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w2hazbin · 3 years

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“Addict” analysis by W2

(requested by @legionarebrainy)

The music video “Addict” was well-received by the fans of Hazbin Hotel and got a million views ridiculously fast. Besides the killer song and superb animation, it also gives us a closer look at Angel Dust, the only resident of the Happy Hotel.

So what exactly makes this video so great? Let’s take a closer look.

I think the start of the song is very telling:

“Till death do us part

But we're already past that phase

This is a brand new start

And I think I deserve some praise

For the way that I am

Despite having overdosed

And ending up comatose

I don't give a damn

I've let my emotions go

Fuck being a sober hoe”

So far, we don’t know much about Angel Dust besides that he was a gay man who died in the 1940s after an overdose. Angel is an asshole, but he is also a victim of fate since homosexuality was not exactly treated with... kindness back in the 40s. So when he ended up in Hell, he might have seen it as a possibility to start fresh since the sinners are free to do whatever the fuck they want and do not have to worry about consequences since, well... they are dead and in Hell. So Angel says “fuck being a sober hoe” and do all the drugs he wants since he can’t die of overdose, and he can have sex with as many dudes without worrying about the consequences.

Angel likes attention and clearly gets it as a “slut.” Like when he performs as a pole dancer. And his boss Valentino, one of Hell’s overlords, is one of his fans. We even see something that could be mistaken as chemistry of a sort between the overlord and Angel(it’s not, but we will get to that).

But the gleeful slut Angel Dust is a lie. We get tiny flashes of Angel’s life outside his performances.

We see Angel being miserable and that his apartment is a mess. Despite being a porn star, his apartment is shitty. His best friend Cherri Bomb is there and is trying to comfort him, but note that he has her back to her as if he is embarrassed. And Cherri also looks like she is unsure what to do since she knows that he doesn’t want what he would consider “pity.”

We also have a montage of Cherri running around while either blowing up buildings or setting them on fire. It seems random at first, as if she is just doing it for the (no pun intended) hell of it. But it is implied she is wrecking Valentino’s property, like strip clubs and signs advertising him. It could be her very aggressive way of being passive aggressive toward the scumbag who makes Angel’s afterlife a (I swear, it’s not on purpose) living hell.

We see how awful Valentino is as he takes most of the money Angel earns and then forces himself on him. Angel is trapped in an extremely unsexy and horrible situation where he is essentially Valentino’s toy.

It is also implied that Cherri had her fair share of abuse in the past from this part of the lyrics:

“Yeah, you fell in love

But you fell deeper in this pit”

That, and we see glimpse of a one-eyes demon that Cherri apparently doesn’t remember fondly. Someone who made her “fall deeper in the pit” if I’m guessing right. So perhaps she can relate to the abuse Angel is living through. She apparently taught Angel everything she knows about causing destruction, perhaps so he had a chance of rebelling against his abuser?

The fact that they burn down the strip club Angel performs in at the start of the video does seem like a giant fuck-you toward Valentino who owns the place.

But they do not accomplice much with these acts since Valentino is powerful and wealthy and can just rebuild that place. It’s probably more of an annoyance than anything else. What Angel and Cherri do is more or less the same as toilet-papering someone’s house. Sure, it is revenge, but it is a hollow victory since it won’t actually change much as you only annoy the person. Yeah, they get satisfaction of sticking it to Valentino, but it’s not like they do it to his face. And they shouldn’t, since he is an overlord demon and can make their stay in Hell worse than it already is.

The video ends with Angel at the Happy Hotel who clearly looks unhappy, but he pulls away when Charlie tries to reach out, he even flips her off. Rather heartbreaking since Charlie genuinely wants to help Angel without any hidden agendas, but Angel is too proud to admit that he might need help.

A nice detail is Angel’s room where we see dresses and wigs. Seems like he has a passion for Drag shows. So he must at some point have given up on being a drag queen and instead became a porn actor. That adds another layer to Angel’s tragic afterlife as we see what looks like a broken dream. So much for “brand new start.”

The video ends with what I consider Angel Dust’s “sober” moment:

“I’m addicted to the sorrow

and the buzz ends by tomorrow

There’s another rush of poison flowing into my veins

Giving me a dose of pleasure that resides by the pain”

So Angel knows that his lifestyle is hurting him. He is addicted to living in a way that makes him miserable simply because it gives him a temporary adrenaline rush that he knows won’t last for long.

The thing about living in pain is that it can be hard to consider that your life could be different, some even justify their pain, telling others that you are more than fine. And that’s exactly what Angel does, he brags to Charlie and Vaggie that he is a hot piece of ass and that everyone wants him, That he is a celebrity. But the truth is that he is the abused lapdog of one of the meanest bastards in Hell. Practically no one respects Angel at all. He even had to perform certain... services to his landlord before living in the Happy Hotel since he couldn’t pay his rent. But he graves the rush so badly that he sticks with the moth demon.

But there might be hope. Sure, he doesn’t actually think Charlie’s little experiment actually works, but: “Maybe things won’t be so terrible inside this hotel.”

#hazbin hotel #happy hotel #angel dust #cherri bomb #hh #charlie #CHARLIE MAGNE #charlotte magne #valentino #hell #addict #addict hh

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headcanontheshitoutofsoulsborne · 3 years

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Sekiro Chain 1

Original prompt: Kuro teaches Wolf how to play Shogi. Mun's note: I love how this chain turned out. Everyone did such an amazing job. Please show your apprecation for the characters by checking out their work and consider giving this chain a reblog.

@ghoulsteak

In Kuro’s tower, the summer air is warm and still. The sliding doors stand open to let what breeze there is pass through unimpeded. Sun streams in through the western door, painting a bright square across the tatami. Motes of dust spiral in the light.

Kuro can see Wolf from where he sits reading, a dim figure with only a foot caught in the sun, seated with his back to the opposite wall. It’s easy to forget he’s there, both because Wolf has been present in the corner of Kuro’s eye for a long time now and because being forgettable is a trait the shinobi has carefully cultivated.

He stands now and pads silently across the floor. Time for another inspection, Kuro supposes; another circuit around the tower’s perimeter (cliff side included), another quiet pass among the sun-streaked piles of books in the upper room. Wolf is always conscientious in his checking and rechecking, but today he seems to be wound even tighter than usual. On a day as beautiful as this one, that strikes Kuro as something of a shame.

As Wolf steps back inside from his patrol, Kuro sets down his book. “Wolf,” he calls. The shinobi’s head turns. “Would you like to play shogi with me?”

“I do not know how, my lord.”

“That’s no matter. I can teach you,” Kuro says.

Kuro himself learned from Owl. The old man taught him the game years ago while he lingered at the castle. He kept to himself whether was simply resting between outings or sniffing around amongst the servants and courtiers. Kuro has beaten him only once, and he suspects that the old man threw that game. He is as difficult for Kuro to read as his son is easy.

But still, he offers Wolf the same reason for learning as the Owl gave him. “They say shogi is good for the mind. It helps one practice strategy.” He knows Wolf struggles to justify doing things that don’t reap tangible results. The shinobi’s chief leisure activity, insofar as he can be said to have one, is sleeping. Wolf inclines his head in agreement.

Wolf seats himself across the table, and Kuro begins setting up the board. He explains the rules of the game to him; they’re a lot to take in, but he knows Wolf prides himself on only having to be told something once, and thus does not repeat himself. He listens in silence, nodding from time to time or interjecting with a murmured question, and they begin to play.

A minute and a half passes. Wolf loses.

“Hrm,” he says, brow furrowed. Kuro hides a smile with his sleeve.

“I didn’t think you’d want me to take it easy on you, Wolf,” he says.

A slight shake of the head. “Of course.”

“Again?”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Kuro offers him no advice. He doesn’t want to teach Wolf to play like him; even after three years’ worth of rainy days spent at the board, he suspects his own style is still too much like the Owl’s. He wants to see how Wolf plays shogi.

As they begin again, he watches the shinobi’s expression. Between turns, his gaze darts about the room, quicksilver eyes beneath a stone brow. His attention is divided a dozen different ways. This, rather than his inexperience, is why Kuro beats him again.

“Again?”

“Certainly.”

Perhaps, Kuro thinks, he should ask him to play next in a room with shuttered windows and a single, easily barred door. He can see the roots of Wolf’s technique, the shape of his quick, guarded mind beginning to describe itself upon the board, but he won’t let himself become immersed in the game. Wolf can’t let go of his awareness of the tower’s points of entry and escape, of the distance between the palm of his hand and the hilt of his sword.

Kuro begins to push Wolf’s slow offense back, intending to corner him on his own side of the board. Confident in his advance, he overreaches. Wolf capitalises on the chink revealed in his armour and cuts behind Kuro’s lines. As he finishes his move, he glances up at Kuro.

“Hah!” Kuro sits back in surprise, eyes alight. A hint of a smile runs along the furrows of Wolf’s face, and is gone just as quickly.

“I apologise, Wolf,” he says. “I underestimated you.”

Wolf inclines his head. “It is no matter.”

As the game continues to its close and the game after it begins, Kuro watches Wolf’s hold on his vigilance relax a little more. Perhaps there’s something comforting to him after all about a battle with no stakes, an enemy who wants nothing more than to pass a summer afternoon.

@dragonbasket

@fateoftheundead

“Are you ready, Wolf?”

Sekiro nodded and knelt before the low table across from the young lord, who busied himself shuffling a stack of papers. Kuro’s movements were not that of a studious priest, or a graceful shinobi, but guileless and clumsy like the youth he was.

“Why is this necessary for my mission?”

“Your sentiments are pure and honorable, but the pursuit of knowledge and understanding is just as pure, just as honorable.”

“As you insist. I do not know exactly what it is I do not know.”

***

The Wolf turned his head back and forth, flustered as he had ever been and rarely showed. “As I told the Heir, I do not know what it is I do not know. I… have heard that that is a good place to start. To start knowing.” A snort emerged from the background, amidst the wooden idols.

Emma, the mild doctor, approached, frowning in the direction of the snort. “That is true. Do not be so hard on yourself.” She took a seat. “Please continue.”

Sekiro handed the stack of Kuro’s scrolls to the man seated on the ground, who blinked with wide open eyes at the documents. Fujioka gave the smile of a man retreating from a tiger. “So whaddya need me for, anyway?”

“My letters are insufficient. You are the right choice, despite your grumbling.”

“Fine, fine, some compliment.” Spreading the papers out, he bent his head to the scroll he had selected. “So… I have heard it said, oh monks, that… hmm, I dunno that’s the best way to begin. You’ve got far more wisdom than you know, Wolf, but these doctrineses may be too big a breakfast. Tell me- what scriptures did you learn as a child?”

Sekiro sighed. “I remember very little from before I was orphaned, and once the Owl had adopted me I had very little time for scriptures or doctrines.”

Another scoffing laugh came, and this time it’s owner came closer. The Sculptor rose creakily and made his way over as well, though much less gracefully than the doctor.

“Ahh, these old bones need a stretch anyway. The Owl? Ukonzaemon Usui? One slip of the pen and he would have been a cloud-and-water man. Bah, you’re more a cloud-and-water man than the old fool ever could have been.” He bowed deeply to Fujioka, his wooden left arm almost scraping the floor. “Forgive me, scroll jumbler. Forgive me, Wolf. Please continue.”

“I suppose that I know as much as anyone. Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā?”

Seeing the lost look on his face, the others in the room repeated the simple sutra. “You all know it. I’m gald I knew it as well. Perhaps this is not the correct interpretation, but it has always struck me... gone, gone, everyone gone... What does it mean to be shinobi? If we become one with the shadows, then do we exist at all?”

Fujioka beamed. “Oh, that’s wisdom alright, Wolf! As direct as the 6th Patriarch’s famous verse, and maybe as good.” He looked around sheepishly. “What? I know stuff.”

