#most of my main issues have come from how clumsy the change has been and how it very much means we're losing the original feel of the game | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

traincat · 3 years

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I’ve been trying to piece together a few things from your Twitter and Tumblr posts alike and still can’t make heads or tales of things, so would you mind helping out a FF & spideytorch noob? 1) what is currently happening with Johnny in the comics? (I’ve fallen head over heels for this guy, largely all your doing) 2) when’s the last time he and Peter have interacted, canon wise? (And do you think upcoming interactions are likely?) 3) your thoughts on if they’ll have him come out in the near future? (has that ‘biggest change to the fantastic four’ teaser come to pass yet?) Love all your content, thank you!

I'd say no problem but then I started thinking about this current run again and got a headache. But yes, I can do that to save you from reading it, because it is very largely not good.

So I don't think it's unfair to just flat out say the current Fantastic Four run is not very good, largely due to writer Dan Slott's efforts. Slott was previously on Amazing Spider-Man for 10 years, to mixed opinions, but a large portion of Spider-Man fandom, myself included, blames him near singlehandedly for the decline in quality of Spider-Man books over those ten years. I will say, in the interest of fairness, that Slott as a writer has an incredible fondness for the Spider-Man/Human Torch relationship, and that a lot of the recent teamups and interactions between them have been written or co-written by him. So it's all not all negative here. But in general, I personally find Slott's more recent comics (the last seven-ish years especially) to be badly plotted out, messily characterized disasters that feature characters written with all the emotion of a cardboard cutout. That's me putting it nicely.

To explain this fully, you have to understand the position Fantastic Four comics were in from the years 2015 through 2018, both in the fictional 616 universe and in the real publishing world. Following the 2015 Secret Wars event (great if you want some Johnny angst in the background of your plot), the Fantastic Four were disbanded -- Reed, Sue, and their many biological and found family children were presumed dead but in reality were remaking the multiverse, unable, for a reason that was never clearly defined, to reach home. Ben and Johnny were left on Earth. They had an unspecified falling out, likely due to Reed and Sue's absence, and went their separate ways -- Ben joined the Guardians of the Galaxy and went to space. Johnny was featured on both Inhumans and Avengers books. What's notable about this period is that it's the first time since 1961 that there was no Fantastic Four book being published by Marvel. Now the real world reason behind this is both complicated and extremely petty: Marvel really wanted the Fantastic Four film rights. Marvel denied this explanation at the time, stating that the reason was sales motivated, but it was a thoroughly flimsy excuse and Jonathan Hickman, writer of 2015's Secret Wars and overseer of the current X-Men plot, gave an interview saying the decision was film rights motivated. This decision kept the Fantastic Four books off the shelves for three years, up until the Disney-Fox merger, which secured the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights for Disney's Marvel Studios. Marvel then announced that the Fantastic Four book would be returning. So that's a little bit of background as to the precarious place the Fantastic Four currently occupy in the Marvel universe -- it's worth noting that this year is their 60th anniversary, and Marvel has done very little for it. Compare this to the X-Men, whose film rights Marvel also obtained during the Disney-Fox merger, and whose books are currently dominating the publishing lineup. The Fantastic Four definitely occupy an unpopular position, one Marvel themselves is at least partially responsible for forcing them into.

But to move back into the actual content of the book -- the readjustment period Slott wrote reintroducing the Fantastic Four into the Marvel universe can be described as clumsy, at best. It's never fully explained why Reed, Sue, and the kids couldn't return to Earth, something that was explored in Chip Zdarsky's 2017 Marvel Two-in-One, which featured Ben, Johnny, and Doom on a multiversal roadtrip to try and find their family and which I on the whole recommend, despite it having an awkward ending due to being cut short by Slott's announced Fantastic Four main title.

(Marvel Two-in-One 2017 #4)

Instead, the Fantastic Four return to a Marvel universe a little different than how they left it, with the Baxter Building -- formerly the offices of Parker Industries, the company Doc Ock started in Peter's body during Superior Spider-Man that Peter inherited after his defeat and then lost spectacularly when he trashed his own company to fight nazis (good for him) -- occupied by a different fantastic foursome in a plot that goes nowhere and does nothing. This is somewhat emblematic of the early days of Slott's run -- he introduces ideas that fail to go anywhere, including Johnny's rekindled relationship with his other best friend and former college roommate, Wyatt Wingfoot, who he was seen being very cuddly with in the early issues.

(FF 2018 #1) A small group of Fantastic Four fans have argued for a while that if Marvel was to have Johnny come out, a relationship with Wyatt would feel very natural -- they're already close, with Wyatt being an important Fantastic Four supporting character since the '60s. I have some further analysis here on the conspiracy theory that Johnny and Wyatt were supposed to be in relationship at the beginning of this run but that that plot was, for whatever reason, nixed. I don't know that I entirely believe this theory, for the record -- but I do think the pieces line up remarkably well.

Anyway, that didn't/hasn't yet happened, obviously. Slott instead for the most part put Johnny on the back burner for the beginning of his run, up until the Spyre arc, which I have reason to believe is the main story he pitched that he credits with securing him the Fantastic Four title. The Spyre arc suggests that the Fantastic Four's failed space exploration during which they got their powers wasn't just to beat the commies to the moon, as Lee and Kirby envisioned (simpler days), but to reach a specific planet outside of our galaxy. When the team sets out to conquer this mission, they arrive at the planet, but are quickly captured. The planet, they find out, operates like a soulmate AU -- everyone has a fated person that they are matched to via a gold armband. Reed and Sue are soulmates (and Ben is confined to an underground subterranean with the other monsters, because this is a Fantastic Four comic) while it's discovered! Shocker! That Johnny is actually the soulmate of the one the planet's inhabitants, a winged woman named Sky, with the suggestion that this is both why Johnny's previous relationships have never worked and why he loves space exploration -- he was just trying to get to his Soulmate TM.

(FF 2018 #15) "What's going on here? Where are my clothes?" As you can see, this didn't start off super great, with Johnny being separated from his family, stripped naked, and put in Sky's bed with a soulmate armband slapped on him. Did I mention they're only removable if your soulmate takes it off for you? And that Sky has consistently refused despite Johnny asking her to? Yeah. It's bad. (I think it's important to note Johnny's long history as a victim of assault plays into this narrative, whether or not Slott is personally holding that in mind while writing, which I don't believe he is. cw in the linked post for discussions of sexual assault.) There's an additional issue here in that Slott has a history of problematic writing regarding women of color, featuring characters he's created to act as love interests being oversexualized, infantilized, villainized, or some mix of all three, with two examples of this phenomena being Cindy Moon and Lian Tang, both of whom he introduced in quick succession in Amazing Spider-Man. Slott certainly didn't have to write Sky as manipulative or controlling towards Johnny, but that's what he chose to do, and that factors into the bigger picture of unfortunate themes in his writing.

Sky returns to Earth with the Fantastic Four despite Johnny appearing unenthused about the idea and initially generally reluctant to interact with her. Apparently they went on a few dates after this and kind of made up. I don't know because I stopped reading for about ten issues in there but I feel confident I missed very little. It's hard to talk about the Sky plot without referencing Johnny's previous interactions with a character named Lyja, a Skrull whose relationship to Johnny I have a long breakdown of here. It's doubly hard, because Lyja actually showed back up in Fantastic Four during this plot. Lyja's modus operandi has remained consistent throughout almost all of her appearances, which I guess makes sense, because she literally has no storylines that do not involve her being obsessed with Johnny, and this recent story isn't any different: Lyja shows up, Lyja disguises herself as another woman in Johnny's life to get close to Johnny, Lyja gets caught and claims it was all fine because she did it for love. This time she disguised herself as Sky.

(FF 2018 #32) Not gonna lie, kind of proud of him for this one. That's one of my problems with Slott -- very occasionally, he busts out good moments, only to undermine them with the rest of his narrative.

In the same issue, Alicia Masters, the first woman Lyja impersonated in order to get close to Johnny, uses her supervillain stepfather's radioactive clay to control Lyja's mind and send her back to space, and I do think she utilized girl power when she did this. Johnny, left reeling after Lyja's latest attempts to trick him into a relationship, ends this issue by sleeping with Victorious, Dr. Doom's right hand woman.

I know she pegged him. I know it. This scene was a little controversial in Johnny fandom, because a lot of people viewed it as Johnny cheating on Sky and thought that that action was out of character for Johnny. I'm personally of a little different opinion, which is that regardless of whether or not you view Johnny and Sky in a committed enough relationship that Johnny's tryst would count as infidelity when all Johnny and Sky are bound by are magic plot soulmate bracelets, I think Lyja's involvement changes things significantly when it comes to Johnny's characterization. All of Johnny's "playboy" periods, if we can call them that, coincide directly with Lyja having been in and then left his life again, which I think makes a certain amount of sense -- it's Johnny trying to wrest control back after a situation where he had none. None of this is explicitly canon, I have to note, but sometimes in comics you have to do the work yourself. So I think this is a case of something being accidentally extremely in character that Slott accidentally stumbled into because he had these love triangles in mind, not because he put a lot of thought into it.

Speaking of love triangles! Johnny sleeping with Victorious gets more complicated when Dr. Doom announces his intent to marry Victorious -- not because he has any romantic interest in her (this engagement caused a lot of uproar in Fantastic Four because Victorious had been previously referred to as being like Doom's adopted daughter) but in order to install her as Latverian regent in his absence. I'm not going to lie, I love a political wedding. Victorious, for some reason, thinks Doom will be deeply upset that she slept with some closeted blond twink and the member of the Fantastic Four he views least as an enemy and more as an annoyance. Johnny, who Sky is currently not talking to because she "felt" him sleeping with Victorious through their magic plot soulmate bracelets, also feels nervous about Doom finding out about this, which I guess is slightly more valid. Anyway, for some completely ridiculous reason, Victorious decides the best time to tell Doom about this little indiscretion is when they're standing at the altar, which coincidentally the Fantastic Four are also standing at, because Doom asked Reed to be his best man in a not at all homoerotic little setup involving midnight swordfighting and Reed slipping Doom's emerald ring onto his own finger. Sorry to sidetrack into DoomReed territory here but it's just like. It's just a lot.

(FF 2018 #33) Also, Ben walked the bride down the aisle. :,) Look at his gigantic hand.

Anyway then Doom decides he's going to kill everyone in a completely reasonable and not at all overblown reaction to Johnny and Zora having what was most likely both disappointing for Zora and weepy for Johnny sex. And that brings us up to where Fantastic Four comics left us yesterday -- in answer to your "big change" question, that's most likely coming up in the next issue, so it hasn't come to pass yet.

Having gotten all that out of the way -- the last time Johnny and Peter interacted canon-wise was in the recent Empyre Fallout Fantastic Four, at the end of the Empyre event:

It was cute! Slott does right good interactions between them. This is possibly the Stockholm Syndrome talking. I don't know if more interactions are likely imminent -- the Empyre event was fairly recent. On the other hand, Slott does like writing interactions between them. So I'd give it about a 50/50 shot. I was skimming the letter page in the latest issue and someone wrote in asking if Peter was likely to appear in the pages of Fantastic Four again any time soon, so there is definitely a demand.

As for Johnny coming out -- I don't know. It's not a call I feel comfortable making at this moment, which I guess means I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd like to say yes, especially because I think Slott set up, whether that was his intention or more likely not, several good places in his run where Johnny could have come out. The beginning, when he's implied to be living with Wyatt again and where he and Wyatt are paralleled against Ben and Alicia. Ben's bachelor party, where Johnny laments not finding the right person -- specifically person and not woman -- and where Ben tells him to "be brave, Johnny Storm." And the soulmate planet plot, where I think could have had a very different and much better ending if Johnny had told Sky that she couldn't be his romantic soulmate, because he knows he wants to be with a man. But those are just places that I think would have made good opportunities for a coming out story. Instead, Johnny's been involved (dubiously) with three different women over the space of the last 10 issues, which is more heterosexuality at one time than he's been confronted with in the last 60 years. So my thoughts are still that it's going to happen eventually, but quite possibly not anytime soon.

Hope that helps! And that my incredibly long answer about what's currently going on with Johnny in comics sheds some light on things!

#johnny storm #traincat talks comics #*replies #long post/#wednesday spoilers

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heloflor · 3 years

Text

Dance lesson

AO3 link

When Milo has to learn the waltz for a school dance, he ends up turning towards his honorary uncles for help.

Note : Another random thing that’s been on my mind for a while and that I finally decided to write down (I SWEAR I’m working on a longer fic). And it’s a fic with no angst and only fluff for once ! And it contains the ACTUAL main character of the show !

But yeah, joke aside, it’s just some random fluff that turned out three times longer than planned (as usual). Like always, Cavendish and Dakota are married. Also Dakota is a dad with Milo because I love this side of him.

There’s also one line that implies Dakota being too dependent of Cav and I really hope that it doesn’t count as romanticizing it because that’s not AT ALL my intent. I just wanted it to be pointed out but using Milo’s POV definitely makes it seem a bit clumsy, even if it’s just one random throwaway sentence. Which is why I’m talking about it now, to make you know that I’m aware that Dakota has issues and it’s not “cute”. And frankly, if I make more fics that take place after the show, I DEFINITELY would take the occasion to point out that Dakota is seeing a therapist and tries to work out how to let go of Cav and trust him to take care of himself.

On that same note, there’s also one sentence that mentions how Cavendish and Dakota hide their relationship out of fear due to homophobia.

There are also a few sentences that are mostly there to give some random headcanons about Cavendish and Dakota, because why not.

Oh yeah and one important thing : I’m no dance teacher, I don’t know how to dance, and finding info about the waltz without ending with a video is harder than I thought. So be aware that the description of the dance is VERY, VERY far from perfect.

I also don’t know shit about American proms and use it more as a set up than anything, so bear with me on that one. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways. Enjoy !

Milo opened the front door of his house, trying not to feel anxious. The day of the annual spring prom was fast approaching. The theme chosen by the teachers for the main dance was slow and formal, to the surprise of most students. While Milo knew that not everyone was going to be perfect when it comes to dancing a waltz, at least among those who would choose to dance it, he really hoped to have a dance with Amanda, who he knew would strive for perfection. And with the almost certainty of Murphy’s Law making the evening more difficult, the least he could do for her was to learn to dance, to be able to keep up against all eventualities.

But learning the waltz was easier said than done. His parents didn’t remember much aside from what it was supposed to look like. As for Sara, she didn’t know how to dance it. Same for his friends. Besides, Melissa had decided she wouldn’t dance if it had to be something like a waltz, much to Zack’s chagrin. So asking them wouldn’t help. Finally, looking it up on the Internet was a no go, as he wanted to learn from a more authentic experience.

So all that was left were dance lessons. But those had a cost. And while Milo considered himself willing to do anything for Amanda, there still was the risk of paying for a lesson only to get the place destroyed over and over again and be banned before learning anything.

Milo didn’t know what to do. Amanda deserved the best, and he truly wanted to be the one to give it to her.

It was with these thoughts in mind that he noticed the three men in his backyard. Doctor D. was working on some machine, helped by Dakota, while Cavendish was standing nearby, chatting with them. While Milo had asked the professor and knew he couldn’t be of any help, he hadn’t told Dakota and Cavendish about it yet.

“Hey guys !”, Milo called as he went to join them.

“Hi Milo !” “Hello Murphy.”, the former time-travelers greeted.

“Found someone to teach you to dance yet ?”, Doofenshmirtz asked as a greeting.

“No. Not yet.”, the teen replied, his smile faltering.

“Something’s wrong ?”, Dakota immediately asked.

“No, no ! I’m fine !”, the short man raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s not something bad or dangerous. It’s just…”, Milo looked away, suddenly feeling embarrassed to make them think that he had a big problem over something they probably saw as insignificant. “There’s the annual spring prom this Saturday, and I’d love to go with my friend Amanda. But I don’t know the dance and Amanda- she likes when everything that could go wrong doesn’t.”

“Trying to impress a girl for a dance, huh ?~”, Dakota asked in a teasing tone that made the teen blush. “Yeah I’ve been there.”, he shrugged.

“I suppose there isn’t a way we could help you ?”, Cavendish asked.

“Well, I need to find someone who can teach me to waltz. So if you know someone who can…”

Dakota looked at him for a beat, before his face brightened. “Well, I think you just found your teacher.”, the short man cheerfully said, turning towards his partner. The tall man looked between the two before closing his eyes and beaming with pride.

“I have to admit, I’m quite the dancer.”, he boasted.

“Cavendish can dance the waltz ?”, Doctor D. asked. Dakota nodded. “Somehow, I’m not even surprised.”, the scientist deadpanned, earning a glare from the British man.

“I’ll have you know I was taught a variety of dances at a young age.”, Cavendish defended. “I still master most of them.”

“Yeah. He can do anything that’s old-fashioned.”, his partner confirmed. He then leaned towards Milo. “But you don’t want to see him try a modern freestyle. Trust me.”, he jokingly half-whispered, making the teen laugh.

Cavendish cleared his throat in annoyance. He then turned his attention to Milo. “So, shall we start this lesson ?”

“Oh, you mean right now ?”

“Why of course ! Unless you don’t have the time, obviously.”

“no, no ! I have time. I just thought you guys were busy.”, Milo replied, glancing at Doctor D.’s machine.

“Oh that ?”, the scientist said. “Don’t worry about it. They already told me everything I needed to know to make my synthetic-time-juiceinator work.”, he assured. “Or at least I hope it’ll work. We’ll just have to see when I’m done building it !”

And with that, the trio scooted away, letting the scientist do his work.

“So,”, Cavendish started. “as you may already know, the waltz is a European dance with several variations, with a few danced amongst the highest courts. Given your time period, I assume what you need to learn is the slow waltz, the most universal one. There are two roles in this dance. One partner is the leader while the other is the follower. Since you’re a beginner, I would advise you to be the follower. N-”

“Um…Actually, I have to be the lead.”, Milo interrupted.

“Really ? Why is that, if you have no experience ?”, the taller man seemed genuinely confused.

“Well, the man is the one leading, while the woman follows his steps.”, he explained, wondering why he needed to explain something so basic.

The two former time-travelers shared a look. “They still do that gendered music thing in this time-period ?”, Dakota asked with a frown.

“…Yes ?”, Milo replied. The short man rolled his eyes. “I guess it changed in the future ?”

“It did.”, Cavendish confirmed, not without looking displeased himself. “The one who leads is the most experienced dancer, regardless of gender.”

“Yeah.”, Dakota continued. “That’s why Cav tends to lead. Between the two of us, he’s the one who knows what he’s doing.”, Cavendish raised an eyebrow at that.

