#or put down he goes back to cons and scams so he can feel like a winner again. so he can be on top for once | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yoyomarules · 3 years

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Thinking a lot about this post and Eliot Spencer and the tough conversations, the arguments, about his limitations.

Eliot waking up in a room he takes too long to identify as one of their safe houses, head pounding. There’s a gauze dressing on his forehead, a bandage expertly wound around his right arm, his left in a sling. Hardison at his side, laptop open on his knees but with that slow pulsing dot of light on the back that means it’s in sleep mode. Parker in the window seat, knees pulled to her chest, the tension coming off her in waves even though she’s perfectly still.

‘You’re awake,’ Hardison says, closing the laptop. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Like I got kicked in the head a few times,’ Eliot grumbles. His throat is parched.

‘Yeah,’ Hardison says. ‘Getting kicked in the head’ll do that to you.’

He reaches for a glass of water, helps Eliot sit upright a little so he can sip at it.

‘Where we at with the job?’ Eliot asks.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Hardison tells him. ‘You oughta rest.’

‘But did you get the patent?’ Eliot pushes.

‘Eliot, it’s fine.’

‘But we only have today to—we need to get back in there.’ He tries to sit up further but Hardison’s gentle hands guide him back down again.

‘You ain’t going anywhere; you look like you walked off the set of The Mummy; lie down.’

‘Fine, then you two need to—’

Hardison’s hands still rest on his shoulders, though he’s being careful not to apply any pressure. ‘It’s done, okay?’

‘You got it?’

Parker and Hardison glance at each other.

‘No,’ Hardison says, after a moment. ‘I mean the con’s done. I blew my cover when I came in after you.’

There’s a silence.

‘You came in after me,’ Eliot repeats.

‘Yeah.’

‘What the hell were you thinking?’ he demands.

‘I was thinking I’d save your life,’ Hardison replies, and his voice doesn’t rise but it’s cut through with frustration all the same. ‘You’re welcome, by the way.’

‘That guy Meyer hired as security’s a stone-cold murderer, Hardison!’ Eliot says, and his voice does rise. ‘He could’ve killed you!’

‘Yeah, and he would’ve killed you!’ Hardison snaps. ‘He’d’ve killed you ’cause he recognised you and “put down the Eliot Spencer” looks good on a hired gun’s résumé! And don’t tell me you had it handled,’ he continues, as Eliot opens his mouth to speak, ‘’cause you didn’t have shit handled. Why didn’t you say your shoulder’s still acting up, huh?’

‘Shoulder’s fine,’ Eliot says automatically.

‘That’s crap, man, and you know it.’

‘Okay, sure,’ Eliot says. ‘So I was a little slower than normal. That don’t mean you blow the whole con.’

‘I’d make the same choice again,’ Hardison says. He jerks his chin toward Parker. ‘We both would, every time. Wouldn’t even hesitate.’

‘Hardison,’ Eliot growls. ‘We made a promise to that family.’

Hardison shakes his head. ‘We didn’t promise you’d die for it.’

‘So that’s it?’ Eliot asks. ‘We make even more of a mess of their lives and then fuck off, is that how this goes?’

‘We got options,’ Hardison says. ‘We already spoke to Tara; we’ll let things settle down, try again in a few months with new faces—’

‘He’s gonna be on the lookout for a scam, and in the meantime he could—’

‘I don’t care.’

Eliot glances across at Parker. She’s still got her arms wrapped around her knees, but she’s turned her face toward them for the first time since he woke up, and her eyes are red, her words raw.

‘Parker, this is our job,’ Eliot says.

‘I don’t care!’ she repeats. ‘I don’t care how many people lose their money or their home or—or—’

‘You do,’ Eliot protests. ‘You do care.’

‘—I’ll steal it myself if it means we don’t have to lose you!’ And then she’s on her feet and shaking herself and heading toward the door. ‘I need a minute,’ she says.

Eliot watches her go, stunned, and then turns to Hardison. ’You gotta talk to her.’

‘No,’ Hardison says. ‘You gotta listen to her. You know she’s blaming herself for this? ’Cause she didn’t plan for your shoulder and she was so focused on cracking the safe she didn’t realise you were in trouble.’

‘Well, it ain’t Parker’s job to get me outta trouble.’

‘It’s her job to try to stop you getting into it in the first place,’ Hardison says. ‘And this was way too close.’

‘I’m telling you, I woulda been okay—’

‘You would not have been okay.’

‘You saying I don’t know my own limits?’

‘No, I think you know your limits just fine,’ Hardison says. ‘I just don’t know that you’re telling us your limits.’

Eliot stares at him for a long moment and then takes a sip of water. Then another.

Hardison watches him. ‘There something you wanna tell me right now?’

Eliot sighs and rubs a hand over his eyes, kind of hoping Hardison might forget he asked. But he’s sitting there expectantly, watching, watching, and Eliot squirms under his gentle scrutiny until he can’t help but admit, ‘It ain’t just the shoulder.’

‘What else?’ Hardison asks, voice carefully neutral.

‘It’s…lately I’ve been…’ He sighs again. ‘It’s like I still know how a fight should go, right? How I can beat ’em, easy. Long as I’m at a hundred percent.’

‘How often are you at a hundred percent?’ Hardison asks quietly.

Maybe it’s the head wound, but it feels like hours pass before Eliot confesses, ‘Less often, these days.’

The words hangs in the air between them. Hardison’s face shifts between devastated and scared and maybe just the smallest bit relieved, and he says, ‘Okay. So we gotta… we just gotta figure out around that, okay? More time between jobs, more cons where you’re just grifting—’

‘Hardison, c’mon; we can’t—’

‘And we have to know when to pull the plug. And look, you’re right—no one knows your body better than you do. So you have to tell us if something’s too much, ’cause I’m with Parker. We can’t lose you, man. We won’t.’

And it’s not like Eliot’s not aware of that fact, after seven years working together and two of those together-together, but he still swallows hard before answering. ‘If I agree to tell you when I need you to come in, are you gonna listen to me when I tell you to stay put?’

‘I mean, yeah,’ Hardison says. ‘Unless you’re obviously being stupid or some Estonian merc is actively at this moment attempting to bash your brains in. Or both.’

‘He was Latvian,’ Eliot mutters.

‘Okay, well, let’s say any Baltic state,’ Hardison suggests.

He rolls his eyes. ‘Fine.’

Hardison seems, if not satisfied, then at least willing to let the conversation drop for now. Eliot pulls at a loose thread on the bedspread. ‘I think I gotta apologise to Parker,’ he says.

‘Yeah, you should.’

‘And I guess I gotta thank you, huh?’

‘I know,’ Hardison says. ‘This must be awful for you.’

Eliot looks him in the eye and says it with a little more force than necessary. ‘Thank you.’

Hardison grins. ‘No problem.’ He leans over and kisses the bit of Eliot’s forehead that isn’t covered in dressings. ‘Get some rest, all right? We’ll be here when you wake up.’

‘Yeah,’ Eliot says, letting his eyes drift shut. ‘Yeah, I know you will.’

#eliot spencer #parker x hardison x eliot #leverage #you know when you have an idle thought and then 90 minutes later you've pretty much written a full-on fic #and it's absolutely none of the fics you were planning on writing #might expand on this because i also want the conversation after the too many rembrandts job fight #my fic #leverage fic

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gunterfan1992 · 3 years

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Episode Review: ‘Wizard City’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 4)

Airdate: September 2, 2021

Story by: Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, & Charley Feldman

Storyboarded by: Maya Petersen, Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, & Aleks Sennwald, & Haewon Lee

Directed by: Miki Brewster & Jeff Liu (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

An episode focusing on Peppermint Butler’s dark side is something that the fandom has craved ever since the little guy demanded Finn and Jake’s flesh in season two’s “Death in Bloom.” While installments like season five’s “The Suitor” and season six’s “Nemesis” did much to scratch that itch, the story of the Dark One remained mostly unknown…

And after “Wizard City,” it still remains largely unknown. But that’s OK, because instead of focusing on the character’s history, this special focuses on Peps’ quest to relearn magic at a magic school. Put most simply, this special is largely a fun excuse for the show to riff on Harry Potter and The Owl House-style “magic school hijinks,” and it mostly all works.

The special follows Peps quest to go to WizArts (a definite play on CalArts, the school that Pen Ward and Adam Muto, among many others, went to) so that he can relearn magic and once again become one of the greatest dark wizards of his time. Initially, Peps tries to make friends with cool kid Spader and his posse, but once they learn that Peps is not as talented at magic as they had initially thought, they kick him to the curb. It is at this point that Cadebra, Abracadaniel’s adorkable niece who is fascinated with stage magic, enters the picture. Cadebra tries everything in her power to befriend Peps, but Peps pushes back, since she’s not “cool.” It does not matter, though, because both Peps and Cadebra are sorted into the same “house”—the “Skink House—and are forced to work together.

While Peps and his cohort begin learning more and more complex magic, a secret cult of school professors, led by the otherwise caring Dr. Caledonius, are scheming to resurrect Coconteppi, a powerful dark wizard whose putrid heart has been discovered underneath the school excreting a very powerful ichor. The school cult kidnaps Spader and gives him some of the ichor to drink; they hope that because of his talent, he will be able to house the spirit of Coconteppi. This does not go as planned, and Spader is graphically killed (albeit off screen). (In a more humorous moment, Bufo, the scam wizard from season one’s “Wizard,” also ingests some of the ichor, believing himself powerful enough to handle it, but it kills him.)

Eventually Peps and Cadebra learn what is going on. Dr. Caledonius welcomes Peps, believing that he is strong enough to handle the ichor. When Cadebra’s life is put in danger, Peps reluctantly gives the putrid fluid a swig, which infuses him with the power of Coconteppi. Coconteppi-Peps then kills all the cult members before Cadebra manages to remove the ichor from Peps body. For uncovering a heinous plot, Peps is promoted to the highest house, “Salamander,” but he decides to remain a Skink and learn magic “the hard way” with Cadebra as his friend.

As I mentioned near the start of this review, “Wizard City” spends most of its time riffing on the “magic boarding school” trope, with much of the episode feeling like a light-hearted parody of Harry Potter: The characters, after all, are “sorted” into “houses,” they learn various types of magic from skilled “professors,” and they bunk in different parts of a large castle-like campus. Of course, Harry Potter didn’t invent the idea of a boarding school, but when setting your story in a school for magic, it is very hard not to lean at least somewhat into the Hogwarts relation. And this really is a double-edged sword, for while Harry Potter references can be fun here and there, they can also make the overall story feel like a fanfic parody. This special does a good job focusing more so on the characters rather than the setting, but I won’t lie, at times it did feel as if they show was really trying to make you realize it was making a Harry Potter joke.

Of all the characters introduced in the special, the breakout star is easily Cadebra, voiced by Chloe Coleman. Radiating a sort of Mabel Pines energy, Cadebra is the beam of optimism who shines brightly in an otherwise macabre special. There is something about her plucky personality and sense of wacky individualism that charms the viewer. I appreciate how the show compared and contrasted her with her uncle, the one and only Abracadaniel: like her uncle, Cadebra is a good person who wants to help others, but unlike Abracadaniel, she has a sense of courage and fortitude that results in her taking on a Coconteppi-possessed Peps at the episode’s climax. (Say what you will, Abracadaniel stans, but our favorite custodian would never have done that!) Thanks to her bravery and dedication to Peps, Cadebra is easily the heart of the special.

The episode throws an interesting little curveball into the mix by having the ‘ghost’ of Past Peppermint Butler constantly haunt Peps in the here-and-now. Past Peppermint, it seems, was so determined to become a great wizard, he cursed himself, so that if anything were to go awry, his Past self could materialize and set him straight. It’s confusing, but I do think that mixing the “overbearing parent” trope with a curse is a clever idea; it gives the whole special some dramatic heft. The whole setup is made even funnier by the special’s conclusion: After Future Peppermint Butler is ‘defeated’ and the day is saved, Peps reveals to Cadebra that he still wants to be a great and powerful dark wizard… but he wants to earn that power through hard work and determination. (Peppermint Butler might commune with demons, but he would never sell his soul to one for power; Glob helps those who help themselves, ya know?)

One of the special’s strongest points is its background art. Adventure Time always had some beautiful set pieces, and this special goes above and beyond to give WizArts an ancient sense of grandeur and mystery. Ghostshrimp, a freelance artist who was the show’s lead background designer during seasons 1-4, return for this special as a “visual developer”—basically, he mocked up a bunch of rough designs for the locales, and then the episode’s background artists worked up the final pieces in his style. On his podcast, Ghostshrimp mentioned how hectic he found Adventure Time to be, because he was used to taking his time on pieces. As such, the decision to bring him on for just development was smart, as it allowed him to still come up with iconic background designs while also playing fast and loose with everything. Hopefully the show will continue this approach with the Fionna and Cake miniseries that is coming up. After all, Ghosthsrimp’s style is the look of Adventure Time.

Another strong point for the episode is its voice acting. For one thing, you have your regulars like Tom Kenny and Dana Snyder, and Duncan Trussell, who all give a solid performance. But to voice many of the special’s new characters, the show brought on a bevy of fun actors: Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader, for instance, is now voicing Bufo, and he does a solid job hamming up his role as the old fogey. And then there’s Toks Olagundoye, whose British accent gives Dr. Caledonius a sense of knowledge and expertise. To my delight and surprise, SungWon Cho, an internet personality and voice actor perhaps better known as ProZD, was tapped to voice Brain Wizard, and he does an excellent job. And finally, Anthony Stewart Head, a very talented actor who I know best as Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, voices Con Wizard, and is even given a fun little ditty to sing. I can safely say that the voice acting in this special is likely the best of the bunch, and it’s obvious that the actors were all having a great time playing their parts.

What drags the whole thing down, in my opinion is the excessive murder. (I joked on Twitter that during the climax of “Wizard City,” it felt like I was watching an Adventure Time-ified version of Invincible!) Infused with the power of Coconteppi, Peps goes on a brutal killing spree, boiling Potable Wizard into steam, zapping Dimension Wizard into another plane of existence, smashing Berdzerd, and—perhaps most graphically—excerebrates (had to look that word up!) Brain Wiz. On Twitter, @sometipsygnostalgic argued that while, yes, the scene is startling, it does wonders to transmute “a poor Summer Camp Island knockoff [into] Adventure Time chaos.” The more I think about it, the more I think that’s a fair point; after all, this is hardly the first dark thing that has happened in Adventure Time. But the part that I cannot really stomach is the fact that Spader was murdered for no real reason, and the special ends without anyone really expressing their horror at the situation. Sure, Spader was a schoolyard bully, but he was also a child. And killing a child—either for the drama or the lulz—feels decidedly out of place in an Adventure Time episode. It’s hard to express, but it just felt unnecessarily nihilistic and mean-spirited.

All things considered, I think this was a fun episode, but it was somewhat underwhelming for a ‘finale.’ Much of this is because it had to air after the perfection that was the back-to-back “Obsidian”/”Together Again” wombo combo. But I can’t help but feel like this special just felt a little... off. A little too meanspirited, and it leaned a bit too much on standard tropes. Still, it was a fun spin, and I know that I’ll rewatch it.

Mushroom War Evidence: As Peps rides the bus to school, he passes a bunch of abandoned houses, some of which are buried in the ground. There is an unexploded bomb above the fossilized elephant in the school. Cadebra has a dream that takes place in the ruins of a city.

Final Grade: B+

#adventure time #atimers #atdl #distant lands #adventure time distant lands #wizard city #peps #peppermint butler #abracadaniel #Cadebra #Ghostshrimp #Adam Muto #Hanna K #ProZD

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saturnsummer · 3 years

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i don't mind forever.

AU: When Sol is handed a case, she doesn't realise how big the case gets. Luckily for her, her best friend is here. (AU of lawyers at Hankuk Law Firm.)

notes: all credits go to @thenerdywriter !! she gave me this prompt just days after i joined tumblr, and i’ve been working on and off on it ever since. my first au series, so please go easy on me! i know i’m practically killing myself for doing two series at once, but i’ll deal with it later. as always, big love to everyone! any grammar mistakes and all will be taken fully responsible by me!

ao3 link

words: 4035 words

one.