“Do you know who else had something to say about the Heart of Wisdom?” The Sculptor’s grimace was unreadable. Emma turned to him, but cut him only with the gaze of her eyes. “Master Hakuin! Do you know what he said about our beautiful Heart? Scripture scrolls dug from piles of garbage!”

“Garbage?” Emma’s face at last betrayed a hint of anger.

“Easy, sweet doctor. I mean no offense. We may pare our nails at the foot of a burning lamp, we may polish a brick into a mirror, but these base things are not bad. Simply a glimpse of truth. These,” he said, flinging a gnarled finger past the Heir’s donated stack of scrolls. “are wonderful in their own way, but for a man of my inclinations, I prefer the schematics our Wolf brings back. To build wondrous things!”

“Not from piles of garbage.” Sekiro’s face grew dark as he thought back to where he had found many such scrolls and the like that he’d found, in pockets and pouches, in dark corners used as hiding places, and he thought of the secrets he’d found as well, the deep crimson secrets that lay at the heart of men. And monsters.

“Of course, Wolf. Now, of all the treasures you bring back to our little ryokan... I prefer the sake best.”

“Sake!” Fujioka theatrically covered his face, mimicking the voice of a mortified grandmother. “In the midst of our scripture study! Would that not violate the Fifth Precept?”

“Indeed, indeed, sir, but there is one sin that the Tathagatha held more grave than any violation of the precepts.”

“What is this sin, Sculptor?” Emma’s face had lost all anger and she seemed genuinely curious.

“The disruption of the Sangha! Chaos amongst friends and disciples! Vituperation!” He grinned. “I am an old man. I get cranky when I do not get my sake. And when I get cranky...”

“The next time I find any sake, I will bring it right back. For the Sangha, that is.”

“Make sure you do. My friends, is anyone else cold? Without a little something to warm my belly, I feel every draft.” Without waiting for a response he walked over to the hearth where a few embers struggled to produce rarefied strands of flame. “We’re out of firewood.”

The others ignored him and Fujioka produced another scroll from the pile. “The Hekiganroku... some of these things the Heir sent us are quite advanced. Don’t get me wrong, I find a quality koan to be pleasing on its own merits, but the solution of these... beyond me.” The information broker squinted down at another scroll. “Oooh, ooh. The Heir left a little note in the margin. ‘Master Dogen’s commentary is superb.’ Aha! Dogen.” Fujioka became suddenly excited and turned his squint towards Emma. “Waittaminute...”

“I was indeed apprenticed to Dogen.” A faint smile. “Not the original Dogen. He was centuries ago. How old do you think I am?”

Before the broker could reply, Sekiro piped up. “Doctor, you don’t look a day over 200.” She rewarded him with a widening smile at the quip. She rubbed her hands together.

“It is cold. My Master Dogen would sometimes pretend to be a Zen master and jump out of corners to frighten me. He made a crude kesa out of bandages and covered his hair with a sack to seem bald.” She paused in thought. “I am not sure why.”

“Students must sometimes go along with their master’s teaching, I am sure.” Sekiro nodded.

Fujioka continued. “No offense, Wolf, but I got something here from the Hekiganroku that reminded me of you, and our dear ol’ sculptor. Case 54...” He recited the koan and put the scroll down.

“Yunmen Extends His Hands. I see. But I have only one hand.”

“Between the two of us we have two, Wolf,” called the Sculptor from the background, still puttering noisily among the idols. “Yunmen would slap us well if that were the case.”

Sekiro stood momentarily from where he’d crouched across from Fujioka and stretched his back before sitting again. “I recall some dharma if you forgive my rough understanding.”

“Of course!” The broker smiled in anticipation despite himself.

“Yunmen’s koan reminded me of another great master fond of hitting his disciples. Rinzai! What a fearsome teacher. There are tales that I have heard of his striking pupils to teach a lesson, but his most impressive act was worthy of a shinobi. In the meditation hall, during the most serene meditation, he would appear out of nowhere beside any monks whose minds were wandering, and beat them with a stick!”

“That stick is called the kyosaku and the monks must raise their hands and ask to be struck. It is an efficacious remedy for a sluggish mind.” Emma nodded to Sekiro as she rose as well. “I think I prefer your version, though.” “Aha! A fine Buddha indeed.” The Sculptor appeared with one of his wooden idols, one of surpassing craftsmanship. Without any hesitation he flung the idol onto the fire. The others reacted with a combination of horror and disbelief that led into a general clamor. Sekiro himself adopted a blank expression, as there was certainly a finer point to this act that he did not understand. “Protest all you like, it’s only a statue.”

“Of the Tathagatha. Such shame you bring with your recklessness,” seethed Emma. The sculptor scoffed.

Having recovered from his initial shock, Fujioka looked into the Sculptor’s eyes. “This is something I heard about once. That old pervert Ikkyu once did the same. But...”

“A common error, sir. Not Ikkyu, but Tanka.” He turned to Emma. “Do you mean to say that I burned the Buddha himself? Some relic of the Shaka Nyorai?”

“No, it is simply a wooden statue, but-”

“Simply wood,” he interrupted. “Then you do not mind if I burn another as the night grows colder?”

No one spoke for a long moment.

Fujioka broke the silence. “Ya think maybe we studied enough for the young master? I’d like to know for next time... I mean, if there is a next time... who are the masters you’d wanna hear more from?”

“Let us decide which sage would win in a battle, then!” The Sculptor’s face creased with amusement. “Wolf, who do you think?”

“Rinzai, of course. His stealth and fearsome strikes would take the day.” He turned to Emma. “What would you say, doctor?”

“Eno, the patriarch. His touch could make even the most ephemeral things as immovable as mountains. They say in a distant temple he sits mummified, unmoving but still meditating. True strength.”

“I dunno if the Heir thinks this is appropriate. Says here the Buddha himself specified that this subject is not suitable for the path to enlightenment.” He leaned forward with a sly whisper. “I would be like Dorin. Simple, happy teachings, and could spring through the trees like a monkey. Or a shinobi.”

“My turn,” said the Sculptor. “I am sure of my preference for the toughest master. Eka, Damo’s disciple. A great general before that, a fearsome warrior. To prove his devotion to becoming a student of Damo, he cut off his own arm and presented it to the patriarch, and became a great teacher in his own right. Invincible.”

Sekiro’s intuition prickled at him. He tensed, sensing something akin to danger, but...

The sculptor removed his wooden arm and held it aloft. “Wolf, I’ve seen how well you adapted to my previous arm. Such clever uses of the humble mechanisms I installed. But this thing? What use is it? I carved one arm with the other arm. Eka did not even replace his. So perhaps...” He shivered. “Is it cold in here?”

The sculptor tossed his wooden arm onto the fire.

There was no outcry from the others. Only a shocked silence. The sculptor rubbed the bare spot where his shoulder terminated. “Now, Wolf, about that sake...”

A slight smile. “For the Sangha?”

“For the Sangha.” Another uncomfortable pause, then the Sculptor let loose with a cackle.

In the warmth and light of the fire, the others joined him in laughter as the arm lit the room with its flames. @thefatladysang

@poisonhemloc

The old route to Senpou Temple started in the silvergrass field. Genichiro had never been to the temple, but there was a first time for everything. He needed the Mortal Blade, now, that was held there. The crimson one. The black one was further but much easier to get to, and relatively unguarded- but he didn’t want to risk the black one, the one that would kill Grandfather if he used it too much. Grandfather staying alive was the only reason the Interior Ministry hadn’t fully attacked Ashina. And he didn’t dare hasten the illness’s work before he had the Dragon’s Heritage, true immortality, not the Sediment’s poor version. With the Dragon’s Heritage he could stand up to the Interior Ministry, and win.

Grandfather had obviously thought the Sediment was making him unstable, when he stopped to tell him where he was going. A little part of Genichiro still wondered why he had even taken the time to do that. And wondered why he had come out here, where he had lost against the shinobi for the first time by a hair’s breadth, when the more reliable route to Senpou now ran through the dungeons. He turned to leave-

-and a strange depression in the grass caught his eye.

There was an arm. There was the shinobi’s arm, laying here unrotting. It had been a month, something should have at least tried chewing on it, but it looked as though he had just cut it off.

Some part of him knew why. He waited for the knowledge to work its way to the front of his mind through hazes of red.

The Dragon’s Heritage. The same as Tomoe. And Genichiro remembered a spar between Grandfather and Tomoe, when he was younger, before Takeru had died and Kuro had been born.

Neither of them were trying to be careful, but Isshin was always better at swordplay than Tomoe; xe had shined with archery instead, and taught Genichiro. And Isshin had cut off Tomoe’s right arm, with the same lunge Genichiro had used for the shinobi. And had given Genichiro a look, as Tomoe collapsed, and held the arm next to the stump, and when Tomoe revived it had reattached. And it had been like Isshin had never cut it off.

It must have been due to the Dragon’s Heritage. And now…

The prosthetic Dogen had spent days, months, working on, had been given to the shinobi. Every shinobi trick conceivable could fit in it. It would be better, smarter, to leave this somewhere the man would find it, and have him reattach it and lose the prosthetic and the advantage it gave.

But the rational train of thought was being drowned out by the louder, much more insistent voice that had listened to Orangutan complain, sometimes loudly, every time he was at the castle, about the arm he had lost continuing to hurt. And several soldiers, and samurai, who had also lost limbs and complained about the same thing. He shouldn’t delay any longer though, he needed to be moving. Genichiro grabbed the arm and left for the dungeons.

There was a brazier not far from the entrance, next to the cave Doujun had been reduced to using. Genichiro knocked it over and dropped the arm on top of the coals, watched it smoulder, and then catch when he dumped fabric- Doujun probably brought it over to tend to the stab wounds but they were fine, the Sediment was healing everything- and watched as the arm caught and blazed. He had a lot of things he needed to do but… he could wait, for a few minutes, ignoring Doujun grumbling as he retreated to the little cave and watch the armor distort and melt and the arm reduce to blackened bones before he turned and left for Senpou.

Isshin watched the shinobi nod politely, and stand. He would be after the Crimson Mortal Blade, now, like Genichiro was. He half turned- and tensed up, and grimaced, just for a second, but Isshin saw it. The prosthetic definitely twitched, and his good arm looked like he was going to grab at it for a moment, before he went back to the blank face he always wore.

“Something wrong, Sekiro?” Another little hint of emotion, he did not like that Isshin had seen that and commented on it. Now, would he lie, or admit to it? And which would make that shadow in his eyes worse?

“...Just for a second, my… injury, hurt. More than it has. I… believe I need to talk to Lady Emma.”

“Go then! Emma knows what to do with severed limbs.” Isshin watched him leave, not using the prosthetic’s grappling hook like he had to get here. Not using the prosthetic at all, actually. He would have to ask Emma what had happened. He had not painstakingly arranged for this man to get to Kuro and helped him hone his talent for killing just for his arm to twinge a little and have him give everything up.

Wolf had opened the library window Kuro hadn’t been able to budge as soon as he was back, and talked to Kuro, and now was approaching Emma. He looked tenser than he had, had Isshin given him bad news? And he hesitated for a moment, before seemingly resigning himself.

“Something… happened, to the injury.” Emma fought to keep the shock off her face, Wolf was asking for medical help beyond the gourd? When she went to check in with Isshin would she find him cured, talking to a normal, sane Genichiro?

“Okay. We need to take the prosthetic off anyway, I need to check the bandages. What happened?” Wolf had been keeping his voice quiet; Kuro hopefully was too engrossed in reading to notice, and Emma stayed quiet as well.

“It felt like I touched metal held in a fire, with the cut part of my arm.” Emma frowned, helping him remove the prosthetic and the remainder of the kote, not touching the scarf he was overly protective of. Pain from the missing limb, that happened a lot, and he had said it felt like burning. And pain in the remaining limb, from being cut. Burning in the remaining limb was not normal.