“Anyways.”, the tall man coughed. “If you need to learn to lead, I can teach you to lead. Now…”, Cavendish walked to the center of the backyard. “the waltz has a certain amount of moves that you can do depending of your level and comfort. You said your party was Saturday, which means we have four days to teach you as much as possible. For today, we’re going to concentrate on the three most basic moves. The first one is the box step, the essence of the waltz itself. Dakota, if you please.”, Cavendish extended a hand towards the man.

“I-uh-what ?”

“I need a dance partner.”, the tall man deadpanned.

“I don’t know how to dance that, Cavendish ! I’m not a dancer ! I’m more of a singer. And a musician.”, he glanced at Milo at that last sentence, likely trying to amuse the teen.

“I’ve seen you dance the waltz before.”, Cavendish commented.

“Yeah, once. For our first dance. And I had to take lessons before the wedding. Annnd if memory serves, I tripped and fell only a few minutes in.”

“You tripped during your wedding ?”, Milo couldn’t help but ask.

“Yeah.”, the short man shrugged. “But it was fine.”, he let out a chuckle. “I didn’t break anything. Besides, I had been giddy all day. It was one of the best days of my life after all ! One stupid fall wasn’t going to ruin it ! I never did that dance again though.”

“But surely you remember some of it ?”, Cavendish interrupted. Despite his tone, Milo could see a small smile on the tall man’s face. It seemed like Dakota wasn’t the only one thinking about the day they had years ago.

“eeeesh…”, Dakota punctuated his noise with a shake of his wrist.

“Come now.”, his partner grumbled. “I’m sure you’ll get it back soon enough.”, Cavendish grabbed the shorter man’s hand and led his partner to where he had been standing moments ago. He then put one hand on Dakota’s waist and took Dakota’s other hand in his. Despite his grimace, the shorter man didn’t offer any resistance and also took position, a hand on Cavendish’s shoulder.

“Now. The box is a series of steps that the leader takes, mirrored by their partner. The leader starts by moving forwards, then slide, join your feet, change the foot you put your weight on, and repeat the opposite of what they just did, all in the tempo. For the tempo, you have to count from one to three on rhythm. Now watch.”

After his explanation, Cavendish started slowly making the movements he described, one after the other, taking for each one the time to let Dakota follow. Milo looked at their feet and how they moved. Looking up, he could see the taller man glancing at him from time to time, surely to make sure the teen was still listening. His partner, however, kept his eyes down, looking at what he was doing. At some point, Cavendish pointed out the weight he was putting on each foot and how to change it.

Once Milo confirmed that he understood the moves, Cavendish asked him to put on some music with his phone. Then, the former time-travelers started making the steps again, this time moving to the right rhythm, not without guidance from the taller man. Dakota was clumsy and awkward, never looking away from his feet. But with Cavendish’s assurance, and with the shorter man’s ability to just go with the flow, Dakota managed. This made Milo smile a little. Seemed like he wasn’t the only one getting taught how to waltz.

After explaining everything about the box step, the man introduced the progressive step, followed by the reverse step. Both were rather similar to the box and served to move around the ballroom. The tall man described them as essential to master the more complex moves. Just like for the first step, Cavendish went slow at first to let the teen see how it looked and get Dakota to learn as well, before then following the rhythm of the music.

“Milo,”, the tall man started as Milo cut the music after a few minutes of dancing. “are you sure you understood everything ?”

“I sure did !”, the teen assured.

“Good. Now, we’re going to show you how to combine all three steps together.”

“Say what now ?”, Dakota asked.

“Before we start,”, Cavendish continued, ignoring his partner’s interjection. “there’s one important thing for you to understand. As the leader of the dance, the choice of where and when to move is in your hands. Your partner is meant to simply follow and mirror your steps so, unless they tell you where other people are, you can’t rely on them to guide you. This is why being the leader is harder than the follower.”

“I understand.”, Milo replied.

“Good. Now the music, if you please.”, the tall man asked in a jokingly polite manner. Milo turned the music back on and watched as the two men started dancing again.

As the minutes passed and they kept dancing, their moves started to get smoother with Dakota growing in confidence. Eventually, Cavendish let go of Dakota’s hand for a beat in order to lift the shorter man’s chin, making the duo hold eye contact for the first time since they started. The two smiled as they continued. Milo soon realized that Cavendish had stopped glancing at him. The former time-travelers were completely enraptured with each-other as they moved in harmony to the slow pace of the music.

Milo felt a strange fascination in looking at the two men. Never had he seen Cavendish look so…peaceful, before. Of course, Milo had seen him be happy or excited in the past, more than once. But when he and Dakota were talking, Cavendish had a tendency to be annoyed at his partner. Here, there was none of that. Cavendish’s eyes were filled with love and affection for the shorter man, making Milo understand better why the taller man stayed in their relationship despite his numerous complains.

As for Dakota, it was the same. While Milo frequently saw the shorter man in a good mood, it had never been to this extent. Dakota looked at his partner with pure adoration, as if Cavendish was the most important thing in his entire life.

Milo knew that the two were married. While talking relationships with him, Dakota mentioned how long-lasting relationships weren’t all romantic and cotton-candy like how TV portrayed it but instead were mostly about arguing over the dumbest things. Cavendish’s reaction to the statement accidentally gave them away. Since then, the teen promised to keep the secret, if only to keep them safe from what some people might think.

But while Milo had known of their relationship, he never saw a display of their affections. The teen wondered if their first dance had been like this. For a moment, it made him envious. He hoped that, someday, he and Amanda could be like this. That they could look at each other this way, with the same love, the same passion. Maybe this would be possible this Saturday…At the thought, a new wave of determination coursed through the teen.

“w-woah !”, the moment ended as quickly as it started when Dakota suddenly tripped, letting go of his surprised partner in his fall.

thump

“…ouch”

“Dakota, are you alright ?”, Cavendish asked. The softness from before hadn’t left the man yet and his voice was full of worry. However, it was cut short as Dakota started laughing.

“And that,”, he said while looking at Milo. “is what happened fifteen years ago !”

“…It did.”, Cavendish admitted with a sigh before helping his partner up. Milo walked up to them.

“I’m getting too old for this.”, Dakota grumbled after cracking his back.

“You’re only 45.”, Cavendish commented.

“So ? It’s already pretty old for this time-period.”

“How old can people get in the future ?”, Milo found himself ask.

“A few people have managed to reach 150 years old.”, Cavendish explained. “This means that a few of the people born today might live long enough for us to have met them in our youths.”

“But even if they live that long, they look like a living corpse by the time they’re 120.”, Dakota interjected.

“Still. With the evolution of science and healthcare, people our generation might live even longer. After all, we already are able to stay in good shape until we get near our 100th anniversary.”

“Yeah. Just look at this guy !”, Dakota pointed at his partner. “In his fifties and still able to run ten miles without stopping !”

“I’m 52.”, Cavendish replied. “And you could be in better shape if you worked out with me.”

“Yeah yeah, I know.”, the shorter man rolled his eyes.

“Anyways. Milo ?”, the teen quickly turned his head as the attention went back to him. Cavendish offered him a hand. “Now that you saw how a waltz looks like, I believe it is time to practice ?”

“Uh ? Oh ! Right !”

“I’m not dancing again.”, Dakota warned.

“I don’t expect you to.”, his partner replied.

Dakota took a few steps back, letting the other two take position.

“Are you sure this is going to work ?”, Milo asked, immediately noticing the large height difference. “I mean, Amanda’s more my height…”

“Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine.”, Cavendish reassured. “Besides, this isn’t about how you hold your partner, it’s about the moves that you make. Now, let’s start with the box step. Do you remember it ?”

“I think so.”

“Alright. We don’t have to use the music for now, just take it slow.”

“Right.”

Milo started moving slowly, following the steps he remembered. Like Cavendish said, the height difference wasn’t that much of a problem, especially with the taller man knowing exactly what he was doing.

With the minutes going by, Milo got more into it, though not without a few corrections from Cavendish. The teen managed to move smoothly, making the correct steps. And when music was added, it didn’t take him long to manage to follow it. Being in the backyard also helped a lot as Murphy’s Law couldn’t turn as chaotic as it could be in town. The watering system turned on at some point, both his and Dakota’s phone ran out of batteries, and a few birds ended up causing some damage to the place, but it wasn’t anything that could prevent them from continuing. And after half an hour of practice, Milo was happy to see how good he got at the basics.

Seemed like he had a shot to dance with Amanda after all.

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

During the following days, Cavendish and Dakota would show up at the Murphys’ house to teach the teen more. Once the basics were mastered, Cavendish taught him some more moves like how to twirl or dip your partner. Due to Cavendish’s height, Milo had had to train those moves with Dakota. These lessons had been more fall-inducing than the others, especially on the shorter man’s end, but at least Milo had been able to learn. And while it took more time to get it right, training with Dakota was really fun. The man was as lost as the teen, so the practice always ended with a laugh. And when they were about to fall, the shorter man always made sure to fall first to prevent the teen from getting hurt. Of course, Cavendish had shown annoyance at the duo’s antics but, as long as Milo was learning, he couldn’t really say anything to them.

Milo had to admit, Cavendish was a far better teacher than he first thought. The man knew how to take it slow, making sure everything was understood before moving to the next level. At the same time, he could be sharp, reminding Milo that he didn’t have all the time in the world and couldn’t just spend the entire time messing around. The man knew how to be involved without suffocating the teen, how to get to the point while still giving enough details.

From the way the man would look during some of his explanations, Milo guessed that Cavendish was repeating things he had been told when he had had to learn to dance. This made the teen sometimes wonder about what kind of childhood Cavendish had, though he never dared asking the man directly. Besides, Cavendish wasn’t there to talk about his past. Milo did once ask Dakota about one of the ways Cavendish would speak. But, as it turned out, Dakota didn’t know anything about Cavendish prior to his time living in the States. When Dakota first asked him about it, the tall man simply told him that anything from his past didn’t matter anymore. The only thing Milo learned was something that Dakota jokingly told him : given his personality, there was no way Cavendish used to be a serial killer or a runaway prisoner or anything like that. So there was no point in wondering about Cavendish’s past, especially if it made the man uncomfortable.

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

By Saturday evening, Milo knew most of the different moves possible in a slow waltz, along with a few steps from what Cavendish called an “American waltz”, which sometimes had moments in which the two partners separated.

The teen was extremely grateful for what the former time-traveler did to help him, and made sure to thank him more than once. Cavendish had received the praise with a proud smile. It seemed that the knowledge of helping Milo was enough compensation for him. As for Dakota, he had spent the end of the last lesson teasing the teen, trying to find him ways to approach Amanda, making Milo way more embarrassed than he thought he would be. Though, the shorter man ended his teasing with an encouragement, ruffling Milo’s hair while telling him to just be himself and that, with his talent to turn every situation around, there was no way the evening would be ruined.

Milo had thanked the duo one last time before going to prepare himself for the evening.

And now here he was in his best clothes, in front of the school gym, along with Zack and Melissa. Since they had no intention to do the main dance, the duo had agreed to help Milo by dealing with Murphy’s Law themselves. Zack had even brought his own backpack for the occasion.

“Here we are.”, Milo declared.

“Nervous ?”, Zack asked him with a smile.

“A little.”, the teen admitted.

“What are you scared of ?”, Melissa interjected. “The waltz doesn’t start before a good hour. And you trained for this. You got this !”, she encouraged.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I got this !”, and with that the trio entered the gym.

Just like for last prom, the place was greatly decorated. There was already music, played by one of the school bands. As Melissa predicted, the main dance wasn’t before a while. For now, Milo could just relax and have fun, at least as much fun as Murphy’s Law could permit without ruining the evening.

“Hi Milo !”, Milo immediately turned at the familiar voice that made his heart flutter.

“Hi Amanda !”, he greeted. Amanda was wearing a pink dress that reminded him of the one from last prom. The Hispanic girl also had a check-list with her, making Milo quickly understand that she planned the event. “Nice party !”, he complimented.

“Thanks !”

“I guess you’re in charge of every committee again ?”, Melissa asked with a smirk.

“Not this time. I wanted to have more time for myself.”, Amanda replied. “Though I did choose the people in charge. And made sure they all had backup if needed. And gave them all my number in case they need anything.”, the teen smiled awkwardly.

“But now you can have fun !”, Milo enthusiastically pointed out.

“Well, as long as nothing goes wrong.”, Amanda replied, looking in Milo’s direction.

“Oh don’t worry about that.”, Melissa said. “We’re here to make sure everything runs smoothly.”

“Yeah.”, Zack continued, pointing at his backpack. “The committee against Murphy’s Law and its backup are here !”

“Well, we’ll see how it goes.”, Amanda shrugged, though Milo could still see how nervous she was.

“Come on !”, he tried to encourage. “Let’s go see what they got for the buffet !”

“You spend way too much time with Dakota.”, Zack commented as the group started moving.

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

The evening had started in a great note. Of course, not everything went perfectly with Murphy’s Law. But, as long as Milo kept an eye open for trouble, the party could go on.

After several songs and about half an hour into the party, the lights toned down and the music changed for something more classical. Milo felt his heart start to beat faster.

It was time.

Turning towards his friends, Melissa gave him a gentle punch on his shoulder while Zack gave him a thumbs up, before the duo walked away, ready to deal with any eventuality.

Milo gulped, tried to calm himself with a deep breath, and turned his attention towards Amanda. The Hispanic teen was looking at the dance floor where a few couples were already starting to waltz, while others opted for a slow dance instead.

Milo offered her a hand, getting her attention.

“May I have this dance ?”, he asked, not without a blush.

Amanda looked between him and his hand before finally smiling. “Sure.”

Milo tried not to let his excitement show too much as he led her to the dancefloor. Remembering all of Cavendish’s lessons, he took position and they started to move.

As he expected, Amanda seemed to know exactly what she was doing and danced around with grace. Milo was doing pretty good too. He was especially satisfied about how easy it was to be with someone his size after spending four days dancing with taller people.

“You’re doing amazing !”, Milo flattered after a twirl.

“Thank you, Milo. You’re doing great yourself.”

“I’m glad you think that !”, the teen felt his face flush again. “I…I really trained hard to have a chance to dance with you.”, he admitted.

Amanda looked away with a blush of her own. “I’m…very glad that you did. And-“

She suddenly stopped as both of them heard the sound of glass shattering. They stopped in their tracks and turned at the same time, looking for the source of the problem. But as soon as they noticed the broken window, Zack was on it, already sweeping the shards away.

Milo was relieved to see that nobody had been hurt. He and Amanda shared a look before smiling and starting to dance again.

As they went through the room together, Milo started thinking of Dakota and Cavendish and the way the two of them would look at each-other while dancing. His envy from a few days ago came back as he thought of the possibility of him and Amanda being like that. Maybe that was it, maybe they could-

His thoughts were interrupted by a scream, and the pair stopped again, ready to act. But just like a few minutes earlier, the problem had already been half-resolved by Melissa who winked at the duo. Milo and Amanda went back to dancing.

“Melissa and Zack sure are doing a lot of work.”, Milo commented.

“I have to say, I’m impressed.”, Amanda replied. “I know they said that they got this, but I didn’t expect them to be so effective.”

“Well, they do have a lot of experience helping me deal with Mur-“, Amanda shushed him before he could finish.

“I think we’re unlucky enough without you mentioning it.”, she commented.

“Sorry.”, he replied.

“It’s alright.”, she reassured.

For a few instants, she smiled at him and he smiled back, growing in confidence. But before he could say anything else, another anormal noise was heard. And yet again, they stopped in their tracks, only to realize that the situation quickly got solved without their intervention.

“They really seem to have got this.”, Milo murmured, looking at his friends smiling at him and smiling back.

“You know, I’m surprised to see them willing to take this time to help instead of dancing.”

“Well, Melissa didn’t want to do this kind of dance.”, Milo explained. “And…weeelll, they kind of agreed to look out for me during this dance, so that we can have fun.”, the teen looked away, embarrassed.

“Oh.”, Amanda stayed silent for a beat, both teens looking away. “Well I’m…I’m glad they did. And perhaps…maybe they’re right.”

“What do you mean ?”, Milo looked back at her.

“Well-“

Another noise. But this time, as Milo looked away, he felt Amanda’s hand grab his cheek, pulling his attention back on her. The teen went back to dancing, leading Milo with her.

“I know it may sound crazy coming from me,”, she started. “but I think we should…ignore the mess.”, she looked horrified as she finished her sentence but shook her head to keep her composure. “Your friends got it. Let’s just…let’s just enjoy the dance.”

Milo looked at her for a second before feeling a smile spread across his face.

“You’re right. Let’s just keep going. And whatever goes wrong will get fixed without us !”

Amanda smiled back and the two started focusing back on their steps. Milo took back the lead and the two locked eyes, their smiles never faltering.

Slowly, as they kept dancing, Milo felt like the music was growing louder, making everything around them disappear, until all that was left was the two of them, gazing at each other while the soft music was leading their paired movements. Milo felt his heart pulse faster than ever, and yet, he never felt more at peace. He wanted to smile and laugh like never before, but all he did was continue dancing, admiring Amanda’s elegant steps. After a twirl, once they looked back at each other, the way Amanda looked at him made him feel like his heart was about to burst out. For a moment, he felt peace and happiness, pure happiness, and he wished for this instant to never stop.

He didn’t know how long they kept dancing, how long they stayed like this. All he knew was that, after a dip, it was all over.

The music ended, most of the couples started to pull away, and the band went back on stage. A few feet away, Melissa and Zack were trying to get a student out of a hole in the wall.

Milo and Amanda kept smiling at each other as Milo pulled Amanda back up. The teens then pulled away and avoided each other’s eyes, both blushing but unable to stop smiling.

“Amanda !”, Lydia suddenly interrupted. This snapped the Hispanic girl right out of her reverie.

Milo could only stand there, trying to blink his dream state away, as the two girls talked, until Amanda spoke to him.

“I’m sorry Milo, but I have to go.”, she apologized.

“Don’t worry.”, Milo tried to get his usual cheerful tone back. “A committee needs you, I understand.”, Amanda nodded.

“See you later, Milo !”

“See you later !”, Milo waved as the girls went away.

“Soooo.~”, Milo was taken by surprise as he suddenly noticed Melissa standing next to him with a smirk. “How did it go ? ~”

“Did you two have fun ?”, Zack continued, not without his own smile.

“It was…magical.”, Milo replied. He was still on cloud nine, Amanda’s smile forever graved on his memory. “Yeah. Truly magical.”

He really needed to thank Cavendish again.

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

The school prom was loud, loud enough to be heard a few streets away from the school. Though, the school had quieted for a while. And now, the music started again.

Vinnie smiled. Seemed like Milo’s time to shine was over. He hoped the kid had gotten the dance he wanted with his girlfriend.

With a nostalgic sigh, the man entered his ‘apartment’.

Balthazar was crouching near the couch, fumbling to get the bed open.

“The kid’s done.”, Vinnie said.