Sol scrunches her hair in frustration. She twists her long, wavy light brown hair in a bun, fixing it with a jab of her white, long chopstick hairpin. She adjusts her bangs for good measure and resumes with her report. She reaches over to her coffee mug, only to find it empty. Great, it’s the third coffee she had today, and it wasn’t even lunch. Hearing her colleagues nagging on drinking too much coffee in her head, she stands from her desk and pushes the glass door of her office to the staff pantry. Her heels click against the marble floors as she strides across, filling her cup with iced water before retreating back.

It would have been a normal day at the Hankuk Law firm, but it wasn’t when she had such a pressing case.

It's been weeks. A client of hers has pressed charges against Lee Man Ho, claiming that he scammed her life savings. Lee Manho was a convict that was charged for raping multiple women and on several occasions, sexual harassment. He had been on good behaviour after his release for a couple of years, with no complaints and no news. Only now did his name resurface. He was snarky in his speech, manipulative and quick with his tongue, but most of all had a sinister smile that sent shivers.

Sol, being Sol, couldn’t say no to the poor woman. How could she? She experienced her fair share of poverty from growing up in a single-parent family that made enough to get by. She sympathised with her feelings, knowing just how stressed this poor mother must be when she can no longer afford to pay rent for her home, even less so the necessities for her toddler kids. Because, too many times, Sol was found broke and skipping meals so she could have her younger sister, Byeol, be fed instead.

With the help of the local police, she found more victims to be scammed, all similar in their scenario. Manho would call under the alias of a financial aid consultant, sometimes an insurance agent or bank teller. Then, he would extract their bank numbers from them, effectively draining their money away. By the time they victims tried to call back, the number would be out of order, or picked up by another voice, evident that he used another number to cover up his.

None of his victims had anything in common. Some were rich, some were poor. Some were female, some were male. And Manho had long disappeared in the wind the moment he got out of jail. He was said to be sighted once and when the police placed eyes on him, they lost him that same day.

His digital footprint was an utter headache as well. The police had other things to matter, and figuring out his digital footprint was the least of their concerns when they had important murders and urgent matters to solve.

But two could play this game.

Seungjae was a good friend of Sol’s. They were close acquaintances in school and kept in close contact. He, unlike Sol, was a whiz with computer codes and had his fair share of hacking experience. She remembers how he would hack into the system during school events and broadcast short music videos on the school televisions during breaks. Despite their age gap, he was always courteous, nice and kind hearted in helping others.

Seungjae eventually found a job with the police force, using his skills to legally hack criminal networks and dark nets. He was essentially part of a task force that identified suspicious activities like mass radicalisation, fake news and essentially tracking down internet hackers. It was a no-brainer that Sol would approach him, even though she knew that he could only legally hack under his work orders, not for personal favours.

Well it’s best she at least try.

She called Seungjae, who was fortunately free, and agreed to meet at a cafe. The sun was out, warming them from the autumn breeze that chilled them. Sol grabbed her coat and placed a post-it on her door, informing her colleagues of her business. Sol, while dressed in a warm coat, was undoubtedly freezing from the breeze. If only she could go back to law school, where she wore jeans and sweatshirts all day. Instead, she had a light blue long sleeved blouse, a knee length pencil skirt and a midnight blue blazer, and her only coat she had weakly shielding her from the cold.

“Sol A, what gives me the feeling that you aren’t calling for the purpose of catching up, but for a favour?” Seungjae asks as soon as his ice coffee arrives. Sol is amused at his habit, that he still calls her Sol A to differentiate her from Sol B, her colleague just working next door to her. But in response, she gives a small frown.

“Oppa, please? You have to help me with this. This case is driving me nuts!” She says in frustration as she stirs her ice tea. “Look, he’s off the grid, like properly off. I can’t even track his number or his email accounts. When the police placed plainclothes on him, he was like a ninja and they lost him within the first hour.”

Seungjae’s frown deepens. He knows of people who are good on the internet, but for an ex-convict to be running this alone? Furthermore, a convict who had no criminal record of scamming, conning and IT based crimes? There was definitely more to this.

“Sol A, do you think that he’s working alone?” Seungjae asks, stopping Sol in her speech. She tilts her head, the way she does normally when she puts the puzzle pieces in order. From her bag, she takes out a notebook and scribbles down the facts, then pushes it to the centre of the table.

“Okay, so we know that Lee Manho was convicted of rape and sexual harassment long time ago. Now, he’s running scams, and has no known background of coding or conning people, yet somehow the money appears in his bank account and it disappears the next moment.” Sol states as she circles her notes with a pencil and Seungjae nods.

“I think… I think you’re right, oppa. He’s definitely not working alone. And he could just be the middleman bringing the cash from one place to another.” Sol breaths out, realising how big the case has gotten. She’s not just going after Lee Manho, but she’s going after an entire team.

“You said that you can’t track his whereabouts, people he communicates with and where the money is going to?” SeungJae asks. Sol nods.

“Looks like someone is covering up the transfers and his tracks.” Seungjae concludes. Seungjae furrows his eyebrows. Sol recognises his thinking face and tries to plea once more.

“Please, oppa? You helped me check out and verify Yeseul’s boyfriend, which saved her life! Please, oppa…” Sol pleads with him. Seungjae knew how much Sol was going to dedicate to this, and besides, he was legally going to hack. He was fighting for those who couldn’t fight. What difference would it make? It felt wrong to ignore such a desperate plea.

“Fine. But you have to let me use a laptop that isn’t mine. I can’t have my superiors know I’m hacking into a case that wasn’t submitted to me again. God, Yeseul’s ex-boyfriend case got me a bloody earful from the captain.” He finally agrees, getting up from his seat and grabbing his coat. Sol lets out a relieved sigh and picks her coat too.

“Thank you, thank you!”

“Save it for later, when I’m done hacking. Let’s head back to your office for now.” He says and walks to the door. At that moment, Sol’s phone rings, and she picks up, knowing who will call at this time of the day. If it’s lunch, it has to either be Yeseul or Joon Hwi.

“Are you joining us for lunch, sunbae?” Sol takes a moment to close her eyes in frustration. This man is going to drive her insane.

“Yeah. Are you all ordering?”

“That’s right. Extra pickles?”

“Always. Add one more jjampong and kkampungi, too.” The receiving end goes silent.

“Who’s joining?” Sol gives a knowing smile as she unlocks her car.

“An old friend of ours.”

-----

“Wah, it’s been a long time since Seungjae-hyung could eat with us!” BokGi says, as he passes out the chopsticks and Yebeom unpacks the meals. Seungjae only gives a small smile while helping out with the food.

Despite the cold weather, the odd group of friends found pleasure in eating outdoors as opposed to their office pantry. It was too noisy some days, too quiet on some, and knowing how chaotic the group can get during lunch, it only made sense to have their meals downstairs at some benches. Besides, they could use a break from being stuck in their offices all day and look at trees changing their colours to shades of red, oranges and brown.

“Thank your noona here, for convincing me to come.” He says as he nods his head over to Sol, who is busy unpacking her pickles and noodles. Joon Hwi gives a smile as he stares at the delight on her face when she sees those yellow pickles on a plastic saucer.

“Hyung, what are you here for?” Joon Hwi asks, as he unpacks his noodles.

“This lady here has enlisted my help once again for a case she is working on. But it has to be off the books. Thus, my presence here instead of my cubicle back at my headquarters.” Sol chokes and she quickly takes a sip of her tea.

“Oppa, why do you make me sound so law breaking…” Sol grumbles. Yeseul, sitting next to her only gives a small smile and squeezes her hand.

“Seungjae-oppa did help me bring Yeongchang to jail. So I would consider his work, whether under his boss orders or not, to be lawful.” Yeseul quips quietly. The table grows silent for a moment, knowing how this topic took a mental toll out of them, but Yeseul was hit the hardest.

When Yeseul first started dating Yeongchang, everyone didn’t mind it. Only when Sol witnessed how Yeseul would be frightened to pick up his call and spotting bruises on her arms did she get Seungjae to dig into his personal life. Lo and behold, not only was he abusive, he was seeing two other women and they were treated badly, if not, worse.

Yeseul’s heart broke, this being her first love and the man she envisioned marrying. But with her friends' support, she took it upon herself to press charges on him, for the women he tortured and for herself. Representing herself and the women that he had failed to protect and taken advantage of, it wasn’t easy for her, having been so blind in love and still harbouring feelings.

The group stood by and silently supported. They accompanied her trials, no matter how busy they were. Sol remembers Jiho running from one courtroom to another on one occasion when he had to immediately attend a court hearing for a client he was defending. Sol had Yeseul stay over at her apartment during the entire situation, while Yeseul searched for an apartment nearby after moving out of his house. Even Sol B, who was usually cold, bought her meals and stayed to eat when the girls spent late nights in silence and drinking.

Finally, the judge ruled that Yeongchang was to be charged in jail. For the sexual, mental and physical abuse of these women, including Yeseul. It has been months since then and time can only tell how much she has healed. The rest can only give their silent support and be there for her.

“I didn’t mean to make the mood bad. Come, let’s eat. Also, what is the case about, unnie?” Yeseul quickly breaks into a smile, an attempt to let everyone know she’s okay. Sol gives a brief description of her case to everyone while she slurps her noodles and pickles.

“This is going to be difficult. If you guys are right, you might be dealing with something bigger than just Lee Manho.” Sol B states and Sol gives a nodded reply.

“Please don’t tell Superior Kim or Superior Yang about this. I really need to break this case and Seungjae-oppa is my only way to.” Sol informs her group. They give half hearted murmurs, not wanting to be meddled into Sol’s affairs. Well, all but one.

“Yah, why didn’t you come find me? I have my own contacts in the police as well.” Joon Hwi asks, a slight frown on his face. From anyone else looking, it would have been easy to miss. But for Sol, she knew that he was upset, interpreting his complaints as “Why didn’t you come and tell me about this first?”

“Because, Mr. Second Round Judicial Exam Pass, you have been too busy! Do I really need to remind you to eat every damm moment? You drive me crazy some days!” Sol argues. They launch into a light hearted argument, as the rest of the lunch group watches with equal fervour as they eat their meals.

“Guys, stop arguing, my ears hurt.” Jiho said, his tone in slight annoyance as he dove straight into the kkampungi and tangsuyuk. Sol finally gave up fighting, earning a teasing smirk from Joon Hwi. They continued their noisy meal, chatting and catching up with Seungjae. Seungjae gives them some updates of his pregnant wife and some interesting cases.

After their meal, they separated their trash neatly. The sun now hides away in the clouds, leaving little warmth against the chilly breeze of autumn. Sol brushes her coat and rubs her hands and arms. If only she could afford a better one than this old coat she’s been using since her first year in university.

Joon Hwi notices her trying to warm up against the cold and takes his coat from the chair, layering it on her. He honestly didn’t feel cold, but he knows he has always been the stronger one to resist against the cold. For Sol, it must be freezing.

“Take mine.” He simply says, taking the packs of plastic from Sol. If Sol had a hint of blush, he pretended to not notice.

“Oh, thanks.” She said as she took wipes from her bag and wiped down the mess on the benches and tables. “But I don’t need it. We’re heading back to the office anyway.” She shrugs his coat off and drapes it over her arm, returning it to him. He pushes it to her, and leans in closer to her.

“Help me carry it, so I don’t have to, sunbae.” He teases with a smirk, sending Sol in a fit of frustrated squeaks, chasing him as best as she can in her heels. Sol knows Joon Hwi gets a thing out of his teasing, and sends him annoyed glares as she continues to clear the tables. Jiho manages to sigh and Sol B rolls her eyes as she dumps the trash in the bins.

The group grabs their bags as they head back into the office, where Sol checks Seungjae in as a visitor at the reception. The receptionist hands him a blue lanyard with a visitor pass as Sol leads him to the elevators. Jiho and Bokgi are off to meet clients, and Sol B is headed to court for a hearing. Yeseul stops at another floor to her office with Yebeom, who needs to pick up some reports from a colleague.

Joon Hwi follows Sol to her office with Seungjae, despite his office being upstairs. Sol grabs her personal laptop from her bag, which is separate from her desktop computer and passes it to Seungjae, who takes a seat opposite her and starts programming the computer to begin hacking.

“What, did you just let him use your personal laptop?” Joon Hwi asks in concern as he takes a seat on a spare chair.

“Let him do it. Don’t you have your reports to do?” Sol asks as she turns to her own reports before typing in her findings for the new Lee Manho case. Joon Hwi doesn’t reply, and Sol sends an annoyed glance. He’s not going to leave unless he knows all the information of this case.

“Okay, I got it.” Seungjae says after a series of clicks and turns the screen to show Sol what he has found. Sol leans into a chart of bank transfers.

"From what I can tell, it seems like the money enters his bank account and is transferred to an offshore account. I can't trace where the money goes from there anymore." Seungjae explains as he uses the cursor to show them. "I can't tell who owns the account either. If I could take a guess, it's probably the mastermind of this."

"Wait, look. Lee Manho is getting paid a constant amount every single time before a large sum comes in and leaves." Joon Hwi points. Sol grabs her printed papers as she matches the amounts that her clients have given here. They match exactly to the large sums, but have no relation to the constant amount that he gets every scam.

"He's getting paid to scam? Tch, God, I hate this crook." Sol says through gritted teeth. Joon Hwi sighs and observes the anger rising in Sol. He places a hand on top of her clenched fist for comfort and her fist stops clenching as she sighs in response.

"Sol A, I can't track his location with your laptop. It's not exactly ideal, since it can be tracked back." Seungjae says, eyes darting while continuously typing. Joon Hwi could sense the disappointment in Sol's face, but it can't be helped. It was too dangerous from her location and IP address.

"Oppa, thank you for helping. I owe you one." Sol says as Seungjae scrubs her laptop clean from hacking traces. Seungjae returns her laptop and stands up. "You should go back, oppa. You've been gone too long."

"I'll keep you updated." He says as Sol guides him out of the office. Once she shuts the door, she pulls the hairpin from her hair and crunches her hair in frustration. She has the information on where the money is going, but it's no use when she can't find out where he is. Joon Hwi takes a seat opposite her.

"Don't stress." He says softly, and Sol bites her lip in frustration.

"Don't stress? How can I not? The police aren't giving me any information on him, delaying his location tracking! I can't even find him! How am I supposed to get evidence to charge him, if he can't even appear to show up to court?" Sol angrily spills, her hands flailing. Joon Hwi sighs but grabs a hold of her wrist.

"Don't get swayed by your emotions." Joon Hwi firmly says, sparingly into Sol's anger-filled eyes. She pulls her wrist back, taking a deep breath before gathering her hair up again.

"Fine." She grumbles. "Get out of my office, Prosecutor Han. Don't you have work?" This earns a soft smile from Joon Hwi. As he heads to the door, he turns back before he leaves.

"Don't... Don't do anything stupid or impulsive, you hear me?"

Sol clicks her tongue and gives a half-hearted nod. She turns back to her report and updates her findings and tries to diffuse the thought of asking Seungjae to hack with her laptop to find Man Ho's location.

For Kang Sol A, such thoughts don't leave easily.

-----

"You sure?" Seungjae asks, seated in Sol's car. Sol takes a deep breath in and nods.

It was a few days after Seungjae visited the office. Sol called the police as much as she could, but they always left her on the line or just said "we're working on it." Thus, Sol told Seungjae to meet her at a park, before driving to a random alley and passing him her laptop.

"Yeah, I'll take my chances." She replied. Seungjae sighs and begins typing away.

"You know you're putting yourself at risk?" He asks, eyes never leaving the screen.

"I'll put myself at risk for the justice of my clients." She says firmly. A few minutes pass as Sol stares out of the car and watches the bright moon and the clouds floating by in misty swirls.

"Got it." Sol turns her attention to Seungjae. On the screen is a map and a blinking red dot of Manho’s location. Sol reads the map and puts her car back in drive before turning out of the alley.

"Woah, do you know where you are going?" Seungjae asks, grabbing onto the overhead handle for support and his hand securing the laptop.

"Seungjae-oppa, don't tell anyone about this, okay? Especially not Joon Hwi." Sol ignores his question as she speeds up the car, turning into a drop-off point of a train station.

"Sol A, you're-"

"Sorry, oppa. But I need to find him. I can't sit and wait for the police anymore. I promise you, I'll be safe." Sol says. Seungjae couldn't say no. He knows how stubborn Sol is, how when she decides on something, she will commit to it wholeheartedly.

"If he's armed, you could get yourself in danger." Seungjae exasperatedly sighs. It was too big a risk to see the junior he treats as a little sister put herself at risk.

