhat high ego to keep up the hallucination that she doesn’t care about what others think, when she really does. Not to mention she literally witnessed Billy die right before her eyes. Do you know how traumatizing that is? She’s also seen multiple others die aswell, making it worse. Now with Billy gone, Max will most likely be the center of Neil’s ab*se, and Will distance herself from everyone, and will probably spiral into a severe depression. She acts all tough on the outside when in reality she just wants to be loved and accepted, by her friends and family. She gets critiqued quite a lot, especially for being a girl, and you can tell she definitely has gotten the short end of the stick most her life.

KALI:

Do I even need to explain this one? She was literally ABDUCTED AS A CHILD, then adopted, then her adoptive family DITCHED HER, she was forced to see others get hurt or to hurt others for experiments, she’s seen multiple people d!e, and she feels like the only way for life to get better is by k!lling people. Although she’ll never show it, she feels so alone in the world. With no real family, and only her friends, she has nobody to turn to. Kali was so hated upon, which in a way, I understand. I don’t entirely agree with her morally but I do see where her intentions lay and I don’t think she’s as bad as a person as everyone says she is. She’s just a broken girl that deserves to be loved. And she’s so distant from love because she’s afraid of getting hurt. But she deserves happiness, and I wish the Duffers would allow her that happiness, too.

JOYCE:

Nobody EVER talks about Joyce’s trauma as much as they talk about Will’s or El’s (which I’m not invalidating either of theirs I’m just pointing out Joyce’s)

Joyce is said to deal with frequent panic attacks and anxiety. She was verbally and probably physically ab*see by her husband leaving her with severe trust issues. For awhile the whole town thought she was crazy, and we’ve seen her be treated like an outcast. She doesn’t fit in. Back in the 80’s, single moms were looke down upon. Will is constantly referred to as “Lonnie’s Boy”, because that’s what people see him as, even when Lonnie ditched Will and hurt him more than Joyce ever could. Joyce works/worked multiple jobs, and had to keep up her family of two boys. It got so bad even Jonathan had to get one or two jobs just to keep a roof over their heads.

Joyce really deserves happiness. She’s always alert now and her anxiety has only gotten worse. She’s constantly looking for things that aren’t there and although she may have been right about the magnets, it’s worrying that she saw a pattern there, anyways. Her life has given her the short end of the stick multiple times. She’s seen multiple people d!e, her son get possessed, her son get exorcised and be in so much pain, the love of her life (Bob) die right in front of her, the other love of her life (Hopper) die right infront of her, she’s been losing herself since season one, and knowing it’ll only get worse in season 4 scares me so much. She deserves to settle down and find a happy family. She deserves love and support and therapy. And she deserves support system that will listen to her and be there for her. Joyce is so strong in so many ways, she has always percerviered through the thick and thin, and life has ever gone in her direction yet she stays there, for her boys, and doesn’t give up. She is so kind and loyal, she took El under her wing, she was there countless nights when Lonnie was screaming, protecting Will. She was there, staying up all night to make sure Will went to bed safely. She worked two jobs and has tried to get enough money for Jonathan to go to college, and yet life has never given her anything back. This woman has been through hell, she deserves to be loved with no consequences. She deserves to be happy without it backfiring. Joyce is such a dimensional character. She’s had her ups and downs, and she’s somehow always found ways to keep on pushing forward past where most people would break. THATS Queen shit

NANCY:

Now, it looks like Nancy had a fairly peaceful upbringing. While I don’t think she has as much trauma as Mike, I feel like a lot of people over look her and her existence and immediately write her off as “selfish” or a “brat”. And while I do agree that she does have some selfish or self centered moments, she’s always grown from those. Character development, people!

Nancy, the oldest of 3, definitely got the most love from her mother. I don’t think her home life has ever been bad. Although Karen and Ted aren’t the perfect happy couple, they don’t seem to fight much, and they seem pretty peaceful. So I don’t think Nancy’s home life is bad necessarily, and from the outside it could almost be described as “perfect”.

However, there is so much beneath that.

Nancy was stuck in a loveless relationship for about a year. She did the best she could at school to fit in or “be popular”. She wanted to stay with Steve because that seemed like the most logical option. He was popular, rich, he’d be the perfect guy to settle down with. But her heart was telling her to go else where. Jonathan was poor, unpopular, and isn’t necessarily the perfect guy to settle down with financially. Her parents put pressure on her to be the perfect housewife (more so her dad, I don’t think karen did as much.) so when Nancy falls for someone the exact opposite of what she should be going for, she’s in denial. She’s torn between the two. She had a perfect life ahead of her. Great friends, popularity, a loving boyfriend, but she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to settle down and living a boring life just like her parents.

Besides all that, she’s been pulled into an alternate dimension, she’s seen multiple people d!e, she’s nearly been k!led MULTIPLE times. She’s had to k!ll people for her own safety. She’s had to watch her boyfriends brother get excorcised, and also stab her boyfriends brother with a flaming hot rod. She’s had to live with the guilt of Barbara, her best friend, dying while she was sleeping with Steve. She feels so much guilt, survivors guilt, for not doing anything that night. She’s had to live with the fact that her bestfriend since she was little passed on right outside where Nancy was, and Nancy could’ve done something about it, which is the worse part. She’s been harassed by misogynistic coworkers for the fact that she’s a female, lowering her self esteem. And it seems that whenever she does something good in the world it always backfires. She feels like an outcast even though she has so many “friends”, or so it seems. She has the perfect house at the end of a culdesac. What can she possibly be sad over? Her life seems seamless. Yet there is a lot buried under there. She seems like she’s in denial over a lot of things, and constantly in a stage of grief. Nancy deserves to not feel ridiculed. She deserves to be a winner, and to prove those misogynistic @ssholes wrong. She shouldn’t have to fit this cookie cutter ideal. She’s a badass. She’s experienced way more than I feel like most people realize, and has been put in the center of absolute insanity yet still was able to come out of it intact. She deserves to live the life she wants to live, without Survivors Guilt, without the feeling of being an outcast, without low self esteem. Nancy is such a strong young woman in more ways than one, and I feel like so many people hate on her solely because she isn’t doing what most of these girl next door characters usually do. She subverted her own trope. And most people are angry that she isn’t this cookie cutter girl the way she’s “supposed to be”. She gets overlooked, and most people prefer the men of the cast, over her. And yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion, however I’ve seen people hate on Nancy for stupid misogynistic things, which isn’t a valid reason to dislike a character. And most people assume she’s just a spoiled, self obsorbed, ditzie girl, but she really is just someone trapped inside a box trying to get out. Nancy is a baddie. She’s always defended her friends. She’s always defended her brother, and has fought interdimensonal demons before. SHE IS SUCH A BADASS! She learned how to use a gun at the age of 16, despite most woman in the 80’s not even slowing themselves to touch a gun. She grew independent and learned to work for herself and not for others. She cracked a major story at the Hawkins Post, and even when people didn’t believe her, she still pursued it, and was right! She doesn’t give up, and people should be looking up to her and aspiring to be her. She literally beat up someone with a fire hydrant while playing a game of Marco Polo. Why does nobody talk about that! She will kick your ass into the next dimension. THATS Queen shit.

That’s all for now. I will touch back up on this later with some more characters traumas (probably Mike’s, Dustin’s, Lucas’s, and more.) but this is it for now. I really think we should pay more attention to the woman in the ST cast and their characters. A lot of focus is usually on the boys, which is understandable, but I wanted to point out how strong all these girls are and how much I admire them. I love Will and el as well, but I’ve already made several posts talking about them and how badass they are, lol. I wanted to shine light on more people that usually don’t take the spotlight very often. I’ll be back with more, later! As I said above, I’ll totally touch on some more people’s trauma as well, as there’s a lot beneath the surface I feel like most people don’t pay attention to.

SORRY FOR SUPER LONG POST

PS: I began writing that at 4:44am, then fell asleep. It’s 11:45 am now.

#stranger things #stranger things 4 #st4 #nancy wheeler #joyce byers #kali prasad #max mayfield

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gascon-en-exil · 3 years

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A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

#Game of Thrones #GoT

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100 rewatch: 5x04 Pandora’s Box

Another excellent episode, maybe a little less action-packed than Sleeping Giants but still fast, full of tension, new information, and many warm reunions and nice character moments - which are important to see before all these characters start having conflicts and many of these relationships get strained to the point of almost breaking later in the season.

This one picks up immediately after the last scenes of both 5x02 (the bunker - cliffhanger with Kane as one of the fighters in the pit) and 5x03 (Eden with Bellamy, Clarke and the prisoners after Bellamy has negotiated with Diyoza, Raven and Murphy on Eligius 4), brings everyone together*, as the prisoners open the bunker and Wonkru finally gets out - and ends with the conflict that means that war between Wonkru and the Eligius prisoners is imminent. The Pandora’s Box has been opened, to use another one of Bellamy’s Greek mythology references. (Oddly enough, he makes that reference in the next episode, not in this one.)

(*Well, not everyone - Monty, Harper, Emori, Echo and Madi are MIA this episode. hiding somewhere in Eden, before they also reunite with the rest of Spacekru plus Clarke plus Wonkru in the next episode.)

If I hadn’t seen season 5 before, I’d be thinking “Will this be the best season of the show?” It is by far the season with the strongest beginning - before the plot starts to drag, building conflicts within both camps. so that war would not happen until the two-part finale. Strong beginning, strong ending, poor middle part.

After the epic Bellarke scene at the end of 5x03, this episode delivers their actual reunion, with another one of those incredibly intimate and intense hugs that Bellamy and Clarke are known for. They tend to grow in intensity, and I’ll just say this: when Tumblr flagged gifs of this hug as “explicit”, well - for once I could see why poor Tumblr bots were getting confused:

A reunion after 6 years, during which Bellamy believed Clarke to be dead, while Clarke didn’t know if Bellamy was alive but still called him on the radio and talked to him every day for 2199 days, has to be pretty epic, and this scene delivers. It seems almost like Clarke - who had been badly tortured - wasn’t entirely sure if that was really Bellamy who emerged out of the darkness to save her, of if she was imagining it, with the way she says “You are really here!”, while crying out of happiness. The intimacy in the body language and the way they look at each other is also reflected in Clarke telling him “And now you’re home!” This goes way beyond how platonic partners and non-romantic best friends interact with each other. The scene is not just acted but directed and shot in such a way that anyone who would see it without knowing Clarke and Bellamy’s actual relationship status, would get the wrong (?) idea. For a moment, they even look like people who have been caught making out, like they don’t want these strangers to witness such an intimate moment.

Even if she did not see this scene in particular, it’s no surprise that Diyoza assumed Clarke and Bellamy were a couple (“the hostage taker and his girlfriend”) after what she saw of their interactions. Really, who wouldn’t?

Bellamy quickly updates Clarke on how everyone is - Madi, Spacekru, acknowledges that Clarke has saved them all (something multiple people do in this early part of the season) and that all of the people who went to space are safe. (”Murphy, Monty, Raven?” “Echo and Emori”. - But why the Harper erasure? This is one of the very few lines in this episode that feel wrong. She’ one of the Delinquents both of them have known since they landed on Earth and Clarke would logically care about her more than Echo, who, she barely knew and who was her enemy 90% of the time. )

Another beautiful reunion happens by radio - Murphy and Raven learn that Clarke is alive. Murphy smiles the moment he hears her voice, and Raven, teary-eyed, thanks Clarke for saving their lives. The Spacekru have been criticized a lot in the fandom for not appreciating Clarke’s sacrifice, but it has to be said that, right after they learned she was alive, they all acknowledged it and expressed gratitude. (Some of them were just later angry at her and not so ready to try to understand her perspective after living isolated for 6 years.) This is one of the very few moments of happiness in season 5 (whenever I see that screenshot of Clarke and Bellamy’s big smiles, I mistake it for a moment for a BTS photo. That’s how rare it is to see characters looking happy on the actual show.)