“What ?”, Balth stopped, looking at his husband in confusion.

“Milo. I’m pretty sure the waltz over.”

“Oh.”

“How do you think he did ?”, Vinnie smirked. “How much you wanna bet he fell ?”, he joked.

“Please.”, Balth smiled as he stood up. “Milo became quite the dancer. I’m sure he did wonderfully.”

“He did have a great teacher.”, the shorter man flirted.

“And he’s not the only one who learned a lot.”, Balthazar replied. The tall man took out his phone, and quickly put some music. Vinnie just looked curiously as his husband put the phone on the small table and offered him a hand. “May I have this dance ?”

“You’re not serious.”, Vinnie grimaced.

“Come on.”, Balthazar smiled in a way that made the shorter man silently curse the effect his partner had on him. “You did a lot of progress over the last few days.”

“Alright, alright.”, Vinnie sighed, though his smile betrayed his emotions. He took Balthazar’s hand, letting himself be led by the taller man. The two couldn’t move much as the space was small and cramped, but it didn’t stop Balth from doing a variety of steps.

Though, less than a minute into this, Vinnie tripped over the table’s feet and fell, barely giving Balthazar the time to react and push his partner towards the couch. Vinnie half-slumped half-fell into it.

“…Ouch…”, the shorter man complained

“Are you alright ?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank goodness.”, Balth mumbled, helping him up.

“You know what ?”, Vinnie declared. “We should let the kids do the whole dancing thing. I think I’m going to take a break from formal dances.”

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criminalmutantsins · 3 years

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My Top 10 Favorite Ducktales Characters

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NO. 10 Hewey Duck

At number 10 is Huey!

Hewey has been my least favorite triplet for most of the series; it by no means he’s a bad character or any of the sorts, Huey is more down to earth compared to other characters. It’s hard to say much about Hewey other than how he’s a sweet, fun character I’m glad is around.

His development in season three was good, though the weakest of the three. Kinda half-baked and rushed, as if the creators thought, “we have to add some Huey development since this is his season.” With Dewey and Louie’s, it felt like their respective seasons revolved around them instead of the other way around. The only episode I really think perfectly gave Huey development and at the same time move the main plot forward fluidly was the “Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks!” with the whole Huey vs. Violet rivalry. Y’know what also sucks. Huey wasn’t even that integral to the finale. That annoys me to no end.

Now, I’m going to end this with positive notes.

What got Huey into the list was his sweet nature and how integral he is to the team’s balance. Every team needs someone who represents order and Huey is just that. Plus, his innocent love for romance is so cute. I love the episode where him and Webby were setting a date up for Fenton and Gandra.

NO. 9 Scrooge McDuck

Scrooge is probably the most interesting protagonist I’ve ever watched. Unlike most of them, he’s more of an anti-hero than a pure hero like Steven Universe or Luz from Owl House.

I don’t really have much to say about him because I don’t love him as much as the characters above him. He probably has the best development- Lena’s rivaling his really well. In the beginning, Scrooge was a grumpy miser but now, thanks to the kids, his heart is softer and more open. His cheapness is annoying, but the good qualities overthrow the bad.

Scrooge most likely would’ve been higher in the list if “The Life & Crimes of Scrooge McDuck” didn’t happen- or at least occurred in season two instead since humility and hard work was the main theme. The writers went overboard showing the audience how bad of a person Scrooge was in the past, especially with him taking advantage of the poor villagers and leaving them in their states-without even helping them. This episode downgraded Scrooge pretty badly.

NO. 8 Donald Duck

Although on the lower half of the list, I still hold so much love and respect for this version of Donald. He’s such a massive improvement from his previous iteration. The creators made him kind and strong-willed but kept his anger issues. Though, they turned that flaw into a more comedic and positive aspect of Donald since he uses that intense anger to protect his family. Speaking of that, his relationship with the triplets is absolutely adorable. He loves and protects them like a great father, and I’m still a bit peeved that characters didn’t acknowledge that more. Instead, their relationship was sidelined and pretty much haphazardly... replaced-I don’t know if that’s the right word- with May and June.

Another thing that annoyed me was Donald’s voice treatment. The creators pretty much portrayed his speaking problem as a joke, which is terrible. I hope to goodness that children with speaking troubles don’t take those “jokes” to heart because there is nothing wrong with having a different voice. It’s also surprising how much characters mostly don’t understand him when I can seventy percent of the time. This complaint is more towards season one since that was the season where most of the jokes happened.

Anyways, I hope this Donald will start a new beginning for the next iterations of him. A nice guy who has anger issues but means well. Same with him and Daisy’s relationship-another massive improvement the writers did. They are such a great couple from the episodes we got with them and this dynamic should continue.

NO. 7 Webby Vanderquack

Another character who was massively improved was the great Webby Vanderquack!

In the original series, she was a boring damsel-in-distress with no personality-pretty much like the earliest Disney princesses. The ‘17 creators did such a great job molding reboot Webby into a character who can kill you with kindness or impressive fighting skills. This pink-loving queen is probably the sweetest character I’ve ever met; I just want to hug her.

I love her optimism and caring personality. She was able to change Lena for the better and not give up on her when almost everyone did. Webby is the best friend you can have.

While I’m not fully on board with the Webby finale twist, I really liked how her interest in the McDucks played some big part of the finale. Do I wish it was in different circumstances? Yes, but I’m still glad Webby got an important moment for herself. That interrogation scene was very emotional; seeing Beakley fully breakdown like she did was shocking and really set the mood of how pivotal that moment. I literally almost cried seeing Webby so heartbroken by her grandmother’s lies- this pink baby deserves all the love in the world. At least she found out the truth and gained a parental figure in her life.

NO. 6 Louie Duck

I’ve gotta admit; I did not like Louie that much at the start of the show. Greedy and selfish characters usually don’t get my love, but season two changed. A lot more depth was added to him such as his insecurities and anxieties. I struggle with these issues and it was nice to see a character show that as well. One of my favorite arcs was Louie’s trouble connecting with Della; it was realistic and not rushed. While watching this season, I was often having trouble connecting with people, even old friends. Sort of having someone experiencing them alongside me made me feel less insecure and lonely.

His development was really good too, from beginning to end. At first, Louie was someone who was willing to execute every angle no matter how much it could hurt his loved ones. Yet, he grew to be a humbler person who now knows the consequences of his angles. A favorite episode of mine is “The Richest Duck in the World” because of this development. Seeing Louie clean the Bombei’s shoes with Scrooge made my heart melt.

What lowered him down to number eight was season three. There were a few episodes that backtracked Louie’s development like “The Trickening” and “The Fight for Castle McDuck” episodes. He was a real jerk towards Huey for no reason. It frustrated me enough to affect this list. And I also prefer other characters more.

NO. 5 Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera

You can’t expect me to not put this quirky and adorable dork in the top five! He’s one of the best boys in the show. Him being voiced by the great Lin-Manuel Miranda does add some bonus points- you can tell I’m a big Hamilton fan.

Like Webby, Fenton was drastically improved. He became this sweet, scatterbrained scientist who only wants to help people. I instantly fell in love with him. And it got even better when Fenton became Gizmoduck- my second favorite DT hero. He deserved so much more screen time, especially in season 3; “Beaks in the Shell” was not a good enough episode for Fenton and his relationship with Gandra. There should’ve been more. The finale moments he had was not satisfying enough, particularly him and DW sort of team up. It was rushed.

If a Darkwing Duck reboot takes place in the ’17 universe then Fenton must be a major character- at least show up in ten episodes a season. A Gizmoduck and Darkwing crossover is essential, and I will riot if it that doesn’t happen. And more Fandra, my fifth -maybe fourth- favorite ship.

I also had a big crush on Fenton back in season one. You can’t help but love him this sweety pie. This pretty much influenced thirty percent of his placement.

NO. 4 Launchpad McQuack

This muscular dummy is amazing! He brings a sense of comedy and light to every episode he is in. It’s infectious as h*ll!

I liked Launchpad instantly. He’s kind and wants the best for people. Optimistic characters are almost the best characters. They are great reminders of how there are still many good people in the world. Whenever I’m down and watch Ducktales, LP makes me feel a lot better with his dumb yet endearing moments. My favorite jokes are literally LP sending Beakley an invitation saying not to come and when he tried to make small talk with Gosalyn at the window; I can never stop laughing at those moments.

There are times when Launchpad’s dumbness irks me, but his good qualities overthrow that. Though, I wish he wasn’t used too much as comedy relief; LP had the potential to gain more development than what he got. I’ll give an example. Learning about his family would’ve been great to know- an appearance wouldn’t have hurt either. It could’ve opened a reason to why LP cares about Scrooge’s opinion and cares about him like a dad. Maybe there’s some bitterness in LP’s relationship with his dad and that’s why he doesn’t talk about his parents. Loopey not being introduced was a missed opportunity. Big brother Launchpad is all I need.

I also have a small crush on Launchpad, though mostly for his personality and voice. He’s still cute *wink.*

NO. 3 Drake Mallard

We made it to the top three! With the dashing caped crusader Darkwing Duck starting us off!

It’s funny how much I love a character who’s only appeared in like five-maybe six- episodes enough to put him in the top three. I had some trouble defining many reasons why I love him; it’s this weird connection I have with DW. He’s this dorky dummy who loved a big part of his childhood enough to make it his reality, yet I love him so much.

I think what made me fall in love with him was how similar we are. Like him, I was a meek person who got pushed a few times- either physically or mentally. Those times also inspired me to grow stronger and be an inspiration for the next generation. I can be pretty clumsy too(lol). Characters I see myself in are usually really high in my love list and it shouldn’t be surprising that Drake is one of them.

His kind and genuine nature was also what drew me in. And, I just made this realization, this is the first time I don’t prefer the original iteration over the latest one. I still love ‘91 Drake but he’s too arrogant.

Unlike the original DW, Drake became a hero to help others- though a wish for glory played a bit of a part too. This clumsy, stuttering actor took a step to become his hero and a future one for children like him. That’s admirable. His lovable personality also being so cute enough for me to want to give a big hug is a good addition.

NO. 2 Lena Sabrewing

Hands down Lena had the best development!

She started off as this distant loner who followed the gray area of morality. Now, Lena is a part of this loving family and her own person. A few of her episodes are my favorites, such as “Friendship Hates Magic!” and “A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill.” They are well-written episodes and hit me in the feels.

Like Louie and Drake, I see myself in Lena. There are times I’ve been afraid I’ll take on my family’s bad habits or turn like them. That’s why I love “A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!” Watching Lena try to be good enough and feeling insecure reminded me of the dark times I usually think about. There are even times I have dreams of these issues. The creators must have been inspired by me (lol). Though, I am kind of jealous of Lena because of how great her friends are. I want friends like Webby and Violet.

Even so, I do have some issues with Lena. Her magic arc was not written as well as her previous arcs. This might be more of a personal opinion than anything, but I’m still going to say it. Lena learned to control her magic too quickly, and it was treated as more like a plot device. And a shaking one at that. For example, in “The Split Sword of Swanstantine” Lena was able to stop time and send her and Huey into his mindscape. But, somehow, she couldn’t conjure a burst of energy to attack Steelbeak; granted, Huey mentioned that, yet Lena’s reasoning was dumb. Attacking someone with magic is way easier than doing what she did. I’m a little lenient on this since that idea lead to more Huey development, though I’m still going to critique it.

A great thing about Lena learning was her temporary outfit change. She looks absolutely amazing in light colors, which I didn’t expect, and her hair design is what I saw she would look good in. The eye shape is kind of weird.

Lena’s magic mode is in my list of cosplays.

NO. 1 Dewey Duck

Finally, number one is Dewey Duck!

Dewey has stolen my heart since the beginning. His positivity and fun nature always make me smile, even during the toughest times.

In my opinion, Dewey has the best arc/development of the triplets. His arc trying to find out what happened to his mother was what kept me watching Ducktales and helped me see why this show is so special. Many of my favorite moments are in season one, specifically ones involving Dewey. For instance, the scene in “The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!” where Dewey was willing to risk his life to get the last piece of paper and possibly solve what happened to Della was emotional. Hearing the desperation in his voice while pleading with Scrooge to tell him what happened hit me hard. I can’t imagine how much pain HDL have gone through not knowing what happened and thinking they aren’t allowed to ask. It would be terrible to experience.

Another moment I loved was in “The Spear of Selene.” It was when Dewey was hesitant to know what happened as the possibility that Della was a bad person grew more prominent. He looked so defeated admitting that realization and it reminded me of myself. There were moments when I realized that my parents were not as good as I thought. It hurt me a lot. At least sweet Dewey didn’t have to go through that. The scene when Dewey started tearing up seeing his mom in the sphere was also heartwarming. I wanted to give him the biggest hug.

Dewey’s insecurities of not being good enough and to be loved is what I struggle with too. Its kind of different because I have trouble believing anyone loves me while he wants everybody to like him. Confidence is not my forte.

……………………………………………………………

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crystalessenceswrites · 3 years

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Burden of the Survivors- Chapter Two

Burden of the Survivors

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!reader Rating: T (at the moment- subject to change) Warnings: swearing, canon-typical violence *no spoilers- takes place in Season 1 timeline* Summary: Mando works alone- except for when the absolutely can’t. There are few people Din trusts – trusts as in he doesn’t expect a viroblade in the back the second he’s turned around. She’s one of them. Just as cautious and nearly as tight lipped about her past as he is, Din doesn’t mind her around too much. A/N: My inspiration is a fickle thing, I’ve been swinging back and forth between Shadows and BotS for a few weeks now. Finally got enough to sit down and finish this chapter, so cheers to that.

[Masterlist] [Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] Cross-posted to AO3

Chapter Two

When Vero found you, you were nothing but a pickpocket on the lower-level streets of Coruscant-the byproduct of the horrors of the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire. You were nearing sixteen and beginning to lose your touch. When you were younger-and smaller-it was easier to weave through crowds and avoid attention. Puberty and a growth spurt made it much more difficult for the teenage you to blend in. You made it work, you had to if you wanted to get by, but it took twice as much work to get folks to look the other way. Ever observant Vero caught on quick but said you had potential, just not as a street thief. The alabaster skinned theelin approached you with a job, a job that paid more than you could scrounge up in two weeks selling your stolen treasures. All you had to do was deliver a small parcel to a pilot friend of his at a docking station a few levels up without getting caught by the city guard before the pilot was scheduled to leave in two hours. It seemed easy enough and you desperately needed the credits. The last thing on your mind was what was in the package you carried. You knew better than to stick your nose where it did not belong, especially when you were getting paid. That decision changed your life.

The job was a test to see if you were capable and trustworthy enough to bring on for a real job as a runner, and you passed with flying colors. Vero took you under his wing and had you running smuggled goods and other products all over Coruscant. It was a reckless job, you knew that-even as a child-but it kept a roof over your head and food in your belly at a time in your life when you had forgotten what that was like. You were one of many street kids on Coruscant that had to turn to life in the underworld to get by, but you thank the Maker you ended up with the one crew on Coruscant that had some small sense of morals.

Vero worked for Shan Tillis, who had grown up on the streets of Corellia himself. Shan was sympathetic, smuggling had been his way out of the gutter, and he offered you that same opportunity. It had not taken long for Shan and the others to realize you were too smart and too quick on your feet to just move goods, that you and your brain could be used elsewhere. So, they taught you. Kom and Redarr, Shan’s lead muscle heads, taught you how to fight and how to fight dirty. Sola bought you your first proper viroblade (you’d nicked one years ago but it was made for hands much larger than yours so you’d always been rather clumsy with it) and taught you every trick in the book she knew, every weak spot on the body, how to wound but not kill and where to bleed someone out the fastest. Her lessons were always your favorite. Tala taught you how to pilot every kind of ship you could get your hands on, and how to hotwire a landspeeder- Vero was not thrilled when he discovered that lesson had been performed on his precious baby.

Everything that made you into the infamous bounty hunter you were now had been taught to you by that crew. Every cautious tick had been drilled into you by Kom and Vero. Redarr had schooled you on blasters, made you practice in-between jobs on how to take them apart and put them back together with your eyes closed. Zena taught you how to read people and how to know when a deal was about to go south.

Shan imparted you with the most practical wisdom of them all. How to know when you’re fucked.

This job seems pretty fucked to you.

The Mandalorian is silent as the two of you settle on the ridge above the compound. Scope out, he looks over the cluster of buildings. Even from a distance you’ve already counted ten nikto out and about, and you can safely assume they’re all heavily armed.

You tighten the various straps and holsters on your person before slipping your tactical mask into place. The contraption covers the lower half of your face and has always been more for the intimidation factor than much else. Redarr had gifted it to you all those years ago as more of joke than practical gear but you’d grown attached. Between the mask and its voice modulator, your hood and dark, nondescript clothes you could remained relatively anonymous when you wanted to, which was most of the time.

“If we come along the east side I think I can make it up to the roof without being seen, provide you with a little more cover.” You did always prefer the higher ground.

Mando nods, continuing to scan the scene, “there’s two on the northwest corner you’ll have to manage.”

Your scoff crackles through the modulator, “they won’t be an issue.”

He grunts before his head snaps back towards the edge of the compound, “shit. Bounty droid.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” You whip out your own scope, focusing in on where Mando was watching. Sure enough, you spot an IG unit bounty droid making its way up to the group of nikto lingering outside.

“Subparagraph 16 of the Bondsman Guild Protocol Waiver compels you to immediately produce said asset.”

You roll your eyes as the shooting starts. Droids had to have figured out by now it was never that easy. If it was, anyone with a blaster could join the guild.

The droid has a handle on the gunfight, but you groan as you watch the compound go into lockdown, all the blast doors slam shut before the last shot is fired.

“Droids.” Mando snaps as he stands, one hand clenched around the hilt of a blaster.

You jump up, following behind him. Again, with the acting first, thinking second.

As you approach the encampment Mando jerks his head up, “you take the topside.”

“Gladly.”

You scramble up the side of the building with relative ease, there are plenty of odd pipes and vents that make convenient grips as you haul yourself and up over the lip of the roof. When the droid had ruined any chance at a surprise attack, you’d lost sight of the two guards on the roof. You keep your rifle aimed in their last known direction as you settle onto your stomach, ready to cover Mando as needed.

“Subparagraph 16 of the Bondsman Guild Protocol Waiver compels you to immediately produce said asset,” the droid repeats.

Maker they really have no learning curve.

“IG unit! Stand down!”

The bounty droid has split second reaction times, shooting at what you can safely assume is Mando when he groans from somewhere down below and out of view. “We’re in the Guild!”

“So I suggest you stand down before you take a bolt to the brains, droid.”

Your quip draws the droid’s attention to your vantage point on the roof.

“You are Guild members? I thought I was the only one on assignment.”

“That makes two of us,” Mando grumbles. “So much for the element of surprise.”