"I'll be fine. Look, you're on my speed dial. You know that I can handle myself. There's a reason why I took years of self-defence classes." Sol tells him. Seungjae nods his head unwillingly.

"You better call me after you're done." He says as he opens the door and gets out of the car. "Please, please stay safe." Sol nods and gives a small smile.

"Thank you, oppa." Sol drives away immediately, leaving Seungjae to pinch his nose bridge in frustration and concern. Silently, as he boards the train, he prays for Sol's safety.

-----

Sol knows the area well. As she parks her car at a carpark, she checks to make sure Manho is still at the bar. The blinking dot stays stagnant at the bar, not moving ever since she dropped Seungjae off. Getting out, she tightens her coat around her and thanks herself for the long trousers she's wearing. At least she isn't wearing a skirt, if she needs to beat someone up.

Entering the bar, she naturally takes a slow walk around. But hidden by the corner of the bar tables sit a lone man, with a cap, dressed in black button up and holding a glass of golden whiskey. She knew that was her target.

Taking a seat next to him, she orders a glass of soda water from the bartender. Man Ho chuckles next to her as he sets his glass down. Turning his head, he faces Sol with sly eyes, lips curled at the corner.

"Prosecutor Kang, you're quick." She hears him say and a chill goes down her spine. She lets her eyes meet the cold stare of Manho.

"Oh, you think I don't know you? You're the one after me more than the police are for the past weeks." Man Ho sinisterly says, a sick grin on his face. Sol grits her teeth and takes a deep breath to soothe her anger.

"Why are you doing this? You think it's fun?Watching my clients suffer?" Sol says through her gritted teeth. He only scoffs.

"My, my. Don't want you getting agitated now, don't we? We just started." He says, sipping from his glass again.

"Answer my question." She says with force. Man Ho sips on his glass, swirling the golden brown liquid against the large square cubes of ice as he exhales.

As the words fall from his mouth, Sol grows as cold as the glass in her hand. Her hands slightly shake as she hitches her breath. When her shaky eyes turn to Manho’s, his eyes are sly with a mocking grin. No, he can’t know.

"You’re just as feisty as your sister, aren’t you?”

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miyacchis · 3 years

Text

Notes from a Con Man - Musical Great Pretender Stage Report Act 1

This is a bit extremely rambly, but I want to give some description of the distinguishing features of the staged version of Great Pretender as compared to the anime, although my plan is not to give a complete recap of the plot, as I’m sure anyone who is choosing to read this has watched the anime - or so I assume, but you know you do you. I try to control myself and keep it just to what is relevant, but I’m also a wordy bitch and that will never change, so, reader beware, I guess.

The stage is set up with three levels (the stage level, the second floor, and the third floor where the band is). Both the stage level and second floor have a couple of rooms that can be pulled out or opened, and backgrounds are projected onto the set to create different settings. With the exception of the opening theme, which is taken from the anime, all of the music is live, and there’s very good interplay between the band and the performers, and I don’t know if I’d ever been to another show that felt so vibrant/alive/idk?

First, the biggest change made for the sake of clear storytelling on the stage is the addition of a framing device: the plot is conveyed to the audience through Edamura’s (Miyata Toshiya) narration as he tells his story to a prosecutor after the events of LA Connection. The play opens where LA Connection ends with Edamura being questioned at a police station, where it’s clear that he has been attempting for hours to convince detectives to believe the team-confidence-wild-and-wacky-adventures ™ explanation as to how he came to be in possession of a bag stuffed with foreign currency. Detectives are fed up with him and ready to go berniewiththesteelchair.jpeg on his ass. Enter Kitaoji (Kato Ryo), an elite prosecutor who seems to be on track to become attorney general, although it is unclear to those at the police station why he would take interest in Edamura’s case.

Edamura is initially reluctant to open up to Kitaoji (Kato Ryo), certain that he won’t be believed, but after Kitaoji quotes from Shakunetsu (side note: I had no idea that in English Shakunetsu was turned into Die Hot which is an absolutely incredible pun and I really commend the translator), Edamura thinks Kitaoji might be just the person to believe him and help him to make amends to all those he had harmed through his life of fraud. Kitaoji encourages Edamura to start at the beginning and goes to eat a piece of candy, prompting Edamura to question, “What would you do if this simple piece of candy was sold for $5 million?” at which point he begins telling his story, transporting us first to a club in Hollywood where we are introduced to the plot with Sakura Magic and, more importantly, Laurent (Miya Rurika, goddess, dressed devastatingly in green), who is identified in quick succession as a French trader, an arrogant Don Juan, and the “bastard who got me into this mess.”

Edamura bumbles through Laurent’s plot to build hype and clinch a deal with Cassano (Otani Ryosuke) by having Abby (Yamamoto Chihiro) “test” the “drug,” while giving small asides to Kitaoji to explain the main players and reveal to him that this is all a con job, but when Edamura is called to sign the contract to supply Cassano with the drug for $5 million, he flips out, pulls Salazar’s (Mikami Ichiro) gun, and flees the club, without the excuse of believing that he had taken drugs as he did in the anime. It is also not at this point that Edamura makes the connection between Laurent and Kudo and realizes that he’s been set up (Miyata!Edamura is overall a bit less perceptive than Kobayashi!Edamura, as we shall see, although I think this was a function of simplifying aspects of the characters’ interactions for the sake of clarity for the stage).

Kitaoji pops in and out of the story from this point, donning different costumes (an unhoused person, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Razzie from the Shakunetsu series, etc.) to illustrate different aspects of the main characters’ conversations, and he serves as a way to get into Edamame’s head, allowing him to express what he is thinking and feeling as events in the story play out. It is in the metanarrative that we get some of these more comedic scenes, as well as additional insight into Edamura’s character as he grapples with his own identity as a scam artist and the son of a child trafficker.

After escaping Cassano’s henchmen outside the club, Edamura rejoins Kitaoji to ask if he’s following the story so far, which of course he is not (lol), so Edamura dives into how he met Laurent and came to be in LA. From here we flashback three days, joining Edamura and Kudo (Fukumoto Shinichi) in Asakusa as they spy Laurent as a potential mark. Edamura pulls the wallet-switch trick, and this scene generally follows the anime, although parts, such as the scenes showing Edamura selling water filters and Edamura and Kudo being raided by what seems to be the police, have been cut. After realizing that Laurent pickpocketed him and saw through his grift, Edamura quickly follows and catches him as he is about to depart in a cab to the airport. Just a moment to talk about this cab because it was such a cute, clever idea; it was really just a little push car driven by one of the supporting cast, and it can be disconnected in the middle, so as the driver pulls off, the back seat can be left behind, allowing the audience to watch Laurent and Edamura’s conversation as they are taken to the airport.

Similarly to the anime, the successive scenes are nominally delivered in English, so Edamura switches to a dialect of Japanese to represent his accented English, which I mention only because Miyata discussed Edamura’s code switching with Kobayashi (Edamura’s Japanese voice actor) in an interview in vol. 51 of Stage Square and how he was concerned that he might confuse Standard Japanese and the dialect during scenes where he has to go back and forth quickly. Kobayashi reassured him that as he got into the character of Edamura Miyata would naturally fall into dialect whenever speaking to Laurent and Abby, and I’m very biased, buuuttttt throughout the run of the show, Miyata performed this beautifully, and as someone who for several years lived in the Tohoku region, the dialect of which Edamura’s accent reminded me of, his accent made me really nostalgic.

Anywayyyyyy

After Laurent and Edamura bet on the outcome of Laurent’s upcoming “business negotiations” and it’s agreed that they will travel to LA together, the opening theme plays, the main cast is introduced, with Edamura running up and down the set to give a sense of action, the title in massive letters is lowered onto the stage, and we rejoin the main plot with Edamura trying to elude Cassano’s gang on the streets of LA by hiding behind the title. The supporting cast gives us some great background color as like random people in LA, like we’ve got some girls with Starbucks cups, some people breakdancing while simultaneously mugging a Dodgers fan, a skateboarder shouting “STREET”...for some reason. Perfect encapsulation of America *chef’s kiss*

Laurent finds Edamura and tells him to come home because he’s a good boy (😳), and Edamura is then introduced to Abby who, just as in the anime, kicks and knocks him out, after which they collect him and take him to an upscale hotel where Cynthia/Paula Dickens (Senna Ayase) is performing as a jazz singer. Laurent greets her briefly, but we don’t properly get introduced to her character until a later, very frustrating scene, but I’m not going to get started on that yet (it’s not her that’s frustrating, but it’s how they chose to have her and Edamura meet, but anyway we’ll get there). She sings “Summertime,” and it’s a lovely performance; all of her acting choices are very clearly informed by her experience in Takarazuka - she has these really dynamic, almost over-the-top movements and she uses that to her advantage to be one of the more comedic actors - and it’s really entertaining to watch.

Laurent orders them drinks; Edamura has something pink in a little martini glass, and he splutters when he tries to take a sip because he can’t handle his alcohol, which makes Laurent laugh, giving a lot of credence to Laurent’s statement soon after that he derives a lot of pleasure out of toying with naive boys like Edamura who pretend to be tougher than they really are. There’s also some funny adlib with Abby at this point where she gets brought different plates of food like fake fruit on one day and a tower of donuts on another. Laurent explains who Cassano is and the plan to defraud him and gives Edamura a notebook with a fabricated recipe for Sakura Magic, so the notebook is not part of what Edamura prepares himself when he goes later to get himself captured by Cassano to negotiate with him. Edamura has a couple of outbursts accusing Laurent and Abby of putting on airs, pretending to be carrying out justice, repeatedly interrupting the band who give him dirty looks and Shi-won, dressed as one of the saxophonists, loudly blows the saxophone back at him, and this prompts Laurent to be like nah we’re getting too much attention here let’s continue this back at the hotel.

The hotel scene is fairly similar to the anime, but once Edamura is left alone, we get the first instance of him thinking about his family as he reflect on what Laurent had to say about how people don’t always believe the truth that is in front of them as they would rather believe whatever is most convenient. He flashes back to his family going home together after his father finished a case (the hotel room is on the second floor with his mom and dad entering on the stage level; the younger version of Edamura is done in voice over), and of course they seem like a happy family, although it’s interesting that what his dad has to say about ethics was cut from the script. The scene focuses more on Edamura idolizing his father as a great lawyer.

Okay, so we’ve finally come to the scene I absolutely hated and did not think was necessary, after Edamura leaves the hotel room. He is approached by three unhoused persons, one of whom he at first thinks is Kitaoji coming to interrupt the narrative again, but he soon realizes that they are “real homeless.” It was really just a disgusting, cruel stereotype; one of them is playing with a rat they found, another is acting like a junkie, and the ringleader is trying to get money off of him because they haven’t eaten in three days and then they steal his little Toyotomi Hideyoshi figurine and play keepaway with it and don’t stop until Cynthia/Paula Dickens (at this point she’s Paula tho so I’m going to refer to her that way) enters and is like knock it off. So that’s how they meet. Cool. They could easily have come up with something else and they just didn’t.

But, anyway, since he got his figurine back, he explains to Paula that his hobby is collecting capsule toys, and during his explanation, a gacha machine is projected up on the stage, out of which comes Kitaoji dressed as Toyotomi, followed by a bunch of other figures from Japanese history. This part always got a pretty good laugh out of the audience, and I think it was a pretty cute way to stage it. Paula insists they go to dinner together, so she can hear more about Toyotomi, and the capsule toy figurines all follow to a diner (serving “breadfast” 24hrs lol) where Shi-won is dressed as someone named Ricardo. The figurines all start to get drunk, while “Ricardo” fixes Edamura and Paula some tacos; meanwhile Edamura explains that Toyotomi began as a simple peasant, but because of his hard work and study, he was able to climb all the way to the top and unite all of Japan as a powerful lord.

Edamura asks why she decided to help him before and he despairs that he must seem like a beaten dog, but she explains that while she might seem confident, she faces tremendous anxiety getting on stage every day, particularly as she wants to make it big as a performer but can’t expect to get the attention of a label just because she can sing a bit. (In the background, Francis Xavier is completely sloshed and ends up drinking with Ricardo) Edamura suggests that she take inspiration from Toyotomi as someone who was able to trick even his enemies into working with him and represent herself as someone more important than she is to get music producers onto her side. She seems fired up by this proposal, and she says that she’ll follow the example of Toyotomi, “Japan’s best confidence man,” which gives Edamura his own motivation to get back to trying to win the bet with Laurent. He asks Paula to wish him good luck and runs off, and we get the first dance scene with Edamura and a number of samurai as he builds up to confronting Cassano. The scene ends with him running into a video shop, presumably to rent Cassano’s movies.

Laurent and Abby are called to Cassano’s mansion - they argue if Edamura is capable of pulling off a job like this, although Laurent insists that he has a natural talent - but they are certain that he must be dead when they hear from Salazar that Edamura was taken into their custody at the airport trying to run. However, Edamura bursts onto the scene, dressed in a new Hawaiian shirt, and at this point, Miyata looks as though he has been in a swimming pool, but it’s just sweat lmao. Cassano informs them that he’s made a new deal with Edamura for $10 million, and when they ask how, we get a flashback showing how he got onto Cassano’s good side by praising Shakunetsu with Kitaoji, as Razzie, acting out scenes from the Shakunetsu movies on the second floor of the stage. Whenever Cassano hugs Edamura in these scenes, it was really funny because his jacket would get just absolutely covered in Miyata’s sweat just ugh gross lol

Cassano’s accountant joins them and they play out the whole bit about confirming Edamura’s credentials as a pharmaceutical scientist, at which point Edamura finally realizes that Kudo is working with Laurent, when he calls Kudo to thank him for deceiving Cassano’s attorneys. After Cassano has confirmed Edamura’s identity, he takes the crew to his factory and insists that Edamura make Sakura Magic for them right there and then so that they can be sure to properly replicate his recipe. She does this the whole play, but particularly during this scene, you can really see how well Miya Rurika portrays Laurent as always calm and and in control before Edamura but as quietly losing his shit whenever he feels like they’ve been backed into a corner, and we also get some very cute like Laurent clearly being exasperated with Edamura but the two of them starting to be able to play off one another as they convince Cassano that the factory isn’t up to snuff for making Sakura Magic.

They have to clear out because they hear someone coming, but Cassano promises that he will build a new laboratory for Edamura and entrusts his care to Salazar. The police bust in after everyone has left; Anderson does the absolute most to show off to everyone that he’s properly securing the scene, but he’s clearly relieved that Cassano slipped through their fingers once again oh my how does this keep happening oh well better luck next time. We get a proper introduction to Paula and Shi-won as members of the FBI who have come to investigate Laurent and his organization (Paula has changed into this beautifully tailored brown tweed pantsuit and she pulls it off so well), and Paula threatens to expose Anderson’s connections to Cassano if he doesn’t follow her lead.

After the scene in the factory, we return to the present in the interrogation room with Kitaoji and Edamura. Detectives bring Kitaoji additional files on Edamura, asking if the prosecutor has heard of the attorney Ozaki. They inform him that Edamura is Ozaki’s son, and Kitaoji is a bit shocked; he leaves, saying that he will review the files. The detectives collect the money before exiting the room, but not without getting in a dig at Edamura, telling him that he clearly takes after his father. Edamura is stricken by this statement, and the act ends with Edamura battling with this internal conflict.

I don’t think anyone would want to read all of this, but if you have, thank you so much. I hope some of it at least was interesting or informative. I’m going to end there for now, as I’ve already gone on for too long, and I’ll finish writing up the second act in another post.

#it's too long i'm sorry lmao #i have not edited this so sorry as well if there are mistakes #great pretender

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ladykissingfish · 3 years

Text

Amusement Park/Carnivals with the Akatsuki

Hidan

Hidan won’t ever admit this, but most amusement park rides scare him to death. He doesn’t feel comfortable on any machine that he can’t control, and he’s been plagued with a profound fear of heights since he was a child. He covers up this fear and avoids rides by continuously saying how “boring” everything is; although he CAN handle on-the-ground things like bumper cars or lazy water-rafting rides. One time Kisame goaded him into riding The Giant Drop, and afterwards Hidan’s hands had to be forcibly pried off of the bar by three different people. Like Deidara, he’s a fan of the games and will avidly compete with the others (and sometimes strangers) to win the biggest prize/achieve the highest score. Also totally into anything horror-based (like a “haunted house” or “spooky maze”); not because he finds them scary but because he thinks it’s hilarious what they try to pass off as scary. Sometimes will hide behind things within these attractions and jump out to scare people himself, until he’s caught and made to leave by the workers. Ridiculously huge fan of popcorn and will have multiple bags throughout the course of the day.