…………………….

Meanwhile, over in the bunker, no one is happy. and everything is dark, sad and disturbing. Octavia is full Blodreina and acting like a Roman Emperor, deciding if gladiators get to earn their freedom or not. because even being “the last” doesn’t necessarily earn you freedom now - it all comes down to the Queen’s whim. Kane is forced to fight in the pit again tomorrow. I suppose they already have the next batch of fighters ready - it would be a bit weird if she expected a bunch of new “crimes” tomorrow. But things must have gotten progressively worse if they’re now having death matches every day. If they had been condemning people to the pits at that pace throughout those 6 years, even more than 1/3 of the Wonkru would be dead.

One thing I had not noticed before - there is a singer, singing an anthem or ceremonial song before the fights start, and it is the same woman who sang the Coalition anthem in 3x03. This somewhat changes my views of the way Grounder clans chose 100 people to survive the bunker. At least one of the clans was smart enough to include a musician, rather than a bunch of warriors. There should have been even more musicians and other entertainers (you’d expect a culture like Grounders to have some sort of epic poetry!), as that would’ve helped the life in the bunker much more than warriors (and there could have been entertainment that does not include killing). But this was probably an exception, because this person probably had a high status as a ceremonial singer.

Our first look at Abby after the time jump - and she is obviously in a bad state and pill-addicted, and both she and Kane look tired and worn down. He is protecting her and taking the guilt for her crime - stealing pills, since Abby is obviously in no state to fight - and on her part, Abby wants to confess and spare him. But Indra - who has been helping them and is clearly unhappy with the way Blodreina is ruling - is more rational and knows Kane winning is the only way to save them both. Kane, however, is choosing to take a stand and refuse to fight.

Kane and Abby got a lot of flak from the fandom and were accused of hypocrisy for their attitude to Octavia later in the season - with the argument that Abby was the one who persuaded Octavia to go through with cannibalism and killing people for refusing to ear, and that Kane knew Abby’s role in it but blamed Octavia. All these arguments presume that they were blaming Octavia for the cannibalism and everything else that happened the Dark Year. But in fact, there’s zero indication that this is what they blamed her for, and it’s pretty clear that the reason why they - and others - have issues with Blodreina is that she’s been ruling by fear and throwing people into fighting pits for all sorts of reasons, and generally being a scary tyrant/leader of a cult of death and violence. Yes, as we learn later, Abby was a crucial part of how Octavia turned into that person, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is that person now, that she has absolute power in the bunker, and people have been living in fear of her.

Kane tries to plead with Octavia when she comes to tell him he has to fight, and at this point, he seems to still believe she could change and start making better decisions. What feels a bit off to me is that he says he’s been silent for too long - this can’t be the first time he’s tried to change her mind? He would have probably had a lot more chance to succeed if he tried much earlier. We get the first mention of the infamous “Dark Year” (this is also the episode where we first hear “All of me for all of us”) and see Octavia getting upset at its very mention (a reveal will be dragged out for 6 more episodes). It’s interesting that Jaha and Kane both mentioned Aurora Blake’s fate in their speeches to Octavia, but they used it to say completely different things. Jaha was saying that this is what you have to do, execute everyone who is the “enemy” because they endanger your survival in any way, even if it’s having one more child. Kane was saying that’s what they shouldn’t be doing anymore, she shouldn’t be doing what they did on the Ark, but do better. Octavia ended up taking Jaha’s advice, which shaped her as leader, for better or worse. (Mostly worse, IMO.) She could have maybe taken Kane’s advice years ago, but now it’s clearly too late.

If anything, Kane’s refusal to fight makes her more determined than ever to break him - she doesn’t want to condemn him to death, she wants to break his resistance and his stubborn insistence on morality. I don’t approve of all of Kane’s later actions in season 5, but it’s really not hard to see why, after these experiences and everything in the bunker, he thought Blodreina’s rule was the worst thing that could happen.

And then - like a Deus ex machina, the bunker door opens and Bellamy is literally coming down from above, into the darkness of Octavia’s underground realm, as the savior, bathed in light, It’s the second episode in a row where he comes as a Big Damn Hero in almost dreamlike scene, from a POV of a woman in his life, this time his sister. For a moment, Blodreina is Octavia again and hugs her brother. Clarke comes down a moment later (but she is not bathed in light - she looks at the Blake siblings from the shadows.)

Instead of hugging, Clarke and Octavia greet each other with a forearm handshake - which is quite an interesting choice, particularly since (thanks @jeanie205) this is apparently a type of greeting associated with Roman generals greeting each other. (But only in Hollywood movies, It wasn’t a thing in actual Roman history.)

In addition to all the reunions, some characters meet for the first time - such as Octavia and Diyoza, who are about to become rival leaders on two sides of the war. Who could have known what their relationship would turn into in season 6 and season 7?

I love the way that everyone - Bellamy, Clarke, Diyoza and the rest of the prisoners - have the “WTF is this” look when they see the fighting pit (which is all covered in blood - apparently, they don’t wash it. It’s an aesthetic, I guess.) Bellamy soon asks Octavia what the heck she’s doing (and guesses exactly what inspired her: “Someone must have read Ovid one too many times). It’s an experience she hasn’t had in years - to have her decisions questioned by someone who’s not one of her subjects and not afraid of her.

More reunions follow: Clarke and Abby, Bellamy and Miller (another relationship that will turn sour in the rest of the season), Clarke and Kane.

Meanwhile, on Eligius 4, Raven finds more info about Diyoza backstory - Colonel Diyoza was "something called Navy SEAL" (it makes sense that Arkers wouldn’t know about such things), decorated for valor three times, before turning into a rebel/terrorist, and leader of a movement called United Liberation Army. As we see in these articles, civilians died in these attacks, which is something Diyoza regrets in season 7 - even if her cause was right, her means were wrong.

Raven and Murphy have some fun playing soccer, but they’re also worried about the fact they may need to murder 283 people. Raven finds it hard, so Murphy offers to do it to spare her. It’s typical for their relationship that Murphy tends to see Raven as someone better and more moral than himself (in spite of the fact that she once tried to sacrifice him instead of Fin), while Raven often says disparaging things about him, even though she is fond of him.

One thing I found a bit odd that Murphy at one point says: “Why do you have to always be the one to sacrifice?” - even though this was just the second time Raven has decided to sacrifice herself, and he wasn’t even around for the first time - trying to blow the bridge in 1x10. But Murphy seems to have a somewhat idealized view of Raven, driven by his guilt over crippling her and his self-loathing. Or maybe he meant the others in the group in general. as he sees himself as the selfish cockroach as opposed to them. (Note: I initially wrote this in my 5x03 review, before I realized it was actually said in this episode. That’s what happens when you finalize posts after having seen two episodes ahead.)

Raven and her future love interest Shaw try to outsmart each other in hacking (Raven even kind of flips a bird at Shaw at one point - it’s like they are having a digital meet cute without having even met.)

But when Diyoza finds a way to outsmart Spacekru by suffocating Raven and Murphy - Raven tells Murphy to pull the lever (usually Clarke’s job) and kill the prisoners; and when he hesitates, she goes into her fierce/ruthless mode and goes “Fine, I’ll do it”, before Murphy comes up with the smart solution that prioritizes survival and also doesn’t include mass murder - a win-win, except it also takes away Bellamy’s leverage.

I wonder where the standoff between Wonkru and the Eligius prisoners would have led after Diyoza took Abby and Kane with her and announced her people were taking over Eden? Would war still have been inevitable? I can’t see Octavia giving up on Eden so easily. In any case, the war here was started by an idiot who shot an incredibly destructive weapon at Octavia just because her arrogant Blodreina grin pissed her off. (This guy, called Szybunka, is a part of McCreary’s faction, and here we first learn that they are preparing a rebellion against Diyoza, though McCreary thinks it’s still not time for it.)

A lot more deaths were prevented by Shaw, Major props for him in this episode both for that, and because he is the first person to finally make the point that there are so few people left of the human race and that it is incredibly stupid to kill more of them

Octavia immediately blames Bellamy for everything - even though he was the reason why she and Wonkru got out of the bunker instead of being stuck there forever/ And this time, I’m sure this was 100% meant to highlight that she has a habit of unfairly placing blame on Bellamy whenever something goes wrong in her life.

Body count: I haven’t been doing these for a while, but now I’m doing the body count for the entire season 5 so far:

Wonkru - we learn in this episode that, out of the 1200 people in the bunker, there are 814 remaining. So, 386 - almost a third - died during those 6 years. That includes 3 people who died in the fighting pit. An additional Wonkru member is killed by the idiot Szybunka while protecting Octavia, leaving 813.

Eligius prisoners - two of the party on Earth were killed by Madi and Clarke in 5x01, Four more were killed in 5x03 - one shot by Clarke, another one mercy killed by Diyoza after getting into one of Clarke’s traps, two more shot by Madi to save Bellamy, Monty, Harper, Emori and Echo. On the ship, Kodiak, the big guy Diyoza activated as a weapon (”activate Kodiak!”) was killed in self-defense by Bellamy with help from Echo and Raven. And in 5x04, Szybunka is killed by McCreary for his stupidity. This leaves 282 prisoners on the ship and an unknown smaller number on Earth.

Rating: 8/10

#the 100 #the 100 season 5 #the 100 rewatch #pandora's box #the 100 5x04 #bellamy blake #octavia blake #clarke griffin #charmaine diyoza #marcus kane #abby griffin #raven reyes #john murphy #bellarke #indra #indra kom trikru

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ywhiterain · 3 years

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Sex and Violence

When it comes to the Winchester psychodrama, it doesn’t really get much better than Sex and Violence. Or, worse, if you’re not into the pain, angst, and misery.

DEAN: Well, I don't know when it happened. Maybe when I was in hell. Maybe when I was staring right at you. But the Sam I knew, he's gone. SAM: That so? DEAN: And it's not the demon blood or the psychic crap. It's the little stuff. The lies. The secrets. SAM: Oh, yeah? What secrets? DEAN: The phone calls to Ruby for one. SAM: So I need your say-so to make a phone call? DEAN: That's the point. You're hiding things from me. What else aren't you telling me? SAM: None of your business. DEAN: See what I mean? We used to be in this together. We used to have each other's backs. SAM: OK, fine. You know why I didn't tell you about Ruby, and how we're hunting down Lilith? Because you're too weak to go after her, Dean. You're holding me back. I'm a better hunter than you are. Stronger, smarter. I can take out demons you're too scared to go near.

This has been building for years. Since the pilot, really. But let’s go back to season three. Dean had two main threads in his character: dealing with the fact he was going to die and go to hell and leaving a legacy behind. Sam’s was dealing with the fact he was going to lose his brother to hell and figuring out how he’ll keep fighting without Dean.

Early season Dean might complain about Sam’s morals getting in the way of the black white world he wants to live in, but he relies on it. He gave Sam a shot to talk to Max (even if he brought a gun) and let the non human eating vampires live. A crucial moment in Dean’s development is when he talks about how far he’ll go to protect his family (John and Sam. Mostly Sam). He knows there’s a lot of darkness inside of him. He relies on Sam to be Yin to his Yang.

It’s why he freaks out when Sam’s gets more ruthless and colder in season three. Sure, he wants Sam to agree with him. But he also knows how valuable Sam’s input is. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Sam and Dean are an excellent team. Good cop/bad cop, yin/yang, sun/moon. Whatever you want you to call it, they are a pair complement each other.

I don’t talk about it as much, but Sam relies on it too. He begs Dean to keep him in check. He wants Dean to put a gun to his head if he ever becomes something he’s not. Sam is as flawed as Dean and has the same capacity for evil and darkness.