That was a kriffing understatement.

“Sadly, I must ask for your fob. I have already issued the writ of seizure. The bounty is mine.”

“Unless I’m mistaken, you are, as of yet, empty-handed.”

“This is true.”

You have to restrain your eye rolling to keep monitoring the roofline.

“I have a suggestion.”

“Proceed.”

“We split the reward.”

How many people was he going to offer to share your credits with? This was beginning to get out of hand.

“This is acceptable.”

Well considering how much Mando hated droid he at least knew how to manage them considerably well.

“Great. Now let’s regroup, out of harm’s way, and form a plan.”

You were sorely doubting that the droid was capable of forming a decent plan or following whatever you and Mando came up with, but it was worth a shot considering the situation had become even more fucked thanks to him.

“I will of course receive the reputation merits associated with the mission.”

“Is this really the time?” You shout down at the pair.

Mando seems to have the same idea, “can we talk about this later?”

“I require an answer if I am to proceed-”

An orange head pops into view on the roof across from you, “we’ve got company!”

The nikto takes a shot at the droid, “oh, no. Alert. Alert. Alert.”

Whole lot of help this one was. You land a headshot just as the doors of the compound slide open, more soldiers swarming out, blasters drawn.

“Let’s go!” Mando dives for cover and the droid follows after.

Your spot affords you a decent line of sight into the courtyard but there’s more of them then you thought there would be out in the middle of nowhere guarding who knows what you were after. It takes you picking off three of them before they realize you’re shooting at them from above. There’s a flurry of shouting and pointing in your direction and Mando makes a run for the main set of blast doors at the back of the courtyard. You were going to have friends on the roof soon. Lucky you.

Rolling back you jump to your feet, taking a couple pot shots into the courtyard as you make for the far end of the roof. The droid is a decent shot, covering Mando’s mad dash while you focus on the nikto popping up across the roof. One hauls himself over the edge to your left, making a swipe at yours leg with his blaster. The loud crunch of your boot to his skull cuts through the blaster fire around you as the body falls into courtyard. Gross. Two more appear out of thin air, their shots barely missing your head. Losing your blaster you duck and roll, knocking both over as you draw a viroblade from your thigh holster. Neither have time to react before you’re on them, each taking one clean slice to the neck.

Mando and the IG unit have made it to the main door as you duck behind some ventilation equipment at the northwest corner of the building. You appear to have control of the roof for now, but you can see the soldiers in the courtyard beginning to regroup. They have Mando and the bounty droid pinned. Shit. You can hear Mando’s modulated shouts from below but you can’t quite make out what he’s going on about. Hopefully he’s chewing out the dumbass droid who go you into this mess.

The IG unit steps out again, laying out a spread of blaster fire that doesn’t seem to do much. The nikto have plenty of coverage behind debris and the series of pillars lining the courtyard. Their numbers also seem to be steadily growing. Just how many of them were set up out here? Who needed this many bodyguards? It was nearly a small army. The IG unit cannot keep up with the incoming blaster fire, even with your help from above.

Your stomach drops as you catch sight of another incoming nikto on a hover blaster at the encampment entrance. You were all fucked. All you can do is hope Mando’s found good cover down there as you drop to your stomach, bracing behind the ventilation unit. The nikto lets it rip, covering the area with a spray of bolts. Most sound like they’re striking below you, focused on where you assume Mando and the droid are hiding.

Then as suddenly as it started the gun stops. Poking your head out you watch as the nikto is flung backwards and Mando yanks the blaster to him. You thank the Maker for whatever good fortune he earned for that to work. It takes only moments for Mando to swing the blaster around and mow down the rest of the small army.

“Well done,” the IG unit cuts through the eerie silence following the blaster fire. “I will disengage self-destruct initiative.”

“Wait, you guys can self-destruct?” Seemed a bit counterintuitive.

Mando’s visor snaps to where you’re hanging over the edge of the roof, looking for a spot to climb down. He wordlessly offers you a hand and you toss your pack and blaster down to him. Its not too high up so you simply ease over the edge and drop to the ground, ignoring the harsh jolt to your knees.

“Manufactures protocol dictates I cannot be captured; thus I have a self-destruct initiative.”

So the droid could have killed you all if had deemed the situation too risky. Great. You’re glad you hadn’t been aware of that during the shootout.

Mando helps the droid back to its feet. “You know, you’re not so bad. For a droid.”

Had hell frozen over? Mando was as droid adverse as they got, and now he was complimenting one? The universe must be ending.

“Agreed.”

“That blaster hit looks nasty. You okay?”

“Running a quick diagnostic… it has missed my central wiring harness.”

“Is that good?”

“Yes.”

Mando glances back to you, “good?”

“Never better,” you grin. This could have gone significantly worse, so you had no room to complain at the moment.

“Well, now we just need to get the door open.”

The way Mando’s helmet whips back to the large blaster makes you groan. There were easier, less messy ways to go about things. You don’t attempt to talk the hunter out of it, he most likely wouldn’t listen to you anyways. It almost looks like he has fun shooting out the blast door until in collapses inwards.

You all take tentative steps inside the compound. One head appears around a far corner to the right. Mando’s quick draw has him downed before anyone blinks. “Anyone else?”

As if any survivors were going to offer themselves up to be shot.

“I’ll clear the west side,” you offer and Mando nods before heading off with the bounty droid in the opposite direction.

An unnerving silence settles over you as you stalk down the halls of the mysterious compound. The small army camped here had been prepared and well supplied. There are crates upon crates of food stuffs, weapons and ammunition. Some places are nearly packed floor to ceiling with it. What exactly was going on out here? How did they get all this out here in the middle of nowhere?

You worry your necklace pendant with one hand, an unconscious gesture you have yet to train yourself out of. Something was not right about this job, or at least more than normal. Over the years your own morals had morphed to accommodate your line of work. You worked for the guild and were often paid by unsavory individuals, but that was what you did to survive, and you refused to let that get to you. This however was picking at an old wound, long forgotten.

Another shot echoes through the compound and you find yourself racing back towards Mando and the droid, blaster held at the ready. Swinging around a corner you find Mando standing over a small floating pod, the bounty droid smoking out of its “head” on the floor. Maybe he didn’t want to split the bounty after all.

“Mando?” Your voice seems to cut through whatever trance the hunter was under, head snapping back towards you. “What happened?”

His shoulders drop, the tension seeming to fall away at your appearance. “He was going to kill the bounty.”

“I thought you said the client specified they wanted it alive if at all possible.”

Mando nods, “they did say that.”

That gnawing sense of dreads returns. Stepping up next to Mando you glance down into the pod-which appears to be functioning as some kind of traveling pram-and are greeted with wide dark eyes and pointy green ears.

Oh Maker no…

#the mandalorian #the mandolorian x reader #the mandalorian x f!reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x f!reader #fic: burden of the survivors #din djarin #the mandolorian #the mandalorian fanfiction #x reader #fanficiton #chapter two #din djarin imagine #the mandalorian imagine #bounty hunters #crystalessences writes

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princess-geek · 3 years

Text

Love Lesson

This fic is dedicated to my guardian angel @storyofmychoices. Besides she's a wonderful a writer, she's an incredible human being whose kind and light are endless. I never could thank her enough for what she has been doing for me.

Dear Dani, I know you usually don't read Hunt's fics written by other authors, but I hope you accept this one.

I hope you enjoyed it 😊💕

Choices Book: Red Carpet Diaries (a couple of years after Book 3)

Characters: Thomas Hunt, Miss Taylor (@storyofmychoices ), mentions to Jessica Massena (my RDC MC) and Matt Rodriguez.

Words: 1748

Warnings: none

Notes: English is not my first language. Please, excuse me any typos /or grammatical errors.

Special thanks to @alj4890 for be by beta reader.

Jessica Massena exclusive pregnancy photos - The most handsome Hollywood parents to be talk about the challenges of parenthood.

Thomas sighed and poured some more of the expensive scotch in the glass. He has no idea why he was wasting his time reading garbage press. He'll be the baby's godfather. He knew every detail about the issue. All the sacrifices she did to conceive...how the first months of nausea got her down. But now, she was radiant...healthy...happy...with Matt.

She had woken up his senses and melted his heart unlike any other woman in years. He never actually had confessed his feelings because it was clear like crystal whom her heart belonged to. For a while, it drove him crazy. Nowadays, he had made peace with his feelings and he came back to his old self. He also recognized that it was nothing more than a crush, a fever of an almost middle-aged man caused by her infectious joy. Jessica Massena was a closed chapter in his life.

He abandoned the magazine and refocused on his research. A tragic death of a beloved teacher in a shooting at a high school inspired him to approach the question of USA public schools’ problems. He had read tons of news and academic papers about it, but they were too theoretical. He needed to breath that air, step on those dirty floors, hear the sounds. So, he decided to visit some public schools in area.

Since he was invited to speak at a university conference in New York, Thomas decided to visit some schools there too.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Kids and teens. Many. Too many. It was a banal New York school. Perfect.

As he wandered through the corridors, he saw a girl crying, hidden in the corner of lockers. Thomas wanted to do something, but he didn't know what to do or even what to say to calm the girl down. He never had a good way with children.

While Thomas was still distressed in his dilemma, a brunette stopped her hurried march, stepped back, placed a giant coffee cup on the floor and knelt beside the girl.

She gently wiped the girl's tears away. Thomas couldn't hear clearly what they were talking about, but he noticed that the girl calmed down as the woman spoke to her and stroked her hair.

“After class, I promise I'll go with you to talk to the principal. They can't do that and get away with it!” the brunette promised hugging the girl tightly.

It was the last thing Thomas heard before the bell rings.

With confusion in the crowded corridors, Thomas lost sight of the girl and the brunette.

The school board recommended him to visit Miss Taylor's class, classroom no.51. It took a while, but he finally found the classroom. Before knocking on the door, Thomas suddenly felt nervous, with a knot in his stomach.

‘In the name of art, Thomas, in the name of art …' he murmured before knocking.

The door opened. Many pairs of expectant eyes looked back at him with curiosity. When the door opened a little more, it revealed the brunette he had seen with the girl.

His eyes fixed on her sweet chestnut for a moment, and, no matter how cliché and cheesy this may be, his heart literally skipped a beat. Thomas felt an inexplicable warmth come to his face. Fortunately, the beard would camouflage his rosy cheeks. Whatever happened in those seconds, it didn't seem to affect the brunette who looked away.

“Is this Miss Taylor’s class?”

“Yes.”

“I have permission from school board to attend your class. I’m…”

“I know who you’re... please come in,” she smiled shyly, “I apologize for not having a seat for you ... the room is at its maximum capacity ... but if you want you can sit at my desk…”

“No way, Miss Taylor! Don’t worry about me. I am going to the back of the room. You won't even notice my presence. Thank you for having me.”

She just nodded.

“Class, let me introduce you Mr. Hunt. He is a famous director…”

“We watched one of his movies a few weeks ago, didn't we, Miss Taylor?”

“Yes, we did…”

“Mr. Hunt, Miss Taylor is a huge a fan of you…she said she watched all your movies…”

Miss Taylor's cheeks changed to increasingly reddish tones.

“Kids let me finish, please…”

“Is it true that Jessica Massena blow you off?”

“Samantha don’t be nosy! I’m so sorry, Mr. Hunt…they’re well behaves kids. I'm sure this is the excitement speaking for them,”

“I'm not making anything up ... it's in all the magazines!” Samantha protested.

“Miss Taylor is single, and she already has a soft spot for you…You could ask her out!” another girl added.

“Children, you’re crossing the line ... one more inappropriate observation and you are grounded!”

“That’s okay, miss Taylor…they’re just kids.” Thomas said.

“Thank you for understanding, Mr. Hunt...As I was saying, Mr. Hunt will be here at school for some days and attend some classes for research proposals.”

“This is for a new movie?”

“Can we be part of it?”

The students were even more excited.

It took some time for them to calm down, but little by little, Miss Taylor, in a sweet and serene voice, managed to calm them down and refocus their attention on her.

After correcting homework, Miss Taylor started her Math lesson. The way she explained it was truly remarkable…inspiring. She put in those numbers the same passion he had seen in the greatest actresses.

She was very affectionate with the students. One of them was having troubles in understanding an exercise. Miss Taylor explained it once, twice, three times ... always calmly and patiently.

“Very good! I knew you could do this.” Miss Taylor encouraged the student.

Jessica Massena was a consuming fire, but the brunette teacher was warming his soul, a kind of heat that settles on the skin, on the bones and makes us feel good and at peace.

From time to time, when she thought he wasn’t looking, Miss Taylor threw him a discreet shy look. When their eyes locked, she blushed, adjusted her hair nervously and looked away.

Thomas found himself completely mesmerized. In fact, he felt like he was in one of those cheesy movies where the main character is completely lost gazing at the girl, there is a pop romantic ballad playing in the background and the sun shines brighter.

He didn't notice time passing, delighted to hear and observe her. The bell woke him from the trance.

“Sorry again for the kids... and for and the indiscreet remarks.”

“No need to apologize. It's part of the children's charm ... at least that's what people say.”

“I hope you found our class useful for your research.”

“Yes...thank you for having me...”

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds. Whenever one looked, the other looked away.

“The pleasure was ours. If there is anything that kids or I can do for help...”

He barely heard her, captivated by her natural features. Her lips were two beautiful pink lines. Thomas had never thought of his life being enchanted by a nose, but Miss Taylor's nose was the cutest nose he had ever seen. The director was so distracted that he didn’t notice he was leaning against a desk, which, at some point, gave in to his weight, causing him to lose his balance.

She tried to grab his arm to hold him, but the force of gravity had no mercy and the director ended up falling on the floor dragging Miss Taylor with him who landed on top of him.

Just a couple of inches were separating their lips. “Kiss her!” a voiced shouted in a corner of his head, “Are you crazy, Thomas?” another inner voice replied, “You’ve only known her for a couple of hours ... What would she think of you?”

I must have hit my head very hard... his rational self thought.

“Oh Lord, I’m so sorry, Miss Taylor...Are you okay?”

“Yes...and you? I’m so sorry. I was trying help and my clumsiness got things worse like the usual…”

“No, it was all my fault, Miss Taylor.”

Her perfume. It was not like the expensive signature perfume the women who he usually crossed paths. Her hair smelled like honey and her perfume was soft with hints of flowers.

“Maybe we should get up?”

“Yes, of course, sorry.” Thomas babbled.

She got up first and held out her hand to help him. Thomas declined delicately. A gentleman must help the lady and not the other way around.

However, when he got up, he fell out of balance again, falling once more.

Miss Taylor smiled to avoid laughter.

“You can laugh. This is absolutely ridiculous,” Thomas said, allowing a smile to appear on his lips.

He rose from the ground with as much dignity as possible, shaking the dust and smoothing his blazer. Moved by the instinct of help, Miss Taylor helped him to clean up. At some moment, their fingers touched and grazed each other’s for some seconds. She blushed and took her hand from his arm.

“May I offer you to a coffee? I mean, offer a coffee to you…as an I’m sorry coffee,”

“You don’t have to do it, Mr. Hunt…”

“Just Thomas, please…and I insist…It’d be a pleasure for me.”

“I…I'd love it…”

“Great! Do you recommend any place special?”

“Wait , I can’t…I’m sorry, I promised to help a student after classes…she really needs me today…I’m sorry…”

“She…your students are lucky to have you.”

Miss Taylor blushed. “I’m not that special…I just love what I do…I think you can understand me on that point…You used to be a professor too...and, you know how it is...When we love our job, we don’t just do it...we breathe it.”

Yes, he could understand that. And he was understanding that this he was feeling was something he shouldn’t ignore.

“I’ll come back tomorrow to Mr. Somerset’s classroom. Maybe, after classes tomorrow?”

She smiled.

“Until tomorrow.”

Thomas gently grabbed her hand, taking it to his lips and planting a gentle kiss on it, “I’m counting the minutes. Have a lovely evening, Miss Taylor.”

He made his way out of the classroom, but not resisting to steal some glances of her along the way, which cost him a blow to the shin, courtesy of desk’s iron leg. When he threw a last glance at the doorway, she said:

“Danielle. My name is Danielle.”

#choices stories you play #play choices fanfic #choices red carpet diaries #red carpet diaries #rcd thomas hunt #choices thomas hunt #thomas hunt #thomas hunt rcd #thomas hunt hwu

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reachexceedinggrasp · 3 years

Note

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.