Wolf tensed up when she started unwrapping bandages, too, but that was normal for him. There were clean bandages up here, at least, Emma didn’t want to reuse what she was unwrapping. She should have changed everything when he woke up, but there was no way he would have trusted her enough to let her. Nevermind that she had bandaged the arm in the first place and been changing it while he’d been unconscious, and worried that it never looked like it was healing, just not bleeding as much.

Now it did, it looked… like he had said, like someone had cauterized it. Which was normally what Emma would have done anyway, except the Dragon’s Heritage should have healed it completely.

“You were just talking with Isshin?”

“Yes.”

“...Well, it cauterized itself. I don’t know why. It’s still going to hurt- it might hurt more, for a while. I need you to stay here for a few hours, at least, in case something else happens.”

“I cannot. I have Lord Kuro’s orders to fulfil.” Like he hadn’t asked Emma to check his arm. “I will-”

“Not leave until tomorrow at earliest.” Loud enough Kuro heard, hopefully. “Give your arm some chance to heal, since it’s finally started to.” She ignored the dirty look that flashed across his face for a moment as she placed new bandages and helped replace the remains of the left kote that the prosthetic tied onto.

Kuro walked to the front of the library as Wolf pushed Emma’s hands away and finished tying on the prosthetic himself.

“Wolf, please, if you are in pain the ingredients can wait.” Kuro was frowning, one of his hands was fidgeting with the book he still held. “And you did just duel Genichiro. Everything can wait til tomorrow morning, Wolf.” Kuro was probably too far away to hear a bitten back sigh.

“Of course, my lord.”

Emma had her own quarters at night, and Kuro had blankets in this room and had insisted on giving Wolf one of them; he had insisted on giving Wolf several of them, actually, and it had taken a few minutes of careful discussion before Wolf convinced him not to, but he wouldn’t be budged on Wolf having at least one and continuing to refuse was inviting him to order Wolf to accept more. How much Kuro seemed to care for Wolf- Wolf, who had failed at Hirata, who had spent too long trying to find Kuro and get to Ashina, and then failed again immediately- was. Strange. It must have been because Wolf was the only person left from Hirata, this was not how masters treated their servants. At least Wolf would stay awake if he was here, stay on guard.

And he failed at that, too, jerking awake in the middle of the night, biting his tongue to stop a yell like he had with Isshin, feeling like his missing arm had been crushed. It was still gone. The pain persisted for a few minutes, before fading back to the burning pain he had been trying to tune out. Emma was not being told about this, if she came before he left in the morning; Wolf had a duty to his lord, and he did not want to be delayed again because she thought he couldn’t work through pain.

Genichiro, angrier already than he had been, stomped back down the passageway, snapping at the soldiers he had ordered to keep watch down here to pay attention. Senpou was a waste. The monks were easy enough to kill, not one of them could block a swing from him, but every bridge to the monastery was broken. What was he supposed to do, scale Mt Kongo itself just to get to the main hall?

So the black blade would have to do. Open Gate. The weaker of the blades, sure, but it was enough. It was closer too, easier to get to; why had he even bothered with Senpou Temple? He should have gone straight for it. Yes, Grandfather thought it was tied to his life, but no one really knew, just some shrine maiden twenty years ago wrote a lot of stuff on a scroll to justify keeping the sword. It was all speculation. And it was just in a shrine halfway to Hirata and north. And Dragon’s Heritage or not, it would kill the shinobi for good and Kuro wouldn’t have a choice, and with enough of the generals sharing immortality they would drive off the Interior Ministry.

...Here was the remains of the fire where he’d burned the arm. The bones looked blackened, but still recognizable. Genichiro stamped on them as he passed, splintering them into pieces, and continued out of the dungeons, back out of the castle, before it was light.

#sekiro shadows die twice #fanfiction #fanart #sekiro chain 1

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foramomentonly · 4 years

Note

For the meet ugly prompts - 22 for Malex please 🧡

Ok, thank you all SO MUCH for all your prompts! I will get to them as I can, but my work week is starting up, so bear with me. But know that I love them and I love you all for sending them.

Prompt: you’re on a date with this awful, awful person who keeps getting under my skin because my friend and I have been eavesdropping all night and your date says something that makes me snap … I thought it was a first date, not a three year relationship

CW: biphobia

“--so it’s not like I’m saying that you as a bisexual man don’t have any right to call yourself queer. I’m just saying that you have the option of being het if you ever wanted to. Not all of us have that choice.”

“Jesus, this pendejo just keeps diggin’ that grave deeper and deeper, doesn’t he?” Rosa mumbles around her neon green alien straw.

“Worst date ever,” Alex agrees with a shake of his head, sipping his beer and chancing another discreet look over his shoulder at the man in question. Or, if he’s totally honest, at his unlucky date.

He’s unassumingly handsome, totally Alex’s type, with riotous, golden curls and a lanky build, tan from long hours in the sun. He must work outside, Alex thinks. Wouldn’t mind getting to see that. His odious date--first date, Alex and Rosa have spent the past half hour speculating--is also undeniably attractive, but no amount of physical perfection could excuse the condescending, arrogant, and now outright ignorant bullshit he’s been spewing since he and his date snagged the seats beside Alex and Rosa at Planet 7′s crowded bar.

“I mean, I don’t think it fair to say I’m straight if I--” the man starts, but his Date From Hell cuts him off.

“Hold on, babe. I need to take this,” he says and walks toward the front entrance of the bar with his phone already pressed to one ear, palm cupped over his other one. His date collapses back into his barstool with a deep sigh, taking a long swig of his drink and throwing his arm over his chair. As he does, the back of his hand happens to bump Alex’s bicep, and the beer he’s nursing topples over.

“Oh, shit!” the man says, swiveling his barstool to face Alex and reaching over the bar towards the bartender’s stash of cocktail napkins. “I am so sorry. Let me buy you another. Please.”

“It’s all right,” Alex says, taking the wad of napkins offered him and mopping up the small puddle in front of him. As he wipes idly at his sticky forearm, he considers the man’s wide, apologetic eyes and the way he nervously chews on his plump bottom lip. And even though it’s none of his business and he definitely has ulterior motives, Alex finds he can’t not speak up.

“In fact,” Alex says, smiling kindly, “let me buy you a drink. Seems like you need it with the nightmare first date you’re on right now.”

The man blinks his soft hazel eyes in confusion.

“What?”

“Your date,” Alex says, gesturing to the empty stool beside the man. “He’s clearly a jerk to say that stuff at all, much less to you.”

When the man continues to stare blankly, Alex takes it as quiet relief and continues on.

“If you want me to tell him you had to go, I will,” he offers, leaning closer into the man’s space. “You could hang out in the back until he’s gone and join me and my friend for a drink?”

The man’s expression shifts all at once, eyes going dark, brow furrowing, lips forming a tight line. Alex leans back.

“I’m not on a first date,” the man grits through clenched teeth. “That’s my fucking boyfriend. We’ve been together for three years.”

Shit.

“O-oh,” Alex stammers. “I’m so sorry. I-I’ll, uh, leave you alone.”

“Thanks,” the man replies curtly and turns back to his drink, his broad, muscled back to Alex.

Rosa whistles low and laughs.

“Looks like you’re the pendejo,” she says, and Alex drops his head against his still sticky forearm on the bartop.

***

“Well, if it isn’t the guy with the opinions.”

Alex turns at the sound of a voice and the feel of fingers tapping at his shoulder and comes face-to-face with a flushed, messy-haired vision of a man he recognizes instantly. He’s looser, happier than the last time Alex saw him and festive for the ongoing PRIDE celebrations, bold, stacked, horizontal stripes of magenta, lavender, and blue smeared artfully across his left cheek; the man Alex tried to “save” from his own boyfriend at this same bar only a few months ago.

“H-hi,” Alex says, offering him a hesitant smile. “Uh, how are you?”

“Fortified,” he replies with a smirk, raising his glass. “And yourself?”

“Embarrassed,” Alex admits. “I’m so, so sorry again for what I said.”

The man shrugs easily.

“It’s fine,” he says, “Ben’s in the rearview.”

Alex quirks an eyebrow at him as the man smiles lazily.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Not cuz of you, though.”

“No, of course not.”

“Don’t want you thinking you’re some kinda white knight.”

Alex laughs.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The man shrugs and tilts his head. Alex notices glitter stuck in his curls.

“He was the first guy I was ever with. I hated the stuff he said, but I guess I thought that was the party line. I know better now.” He grins. “Plus the sex was superb.”

“To knowing better,” Alex says, holding out his glass in a salute. Mr. Suddenly Single knocks his own against Alex’s briefly.

“And to hot sex,” he drawls, and Alex laughs, hoping the dim lights of the bar and the glare of the disco ball above them hide his blush.

The air settles between them as they fall into silence, the joyful chaos of a gay bar on PRIDE whirling around them. Alex is jostled closer by a group of undergrads, and as he catches the man’s gaze he senses a shift in the energy between them, a space left open for him in the ease of the man’s grin and the slow drag of his honey eyes up and down Alex’s body. Alex extends a hand.

“I’m Alex.”

“Michael.”

Alex catches the tip of his tongue between his teeth, decides to make the bold move when Michael’s gaze drops instantly to his mouth.

“So, Michael, I think I owe you drink?”

Michael grins slow and smug.

“I think you owe me a lot more than that,” he says, lip curling suggestively. “But sure. Let’s start with a drink.”

#meet ugly prompts #cw: biphobia #malex #malex fic #thanks anon!

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clementineesotsm · 3 years

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THE KING: ETERNAL MONARCH EP 10, My Appreciation and How It Made Me Feel

Back to Korea where KSJ try to investigate the car and person that always tailed him in a while and while at the police office he asked JTE how is it like there in Corea? I might say this scene was well done. I love how JTE describe Corea, i love the editing, the music and KSJ reaction is priceless when JTE said she doesn’t found him there, he replied, because im here. Brb crying

Then they went to the cemetery in front of Gon’s doppelgänger grave. He tells JTE that he knows Gon because he hears him wailing. KKN and KGE acting here deserve appreciation, such a heartbreaking scene. I feel pain when JTE said “so you were here this whole time” and KSJ says “but am I supposed to be here?” Then the hugs 😭

Comes to the most most heartbreaking scene along this series. LR coming to Prince Buyeong place just when he is about to leave 🥺 HE. KILLED. PRINCE. BUYEONG 😭 i remember grasping the whole scene because this cant be, omg! I want him alive until the end, he is like a father figure to Gon. Shit! Everything about this scene was well made. From the camera movements, script, acting, music, everything was great yet really nerve wrecking. Kudos to the team and the writer. This will added burden to Gon and that is needed but the fact that we lose Prince Buyeong still makes me sad 😔

I realize in this scene LR also saying to Prince Buyeong that, he wants the whole flute tonhis possession. He dont know yet the extent of what he will able to do with it but he needs to be the one to have the whole of it. At this point i see his weakness. His greed and his anger seems to always get the best of him then make his judgment seems weak and lead him to his downfall. He seems to underestimating his enemy all the time

Next scene with yoyo boy is the best thing that happens this whole episode. I love that it is subtle and pretty poetic. And this mysterious yoyo boy keeps making us curious, who the hell is he? While holding king arthur herecomes one of the best conversation ever

LR “why weren’t you surprised?”

YB “because im a curious person. I hate blood. Did you fight?”

LR “im in the middle of a fight. I still have a long way to go. What are you reading?”