When faced with the idea of losing Dean, Sam gets darker and colder. He’s less empathetic. He closes off from the people around him. He goal oriented to the point of obsessive self-destruction. And it’s not new. It’s just in season one and two, Dean could pull him out of it with a stupid joke or earnest declaration that he’d keep Sam safe.

Season three fractures their admittedly codependent and boundary blurring relationship. The both flirt with the idea that Sam becomes Dean’s legacy even as, near the end of the season, Dean finally starts fight against his fate.

Dean wants the impossible. He wants Sam to somehow remain the same after he dies. He wants Sam to keep Baby exactly as she was while Sam fights a coming war without letting it change him on fundamental levels.

Sam can’t say empathetic and faithful when he’s alone. He can’t hope for the best when he’s living his worst nightmare. Sam changes when Dean goes to hell and Dean struggles with that. Sam struggles with that.

Dean’s controlling with ridiculous expectations of Sam. He doesn’t like Sam getting things from Ruby. I don’t mean that sexually. I mean he’s not happy with Sam’s emotional needs being met by anyone but him. He really doesn’t like that Ruby is taking his place. And she sort of is. Sam said himself: Ruby acted like Dean to get him to stop his suicidal spiral. Maybe Dean’s grateful and he almost gives Ruby credit, but mostly he’s just bitter and angry.

Sam’s not much better. Of course Dean is a hot mess. He was in hell for forty years. He’s been the ear for Dean’s pain and confessions. And he’s never held it against Dean. Well, mostly. Part of the reason Sam keep going to Ruby is because Dean can’t be his rock in the way he used to be.

Sam’s favorite hobby growing up was telling John no. And probably fuck you. And he’ll do the same to Dean. To a point. But there’s a reason Sam’s almost always in the passenger’s seat. When the chips are down, he wants Dean to take charge and be his white knight.

And then there’s the big elephant in the room. Dean brought Sam back to life. Sam promised he’d return the favor by saving him. He failed.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Dean’s supposed to the the strong protector and Sam’s the object he protects at al cost. Sam doesn’t get to save Dean, he’s the one who is saved. Dean rots in hell and Sam has to fight alone.

But the cost is too high for Dean to pay and he can’t pay forever and the objectification stifles Sam. Sam and Dean are a unit, but they need more.

They’re never going to get it. Not really. It’s destiny, baby.

It’s a sad life for Sam and Dean. But it makes for very compelling television.

#supernatural #spn meta #sam winchester #dean winchester #the great spn (re)watch

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Alright, so if you've been following along with me, Supernatural season 3 starts out on a trio of episodes that are Really Fun, slides into some episodes that are Pretty OK, then takes a real nose dive into Bummersville. Hoo boy guys, I really hope that this season picks up. I mean, it won’t, but I can still dream. 2021 was maybe not the year to start watching this season. Fair warning.

The next three episodes for this season are just, like, real downers. First we get “Fresh Blood,” which, aside from the terrible title, starts out on a high note. Gordon (gross) somehow manages to catch up with Bela (HOW??) and threatens her if she doesn’t hand over the Winchesters. Bela, in all of her class and grace, won’t give them up because she has a high price point and Gordon is really lowballing her here. Just like, yes, ok, please stay forever, you’re amazing and I love you. And what a scene this is! You have two characters, one with a strict moral code (albeit one that allows for violence and winning at all costs) and the other with almost NO moral code, but an allegiance that can be bought with the best price and it’s such a fun back and forth until Gordon pulls out a gun. And then she pulls out her phone and just has Dean on speed dial and that’s maybe my fav part. Bela has run into the Winchesters twice and they maybe legit hate her but she’s very much like, oh yeah, my BFF’s the Winchesters, I love those idiots!

I love that we come back to this moment later in the episode when Bela, like, three days later, is like, Oh! I guess I should warn the Winchesters that some crazy guy is after them! She’s just so casual about it you kind of get the feeling that, even though technically Gordon was threatening her life, she doesn’t view him as A Threat. She gives the Winchesters a heads up just to be like oh yeah, you might want to watch out for this mild inconvenience, and she seems legit shocked when Dean freaks out. There’s this moment that plays across her face like, oh shit, did I...did I fuck up? And it adds a nice bit of depth to her character. She’s seems honestly worried, both for the lives of the Winchesters but also that Dean won’t like her anymore and that is just a charming bit of A C T I N G!

I am gonna miss her SO MUCH when she dies at the end of this season. WHY did we CANCEL HER???

But despite the fun beginning, this episode is about monsters and how people become monsters and how other people are probably the reason. Because our main baddie is a vampire who hunts to...well, listen if we look at the facts that he lays out in his monologue, it’s a little more tragic - he’s trying to replace the daughters that he lost hundreds of years ago, cool motive, still murder. In practice though, he goes around turning hot blonde coeds into vampires and then ?????? Who knows. I’d like to believe that this was a problem with the CW executives or maybe casting/directing and not with the writing, but it’s SPN and you really can’t be sure with anything. The fact is, this is a CW show from the early 2000’s and a lot of their extras are cast to type. And that’s maybe me exhibiting some girl-on-girl crime, but there are other episodes that did a much less blatantly gross job casting their extras/Very Special Guest Stars.

Anyway, the POINT of this guy is that he’s a monster because someone killed his daughter and he’s just been trying to fill that grief hole inside of him for centuries. This is not unlike Gordon, who ALSO has been trying to fill a grief hole that he’s had for decades, except he’s not killing people and resurrecting them as blood suckers, he’s just killing them. And then, when the Vamp decides to turn Gordon it’s a real sweet moment of comeuppance for like, a HOT second and then you’re like, awww dude, ya done f’ed up. That was a bad idea. You’ve made a HUGE mistake.

More importantly, our Vampire In Question finally runs into the Winchesters and get’s to say things like “I was desperate! You ever felt desperate? I've lost everyone I ever loved. I'm staring down eternity alone. Can you think of a worse hell?” and also “I just ... I didn't care anymore. Do you know what it's like when you just don't give a damn? It's like ... it's like being dead already.” and Dean’s v. much like, THIS IS TOO REAL ROY.

Sam may ALSO be feeling Too Real feelings because he is DONE dicking around with Gordon and honestly yes, I like this, this is good Sam development. It’s nice to know that Sam has a breaking point. And I admit I’m of two minds about this moment because 1) I love the idea of Dark!Sam this season and that maybe Sam’s decision to actually kill Gordon is just one step in that process but 2) I ALSO love the idea of Sam Lite finally having a breaking point and Gordon is IT. I don’t know which theory I like more in this scenario, but they are both good theories.

I think as much as this episode wants to draw parallels between the monsters and Dean (thank you artful editors), you can’t look at the “I’ve lost everyone I ever loved,” line and not think of Sam? Cuz he’s got one (1) person left in his life that hasn’t died horribly, so how desperate is he about to get through the end of this season? I’ve definitely been watching this season with eyes on all the ominous Dean foreshadowing, but the Sam foreshadowing is also there, just buried under the heavy weight of a thousand smulders and suicidal levels of denial.

And also, FUCK the tag on this episode! Guys, it is CUTE but it is also HORRIBLE. Dean starts teaching Sam how to fix the Impala and at first it’s all, “Oh! Adorable Brothers Being Brothers!” and I loved it but then I almost immediately hated it because you realize this is about making sure Sam can get along without him once he’s gone and Dean just accepts his own death with such casual ease that it’s just...INFURIATING!

This scene was rude and I HATE IT!

Cut to - “A Very Supernatural Christmas” Special!

Guys, I was so excited when I got to this episode. THIS is Classic Supernatural Shenanigans. Plus, you know a Holiday Special is the ultimate sign that this show has Made It, right? Or it could be a sign that they’re selling out, who knows, but I think we can say that at this point in the series, SPN is established enough to start having fun with their fans. That’s what this says to me. BUT THEN what we get is like...oh boy.

First - like, I’mma beat this horse to death, but what is WRONG with this FAMILY? John Winchester very quickly devolved into the sort of father that forgot about every single holiday and did not ever, even a little bit, make up for it. It’s not a surprise, but it kind of wrecked me seeing a flashback where Baby Dean is just so attached to a father who can’t be bothered to actually care for his children. I know he’s not in this episode because Jeffrey Dean Morgan was tied up in other projects, but the fact that John doesn’t show up at the end to button the flashbacks with a But then he DID show up for Christmas! just makes this plot line that more gutting. And despite Dean’s hero worship of their father, this is maybe the Christmas where Baby Sam stops believing in his own father. The only bright side to this is that it continues to enforce the fact that Bobby should have sued John for custody. Bobby should maybe STILL Sue for custody so that Dean at least would feel like someone wants him for once in his life, damnit.

And then we wrap this episode up with the Best Worst Christmas of all, because we see Sam start to...also?? accept that Dean is about to die? Cuz that’s what this episode is really about - Dean’s Last Christmas. And everything about that makes me ~ u p s e t ~.

So Sam decides to put his curmudgeonly grinchy attitude aside in order to make it a special day for Dean and ugh. UGH. UGHGHGHG. Season three is the worst guys, and I can’t believe I didn’t realize that until right this second now.

So let’s wrap this up with "Malleus Maleficarum", honestly an episode that is mostly forgettable until we get to, like, the last five minutes. Sure, witches and curses and selling your soul, woohoo whatever.

But then we get some real Ruby centric reveals and like, WHAT is happening?? First off, the scene where Ruby and Tammy have a moment is a real Moment. There is some baggage and tension here and it is heavy. And then Tammy drops the mic when she reveals that Ruby used to be human.

THEN, Ruby legit saves their asses by killing Tammy with a fancy magic knife. Ok, Dean does the actual killing, but Ruby brought the fancy magic knife. So between the hot and heavy tension with “Tammy” and her repeated attempts to keep the Winchesters alive, we’re left wondering what IS Ruby’s deal? I personally wonder how much of the show’s mythology the show actually has figured out at this point? Because interviews with Kripke definitely walk the line between “Oh we definitely have this whole thing worked out,” and “yeah, we’re sort of finding things as we go along,” which is maybe why it’s able to last as long as it does. More on that later.

Of course the big kicker is the final scene between Ruby and Dean. Dean is almost on board with Ruby at this point in the season, and much like his scene with the demon in “Sin City”, they share a kind of vulnerable moment together where Ruby admits that, yeah, she was human once and yeah, Hell will destroy you, body and soul, and yeah Dean’s worst fear will probably come true - he will become the thing he hunts, no ifs, ands or buts about it. And Dean knows that Ruby knows that Dean knows that there’s no way to save Dean from his fate, but they both agree that they can’t take Sam’s last ounce of hope away from him because, for both of them, Sam is their hope. Ruby and Dean both see the war happening around them and they know that with Dean gone, Sam’s maybe the last guy holding back the tide to save all humanity.

Which, honestly? Bull shit. Do you know how many hunters are out there? Neither do I, but this season seems to indicate that there are a LOT. We have barely scratched the surface on the hunter community and it’s a damn shame that they are all weirdo loners because there is a war going on. You know what works great in a war? An ARMY. Buncha mentally unstable, martyr-complex ijits who can’t put their differences aside for one damn MINUTE so that maybe, JUST maybe, the could actually defeat the evil they’ve spent their entire lives dedicated to fighting. And if Ruby and Dean wanted to help Sam, what they should probably do is get him plugged in to that community. I do believe that of all they backasswards, self-obsessed, painfully anti-social crazies out there, the Winchesters are THE WORST.

Listen tho, this was like, a solid scene between these two. Just a lot of work goin' into this and it paid off.