#sw #salt #more unhinged rambling #anyway dowload the despecialised editions #unsubscribe from Disney+#be free #usually we'd be having a big family thing for Boxing Day but you know #so God bless us all at home separately #I hope everyone had as happy a Christmas as possible in keeping with the situation #I should see if I can drag my brother outside to build a snowman

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snapedefender · 4 years

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You obviously love Snape canonically in the book, but I've been wondering for a while, are there any things that you feel the author has failed in his characterization, or are there things you wish had been done differently? Because I like him how he is in the books, but some things don't sit well with me, or I prefer my personal headcanons. What are your thoughts?

one of the main things that where i think rowling failed with snape was with the presentation of his redemption arc. and i’m not necessarily sure that’s a failure of characterization or just plotting, but either way i think it’s a major contribution to why he’s viewed the way he is and why fandom has such a hard time with him.

snape’s redemption arc isn’t actually even an arc that we see. i’ve talked about this before but in many ways, snape’s redemption is finished by the time we as readers even get confirmation that it existed. this is a problem for a couple of reasons, but the main one is that it’s difficult - especially for narratives built on a close third-person pov like hp - for readers to make that switch from villain to hero (or even anti-hero!) without some significant work and time put in. take zuko from atla - widely considered one of the best redemption arcs in children’s media - where we see every single step of his growth play out. and, of course, atla is not a limited pov like the series so that obviously changes how much we can view but the point still stands; by doing the sudden reveal, rowling rushes what should have been a spread-out process.

so when we get just like that background knowledge of snape’s sneaky redemption, it makes it feel less earned and it makes it more difficult for readers to parse especially since it comes in the midst of all these other heavy emotional scenes. i really love the prince’s tale bc i do think it tells us a lot about snape, but i think rowling did snape a disservice by basically making his redemption arc an exposition chapter... although, to be fair, considering how she laid out snape and harry’s relationship, i’m not sure how she could have fixed that.

i also think we really needed to see more of snape and lily in that chapter. i know most of it is them but considering that’s the ONLY knowledge we have of them as friends it makes it even more important to drive home there as much of their relationship as possible. and once again, this is kind of a plotting issue - rowling had snape give his memories in a way that’s more about pragmatism and explanation, so obviously snape was just going to choose memories that would tell harry what he needed to know and not like anything else that would just show his times with lily, right? but the problem becomes then that it makes it even more difficult for readers to get behind the idea that snape changed becase of lily because he have such a small glimpse of them together. if she wanted to make this a big, profound thing (which i think she does!) then those moments really had to have enough chemistry and charisma to really convince us that this was a lasting relationship for snape and for lily - and honestly i don’t think it manages that, esp since we have so few scenes of them together at hogwarts. look at the marauders - we have just as little information about them as friends in school but we see the relationship between sirius and remus and we can get a sense of their closeness because of the chemistry in that relationship. we really needed that for snape and lily’s interactions for it to carry that redemptive arc and it just... didn’t really happen. which is also why i think it’s easy for people to misinterpret their relationship in the way that they do.

i do fill in the blanks with snape a lot with my own headcanons and i do prefer those to anything rowling might try to put out (teetotaller!snape, for example, or queer!snape). but that’s less a dissatisfaction with what’s presented in the books and more just a way to fill in the gaps since we don’t know that much about his character. i mean, obviously i wish he had been a little less mean to kids who didn’t really deserve it but in the narrative it’s really never clear how much of that is necessity for his cover and his own personal enjoyment - and i think that’s just part of the necessary risks and evils of close third-person, where it’s extremely difficult to parse motivations for anyone other than your pov character.

i guess one thing i never really got behind was snape’s way of speaking. i think he’s one of the funniest characters in the books (that snapback he makes to dumbledore after the big “you need to kill me” reveal always cracks me up) but a lot of his speech is almost antiquated in how flowery it is. i’ve reconciled that with myself as an adult reader by headcanoning that snape adopted that as a way out of the rough speech he might have had as a kid - tho tpt disproves that theory. as a kid i don’t think i really noticed as much but as an adult a lot of snape’s dialogue sounds... idk. weird. altho, tbf, a lot of hp is definitely clunkier when reading as an adult, esp as an adult who has spent a lot of time reading fiction for school and work. (that isn’t to say it’s bad writing! hp has some fucking stellar lines in it and great speeches and genuinely moving/funny bits that are really well-written.)

a lot of stuff fandom has found really ugly about snape (his pettiness, cruelty, emotionality esp when angry, and so on) are things that i actually find interesting and think make him a more realistic character. i don’t know that i find his characterization that suspect tbh - for me, what really frustrated me with snape in the books was the clumsy way he was often used plot-wise especially when it came to his reveal. i think rowling spent so long using him as a mystery plot-device (what is snape doing? is snape evil?) and shielding his motivations that when it came time to actually do the reveal it was just something that she couldn’t really execute with grace, which had the unfortunate side-effect of kind of undermining the way his narrative was received.

#i was trying to think of a snape trait that i didn't really appreciate much in the books and really the only thing is the intensity of his b #which is - once again - difficult to parse how much of that is him and how much of that is his spysona #but tbf it has been a while since i've done a full read-through of the books so it's possible i've just tuned tuned out stuff that bothered #but for me a lot of failure with snape was in how his redemption arc was handled #like i absolutely believe snape's redemption was great and vital and knowing that it happened is amazing #but it could have been done in SUCH. a stronger way #which probably would have made it a less polarizing and derided narrative choice #severus snape #Anonymous

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gregorygrim · 3 years

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Dragon Prince Hot Takes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 2: Germ Free Generation (Annual, #117-120)

Hello all you happy mutants! And welcome back to my look one of my faviorite runs of one of my faviorite super teams by one of my faviorite comic book writers!

For those of you just joining us.. it’s been a while. I did the first instalment of this retrospective back in early January as a present to my friend for christmas, as he had never read E is for Extinctoin and what with this run being vital to the current, utterly brilliant Krakoa era of X-Men. But with both Black History Month and Valentine’s day, February had no real room for this one and march ended up being just as crammed with me doing essentially the entire della arc of ducktales in one month. I didn’t mean for this retrospective to get pushed so far back, but since I gave up doing weekly coverage of Final Space I had some room on the schedule so this retrospective is back with a vengance with two entries this month and hopefully at least one a month afterword to keep it at a decent clip.

Last time I covered the background of this run and didn’t really find much for the issues after, so I won’t have to spend as much time on background.

So since i’ts been a few months, a refresher is probably in order

PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN: Our merry mutants enterted a marvelous new era. As Charles redidciated to the dream with new equipment and a new uniforms our hero encounter a new villian: The Mysterious Cassandra Nova, a powerful telepath who used an uwitting patsy from the trask family and a defucnt sentinel factory to slaughter the mutant nation of Genosha, killing 16 million mutants in the most horrific act of genocide against mutants ever known. And the fact there has been more than one genocide against mutant kind MIGHT, just MIGHT be the reason they blackmailed for peace with life saving drugs instead of helping willingly and freely in the current comics. Just maybe.

Cassandra was captured by the X-Men soon after but escaped and nearly got a hold of Cerebra only to be stopped thanks to a combination of former enemy, genoshan resident at the time of the genocide, and that bitch Emma Frost who snapped her neck and Charles himself who uncharacteristically shot Cassandra in the head. That night Charles took a bold step over that would change the X-Men forever and told the world on live tv:

While all of this was going on we got caught up on the team’s personal struggles, currently consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Wolverine with Emma joining as of the issue we’re about to cover. Beast is grappling with a secondary mutation that makes him look like Aslan, the jesus of narnia and all lions. Meanwhile Scott and Jean are grappling with their non existant sex life as Cyclops possesion by Apocalypse shortly before this story has severely rattled him and caused him to close himself off emotionally.

So that’s where we pick up. Our heroes are now no longer hiden saftely in the shadows from a world that hates and fear them but are out front and center with the world watching. And we’ll see both how that helps their cause and how it puts them directly in the cross hairs under the cut. Content Warning: This review discusses Transphobia and a scene involving a school shooting. If either of these are a trigger for you or something you do not want to read about please skip this part of the retrospective for your own well being. Thank you and have a lovely day.

The Man From Room X:

We have three stories today: an annual that introduces our final team member and the main villians of our next arc, a one off that moves the main plot for the first 12 issues along, and a three part arc about said villains. Before we get into the Annual, I have to talk about it’s weird gimmick: The issue is entirely sideways. I don’t mean it’s bad though some parts are problematic I mean when bought it’d be on it’s side and in my trade I have to flip the whole thing over on it’s side to read it. It’s just a .. weird choice. Not the weirdest thing about this issue somehow but not unexpected from Grant as they like to play with the formula.

We open in said Room X, a location in China where a mutant named Xorn is kept and showed off to a mysterious group of dickweeds in suits representing “Mr. Sublime”. His jailer, General Aao Jun,, shows him off as most bad guys would : By undoing his helmet and thus disntegrating two innocent children just by looking at them. Sublime says they have a deal.

Meanwhile also in China the X-Men are there for a funeral and Emma and Scott trade insulting questions back in forth: She mocks him about his lack of sex with Jean lately and he brings up her criminal past. As for why Emma’s still with the x-men.. it’s out of pragmatisim. WIth Genosha gone, the x-men are the saftest faction to throw in with.

As for why the X-Men are in China, Charles has rapidly expanded his operations now he’s public by setting up X-Corps, a multinational humantarian aid organization dedicated to helping mutants in need wherever they sprout up. He’s set up offices in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Melborne.

He’s also half assed it, at least for the Hong Kong office and only gave them two employees: Domino, who those of you not as familiar with the comics may remember from deadpool and Risque.. who I honestly had never heard of before New X-Men and frequently forget existed. I just looked her up for the first time and she’s a minor mutant who was an associate of X-Force and Warpath’s love intrest. She could compress matter causing it to implode. My assumption here is that Morrison simply picked a minor mutant at random for the job.

But yeah naturally with only two mutants charged with, according to domino “All of asia” went horribly and the x-men are there for Risque’s funeral and to find out what happened. Unsuprisingly it’s tied into our cold open: Risque had found evidence of a mutant trafficking operation and died fighting them off and Dom is naturally f eeling in over her head since said operation involves the chinese goverment, who according to her exccute most mutants at birth and John Sublime and his cult.

We soon see a press confrence from this asshole and find out what his deal is: Sublime is the head of the U-Men, a group that belivies they are a “third species” of mutants trapped in human bodies that deserve to have the surgery to make them into mutants, and thus wear weird suits until the world is pure and allows them to have surgery for it.

Yeahhhh this.. this is really fucking uncomfortable and is going to be present throughout today’s piece so let’s just go ahead and rip that band-aid off: The U-Men come off as HIGHLY transphobic. They use terms similar to trans people call themselves trans species and are trapped inside a body they don’t belong in. It’s VERY uncomfortable to read as a result and something that hadn’t really sunk into till thsi reading but once it had.. oh god does this not age well.

The one thing that keeps this from runing the run and Grant Morrison as a whole for me.. is that I do not think for one second it was intentional. Grant themself is genderqueer, nonbinary and a cross dresser. None of this means they CAN’T be prejudice, being Queer does not magically make you immune to being prejudiced. But before this Grant had the genderqueer sentient street Danny the Street over in doom patrol and a trans main character in his book the invisibles, Lord Fanny. And given New X-Men’s biggest flaw as a whole is clumsy early 2000′s unforutnate implications such as a good chunk of the things about Cyclops affair with Emma, we’ll get to that at the right time, Angel in the next arc and Dust, who was introduced as from afganastan wearing an outfit not seen in the country and speaking a language not spoken in the country. Grant didn’t make these mistakes TWICE, it’s why I still have respect for them, and this won’t be the first or last comic i’ve forgiven for being stupid for it’s time. But I will still call Grant out when I see it. Just because I respect an author just because they changed my life does not mean I won’t call them out when they fuck up. And if they prove to be truly vile, have harmed someone or what have you I will cut them the fuck out of my life. I’ve done it with JK Rowling, Warren Ellis, Brad Jones and Joss Whedon. I would do it with Grant if I truly belivied they were transphobic and instead didn’t just write something very stupid without thinking the metaphor through 20 years ago.

So anyway back to the comic book bollocks as Wolvie and Dominio prepare for an infiltration and flirt a bunch. We also find out Jun is a mutant himself with a power only Grant could dream up: his skin, hair and what have you that falls off him turns into a naked golem for a bit before expiring. And if you hadn’t read this issue before reading this review, yes that actually happened. While the first arc had a BIT of Grant’s trademark batshit insanity, the series REALLY starts to pick it up from here: This issue has a mutant with functioning star for a head, a poorly thought out bucnh of sci fi new age organ theives, and a general whose power is “makes naked clones out of his dandruff”. Oh and his fondest wish?

I just... I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know how you respond to an old man’s weird murder fetish that he tells a somehow even creepier cult leader while said cult leader is paying him to buy a star man, and their both surronded by the creepy old guy’s skin golems that weirdly look like mudokons. Look i’ve read Grant’s entire utterly bonkers run on doom patrol. I’ve seen a man who looks like a question mark use a bicycle that makes everyone high like their on LSD for president. And THIS is what breaks me.

So while.. THIS is going on, Dom and Wolverine plan to do it all night long on the professor’s credit card, no really he gives all his professors carte blanch to use school fun, and inflitrate, Dom through the elvator this horrorshow just took place in and Wolvie james bond style. Also I gotta say I REALLY love how Morrison writes Domino. She’s wittiy, entertaining and her power is as awesome as always, super luck if you didn’t know. It’s a real shame he didn’t add her to the team: She wasn’t on any other x-teams, with X-Force having been rebranded into X-Statix by this point. She would’ve been a fun addition to the cast.

Naturally wolverine is found out.. but that was the entire plan, for him to serve as a distraction then cut his way to domino while she steals something from the vault. As for the rest of the X-Men, Cyclops, Beast and Emma are all downstairs in the parking garage and find a secret entrance. Jean is not on this trip and that’s a major plot point for this run. This is where Risque died.. and it only get’s worse when Hank goes inside, finding a bug like child, basically htink a giant caterpillar but with tons of human arms inttead of legs with her wings cut off.

Thankfully as Logan and Dom escape above, the U-Men are dumb enough to storm down bellow.. and while they incapacitate beast with some launched tiny knives, designed to incapcicate but leave them in tact for harvest, Emma beats the shit out of them and get the info out as only she can....

Granted she could’ve just turned back to normal and used her telepathy.. but what fun would that be? Plus they have blockers and you know CUT UP A FUCKING CHILD. SO yeah fuck them, let emma have her fun.

Thanks to her they find out the U-Men are a front for illegal organ harvest, and while they can’t prove sublimes attached Emma suggests killing him. Good idea but Scott suggests the lighter approach and we find out what Dom stole, a key, something Emma can psychcially scan. She warns it might take her a bit to get something.. only to be flooded instantly and we find out who the man in the box was. Shen Xorn... i’ll let emma tell you more herself.

It’s stuff like this why, despite some serious flaws like the U-Men debacle and some stuff to come, some I mentioned above other that’s just with the plot that i love this run. Morrison just gets how to really tell an x-men story and the real tragedy of being a mutant. That just for being diffrent, you get shut out, or in this case thrown into a box when you could’ve and should’ve been something more. As emma turns herself to diamond to deal with the psychic backlash, Beast has some solemn words to share.

That night Scott rests in his bedroom while presumibly hearing some truly horrific and sexy things next door while talking to jean before clocking out.. only for Emma to head in in a sexy dress with champagne. What happened? Well we won’t know for sure for most of the run.

The next day the U-Men prepare to load and we get some scrap of what the idea was supposed to be: John talks to Ao Jun about his procedures. We see wings crudely sewen to his back and his throat implaants hurting “But one day I will fly”. THe IDEA is their supposed to be lunatics, people who envy mutantkind but don’t actually respect their culture or their sense of personhood. It’s not the worst idea and had Grant not used trans termnology for htis, it would’ve been a great one. I think he INTENDED for them to be coopting the idea of being trans and what not to maks their true intentions.. which is problematic due to debates like the ones on bathrooms where a lot of transphobic asshats make the bad faith argument a bunch of people are going to pretend to be trans to assault people.

We’re.. we;’re not even to the main storyarc yet.

But things soon go wrong as Xorn’s starhead starts to collapse into a black hole, with no solution as the x-men took the key to his helmet.. and assault the compound. Turns out the star collapse thing is Jun’s revenge on humanity for lockig him down here and he gets his neck snapped. Scott has a solution though.. and it’s stuff like this why I fucking love Scott Summers and get annoyed when people call him “boring”: He realizes Xorn is comitting sucicide.. so he’s going to talk him out of it. Not just for everyone else but he deserves to live. And while Emma points out only logan among htem knows chinese and she can’t get through to Xorns’ head due to the way his brain works, Scott has a simple workaround: Use the nearest chineses speaker to teach Scott chinese. So.. with that he talks to Xorn.

And that my friend is Scott Summers. A man who faced with powerful man whose given up, whose lost all hope... convinces him he can still go on. That living’s better than dying.. and that it does get better. The issue closes with Xorn basking in the sunlight for the first time in decades while Domino sweats having an extremley powerful unknown mutant out in the world. Scott’s already thought of that.. and signed him up with the x-men. Granted it won’t be until our next article that he actually fully joins the team, but w’ell get to that next time.

This issue is great... while the U-Men stuff is pretty bad and isn’t going to get better, the tale of xorn is excitiong, Aao Jun is an intresting antagonist and the sideways gimmick suprisingly works. So now we’ve finshed our apitizer let’s get on to the main course.

Danger Rooms:

We open in well.. the Danger Room with Beast training a new student.

This is Beak. Beak is my faviorite character Morrison came up with and one of my faviorite X-Characters. Beak is a bird like boy who can fly, it’s just a struggle and due to looking diffrent and not having the most impressive power has very low self esteem. It’s also part of something Morrison took a concerted effort to do: introduce more mutants with genuinely odd apperances and drawbacks. Like we saw with Ugly John last time and Aao Jun in the previous issue, Morriosn really likes adding weird mutants but he also uses it to give a genuine downside to being one. While this isn’t NEW to x-men, Morriosn upped the scale and number of characters like this with weird powers and apperances. We see a bunch of human passing ones too but the backgrounds just jammed with all sorts of unique designs and students. It’s also the point where the school became far more crowded like the movies, a good call on my part both to help those coming in from the movies, and to help sell the mutant baby boom going on. After all it wouldn’t make sense if the school was just about 5-7 students and a bunch of grown adults doing superhero stuff like usual would it.

But we get to see that Hank is a good teacher, as he reminds the boy that he’s getting better and won’t be an x-man overnight, and worries about him to the professor, wanting the boy not to slip through the cracks, figuratively, and not to feel like an outcast.. especaily here. But Hank dosen’t feel blue for long, metaphorically he was blue long before he became the lion minus the witch and the wardrobe, as he has a date to night.. and so does Charles.

Or rather he did.. his girlfriend trish, a long time love intrest of his and a reporter.. breaks up with him. Over voice mail. While in washington. And the reasons she gives are not great

Yes Hank’s transformation is radical.. but not only was it not his choice... she’s being a coward, sending the message it’s okay to dump someone because hteir a mutant or because they happen tobe diffrent and that efffects your career. Again it’s moments like this that make the run soar over the more awkward bits.

Meanwhile Logan’s off doing logan stuff, i.e. gazing at a deer. Wow. Jean followed him. Both notice a space ship: Despite recently outing himself as a mutant, leading to an increased number of students and a bunch of rioting morons at the gates, Charles has decided NOW’S a good time to take a vacation to the Shiar empire. As for why Jean’s really out here, her marriage to Scott isn’t doing so good and while Logan encourages her to stay it’s just not that simple: Her telekenisis is coming back, stronger than ever. She feels the most alive she’s been while he’s shutting her out and feeling his deadest. She tries to turn to logan for comfort but he shuts her down. Just wait two decades jean... he’ll open up to a threesome. In all seriousness though having Jean try and come onto Logan .. will backfire slightly on later storylines. But we’ll get to that eventually.

In the basement Hank is studying Cassandra or rather a virtual version of her since her body is naturally in storage. And he’s found out something disturbing: She’s Charles Genetic Twin.. oh and it gets way worse. The Professor’s weird behavior? Barely staffing the hong kong office, leaving suddenly with rioters t the gates, outing himself? About that...

Cassandra tourtures Hank with the possiblity he’s devovling and then tries to mind controlli him into cleaning himself with his diploma when Beak enters. The good news is this allows hank to shake off her control and tackle her, showing off why hank mccoy is fucking awesome in the process.

That is the Hank McCoy I know, love.. and miss dearly. The one we’ll probably never get back sadly after what others did and what Percy’s had to do to reconclie with all they did.

Unfortunately beak being around means cassandra can force him to beat beast into a coma with his bat. She plans to tear Charles dream down around him and make him watch.. and cryptically says he tried to kill her. She then cheerfully leaves Jean in charge.. and talks about just how much damage one could do with an entire interstellar empire in the wrong hands....

This issue is also excellent and sets up the next two arcs nicely while giving us a nice peak in hank’s head. Great stuff. The artist also hid the word sex in a lot of the images see if you can find them.