Deidara

This guy LOVES rollercoasters. The more loops and twists the better, the faster the more awesome. He’ll stand in line as long as necessary to ride these speed demons over and over, grinning and shouting like a madman the whole time. He can be persuaded to go on the slower, tamer rides by his fellow Akatsuki members (like a Tilt-A-Whirl) but will groan and loudly complain about how lame they are. A big fan of the park fare, in particular anything on a stick and/or covered with melted cheese. Has to be reminded to time his snacking correctly and let his food digest so that he doesn’t end up puking during a coaster’s upside-down loop. Not really a fan of water-based rides because they mess up his Perfectly Straight™️ hair. Also likes to compete against Itachi and Hidan in games; Konan will always go home loaded down with stuffed animals because the three will go overboard trying to outdo each other. Deidara also has somewhat of a mean sense of humor; when boarding roller coasters, he always seeks out the ones who look like they’re about to crap their pants in fear. He’ll manage to put a low-grade explosive underneath their car, not strong enough to blow a hole on it but loud enough to make a noise as though something is very wrong with the coaster. The person will, of course, go into a full-blown panic; and Deidara will laugh himself silly over his “harmless” prank.

Kakuzu

Thinks that things like this are a horrible scam and waste of money ... as a customer. However, as with any possible business opportunity, he’s ready with the capital and the ideas for him to turn a buck. Likely he’ll keep it simple and open up a souvenir stand within the grounds; for some reason people are always willing to spend a ridiculous amount of money on poorly-made trinkets when they’re surrounded by smiling idiots and happy music. He’s willing to cut one or two of his fellow Akatsuki comrades into his action as cheap labor, but nobody wants to leave their fun to help the old grinch con people. At the end of the day, when his shop or stand or whatever he has is sold out of its wares/closed, he can possibly POSSIBLY be persuaded to go on one of the tamer rides (Konan will push for them all going on the Ferris wheel after dark because the lights make it look pretty).

Kisame

Has to be persuaded to go to things like this; he really isn’t comfortable in crowds because everybody (strangers) always stare at him. Once he finally breaks down and goes, however, he has such a good time that he doesn’t want to leave. Rides are a bit of a complication for him (because of his long legs) but he manages to make it work. He especially likes anything that goes out on a man-made river or water path. Kisame’s food of choice is seafood, which is quite hard to find at amusement parks; but sometimes he’ll luck out and find a stand that sells fish tacos. Used to like playing the games but was put off of them after one time when he did the ring-the-bell with the hammer thing, and ended up breaking the hammer. And the bell. And the stand that both things were on.

Tobi

Tobi is always down for spending a fun afternoon with the group, and he thinks amusement parks are great ... except for one teeny tiny thing: Tobi is absolutely terrified of “characters”. The people who walk around in colorful costumes scare the bejesus out of Tobi, which is pretty damn ironic, considering he wears a mask himself. In fact his own face gear has caused him trouble at places like this ... some characters see him walking around and assume he’s one of them, but when they approach him to see why he’s goofing off — Tobi runs in the other direction, screaming. Deidara usually has to chase him (and calm him) down, and placate the scaredy-cat by going on the kiddie rides with him. Yes, the kiddie-rides. Two grown men being shut into the Teacups or the Flying Dumbo ride or picking out horses on the carousel is always an amusing sight for all, none more so than Hidan who will conveniently show up in time to take pictures and use it as blackmail over Deidara’s head for the rest of his natural life. Tobi also really likes the sweetness of the food, and if no one’s keeping an eye on him, there’s a good chance he’ll OD on a mix of funnel cakes, churros and cotton candy.

Zetsu

Sadly for the carnivorous plant-man, nobody ever tells him when everybody is going to a place like this. It’s not because they don’t enjoy spending time with Zetsu, and it’s not because they’re trying to be mean, but — Zetsu has a problem with self-control. Like Tobi, if Zetsu sees something he wants to eat, then he has to have it, at all costs. Park days are supposed to be stress-free, and nobody feels like having to keep watch on Zetsu to make sure he isn’t getting ready to snatch a baby out of a stroller or lure a delicious-looking child away from his mother.

Sasori

As with most things in life that are fun, Sasori is simply not interested. However, he’ll be persuaded to join the others through the constant pushing ((whining)) of his younger partner Deidara, or the childlike Tobi. It’s hard to tell what Sasori finds enjoyable, because his expression NEVER CHANGES. The same calm, blank look stays on his face whether on 360 degree roller coaster or being jumped at by a blood-drenched ghoul in a haunted house. The only time anyone sees him crack a smile is when a kid runs past him, trips on his shoelaces and lands face-first on his own ice cream cone. Although it’s not immediately obvious, Sasori DOES really enjoy people-watching, and places such as these provide the ideal, eclectic set of humans for him to sit and observe.

Itachi

When it comes to amusement parks or carnivals, Itachi isn’t really much one for the rides. Or the people. What he IS into, is being with the others. Watching his teammates faces light up on the rides, hearing their delighted shrieks, or shoving decadent treats into their mouths like giddy children. It’s a feeling of normalcy, of blending into the crowd with no stress, no combat, no blood or death or destruction; just fun. Itachi IS very much into what passes for games at these places. As with most things he finds everything to be ridiculously easy, and enjoys teasing Deidara and Hidan about his wins. Something else he enjoys is going on the water-rides with Kisame, as the guy gets really, REALLY happy anytime he’s around water. However he also has to keep a close eye on him to make sure that he stays seated/buckled in to whatever contraption they’re on; there’s been quite a few times when the entire group has come close to being kicked out because Kisame can’t help jumping in the water and swimming, which is against the rules (AND a scary sight to the children who believe they’re being stalked by a giant shark). Like Tobi, Itachi is a fan of sweets (although far less compulsive about it) and will consume more candy-apples than is probably healthy.

Konan/Pein

As a God, Pein won’t deign to visit such a lowly attraction as an ‘amusement’ park. What’s amusing about a bunch of mortals spending their hard-earned money to ride poorly put together machines and eat unhealthy foods? However, he will send Konan in his stead, to keep an eye on the other members. Konan enjoys being out and walking around the fresh air and sunshine. Her favorite attraction by far is the fun house; she loves the moving floors, the trippy optical illusions, the odd music. The distorted mirrors especially tickle her fancy, and she’ll spend a long time moving back and forth and looking at the different shapes the mirror makes her body. No matter what anyone else is doing, if Konan announces she’s going to the fun house, literally everybody will drop their plans and go with her. Konan is somebody who projects an air of seriousness and maturity almost all the time, so the other Akatsuki members relish any situation where they can hear the beautiful, almost child-like sound of her laughter. Those who play games will also compete to win her the biggest stuffed animal, and she’s the only one who won’t get her hand slapped away if she reaches for one of the snacks the others buy for themselves.

#the akatsuki #amusement park #konan #pein #tobi #deidara #sasori #hidan #kakuzu #kisame #zetsu #itachi

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pollylynn · 3 years

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Title: Astern WC: 1000 Episode: One Man’s Treasure (2 x 10)

A critical element of her job is to never assume—to always be mindful of the distinctions between the things she genuinely knows, the things she suspects, and the things that seem to stand to reason. It’s a balancing act and no easy task. It goes against her instincts when she senses weakness or anything less than the absolute truth from the person unfortunate enough to find themselves across the interrogation table from her. It demands that rein in the insights that whisper in her ear that they are the answer—the key to it all.

But it behooves her to let only what she truly knows out into the world, and of what she knows, only what is absolutely necessary. In the course of any given case, she holds families and livelihoods and love stories in her grasp. And even if there’s an evildoer who deserves to have every one of their wicked deeds tossed out on the front lawn for all to see, there are, almost inevitably, those within the blast radius who deserve every shred of dignity and privacy she can salvage for them. There are those who never need to know what she knows.

She doesn’t know what she knows about the dual life of Sam Parker/Jake Holland. It’s an irritation from the start. She is sure, in defiance of her own well-established lines, that she knows their vic. She’s sure that this man was, until his well-deserved tumble down a trash chuted, the doggiest of dogs. The faith that not one but two apparently intelligent women seem to have had in him is genuinely baffling, given that he seems to have arrived at his techniques of subterfuge by sending away cereal box tops for The Bad Boy’s Guide to Utterly Generic Cons.

The sub–French Farce levels of sophistication are so aggravating that it takes her a while to register that it’s more than simply the case itself that’s putting knots in her shoulders. It’s him. It’s his whole gleeful attitude toward every direct-from-factory element of the scam and the fact that he is . . . being kind of useless here. When that bell dings somewhere in the back of her throbbing head, she pulls up short. She finds herself working her way back to an all-important line that she sees know she’d crossed months ago—maybe from the very beginning—without every realizing it.

Why would he be useful here?

She makes herself ask the question. She impatiently brushes past the surface chatter that wants to wonder why he would be useful anywhere. That’s . . . whatever. It’s their elementary-school dynamic. It’s her defensiveness. It’s the long-running production starring the two of them where she hates him the most and for him, irritating her is more vital than drawing breath. He is routinely useful. It’s aggravating, but it’s also something she knows.

So, she sweeps the surface clean and makes herself excavate. She makes herself assemble the facts—the things she knows as distinct from the things she suspects, the things that stand to reason.

What does she know that leads her to suspect that Castle would be especially useful in the case of the dual life of Sam Parker/Jake Holland?

She knows—or she has long believed—that he should know how to keep two women’s paths from crossing when that intersection would spell disaster for him. She knows he should have some idea of why the hell a run-of-the-mill cheater would have an alter-ego with such a substantial presence in the world. She knows that his delight whenever a new detail of Sam’s treachery is revealed is him giving it up for a fellow cad.

She knows he should be useful here, because he is no stranger to infidelity.

There it is, the thing that feels like a know. But that’s not how knowing works. She searches her memory for the facts as she understands them. She’s sure there have been blind items on Page 6. Those don’t count. They wouldn’t count, even if she could remember any specifics beyond the rough proximity of the words cheating, caught, and his name.

He’s dropped hints if not admitted it outright though, hasn’t he? The fact that she has to pull from the question-mark drawer again strikes that off the know list, too. Her mind scrambles and offers up his guilty blush when she asked if he could imagine the stress of two relationships. She’s officially frustrated with herself, then.

She’s officially angry at the the thought that he really has been rubbing off on her, because her annoyance with how useless he’s being on this case is rooted in quite an elaborate story she’s been weaving about his relationship indiscretions. And there’s an extra layer of angry on top of that, because all of this impromptu soul searching is getting her no closer to solving the murder of her vic, who was most definitely chronically indiscreet.

Except that he wasn’t, as it turns out, at least not in any straightforward way. Jake Holland might have meant to cheat on his fiancée with Sam Parker’s wife. And Sam Parker was definitely stepping out on his wife with Jake Holland’s fiancée, but in the most innocent way possible, given the bizarre circumstances. And it’s in the course of coming to know that about her vic and his dual life that she comes to know that she’s had it backwards with Castle’s story all along.

They’re trying to brace Sarah Reed/Laura Branston and he leans suddenly in. Through a smile that’s hard and not at all gleeful, he tells their corporate spy the painful truth—No. That was just a story. He made you.

He raps out just those few brief phrases and she knows with a cold, unyielding certainty that she was right, she was wrong, she had it backwards with his story all along: He made you.

He is no stranger to infidelity.

A/N: Can assumptions be amorphous? They probably ought not to be. Another late start and another rushed thing without form.

images via homeofthenutty

#Castle #Caskett #Castle: Season 2 #Castle: One Man's Treasure #Kate Beckett #Richard Castle #Fic #Fanfic #Fanfiction #Fan Fic #Fan Fiction #Writing #Tell Me More

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slocumjoe · 3 years

Text

2 headcanons per companion

Cait:

- Touchy person. After learning and understanding that it doesn't inherently mean pain, learns to speak and hear it as a love language. Her touches are very jock, though. Shoulder slaps, light punches, hair ruffling, kind of an older brother form of physical affection. Often gets into play-fights with MacCready.

- Has a lovely singing voice, but no one knows because she never sings. Ever. If she sang, it would be a quiet, raspy croon. The type of singing you'd expect to hear in a castle ruins at the coast during a storm. Haunting and enchanting.

Curie:

- Amazing baker, not so good at cooking. Baking is a science, cooking is more about intuition and creativity. She's a by-the-books girl, and unless she has an exact recipe, her cooking is going to taste like anxiety. Great at breads, burns eggs. Always makes delicious muffins, her soups and stews are flavorless and soggy.

She has no idea. Thinks it's fine, and no one will dare tell her to stick to dough-based foods.

- The first time she got drunk, it was off wine. She woke up with her head in agony and on the roof of a shack about 50 miles away from Sanctuary. And with a tattoo on her back. Doesnt know about the tattoo. No one knows about the tattoo. It's a spoon. A very poorly done spoon. Possibly a ladle.

Danse:

- This man may as well be a bear. He has a big appetite, sleeps like he's hibernating for winter, is covered in thick body hair. Danse will wake up only for his natural alarm, his clock alarm, or someone walking up to him and telling him to get up. No noise or physical disturbance will wake him. Nothing. As for his stomach, he isn't a glutton, but look at him. Big guy needs fuel. He can eat a normal amount and be fine, but could get himself kicked out of Golden Corral.

- Speaking of food. He eats everything with no reaction regardless of if he likes it or not. It looks like he's bored even if he's eating the rare good meal. Food is just something neutral, with cons to certain things. He prefers plainer flavors, but is immune to spice. Can drink an entire bottle of Tabasco sauce, Sriracha sauce, and a chile sauce with no expression. The blank stare and spice immunity aren't synth things, Curie and X6 are just the opposite.

Deacon:

- Takes long walks at night through settlements. Feels at peace in liminal spaces. The ruins of Boston and all the other destroyed cities don't have the same effect. Something about being the only one aware, living unnoticed in a place filled with people. It's lonely, but nothing gives the same clarity.

- Hates subway tunnels. Go on forever, too long to see what's at the end, something could be at any corner - they creep him out. If you still, you'll hear something. Machinery even when the place is inactive. Shuffling. Even stiller, might hear breathing echoing from way down a tunnel. Hates it to hell and back. Has to take a long smoke break if he has to go in one alone.

Hancock:

- Weird with kids. Likes them, but worries about himself. He isn't the...best example. He has no filter, they can tell something is wrong about him, and he just doesn't know how to act. They're just tiny humans, but there are rules. He doesn't want to accidently hurt them or inspire them to follow his screwed up footsteps.

- He doesn't care about what people think unless he cares. Some schmuck sneering at him when he pops a mentats? That guy's issue. Nick's frown? Curie's wide-eyed fretting? The way Cait's face goes soft and her eyes crinkle in sympathy?

...that matters.

He starts using less.

MacCready:

- Extravert. He needs his space, but hates being alone. Not having a support to fall back on is terrifying. The most anxious he'd ever been since Lucy died was his time alone in the Commonwealth. Sure, he had people, but not...not people of his own. Not a family. Leaving his boy was hard and being alone just as. Was often nauseous and prone to headaches until the SoSu.

- Hates the acknowledgement of intimate body parts in public. Hancock and Cait went on a tirade of sex jokes and he was just as, if not more, squeamish as the other prudes. While exploring a vault, a sex ed video came on the projector and he was red as a tomato for hours. It didn't help that he was standing in front of it and...well. You know what happens when you stand in front of projectors.

Goes all blushy when more adult talk comes up. Apparently Danse didn't know what m*sturbation was and that moment in that room nearly had him crawling out of his skin.

Nick:

- Has a little switch in his brain that decides if he's capable of math. One day he'll be a walking calculator, another he'll forget that 7 is more than 6. He was a weird math student. Did all the reading and none of the work, aced the tests. You put him under pressure and he'll crank out the craziest equations, but you ask him to multiply two 4 digit numbers and you can see a little blue swirl in his eye before he sighs and goes to fetch scratch paper. Being a good tester doesn't mean he's not a born theater kid.