Anyway, back to the mythology for a hot second - This sort of loosey-goosey stumbling into your own world building is probably another one of those things that you’ll only really get in a show with this many episodes per season? It’s that room to play and experiment and just make stuff up as you go along. I think the slow drip method of releasing episodes ALSO helps in this scenario because you’re able to see what fans are reacting to in almost-real time. When viewers are binging episodes, I think you're less likely to see what specifically they’re reacting to and more wholistically they’re reacting to. And that’s not to say you won’t see those specific things that they like/love eventually, but by the time you get there, your season’s been produced in its entirety and you’ll have to bear that in mind for (hopefully) next season. But with SPN, they were writing and producing the show at the same time that some of the episodes were airing. That’s why they were able to make decisions on the fly, based on what fans responded to. And definitely by this point in the show, there was a sizeable and vocal fan base that made their feelings VERY well-known. We’re only in season three, but they’ve already had a number of con appearances and a pretty active online presence. That kind of feedback has got to be helpful, from a writing perspective, but it also allows for things like characters getting cut because nobody liked them for some dumb reason. BUT, if you’re fighting to stay on the air for 100 episodes or longer, responding to fan reactions is what’s gonna do it and that’s a fact.

#Supernatural #Supernatural rewatch #SPN #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Bela Talbot #Gordon Walker #Ruby #SPN Season 3 #Fresh Blood #A Very Supernatural Christmas #malleus maleficarum #It's gonna lighten up on the next three episodes #I promise #I hope #Don't watch this season if you're still feeling 2020 #Is my personal opinion

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raysofcrosby · 4 years

Text

LITTLE DO YOU KNOW PT. 10

"𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘰𝘳 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦." ━ 𝐙𝐚𝐲𝐧 𝐟𝐭. 𝐓𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐭, 𝐈 𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫

gif credit (x)

series masterlist

requested: yes | no

warnings: just angst tbh

word count: 5,850 [again of un proofread material sorry lmao]

authors note: [quick sidenote: if you want to make this sad af, then listen to heal by tom odell here bc that’s what i did when writing lmao.] omg yay part 10 finally! when this posts i’ll still be at work, but i’m so happy that i was able to get this out to you guys today! this series is coming to an end soon and honestly i’m sad about it bc idk what the hell i’m gonna do once it’s over lmao. for everyone who reblogs, likes and even reads this series– thank you from the bottom of my heart. i enjoy reading everyone’s tags and messages and it makes me happy and want to write even more when i see how much you guys enjoy the series. i hope this part is good enough bc part 11 is coming up and well...we’ll see what happens :)

Two days after the incident in the training room, finals week had wrapped up, Kennedy had already gone home to celebrate an early Christmas with her parents before joining you in Victoria, campus closed down and you had found yourself displaced. Originally, pre-Typocalypse...you were supposed to stay with Jamie and Katie, then all fly back together after the game tonight. But those plans had since changed since Jamie was obviously still not talking to you. Kennedy offered you to come and stay with her, but you were already stealing her for Christmas, you didn't want to intrude on the few days her and her parents got to spend together for the Holidays. Before you could even think about booking a hotel for the next few days, Big Rig offered you his guest room and the two of you have been temporary roommates ever since.

It was a great set up, honestly. Since you were still obligated to be at team practices, the two of you drove there together and left afterward. He was like the big shield that protected you from Jamie's glares and Tyler's horrible attempts at trying to please Jamie by not looking at you. When they went on their Florida series, Dave offered you a chance to go since you were on break, but you turned it down and made a joke about how if you went to Florida you might not come back. Instead, you relaxed on Big Rig's couch, thought about going to see Tyler's dogs and switched between binging 'You' and 'Fuller House' on Netflix.

But today was the day that you would be handing John the paperwork for your internship that he needed to sign and handover. Just things saying that your timesheet was correct, signing off and typing up a letter about how you did. The practice before they left for Florida, actually the same day he had offered you a spot on the trip, was when you broke the news to him that you wouldn't finish out the season with them. Of course, he probably had some kind of inkling as to the reasons why. You always thought that girls were the worst when it came to gossip, but it turns out grown men are a lot worse. But he was kind and never asked for the specifics and respected your decision not to continue and just told you to give him the paperwork whenever you could and that he'd fill it out for you. He also commented on how good of a job you did and that if you ever changed your mind, they'd welcome you back without a second thought.

And that's what you told Katie when the two of you went out to an early dinner before heading to the arena for the game. But now, as the two of you were in your uber and headed towards the arena, the daunting task of having to actually hand over your paperwork weighed heavy on your heart. Katie had invited you along to dinner and you thought that it was probably her way of reaching out to you since your brother was failing to do so, but you didn't mind. You really liked Katie and she was like the other big sister you never had. To your surprise though, the two of you didn't talk much about what had happened between you, Tyler and Jamie. Instead, she focused on your senior year, where you were applying to jobs and how life in L.A. had been treating her.

But now you were itching to get her opinion on the matter, because if there was anyone besides you who was closer to Jamie in this city and had the insight of his thoughts– it was her. When the two of you stepped out of the Uber and made your way through security to get to the back hallway, you broke the silence on the matter.

"Did you know?" You blurted out as the two of you bypassed security. She turned to you with a generic expression. "Did you know before he...found out?"

"I mean, I kind of had a feeling something was going on," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "Just even during the few times I was down here and we all went downtown. The two of you had never really been as close or hung out too often before and I just noticed all of the little things that boys are too oblivious to see."

"Yeah, maybe going out together was a bad idea. Maybe this whole damn thing was a bad idea," you sighed, clutching the manilla folder close to you.

"I don't think it was a bad idea, I just think that you and Tyler approached it wrong. You guys should've been a little more upfront and honest with Jamie. He still might have been angry, but it would have been a lot better than the alternative."

You nodded, accepting her cold truth as the two of you made your way through the parking garage and towards the hallway entrance. "Has he reached out to you yet?"

"Jamie or Tyler?"

"Both, I guess."

You shook your head, pushing back the pain that came with the thought of the two guys you cared for most, ignoring you. "Not even an in-person acknowledgment."

"I've been talking to them both, trying to get them to see the sense of it all. I told Jamie he needs to talk to you before this gets any worse...but you know how he is."

"Yeah, I do," you nodded, opening the door and stepping into the hallway. You looked down the right towards the training room and took a deep breath. "Well, I guess this is it."

"I can come with you if you want? Give you a little moral support?"

"Thanks, but I need to do this on my own," you took a deep breath and nodded, giving yourself a little encouragement. "I'll see you at home in a few hours?"

"Longest plane ride of our lives," she joked, hugging you before turning towards the elevator. "Oh, one more thing about you and Tyler!"

"Yeah?" You asked, giving her a hopeful, but sad look.

"It wasn't just the physical things I noticed, like the small touches." She shrugged her shoulders and gave you a small smile. "But it was just how different the two of you seemed. You were a lot happier and open and Tyler...he was a lot calmer and genuinely happy. I think the two of you are very good together."

You didn't know what to say, but instead gave her a thankful smile and watched her get into the elevator to head up to the upper level. It hurt your heart, to think about how your relationship had changed the two of you for the better and yet here you guys were– avoiding each other at all costs. You brushed those thoughts aside and walked down the hallway. You needed to give Dave your paperwork, but there was something else you needed to do first.

You knocked on to the locker room door, hearing a voice on the other side. You covered your eyes with one hand and pushed the door open, stepping into the room. "Is everyone in here decent?"

"It's just me and Dobby, Y/N," Klinger said, laughing. "So yes, open your eyes."

You uncovered your eyes to see the two men sitting in their respectful stalls. "Where's everyone else?"

"Training room, on the bench or playing footy," Dobby said, standing up. "You okay?"

You nodded, walking over towards Big Rig's stall and holding up your purse. "Big Rig just asked me to bring something for him, he forgot it at the apartment."

They nodded and Dobby walked out of the door, Klinger stopping while holding it open. "Do you think you can tape me today?"

You felt a crushing feeling inside of you because he had no clue that you weren't here to work...but instead to quit. "If no one's busy." You smiled, as he nodded in reply before leaving the locker room.

You took a deep breath and sighed before walking away from Big Rig's stall and over to Tyler's. You dug into your purse and pulled out his house key, which was attached to the '#1 labrador mom' keychain he had given you, and placed it right in the middle of his stall. You've been meaning to give it back to him since everything crumbled, but you just haven't had the courage to face him since the day of he and Jamie's explosion. Plus, you were flying home to Victoria tonight and there would be no better time than the present to give him back the gift. Now, you had to do the one thing that you came here for– turn in your hour sheet, along with some other internship paperwork, to John. You had talked to him earlier in the week about deciding not to finish out the season, and you had to admit that you felt honored that he was upset that you were choosing not to continue. For the first time in a while, it made you feel like you had accomplished something here and that your work was appreciated. But the hardest part wasn't telling him that you were quitting, it was turning in your paperwork for him.

You stood outside of the training room door, contemplating whether or not to call Katie and tell her that you had changed your mind, that you'd love for her to walk into the room with you so you could walk right back out. But then you thought back on all of your conversations with Big Rig since Kennedy left and how, in her absence, he's been more than willing to lend an ear and even give you some advice and boost up your confidence. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling and then opening your eyes again. "I can do this." You gave yourself a few more seconds before bringing your shoulders back, lifting your chin and pushing the door open, walking into the training room like you owned the place.

"Y/N!" Pavs cheered, throwing his fists into the air. "You're finally here! I've been waiting for you to come and tape my ankle for me, for like...ever!"

"Sorry for being late," you replied, looking immediately in John's direction to see him walking over to his desk. "I just need to–"

"And you're out of your uniform?" Dickinson scoffed, walking by you. "What are they teaching you at this fancy college?"

"Yeah Y/N, you're not on winter break yet. No, relax!" Rads chimed in as the rest of the guys just laughed.

You rolled your eyes at their chirping but kept the smile on your face because you were glad that things seemed to have rolled over when it came down to the tension whenever you, Tyler and Jamie were all in the same room. This was ringing true because the three of you were in the same room at this very moment. Tyler was sitting down by Big Rig, stealing a resistance band from him to work on his shoulder, while Jamie was lying on a table in front of John's desk, getting his hamstring scraped by Craig. Neither of them looked as tense as they had in the last week, but they still weren't paying any attention to you. Well, you thought they weren't until you caught Tyler looking away from you the moment you went to say something to Big Rig about his bands. He played it off, looking immediately to his right, probably not realizing he'd be staring at a blank wall– but you were over it all, so it didn't bother you one bit.

"Is this the paperwork we talked about?" Dave asked, finally sitting down at his chair and tossing a towel on his desk.

You walked forward with the manilla folder in hand and held it up, giving him a tight-lipped smile. "Yep, this is it. Sorry I couldn't get it to you sooner. It took a while to get together since Finals ended and everything is hectic."

You held it out to him and he grabbed it from you, placing it onto his desk and opening it, skimming through the pages and nodding. "Can I get this to you after you come back from break?"

"Absolutely. There's no need to rush," you looked off to see Big Rig giving you a supportive look. He was the only one in the room besides Dave, that knew just what those papers were for. "Just as long as it's before graduation."

"Y/N!" Miro said, rushing into the room and out of breath. "You're here! Please tape me, you're the only one who can."

"Looks like you're stuck with just Craig and me, Miro," Dave said, closing the folder and standing up from his chair. "You guys must have chased her away. She's finished with her internship and decided not to extend for the full season."

That non-existent tension that you mentioned earlier, sprung it's ugly head back into the room the moment that his announcement left his lips. Both Jamie and Tyler perked up at what Dave had said, both surprised and even had a split moment where they looked at each other. Though of course, they had no clue of your decision, so shock and confusion were along the lines of what you expected them to feel. You made eye contact with Jamie first and you couldn't exactly pinpoint just what he was feeling since three separate emotions ran across his face: shock, disappointment and finally, joy. When you acknowledged him back, he opened his mouth slightly as if he might just say something, but instead bit the inside of his cheek and rested his head back down onto his forearms as Craig continued to scrap him. Tyler on the other hand only had two visible emotions: sad and extremely pissed. And if it wasn't for the fact that his eyes carried hints of sadness, you'd only think he was extremely pissed, seeing as the scowl on his face and his knitted eyebrows were the key symbols of his anger. Rightfully, you were confused at his reaction. How could he even be bothered to be angry about your choice when he hasn't talked to you in nearly two weeks?