Germ Free Generation Issue 1:

So now we get into our main story for today. This story and the one before it were drawn by Ethan Van Sciver whose a talented artist.. but also highly contrversial for being a conservative. I myself.. don’t know what he’s said or did, though calling himself “Canceld Superstar’ on twitter really isn’t a good sign. So I really can’t comment on it but I also know someone would mention it if I didn’t bring it up and if you know what he did please enlighten me.

So we open with a school shooter who also scooped out a guys eyes and is part of the U-Men. He get shot by the swat team while making his speech> it’s an effective opening but one that’s become more uncomfortable to read with each passing day due to school shootings going up and up in number. And mass shootings in general and I... I need a second. I need something to relax me

Thank you Stoopy. Your doing Odd’s Work.

So the news reports on this and we soon see how Jean watches the news.. by using Cerebra to read the minds of every person on the planet. Neat. Everyone’s talking about them. We also get a hint for later as we hear on the suicide of one martha johanson who wrote the note in her own blood. She’ll be important later.... and I mean that both in the context of this retrospective and for the fact she’ll go on to be part of x-men in perpetuity.

This is also where another great concept of Morrison’s pops up: Mutant culture. After all mutants are a minority, they should have their own culture. It’s something Hickman’s era has taken and ran with, but it’s a damn good idea and one that it shoudln’t of taken almost 20 years for someone else to use given Decimation was undone way back around 2012 in Avengers Vs X-Men, aka that event half hte articles on the mcu around the fox sale used as either their image for the article or asked about happneing. And yes that is a pet peeve of mine: while I do think like Civil War AVX could use a movie version to make it better, I don’t think it’s an event that could be done right away and would have to be almost entirely redone anyway given the context for AvX is entirely couched in decimation i.e. something NO ONE wants in any x-adaptation.

So it turns out while watching the news in a next level way Jean is also talking to Logan. “Stay out of my personal fantasies”. Yeah I .. I don’t think your ready for a hairy canadian dry humping a transformer.. specifically killbison. And yes.. that is an actual transformer and why yes, I have been waiting to bring him up.

And he is , and I am not making any of this up, part of a group of decpticons known as the breastforce. Your life is better for knowing that and you are welcome.

Anyway as you’d imagine a genocidal old woman in her brothers’ body leaving the X-Men to fend for themselves after having a teenager bludgeon one into a coma after publicly outing them with a rabid bunch of bigoted morons at the gates has not gone great. Henry is still out and despite the short staffing Jean needs logan to stay where he is as he’s close to an emerging mutant and within range to go get her.

Emma of course has never been so fucking irate in her whole life and is plotting various forms of psychic tourture with the help of her proteges the Stepford Cucokoo, 5 teenage mutants who functoin best as a unit and are easily some of MOrrison’s most prominent additions to the x-cast. Unlike a lot of the x-kids, they’ve been featured prominently in every era of x-men after this including the current one.

Jean decides for a less “Make them hate us even more” approach, but no less pissed off, opening the gates and going out directly to chew out the assembled bigoted morons, pointing out the ones carrying “Mutants Go Home!” signs are especailly dumb as this IS her home. And while she dosen’t point this part out, it’ the same for all of them: most of the mutants are either adults who choose to live here, teenagers who along with their parents choose to live here, or in the majority teens who have no where else to go due to either being abandoned by their families or it being way to dangerous for said families for them to stay due to bigoted assholes like the ones holding mutants go home signs.

A member of the press asks if she’s willing to talk to the media and she refutes most of his bullshit allegations: He asks if their building an army, she and Scott respond they are not and are simply educating mutants and protecting them. When he counters with the fact their living weapons and wearing uniforms... she counters with the fact she’s wearing them to protect herself, rightfully, from people like her, and the x-men are an aid orginzation going where needed to protect the world and while asshole points out no one apointed them.. jean shuts him down by pointing out there are no mutants in goverment and a genocide just happened, so someone has to do the job. Another random asshole tries to pipe up with “Genosha declared war on us” and Emma senses this is just going to go round and round and round and simply presses the assembled mob’s “bliss buttons” in their brains to knock them out. Non violent but honestly warranted: A dangerous part of bigoted assholes is they’l bring up racist bullshit to try and couch it like an actual conversation. None of these complaints really hold water if you looked at the x-men’s history for more than 5 minutes. Yes Charles is training them to fight and yes hte ingial class was an army but every class since has only been trained for self defense: they still got into adventures and what not, but it was usually by their own choice or because they were thrust into them by circumstance. Xaviers is exactly what jean said and endudgling these morons, while good on paper, only makes them seem legit.

Jean retreats to the infirmary where she’s on the verge of breaking down from the sheer weight of everything. Cyclops proves that despite not being the best husband right now... he still loves his wife, offering to go look into Sublime with Emma and hoping Hank wakes up. Turns out his mind for now is a big blank room.

So she can’t get any info off his skull, and neither of the two think what happened with Beak adds up. Something is up here. Their also coming down with colds which will be important later. And just as important.. Magneto is becoming a symbol among people and merch sales with his image are on the rise. We then get this.

So Jean is trying to be a supportive, honest wife, and while the questions incredibly insulting.. his answer is equally so. Spoilers, as mentioned we do get an answer long after this.. and they did not. So Jean is wrong to be suspcious, at this point, but is at least trying to be polite about it and gave him the benifit of the doubt.. and Scott basically said he slept with her without actually saying it despite not having to. You could’ve said “no we did not have sex, we simply talked all night”. It’s not ENTIRELY better given the horrible state of their relationship right now, but it’s still better than HEAVILY implying he rocked her body to the break of dawn for no damn reason.

So we meet our next major addition to the cast Angel Salvador, an abused teen who is a mutant.. and whose abusive and molesting step dad beats her and throws her out over this. The scene’s a bit overdone, coming off like an after school special.. but it’s what happens AFTER that’s truly heartwrenching.

A poor scared teenager clutching herself, finding herself homeless alone and desperatly wishing she wasn’t what she was. It’s just a striking image and shows how well Grant uses the mutant metaphor. I could easily see myself in that position had my parents not been good peopl and had I come out far sooner as bi. The idea of desperatly hoping your not what you are simply becaus eof what hell it brings, despite all the joy it can bring too. . it’s heartbreaking to hear.

Naturally though things don’t get much better as the next morning the U-Men have found her, calling her a freak and successfully kidnapping her.. if only because while she uses acid spit to escape, she flies into a power line.

We then get Sublimes meeting with Emma and Scott and a BETTER use of teh u-men as while Grant made the horrible mistake of calling them “transpecies”, seriously what the fuck were you thinking, the way sublime frames it here is a MUCH better, much less accidently bigoted concept.

The idea isn’t bad: A group of humans jealous of the mutants powers, blatantly ignoring the horrible downsides and mountain of persecution that comes with being one. Grant just made the mistake of couching in in Trans metaphors, clearly trying to have the U-Men steal from Trans People too as a way to make themselves seem legit. And I say if you want superpowers.. fine.. wanting to be a superhero or a mutant is fine, the issue with the U-Men is their copoting a culture, trying to be part of mutantkind without having any of the drawbacks and by actively butchering them. It’s why the concept HAS shown up elsewhere; it’s not TERRIBLE, Grant just made a bad creative choice that’s only gotten worse as Transphobia has ramped up further and further.

Sublime denies it when our heroes bring up Hong Kong.. but naturally he’s simply just keeping them talking long enough to bring out his trump cards, an army of u-men and a brain in a jar he uses to incapacitate them.. and announces his plan to use the school as an organ farm for his third species.

Meanwhile Logan finds the U-Men in their truck preparing to rip angel apart.. and given he snikit’s soon after.. i’ts very clear whose REALLY about to get ripped apart.

Germ Free Generation Part 2:

Part two begins wth Sublime monologoging about how Mutantkind are just cattle to them and reveals the brain is martha’s, her sucicide having been faked and her brain currently being controlled to use as a weapon.

So while Johnny monlogues we find out what happened with Wolverine last issue he didn’t cut up the guys yet as they fired their little flichete guns at him... it was about as useful and effective as you’d expect and the massacre you were expecting occurs. Though in a nice bit of reality the fact wolverine’s soaked in blood and just killed a bunch of blood shockingly does not make the already frighttend teen feel he’s safe and she spits acid on him. Logan pours some stuff on the acid, figuring rightly a black ops murder farmacy would have something to counteract it and tells her she’s safe now .. and tells the guy behind him not to try it. He’s stupid and does anyway and likely gets a claw to the head off panel.

They go to a diner to eat and find a local asshole who threatens them with a shot gun to leave once angel uses her power to digest and goes on a rant about how he snapped his own son’s neck to prevent him being born a freak. Just.. fucking hell this arc is not good for my depression. We get some more angst from Angel and whiel her dialouge is not the best, i’ts a too bit mark millar flavored edgelordy for my taste and if I wanted that i’d go read Ultimates or Ultimate X-Me, her pain is real and Logan helps her through it.

Back at the Mansion the U-Men are on their way to strike, whlie Jean unaware continues to buckle under the weight of all the shit she’s had to deal with, feeling SOMETHING is making them weak with the colds and something worse is going on and thus tries going to Beak’s mind instead and gently helps talk him through it, showing her grace and empathy.. and in return finding out Charles was the one responsible. The alarms flair up and Jean tries calling the police now that’s an option.. but it goes exactly how you’d expect.

Also a second artist took over for this issue and the next Igor Kordey. He’s fine, but not nearly as good as Quitely or Van Sciver and it shows. Meanwhile Beast awakens and heads for the body drawer with Cassandra’s body, and professor’s mind in it.

However Jean’s finally had enough and got her second wind. She’s outgunned, outmanned and left to her own devices. And she’s fucking fed up with it. She steels herself and assembles the students. This is obviously a last resort.. but some of them can defend themselves and their going to need to. But today they won’t be learning.. they’ll be teaching and as the U-Men call them defensless Jeans simply asks “Are you sure about that?”

Germ Free Generation Part 3:

So we come to the finale of this arc. Angel is once again an ungreatful brat to logan and he opts to just leave her there if sh’es going to be like that pointing out being a mutant sucks, it’s going to keep sucking.. and she needs to deal with it instead of lashing out at him and herself over it.

We get back to the U-Men, one of whom is utterly flabergasted they want to him to cut of Cyclops head... only for Emma to awaken.. and take back her regular form meaning she has her telepathy back. The only reason they were able to get her ealier is she was in diamond mode which is stronger but lacks that, a nice way to check and ballance her new powers. She quickly takes them out and disables Martha.

Back at the school we get one of Jean’s definting moments for me and a true chance to show how badass she can be. Before this while Morrison wrote her well, and his version’s still my favoirite, she didn’t really get to do much and was motly in the background. This arc has been her time in the limelight, having trouble grappling with all the stress of running this place by herself.. and emerging from it stronger, more capable and ready to kick some racist weirdo ass. She tries a few diffrent tactics first, having a mutant with a voice power project it to make them think their san invisible army and having the cuckoos fuck with their heads but when both fail, Jean REALLY gets to show off. Thier blade ammo gets turned into a cool looking 3 dimensioinal shape with her telekneisis, and in a cool moment and a wise use of something gross makes the only one of them with useable powers throw up, before issuing a badass boast, wreathed in flames all while she crumples their guns into uselessness. and tears open their suits.

Bad ass.. and logan and Angel arrive just in time for the cecendo as hte u-men flee in terror

The Phoenix has been Reborn. Jean Grey has risen from the ashes and returned to full power.

Meanwhile Sublime is pankcing.. and it gets worse when Emma shows up, fully enraged after all of this and has some words for him.

Iconic. Emma prepares to drop him out of a building but Scott rightly tries to get her to back off, pointing out the pr nightmare it’d create and the fact that they have enough evidence ot shut him down. Martha however has other ideas and gets him to let go of his own accord, falling to his death.. but given he’d aranged a stunt for the press apparently this gives our heroes deniability and Martha her revenge.

So we end this three parter as Jean revels in her new power, and Beast returns with an announcment:

Final Thoughts for Germ Free Generation: This arc is pretty good if forgetable. The struggle of Jean to run the school herself and her rising from the ashes of her own pain at the end with the power of the phoenix at the end is fantastic, finally both giving her a chance to shine.. and a worrying sign for her friends given what her phoenix force copy whose memories she has a copy of, long story, did is awesome. The other parts are okay and ehhhhhhhhh though. Scott and Emma’s investigation into the u-men while having a really good climax, is pretty standard x-men stuff, and Wolverin’es trek with angel is just okay with Angel being highly intolerable during this arc, with Morrison trying a bit TOO hard to make her a “realistic” teen instead coming off as horribly unplesant. She’s supposed to just be lashing out but comes off obnxious as a result. That said this arc does furhter a lot of Morrisons best idea and introduce more, and is a great setup for our next arc, which we’ll get to in two weeks. Soooo

Next Time On X-Men: We find out just what the hell Cassandra Nova is, what her plans are, and what happened with her and charles as our heroes come down with a cold as the might of the shiar empire bears down on them. It’s IMperial in two weeks.

Next Time ON This BLog: Speaking of long Delayed Projects, I finally return to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a young Scrooge starts his prospecting career, learning the ins and outs from a rich new mentor, and finding the price tag striking it rich comes with. Raid a copper hill with me tommorow.

If you liked this review, subscirbe for more, join my patreon, and if there’s a comic you’d like me to cover suggest it in the comments or outright comission a review from me via ask. See you at the next rainbow

#new x-men #grant morrison #cassandra nova #shen xorn #beast #hank mccoy #jean grey #cyclops #scott summers #wolverine #logan howlett #angel salvadore #beak #barnell bohsk #the stepford cuckoos #the u-men #john sublime #marthan johanson #ethan van sciver

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alex-ruins-everything · 3 years

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Being Human - Chapter 1

A werewolf, a vampire, and a ghost live in the same home together, going about their lives and cherishing the little spooky safe haven they have created for themselves. Until they get a new roommate who knows nothing of the monster world or what he's gotten himself into

Read the whole thing on ao3 here.

It had been Patton’s idea to put the advertisement out. Logan didn’t think they needed to rent out the spare bedroom in their home, but Patton had convinced himself that they could help someone in need and the home was more than big enough, suited for a family rather than just a couple.

“Darling, you know I love your charitability, but there is one small issue about gaining a roommate that I fear you might not have considered,” Logan had said.

“What’s that?” Patton asked, tilting his head in the adorable way he always did.

“Well, how about the fact that you’re a werewolf, Virgil is a ghost, and I’m a vampire? Those things are hard enough to hide at work and in our day to day lives. Surely you don’t want to have to hide at home too…”

But Patton had given him those puppy dog eyes (no pun intended) and Logan caved just like he always did when his husband asked for something. He wrote up the ad and had a few interviews with candidates that Logan simply could not stand. Even Patton admitted after a while that maybe it wasn’t the best idea. He had changed his mind apparently since Logan got a text while on his way home from work at the hospital stating that there was someone there now and to hurry home. So much for running errands after his shift. Logan sped home, opening the front door to see Patton sitting in the living room with a young man while Virgil lurked at the top of the steps with a sour look on his face.

“Lo! Welcome home, love,” Patton grinned, hopping up from the couch to give Logan a kiss on the cheek. “This is Roman! He responded to our ad about the room.”

Logan looked Roman over, an arm slinking around Patton’s waist as they moved back to the couch across from Roman. The very first thing he noticed was how odd he smelled. Not in the sense that he smelled bad...just different in a way he couldn’t quite place. His heart was also beating unusually fast for a situation that seemed calm enough.

“Welcome to our home, Roman,” Logan spoke. “Now if you don’t mind there’s just a few questions.”

Logan went down his list, getting a pretty good sense of who this Roman was. He was an aspiring actor who worked at a diner nearby. He had moved away from home to try and get some better work closer to the main city, but his previous lease just ended and the landlord decided to raise rent way outside of his budget. He had no pets, worked odd hours between the diner and auditions and singing gigs so it was likely the three of them would rarely be home at the same time, save for Virgil who was always home but humans couldn’t see him so they didn’t mention the haunting spirit of the house. He even offered the first two month’s rent up front as soon as he got his security deposit back from his current apartment. All in all he seemed to be a wonderful candidate. The couple took his phone number and promised to call him back soon.

“I like him!” Patton said after Roman had left, cuddling up against Logan’s side.

“I don’t,” Virgil stated, finally coming down from the top of the steps. “He’s loud.”

“Patton is loud,” Logan replied.

“Patton is different. Roman is an annoying loud,” Virgil said, crossing his arms. “This was my house before it was yours and I vote no. I don’t wanna have to put up with him while you two get to escape the house.”

“Sadly I think Patton has made up his mind. Roman is going to come live with us, isn’t he?” Logan asked.

“Roman is gonna come live with us!” Patton cheered.

Logan made the call to Roman, giving him the news. He was to move in on the first of the next month and Patton made it his mission to get the spare bedroom all ready while Logan concerned himself more with obtaining a coded lock for the basement door so he could put a fridge for his blood supply down there. He also heavily worked on the shed in the backyard, fortifying it and soundproofing it for Patton’s monthly change. He still thought it was a highly illogical move, but Patton was excited so Logan could learn to manage. If worse came to worst they could always kill Roman. It was a morbid way to think but it made him feel more secure to have a backup plan.

The first of the month came and they both helped Roman move his few boxes of belongings into the house. Virgil was sulking in the attic where he usually went to get alone time. Patton had planned out a welcome dinner for Roman since both he and Logan took off of work for the night to help with the move. Patton ate regular food on a daily basis unlike Logan who didn’t need to. The food would just sit in his stomach until he got rid of it. He couldn’t digest human food. Patton was much better at making small talk, filling up most of the silence by conversing with Roman about mundane things. Auditions, family life, on and on. Apparently Roman had a brother, but he didn’t seem too thrilled about that fact.

“So how did you two meet?” Roman asked, causing Logan to look up from his mashed potatoes.

“Patton was a patient that came into the ER...and continued to come back. He can be clumsy at times,” Logan stated. “Then he ended up finding me outside of work and made his move.”

“And the rest is history!” Patton grinned.

“Aw, that's so cute!” Roman replied, smiling at the two before yawning.

“Lo and I will clean up, you go get some rest,” Patton instructed. “You must be beat from the move and all.”

“Are you sure? I’m not gonna pass out, I can help-” “We got it, kiddo. Off you go,” Patton assured, watching Roman ascend up the stairs and listening for the click of the bedroom door.

“Finally. I thought he was never gonna go away,” Virgil said, sinking down from the ceiling and landing on the ground.

“You don’t have to hide around him. He can’t see you,” Logan reminded, grabbing plates from the table and bringing them to Patton in the kitchen.

“He makes me uncomfortable. Weird vibes,” Virgil explained.