- Coat pockets are portals to other dimensions. Has everything you need. Bobby pins? Check. Ammo? Check. Food rations? Clean water? Smokes? Check. A small statue of Cappy? A page from a magazine that was never released due to a MLM scam in the publishing company? Half a pair of sunglasses?

Sometimes puts random garbage in his pockets just to screw with Ellie. Other times, genuinely doesn't know where things come from. Once found a yao gui claw in his chest pocket. It's a good luck charm, but he never picked it up and no one could have slipped it in. Jokes about the coat being haunted, but only half joking.

Piper:

- Opposite to Nick, things go missing in her coat. Nick calls it "the washer" for some reason. She'll drop a pen in a pocket and never see it again. Double checks the pockets for holes and splits before heading out. Still loses things. Once lost a whole pistol.

But more interestingly. She lost a purple gel pen.

Week later, Nick pulls a purple gel pen out of his pocket.

Has a corkboard for the theories about the connection.

- Makes an amazing stew of yao gui, carrots, potatoes, stingwing honey, and various herbs. Its a family recipe that just isn't a normal stew, there's something different about it. When asked, will joke that it's human meat. Very few people realize she's joking. Either way, it has a flavor that sets it apart from other stews.

The secret?

There's a mutated form of garlic in the southeast part of the Commonwealth.

Only her family knows where it grows and what it looks like.

Preston:

- Not so much of a night owl as much as he just...doesn't have a steady circadian rhythm. You can find him in the kitchen at 1 pm asleep on the counter in the middle or awake at 1 am making a 3 tiered cake. Doesn't have an alarm clock. His sleeping pattern bothers even the poorest sleepers. Danse is visibly upset when he describes his schedule.

- His history of partners, both romantic and purely sexual, is crazy. He has the most interesting and horrifying stories. One girlfriend was convinced she was the reincarnated Mistress of Mystery. A boyfriend cheated on him with his step grandmother. He was once involved in a multi-person break up because apparently his boyfriend was in a poly relationship that went south on all fronts due to a chem deal's profits going missing as they were about to split the caps.

Don't ask about Marge.

Marge was...probably something he imagined during a fever.

X6:

- His pantries and fridge have nothing but junk food. He likes vegetables and fruit, but they take up valuable sugar space.

Once ate a giant, 200+ year expired cheesecake and puked for an hour. When Nick found out, popped a fuse. X was out of commission for...so long. Turns out he's lactose intolerant.

- Has been flirted with so many times. Each time, turned pink and lost all control of his words. He becomes a stuttering, cherry-cheeked mess at romantic interest. Not because he reciprocates, he just wasn't trained for it. There is no protocol for "Wanna come back to my place?"

Someone kissed his cheek and he actually ran and jumped out of a window to escape. Hancock has it on video and sometimes watches it to produce serotonin.

#fallout 4 #fo4 #paladin danse #nick valentine #robert joseph maccready #gangpost

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roleplayfinder · 3 years

Note

I’m 21+ looking for the same. Lit, third person, usually novella or multi-para as I enjoy quality and quantity. I don’t have limits but please tell me yours so I know. I love angst, darker themes etc. I’m OOC friendly and fairly regular with responses, so that’s another thing I am hoping we will match on.

Fandoms and Originals.

I have ideas for all of these but would love to develop them with you. I have left blurbs for some. BOLD IS MY PREFERRED CHARACTER.

White Collar

• Neal/Peter

Snowpiercer

• Grey/Gilliam

• Happy to bring Gilliam’s age down some but as Bong Joon-Ho himself said, the age gap here is very interesting and I’m continually fascinated by the loyalty Grey has. I would love to write these two finding love between the chaos on the train. I would also be happy to write them AU, whether a student/professor type story or maybe a different apocalyptic setting like zombies?

Glee

• Blaine/Sebastian

Loki

• Loki/Mobius

• Messing with the timeline slightly, what if Mobius was sent back to the moment of his abduction by the TVA? And in classic Loki style, what if he decided that the sane thing to do was stalk Mobius on Earth. I’m picturing Professor Mobius? I’m also definitely picturing single-dad Mobius because of how good he was with the kid at the church.

• Anyway. Loki figures he’ll watch for a few days. Check Mobius is happy. Flash forward to a week later and he’s getting a member of the faculty fired, framing himself as a substitute and introducing himself to Mobius at work.

• Office romance, re-falling in love, slow burn… all leading to angst when the TVA inevitably reappears and suddenly Loki and Mobius find themselves on the run (with a toddler). Perhaps they end up on Asgard? We can tweak the timeline all we want.

Star Wars

• Poe/Hux

• I’m just…. Love on opposite sides. Fascinating. I’m picturing Hux being a mole for longer (please no neutering him, bc I love him as he is) and Poe being his ‘handler’ of sorts. Meaning Leia sends Poe off to meet Hux on different planets so that he can receive intel to report back to the rebels. But in true enemies to friends to lovers, those report meetings become conversations become laughter become sharing lunches become sharing kisses.

• The ‘a-hole who can only stand one person’ trope for Hux is *chefs kiss*.

Orphan Black

• Ira/Art

• Ira/Felix

• Please either way I just need Ira to find a nice guy who helps him realise that he’s being hurt by Susan, even if it’s in a different way to how his brothers were hurt. Falling in love in chaos. Falling in love on a deadline (aka them thinking Ira will eventually glitch)

The Old Guard

• Joe/Nicky

• Open to anything here! Modern AU with Nicky running a coffee shop and Joe being the customer he falls in love with at first sight - but maybe there’s an abusive ex (Merrick?) in the picture and he is scared to let his guard down. Or an apocalypse AU, where they meet at the end of the world. Maybe they’re from different groups who don’t want to mix but they find themselves drawn to one another and begin sneaking out to meet with one another. Or just a good ol fashioned through the ages story.

Kingsman

• Eggsy/Harry

• Legend Crossover, with Eggsy’s twin Teddy causing problems? Apocalypse AU - maybe with Harry being from an affluent, gated community run by Arthur who refuses to let anyone new in. Eggsy from a scrappy, rundown group made up of the characters from the estate (Dean, Michelle etc). They could meet on a run and have to spend the night together trapped, negotiating a plan out and divvying up supplies. Perhaps the second meeting could also be a coincidence, but enough of one to make them feel the spark between them.

Stranger Things

• Steve/Billy

• Enemies with benefits, anyone? Post ‘bull**** party’ they hook up and Billy - in true Billy style - becomes obsessed with Harrington instantly. Steve is Steve. Inevitable roping in of Billy to the upside down.

Original

• Here’s the gist. MC is a long con artist working with a team he considers family. YC is the mark (OR someone associated with the mark, like a son/brother/enforcer) who is a mafioso, running a casino. The elder statesman (really the father of the group) of MC’s group of grifters was recently beaten to a pulp for trying to scam on the roulette wheel and now his family want revenge. They are going to steal every last penny from the casino. But it will take time to plan and lots of patience, so in true long-con style they put someone on the inside. Cue MC. He’s placed on the casino staff as a new bartender, meant to quietly keep an eye on things as well as familiarise himself with the guard schedules, cameras etc. Long story short, as time goes on he finds himself getting to know YC over the bar - serving him drinks and hearing stories. Love begins.

• Word bank: star-crossed lovers, deception, angst, sneaking around, betrayal, enemies to lovers, found family.

• Bonus points: age gap between MC (a younger, scrappy conman) and YC

• Bonus bonus points: someone eager to play side characters to build up the con artist family and play with friendships and angst there. I will also happily play family/friends/relationships for YC. We can build up an awesome cast.

I am open to email and discord but greatly prefer first contact on email. Please tell me a bit about yourself and what you’re looking for out of this as I won’t answer short ‘rp?’ emails! :)

Email: [email protected]

[email protected]

#twenty-one and over #white collar #white collar roleplay #white collar rp #snowpiercer #snowpiercer roleplay #snowpiercer rp #glee #glee roleplay #glee rp #loki #star wars #orphan black #the old guard #kingsman #stranger things

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imaginetonyandbucky · 4 years

Text

The Buy In

Chapter 10: Epilogue

by @dracusfyre

"I feel like you're going to try to sell me a time share," Bucky said, studying the bland conference room Tony had reserved. It looked like probably every other conference room Bucky had ever been, as if they were all ordered out of the same catalogue; beige walls, carpeted floor that had the feeling of being beige while actually having flecks of red and blue in it, and the tables and chairs with wheels on them so they could be moved easily. Tony had even pulled down a screen and to all appearances, was setting up for a powerpoint presentation.

"It's all about presentation, Mr. Barnes," Tony said. He picked up a clicker and a red dot appeared on Bucky's chest, then started moving around in what Bucky eventually recognized as a heart shape. "Gotta know your audience and what they'll respond to. Too fancy, and they'll be scared off. Not fancy enough, and they'll feel like they're being scammed. A hotel conference room fits neatly inside that middle ground."

"You've put a lot of thought into this," Bucky said. He glanced at the clock, saw that they had a few minute before people were supposed to arrive and dipped his head for a quick kiss.

"Well, yeah," Tony started, but then there was a knock on the door. Tony opened it to see that part of the security detail started bringing in the refreshments for the meeting, coffee and donuts and croissants and other breakfast-style food that people would probably pick at and leave mostly untouched. "Natasha helped," he continued, poking at the refreshments table and rearranging everything slightly. "She's better at that side of things, the headology, as she calls it."

"I can see that." Bucky watched Tony putter. Looked like Tony was nervous, which was kind of adorable. "So you can't even give me a sneak peak at what you're talking about today?"

Tony shook his head. "For right now, you're a potential investor, not my lover."

"Ok, ok," Bucky said. He realized he was following Tony around as he puttered aimlessly and made himself stop. "So I got to see KT today. Brought him his laptop so he could start catching up on homework."

That made Tony stop rearranging the plates and napkins and turn to Bucky with a smile. "Good! So that mean's he is doing well?"

"Yep. Should be out of there soon. Any update on Rumlow?"

Tony's smile turned evil. "From what I hear, he's had a run of bad luck lately, such a shame. He lost his service pistol, which, you know, big no no. And did you know someone stole his patrol car, spray painted it, and left something unmentionable smeared on the seats? Then did the same with his personal car, which was found laying upside down in front of his apartment building?"

With a force of effort Bucky kept his face blank. "Strange."

"Very strange," Tony agreed. "Insurance didn't even pay out, mysteriously enough. Apparently they had dropped his coverage the day before and he hadn't gotten the notice yet."

"Crime in this city is getting really out of hand," Bucky said seriously. "He's lucky it wasn't something worse."

"Oh it will be, give it time."

There was that smug look again that Bucky loved, and he started to sneak another kiss when there was another knock. This time the security guard was escorting people inside, a middle-aged Black couple that looked around cautiously, like they were expecting the conference room to contain something nefarious. Bucky straightened immediately, trying to look professional, and smiled at them as Tony welcomed them inside, calling them by name and offering them a warm handshake. There was a steady stream after that, until the conference room was about half full.

"Hello everyone, let's get started," Tony said, taking a head count and looking at the clock. "All of you are here because you either were recommended by a friend or a family, or I sent you a personal invitation. Thank you for being willing to join me today for this presentation, and please save your questions for the end. As you all know, my name is Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, and in this presentation I'm going to ask you for money." Tony grinned as almost everyone laughed. "Then I'm going to tell you what you're going to get for your money, and then I'm going to explain how you're not even going to notice that your money is gone."

As interested as Bucky was in the presentation, he kept getting distracted by watching Tony effortlessly charm the room, making eye contact with each person and joking just enough to keep people interested without derailing his speech. It was a warmer, more authentic show than what Bucky had seen at the Policeman's Ball and it made Bucky's heart turn over with affection as he watched. KT had been right when he said that the buy-in speech could make you a believer; not just in the astonishing amount of benefits that Tony offered to people who agreed to the buy-in, but because Tony's enthusiasm for the project was contagious.

"So why do you need our money?" One guy interrupted. "If you've got so much of it?"

"Good question," Tony said. He leaned against one of the tables, putting his hands in his pocket and crossing his legs at the ankle. "Yeah, the majority of the start-up money came from me. Since this organization is technically a nonprofit, I get to write it all off of my taxes, the way rich people often do. But I ask for your money because if I paid for all of it, then it would belong to me, wouldn't it? The whole point of this enterprise is to build ownership and equity in the community. You own the health clinic and the child care centers, the retirement homes and the apartment complexes. Not only does it mean you get to decide what to do with them, but it means that you start having a place at the same table that all of the billionaire developers and well-connected real estate moguls do."

"But the stuff about the taxes and stuff, where we just hand it all to you, that's tax fraud, isn't it? Which is illegal?"

"Well, yes, in a way," Tony said honestly. "You avoid paying taxes the same way rich people avoid paying taxes, by finding loopholes in the tax code and driving semi-trucks through them. But also, I'm the criminal, not you. If we get caught, I'm the big bad con artist that scammed honest folks like you out of your hard earned savings. There will be a class action lawsuit after the criminal proceedings, my lawyer will fight hard but not too hard to defend my assets, then they will eventually get divided up among all my victims in the kind of feel-good, good guys win story that is made for Hallmark TV. In the mean time, my job is to help the community fund the type of social welfare projects that the government should be doing but isn't, by taking from people who don't deserve it and giving it to the people that do. Which the government should also be doing but isn't."

"So this is like, socialism," a young woman said in accented English. "Instead of paying the government taxes, we give that money to you, and you like, do all this stuff with it."

"Pretty much. Grassroots socialism with a capitalist veneer. I like to think of it as stone soup, from the kid's story."

"But why?"

"Because it's the right thing to do," Tony said, like it was obvious. Bucky hid his smile in his hand and hoped he didn't look too besotted; he'd sat all the way in the back for a reason. "I don't know else to say it. Why should I have so much when others have so little? I give a lot it away, because there really are so many problems that can be solved by throwing money at them, but some can't. Some need systemic change, which means empowering people, which is what I'm trying to do. That's why it's a buy-in, and not a handout." There was still some obvious reluctance among the group, and Tony's smile turned a little sad. "Look, I get it. You are used to people promising a lot and not delivering. And you think this sounds way too good to be true, right?" No one really answered, but the way they kind of avoided Tony's eyes said a lot. "Let me tell you a story.

"So I've been donating regularly to the free clinic on 17th for a while now. A few years ago, there was a kid volunteering there because he wanted to go to medical school. But he was in a shit position - his parents made too much money to qualify for the grants and needs-based scholarships, but not enough to actually afford tuition or even qualify for good student loans. So the doctor in charge of the clinic emailed me and told me to do something useful with all of the blood money I was getting from Stark Industries, and so I did. I paid for his entire education, and he came back and is currently the head physician at the rehab clinic. So if you want there to be a catch, if you need there to be a catch so that you can believe what I'm telling you, then that's the catch - you have to try to give back at least as much as you were given."

There was a long, thoughtful silence after that, and Tony wisely let it sit for a while instead of trying to fill it with words. "You don't have to answer now," he said after a few moments. "The forms that you would need to fill out for the buy-in are right here," he added, tapping a stack of papers next to him. "Take one with you, and think about it. Any last questions?"

"Yeah, I got one," the young woman said. "I heard you stole Jeff Bezos' car, is that true?"

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

A/N: If you enjoyed this story, come find me over at @marveltrumpshate where I will be participating in auctioning off TWO fanfics! One auction is a fic with art (with @massivespacewren) as WrenFyre and the other is a solo fic as Dracusfyre. All the money goes to a good cause of your choosing, so I hope to see you there!

#tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #winteriron #no powers au

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Darkwing Duck: My Valentine Ghoul Review aka A Bad Episode Even by Valentine’s Day Episode Standards

Welcome back Darkwings of the Night. It’s time to go back to St. Canard for the very review that got me to finish up my look at the episodes that should’ve lead up to Just Us Justice Ducks and the episode itself last month. While I probably COULD have reviewed this one before finsihing that as continuity’s pretty loose here, I wanted to see Negaduck’s proper introduction first. So was it worth it?

Yeah while I was glad to get one of my retrospectives done and free up some room for other stuff, this episode..was an objective disapointment and might be even worse than “Brush with Oblivion”. If your curious to know why and aren’t already lobbing a harpoon at me for bashing an episode you liked, join me under the cut.