Screw him, he has no right to be angry.

You turned your attention away from him and started to make your way back to the training room door. "Well, shit, who the hell is going to deal with my shin problem now?" Big Rig said, clearing out the silence in the room.

Bishop laughed as well a few other guys who were still left in the training room before walking away from your desk and over to you. "You're 27 years old, figure it out, you dweeb!" He came to a stop in front of you and hugged you. "Good luck with the rest of your senior year. I hope you'll still come around."

"Eh, maybe I will," you joked, pulling away from the hug and giving the guys a small wave. "Good luck tonight guys. Someone fight Tkachuk or I'll disown you as my team and switch to the Canucks."

Your joke was followed by multiple groans and mumbles, in reply to your goodbye and to the fact that you were leaving their training room forever. Once the conversation returned to normal, you took that as your time to slip out of the training room unnoticed and back out into the hallway. The moment you stared down the empty hallway, you took a deep breath and felt as if a huge weight was lifted off of your shoulders. You, Kennedy and Big Rig had made yourself a checklist of things to do before the year came to an end and you came back from winter break.

The first? Talk to Dave and give him the paperwork to wrap up your internship.

The second? Somehow repair your relationship with Jamie, which has yet to even have an outlined plan.

And the third? ...Close things off with Tyler on a positive note. He was a friend way before he was a hookup and he's your brother's best friend. Just because the two of you had relations, doesn't mean you couldn't still be friends.

You weren't one to lie to yourself. You knew that the last one probably wouldn't happen before the end of the year, if at all. Confronting Tyler was terrifying to you. Sure, you've planned everything that you wanted to say to him– it's been boiling inside of you for days. But there was never a moment that presented itself to where you could get Tyler alone, and you no longer felt comfortable just showing up at his place. So, you just pushed it onto the backburner and knew that somewhere down the road, you'd be able to accept that things would be like this from here on out– avoiding each other and pretending like nothing ever happened.

"Y/N, wait!" Halfway down the hallway, you stopped in your tracks as you listened to the sound of a door closing and shoes scuffing along the floor.

You didn't want to turn around, hell, you didn't even want to stop. But it was like your body turned against you the moment that you heard his voice. His footsteps came to a stop just behind you and you could hear him panting a little, trying to catch his breath. In his hand, you heard the slight jingle of a single key on a lanyard, and your heart squeezed in your chest.

"You can't do this. You can't leave!" The anger in his voice took you by surprise, just like his reaction only moments ago in the training room had. "You can't let me stop you from keeping this internship."

"Excuse me?" You scoffed, whipping around and feeling pure adrenaline running through your veins. "That's awfully narcissistic of you."

He looked taken back as he held tightly onto the lanyard he'd gifted you. "That's why you're leaving, though. Because of...everything?" He took a step towards you, shaking his head. "If it is I–"

Maybe it was the way he had phrased the sentence or maybe it was the way that he had pretty much just written off every moment the two of you had shared in a hesitant state. Whatever it was, you felt a whirl of anger and adrenaline swirling around inside of you as you clenched your fists by your side. "I completed my hours, Tyler, meaning my internship is done. I've fulfilled my duties as an intern here and even if it was about you and 'everything'," you threw your air quotes as you stared at him, your eyes hoping to burn holes into his head. "My position here was never permanent and we both knew that."

You felt slightly proud of yourself for the sly insinuation you threw in at him, and even more so proud when you saw that he understood just what you were implying. "Y/N listen, we need to talk."

Even if you wanted to, you couldn't have prevented the laugh that escaped from your mouth. "You've had almost two weeks to 'talk', Tyler. Two weeks to send me a text or a phone call to meet up someplace! But now that I'm leaving and I'll no longer be around for your convenience, it's the perfect time to talk?"

He stood there silent because he knew damn well that you were right. He had plenty of opportunities in the last two weeks to reach out to you, but he hadn't even bothered to pick up the phone and there was no denying it. You stood there, taking him in and it only made you feel worse. He had a hurt look on his face like he was lost as to what you wanted him to say or to do– and that only made you angrier. It was simple, what you wanted him to do. For the last two weeks, all you've wanted was for him to just talk to you, to let you know that he hadn't tossed you aside like another pointless hookup. But now, all you wanted to do was get everything off of your chest, and it was then that you realized...the universe was granting you the alone time you've desperately wanted.

"You don't get it, do you?" You asked, shaking your head as you felt a knot tighten in your throat. "You don't get how...how embarrassed I am! Do you know how many people told me to avoid getting involved with you? That you'd do nothing but end up hurting me in the end?"

"'He has a reputation for a reason, Y/N!' 'All he does is whore around Dallas, Y/N.' 'You guys are in two different stages of life, it won't work out.'" You laughed again, trying your damndest not to try. "I've heard it all, Tyler. From Kennedy, from your teammates, from kids at my school, hell– I even heard it from my mom!"

You bit the inside of your cheek as you looked off to your left, giving yourself a few seconds to compose your thoughts before looking at him again. "But I brushed their worries aside because I saw a side of you that they never got the chance to. I saw how kind and sweet you were with me. How you'd jump at any opportunity to help me study and how you always made me feel welcome in your home."

"I saw it all and I thought, 'hey, you know what? They're all wrong. He's not that kid in Boston and he's not the same guy he was when he first got to Dallas.'" You pointed at him before letting your hand drop back to your side. "I gave you the benefit of the doubt because I know people can change and with my whole heart, I believed that you had."

He continued to stare at you, almost void of emotion now as if he had put up a wall and was just letting you scream at it, which only made you more upset. "I understand that you could have lost your best friend, I really do. And I'd never ask you to put our, whatever the hell we had, above your friendship with Jamie."

Your bottom lip trembled as you thought about the nights since, where you've checked your phone every minute to see if he had texted you. "But you could have texted me. You could've said 'hey, I just need some space right now to figure stuff out' and I would have been fine with that! Instead, you just...tossed me aside and shut me out."

The more that you spoke, the more weightless you began to feel. It was as if speaking every word and feeling you had saved for Tyler was freeing you of the pain that him dropping you like nothing, had caused. Yet, you couldn't help but feel angry at how he was just standing there. You wanted a reaction, you wanted him to apologize– anything was better than this.

"Say something! Stop standing there and staring at me!" You yelled, feeling surprised at yourself for just how high your voice had gone and echoed off of the walls.

You watched his Adam's apple bob as his fingers tangled and twirled through the lanyard."Jamie and I... we've been talking and I think it's going well."

"Well that's great for you, isn't it?" You scoffed, shaking your head and motioning towards him with a hand. "At least my brother is talking to someone, right? Better you than me, I guess. I'm happy you got your best friend back, I truly am."

The longer you stood there, the more you felt your body begin to shake from the pure adrenaline running through you. And the more that he just stared at you, the more you felt your heart breaking because it was starting to become clear that you were the only one who was hurting from all of this. You laughed in disbelief at your revelation before turning away from him, preparing to walk down the aisle and out of his view.

"Why?" You asked, keeping your back turned. "Why did you do it?"

"...Why did I do, what?"

You turned around, your hair whipping into your face before you brushed it back with your fingers. "Why did you go back to Maisy?" Your voice cracked as you spoke softly, staring at him with the tears that were threatening to spill. "Why did you treat me like I was the most important person to you and then toss me aside like I was just another pointless hookup?"

"Y/N..."

"Did you even care? Wait, no, of course, you didn't and would you like to know how I know that, Tyler?" You stared at him, expecting an answer but knowing you wouldn't get one. "Because you practically rushed me out of your house and into an uber like I was nothing. You couldn't even be bothered to make sure I got home okay! The first sign of trouble and you toss me into an uber, sent me away and then ignored me like every..."

Your voice broke as you brought a hand to your mouth and turned away from him. You took a deep breath, trying to calm down your racing heart before looking back at him. "You ignored me like every moment we spent together meant nothing to you. And m-maybe they did but to me? They're some of the best memories I've had here in Dallas."

"So imagine how it made me feel, when my brother of all people, tells me that she's here...in your seats, not even four days after you had sex with me and tossed me aside." You glared at him as your bottom lip trembled once again. "You made me look like a joke Tyler."

"It wasn't like that, okay? Maisy was just–"

"I don't care what it was like, Tyler! She was here, in seats YOU bought her last season!" You yelled, throwing your arms in the air. "You told me that you guys were over! That you haven't talked to her since July and yet, there she was!"

The moment you felt the first tear glide down your cheek, you knew that you only had moments before you would burst into tears. You went to speak and a small sob escaped from the back of your throat. Tyler went into a small panic, his eyes widening as he stepped forward and reached out for you. "Y/N–"

"Don't," You stepped back, smacking his hand away. "Don't touch me, just...don't." You closed your eyes, focusing on your breathing and collecting your thoughts before opening them and looking at him one last time. "I gave you the benefit of the doubt Tyler, but it turns out everyone was right."

You laughed again, shrugging your shoulders and shaking your head. "You're still that 19-year-old kid in Boston, who doesn't have a clue about what he wants for his life...you're nowhere near the man I thought you were." You looked him dead in the eyes, not caring about the tears running down your face. "Grow up."

With that, you turned your back to him and started to finish your journey down the hall and to the elevator, choosing to ignore how his footsteps followed you. "Y/N, wait...please."

You stopped, this time choosing to and kept your head down towards the ground and holding back your sobs. "SEGGY WHERE ARE YOU? GET DRESSED, WE'VE GOT 5 MINUTES TILL WARM-UPS!" Big Rig called out, his loud voice echoing down the hall.

You expected to hear Tyler's footprints walk in the opposite direction, but you were met with silence. "Y/N, stay after the game, please? I just," he sighed, trying to figure out what to say. "We really need to talk about everything and just...please wait for me after the game? Five minutes, two minutes, one minute– whatever you want, I don't care. Just...please, let me explain?"

"SEGGY LET'S GO!" Rads called out this time, his voice louder as you kept your back to Tyler.

You heard him sigh again before listening to his footsteps run in the direction back towards the locker room. You didn't hesitate to walk as fast as you could to the elevator, letting out every tear and sob your body had held back as he pleaded for a chance to explain. It was all you wanted from him, an explanation, but he was too late. You weren't staying for the game, you were leaving the arena and hopping onto a flight to Victoria in two hours.

You just didn't have the heart to tell him that.

You were grateful for the elevator attendant who stayed silent your entire ride up to the upper level. Before the doors opened, you took a deep breath and wiped your eyes, fixing yourself up before you'd make your way through the crowds and out of the arena. The attendant gave you a friendly smile as you walked out of the elevator. As soon as the doors closed and you made your way through the crowds, you spotted Paisley turning away from the drink cart ahead of you and you were desperate for the crowd to swallow you up before she could witness you in all of your misery.

Unfortunately for you, the universe wasn't so kind because as soon as she looked up from her purse, her eyes locked on yours and she smiled and waved at you. You froze in place, probably bothering the fans trying to make their way around you as you watched in horror, Paisley coming towards you.

"Y/N, hi!" She smiled, just as cheery as the first time you met her, which again, made it so hard to dislike her. "What are you doing up here? I thought you were down in the training room and stuff?"

"How did you know that?" You asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Cole," she scoffed, rolling her eyes before taking a sip of her beer, which was another shock because you took her for a wine kind of girl. "He complained about it and Tyler Seguin and some dude named Big Rig? But I don't understand why because like, your job sounds really cool!"

"Well, it was pretty cool, but I finished up my internship, so I won't be here much longer." You replied, stuffing your hands awkwardly into your sweatshirt pockets.

She looked at you, her eyes taking in your appearance and lingering on your face for much longer than you'd like them to. "Are you okay? You look like you've been crying."