“Ah, yes. I believe the slang would be ‘theater kid’, yes?”

“Dude you’re asking the wrong person.”

“Oh you two are so cynical,” Patton butted in, helping Logan clear the table while Virgil levitated off the ground and crossed his legs. “I think he’s a nice young man. V, he’s about your age!”

“No he isn’t. I was dead before he was even born,” Virgil stated, glancing up as Roman’s shuffling around in his room could be heard. “Ugh...I just hope he doesn’t stay for too long.”

Logan’s phone went off with an alarm sound as he looked down at the text he got with a slight frown.

“Hospital needs me, I have to go,” he said, tucking the device in his back pocket. “I’ll see you in the morning, darling. Virgil, enjoy going bump in the night.”

Logan gave Patton a kiss on the cheek, apologizing for leaving him with all the dishes before grabbing his keys and heading out the door. Something Virgil said stuck with him, but likely not in a way the other meant for it to. How long would Roman last around this place? They’d just have to wait and find out.

#alex-writes-everything #being human #sanders sides #logicality #prinxiety #logan sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

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So I just finished the third season of The Bold Type and oh boy did they drop the ball in this one. I... really enjoyed this show until now but this season was just so intensely exhausting and honestly cringey.

The only good storyline was Jane’s. Her finally dumping that cheating piece of garbage. The way they handled her surgery and recovery and the struggle she had. It was incredibly emotional and well-paced and I genuinely loved the way they handled it.

But everything else was... pretty much garbage, in my opinion?

I mean, Sutton? Sutton and Richard, getting married, after being in a relationship for what, five years? And... they never actually talked about their future? They never talked about having kids? I hate this dumbassery of “let’s get married but like we never actually talked about how we imagine our future” and the way they handled that, with how Richard behaved? How he placed all the blame on Sutton? What in the world was that? She put her life on hold for him, repeatedly. It wasn’t because of her job that you guys hid your relationship for so long, it was yours. And when you decided to go to San Francisco for a job, she was just 100% behind you.

But now she’s deceiving you because... she... doesn’t read minds, or what? Saying “I want something like they have” is the broadest, least specific bullshit. Something, what? Their career, their marriage, their house? That does not specify that you want children. Saying “I definitely want children” is how you specify that you want children. To only blame her for not telling him that she didn’t want kids...? When two people are in this relationship and neither of them actually spoke up about their wants and needs here? That is equally both their fault.

Not to mention his... his reaction. Just, his reaction to everything.

When, only two months after the miscarriage, she wanted to have sex again and he just immediately goes “so x position is better for conception”, that was just... incredibly insensitive. I don’t know about anyone else but me, but... two weeks after losing a baby to already try again seems incredibly early and to overrun her like that instead of first, in a quieter moment, address the issue? Not to mention that this was an unplanned pregnancy and she just started a new, busy job so it really wasn’t a good fit time-wise.

His reaction to when she told him she didn’t want babies? The throwing and trashing stuff? It just will never sit right with me when men express their anger/frustration by smashing and destroying things right next to the woman. It is purposefully intimidating and reads far too close as a ‘replacement’, which also is always intensified by the woman jumping away instinctively, as Sutton did. Not... Not a great move. Really creepy.

And then they just... end it. Just like that. After this entire show had their will they won’t they build up to them getting married, it all falls apart like that, so unceremoneously and Sutton goes onto a completely self-destructive tour of discovering that she is, after all, no better than her mother, putting her somehow even below square one.

The worst offender however is whatever the fuck this show did to Kat. And to Adena. But let’s start with Adena.

Adena, an out and proud lesbian, a Muslim, a woman of color, a feminist. And now... a biphobe, apparently? Wow, that’s just such a great look on her.

It’s incredibly OoC for Adena. This woman, who met Kat when Kat was still thinking she was straight, who supported Kat through her self-discovery. And while Kat used “lesbian” as a self-identifying label twice in previous seasons, she always more leaned toward “queer” to label herself.

So to now have Adena, whose entire character was always about lending women a voice and standing up for them, who always supported Kat, who met Kat when Kat was still very much busy sleeping with men, now act biphobic when Kat comes out as bisexual...? It just... It really fucked Adena over.

Especially the garbage she was spouting. That if Kat now liked men, did that make Adena “just a phase” and were her feelings for Adena “even real”? That is just the most bottom of the barrel biphobic talk, this felt like someone just did one quick google search on biphobia and crammed them together and made Adena say that. It... just didn’t feel authentic for Adena, after how she had been represented so far and how she had acted and handled Kat’s journey of self-descovery.

I understand that they really wanted Kat to face biphobia and I genuinely did love the bonding moment that gave Kat and Oliver, but there was absolutely no need to throw Adena under the bus like this. They could have literally gone to that stupid lesbian-exclusive party and just have... have some random unnamed character act biphobic?

Considering this wasn’t even meant as a lasting plotline that’d be pulled through as a proper arc, because two episodes later, Adena suddenly got over her biphobia. Which is just another thing that makes it more ridiculous, because a woman like Adena, who is deeply involved with the community and who is strongly opinionated, would - if she really was biphobic - not just change her stance on that in like two weeks just because...?

It really showed that they used Adena not as a character but as a plot-tool for Kat’s plotline and it did Adena such a disservice - especially since she is one of your four (4) queer characters and she is your only lesbian.

Don’t validate negative stereotypes like prickly lesbians who only date Gold Star Lesbians because otherwise the lesbian feelings between them just aren’t lesbian enough and like how would she know they’re real if her partner isn’t also a lesbian?

And yes. Yes, I am well-aware we have a huge problem of biphobia within the community. I am well-aware that these type of lesbians exist. But, as mentioned above, they could have taken a minor character only introduced for this plotline to deliver this biphobia, instead of throwing their only lesbian character under the bus like this.

Adena is such a brilliant character and she is... so much representation? I mean, she is one of only four queer characters, of only two queer women, she is the only lesbian, she is the only Muslima, she is one of the only two women of color in the recurring/main cast. I genuinely don’t understand how you can look at a character like that and go “ah yes, let’s just temporarily antagonize her for another character’s plotline, which goes entirely against her own characterization so we will actually also totally backtrack on it after all is said and done”, because it’s... I don’t think there’s a real word for what this is, but it’s bullshit, to say the least.

Now about Kat. Who finally figured herself out this season. And then just immediately had to deal with the biphobia, but not for too long because that’d be too distracting, we have too much to do in throwing her character under the bus too, after all.

I mean seriously, Kat’s a biracial bisexual liberal woman, who had an entire season-long plot about being a liberal woman trying to carve a space for herself, for her community, against bigotry. Both, her being biracial and her being bisexual, has always torn her and made her not fit quite in and made her look for her place to belong and she fought hard for it.

So the natural progression for her character truly is to make her date a... I really do not want to type these words together, to be quite frank... but a Republican lesbian. And not just... be with her, but “come around” to her viewpoint. It was essentially throwing out the long-suffering plotlines of Kat fighting hard for her spot in favor of now being downgraded to a bar-tender who is fascinated by the Republican POV on life.

They really used Kat to antagonize liberals as sensitive snowflakes and show that “Republicans can be serious and have good points too!”. They turned Kat into a... clumsy oaf, at best, the way she handled herself around the politics this season? After she literally ran for office before, trying to become a politician herself? But now she is swayed or fascinated or whatever for “the other view-point”?

And just the timing, to have a “Republicans aren’t that bad!” angle in your show while Republicans are literally busy running your country into the ground? Ya really thought this was a great angle to work with? And for her, of all characters?

It made... absolutely no sense with how Kat had been portrayed so far to have her enthralled by this bullshit spouting Republican, because “different views are important and can be insightful”...

There are angles where, from a storytelling POV, you can introduce various views and make it very interesting to watch, but if your way of introducing this other view is literally by her defending her homophobic father who wants to help pass a bill on conversion therapy, I’m sorry there is absolutely no listening to that.

And that’s not being emotional. This is directly about the lives of human beings. There is no discussing that, there are no other opinions on the matter of whether or not children should be tortured into being straight.

And having her, very lacklusterly, say that she personally is against conversion therapy means... it... it means literally nothing if she is not speaking up about it and instead wants to bury evidence about her father supporting it and has no problems with him supporting it in the first place.

The ““cutesy”“ situation of her threatening to get Kat fired over this, Kat actually getting fired and her then accidentally getting Kat fired from her next job, just to graciously help her keep her job after all like some White Republican Savior was... very cringey to watch, but so was honestly every single interaction between them, based on the juxtaposition of those characters.

I’m sorry, as a lesbian, I have intensely strong feelings about how they utilized lesbian characters for bullshit agendas this season. First Adena for the biphobia angle and then writing a Republican lesbian in there to like... sell Republicans?

I just... genuinely can not grasp what that storyline even was, because it honestly just felt like Republican propaganda? And yes, propaganda. Because it undermined the already established liberal character that Kat had been, made her not entirely turn toward being Republican but suddenly be oh-so open minded about the views (after this plotline was literally introduced through, and I will say it again, conversion therapy. I mean seriously, you could have a liberal and a Republican have conversations with each other and “see each other’s points of view”, but you absolutely can not have that after introducing the plotline through one of the most horrific things that can happen to our community). They portrayed Eva as the understanding, calm, rational, charming party in this and made Kat the overly angry, emotional and downright doe-eyed one who learned so much from Eva, while not having Kat teach Eva anything. This was never portrayed as a mutual seeing each other’s viewpoints; Kat was the only one who changed over this storyline. And that is what made this not feel like an “equal opportunity POV exchange” storyline but like propaganda.

My very last critique point is the oversexualization of absolutely everything. I mean, yes, this show has always been very sex-positive and about women embracing their sexuality and I absolutely support this message. But... this season went... beyond that? It wasn’t just sex-positive it was downright negative on no sex. The utter despair for sex and linking it with success?

The plotline of how Jacqueline wanted to show women in “power” through fashion, but it was all about owning their sexuality and the first pitch immediately included lingerie. And worse yet, that thing where Ryan and Jane were not having sex.

The freaking intervention. Because... she was having a genuinely good time just having spa-days with her boyfriend instead of fucking like rabbits every hour of the day? That they literally put an intervention together there. That not having sex is oh-so bad, even though honestly, until that intervention, Jane did not look unhappy.

I just think that a show that praises itself on its queer viewpoints and puts the queerness so very front and center needs to step up their game and start including an asexual viewpoint. Both, in the show and in the magazine itself because everything they write and do comes back to sex and it’s starting to get really, truly tiresome.

Sex-positivity doesn’t have to mean that you reinforce that to be a strong, independent woman you have to have sex and that a relationship is only successful if they have lots of sex.

#The Bold Type #Season 4 #Phoe's Random Show Rants #Season 4 Review #Adena Deserved Better #Sutton Deserved Better #Kat Deserved Better #heck the viewers deserved better

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iftadwascool · 3 years

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Hey, I wrote a review of show I watched.

Off the bat I want to say I really don't watch anime all that much. I watch a show here and there, from time to time. Anime really isn't a big thing for me. I had a weeb phase like 17 years ago back when I was a teenager, but it's part of being a weirdo in high school.

I wanted to put that out there first because I don't want to come off like an elitist or something.

So I watched Maid Sama over a few days last week, and it wasn’t good. It's not awful per say, it's just… boring. Especially after you finish it. It's a very basic shoujo anime. It has the troupes.

Tsundere of sorts

Clumsy protagonist

Protagonist can't say their feeling

The fucking wall slams, so many fucking wall slams

And the most important part of all, NO PAY OFF

Okay, about that last one. There's a pay off, but it's… god it's boring. And that's what really been bugging me.

Like I said, I watched this show over a few days last week and something about it rubbed me the wrong way. Like gnawing at the back of my head. I couldn’t pinpoint it till recently. The whole show was a set up for a second season that never happened. You get a glimpse of what they wanted to tell with the outtros oddly enough. Also I want to talk about those outtros songs, because FUCK THOSE SONGS DO NOT FIT THE SHOW!!

In the outtros you see a glimpse of the love interests, Takumi Usui, life before the show. At first I thought it was just a generic “we’ll show things unrelated to the show” kind of thing. Like Outlaw Star, one of my favorite animes, or like other animes from the 90’s I grew up watching on Toonami. So it really didn't bother me.

It wasn't till the eleventh episode you see Usui life outside of school away from Misaki Ayuzawa, the main character. Misaki gets dragged by her two friends to go stalk him. For funsies, you know, how high school girls do. One of the friends made a joke about how he's secretly rich and does all these fancy things when no one knows about. So over the course of the day he does all these things and the girls get more and more freaked out until they give up. When the two friends leave because they’ve had enough, Misaki stays back to see what he’ll do next. Usui confronts Misaki suggesting he overheard and set the whole thing up and offers to show her where he lives. All while helping a stray cat, you know because he's a good guy. Misaki declines, they have a “will they, won't they” moment, and she leaves. After she goes home we cut back to Usui and we find out he lives in a towering apartment building alone.

Well not alone now, he has the stray cat with him. You know because he's a good guy.

So this episode establishes that he's rich. Which tracks with the outtros because they’re just stills of him alone, or walking along a private road in what looks like an English Manor. It's like something straight out of Downton Abbey.

I should probably describe the character dynamics to help illustrate why this show bugged me so much.

Misaki is the protagonist. She's a hard ass with tsundere characteristics. I wouldn't call her a full blown Tsundere because she’s not really one. She's an asshole because of circumstances. The school she goes to was an all boys school that recently changed to mixed genders, I guess that's a thing in Japan, but the boys hate that girls are there. She got elected Student President and has to fight back against all the misogyny the boys have. It's completely understandable. Oh and also she has a secret that if it gets out she’ll lose all credibility. She works in a Maid Cafe. Honestly you’ll need to google that because I get it but at the same time I don't. It's just a weird Japanese thing that I just don't understand. It's like Hooters but somehow feels worse to me. Anyways, if the school learned she thinks she’d be ruined. So she tries very hard to keep those two parts of her life separate. Only a select few people know. One of them is Usui.

Usui is the love interest. He’s basically the cool guy at school. All the girls love him and all the guys want to be him. Except he doesn't care. He turns down girls and usually ignores all the guys asking him for help. He's honestly a real paper thin character. There's not much to him. He's in love with Misaki but he's an asshole. Like, to me, he comes off real unlikeable. He has moments but they're just that. Moments.

So why does this show bother me so much? It's fine. It's the perfect show to watch while you eat. There's not really much depth, you don't have to pay attention or analyze much. Everything on screen is what there is. Until you get to those damn outtros.

The outtros were there to give you depth that wasn't in the show itself. Usui is a paper thin character throughout the whole show till the last five episodes. It's when I realized why this show bothered me so much. It was banking on a second season.

It needed a second season to flesh out the Misaki and Usui relationship. The last five minutes of the show them getting together. They finally tell each other how they feel and kiss under fireworks. Because before that it wasnt so much “will they, won't they.” From the start you knew Misaki and Usui would get together. But the issue is not that, it's that there is no lead up to it.

From episode one to twenty it's just “will they, won't they” and wacky adventures. Episode twenty-one the “Rival” appears. I put quotations around the rival because Hinata really isn't one. Hinata is a childhood friend who has unrequited love for Misaki. It annoys her but makes Usui jealous. Which is good for the plot but bad for the viewer. We know the show ends in episode twenty-six and he shows up five episodes before. There is no real tension because she very obviously doesn't love him back. His arrival so late into the show feels like it would have been set up for season two, if there was one. Which leads me back to this show banking on a season two.

I’m not even touching half of what the show sets up. Aoi realizing he likes Misaki too and whatever the fuck is going on with the Miyabigaoka school student council people.

In the end Maid Sama needed more plot and build up which is why I keep thinking they were saving the meat of the story for season two. Sadly we didn't get it because I like the characters, oddly enough. They just don't have anything to work with. The show feels like it was made to cash in Ouran Highschool Host Club and it shows. Ouran has character development with funny, inventive writing. Maid has a run of the mill Shoujo plot. Ouran has individual characters, yes even the twins, while Maid had three blond characters I kept getting confused with.

I hope one day there's a Maid Sama resurgence because I would like to watch it. Until then I'm going to read the manga.

#maid sama #ouran high school host club #shojo #shoujo #anime #manga #review #i suck at these #please critique #i want to do more

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soyeahitsmiddleearth · 4 years

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Stuck

Legolas x Reader

Lady luck is a bitch.

You’d never been a clumsy elf, nor has anyone ever considered you to be accident prone or anything of the sort, but damn were you unlucky sometimes.

For example, there was this one time when you had been out and about scouting back when you’d still lived in Mirkwood. Nothing could sneak up on you, and you had very fast reflexes, yet Lady Luck simply wasn’t smiling down on you. Instead of making a quick end for the filthy arachnid trespassing on your borders, you managed to get your foot caught in a root. Naturally you toppled over in a very ungraceful heap on the ground, bow laying a good meter away beneath some of the twisting roots of the great Mirkwood trees.

The spider had attacked you in your moment of weakness, and had it not been for the other members of your scouting team, you’d probably be injured if not dead. It was quite a large bugger after all.

Another time you were on your way to practice shooting with Legolas (a friend since the two of you were mere Elflings), when someone passing by with a platter of assorted juices and foods (probably a servant of some noble family) managed to run straight into you and drench you in those vibrant colored beverages. Suffice to say, you were quite interestingly colored when you did finally arrive on the training grounds.

There have been other examples of your extreme lack of luck, not all of them life endangering or silly, and both fortunately and unfortunately, this one was an instance of more embarrassment and slight helplessness than anything else.

You’d been trekking around the designated campsite for the night, searching for any unseen threats or to-be issues, when the ground suddenly gave out from beneath you. You only then realized that you somehow missed the drop of ground in front of you, and ended up rolling down the hillside and bumping your head harshly against a fallen log.

Everything around you momentarily spun and blurred, and you could only hope that you didn’t manage to get yourself a concussion in such a menial part of your day. This here is supposed to be one of the easiest and most safe of tasks, and here you were, finding a way to do something dumb once again.

Slowly as to not further your daze, you rise to your feet. You steady yourself with a hand against a nearby tree, simply taking a moment to breathe and will the haze away. Once you’re sure the disorientation is over with, you run a hand through your hair and check for any blood possibly staining your long elven locks. Lucky you see none, and then you begin your climb back up to the main level of land.

When you reach the top, you give yourself a mental pat on the back. Despite all the obstacles life likes to throw at you, you always find a way to prevail. Only this time, the unknown forces at work decide to give you an even harder time.

You had climbed up a tree to finish your surveillance and were making your way down. You gripped the last branch with your hands and swung down before a telling tug at your hair alerts you to a new, more annoying problem.