On PAPER this episode sounded really good. Negaduck trying to seduce Morgana back to crime and in general after Darkwing once again neglected her is not at all a bad premise and the in episode conflict of Darkwing’s obnoxious supscioson of his girlfriend being an ex con, COULD’VE been really interesting. But there’s a reason Could’ve was in all caps folks: This episode is not very well put together and it’s gender politics have aged like fine santa liquor left split in a bathtub surronded by toxic waste for 20 years, and tastes just as bad. Trust me I know. My colon still hasn’t recovered. So let’s get into WHY shall we?

So we open with a date in a graveyard with Darkwing and Morgana, unsuprisingly though Darkwing isn’t the fondest of their meal which... look like someone scrambled the Star-Spawn of Cthulu. He’s going to be pissed.. especially once I try some. Look i’m very curious and very hungry.

But things take a turn when Darkwing brings up diamonds, because he’s fully insensitive enough to bring them up in front of his girlfriend. She does take the truth in stride: he’s not proposing he’s simply hung up on a case of diamonds going missing, and no solution and thus might have to cut the date short. She offers to go with him but he shoots her down, saying the last time she helped she turned him into a rutabega.. instead of you know TRAINING her and helping her on her aim. Then the episode looses me.. and about how long into the episode are we exactly? Not taking the theme song into acount?

Yup. It takes around 2 minutes, with some change. for the episode to become absolutley terrible. But first off Morgana suddenly flies off the table claming he dosen’t trust her for being a former criminal and zaps him in vengance.. which is assualt. Cartoony assault sure but it still hurts and his reactoin is STILL pure feer as he’s turned into some kind of ball... I mean.. it’s not like he can’t fight crime like that. Some of the best have done it.

But still she goes to physical violence at the drop of a hat this episode and Darkwing seems more than a little afraid of that happening again. Just... wow. I thought, having finished the Legend of the Three Cablleros, i’d be done with writing so poor a character comes off as a domestic abuser, mental in that case phsyical here, but here we are. Now this is untetional so I don’t blame the writers as much.. but I still heft some blame on them for being SO bad at writing a woman that she can’t get angry without phsyically attacking her partner or grasping the implications there.

Oh and it gets worse. Yes, it somehow gets worse from “Morgana attacking darkwing for upsetting her”. Darkwing proves to be pretty vile himself, as when Morgana accuses him of not trusting her due to her criminal past.... he says “You know what they say once a crook always a crook. “

My.. fucking.. god.... the show is stacking unfortunate implications on top of itself like lego bricks. And yes attitudes towards prisoners were much worse back then, I get that. Dosen’t make it tolerable to HEAR someone spouting that bullshit, let alone our protaganist. And while it doesn’t make her right to shoot lighting at him, as she does after this or attack him before... it does mean he’s a massive, mentally abusive dick who refuses to trust his partner who reformed FOR HIM, just because she used to do crimes. It takes a special kind of bad writing to screw up so badly that two of your heroes are immensley unikeable in the span of minutes but they did. CONGRADULATIONS DUMBASS!

So yeah Morgana breaks up with him and he tries to go after her and Gosalyn, who was there the whole time with eek and squeak, decides she needs to get the two back together.

I mean at least Gosalyn MEANS well. As a result despite her helping them not being a good idea, she’s one of the most likeable characters in the episode. At least for now. The most likeable?

Yes. REALLY. Now granted he’s as much of a bastard as always; After seeing Morg’s tantrum he wants to seduce her back to evil to help with his diamond scheme, unsurprisingly he’s the one stealing them and his plan to do so.. is not all that bright as he fakes being good to get into her good graces.. forgetting that he’s going to need to show her he’s bad again for any of his plan to work, as during the climax i’ts revealed he’s using a candy company as a front for diamond smuggling. Now granted that.. is actually really clever as no one’s going to think to check a shipment of choclate boxes for diamonds unless their tipped off and he even mentions starting a candy company earlier, so that being his scheme dosen’t come out of left field and i’ts a clever misdirect that you’d THINK he was lying about the Candy Company. But while Negsy doesn’t’t escape the contagious case of stupidity everyone’s got this episode, he’s still entertaining as ever and Jim cummings manages to make saying “Well be the best of pals” pants crappingly terrifiying. So Negaduck is a delight as always even if his plan makes little sense, as his way of going about it is still clever: he fakes being good and both uses this to make darkwing jealous, thus making him seem irational, and to provide a shield and also forces himself on their valentine’s date. He even gets past Morgana rightfully beign supsicous by playing to her past. So yeah not the best plan OVERALL but damn if he still isn’t awesome. They visit a carnival, ah feels like home, though this one has a freak show where MORGANA feels like she’s home. After trying to fry Darkwing and making him look like the bad guy Negaduck manages to seperate the two in the tunnel of love then use darkwing’s own jackassery against him by claming he left saying once a crook always a crook. He hten.. comes on way too strong, first asking if she’s thought about going back to crime when they get back to her place and then isn’t resceptive when he just tries to fully turn on the charm. Oh and Darkwing walks in and thinks his gilrfriend is cheating despite her not returning Negaducks affections because he’s a douchebag. Gosalyn is in the house at the same time as after Negaducks earlier deception, Eek and Squeak flew her back to Morgana’s house to use the Necronomiduck, which talks like he just walked out of Beast’s house because of course he does, and gets a love potion.. which they accidently spray on Darkwing instead. So we do get one of the few GOOD parts of the episode where Darkwing acts all buddy buddy to negaduck and Negaduck even gets rid of him just by telling him to go jump off a cliff. And the combination of Drake acting all sachrine again, much like posiduck, and Negaduck’s clear annoyance and confusion is just comedy gold.

Sadly that ends and Drake returns and a fight breaks out with Morgana accidently freezing darkwing and when trying to freeze negaduck, he simpy reflects it back the obsconds with her ice cube.

While Gosalyn and co thaw her dad out, Negaduck explains the whole choclate scam and Morgana refuses and they fight, with Negaduck covering her in chocolate.. then darkwing when he shows up as you’d expect. Darkwing however has buzzsaw cufflinks, a wonderful 60′s batman type gag, and saves them both.. btu the love potion ends up on Gosalyn who covers her dad and possible step mom in frosting

Thankfully it wears off fast, and morgana gets the idea to put the love potion, which is air born into the gas gun, finally getting Darkwing to trust her and blasting Negaduck, then suckerpunching him when he gets close. Oh and despite her plan being VERY obvious , Darkwing STILL questions her flirting with the guy.

So the day is saved and we end with him questioning her order at dinner that night and her .. attacking him. And Gosalyng saying “Well you always hurt the ones you love”

Final Thoughts: .I do not like this episode. I do not like it on a moat, on a boat or with a goat or in any way shape or form even though that breaks the ryhme. Reviewing it only had me finding MORE problems with it. Morgana and Darkwing are so unsympathetic here, with her violence towards him making it seem like “Aw all couples are just the woman chasing the man around with the frying pan.. or lighting bolts in this case” even though that’s sexist as hell at BEST and makes light of domesdtic abuse towards men at worst. Darkwing gets off no better, being THAT kind of asshole who assumes just because someone used to be a criminal they always will be. Which even in pastiche makes no sense as I can name tons of superheroes, a who USED to be criminals or villians: Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Luke Cage (Before becoming a superhero), Scott Lang Ant-Man, Hal Jordan Green Lantern, Cassandra Cain, Simon Baz, Mach 10, Songbird, Quicksilver, Rogue, Wonder Man, and Emma Frost. And that’s not getting into the number of heroes, including many on this list, who went evil fo ra bit and came back from it.. some of whom are on this list. Usually his black and white insanity schick works but the episode does nothing to punish him for it and instead makes Morgana seem just as irrational by attacking him.

While this episode dosen’t use the love potion badly, thank god, with morgana even calling it a bad idea.. i’ts all I can give it outside of negaduck. The love potion and negaduck gags are both great.. but everything else is just so toxic and odious it makes it very hard to enjoy. And so.. this wins the DUBIOUS honor of being the worst Darkwing Duck episode i’ve seen so far. The plot’s weak, filled with horrible outdated ideas even by the time this was made, and no one is likeable, even Negaduck wears out his once he starts getting a bit too pushy with morgana. All in all a waste of potetial and a good episode. Until the next rainbow, this episode can step on a rusty railroad spike and get tetnus.

#darkwing duck #drake mallard #gosalyn mallard #morgana macawber #negaduck #jim staring #disney #disney plus #valentine's day #ducks

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linkspooky · 4 years

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The Characters of Nisioisin (3)

Trickster - Kaiki Deishuu

Nisioisin often uses and reuses a lot of common character archetypes in his writing. An analysis on his common use of liars, thieves and cheats by comparing and contrasting the differences between Kumagawa, Iichan and Kaiki. More underneath the cut.

A. Defining the Trickster

Already covered in this post.

1. Introduced as a Villain

In the story proper Kaiki is introduced to us as the opposite of Araragi. If Araragi is the person who saved Senyjogahara’s heart, then Kaiki is the one who broke her heart. If Araragi is a hero who saves everyone, Kaiki is a callous villain who cons people and doesn’t seem to care about the consequences for those he cons.

Their interaction with every character they both interact with is the opposite. Araragi helps Senjyogahara, Kaiki stole her money and ruined her family home even though they are both positioned as people Senjyo once loved and thought of as a savior. Araragi saved Nadeko from the curse of the snake, whereas Kaiki is indirectly responsible for her being cursed due to selling curse charms to middle schoolers.

Araragi heroically faces off against Gaen to defend his sister, while Kaiki is the one who sold the information about Tsukihi’s location to Gaen in the first place for a quick buck. In every instance, Araragi saves, Kaiki cons.

Kaiki is also one of the few characters that Araragi shows an open disdain for. Araragi who is usually a very passive protagonist, and will go with the flow and talk casually with people who have beaten him half to death and is overly forgiving outright despises Kaiki on sight.

However, it’s important to remember that Kaiki calls himself a villain when making his first introduction to Araragi. He intentionally places himself as the villain so that Araragi can play the hero, even calling him “Manly”, “Cool” and “Grown-up” for doing so, implying again that Kaiki is his opposite. Kaiki however is a liar, and when he calls himself a villain intentionally that also is a lie.

2. Subverts Expectations

Everything we learn about Kaiki in his first introduction in Niseimonogatari is inverted later on. He is a character who exists to play upon other people’s expectations and cast everything into doubt. There’s even a meta aspect to this, originally Koimonogatari was foreshadowed to be Senjyogahara’s narration debut only for Kaiki to take the mantle of narrator from Araragi instead.

Ladies and gentleman, dear readers and all of you who picked up this book expecting Hitagi Senyjogahara to be the narrator have been duped. The lesson you should take home from this is every sentence ever written down by a book is bogus.

-Koimonogatari

Koimonogatari is a book that exists to flip everything set up by Nisei. It is a book where the villain saves the girl (Nadeko) whereas the hero is someone almost completely helpless the whole story (Araragi). You could even say that it’s Araragi’s actions which created the problem for Nadeko, as his complete ignorance of her, and his coddling of her helped push her to want to become a god.

Koimonogatari also starts a turning point in the series, where Araragi who had been a straightforward hero until this part starts to have his character deconstructed. Araragi who is constantly remarked upon as a hero who tries to save everyone, we find out that in Owarimonogatari is not only are there people he never even made an attempt to reach out to and help (Sodachi Oikura), but that Araragi is someone who uses obfuscation and self-deception to cover up his bad traits. He is someone who cares far more for the appearance of being good and helping others, then the actual work of helping others. This is again an idea that is set up in the intro to Koi.

Humans have a desire for truth. or they have a desire to believe what they know is the truth. Kaiki brings up the example of the higgs boson particle that moves faster than light. Plenty of people will find this change in the truth alarming, even though most normal human beings aren’t physicists and won’t even bother to look at the math or data that proves the Higgs-Boson particle and will just read the headlines and take other physicists at their word.

People often care more for the image of something, than the actual thing. That’s true for Araragi as well who isn’t as noble as he appears to be and is for all intents and purposes a normal people. Kaiki is presenting us with the image of himself as a villain, because that is general is easier to accept then viewing himself as a more complicated person. Kaiki also, prefers to view himself as a villain rather than what he really is, which is a failure.

Araragi uses obfuscation to hide his bad traits, but as his foil, Kaiki always desires to hide his good traits. The reason being that Kaiki as a person when he acts with good intentions, things always tend to go opposite of the way he planned them. Kaiki feels in control when he lies, he can control others by lying to them, manipulating them, duping them, but reality is something entirely out of his control. He can try to save someone only to have the completely opposite effect.

“You tore apart the Senjyogahara - and backed her parents into a corner from which divorce was the only way out - because nothing else was going to work, right? You judged that the only daughter would have no future if you didn’t cut her mother off from the family.” “Uh huh, that’s right. I was actually a standup guy. A real sweetheart, just looking out for a kid. I was only putting on a show of being nefarious. You’ve got all the details, don’t you? You’re really well informed. But don’t tell anyone, okay? It’s embarrassing.”

-Koimonogatari.

Kaiki is ultimately someone afraid to be good. That’s his weakness. He knows his good intentions are not guaranteed to produce good results, and he can’t face himself when his failures spiral out of his control so it’s easier to present himself as a villain. Kaiki, much like Iichan only feels comfortable when he’s deceiving everyone around him. He exists to subvert other people’s expectations because it’s a way of grabbing back control, in a world that Kaiki is mature enough to realize by now is completely out of his control.

3. A Lying Liar Who Lies

When Kaiki said every word written down in every book ever are lies, what he’s talking about is narrative. People who see the world in narrative view are applying a lens to reality to make it more palatable and easy to understand for them. Once again, they are preferring to hold onto images and preconceptions, the idea of the truth rather than the truth itself. It’s true that books are like reality, but people will often craft a narrative about reality in order to believe everything has direction, meaning, and a purpose when there is none.

Kaiki is also one of those people. He embraces crafting narratives, and telling lies because it gives him this idea of control he otherwise would not have. Kaiki is someone who doesn’t have a lot of control over his own life. If you take him for his word in the book he has almost no background, no family, he’s legally dead, and he’s a wandering vagabond that never remains in the same place for long. Kaiki’s way of reclaiming that stability and agency is to always craft a narrative around himself wherever he goes. He’s the one in control because he’s conning everyone else around him at all times. He acts like he always has all the cards in his hands, and he’s the smartest person in the room, because he can’t admit how afraid he is of not being that. Of being vulnerable.

Kaiki goes one step further not just by calling himself a liar, but believing the whole world is made up of lies. He’s not just a fake, everyone is. A world of fakes desperately struggling to be real.

“The second you say it out loud to someone, it deviates from your true feelings. All words are lies, it’s all a scam. No matter how true, the moment you utter it, it becomes embellished. Words are only representations, so impurities find their way in. If you want to make a wish, to make it exactly as it is, you absolutely mussn’t say it aloud.” - Koimonogatari

Yes, Kaiki I’m sure this speech has nothing to do with your fear of ever letting your intentions be known.

This is also something Iichan directly calls out in his own struggles with lies, the truth, and the trust in other people you have to find between them.

Hime-chan said everything was a lie. I agree, that must be the truth. But- really. Really, really, really you know. If this world were like what Hime-chan said, if this world were like what I think. We would not be suffering like this. Do you get it? If everything is a lie and there is not one ounce of truth - if ther is nothing of comparison, then everything ends up being the truth, too. - Zareogoto Vol. 3

Kaiki is able to call out Nadeko’s assertion that everyone in the world is a liar, everyone was misleading her and leading her on so easily because that is the same narrative lens he applies to the world to cope with it.

Let’s return to the Senyjogahara household again. Basically imagine you're Kaiki, a homeless man with no family who spends all of his time in luxury hotels and you're watching what looks like an ideal happy household. They are a rich loving family, with a good marriage, and their daughter is basically the school idol. What you Kaiki would call “Normal Law Abiding Citizens” the kind of life he could only dream of.

Traditionally held values say that these people should be happy forever, because they're good people doing the right thing. But the things the world tells us have meaning, are secure, have no meaning at all and easily fall apart.

So, he watches this good family, get struck by misfortune and fall apart. The loving mother sells her daughter to a cult basically, even though she originally joined the cult because of her daughter's sickness.

Now what's an easier story to swallow? That good people do bad things and good circumstances can easily turn bad for no good reason at all.

Or is it easier, and more meaningful to swallow that Kaiki showed up, conned them, caused the parents to get a divorce and therefore he's the villain in the scenario. By being the villain he turned the scenario into a story, he gave it meaning.