There were a lot of things you wanted to do right now and talking to the girl your boyfriend cheated on you with, was not on the list. But she was being so nice to you and after the horrible moment you just had with Tyler, you needed a little positivity right now. "I kind of just maybe...broke up with someone? I mean we weren't a thing, but we kind of were and it's just...it's a whole hot mess." You sighed, shaking your head and brushing it off. "It doesn't matter anymore."

She gasped, bringing her drink to her chest and grabbing onto your wrist with her free hand as she leaned in. "You broke up with Tyler? But why? You guys seemed so happy whenever I saw you out downtown. Even when I saw you walking around campus, you just looked so...happy."

"It's complicated."

She shook her head, sighing and taking a long sip of her wine. "I guess it is true then, men are shit. College guy or NHL player." She must have seen the shocked look on your face because she shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, I dumped Cole's ass. Sometime after you left the ABC party. He's just an asshole! And I'm sorry about everything...I never knew and I feel horrible about it."

"It's okay, he really was an asshole." You laughed, feeling a small flutter of happiness rush through you for the first time in what felt like forever. As she joined you in laughter, you dug your phone out of your back pocket and smiled. "What's your number? Maybe we can hang out after break?"

"Oh my God, yes!" She squealed, taking your phone from your hands and bringing her own out. "And I'll add you on snap and Instagram, too! Honestly, you and Kennedy seem like the coolest girls and I've always wanted to be friends with you since freshman year English lit, but we never really had classes together again."

"We can make plans for spring break maybe?" You suggested as the two of you added each other on social media before putting your phones away.

"Yes! We can plan it after break! Maybe you can even introduce me to a cute hockey boy?" She winked, nudging you playfully. "It seems to have worked out for Kennedy well."

You laughed again, nodding your head. "I know a few single guys, we'll see what we can do." You felt your phone vibrating and you brought it back out to see the notification about your uber being ten minutes out. "Oh shoot, I need to go and get my bags before my uber gets here. But I'll text you later?"

"Sure thing!" She nodded before turning to walk away. "Oh, and one more thing!"

"Yeah?"

"Don't count him out just yet, okay? As I said, I saw how he looked at you whenever I saw you guys downtown and if I know boys like I think I do...I'd say that boy loves you. And a boy in love doesn't give up that easily." She smiled and shrugged her shoulders before winking at you. "Just a thought."

You watched her disappear into the crowd, wondering what the hell just happened. When you made your way down the escalators and into the main lobby, you navigated your way towards the front office where Big Rig had asked the staff to hold your bags for you. Sneaking in and then out quickly, you grabbed the Stars 'staff' lanyard around your neck and stuffed it into your sweatshirt pockets before walking out of the arena doors with your luggage in hand and made your way to the spot where you'd meet your uber. As you stood there, waiting for your Uber to arrive, you thought about what she said. Out of curiosity, you brought your phone out of your back pocket again to see a new text on your screen...from Tyler.

'see you after the game?'

You went to reply to tell him the news, but your uber pulled up and you locked your phone and shoved it into your sweatshirt pocket along with the Dallas Stars lanyard.

You were leaving for Victoria, Tyler would go home to Toronto and there would be no waiting for him in the hallway after the game, giving him a chance to explain.

The damage was already done.

#tyler seguin imagine #tyler seguin one shot #tyler seguin oneshot #tyler seguin writing #nhl imagine #nhl oneshot #nhl one shot #nhl writing #hockey imagine #hockey oneshot #hockey one shot #hockey writing #ldyk fic #my writing

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aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoldretired · 4 years

Text

some p!g-drv3 theories (spoilers obvi)

First of all I think people demonize the pg versions wayyy too much because its a good way to be le sexy in like fanfictions. And i get it, villains are hot or whatever. and also hs is a horny age to be. But even the edgiest and horniest of teens aren’t like. that sexual/monstrous. its kind of insane the portrayals people are placing

maybe this could also be like me being older bc when i was early hs i was like yea its fair to place these super mature portrayals on a 18-22 year old they are like adults but young and now im that age and im like woah there pardner. might be an age/maturity thing.

also like its normal for people to relate to and portray characters their same age in a similar fashion, but when adults write more sexual content about the dg kids i get hella fucking sus

idk where i was going with that first comment i guess its like a preface and in the end i think its important when characters especially teenage characters are morally grey not because they’re mature and dark/brooding but because they are still young and learning. fuck im older than like most of them, but im still young and learning. its good to be in turmoil and confused, especially the drv3 cast. they are more confused than anything.

which i think is a reason why people would join dr because if you are completely loss and in turmoil, it is appealing to be given a purpose in life and amazing talents/abilities. despite the morals of danganronpa, it is a simple reality to be told who you are and what to do

OK ONTO HEADCANONS (not doing all bc i dont have thoughts about all)

first of all i understand changing stories but i think, deep down, you can’t change fundamental personalities/values. so while the backstories might be different i think, in the end, a baseline is always the same

SHUICHI being a Bad Boy is like canon obviously but i dont think he’s as manipulative as people make him out to be. i think he falls in the more the bully role that like. mae borowski or tf2′s scout filled before they grew up. rough background, bad anger issues, lots of emotional turmoil, and the only way he knows how to deal with shit is by committing crimes and beating the shit out of people. and, similar to those characters, drv3 represents an older, more emotionally sober yet equally confused version of himself. the urges are still there as foreshadowed in the dialogue. i think he struggles with guilt, mostly survivors, but there is still a lasting impact of guilt of what he did in his past, even if he can’t remember.

KOKICHI is a child. a piece of shit motherfucker child but a child. I really do think he’s like one of the youngest people in the cast. he reminds me a lot of when my brother doesn’t take his adhd medicine and takes jokes way too far and does mean and cruel things because he thinks its funny and that its just a fun joke, but is hurting people. he desperately wants approval, which is why his leader role is so interesting because in the dr narrative he has the approval he craves and so he is satisfied. still, he does try to impress characters like rantaro and values his opinions a lot, even developing a brotherly relationship in the time they knew each other. this being said, its established kokichi was bullied before, but i dont think he’s like. the wimp people make him out to be. i think he’s more of like the class clown who desperately uses humor to make people like him, and ends up resorting to be the butt of most of his jokes. you don’t just develop a good sense of humor out of a brainwash, and that’s not something you can program in. i think that was a remnant of before, and he’s so good at bullying people and coming up with roasts - i just think that in p!g the roasts were about him.

KAEDE is baby but her p!g personality seriously reminds me of any ~quirky/edgy~ girl in a teen coming of age story who tries to be edgy and cool and act like she doesn’t care but deep down, she really does. if she didn’t have an empathetic personality, she wouldn’t want to end the game. i also think she has that self-identifying QuIrKy personality because its like she lives in her own narrative, practically announcing this story is about her and she is the protagonist. i know i used to self narrate like that and distinguish how i was different when i was like. 15-16. she has a tumblr.

I really like the theory where KAITO is a make-a-wish kid who was better when he was younger but relapses later in teens. he never used his wish before, so he decides to use it now to be on danganronpa and become the hero he always wanted to be. i also think he might have joined as a way to raise awareness about adolescent healthcare. definitely the type who puts on a “heroic” character to make everyone else feel better about the fact he is literally dying of a terminal illness, and keeps that act up till the end.

i think KOREKIYO��is still a serial killer. i think honestly a reason why he mightve auditioned for danganronpa is because he is a serial killer. maybe his sister found out and he felt so much shame that’s why he auditioned. he probably mentioned why in his interview because duh, tell them im a serial killer and then only reason im coming clean is my sister found out and im ashamed, that is like a guarantee to get on the show. i LOVE the theory that his sister is still alive, however, and has to watch her brother go insane because they wrote her into the story as the villain. because technically, she brought on this guilt, and is the reason why he auditioned - as a way to cause despair, twist it around so she’s the one to blame for his insanity. also, because its pretty accepted DR members become celebrities, kork’s sister is totally bombarded with paparazzi and is demonized in the media. she might end up writing a tell-all memoir about kork’s actual childhood and personality. quiet kid, thoughtful, interested in anthropology, she never thought he’d hurt a fly. watching her brother go insane probably destroyed her.

I also think, timeline wise, kork is probably one of the oldest members along with rantaro. tbh i think kork actually graduated hs and went on a gap year doing the whole “hitchhike around the world to discover myself thing” which is where he began killing people. he was getting ready to go to college when his sister found out about what he did. this is when he decided to go on danganronpa instead of university. this would help explain why he knows so much about other cultures/travel/been so many places with so many memories/killed/is knowledgable on a level most other students are not. this would place him at like, 20-21, where everyone else is like 15-18.

ok so there’s two p!g RANTARO, p!g before 53 and p!p!g before 52. i’d like to establish now i think rantaro is the oldest of the characters, seeing as though he was already pretty old to begin with in 52, it takes time between television seasons, and he was in another game. so im placing him like 21-23, similar to yasuhiro in d1 being so much older than everyone else. i do think, in all iterations, rantaro was pretty much raising his sisters, though i don’t think he had twelve like the story (i think that’s an exaggeration, his sisters mean a lot to him, lets make him have a TON and then lose them all and feel GUILTY) rantaro joined the first game, partially to get money for his family and hopefully establish them as celebrities and let them have a comfy lifestyle, even if he doesn’t live...and also to finally ahve some sort of experience without his siblings tagging along. if he’s been raising his sisters all his life, he’s never had like something that’s JUST his. that’s his adventure. 52 is his ULTIMATE adventure. ahaha. mostly for money, kind of dreading it, still a tiny bit excited

ok p!g rantaro between 52 and 53 probably came back broken. he did the signings and appearances, but mostly wanted to spend time with his family and make sure they were set up. i think he knew the whole like few months between seasons he had to go on another show, but he did’t tell his sisters. his family found out when they saw a billboard with his face plastered on it hyping up the return of a fan favorite. yikes!

ok i get it a lot of people hate HIMIKO but i think she’s not nearly as similar as other “useless” characters in other games. its like, pretty clear she’s depressed, and the only thing she’s holding onto with dear life is magic. lack of hygiene, lack of personal care, constantly tired, social interaction exhausts - she has depression, but she’s not an UWU depressed character. so people find her depressive traits (which are some of the most realistic portrayals of mental health in the series) SUPER annoygin. she joined dr because she was completely lost and needed some sort of direction in her life, even if she’ll die for it. the thing is, even with direction, her mental state didn’t change because she wasn’t getting legitimate help. it’s like that one SNL skit that’s like. same sad you from before but in a new place. i also think she knows the magic is not real, because how could she not. i think she’s so adamant that it IS real, less as a way to convince others, and more of a way to convince herself. it’s like really super cruel that team danganronpa took a girl who is desperate for meaning and gave her literally a meaningless, fake talent.

i also kin himiko and find her a comfort character because i feel seen by her, replacing her useless talent of magic with mine of like shitty film making and comedy. i am seen.

related i don’t think she’s nearly as ugly as everyone says she is, i think she’s probably just depressed and takes absolutely no care of her hygiene and sleep and looks like sick and greasy all the time. same queen.

honest to god i think RYOMA’s backstory, tennis and all, is like 100% real and he’s the only one who keeps all of his memories except for the fact this is a tv show. i think he rolled up, a hot fucking mess, and the danganronpa team were like damn. we cannot improve upon this.

#ryoma hoshi #himiko yumeno #rantaro amami #korekiyo shinguji #kaito momota #kaede akamatsu #shuichi saihara #kokichi ouma #drv3 #killing harmony #pg dr #pre!game danganronpa #danganronpa #theories #danganronpa spoilers

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undreaming-fanfiction · 4 years

Text

A night to remember: The Gifts

Fandom: Cats the musical Rating: T Pairing: multiple in future chapters, Tuggoffelees, Victoria/Plato, Demeter/Munkustrap etc. Category: magical circus AU, slow burn Chapter number: 2 Chapter summary: Before he became the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees, he had been Quaxo. Before she became Victoria, she had been "the mute" or "white-hair". And both of them had a "gift".