YB “King Arthur. Its a story about a man with noble blood drawing a sword and becoming king”

LR “only those with noble blood can become king? Thats a terroble story. Forget novle blood. The sword must be drawn by those who know how to use it”

YB “what is a villain draws the sword? Someone who is not just”

LR “justoce doesn’t make the sword. The sword decides what justice is”

YB “it seems that the thing in your world keep changing. 조심히 가세요 (goodbye). I want to know how this story ends”

I prefer to use 조심히 가세요 in korean because the meaning is more than just goodbye. Its actually kind of saying please be carefull on your way. Gives me some confusion, on what side this boy is and who is he anyway. Why he keeps on getting involved. Cool.

This episode also starting to shows us JY concerns of this relationship between Gon and JTE. Later we will realize that JY will becoming a bit of an annoying person because of his overprotective nature to Gon. But here he got a point, Gon need a queen. Does JTE will be able to leave everything and stay there? I kind of feel bitter, why always the woman need to choose to leave? Cant the boy did that? Leave his world and be with her? No? 😅 but if the woman is agree with it its fine though

Meanwhile in Corea, Gon was having a really long bad day, its kind of sad to see him sit down in a dark room alone, thinking about JTE then suddenly got news that his uncle was. Murdered. The scene in his room and move to him going down the plane, Lady Nohs fainted, gons silent and people cries for Gon were all heartbreaking. I swear episode 10 is when i cried a lot at here and there. This makes me think that this shows will end in sad ending

We comes to the end. Takes place in Korea where JTE is still have faith to grow the seed then suddenly she saw Gon in front of her house. But he seems different. He seems sad. He is coming still with his signature words

Gon “have you been well?”

JTE nods and says that it took him long time to come. Gon said he is coming from far away and realize that he never gave her flower and tells her he loves her like it is for the last time 🥺 parallel to JTE hugging while holding Gons hand in forest earlier, here she do it again while Gon is kissing her, but this time he. Disappeared. And when she opens her eyes, he is. Gone. Nowhere to be found. 🥺🥺 Both LMH and KGE are doing a great job here. The script was so heartbreaking here. Gon’s voice over make me stuffed, like, omg is he die? 😭😭

How it made me feel:

Wahh. Episode 10 is full of sad mood. Things are starting to go ugly. Everything was beautiful and well made. Love the cinematography, the music, superb acting, love the editing, love the plot progress so far. Mystery part was good, walking in line also with the romance. It keeps me wondering how it will ends and build up my curiosity more and more. I did not see prince buyeong death coming actually. Then i rewatch eps 9, their converstaion while seeing sunrise means a lot more and i cried harder.

Up until eps 10, im getting more hooked with the series. It gives me harry potter vibes to it and i love it. The series was more than just romance but also shows us about responsibilities and makes things right. About fate and destiny. Also i forgot to mention that i love the theme of science fiction meets urband legends and magic like this. Because it works and its magical. I think im bewitched 💯

This series seriously need more appreciation from people. Because its far from bad and im quite sad many people are actually hating on it extremely. I wish all the tkem cast and crew knew that this series was so good. And many people appreciate it so much. You guys are the winner for me.

#the king eternal monarch #kim go eun #tkem #lee min ho #woo do hwan #kim kyung nam #jung eun chae #lee jung jin #kim eun sook #kdrama

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mementofloreo-archived · 3 years

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Dashboard Bio- Nettle Reed(Genshin OC)

Full Name: Nettle Reed

Nicknames/Aliases: Ned, Neddy

Age: early/mid 20s (defaults to 24 if exact age is called for)

Birthday: exact date undecided- late spring, probably

Gender/Pronouns: trans man; he/him

Height: 5'5"/165cm

Build: narrow structure, roughly average weight with only a little muscle, mostly in the shoulders and arms. A touch more fat around the stomach(loves sweets)

Hair: Bright, springy yellow-green. Often wears clips or puts small flowers in it.

Eyes: A vivid orange

Orientation: Bisexual(tends to lean a little more towards men)

Combat: Polearm user with a Dendro Vision. Focuses mainly on speed/evasion and has superb control, power and versatility with his elemental abilities. Has surprising ferocity considering his size and physical build.

Health: Has a somewhat volatile chronic respiratory condition, managed with daily and as-needed medications prescribed by his sister-in-law. Prone to frequent illness during colder months but is able to push through when determined to accomplish something.

Family: Older Sister(Thistle, early 30s), Sister-in-law(Amaranth, mid 30s), Nephew(Briarly, 5-7)

Hobbies/Interests: Avid reader(fiction, academic, nonfiction, anything at all), Writes poetry/keeps a journal, self-taught musician(voice, piano, guitar, some violin)

[character history and personality summary under cut- they are a bit long, sorry!]

SUMMARIZED HISTORY -Born eleven years after his sister- their mother had been gravely ill already and passed away in childbirth. In the following years their father became a drunken, violent layabout and his sister's apprenticeship with a tailor supported the family until she finished her studies. At that point she took Nettle and they moved as far away as they could. -In their next hometown Thistle opened a small tailor's shop. Nettle was befriended by an older boy, Arashi, who was struggling to raise his own younger brothers after their parents' death. He acted as Nettle's tutor/instructor with polearms and basic hand to hand. -Nettle fell ill around his mid-teens with little success in treatment from initial healers, spending a very long time housebound and often bedridden, during which time he began teaching himself music and reading more. -When he was fourteen, Amaranth Reed- a trans woman and a doctor- moved into town. With diligence, patience, and some trial and error she was able to get a handle on Nettle's chronic illness and find some relatively effective treatments. During this time he also started to assert/ID as male and socially transition. Eventually Amaranth and his sister became a couple and married, having a son named Briarly. A few years later the family relocated to Monstadt.

PERSONALITY Generally comes off as very quiet and is usually softspoken. He's had little socialization in the course of his life so he has a hard time approaching or befriending anybody. He does well enough when another person initiates conversation, though, and is both well mannered and sweet(not at all without a bit of sharp wit, though, if he's comfortable enough with someone!) At his core he is very gentle, loyal and protective. And though socially he's still got a lot of growing to do, his emotional maturity and general insightfulness can be very surprising. He has a very poor opinion of himself in almost every regard and very little attachment to his own life. This in combination with his strong desire to keep people(especially loved ones) safe has led to a lot of injuries and close calls on his part- as well as an ability to push himself well beyond the physical limits people expect of him. While not entirely secretive about his troubled past and upbringing, he tends to keep walls up and bottle things up through deflection and omission because he hates feeling like a burden.

#nettle tag #dash bio

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wearingheels-kickingass · 3 years

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what are your top ten Castle episodes?

So bored at work so here we go. I used to never be able to answer this question when the show was airing bc I had too many favorites, but the passage of time has cleansed my mind lol. Not in any particular order.

1. Flowers For Your Grave (1x01)

I think that the pilot is so well done. It did a great job of pulling me in and making me care about the characters. I loved Castle and Beckett’s introduction, as well as how well Castle’s public and personal lives were depicted. It set the stage for the entire series.

2. Home Is Where The Heart Stops (1x07)

I just love the optics in this episode. The opening scene with the woman in the safe was just incredible–I once read that they used a contortionist to get that shot. God, I miss Andrew Marlowe. Plus, we get one of the first real moments of intimacy between Castle and Beckett at the gala and when she goes to his house for breakfast.

3. When the Bough Breaks (2x05)

Castle and Beckett’s conversation at his book launch party really shows in very little words how much they mean to each other already. 10/10. I also love how hype Castle gets about James Bond.

4. Tick, Tick, Tick…/Boom! (2x17/2x18)

This is my all time favorite two parter. The suspense! The villainy! Dana Delany! It’s all just perfect and the fanfic about these episodes is simply superb.

5. Deadly Game (2x24)

This episode breaks my heart, but what a wonderful cliffhanger! Beckett gets so close to telling Castle how she feels, only to have her opportunity shatter before her eyes. Stana Katic was amazing in this episode.

6. Knockout (3x24)

Damn. This. Episode. It’s just SO GOOD! The lighting is incredible, the acting is top-notch, and the way the episode builds into this horrible, wonderful crescendo just goes to show how awesome Castle was in its prime. RIP Captain Roy Montgomery! 10000000/10.

7. Kill Shot (4x09)

In this episode, Beckett’s trauma catches up to her. Stana Katic gives an epic performance and the writing was sublime. She even won a PRISM Award for this episode.

8.��The Blue Butterfly (4x14)

This episode showcases how much Castle loves storytelling and it was endlessly entertaining. This episode also inspired/was inspired by the promo pics for season 4. Everyone looks hot in 1940s clothes, especially Beckett and Lanie. 1000000/10, will always recommend. Joe and Vera forever!

9. 47 Seconds (4x19)

This episode hits you RIGHT IN THE FEELS. Castle is so angry and sad at Beckett’s betrayal. You sympathize with him even though you know what Beckett is going through. When Beckett tells the witness that she remembers every second of the day she was shot, a chill runs down my spine every time.

10. Always (4x23)

Do I even need to explain myself? ∞/10.

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qm-vox · 4 years

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So You Want To Play Hades

I spent six hours coming up with that title because I have problems in my mind which I refuse to either examine or resolve.

So, Hades! The latest work from Supergiant Games, who brought you the interactive soundtracks to Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre, all superb games in their own rights known for their intuitive gameplay, build-your-own-hard-mode difficulty style, incredible atmosphere and characterization, thought-provoking stories, and that sexy, sexy fuckin’ music.

Like, listen to this sometime it’s amazing (all of their soundtracks are available from them on Youtube, by the by, though if you like ‘em you can support the creators by buying the music from them directly too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH3Aoj1nw58

You’re likely asking, quite reasonably, why in the infinite and undying fuck I’m writing this post right now, and the long and short of it is I want more people to talk Hades with so now y’all are gonna get hit with the sales pitch and what I hope will be a helpful beginner’s guide if you decide to get into the game. Let’s get into that first part, shall we?

Thou Shalt Subject Your Gods To Market Forces

(Image sourced from Supergiant’s website)

Hades is an action-roguelike/lite that places you in the role of Prince Zagreus, secret son of Hades. Zag is trying to move out of his father’s house and live somewhere else for awhile and, well, Dad’s just being an entire dick about the whole thing. Hades challenges you to face down the endless ranks of the dead one chamber at a time, gathering the resources you need to breach upward through the Greek underworld and open the mighty gates into the living world. You can acquire it on Steam or on the Epic Store.

How do you know if Hades is or isn’t for you? If you like action games with tight controls and widely varied playstyles, we’ve got you covered here (if you’re thinking in terms of previous Supergiant offerings, Bastion has the most bones in). Hades also offers a great character-focused narrative, centering around the relationships Zagreus has and develops with the people around him - from legendary shades like Achilles and Sisyphus, to the gods of Olympus, to the cthonic gods of the underworld like Charon, Nyx, and the Furies - which fully incorporates the conceits of the genre. Unlike many roguelikes which sorta quietly elide failed runs or deaths, Zag’s defeats are part of his journey. After all, he’s already in the underworld. Where the fuck else is he going to go when he dies? Connecticut?

Though I can gush about the characters and narrative all day (and I’ll do it a bit more later), don’t get me wrong: Hades expects you to perform some pretty tight mechanics. Since dying is just the end of this run and not the game, the game feels pretty free to take brutal measures; the environments you move in are full of deadly traps, the seething ranks of the dead outnumber you to vast degrees, and you’ll fight a dizzying mix of opponents who do not hesitate to catch you in cross-fires, push you into lava, or drop bombs when you kill them because fuck you for succeeding you weird godling bastard. If you get easily frustrated or flustered, Hades may be quite stressful for you; before it’s anything else, it’s an action game with a heavy focus on combat, and if you decide to ride this train that’s the price of the ticket. If you relish the challenge and especially if you like the satisfaction of watching your play improve, though, it’s one hell of a ride.