The first time I met Hitagi Senjogahara - two years ago, in other words - I thought to myself, What a fragile-seeming kid. Of course, back then Senjyogahara was afflicted with her mysterious ailment, which is why her devout mother had summoned me, flying the flag of the ghost buster as I was. But even without the ailment business, I thought she seemed “fragile.” The impression hadn’t changed. Fragile. [...] Fragile, on the edge of fragmentation. Which is exactly why her current self was a miracle. A mysterious ailment followed by a miraculous achievement - for someone who seemed so breakable to make it so far without ever breaking, not two year sago, not now, for eighteen years - The mother broke. But the daughter Didn’t. -Koimonogatari

So Kaiki says he thought Senjyo and her mother were fragile, but he probably thinks that about everybody. He's cynical and disaffected because he's seen this kind of thing happen again and again. That's why he tells lies, that's why he manipulates, it gives him the illusion of control over a world not only him, but no one else has any control at all.

There are two sides to the story of Kaiki’s perception of Senjyo. First, that people are more fragile than you think they are. Even if you come from a good household, have a loving husband, and have money you can break. The second is that people are less fragile than Kaiki thinks they are. Even if your mother turns against you, you lose your money, status, and family you still might not break. Both of these things are true at the same time, people are both more and less fragile. There are truth, and lies, and even Kaiki is unable to face reality directly because he prefers to stare into lies and shrowd himself in them then ever confront the truth.

4. Themes of Nihilism

Kaiki case believes everything is worthless and everything will be eventually lost so he thinks it's pointless to cling to things. However, that doesn’t have to be an inherently negative idea. Nihilism the rejection of the idea of inherent meaning, is also something that can lead to creating meaning which is where we get existential nihilism.

Nihilism is the precursor to existentialism. To find your meaning in life you have to first reject the meanings that other people give you.

With respect to the universe, existential nihilism posits that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. The meaninglessness or meaning of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism.

He basically tells Nadeko that he likes money because the value of money is something entirely made up by people and yet it’s still something that has value.

Kaiki loves replacable things while at the same time hating irreplacable ones, because he hates the way people tend to cling to things forever. Almost like, Kaiki himself is someone who always clings to his first love that he lost over ten years ago and doesn’t try to love anyone else, or find anyone else and Kaiki hates himself.

Existential nihilism also means rejecting what society tells you to think has value, because you have to reject first before you can come up with your own meaning. Which is literally exactly what he guides Nadeko to do, he tells her to reject the thing which she thinks gives her life meaning, her love of Araragi and then find a new meaning instead in being a mangaka. and that she can do this because everything is worthless therefore she can try anything.

He also suggests that the work of having to create her own meaning to life, and follow her own dream, will make her far more satisfied than simply following the job of a god which was given to her by someone else.

Humans are always changing their minds about what has value and that makes them human and Kaiki thinks that's a wonderful thing, that's existential nihilism, they're always inventing new meaning. Kumagawa is someone who always loses, but he tries again an infinite amount of times, and that struggle to keep trying again and again is what makes him human in Kaiki’s mind. It’s not the result, not the happiness or sadness, but rather in the constant searching for meaning that defines yourself. Once again. Kaiki sees the freedom in that. There is nothing in life that will make you truly happy, there is no meaning to life, but there’s freedom because it means you can try as many times as you want.

Everything is worthless. Everything will eventually lost. However, because of this it also means that you’re never going to lose something that will destroy you permanently. Because the things you were holding onto were worthless in the first place, you can always try to replace them. You can always try again and find something else. There is no ending that will permanently end you, there’s no loss you cannot suffer. Araragi is not really that important to Nadeko, she can live without him, she was only giving him that importance. This is also the compelte and exact opposite of Iichan’s a fatal would speech.

Iichan is someone so terribly afraid to hold onto anything, because he feels the process of trying over and over again at something he’ll never succeed at is going to completely destroy him.

And Kaiki would tell Iichan the same way that he tells Nadeko that him constantly stumbling over his own actions and trying to find meaning in them, is something in itself that has meaning. That's what makes him human, his search for meaning. But philosophically Iichan isn't there yet. He's still a little baby nihilist. Tiny. Infant. He hasn't grown up yet.

“A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy

[Albert Camus]

So if you were to put iichan at one end as the baby nihilist, and Kaiki as the adult (kind of) nihilist then the adolescent Kumagawa would be right in the middle. That’s the way to compare the three, Kaiki is a mature adult who has figured out the way he wants to live his life, Kumagawa is someone constantly in flux like an adolescent, desperately struggling to reach the point where Kaiki is where he’s decided how he’s going to live and not quite there yet and therefore always doubting himself. Finally, Iichan is a child who wants to cling onto his immaturity and his completely wrong views of the world because he doesn’t want to face them or have to change. All three of them are liars, and but the lies they tell are different and that brings us to the end of this comparison.

#kaiki deishuu #monogatari #niseimonogatari #koimonogatari #nisioisin #nisio meta #monogatari meta

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toboredtoanything · 4 years

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Aladdin

Hey guys! This ask is for @princeasimdiya12. I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Stan (Gravity Falls) during his time alone gets into some trouble, getting him tossed into water while bound and gagged.

Warnings: Dark themes, pg-14 level violence descriptions, descriptions of drowning

Might be heavy for some peeps.

Aladdin

Stan grins widely as he takes in his appearance in the mirror.

His hair, which has been styled in a mullet since his high school days, is pulled back into a low ponytail.

His white and gold costume accentuates his form, which while isn’t in peak condition, is still strong and sturdy.

He places an over the top hat onto his head and beams at his reflection.

“Aladdin is sure to pick up the ladies,” he says to himself. “It’s also ironic, since I will be pick pocketing from them the whole night!”

He laughs to himself, grabbing his wallet and keys.

He quickly makes his way to the venue of the Halloween party he’d barely been invited to.

He only got the invite because the host’s sister was guilty she’d hit him with her car.

In reality, Stan had staged the event, in hopes of getting her number. He thought he could get her with his latest scam. She looked wealthy, as it were.

Then again, for him, practically everyone looked wealthy in California.

He parks and quickly gets out of the beat up car, practically strutting into the lounge house, located right on the beach, closest to a privately owned pier.

He enters and immediately gathers attention. The Halloween party was full of monsters and animals, a mix of disgustingly realistic ones, as well as the outfits that barely concealed any of a persons skin. Just horny adults playing dress up as an excuse to dress slutty.

Stan has to admit he prefers them over the zombies and skinwalkers, however.

Girls flock over each other at the handsome stranger in an Aladdin costume.

Stan winks at a group of girls wearing fishnet tights and shorts, only a small patch of grey fabric containing their upper bodies as they flaunt white poofs they’d attached to the exposed skin of their lower backs.

‘Bunnies,’ Stan laughs to himself. ‘Hardly original.’

He quickly finds a target. A young brunette who already looks close to the tipping point of an alcoholic meltdown.

She sways slowly along with a fast paced rock song- hardly a song for swaying.

He approaches her and takes note of every valuable on her person.

She’s dressed like a genie, her hair in a high ponytail, scantily clad body in loose fitting pants and a cropped shirt that barely reaches the bottom of her rib cage.

She grins up at him through her lashes and he has to bite back surprise as she slowly falls into him.

He glances around, but no one takes notice.

He quickly pulls her closer to himself and starts to run his hands up her arms.

She sighs happily as she continues to sway to the song.

“What’s your wish?” She slurs.

Stan only then pauses and thinks about the irony of finding this girl to target.

Their costumes go well together.

He smirks. “How about you and I find a quiet spot, and I’ll tell you all of them?”

She leans back and nods at him eagerly.

She takes his hand and leads him to a corner of the room with couches and a singular table.

The remnants of an unfinished game of beer pong crowds the table, so Stan leads her to one of the couches.

On his way, he grabs another cup of something obviously high in alcohol content.

He hands her the cup and she shakes her head slightly.

“No. I.” She pauses, frowning. She shakes her head and then smiles. “I’m good.”

“How about this then,” Stan starts. “My first wish is for you to drink this and then we can talk about my other wishes.”

Their conversation goes on like this until she’s passed out on the couch. In a few quick motions, Stan is leaving her on the couch, covered in a blanket.

He pockets a bracelet and a necklace.

Now Stan is a man of art, cons, and talent. He isn’t one to resort to thieving unless truly desperate.

He thinks he’s gotten away with it to, until a hand is on his shoulder, turning him abruptly. He lets out a brief noise of protest before a fist is driven into his nose.

“Saw that!” A male voice says. Another fist collides with his face.

His eyes are scrunched up from the pain, but he blinks it away as much as possible.

Opening his eyes he jolts back, narrowly missing another punch.

He bites back a comment as he makes a quick decision.

Within a second, he’s on the ground rolling around with the tall blond who’d punched him.

Another pair of hands grab him and yank him off.

“What the hell, man?”

The blond stands up quickly, spitting blood onto the ground in front of Stan.

“This guy was stealing from Kate!”

The man who’d pulled Stan off then rounded on him. His dark eyes narrow, glaring at Stan.

“What the fu-“

“I don’t know what he’s talking about. I saw that girl over there and put a blanket over her so she’d be more comfortable. Nothing more.” Stan jabs a thumb towards the blond, anger evident in his body language. “He just started hitting me.”

“Empty your pockets then.”

The dark skinned man shoots his friend a look. “Pete, calm down. How many have you had?”

The man- Pete -looks to his friend with disbelief in his eyes. “Are you saying you believe this guy?”

“I’m saying you’re drunk and could have misinterpreted what you saw. Move along.”

The blond spits at Stan once more, before stalking off in anger.

Stan looks to the guy that saved his neck.

“Thanks.”

The man hums, walking away.

Several hours later, Stan thinks to take his leave, pockets full of more than enough goods to get him out of the state and away from view of the cops - for now.

He exits the lounge, heading towards his car.

Pain suddenly erupts in his skull as he drops to his knees, his vision darkening.

The blond man, Pete, grins at Stan.

“I know what you did. You wanna be a thief? Then I’ll treat you like one, Aladdin.” Pete says the name with disgust and anger, sarcasm dripping from his lips like honey.

A sickening crunch sounds as the man punches Stan once again in the nose.

Darkness blooms around Stan and he loses consciousness.

***

Stan comes to, cold.

His Aladdin costume had been ripped open, probably caused from being drug along the ground.

His hat had been lost ages ago, in the midst of the first brawl.

Now his jacket lay heaped in a pile, spots of it red and brown from blood- both old and new.

Stan lets out a groan as a foot is placed on his chest.

Only then does Stan realize a few things.

One, his hands and legs are bound tightly; each movement causes his body to scream in protest as it felt as though his limbs would snap in half.

Two, his breathing and talking is muffled due to a gag wrapped around his mouth.

Three, he’s on a wooden dock, the lounge a few lights in the distance, music still blaring.

He shivers in his undershirt.

His pockets had also been emptied.

The foot moves.

“It’s guys like you that make me sick,” Pete says, coming into view. “You’re pathetic!”

Stan struggles to speak with the gag in his mouth.

“You’re the pathetic one!” He tries to say, but it sounds more like “Oar ta pa-etic un.”

This causes Pete to grin.

“Right,” he says. “And you just found all of this jewelry on the floor.”

Stan stays silent.

“Come on! You seem like a tough guy! What’s the matter? Can’t think of anything to say?”

Pete kicks Stan in the stomach, causing Stan to curl up on his side, his arms still painfully pinned behind his back.

Stan groans, getting to his knees. Pain shoots from his neck to his lower back, a bruise forming.

The man, obviously drunk, slurs and stumbles around a second before his eyes lock onto Stan once more.

“I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Stan rolls his eyes right before everything seems to speed up and Stan is submerged underwater.

The first thing he feels is the cold. The water freezes him to the core, shutting out any ability to feel warm. His bones begin to hurt as he feels them grow stiff.

Struggling to keep the salt water out of his mouth, which is practically impossible with the gag he’s wearing, he recalls what just happened.

Pete had used an unsteady foot to kick into Stan’s back, kicking him over the side of the dock face first.

The next thing he feels is panic. His eyes burn but he keeps them open, trying to see into the murky water for the surface.

Once he realizes which way is up, his head dizzy from the disorientation, he tries to swim that way, thrashing around desperately.

His thrashing does no good however, only making him tired, his movements sluggish.

Stan sinks like a stone, his heavy pants acting like a weight. The rope around his arms strangle and prevent him from moving them; he simply feels the strain of trying, pain as he almost tears his arm out of the socket from the sheer force he’s using.

He kicks his legs, but they stay roped together. Drunk as he might have been, Pete knew how to tie a knot.

His gag doesn’t help the situation, now thoroughly soaked through, allowing cups of water to force its way down his throat, despite his attempts to keep it out, holding his breath.

The salt coats it, causing a burning feeling like liquid fire to consume him. He gags on instinct, heaping more water into his lungs.

The final thing he feels is dread. The certainty of death. The slow creep of fingers clawing at his mind, scratching and tearing until everything is a mess, memories and thoughts blurring together as he struggles to keep his wits about him.

Darkness presses against him from all sides as he sinks, his head swimming with the lack of oxygen.

Just when Stan feels he can’t hold on any more, his vision fades once again.

He feels weightless, vision darkened, but consciousness still present.

The water caresses his body and he feels acceptance. He’d only ever been a burden to his family anyway.

It’s not like they’d miss him.

He hadn’t talked to any of them in years.

A slow regret washes over him at this thought.

‘I wish I could at least say goodbye.’

His last conscious thought is of his twin brother, Ford.

‘I’m sorry.’

***

Stan coughs violently, jerking upright on a sandy beach. Water falls from his mouth, as he rolls over on to his stomach, leaning heavily on his hands and knees.

His wrists are sore and dry blood encases where the rope had burned him, chafing his skin.

His pants had prevented severe injuries to his ankles, but they still felt on fire.

The salt from the water lapping at his body doesn’t help.

He coughs again, fire searing his throat which had been rubbed dry by the saltwater. He splutters, the water exiting his lungs finally done draining.

He gasps a few times, drawing in oxygen greedily, his lungs burning for air.

His entire body feels raw and aching. His head pounds with a vengeance, as if angry at Stan himself for the lack of oxygen it’d been receiving.

Stan finally calms himself, his breath regulating in slow pants.

He looks around and sees no evidence of what had gotten him out of the water, let alone what could have released him from his bonds.

He rubs his face, where the gag had forcefully held his mouth open at an awkward angle, his jaw aching with each movement.

Stan lays back down, understanding that he’d only fall if he tried to stand.

Closing his eyes, he relishes the feeling of the sun on his body, warmth seeping into the cold of his bones.

Whatever had just happened, Stan feels grateful that he is still alive.

He still has a chance.

‘I’m going to get my life together and I’m going to make you proud, Ford. I just wanna make you proud.’

#gravity falls #Stan pines #gravity falls fanfiction #Stan pines fanfiction

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ziracona · 3 years

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I don't think that anyone has asked yet, so how's Ace, nea and Min doing after the events in ILM? What do they choose to do??

Really well!

Ace has a lot of money in gold, so he basically retires. Invests some, saves some, does some charity work, and also finds and cons rich people into paying exorbitant money for realm collectible souvenirs so he can have more money to put to a good use. Looks after the girls, visits his family and gives them money, travels a lot. They keep the Indiana house, but I think end up with one or two other small homes in other countries. Usually them out cheap to college students or people in need whenever they aren’t living there.

Min goes back to pro esports for a year, but decides she’s kind of over it. Starts a twitch channel instead, and a patreon. Gets hugely popular off existing fame from gaming and the realm, and is known for her wild commentaries and agressive playstyle. Twitch streams a bunch of stuff with Nea too. Takes her money to buy her friends gifts and go places, but also uses some of it to help people and causes she cares about. Nea does art, and gets some of her murals into a gallery and is super happy. Even with fame, it’s not exactly what should be a life-sustaining job, but Min and Ace don’t really give a damn and pay for homes. Nea feels bad about this, but Min is like “Brah like. You get how wack it is that you spend hours doing labor and hard work to make paintings with spray paint, while I get on Twitch and play Witcher for two hours and make more than you do a day, right? You’re not lazy shits just fucked, and we can’t change that but like, fkn don’t feel bad economy is what it is. I’m not doing anything more valuable or hard than you are, and I love your stuff, and I make you do Twitch with me so you should get a cut of that too anyway. Never feel bad people don’t appreciate art as much as they should. Get mad if you want, but if you stare thinking you suck because I can make a shit ton by having name recognition and wearing a cute top while I shoot zombies, I will smack you and then make you go on a romantic trip to feel better for a whole week.” And she feels a lot better, and decides to try to branch out and learn more and improve herself as an artist and find what exactly she might want to do with it.