The previous chapter: Prologue

Before he became the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees, he had been Quaxo, a short, pale and dark-haired boy with eyes too old for his age. He didn't really like being Quaxo in the first place, but it was definitely better than being nobody. And being a nobody, while unimaginable for some people, was frighteningly close to Quaxo and his sister's reality.

Of course, she probably wasn't his real sister, but he could never be sure, could never verify or disprove their genetic relation. Some days he thought about it and always came to the same conclusion - that even if he could find out, it wouldn't matter. They probably had a much better relationship than most siblings anyway. They had never learned who their parents were, why they were abandoned or if their original families still lived, and perhaps they only met in one of the shelters in which they occasionally spent the night. All that Quaxo knew was that she had been appearing in his earliest memories and he had very few of those without her. He believed it was the same for her.

Victoria hadn't always been Victoria either - they usually called her "white-hair" (although it was only pale blond, Quaxo thought angrily, she wasn't old or anything, why would they call her that?!) or "the mute" - but she was luckier than Quaxo. One particularly cold day, they were trying to survive the night outside and the sharp autumn wind brought in a page from a newspaper, probably something on an exposition about Queen Victoria (Quaxo never knew what exactly the article was because both of them had only been learning to read, here and there, when the adults felt generous and they helped them with some work in exchange). Not-yet-Victoria caught the page and her tired eyes lit up with excitement that Quaxo had never seen before. She shoved the page in front of his eyes and proceeded to point to the name and to herself, looking at him anxiously, as if she needed the assurance that this could be her, that what she wanted mattered. His teeth were chattering with cold, but he still managed to smile and nod. "Of course," he managed to stutter out. "Anything, anyone you want to be, Victoria."

As he was crushed in an enthusiastic embrace way too tight for her fragile arms, he felt a rush of happiness and perhaps a slight tinge of envy. If he too could only find out who he wanted to be...

Quaxo never liked to speak out loud, it was against his timid nature, but when the people on the street called her "Mute" again the next day, he straightened his spine and looked them in the eye. "Her name is Victoria. Remember it."

---

Things were never easy for them, but they definitely got more bearable when the siblings found out they could do things. Most people could do at least something well - paint, cook, run or make jokes, those things were normal in Quaxo's book. But he and Victoria were different. The things they could do should not be real and, after asking about them on the street and being disbelieved, laughed at or accused of lying, decided together they would never mention them again. Using them, however, was a completely different matter.

It happened for Victoria first. Whenever she wanted Quaxo's attention, she would jump, point, clap...pretty much anything she could think of. But one day, a careless driver almost ran Quaxo over. The boy was exhausted from another night spent outside so he wasn't paying attention, clapping wouldn't do any good in the noise of traffic and as Victoria was behind him, she could only grab his arm and pull, as hard as she could. She felt something strange happening at that moment, as if something left her. And it wasn't only her imagination, because her brother stared at her in awe, his mouth agape. "Did you just...shout?" he asked her incredulously.

She shook her head, pointing to her throat. Her voice had never worked, for as long as she could remember.

"But...but I heard you!" Quaxo blurted out, grabbing her shoulders and examining her, as if the reason for what he had heard would be written on her face. "I heard you say Watch out! And no one else was around...and it..." he paused for a moment, unable to find the right words, "...it sounded like you. Like I've always thought you would sound..."

Victoria tried. She tried to speak, whisper, she opened her mouth again and again, but no sound would come out. Eventually, she slumped down in Quaxo's arms.

Nothing. As I thought, she shrugged in disappointment.

A sudden embrace "I heard that! I heard your words! That wasn't nothing, Victoria, that was...!" He took a step back, watching her with curiosity. "That wasn't speaking. What exactly did you do?"

After the initial shock, the pair slowly found out what exactly happened. As long as Victoria moved or gesticulated, she could project her thoughts, as if she were speaking. At first, she was terrified, and conveyed with numerous sharp movements how what she does isn't natural, that people would be afraid of her, call her a monster...but Quaxo never shared her point of view. He was in awe and kept repeating that what she could do was amazing, unique, that she should never feel ashamed of it. That helped to ease her worries and finally, let her brother convince her to use her gift. She spent weeks practicing with Quaxo, opening her mouth at the same time with the stream of thoughts she was projecting, looking in the mirror and finally, their efforts paid off. Without meticulous observation, it seemed like she was simply talking, although other people made fun of her exaggerated gestures and constant pacing around when she "spoke".

It was at this time when Victoria started climbing onto the window sill of the local ballet school, balancing on the narrow beam and imitating the dancers. She had always loved to watch them, she and her brother spent so many evenings peeking through curtains or sneaking into theaters, variety shows and dances for both warmth and entertainment, but he had never seen Victoria so eager to learn the skill before. When Quaxo asked her about it, she explained that dancing made it much easier to convey her thoughts, to project what she really wanted to say. Quaxo only nodded and didn't push the topic any more, but the following Christmas, he managed to surprise Victoria with a small, cheap pocket radio, to help her learn in a safer environment, he said. And if he happened to be there for every single dancing practice and watched her with a content smile, well...that was nobody else's business but his.

---

Quaxo's gift manifested several months later. The seasonal work was scarce those days and he was watching a baker unpacking his stand early in the morning. He saw a loaf of bread, close to the edge, and thought how lucky a coincidence it would be if it were to fall off and thrown away by the baker. Then he could pick it up and he and Victoria would have something to eat. And just as he had finished his thought, there was a strong gust of wind out of nowhere, knocking the loaf off the stand and prompting a stream of swearing from the baker. The man looked around, saw Quaxo and waved at him. "You there. Help me finish unpacking this before more wind messes up the whole place, will you? I can give you the loaf plus a few more defective pieces."

Quaxo couldn't believe his luck, but in the following days, he found out that it wasn't simply good fortune or series of lucky coincidences. As if things around him only waited for his prompt to fall into places he wanted them to be, a tiny nudge and everything suddenly worked out. It took Quaxo a while to find out the pattern, but after a while, he could confidently say that he had a strange power, just like Victoria. The best way he could describe it was that he could make tiny alterations to reality, not that he would ever dare to attempt larger ones - he could make people notice him or miss his presence altogether, by making them stumble at the right moment, look at his reflection, turn their head...he could also swap objects in two different places, make things look less or more appealing, so many small but intriguing things! He would experiment each day and Victoria would watch, clapping her slender hands in excitement.

It was around this time that Quaxo started considering using his and Victoria's powers to make more money. Nothing illegal, even though the prospect was tempting, Victoria's high moral standards would never allow it and Quaxo had to admit he didn't feel like becoming the bad guy either. Perhaps through an unconscious use of his powers, perhaps as a true coincidence this time, his gaze fell on a discarded leaflet for a shop with tricks, pranks and would-be magical items.

He nudged Victoria. "Say, sister," he winked at her with a barely visible smile, "how about becoming performers?"

----------------------------------------

The next chapter: The Magician and the Dancer

#cats #cats fanfiction #cats the musical #quaxo #Mr. Mistoffelees #victoria #circus au #magical circus au

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genaleah · 4 years

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I can give the full context! It's going under a cut though because there's a lot to it 👍

So here we go....

TMA!AU

Aka AU², the Nightmare Boogaloo!

So right off the bat, this an AU-within-an-AU of the Wildcards becoming living embodiments of fear ala The Magnus Archives podcast. Here's a list of the Entities on the wiki, though obvious warning for spoilers. (Granted, I've only just started season 4!)

In this AU offshoot, each character becomes a monster tied to a different entity of fear. Nelson with The Eye, Guybrush with The Spiral, Eddie with The Desolation, Manny with The End, and Sam and Max with The Hunt.

Guybrush gets hit first + worst. It starts off very slowly, at first he just feels a little confused/dissociated, but then he starts to have increasing difficulty figuring out when he's asleep or awake, and whether he's in reality or the mindscape. Doorways that exist in reality will suddenly lead him into his dreams with no way out, and then suddenly he's back in reality with no warning. Eventually this crescendos to a point in which he can't find his way OUT of his mind at all, and it all starts warping more and more into something unrecognizable. What feels like months of sleepless, ceaseless wandering is only a single day that he's gone missing. This slip through reality is also what ends up transforming his own body, he changes himself into a reflection of his own state of mind.

When he comes back out, he unwittingly transforms the Motherlobe into another maze. Not everyone experiences this or even realizes that anything is wrong. The victims who get trapped in it become fellow reflections of The Spiral, albeit with their own fears/nightmares influencing how they turn out. The Psychonauts as a whole is being purposefully targeted as a breeding ground of fear & new avatars for the Spiral, and Guybrush was chosen as its architect against his will. He just had the right combination of powers and pain to create a smooth, seamless transition.

Simultaneously, other agents who don't encounter this are being changed by other Fears who don't want to lose their share of influence in the world. Psychics are PRIME fodder.

Manny and Eddie get infected by their respective Fears while they're away from the Motherlobe, just out and about doing their own things.

Manny doesn't even engage with his directly to begin with, other people start becoming increasingly fearful of him until the change in role suddenly overtakes him. People try to make bids for their own immortality, and whoop, suddenly he's got the dice or playing cards or what-have-you, and he always knows that he's going to win in the end. The losers die immediately in front of him. Sometimes he can be more of a direct reaper and make the offer first, but he's not totally comfortable doing that unless he REALLY thinks someone/something deserves it.

Eddie has probably the worst situation. If he touches anybody they will die a painful burning death. A single touch can cause 2nd or 3rd degree burns, prolonged contact will set the victim in flames. But worse than that is the fact that his alignment with the Desolation makes him want to destroy things and people of worth- so that he creates an acute fear of loss and pain to those who would miss them. He’s the most physically dangerous to be around, so he’s taken to wearing a full-body motorcycle get up so that no one can touch him accidentally. He's safe to the touch now, technically, but it doesn't stop him from being ultra careful. He’s trying to abide by some ghost-rider morals here and primarily target bad people or other monsters, but there’s always going to be some collateral damage.

As for Sam & Max... They take a while to really notice the shift happening, but their final stage can best be described as this: Imagine if Noir Sam enjoyed it. That's basically how both of them would behave. They've always loved hunting down perps, but now their chases are a little more... intense. Frantic. If they've had a good one they're satiated for a while, but going too long without it makes them more antsy and violent. The hunting is fun and fulfilling for them!

Sometimes it can ramp up into killing, but considering that the whole gang is out looking for answers, that means a lot of capture and kidnapping instead, with the intent of interrogation (thanks to Nelson). And some monster hunting on the side!

Nelson is one of the last to change, but he gets caught up in the shenanigans pretty early on after first finding Guybrush in his noodley eldritch state. He starts trying to figure out some way to undo all of their conditions and bring them back to normal. Well, "normal".

But slowly he shifts from "I need to know how to help my friends" to "I need to understand what's happening" to "I NEED to know as many deep dark secrets as possible in order to live". With the change in his behavior, he basically becomes a textbook supernatural Man in Black entity, and his clothing starts reflecting that. His eyes become bloodshot and light-sensitive, so he takes to wearing shades while trying to appear normal.

Which also brings me to the next character! @zeroodd came up with a great story for Elaine, so I will c/p it here :

What if her and Nelson had teamed up in the beginning for a solution.

Just one night they're both working hard on it and Nelson starts asking about what they've found so far

but then he

keeps asking questions

and Elaine looks over and he's just got a tape recorder right up to her face

"Do you know he's gone for good?"

Course he'd try to backtrack and apologize but Elaine has to face facts that Nelson is as much of a threat as any of them now.