In terms of accessibility features, Hades is a mixed bag. It has subtitles and aim assistance available, as well as a variety of supported languages and control adjustments which can alter how you do things like dash or attack, but it’s missing, for instance, a colorblind mode (and that’s gonna be important here in a minute), and many enemy behaviors & traps have audio cues which are not part of the current subtitle support. A rumble feature for controllers that have it is supported; Hades strongly suggests the use of a controller, but I know several players who choose to use a mouse & keyboard and seem to prefer it. Semi-recently, a God Mode option was added which empowers you when it’s turned on and does so further every time you die; it’s the closest Hades comes to an ‘easy’ mode, and while reception of it from my fellow players has been highly positive I’ve not tried it for myself.

If you’ve liked action games in the past, I’d highly endorse giving Hades a try as long as it’s accessible for you. The current build of the game (just before formal release) is selling at $24.99 USD on Steam right now, and like...I am not a highly skilled Gaming Individual(tm). I lose at games a lot. I play most of my games on Easy or maybe Normal if I’m really feeling like my dick is big - and with that in mind, I loved this one enough to buy it twice. I love the tight feeling of the combat, the way the mechanics feel, its gorgeous environments and its captivating characters. Hell, that’s why I’m out here writing a whole-ass article.

Stealth, Guile, Subtlety, And Other Things You Will Not Need - Getting Started In Hades

(Artwork sourced from the Hades wiki)

So you’ve decided to acquire Hades, you already own it, or the first part of this article was intriguing enough for you to look at the advice portion and see what sort of game you could be dealing with. Hades can be intimidating at first; it throws a lot of stuff at you, very quickly, and while it gives you some strong guidance on what to do with many of the resources you’ll acquire not all of those uses are immediately intuitive. The following is a guide to help your first few runs go a bit more smoothly and work on the fundamentals that will help you through your entire experience.

Let’s start with some General Tips that will help you out with every run and every weapon:

- Relax. No, seriously: relax. You haven’t ‘failed’ a run if you don’t beat the final boss. Hell, you probably haven’t even ‘failed’ a run if you die in Tartarus. If you learned something or got any permanent resource - gemstones, darkness, nectar, keys, blood, diamonds, ambrosia - then that run was a success. Even if the game wasn’t currently early access and thus without a proper ‘end’ at the moment, it’s supposed to be fun. Don’t castigate yourself for dying, just dive screaming back in and rip your vengeance from the spectral chest of your slayer.

- Always Be Moving. You only have so many hit points (you start a save file with a max of 50 and the most you can start a given run with is 200) and healing is limited over the course of a run. If you’re standing still, you’re getting hit. Zag’s quick on his feet - keep him moving and use your dash liberally. Once you’ve dealt some damage, leave and let your enemies swing at empty air, then dash back in and bully them back into their graves. When you start a dash you’re invulnerable until the dash finishes, which can make for some real cheeky dodges once you’ve had time to learn enemy timing.

- Watch And Learn. Early on in the game you’ll be learning about new enemies every chamber, especially when you start transferring to new zones and all of the enemies you’ve been facing just stop being a thing. Take the chance to know your foe! You’re not on a clock: don’t leap into the fight immediately. Dash around and watch how your enemies move and attack. What’s the limitations of their tactics? The reach on their attacks? How fast do they swing and move? If you’d like to watch some of that stuff ahead of time, I’d like to suggest amber_cxc’s Twitch channel: she’s been doing a lot of runs and speedruns of Hades of late, among the other games she plays.

- Manipulate Your Rewards. Certain things in Hades can only be offered a limited number of times per run, and once you’ve hit your quota they stop appearing. You can take advantage of this to get more Boons, Centaur Hearts, and Poms of Power. Specifically, you can only have up to two Daedelus Hammers and up to three Hermes Boons. If you can knock these out early I highly endorse doing so; they’re never bad to have, and even if somehow you want none of what they have to offer getting them off the RNG will help you later. Additionally, you can use Keepsakes (more on these in a minute) to manipulate who you get Boons from, when, by changing in and out of them at each biome. In this way you can control the shape of your build for the run.

- Accept That Your Dick Energy Is Fucking Huge. A lot of games try to keep you humble. Dark Souls is infamous for it, of course, and others in this genre such as Crypt of the Necrodancer and Enter the Gungeon do not reward haste at all. That is not this game. Walk into Hades like you’re the lord god of the Big Dick Dimension even if you know you’re not; take risks and learn from experience how you can mitigate, manipulate, or cancel out those risks. That unearned confidence won’t just help you with tip one (Relax), it’ll help you practice in those high-pressure situations which will occur more and more as your Heat rises.

- A Brief Note On Projectiles. This game has a few kinds of projectiles that you’ll need to learn to identify. Balls and Arrows can be broken - hit them with an Attack and they pop and won’t hurt you. Waves cannot be broken; they travel fast along the ground and have to be dodged or deflected. Lasers can neither be broken nor deflected. Traps can’t be broken, and deflecting them doesn’t always make them safe for you; these include the lava balls in Asphodel, Inferno Bombs, and the shit spit out by Bothers and Pests. Know your foe and always be moving.

In terms of the resources you’re offered, there are broadly two kinds: in-run resources, and out-of-run resources. Let’s talk briefly about in-run ones.

- Boons: Boons are the powerful gifts of your Olympian relatives. They change how you play during your run by augmenting your abilities (like your Attack, Special, or Dash) or by offering passive benefits. In general, look at Aphrodite, Athena, or Dionysus if you want powerful defenses, Ares, Artemis, or Zeus for powerful attacks, and Poseidon and Demeter for a combination of damage and utility. Different gods will be good with different weapons, and we’ll get into that later. Boons have a Rarity and a Level; Rarity determines their starting power and how well they scale if they do scale, and Level is that scaling.

- Centaur Hearts: +25 max and current HP for this run. Do you like not dying?

- Poms of Power: Poms increase the Level of a Boon by 1, which generally makes it better at doing whatever it does. Not all Boons will level up, but the ones that you can attach to your Attack, Special, Cast, Dash, or Call always do. You do eventually hit diminishing returns with these, so you’ll generally want to spread the love around if you keep picking up Poms.

- Obols: DOLLAH DOLLAH BILLS Y’ALL. Obols are the coins preferred by Charon, the Ferryman, who will take them from you for goods and services. Obols can be turned into all other resources - even out-of-run resources. They’re almost always a great choice of investment.

These in-run resources are presented as potential rewards when you’re selecting chambers. I tend to run heavy on Boons and Obols myself, but your own play style is likely to differ! Experiment with the feel of acquiring various rewards and see what you like to invest in. After all, they’re only for the run you’re on; you literally can’t take it with you.

Out-of-run resources are used to permanently advance Zagreus’s power, his relationships, or both. They are as follows:

- Cthonic Keys: Used to unlock new weapons and new parts of the Mirror of Night. Once your weapons and Mirror are wholly unlocked these keys stop being useful more or less instantly, and can be safely traded at the Wretched Broker between runs to acquire Nectar (but see Gemstones, below).

- Gemstones: Early in the game, Gemstones can be traded in at the House Contractor between runs in order to enhance the underworld; in particular, they can be used to install fountain rooms, to open up access to Chaos and Erebus, to give you access to Infernal Troves (and upgrade said troves), and to add in-run resources to Keys, Nectar, and Gemstones. These services are in the first tab of the House Contractor and you should buy them out as soon as possible so that your runs can springboard off of these powerful additions. Once that’s taken care of, Gemstones can be used to renovate the House of Hades, including Zag’s bedroom and the lounge, again at the House Contractor.

- Nectar: The nectar of the gods is in short supply in the underworld, and is a treasured gift that Zagreus can offer to his friends. In most cases, the first time you give a character Nectar they will trade you a powerful Keepsake in return; these are run-altering tools you select at the start of each run and change how you play. Early on, spread the love, but once you’re full up on Keepsakes you can feel free to develop relationships through gift-giving however you see fit.

- Darkness: The power of Night is used to give permanent, powerful passive benefits to Zagreus via the Mirror of Night in his bedroom. I would suggest using Darkness to get your extra Dash and extra hit points before anything else, but once you’ve got those tools kinda fuck around and find out. Eventually a dialogue option with Nyx will unlock the flip side of the Mirror’s talents, which must be developed separately and cost even more Darkness; you’ll want lots of this and you’ll want it for a very long time. Oh, and try to save aside 8,888 Darkness for a rainy day. You’ll need it.

- Titan Blood: Offered by the first and last bosses at each level of Heat (more on Heat later). Titan Blood is used to upgrade your weapons, making them better at doing all of the things they do, as well as to unlock Aspects of those weapons. We’re still shy one Aspect as of the latest patch, so ah, don’t stop collecting this. You’ll always have a use for it.

- Diamonds: Offered by the second boss at each level of Heat. Diamonds are used to buy plot-relevant renovations to the House of Hades, to advance certain relationships, and to acquire the fishing minigame and in-game access to the soundtrack within the House. Like Blood, you’ll have a use for these for a long, long time.

- Ambrosia: Offered by the third boss at each level of Heat. When you reach the point at which you can no longer offer people Nectar, genuine Ambrosia from Olympus becomes the princely gesture by which you can show your gratitude. You may be tempted to trade this for Blood early on. Don’t.

When you’re starting out, Darkness and Gemstones will be the gods of your new world, followed closely by Cthonic Keys You’ll run out of immediate need for Gemstones faster than you will for Darkness, but by that time you’ll either be comfortable with Hades or you’ll have determined it’s not for you. Focus on unlocking access to your new weapons, upgrading the underworld itself, and paying off your talents; at this stage, escaping the underworld isn’t really a priority so much as setting up for your eventual triumph is.

And When You Can No Longer Lay Waste - Infernal Arms And Heat

(Artwork sourced from the Hades Wiki)

The assault rifle with under-slung mortar launcher is definitely my favorite ancient Greek weapon.

So I’ve mentioned unlocking weapons, and I’ve mentioned that Hades offers varied play styles, so I suppose I ought to talk about them. Zagreus’s weapons - his Infernal Arms - form the first layer of your play style choices, which will be augmented by your in-run choices, and the second layer comes in the form of the Pact of Punishment and its Heat. Each weapon has differing values for its attacks and behaves very differently. I’m not gonna give you the specific numbers here - we have a wiki for that - and will instead make some general statements on how they play and what might pair well with them.

- Stygius, the Blade of the Underworld: You start each save file with this bad boy. Stygius is a generalist weapon that leans somewhat towards speed; its Attack is a three-hit combo that ends in a Thrust with knockback, while its Dash Attack (note: these are not the same with ANY weapon) is solely the Thrust, still with knockback. Its Special, slower than the Attack, is a high-damage shockwave that breaks enemy projectiles and knocks them back. You might be asking yourself, Vox, why would I Special when it makes people leave sword range, at which point I will direct you back to Always Be Moving; your Special makes your enemies Go Away, which saves you hit points. Stygius can build into almost anything, though its Attack benefits the least from Zeus and Poseidon, and is notable for having the most wild fucking Hammer options. Some of them do little things like make your Special bigger, but then you get stuff like Hoarding Slash (deal extra damage equal to 5% of your Obols), World Splitter (you do one big swing with a base damage of 80) and motherfucking CURSED SLASH, which is where Stygius rips a line of cocaine off of a mirror, cuts your health by 60%, and then heals you for 2 every time you hit something. My advice for this is whatever you start down, commit. Stygius might build into anything, but it can’t build into everything: once you choose a boon path, pick things to compliment that and go fucking ham.