Both girls get pretty invested in trying to help programs for girls, and then just teens in general, with bad home lifes, and helping them to safer situations and more opportunities for the future. Ace has a lot of money, Nea some, and Min quite a bit, but they’re not like, /loaded/—like, Park-Family loaded, so, they have quite a bit to spend, but still have to think and pay attention too. And they try to. They splurge on trips and fun times, but buy cheap stuff at home and Ace forced himself to be responsible with a savings account, and all three hate the idea of having to learn to do money responsibly, but they do. And, with that, figure out how to sustain and plan and still have plenty they can donate where they think it’s needed. Nea and Meg have a conversation one night about how weird it is to have /some/ money when they were both dirt poor before, lose their minds over an idea they get, and then spend the next week tracking down online friends and old pals irl, and people who like, were kind to then when they were younger, or helped out Meg’s Mom when she needed that, and give each one a thousand bucks. Which should have kinda cleaned those two out a little, but David is like *coughs inconspicuously, hides money in a drawer so they can think they just had more all along* and gives them some in support of how sweet that is and becuase while he is a rich boy, he’s a real decent man and he’s doing his best. (They pick almost 30 people between them, so give away 30,000 dollars as thanks for being a friend or kind, sometimes to nearly complete strangers. This is paid for with their supply of cash from their realm gold, which Ace helped both sell for more then face value to collectors. For several survivors, it’s like winning a baby lottery and suddenly having a couple thousand to couple hundred thousand Gs, and for most of them that’s like, buy a house, pay off my parents’a mortgage, lose my student loan debt, plus some left over for future life, hella life-changing kind of money. And so Nea and Meg are like “Yooo! We could actually kinda help old friends like we always used to want to! And it turns into this. So like—Lots of people on like, Meg’s ancient Percy Jackson RP forum getting “hey u got PayPal?” PMs for a chick they were tight with fifteen years ago and are like “?? Scam huh.” And take some real convincing, then live out a great but surreal next week. Min gets in on this too, but she only had like one friend, rip.)

In a lot of ways, both girls and even Ace are still find in themselves though. Regrettably I don’t know what anyone from ILM does after the first like 5-10 years, so I’m not sure how it ends up—yet anyway—but they’re a solid support system and loving family, and I think whatever direction they end up choosing, they’re gonna do just fine.

#ask #anonymous #in living memory (fic)#in living memory #ILM spoilers #dead by daylight

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hellzyeahwebwielingessays · 4 years

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The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 16: MJ is being extremely selfish

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Last time I pointed out how its a false equivalency to claim being Spider-Man’s lover is no more dangerous than working with Mysterio.

This time out I will detail how MJ is, at least arguably, being extremely selfish in AMJ #1. Specifically, selfish in regards to her career. To explain how and why though we’re going to have to delve into MJ’s life priorities, in particular how she views her marriage to Peter.

There are various scenes in AMJ #1 that at least imply she is:

Leveraging her silence to improve her character’s role in Mysterio’s movie

Impressed/excited to be working on the movie

Hoping the film will serve her future career prospects well; possibly by opening up the possibility of a spin-off for her character.

When taken in context of the story it can come across as though MJ’s sincere enthusiasm for making the films, and her hopes It will aid her career, are factors in her keeping quiet about Mysterio.

That in addition to any hypothetical sympathy she might possess for Beck/his crew, any hopes they could use his opportunity to reform (or at least contribute something positive to the world), she is also thinking about herself.*

On the other hand that might not be the intent by Williams, Gomez. Or it might not be how the story pans out.

But for the sake of argument let’s pretend it is. In that case then it would be yet another (perhaps the worst) example of mischaracterization in the entire story.

Let me spell it out for you plainly.

Mary Jane would NEVER prioritise her career prospects over the potential safety and well being of innocent people.

Never.

I’d have thought that was obvious but apparently it’s yet another thing that needs to be proven with evidence. Thankfully I have just such evidence.

The first and most obvious reason for why this is utterly out of character for MJ links back to something I mentioned earlier. Specifically in part 9.

We know MJ understands and puts into practice Peter’s underlying life lesson, that she herself tries to live by it in her own way. Peter, pretty much from the day his uncle died, has strived to be selfless in general, in particular in regards to his hero duties. Indeed it is this selflessness that so often strained his romantic relationships, which included his one with MJ.

It is therefore not believable that for her own financial or career interests MJ would be so lenient with criminals or allow them to operate essentially freely with no accountability. At best this is still fairly similar to what Peter did in Amazing Fantasy #15.

One might argue that MJ just values her career thatmuch. That she has had such struggle so hard to make it work in the past that this opportunity is something she doesn’t want to let slip by.

This then calls into question just how much MJ values her career in the grand scheme of things, so let’s take yet another dive into history lesson to examine that.

In ASM #303 Peter was offered a great new job, the catch being that it was in Kansas. This would not only entail moving to that state but also MJ potentially giving up her beloved modelling career. MJ was forced to question what was more important to her, her career or her marriage.

Ultimately she decided it was her marriage, though thankfully Peter opted to turn the job down for her sake.

Another example can be found in ASM #502, which transpires not too long after Peter and MJ have gotten back together following a separation. Immediately following their reconciliation MJ took a break from her fledging acting career, having just starred in a super hero movie, Lobster Man. She did this in order to move back to NYC and work things out with Peter. In this issue though she raises the topic of returning to work (which would involve spending a lot of time in L.A.) but qualifies she won’t if it would risk harming their relationship.

More recent stories maintain this characterization, such as ASM v5 #29 which actually leads directly into AMJ. In the issue MJ clearly wants to take up the role in Mysterio’s movie offered to her. But she is also torn because it would entail leaving Peter for a long while. Peter, aware of her feelings, reluctantly encourages her to go. It is heavily implied this encouragement is at least an important factor in MJ’s decision to pursue the role, but even then she raises the idea of changing her mind.

To jump back in time a little, Sensational Spider-Man v2 #32 provides us with our final example of how MJ values her relationship with Peter over her own career.

In the issue MJ is dealing with the ramifications of Peter unmasking to the world and consequently (along with MJ and Aunt May) going on the run when the Super Human Registration Act was enforced.

Pushed to her wits end and wrestling with her life falling apart MJ is frustrated by her loss of status and career. However, by the issue’s end she’s come to terms with her new status and reaffirmed her commitment to her husband.

For sure, these are not a 1:1 equivalent to the situation under discussion. In AMJ we’re talking about MJ’s career vs. her sense of justice and in the above examples the question is between her career vs. her marriage.

It’d be fairly easy to argue that obviously MJ values her marriage more than her career, as Peter himself does too. Surely most people in healthy relationships have similar priorities?

But by the same token wouldn’t common sense dictate that if MJ was willing to give up her career for the sake of a relationship she’d also be willing to give it up for something that, in the grand scheme of things, is actually much more important; namely people’s lives?

After all, Peter may well give up his heroic duties for the health of his loved ones, but he wouldn’t do it simply to retain a relationship with them. This is evidenced in ‘Maximum Carnage’ when Peter reluctantly goes against MJ’s wishes of taking a break due to Carnage attacking the city, a fact MJ ultimately accepted.

This shows us that, as hard as it can be for Mary Jane, she believes in the need for Spider-Man in the world (to protect the innocent and apprehend crooks) and places the importance for that over her relationship with him.

She might not like it, but she recognizes the greater good.

This sentiment is further corroborated in ASM v2 #50, wherein MJ and Peter try to patch up their marriage. In the conversation MJ outright states that she never wanted nor expected Peter to place her above his duties, and that she never wanted to interfere with them.***

MJ’s recognition that her and Peter’s relationship is ultimately trumped by Peter’s heroic duties is glimpsed again in ASM v5 #29.

MJ hopes Peter will accompany her to the airport before she departs for L.A. but Spidey stuff gets in the way. Whilst she admits him letting her down again upset her she also calmly acknowledges that his work was more important because he is saving the world/innocent lives.

What I’m saying is if MJ ultimately prioritizes Peter’s duties (and thus the well being of innocent people) over keeping her marriage in tact and also values keeping her marriage in tact over her career then obviously she prioritizes innocent lives over her career.

Or to put it more succinctly, MJ’s priorities read like this:

Innocent lives>Her marriage>Her career.

Additionally in Spider-Man Unlimited v3 #2 Mary Jane simply states outright that she values Spidey’s heroic duties as more important than her career.

In the story MJ ponders how it is ridiculous for her to be treated like royalty for being an actress whilst a hero like Spidey gets nothing.

She even denigrates her job in comparison to the importance his role as a hero is. Finally she voices upset about feeling useless in the face of what he does. Her upset is alleviated when Peter informs her that she is an important factor in enabling him to be a hero in the first place.

The story very clearly outlines that MJ places distinctly greater value on Peter’s role as a hero than her job in the entertainment industry.

It also arguably proves MJ on some level wants to contribute to Peter’s role as a protector of innocents and catcher of the guilty herself. In this regard it isn’t alone as some other stories arguably tap into that idea too.

In a part 9 I looked at how in Web Annual #6 MJ keenly participated in jury duty. This could be taken as evidence of MJ wanting to participate in the justice system as Peter (sort of) does. And if we return to ASM v2 #50 we can find a little more food for thought in the very moment Pete and MJ reconcile.

In the trade versions of the issue (which I admit brings the canonicity into question a bit) MJ reveals that the reason she separated from Peter was because she felt like she was unneeded in his life (as Spider-Man), that she wasn’t a part of it and that she couldn’t help.

This could be taken as a further example of how MJ in fact wishes to contribute to Peter’s ‘mission’ as it were, though I admit that isn’t a watertight argument.

Furthermore let’s consider a particular moment from AMJ #1 itself. As you might recall, MJ noticed the presence of super powered people and criminals on the film set along with her as well as how the director (Cage McKnight) was avoiding her.

This was in spite of writing the role for her, hiring her without an audition and insisting she be in the movie. MJ was suspicious and confronted McKnight demanding to know what kind of con he was pulling. Although he insisted it wasn’t a set up, his inability to provide any answers led to MJ quitting.

She stated she wasn’t an innocent, naïve, unsophisticated young actress who could be scammed with empty promises and promptly began to walk away.

Whilst it’s possible to argue that MJ was simply bluffing in order to know the truth, the likelihood is she seriously intended to leave.

Consider the fact that she has acknowledged the presence of criminals, the director literally running away from her and the questionable circumstances behind her hiring. Specifically she claims to have come to the conclusion that the film is not legitimate.

Do these preceding events really imply that MJ was merely bluffing? Unlikely, she can clearly tell something smells fishy and she’s at the centre of it somehow. Realistically, common sense would dictate not sticking around for the sake of your career, especially if you’ve concluded there isn’t actually a career opportunity to be had in the first place.

Mary Jane doesn’t know the specifics of the con. For all she knows she could be caught up in general crime, some kind technically legal Hollywood scam, a sinister plot connected to Spider-Man (which would technically be correct), yet another obsessed stalker or some kind of #MeToo moment waiting to happen.

Regardless, she was prepared to walk and potentially throw away any career opportunity she might have by sticking around.

If she was prepared to do that with the limited information she had then when she learns of the actual situation why would she stick around?

Now, you could argue that MJ is concerned for the careers and livelihoods of the crewmembers who are not criminals. But even this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because that’s the equivalent of caring about the people unknowingly employed by a crime lord. If the crime lord goes down they lose their jobs. That sucks, that’s horrible. But their jobs are obviously far less important than the potential lives and livelihoods of other innocent people Beck might harm.

Yes it’s a choice between lesser evils but it’s a necessary choice, and one the police make regularly. People can find new jobs, but lives are irreplaceable after all.

There is some food for thought supporting this too, gleamed from Spider-Man’s own actions.

In a story from Spider-Man Unlimited #11 a poor criminal (named Joe) with a wife and baby is apprehended by Spider-Man. He desperately begs Spidey to let him go for his family’s sake. Though Spidey takes in Joe’s words and is implied to believe him, he ultimately doesn’t agree. Harsh as it might be, he simply tells Joe he should have thought about his family before he broke the law.

At the issue’s end Peter is arguably upset by the experience, and yet he clearly didn’t change how he operated.

Later, in the Clone Saga, Ben Reilly was shocked to learn that his new lover, Jessica Carradine, was in fact the daughter of Uncle Ben’s killer. He learned that as a result of her father being caught by Spider-Man Jessica had a hard life growing up in foster homes. Peter and MJ were fully aware of the situation with Jessica and helped Ben work through his feelings.

It is important to note that at this time Ben, Peter and MJ all believed Ben was the original Peter Parker, the actual person bitten by the radioactive spider. This meant that as far as they knew Ben was the one who personally apprehended Jessica’s father.

In spite of this information though neither Peter nor Ben ever even considered changing how they operated as Spider-Man, nor did MJ ever suggest they do so in light of Jessica’s experiences

Finally in ASM v2 #55-56 Peter discovers that Melissa (a student he was teaching) was the younger sister of a criminal he apprehended named Joshua. Joshua’s capture had a negative effect upon the rest of his family. This included him keeping his distance after being released from jail. Peter learned that Joshua was hanging out with other reformed criminals under the eye of Ezekiel Sims, a friend of his who knew his identity. Ezekiel basically called Peter out for not checking in on the criminals he captured, nor their families.

Though Peter claimed this was an impossible task, by the story’s end he did at least consider trying to attempt the feat. He also informed MJ about this incredibly unique experience even in amidst his incredibly unique life, meaning it’s something she’d be likely to remember.

Noticeably though neither in the story nor thereafter, did Peter ever consider not bringing criminals in out of concern for the unintended consequences. In fact, upon learning the truth about Joshua’s group he still made it clear that if they did anything even slightly out of line he’d turn in the organization.

It’s clear from these examples that Peter believes that criminals are worth capturing even if there might be negatives consequences upon their families. It’s something he doesn’t like but his sense of justice places the greater good upon the innocent people who are or might be harmed by the criminals above the families more indirectly affected by the criminals going to prison. Logically the extension of this mentality is that Spider-Man prioritises preventing crime and apprehending criminals over the jobs that might be affected by their capture, because a family seeing one of their own sent to jail and struggling with their loss is obviously not as bad as simply losing your own job.

Once again I will remind you that MJ’s own sense of justice is extremely similar to Peter’s and in fact directly influenced by it. Thus it is very possible that MJ shares this sense of priorities.

But I will admit how much MJ is aware of these incidents and how much she directly applies them to herself can be debated. Nevertheless it’s at least something to consider. Even if you feel these examples are not really applicable to MJ, just real life common sense would dictate that you shouldn’t let dangerous criminals walk free just because you are costing (merely potentially) innocent people their current jobs. Even if they were blacklisted from Hollywood MJ could at least put in a word for them with her acquaintance, billionaire Tony Stark, who might be able to find them other work.

Moving on, next time we’re going to examine the fact that in AMJ Mary Jane is knowingly deceiving Peter.

*Note that they are contributing something important to the world through deceiving investors and using the identity and reputation of someone who hasn’t consented to any of that.

**It is worth bearing in mind that between Ben Reilly being Spider-Man at this time and MJ being heavily pregnant, her desire for him to remain retired was entirely sympathetic.

***Before anyone brings it up, yes, strictly speaking this is not true. Maximum Carnage alone seemingly contradicts this sentiment. But it’s fairly easy to argue that MJ’s dialogue here is speaking specifically about their marriage (not their pre-martial relationship) and excluding extenuating circumstances. Circumstances such as the immediate aftermath of Harry’s ‘death’, MJ’s pregnancy, and Peter being seriously injured. Alternatively it’s entirely possible to argue that MJ is speaking about how she feels deep down at the end of the day, not how she might’ve felt during off days where she was occasionally less understanding than others.

After all Peter himself deep down is dedicated to being Spider-Man but he has quit or contemplated quitting multiple times.

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#Leah Williams #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #MJ Watson #Amazing Mary Jane #Mysterio #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #quentin beck

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