She leaves the group for a while in order to study this fear stuff on her own, and comes to the conclusion that she needs to willingly get in on it if she wants any hope of surviving this increasingly dangerous world. She eventually joins The Web. She starts out feeling nervous about things being out of her control and scary, which suddenly shifts to her wanting to control more things and oh cool, these spiders help me do that! By the time she rejoins with the group everyone is full-blown monster mash so there’s very little to hide from anyone. (Manny still HATES bugs though, and would like the spiders far far away from him, por favor.)

So, how do they all go back to normal? Well... They don't. After hitting dead end after dead end, realizing they're definitely not human anymore, and learning the true nature of the fears as a whole, they're forced to accept it and try to maintain themselves as best they can.

The thing that would make the changes so insidious is that it would all gel with who they are as people. By the time they're at that final point, it would feel like fate that they wound up that way, like it's everything they're supposed to be.

The power of friendship possibly even added to this, because rather than struggling alone and possibly fighting back against it, they understood and cared for each other through the worst of it, which made accepting their new selves a lot easier.

BUT WAIT! There are a few more links left in this story:

How did all of this start, really? Well, consider the fact that in the normal Wildcard AU (???), LeChuck is responsible for a lot of trauma in Guybrush’s past that make his hold on reality a little rough. Add to that his ability to create very life-like illusions, and the poor pirate becomes the perfect conduit for the Spiral to take hold. In this AU, LeChuck was the one who got the ball rolling on his transformation out of hopes that he could control the Spiral itself by making his brother the primary avatar, and then bringing about a new world of madness in which he is the sole, sane ruler. Guybrush hasn’t lost his sense of self yet, but as more and more chaos and fear builds throughout the world as a whole, he’s losing track of himself more often.

After all of his work and research, Nelson decides to try and bargain with the Fears directly. Dealing with supernatural forces hands-on has worked so far! (I'm not sure if he would have to find other fear avatars to work this out with, or if he could try to ritualistically communicate with the fear entity as a whole, but he figures something out.) His bargain is this:

He offers to lessen the burden of the Spiral off of Guybrush a bit. In exchange for LeChuck being removed as a threat, Nelson will let go of the last vestiges of humanity, and become a full-on fear entity to work for both The Eye AND The Spiral. The Spiral gets all of the knowledge he collects as a watcher for the Eye, The Eye gets to know that someone reasonable is helping to keep the Spiral in check a bit. Diplomacy!

The deal works out, Lechuck gets trapped in the PUZZLE ZONE and Guybrush gets to reclaim a bit of his sanity/sense of self again. In the aftermath, Nelson's got a permanent tape-recorder effect to his voice, but on actual recordings he sounds as clear as if he were right there, with little or no effect where it should be. The pupil of his left eye has become a spiral, while Guybrush's solidified into a round one. Nelson's blending of roles works even better as a MIB: He creates the uncanny feeling of being monitored, and you get the sense that he's always lying about his motives.

This new situation works out even better than expected, and he tries it again in order to help Eddie. Not that he could possibly take on a third fear responsibility, but at least he's living proof that giving the avatars of fear what they want can work out for the best, and make them more effective at being monsters!

Essentially: Give👏us👏work👏benefits👏

The deal between the Desolation and The End gives these boons: Manny can sometimes take a human form (better for targeting victims), and Eddie gets a lot more control over the heat and can turn it down to a low simmer. They get to work in tandem to create a NEW kind of fear, the burning loss of everything you've ever cared about, and the knowledge that at the end of all that suffering is an infinite, inescapable end.

Now the gang lives on a haunted ship (Philadelphia Experiment??) that they use to travel around the world and hunt down worse monsters / evil humans. And maybe save the world if need be? But mostly they just terrorize people and feed off their fear.

In summary: everybody's awful monsters but it worked out fine in the end. For some reason the Magnus Archives made me go "But what if this was a found family story and they unionized and lived on a boat??" I can't do aus normally anymore, maybe I never could.

#wildcards au #tma!au #final pam voice: GOD FORGIVE ME

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jokerxtreme36 · 4 years

Text

Thoughts on Zero One and Kiramager so far + extra (Spoilers)

Man it has been a while since I’ve done this. I was a bit uncertain to really come back and speak my mind on these since I feel what I say doesn’t really matter, I tend to fear what I say could be an unpopular opinion and get flack for it. I’m still hesitant on writing but I felt like wanting to write again after so long. I don’t know if I’ll bring this back but we’ll see. A lot has happened with Toku that’s surprising, I’m surprised how much Toku has been slowly getting itself up to be official over here thanks to various services like discotek and Shout Factory, in an age where you can officially watch the original Kamen Rider series and Kuuga online, If you told me that 5 years ago, I wouldn’t know what to believe.

Recap:

Been three years since I’ve done this iirc, but here’s My thoughts on the seasons I never wrote my full thoughts on.

Kyuranger: This was an up and down series for me. When I first started, I was hating it, due to awful pacing and was doing an awful job of establishing characters, especially Lucky who was hitting the marks of why I disliked Right and Takaharu, thankfully the series picked itself up around the second quarter with Scorpio’s arc and introducing Tsurugi. Would later go down and up with each arc but In my opinion, ended on a decent note. It does suck it never had a crossover with Zyuohger but I did enjoy the Space Squad crossover, which utilized the strengths of the characters really well and was ultimately satisfying.

Ex-Aid: Ex-Aid was a series I was a bit skeptical by but was one over by the end. I enjoyed Emu and his adventures and I give props for the show having two female Riders (Nico counts, fight me!). If there’s an issue, it’d be that I wish they’d just end with the crossover movie cause I feel the V-cinema’s felt like tacked on alternate endings, I do give them credit for trying to connect it to other films.

Lupinranger vs Patranger: A series I’ve seen that’s either enjoyed or disliked. I’m in the former and do like that they experimented with the concept of two different teams. I dig the idea that the Lupins are influenced by more modern Sentai that get the gimmick of the episode while the Pat’s are more akin to classic seasons where they just focus on the Monster, also doesn’t help that Japan has very low views on their justice system so the Lupins are more favorable. Plus I loved the way it ended on an open note, much like how Sanjo tends to do in his writing.

Amazons: Another divisive series and I’m leaning towards those that dislike it.On its own, it’s alright but as a series that uses elements from a classic series, it mostly is superficial in how it uses it cause the original series was remembered for how violent it could be, but there was more to it than just mindless violence. Also doesn’t help the producer’s comment on how “Recent Rider’s aren’t interesting, this series will give it it’s fangs back” saying the shows before it were not good when they were enjoyed by a lot fans. I do give the series credit for trying to write a gray moral type of setting but its flimsily written that it can come off as irritating,, especially around Season 2. Though I’ll give the movie credit for ending the series on a decent note.

Dino Force Brave: A miniseries that caught a lot of fans by surprise, since Korea commissioned a miniseries/continuation for Kyoryuger given how popular it was. It seemed promising, then I saw who was producing and writing it, instead of Sanjo returning. we got Ninninger’s writer. it retcons things like Torin’s not dead and Devius isn’t mentioned (the latter I don’t mind). The series is short which is both its strenght and weakness because for a miniseries, it isn’t given much time to flesh out the new characters, since they only have 12 minutes for each story, shows like the Ultra Fight series work since its serialized and can work as a movie, this not so much but unlike Amazons, I consider this harmless, its nothing too bad and there’s some merit to it (even if they tried saying it was canon in the last Taisen film)

Build: Now this was a series I was actually surprised by, this series is probably my third favorite post Decade Rider series. The series blends the right amount of silly and mature moments. It has a lot of memorable characters and one of my new favorite villlains in the franchise, Evolt was a great villain that really brought the stakes and made you think how this series was gonna deal with him. I remember the ending being divisive but I was ok with it since it does give an explanation for how Build could interact with the other Riders in future crossovers with how the previous seasons (minus Amazons) could connect. plus the V-cinema’s were well handled from an ok one like Cross-Z to a surprisingly Amazing one that is Grease’s V-cinema, now this is how you do a continuation.

Strongest Battle: Now this was a miniseries that caught me by surprise as well since they brought back returning actors to lead up to the next season. Seeing Arakawa still got it and made me hope to see him return writing someday (hint hint).The cast they got surprised me, some I was glad to see return and some I wasn’t too happy with like Takaharu and to an extent Kagura (but too be fair, she wasn’t as bad as Right), but I was intrigued to see what Arakawa would do with them and I was ok with how they were written here though still dislike Takaharu as a character.

Ryusoulger: Ryusoulger is a series that I’ve seen that is pretty loved from what I’ve seen but sadly I’m on the opposite side, I don’t think it was that terrible but more or less disappointing and somehow boring. Strongest Battle setup a lot of things for Ryusoul to follow up on that it felt like a downgrade, like Gaisorg being underutilized that you can tell they didn’t know what to do with him. The writing was all over the place that it was hard to be invested with the characters, who did their best with what they were given but their wasn’t much stakes. If there’s one thing I enjoyed, I really loved the ending arc for giving us not only a Female big bad but also blowing my expectations and breaking status quo, with Red not being the one to finish off the main villain. The ending arc was great yet at the same time was upsetting that the rest of the series wasn’t up to par with it. But now its gonna be the next adaptation after Beast Morphers. With Hasbro in charge, I’m intrigued to see what they do with it.

Zi-o: From the same minds behind Dino Force Brave and Amazons comes what is meant to be a big celebrate/closure of the Heisei era, but threw logic out the window for what is ultimately a fun kind of mess. I don’t mind continuity but I was iffy on how Zi-o retconned the previous seasons as not connected since that’s what they were trying to do until this series went (rip paper) whoops it broke. The series does have some merit with the idea of the Another Rider’s and showing the development of our protagonist and his attempt to defy fate. I also enjoyed when the series stopped time travelling but instead met the characters in the present day cause then the arcs were written better like in Blade and Agito’s tribute episodes. I haven’t watched Geiz’s V-cinema yet but also heard from the producer’s twitter that Woz’s V-cinema isn’t happening, which sucks cause there’s potential in it.

Now that those are done, here we go.

Kamen Rider Zero One:

Now with the start of the Reiwa era, I was hyped since we had Ex-Aid’s writer returning and we got not only a cool awesome secondary but a surprising Female Rider early on and is our third Rider. The first arc starts off strong with Aruto wanting to save the Humagears from Metsubojinrai. Things were looking good until things went downhill thanks to a certain Gold turd known as Thouser, before I get to my issues, I love his suit and how his finishers have a trademark, but that loses its charm when you see him everytime as he’s a very arrogant and obnoxious about his views on how “Humagears aren’t necessary” almost every time. There’s character’s that are meant to be hated, but then there’s characters that you just want to see go away. Once the arc ends the series thankfully pics up with Fuwa getting Rampage, Yua quitting and the return of Izakuchi and Naki. I’m interested to see where things go from here.

Mashin Sentai Kiramager:

Now this was a series I was cautiously optimistic by, since Arakawa returns to write a new series and after my disappointment with Ryusoul, I was nervous but thankfully this series is off to a good start, was surprised we started with episode 0, which does a good job setting up the main 4 before the red shows up. I was a bit skeptical on Juru since he screamed a lot of traits that they could’ve easily screwed up. Thankfully they’ve been doing a good job with Juru, he’s cheerful and imaginative but not a total idiot (what Right should’ve been) and the series has been doing a good job giving everyone their own center episode while not being afraid to take a few risks. I also enjoy the villains like Garza and his rivalry towards Juru due to having a similar ability to his brother that he despised, especially the fight in episode 4 being a highlight. I like that Juru wasn’t sure if he was qualified into being the leader but saw that his passion could help the team in his own unique way. Another thing I love is the Monsters with them going for a Showa aesthetic on mask based Kaijin but with an added twist of a Kaiju counterpart for them to fight, it’s a nice change of pace from just having them grow. The series has done a great job at bringing back an old style and breathing fresh life to it. Was scared hearing what happened to Juru’s actor but thankfully heard he’s doing ok and I’m excited to see what the series brings next.

#JX36 says something.

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