- Varatha, the Eternal Spear: The forgotten child of Hades’ weapons, Varatha is a versatile weapon that, like Stygius, does a bit of everything - and unlike Stygius, does it all at the same time. Varatha’s base attack is a series of three long-range thrusts with low damage, and its Special throws the spear in a straight line, at which point it hovers in the air until you Special again; it follows a straight line from its position to your current one, damaging anything in that line. Last, but not least, you can perform a powerful Spin Attack by holding down the Attack button and charging up. Spin is one of the strongest single hits in the game, but you do have to stop moving to charge it up. However, you can dash out of the charge - even better, dashing releases the Spin at the end of your dash. This means that once you learn the timings of your charges, you can use Spin to attack and dodge at the same time, in a wide circle around yourself. Unlike Stygius, Varatha benefits to an extent from splitting your build up; its Attack wants big hitters like Aphrodite, Artemis, or Poseidon, whose high multipliers pair amazingly with the spin, while its Special can mount debuffs or stranger forms of damage like those offered by Dionysus and Ares. If you start building into one thing, but then Hammer into an alternate focus, the end result is still going to be pretty cohesive. Like Generic Goodstuff, or want a weapon to use while building up many divine relationships? Varatha does it all.

- Aegis, the Shield of Chaos: Just because this thing has the only block function in the game doesn’t mean it’s a defensive weapon. Aegis is a fast-moving melee weapon whose hits cause native knockback, slamming foes into walls, up against cliffs, and through traps & magma. Since Aegis throws people around it’s great for a highly aggressive style; dash in, hit them, and watch them slide away before they can do damage back to you. Its Special throws the shield Captain America style, where it ricochets off of opponents and obstacles before eventually returning. Use this with care; you can’t attack or block while your Special is out. Holding down the Attack button begins to charge a Bull Rush; while you’re charging, you’re immune to damage in the direction the shield is facing, and then when you release you dash to the end of the indicated line, damaging anything you hit. Despite how sexy that sounds, Bull Rush is honestly kinda slow and can be hard to build for specifically; instead, Bull Rush is best used to get out of bad situations, or to outlast big long boss combos, especially those used by the first and second bosses who are known to spit out absolute STREAMS of projectiles. Aegis hits fast and gets lots of bonus damage against normal enemies by bullying them against walls for that sweet, sweet Wall Slam damage, but it craves big damage multipliers less than some other weapons; consider using Zeus, Dionysus, or Demeter for your Attack, saving big damage choices for if you can get a Dash Attack build going. Special is great for mounting utility like Aphrodite or Poseidon that let you control the engagement further, just remember to think before you hit the yeet button.

- Coronacht, the Heart-Seeking Bow: Meet your first ranged weapon! Coronacht deals damage in a straight line by charging up a shot; when your line flashes, release the shot for a Power Shot that deals extra damage. Its Special is...bad, I’m gonna be real; it’s a wide-sweeping volley of arrows that deal individually low damage and will rarely, if ever, hit the same target. Still, it has its uses. Coronacht benefits from either high damage or battlefield control on its Attack; look into Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, and Poseidon. Its Special is harder to build for, but Ares and Zeus both do well on it since they can cause damage out of proportion with the range and/or area of your volley. Play keep-away and use distance to get off those charge shots, and remember that you can break projectiles and hit multiple enemies with each attack. Avoid mounting odd damage (Ares or Dionysus) or utility (Athena) on your Attack; it’s not going to come out fast enough to take meaningful advantage of those tools.

- Malphon, the Twin Fists: Easily the angriest weapon in all of Hades, Malphon is a pair of massive fuck-off gauntlets that are used for fast-moving combos at extremely short range. It is unique in that its Attack has a Dash Attack, and its Special - a massive uppercut - has a dash upper, letting you sweep in and deal big damage in a tight area immediately. Though each of Malphon’s hits are individually small, it throws out so fucking many of them that you can put almost anything on your Attack and it’ll work out. Athena Attack? Why not, you’ll be swinging when the enemy is. Dionysus Attack? Poison stacking has never been easier! Artemis Attack? Sure, you don’t do a lot of base damage, but you swing so often that you’ll crit constantly and take advantage of passives like Support Fire. Your Special has much higher base damage and can easily become the focus of your build, and because it moves slower it wants bigger damage multipliers like Artemis or Aphrodite if it’s your focus. If it’s not your focus, consider Poseidon in its slot (to get enemies to Go Away) or a god that will combo with your Attack (for instance, if you’re doing Demeter Attack, consider Zeus Special so you can potentially pick up the Cold Fusion boon and get 10 seconds of free damage every time you tap the Special button). You pay a price for this ease of use: Malphon’s range is directly inside the enemy’s ass, which means you need to have razor-thin timing to dash out of the way of attacks and keep your combos going, especially if you get swarmed. Since Malphon can mount and build literally fucking anything, it’s the ideal weapon to use if you want to power-level Keepsakes; slap something on at the start of a run and then just never take it off. Sure, you’re letting the Three Fates decide your build, but fuck it, it all just works!

- The Adamant Rail: What if you invaded the underworld with a fucking machine gun. The Adamant Rail has an ammo counter; each Attack takes 1 bullet (and Dash Attack takes and fires 2), and you reload by pressing the right-hand stick in. Its Special is a slow-moving mortar that hits in a wide area. The Rail is a powerful and versatile weapon capable of engaging at great range, which tends to build either Attack or Special. If you’re building Special, look for big hits like Aphrodite, Artemis, or even Poseidon, and any Special upgrade at all from the Hammers. Attack usually wants utility or stacks - stuff like Poseidon, Demeter, Dionysus, or Zeus - but certain Hammer upgrades like Spread Shot might make it more worthwhile to invest in big hits for it if you get them early. However! Just because you’ve decided on a focus doesn’t mean you should neglect the other half of your weapon. For instance, an Attack-focused build might still entertain the Targeting System upgrade so that you can more easily land your hits and avoid the enemy, while a Special-focused one benefits from mounting debuffs like Weak or Chill on its Attack.

For any weapon, once you settle into a play style you enjoy, find ways to be rewarded for what you’re already going to do. If you enjoy, say, the Chiron Aspect for the bow which makes it into a Special-focused weapon, mount benefits like Doom or Weak on its Attack since you still have to use that to make your shit go-go. This applies more broadly too; if you’re saving up Gemstones for something, for instance, use the extra money you get during your run to visit the shops earlier and more often. Let Hades reward you for doing the things you already want to do.

To close this guide out I’m going to briefly touch on Heat, which is how Supergiant Games has manifested their signature build-your-own-hard-mode approach. After you clear the game with any weapon for the first time, you acquire access to the Pact of Punishment. This Pact lets you turn on hostile modifiers to your run, which each have a Heat value; once you clear the game with a weapon at any given level of Heat (0, 1, 2, etc) you can only get Titan’s Blood, Diamonds, and Ambrosia with that weapon by advancing to the next level of Heat. In this way the game gradually gets harder on a weapon-by-weapon basis.

So, what modifiers to turn on? Depends on what you’re good at and bad at, but I would highly, highly suggest that you get used to Extreme Measures, Middle Management, and Benefits Package as soon as possible. Not only are they sources of big Heat by themselves that don’t change too much of the run by themselves, but their primary difficulty is knowledge-based; once you know them, they’re practically free real estate. Since Heat is tracked per-weapon and not in total, you can also always go back to weapons you’re not as good with and use practice with them as an excuse to get more permanent resources that you can pour into the ones you prefer.

Obviously this guide is not comprehensive! I’ve left out a lot of things you might want to know, like boss patterns, enemy types, and a whole lot of stuff about characters. Some of these things I’ve not talked about because I don’t want to give spoilers; others I haven’t talked about because I’m, again, actually pretty bad at games and the Hades community has talented folks whose guides on Steam, on the Reddit, and on the wiki can provide you with thorough breakdowns of the math that makes the game work. Still, it’s my hope that this can ease your entry into the world of Hades and help guide you in those early runs when it can feel like you’re spinning your wheels. I look forward to hearing from you; reblogs and commentary are welcome!

See you all in Hell.

#hades #hades supergiant #supergiant games #roguelike #action #guide #Greek Mythology #video games

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sick-raven · 4 years

Text

Ghosts of the Present - Chapter 6

Chapter 1 + warnings

AO3

Previous chapter

Chapter 6

Nygma’s plan was amazing, simply superb! He created a set of traps not even the biggest geniuses could solve! Sharp spikes, electric fences, guns, that all wrapped neatly behind puzzles and riddles. Not even the greatest detective will get to him!

Great victory for the Riddler! He could celebrate now, but he decided to keep it for later. He will dance to mock the Batman! He will show all of them his superiority! Jump on his grave! Livestream it to all homes, to the whole world! He could almost taste the victory. The Riddler, man who took down the Bat!

“Nygma!”

Edward turned around, shocked.

“W-What?”

Dark shadow was approaching him, held him at gunpoint.

How!? Impossible! Nobody was supposed to get here!

He yelped as Banshee held the gun to his neck and pinned him to the wall. There was blood all over her face, not hers. She was muddy, bleeding, shirt on left arm torn, clean cut under the tear. She had maniacal look in her eyes.

“B-Banshee, you shouldn’t be here,” he stuttered.

“I had a baaaad day, Nygma, you better talk,” she hissed. “Where is the League?”

“I-I don’t know, I wasn’t told!”

She painfully pushed the gun more to him. He chocked.

“I really…”

“You are the genius; you better start using your brain!”

“Agh! Killer Croc knows sewers u-under Narrows! They wouldn’t ask for his help anywhere else!”

“That’s still miles to search.”

“I can’t give you more, Banshee, I don’t know, I swear!” he wheezed.

She clenched her teeth angry and took away the gun. Edward stumbled, holding his neck. The fear left him as fast as Banshee let him go, instead anger caught him. She ridiculed him in front of his mental audience!

“You bitch, you will pay for this!”

“Shut your trap, Nygma, your puzzles are stupid.”

***

They caught up with her at toyshop. Bad for them – her arsenal was there, hidden properly in the backroom. Miranda got out with just a few bruises. She was considering her options.

How to get out of the city fast and unseen?

Where should she go so the League won’t find her?

Now they knew she was alive, will she ever be safe?

Two guns, some bullets. A dagger, a sword. And five sound mines. She was horribly underprepared for anything. Running is the best option.

Hunted forever.

“No,” she whispered. “No, it’s not worth it.”

Khulan will never stop the hunt. Master was the most headstrong person in existence. Failure wasn’t an option and Miranda being alive was evidence of Khulan’s mistake. She will want to erase Miranda under any circumstances.

Master must die.

So must Jonathan.

Now in the sewers she started to doubt her decision. Whatever she was going to do, results were the same. Miranda will die here. If she doesn’t drown in shit, she will get killed by the League, or eaten by the Croc, or her body will just give up after long torture.

She carried on anyways. Stank of sewers was horrible. Narrows were the worst part of the city, so she imagined even the sewers will hold this prime. A ghetto, full of drug dealers, addicts, poor people, everyone in one big pile of misfortune and dirt, couldn’t have nice sewage. And at the top of that all, like the king of the hill – Arkham Asylum.

Whatever curse left Arkham, it rooted in Narrows, making it worse every day. Miranda kept away from Narrows unless work called her here. Not that she was a coward; she just considered it stupid to walk into shark’s mouth willy-nilly.

Or Croc’s mouth.

After what felt like forever she reached an enclave with something looking like a nest, and smelling like rotting butcher’s shop. Pieces of furniture, newspapers, feathers, that all almost neatly built into bedding. Miranda coughed, the source of the smell was pile of rotting bodies in the corner. Ha, not a butcher’s shop, but the butcher.

“Croc!” she shouted. “Where are you?”

Is that your plan?

Do you have better one, reason? I’m listening.

…

I thought so.

She walked at the end of the tunnel. No signs of giant crocodile. He might be anywhere in this maze. So might be the League. Fucking hell, Europe would be beautiful this time of year. She would visit vineyards in France and then Germany. She’s heard that Bavaria is great. Sun, meadows, booze, no stink or dark places. She’d drink whole day, she would sing and get to know new people. This time she would find someone who isn’t paranoid. Someone normal. If anyone normal would have her.