Instinctively one of your hands fly up to your hair which has somehow entangled into the low-hanging branch of the tree. Knowing that it isn’t too bad yet, you swing back a bit and try to coax it to release on it’s own, gently smoothing your hand along the branches that encapture your hair.

Only, this seems to make the problem worse, so you try twisting to the left a bit to see if that does the trick, but suddenly the simple tangles become full on knots clinging onto the branches like a tightened rope used for climbing. A noise of annoyance leaves you as you begin to tug at it, hoping that maybe force will do the trick, but the branch is much to thick. Very quickly your clinging arm begins to tire, and you reach up and grasp the branch again, your toes barely reaching the ground as you try to stabilize yourself in order to fix the issue.

None of your daggers are serrated in any way, and there is no way you’re going to cut your hair off, so you simply stand there on your toes and wait. Eventually the others will begin to worry for your sudden disappearance, and you can only pray that it is Aragorn who comes across you. Otherwise, this will most definitely be quite embarrassing because Gimli will certainly tease you and is much to short to help, and Legolas… you don’t even want to consider the mortification you will feel if he is the one to find you. Aragorn might tease a bit or maybe laugh, but you have no emotional bond with him (at least not like that) and he is more business than some of the others.

Of course, like stated before Lady Luck doesn’t quite like you, so when someone does eventually stumble across you it’s the exact Ellon that you’d been praying it not to be. You’d heard his voice first, calling out your name with tell tale worry ringing in his calls, and for a split second you considered not saying anything. Though, your conscience won out, for you simply cannot put him through such panic when you have means to stop it.

Eventually you call back, yelling his name and saying “Over here!” To alert him to your whereabouts. It works, and mere moments later you hear the sound of feet running towards your location.

“Y/N!” The relief in his voice is clear, and it only makes you feel more ashamed for considering silence.

When he finally comes into viewing distance his eyes take in your state quickly, scanning for any wounds or dishevelment, and then his eyes land on your poor hair.

The embarrassment is instant and obvious, with warm embarrassment climbing up your neck and spreading to your now warm face. Your fingers grip more tightly at the branch which threatens to spring upward and take your hair with it at any second, and you shift on your toes as it raises ever so slightly. You’re barely holding on at this point.

“H-Help!” You manage to squeak out despite your humiliation.

Legolas’ reaction is instant as he carefully makes his way over, grasping the branch and pulling it down more to relieve the pressure pulling on your head. His other hand flies to his side and he pulls out some sort of blade, and he immediately cuts the branch from it’s tree.

You aren’t quite sure how long you’d been standing there, but the relief is instant and you sink down to your knees with the branch still entangled in your, normally, graceful and beautiful elven locks.

A moment of complete silence goes by, it seems like the two of you are simply trying to process what just happened, before you release a puff of short laughter. “Well this is extremely embarrassing.”

You reach both your hands up and try to start working the debris from your hair, but your efforts provide no relief.

“Are you alright?” He asks softly, kneeling down besides you. He grasps your hands in his delicately and pulls them down to rest in your lap.

“I’m fine, Legolas. I’ve wounded nothing other than my dignity… and maybe my head.”

Legolas nods once, squeezing your hands in his own before releasing them in favor of grasping your chin to tilt your head down, left, right, and back up. “I see no signs of blood or breaks of the skin, only a head full of bark and tangles.” Humor laces in his tone as he lets go of your chin, reaching up to begin working on the mess that is your hair.

You don’t say anything in reply. Instead you tilt your head downwards and slouch your shoulders to give him better access to the trouble area.

He hums his approval at the change in position but halts nonetheless. “This is going to be rather time consuming, and with your current posture you will tire and become sore quickly…” His observations are quite sharp, as per usual, because you can already feel your back protesting against the slouching.

A few moments of nothing pass by before he changes from sitting on his knees to having his legs out in front of him, spread apart, and he leans back against the tree that had previously held you captive. He then looks at you expectantly.

It takes a second for you to catch up with his intentions, and you, albeit hesitantly, slowly lower yourself in between his legs in a seated position when you do. You can feel your cheeks warm with color at the more intimate nature of everything. It’s enough to make your heart race.

Without delay he sets to work with skilled and deft fingers, unweaving and loosening tangles while pulling out twigs, leaves, and other things from your hair as he goes. Very soon you begin to feel the pressure and weight of unwelcome object disappearing from your hair, and the relief of it all is almost instant. Your left hand comes up to rest on his knee as you shift slightly to move a rock poking into your thigh, and once you’re comfortable again you leave your hand there and allow your eyes to close.

The feeling of his fingers running through your hair and massaging your scalp is an experience that can only be described as ethereal and absolutely wonderful. A soft sigh of appreciation unconsciously escapes you, and a chill runs down your spine when his finger tips brush against the sensitive skin of your neck. His fingers begin to run through your debris free hair to smooth out the tangles, and though they occasionally get caught in a particularly stubborn grove of knotted hair, you still never feel an ounce of pain. He’s more than careful of damaging and tugging on your hair.

You then feel him gathering some sections of your hair to braid up into your usual hair style and, once again, you hum your appreciation and gently squeeze his knee. When you do this his ministrations on your hair subside and it seems that everything around you goes completely still.

You can hear his quiet breathing behind you and feel the way his fingers stray from your hair to glide up and down along the smooth skin of your neck. Afraid to break whatever spell has come over him, you remain as still as a statue and let your eyes fall shut once more as you simply enjoy the feeling of his feather light touches.

Ever so slowly do his fingers begin to move down further until they skim along your sides, thank heavens you aren’t all that ticklish, and trace patterns along your waist down to your hips. There’s a rustle from behind you and you can suddenly feel his breath fanning out across your neck. It’s like time has slowed in that moment as you anticipate his next moves. His lips graze the skin of your neck once, as if testing the waters, before he presses a full on kiss there.

Your senses are practically on fire, his mouth leaving a trail of burning flesh in it’s wake as he peppers small kisses along the expanse of your nape. His hands grasp your sides and he pulls you back so you’re pressed flush against his chest.

It feels as if your whole body is tingling, your nerves alight and instincts screaming at you to turn and kiss the daylights out of him. But still you remain in place and relax against him, relishing in the feeling of the hard planes of his chest and sculpted arms hugged around your waist.

“Legolas…?” You finally whisper after a minute or two passes.

He doesn’t say anything right away, but you feel his arms around your midsection tighten slightly. “I hope I haven’t scared you away…” He replies just as quietly after tightening his hold on you. “I suppose I’ve let my self-control slip.”

Instead of replying, you instead opt to turn in his arms. His hold loosens and he lets his hands rest on your hips while you kneel between his legs and look up at him with a blush on your cheeks.

“I suppose you have.”

He doesn’t reply, but your next actions require no verbal confirmation.

Your right hand comes up to rest on his cheek, your thumb smoothing out across his soft skin while you search his eyes with your own. His lovely blue eyes that somehow always manage to capture your attention, deep enough to get lost in yet light enough to find solace with.

And then your eyes slide shut, as do his, and you lean forward until your lips finally meet. It’s a feeling like no other. A feeling that wraps you up and warms you from the inside out, filling you with love and excitement while also taming your negative emotions like doubt and uncertainty.

Your left hand, the one not caressing his face, moves up to entangle in his hair as you press him further against the tree, and you press your chest against his more firmly.

Eventually though, the need to breathe breaks you apart, and, not wanting to look at him with such an ashamed face, you press your forehead against his shoulder and let your hands drop to press against this chest. You can feel his heart hammering against his chest when you do, and it brings a small smile to your face.

“It seems I’ve been worried over nothing.” A new voice registers from somewhere behind you. Immediately you tense up, recognizing the voice of Aragorn, and the blush from before returns tenfold.

Legolas is no better, you presume, since you can feel his skin warming and back straightening up.

“Aragorn, my friend, I didn’t realize you were there.” He states rather awkwardly after clearing his throat.

“Clearly.” Comes his dry reply.

You say nothing, hoping that perhaps the ground will open up and swallow you hole, but of course that doesn’t happen.

“Do I offer any comfort in saying that this area is all clear?” You ask quietly, not removing your forehead from Legolas’ shoulder.

Aragorn laughs, and you relax at the sound right away.

“If that’s so, then I’ll leave you be. Dinner will be soon, though, and the hobbits don’t much like waiting.”

Legolas nods above you, and with that you hear the distinct crunching of leaves signifying Aragorn’s swift exit.

“Well that was positively mortifying.” You say once you’re sure he’s out of earshot, lifting your head to look up at the Ellon whom you’re still pressed up against.

“More so than being attacked by a tree?” He inquires with a humored quirk in his brow.

You nod your head once. “I presume no one will be looking for us anymore.” You state offhandedly, reaching up to play with his hair bashfully as you look off to the side.

“No, I suppose they will not.”

Your gaze flickers back to his face which now adorns a fond smile.

“Then…” You trail off, tugging gently at the ends of his hair.

His hands press against your cheeks hurriedly as he pulls you forward and presses his lips against yours once more

#legolas #the lord of the rings #tolkien #reader #lotr #reader insert #aragorn #legolas x reader #legolas greenleaf #imagine #romance

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imaginary-ghoulfriend · 4 years

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Everything that is WRONG in "The Kissing Booth" movie series PART 1

This is the first post of a series that I’m thinking about doing here, where I go around the l aspect of movies, series,... (mostly rom/coms since they are better for social dicussions) and give my personal opinion on them. If you guys like this idea please let me know, and as always feel free to give your own thoughts on the comment section/ask box (and just remembering that, giving your thoughts and sending hate are two different things).

Let’s Start!

Before jumping to the topics of discusion, let me start with a quick summary of the story. Elle (our brunnet female lead) and Lee (the sweetheart, yet dumb, supporting character) are best friends since, well... ever. And to maintain this so called friendship, both of them stabilshed a series of rules (don’t worry I’m gonna talk more about them eventually in the post). One rule in specific, is actually what gets the plot of the first movie going and that is: No dating Lee’s brother (aka Noah, aka the womanizer popular white guy that every girl in the school seems to have a crush on for no apparent reason beside his looks and the fact that he has a motocycle). Anyways, long story short, Elle has a crush on him even tho this is against the rules and from that on the story is bult.

Of course that it has more into it, but I will be talking about in the corse of this post and the following parts. I just want yall to know the very basic thing that’s going on here before going more deep on everything. Now, buckle up and let’s start this shit!

LONG POST WARNING

Part 1: THE MAIN TRIO

ELLE EVANS, THE BRUNNET FEMALE LEAD

Let me begin by saying that I do aprecciate the fact that they are trying to make a female character that embraces her feminine side while also maintaining a masculine side, but... lets put some emphasis in the word “TRYING”, shall we? Cause even tho Elle is a very loving, funny, clumsy, and gentle girl, she is also very very very generic.

Like, I did not start watching this movie expecting anything less than that, but god, was I wishing to be surprised for once. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate her character at all, she is indeed very fun to watch most of the movie, principally when she puts herself into strange situations. My concern with her persona is in reality related to another thing, because let me tell you something, just cause she plays video games and has a boy best friend, that doesn’t make her this so called “cool” girl or the “not like the others” girl.

I feel like by now that should have already been known, and I also feel like a broken record having to repeat this over and over again, but being friends with a boy doesn’t make you better than any other girl, or different than girls that have mostly girl friends. Actually the Red flag 1# in this movie is that Elle has no female friends what so ever, and worse than that, the movie is constatly comparing her to other generic girls ( the poplular/only care about apparence girls, the goth with a attitude, the girls that are constatly frowning over boys,...) by puting them around her to make her apear more “cool” to the eyes of those watching:

“She is cool because she doens’t care about aperence like those other girls”;

“she is cool because she’s social, she talks with everyone” (this everyone being mostly boys);

“she doens’t get shy when talking to atractive boys, she is so different”

What they seem to be unawear (or maybe not so much) is that by doing this, they’re not only promiting a very machist point of view around girls, but also trying to imply that a girl can’t have any of those other features, because if they do they will not appel to the eyes of man. They show us the “wrong options” by enfassising bad behaviors that those girls have, to the bennefit of the one in the lead role, while also promoting female rivality in the process.

And maybe in the first watch you will not notice all those things, but after analyzing it more deeply, you will see that the movie constatly try to build Elle’s character surounded by a LOT of sexist innuendos, masking it by putting up jokes to break this image (which is not very effective). They want us to believe that they are showing us this amazing and different girl, with dreams and ambisions, but in the end her hole personality is based on her relationship with two boys. And let me tell you something, things do not get ANY better in the second movie.

LEE FLYNN, THE GOOFY BEST FRIEND

I should ask this first before we start: why does your friendship need so many rules? and why breaking them is like the end of the world?

Before anwsering those questions lets talk a little about Lee, the supporting goofy, kinda cute, clumsy character.

Through out both movies my thoughts on Lee were very strong tbh. Like, I don’t hate him completly, I actually had fun with his character a lot of times, but I also can’t find myself liking him the amount that I should, given the fact that he is supposed to be the likable best friend who only wishes what is best for his bestie. And thats exactly where the problem lives: Red flag 2# is that what he think is the best most times isn’t, and whenever things go out of his way he gets an attitude about it.

Most of my dislike for this boy and this friendship, is because of those stupid rules that shouldn’t exist in the first place. I understand that every relationship has a set of unspoken agreements, and I also understand that when you are kids you have those fun (very dumb) ideas like “lets make rules so our relationship stays strong”. But as you grow older, you should know what “rules” you should keep, and what rules you should burn down in the dumpster, principaly because your priorities as you grow change.

You and Your best friend shouldn’t be making your life long desicions based on a set of rules that you two put out together when you were infants, and that’s what pissed me the most about this movie to be honest.

Elle shouldn’t be restricted about who she should date based on Lee’s dislike for her partiner, she shouldn’t have to go to a college just because her best friend wants her to go to the institute that he is going,... She is a grown person, she shouldn’t feel the need to ask for permision of her friend before choosing to do something, and she shouldn’t feel the need to keep things in secret because he might over react about it.

At the same time, it also feels like Elle is using this as an excuse to not have to come over and make decisions for herself. And you can see this more clearly on the second movie, where her only two options for a collage is the one her best friend wants or the one her boyfriend is at. Like, she is 18 y/o and she didn’t even thought about a plan B? what if she wasn’t accepted by those two colleges in the first place? She didn’t think any of this through, before jumping full on board on things. She has all this time to train for a dance competition she never took part on before, but doesn’t have time to think about what she actually wants for her future, beside dating this guy that she doesn’t even know if he’s cheating on her or not??????? And you really want me to believe that she is this person who thinks everything before hand? No, I don’t think so.

And before you say I’m going too strong on Elle, let me tell you that all of this also applys for the opposite situation as well. Neither of them should feel presured by not breaking those STUPID rules, because if they really are best friends, they should know that the most important thing is seeing the other happy. Being friends with someone shouldn’t give you this much anxiety, you shouldn’t feel the need to constantly be together or to have to do everything with the other, because if you aren’t around one another 24/7 you might lose eachother. Real bestfriends shouldn’t even be affraid to lose the friendship they have in the first place!!!!

Overall the only thing about this two that I can thank for, is their boy/girl relationship with no second intentions, because besides that, all the rest needs to FREAKING STOP!! Maybe a little time away from one another might be good for this two after all.

NOAH FLYNN, THE MAJOR ASSHOLE

I’m not even gonna try to sugar coat this one, cause to be honest I don’t want too. Noah Flynn is a butthole, and beside his looks (that can be totally dicussed since beauty is relative) he has no good or redeemed qualities.

I can’t find words to express how tired I am to find characters like him in most rom/coms. The popular bad boy with no consideration for anyones sentiments and with a hole bunch of attachment problems and anger issues. He goes around playing with girls, acting like he is king of everything and that he can get whatever he wants by simply smiling and blinking his eyes. And yet, even with all this PROBLEMATIC behaviors, he still has the hole school fangirling over him like he is the last piece of man in the edge of this world (which is another sexist thought, to think that girls would only fall for this kind of dickhead guys).

And once again, it’s given to the lead female the job to “fix” this piece of shit of a person, but let me tell you something: IT IS NOT HER JOB!!!

It’s no girl’s job to try to change a boy for the better, his issues should be discussed with a terapist or a psycologist and that’s it. I’m so tired of this “a good girl can change a bad boy” narrative, like is their mission in life to get a really fucked up guy and make them turn good. No, it’s not, FULL STOP!!

I’m so tired of this stupid and toxic idea, this is disgusting (and I mean it). The amount of girls that end up getting in a abusive realtionships because of this disturbed idea that “he can change” or “he is not like this all the time”. You are his girlfriend!!! He shouldn’t be like that at any time!!!!

Masking his temperament problems and abusive behiviours with small moments of compasion, small moments where he seem gentle and loving, only to moments later having him going around like a dickweed again. Saying things like: “oh, they where arguing and he just got carried away”, or “he wouldn’t act like that if the other hadn’t provoked him”. HE IS NOT AN ANIMAL, FOR GOD’S SAKE!!!! He is a human being, and if he can’t control himself around others, then he probably shouldn’t be allow to date someone in the first place! It’s not Elle’s, or any other girl, job to go around controling and fixing his shitty atitudes.

And the worse part of it all, is that when shit happens everything is put onto the girl’s shoulders, like he is her responsability after all. “He got into a fight because she wasn’t there”; “he sheatted on her because she fought with him”; ”he acted violent because she provoked”; “he wouldn’t feel jealous, if she weren’t wearing those clothes”,...

It’s so absurd to see that when Elle is wrong everyone is so quick on their feet to say how wrong she was, how slutty she was, “because this wouldn’t happen if she trusted him” (and I’m not saying I agree with every single attitude of her, because I don’t). But when he is doing something wrong, everyone is changing the focus of the subject, or even worse, DEFFENDING HIM!

HE IS JUST A CUTE FACE WITH A HOT BODY AND THAT’S IT!!!! To think so many girls that watched this movie want a boyfriend like him, trully is infuriating!! I keep asking myself “what if he wasn’t hot?” or “what if he wasn’t so high up in our society beauty standards?”, I’m sure if he had a different apparence our view and reactions over his persona wouldn’t be so passive.

Noah’s Red flags scoore: +10,000

I feel exausted after writing all this tbh, I’ll be trying to post part 2 soon, because if you think this is over, let me tell you: IT IS NOT! I will try to go less hard on this movie in part two, I feel like I got a little carried away at the end but I needed to make my point clear. In the second part, I will be talking more about the kissing booth 2 and the rest of the characters, and since I liked the second one way more there will be less specific criticism and more a overall point of view of the plot, for now that’s all I have to say.

Thanks for reading :)

#the kissing booth #elle #elle evans #noah #lee #noah flynn #lee flynn #the kissing booth netflix #netflix #rom com #the kissing booth 2 #rachel #chloe #marco peña #movie critic #netflix original #the kissing booth movie series #movie series

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