Disruption of the water caught her attention.

Second later a monster leaped from the depths, maw ready to gnaw Miranda alive.

Miranda jumped out of the way. Croc hit the wall and stayed visible out of water. Yellow fish eyes staring right at her. He growled. Miranda had to convince every nerve in her body to not start shooting.

“Waylon Jones,” she said and kept her distance as Croc drew nearer to her. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I am looking for the League.”

“What’s in it for you, fresh meat?” he grumbled.

Woah, a compliment! What a gentleman! Maybe she could date cannibal crocodiles!

Focus!

“I’m looking for Scarecrow.”

“Of course you are.”

Miranda contemplated her surroundings. Croc has been trying to corner her slowly. So far she always slipped to side tunnel, but this dance cannot go on forever. Act, Miranda!

“I want to kill him. Do you wanna tell me where he is?”

Croc had no interest at all. Drool dropped from his mouth.

“And the League too. Imagine the amounts of meat when I am done with them!”

“Mmm,” agreed Croc eyeing her.

Yeah, no…

“Tell me where they are, or I will blow your fucking brain out!”

“I won’t.”

He jumped her again grunting loudly. Miranda stumbled on wet bricks, took out the gun and shot at that bloody, monstrous face. Croc screamed and fell into the water.

“The bigger they are…”

He disappeared.

“Fuck!”

Miranda looked around dark muddy water. Where is he? Did he swim away? Is he waiting?

Carefully and slowly she moved. What now? What were here options other than being a lunch?

Lunch?

Gun still ready she made her way back to the nest. There was one clue she needed to investigate. The rotting bodies kept there were in different stages of decay. Bright vests of sewer workers were drenched in blood and moved as worms ate the meat. Next corpse was police officer – wait, no. The uniform of the freshest corpse has visible A on it. Miranda looked closer. Arkham guard.

Arkham? Could the League operate under the asylum? Jonathan once told her the building had very deep foundation, reaching into a cave system hidden under the city. Rumours were that the founders of the asylum went little crazy themselves and used the underground for a lot of weird things.

Splash! Water behind her rose in wave and Croc grabbed her by shoulders. Miranda ducked and slipped away, Crocs claws cut her. She yelped, ignored the bleeding and shot at him again. Croc laughed as if the bullets were just annoying flies.

“You are trespassing, meat!”

Miranda gasped for breath and ran. One lady ninja is faster than one giant crocodile, right?

Waves following her spoke different.

“Fuck!”

Ladder! She jumped on it and started climbing.

Giant hand caught her leg.

“No!” Miranda slipped, stopped her fall by hanging by the elbow. Screaming. Croc was pulling hard, claws deep in her meat. He will tear her leg off!

In last effort, she activated the mine and threw it. Croc screamed in shock. In the tunnel the sound echoed of the walls. He let go off her leg. Miranda climbed out, the noise followed and then it end abruptly as Croc destroyed the bell.

Street! Fresh air! Miranda stumbled out, on the verge of fainting. Run! Hide! She got to the closest dark alley, blood oozing from her leg. Fuck! Way to alert whole League, Miranda! Banshee, but this time, you will be the one dying! Stupid bitch! Couldn’t you make your weapons any louder?

She tore off her sleeve and patched the leg. That stopped the worst bleeding. Miranda sat by the wall fighting the pain. Her body burnt, her leg pulsated… And you want to face the League like this? You are insane!

She couldn’t stay at one place for long. Moaning, she got up, limping through the street. Her wound made her an easy target, but sword on her back stopped anyone from bothering her.

Somehow, she made it to the asylum. No assassin was waiting at the gates of the area. There were three buildings connected to each other, all in typical Gotham style. Dark, broody, only thing missing was rain, evil lightning, and Adams family.

No wonder Jonathan liked to work here. It was perfect environment. Fear inducing. Patients had to hate it.

Fuck Jonathan, he can die!

Miranda climbed the fence, not sure where she wants to go. The property was silent, eerie in cold air. What now? Will you just walk and demand they let you underground? Elevator ride to hell!

Calm down. Take it one step at the time.

Step one – find a guard.

Step two – make them take you down.

Step three – don’t die.

Miranda limped to the entrance. No way she can hide herself effectively like this. For a while maybe. Not properly.

Behind the glass in the office sat a guard. She was well built dark lady and she looked at Miranda intensely. The closer Miranda got, the worse feeling she had. Right at the glass she understood why.

The look was empty. Pupils dilated. The guard was drugged.

“Hi,” tried Miranda.

Nothing.

“I am from the League, understand?” she continued.

“Yes,” agreed the woman.

“Take me to… my leader.”

Guard smiled and opened the caged door with a buzz. Miranda amazed by the situation followed. “Wait,” she realized. “Do you have something for pain?”

Ten minutes later they were in the elevator and Miranda could finally stand at least bit straight. She couldn’t believe her luck, but she didn’t celebrate just yet. Drugged guard was evidence of the League being here. Down, down, down we go to the belly of the beast!

The light of the elevator buttons showed the last floor – basement, but the elevator kept going. Miranda swallowed, throat stiff. The lower they went, the more terrified she got.

The door opened.

Any fight Miranda had, left her. She sighed and leaned her back on the elevator wall.

“Welcome, Miss Bradbury,” said the Demon’s head. “I’ve been expecting you.”

***

“Sit down.”

In silence she did what the Demon’s head ordered. Ra’s sat across her. They walked here through foundations of the asylum. Long pillars and cat walks brought them to this cave that was already turned to sort of living quarters. League members were breaking a wall at the far end in perfect rhythm as if they all attended a music seminar.

They didn’t even bother taking her weapons That’s what she was for them. Useless. Safe. This broken tool won’t hurt anyone. Definitely not the Demon’s head.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he started.

“Hardly.”

“Master Khulan agreed your hunt with me, you can say I know you better than yourself.”

Miranda rubbed her eyes. “And?”

“I wanted to see the legend herself. You survived the survival’s curse and avoided us for a decade. I must say, I am disappointed with your approach.”

“I didn’t come here to impress.”

“Why did you come?”

“To kill Khulan.”

Rhythmical beating of hammers and pickaxes echoed through the cave. Ra’s looked their way from time to time in anticipation. This closely he looked like friendly uncle. Miranda smirked under that idea. Friendly uncle ready to destroy your soul.

“Curious, isn’t it, what is one person ready to sacrifice for their goals,” Ra’s said eyes pinned on the wall. “You came here ready to die just so you reach peace.”

“And you?”

“That’s it, isn’t it? Why did I come here?”

“To destroy the city.”

Ra’s smiled. “If only life was this simple.” He turned back to her and she realized he is… old. The wrinkles around his eyes got deep, the whites were ugly yellow colour, his lips pale and cheeks lost his shape. Ra’s al Ghul was dying.

“I will let you fight Khulan. Under her own rules.”

Next chapter

#fanfiction #jonathan crane #edward nygma #killer croc #ra's al ghul #writing #sick raven writing #ghosts of the present #I had fun writing Killer Croc #even tho he was in only for a minute

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yume-x-hanabi · 5 years

Text

The Shrade Island Incident

Excerpt from Agria’s side story, as requested by @lydiemalen

Contents warning: somewhat gory violence, mention of rape

This happens to be the end of the short story, so it’s a bit out of context, but what you need to know: Agria’s life is suffering and her family are a bunch of assholes. At the beginning of this chapter she’s working with Presa as a spy (she’s not a member of the Chimeriad yet, just Presa’s accomplice).

Aurignac = Agria’s eldest half-brother, Gravett = second half-brother, Magdalena = half-sister, Celedonio = youngest half-brother (3 years older than her), Roberta = her dad’s wife

The Shrade Island Incident

The good news came from the old hag.

“The Rashugal army has seized control of Shrade Island,” she said.

“Shrade Island!? So they’re attacking Auj Oule, at last.”

That’s right. Shrade Island was a small island that Rashugal was claiming territorial rights over, but most its population was Auj Oulian. The Rashugal government had always been looking for a pretext to put it under its rule.

“They say it might concern the new weapon, but I don’t know the details. Whatever it may be, they are rounding up innocent citizens, so this is urgent matters. His Highness will lead the counterattack himself.” She paused for a second, then added, “The commander of the enemy forces is Aurignac L. Travis. …Are you in?”

Aurignac! My heart was about to burst from joy!

“I can’t believe you’re even asking me. Are you daft, or what? My job is to bring those assholes’ head to His Highness!”

I was allowed to join His Highness’ elite group, so I crossed the sea to Shrade Island. There was no need for strategies. His Highness didn’t even need to draw his sword, as the four of us cut through the enemy’s so-called special forces like we were reaping wheat. Among the corpses whose heads were smashed, I recognized Gravett’s lanky face.

Dear brother Gravett, you prick who always had your nose in a book and dismissed us as less than human. Aa-ah, let me be honest here. If you’d kept getting promotions, you could have become a superb general. Your cold-heartedness and rationalism were much more fit for the military than all those pampered noble token officers. That strict, uncompromising attitude. The way he walked confidently through enemy lines, slicing obstacles without mercy. When I saw His Highness for the first time, I was reminded of your “I don’t rely on anyone” look. Only a little bit.

But there was no time to get sentimental when there was a bigger prey waiting for me. We tore through the enemy forces like a storm, and in no time we cornered my nemesis, the embodiment of House Travis, my eldest brother Aurignac.

My heart beat fast at the thought that revenge was near. But I wouldn’t do something so uncouth as to show him how excited the prospect of a hunt made me. Calmly, to toy with him, I made a light jab. The kind of banter I learned in the back alleys.

“Aurignac. You’ve grown fatter since the last time I saw you. If you don’t start building strength in your gut, your favorite shiny buttons are gonna fly off.”

“…I see. I understand now. So that’s why you came back to us with your tail between your legs.”

“There is no greater pleasure for me than to pay you back for your good care thusly,” I said in an affected tone.

I hunched back a little, drawing my heavy wand. Seeing that, Aurignac turned his body sideways and pointed the tip of his sword towards me.

“A shameless wench who turned her back to our country no longer has the right to bear our noble name. You shall atone for tainting our bloodline with your death.”

“Right, right. Keep barking about your noble name like a fool. Though it seems you won’t even be able to cast the spirit artes our ‘blood’ is so proud of to protect yourself. I’ll write your epitaph for you: ‘Born from a noble line with the strongest spiritual affinity in Rashugal, died as a most mediocre spellcaster. Beloved imbecile.’ How’s that sound?”

“My, my. Like mother, like daughter, I see. You cannot hide your low birth.”

“…Don’t you dare talk about my mom.”

“As Father seemed to be so enamored with her in spite of his age, I wanted to see her skills for myself, but she did nothing but cry and resist; nothing impressive, really.”

“AURIGNAC!!”

I exploded in hatred. My twisted wand clashed with his bejeweled sword, and for a moment, we pushed at each other’s guard. But our power balance only lasted an instant. The desire to kill him in the cruelest way overflowed my mind like the Kijara Seafalls, eclipsing all other emotions. Holding on at point blank range, I summoned a quintuple magic circle. Aurignac’s face changed colors when he realized he was trapped in my arte, but it was too late for him. Just as he flung himself to the side to escape it, black blades surged from the circle like snakes and cut his arms, his shoulders, his throat, his whole body.

The next moment, his body was ripped apart like minced meat and the pieces fell to the ground, looking more like manure than human remains.

His Highness was extremely satisfied with the results of the Battle of Shrade Island, as we had not only managed to protect the citizens, we had wiped out an entire enemy company with only a few of us. At the mere age of 13, I was granted the greatest privilege to serve directly by his side. I was given the name “Agria,” which represented the “stinger” of the chimera. I didn’t need my old first name anymore, and my surname was even more meaningless.

The Travis were nothing to me anymore. But, y’know, I had a long-standing grudge. I wouldn’t rest well if I didn’t pay them back tenfold for all the torment they put me through as a kid. That’s childish? Well, I was just applying the lessons my dear family had taught me. Wasn’t it a rule of society that you could mercilessly beat up those weaker than you?

I went back to the manor in broad daylight. After Aurignac and Gravett had both died honorably in the line of duty, Roberta and Magdalena seemed to have gone half-mad and were covering their eyes. They didn’t even notice I was there. They should be grateful I gave them an occasion to practice their theatrical wailing.

“Nadia! …You, you traitor!”

Celedonio was standing in my way. He was now the sole male heir, a pitiful, sniveling brat who suddenly had to shoulder the headship of the family.

“The Travis are ruined because of you! We should have never let that whore and her spawn into our house! You’re both witches who brought dirty blood and curses within our gates!”

“Come out on the battlefield, then. You’re a noble, you don’t even have to do anything and they’ll make you an officer in no time. Fight me like your beloved brothers did, and avenge them!”

…If you can.

When I pretended to thrust my wand at him, Celedonio let out a small scream and ran back into the manor. Aa-ah. I was just trying to scare him a little. To say I was relentlessly bullied by such a coward.

I clapped my hands lightly and unleashed a fire spell on the manor. Powered by my arte, the flames engulfed the massive building at incredible speed. Screams could sometimes be heard along with the sound of broken glass, but no one came out. They all perished one after the other, unable to reach the door because of the heat and smoke.

…Dad. My poor old dad, who’d been withering under his tailcoat, lost in thoughts no one could fathom; who’d played a fake life, burdened by a name too big for him. He probably burned to death holding tight to the happiness brought by the memories of his time with Mom. Dad, who had loved Mom and cherished me. But that was just a kind of selfishness that caused us so much trouble. In the end, he didn’t think about anyone but himself. Just like all those nobles, he was just a selfish old man looking for his own escape from reality.

I stopped by the grave I’d secretly built in a corner of the garden for Pupu and the other bird to pay my respects, and patted the headstone once.

All my hopes had been ripped to shreds. From then on, I would stake everything on His Highness. I would build my life on the dead bodies of his enemies.

I turned my back on the smoldering manor, the hems of my red dress flapping in the wind. Red, like the flowers blooming by Mom’s last resting place.

#tales of xillia #agria the shadowless #agria #precious bby #she deserved so much better #yume translations

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elizadoolittlethings · 5 years

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“He’s not prudish. But seeing your dad naked is a lot for a lad to take.”

RG to The Guardian {x}

Rupert Graves’s eldest son got a nasty shock recently when he went on a school trip to see the 1987 Merchant Ivory adaptation of EM Forster’s gay love story Maurice. “He didn’t know I was in it,” the actor says over a morning cappuccino in a north London brasserie. “He went, ‘Argh! No way!’ and ran out.” He actually fled the cinema? “Yeah. ‘I can’t watch my dad naked on screen in front of all my mates. Can’t do it.’” He might also wish to steer clear of A Room with a View, which his father made with the same team two years earlier — his film debut, in fact — and in which he is seen throwing off his clothes to cavort in the lake and scamper through the undergrowth. “He’s not prudish. But seeing your dad naked is a lot for a lad to take.”

Some people would be positively thrilled at the prospect of a naked Rupert Graves: his devoted fans, the GravesDiggers, for example, or Mark Gatiss, screenwriter and star of Sherlock, in which Graves plays Inspector Lestrade. “I’ve had a crush on Rupert Graves since I was 14,” Gatiss admitted in 2014, then added: “Who hasn’t?” Graves, 56, who is today wearing round-framed glasses and a bedhead of salt-and-pepper hair, keeps his kit on in his new film, Horrible Histories the Movie: Rotten Romans, a big-screen version of the popular CBBC franchise which comes on like Monty Python Jr. He plays a centurion whose unexpected pauses keep wrong-footing his underlings. Thinking he is telling them to attack, they gather up their weapons in preparation, when what he has really said, if they’d only waited, is: “‘We attack!’ … would be the words of a rash man.” There’s nothing here to embarrass any of Graves’s five children, give or take the rap he delivers on horseback (sample line: “I’ve got 99 problems but a bridge ain’t one”).

He shrugs when I ask what the secret is to playing comedy. “I haven’t really done any. It’s stylised reality, isn’t it? Picking out bits and exaggerating them. But it’s got to be true.” Of course, he’s been funny in films before. He was superb as the lodger romantically involved with his landlady and her daughter in Intimate Relations. There was that bit, I remind him, where he wanted to accuse Julie Walters’s character of being a hypocrite but he couldn’t think of the word so he ended up shouting: “You’re a hippo!” He smiles back at me blankly. He doesn’t remember it. And last year he was in Swimming With Men, a kind of underwater Full Monty. “Yeah but I wasn’t playing an insane centurion doing a rap,” he laughs. “OK, I was an insane guy with a nose-clip on doing synchronised swimming, but it’s not quite the same.”

If there has been any pigeonholing, it came at the start of his career, when his performances in those Merchant Ivory films, as well as in two by Charles Sturridge, Where Angels Fear to Tread (Forster again) and A Handful of Dust(Waugh), encouraged misconceptions about his background. His name only sealed the deal. “Do you know what? Genuinely, it helps in this business being called Rupert. I’ve sniffed that attitude in acting: the Oxbridge thing. Making movies isn’t a cheap exercise. You need money and the knock-on from that is the industry is populated by a lot of posh people. It’s very hard to break into if you’re not middle class and privately educated.” Or if you don’t have a name that suggests you are. But if being called Rupert boosted his chances, it was a blight on his early years. “I hated it as a kid. I really wished I was called Pete.” Were there any significant Petes in his life? “Only Peter Purves on Blue Peter. Rupert is a ridiculous name in 1970s Weston-super-Mare. Ridiculous! It’s like being called Basil.”

Graves speaks in short bursts and clipped sentences as though he’s slightly out of breath, but he is at his most fluid when conjuring up the landscape of his youth. “It was one of these strange and dying seaside towns where the package holiday had killed off most of the trade, so the hotels had to lower their prices. It was the end of a line. A decaying, Thatcherite, druggy sort of place with no investment and no hope. I was always being chased by skinheads. It had some peculiar qualities, being by the sea and near Cheddar, some beautiful land. And it was blasted by the weather, which comes up the Bristol Channel and thumps Weston first. As a kid, it was great to hide behind the buildings as waves would smack them. The weather was physical and exciting. It gave the town character.”

At school, he was dreadfully shy and suffered from a stammer, but was also an incorrigible show-off. “I was hyper. My shyness meant I overcompensated, just to get anything out of my mouth at all. I had to summon up so much courage to even speak and then I got carried away because I’d mustered all that energy.” He went to a speech therapist to overcome the stammer and it was she who spotted his acting potential. Turns with the local operatic society followed; he also performed at the end of the pier, miming to songs and delivering Victorian comic monologues. What did he get out of it? “The warmth of the approval.” He found himself an agent from the back of the Stage (“I don’t even think we met”) and took on bits and bobs of TV work while still at school, including his turn as a prefect — his first toff — in the spy series Return of the Saint.

He adored working with James Ivory. “He would say things like, ‘Put your pipe in upside down.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because it’s funny.’ He was right. It was funny. In a Magritte sort of way.” But people started cooling on the costume-drama craze at the end of the 1980s. “There was a backlash. I thought, ‘This is really unfair!’ I didn’t go to any fucking posh schools and I was getting lumped in with that.” The director Alan Parkerfamously derided the Merchant Ivory output as “the Laura Ashley school of film-making.” Graves scoffs. “That was horrible. Really stupid. Forster was actually trying to say something.”

But he was looking for a new direction around that time anyway. “The whole industry thought I was Posh Rupert and I wasn’t. I didn’t know people who lived in Fulham and Chelsea, I didn’t know what they thought or what they ate for breakfast.” He reacted by taking on parts which were worlds away from parasols and linen trousers. The most notable was Open Fire, a 1994 TV film written and directed by Paul Greengrass, in which Graves was ferocious and banshee-like, all nails and hair and heels, as the real-life cross-dressing criminal David Martin. He also played a laddish motorcycle courier reunited with a transgender school pal in Different for Girls. It was theatre that really excited him, though, and still does. “You don’t tend to get typecast in theatre.” He was in Torch Song Trilogy with Anthony Sher, the Broadway run of Patrick Marber’s Closer, Pinter’s The Caretaker with Michael Gambon. When I ask whether there is any screen work that he would like people to catch up with, he says: “I can think of plays.” But they’re gone. “Argh! I know. That’s the beauty of it. And the pain.”

He thinks he could have been a bigger star if he’d worked at that side of things. “I’m just not ambitious in a career-building way. I’m not good at being polite to the right people. I’m not strategically engaged.” He can’t think when he last did something that would count as networking. “People do it. But I never did. I find it a bit grubby. I can see the benefits. I’ve been lucky that I can keep afloat and not be either too hassled on the street or have to do any of the business side of things, which I’m shit at.” Afloat is an understatement: he has excelled in some of Sally Wainwright’s best work (as a dodgy barrister in the first series of Scott & Bailey and as Derek Jacobi’s long-lost son in the third Last Tango in Halifax), and appeared on stage in the acclaimed season of Pinter’s short plays at the start of this year. He will soon be seen as Mr Weston in a starry new film of Jane Austen’s Emma, alongside Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy and Miranda Hart.

Throughout our conversation, he has been charming company while also giving the impression of a runner on the starting blocks, poised to scarper the second he hears the pistol. Once we’ve wrapped up, he rises to his feet quickly and knocks a knife off the table, catching it before it hits the floor. “That’s the thing about getting old,” he says, returning the cutlery to its place. “I’ve become a dropper. I’m always dropping things.” Is he a forgetter yet? “Oh yeah. But I’ve always been a forgetter. Never remember names. Not even in scripts.” And there I was expecting you to recall a line of dialogue from nearly 25 years ago, I say. He laughs and makes a noise I’ve never heard before — “Nyyyyyyr! Nyyyyyyr!” — and then — on your marks, get set — he’s gone.

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nautiscarader · 5 years

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The Dragon Prince - Season 2

It is very rare to see a show which has improved in nearly every aspect, but lo and behold, TDP season 2 delivers more.

Just... more.

More drama, more characters, more action, more humor, and more dark, complex, and mature storylines.

Spoilers galore beneath

First and foremost, I am very happy that the animation department has listened to our cries - the choppy animation is no more. The cell-shaded animation is odd, but it certainly no longer distracting from the action. And if you want to watch TDP season 2, then you need to pay attention to everything on the screen, because the things that happen on the screen are marvellous.

The ongoing story, together with expanded flashbacks are excellent, and make the world believable and realistic. Wars do not happen in one day, they are the effects of years of conflicts, slowly building up, and the show has given us excellent reasons to believe and be invested in them.

Very few shows have created such interesting villains like this one. Soren, Claudia and their father, Viren aren’t just evil. They are not evil overlords and kidnappers - they are properly constructed characters with deep motivations.

Viren is a pragmatist, who is slowly consumed by the dark magic, thus skewing his morals. His children follow his steps, though themselves start to realise he might be wrong, and yet come to the same reasoning as he did: that power can be used to overcome problems, even if it done in an immoral way.

Our protagonist grow up as well: I was mighty afraid that the show will do the “liar reveal” cliché between the brothers, or between Rayla and Callum, regarding the news of their father’s death, but fortunately, the writers have dodged the bullet on two occasions, because of proper build-up and the mountain of trust between the three (or four, since Claudia delivered it). The lessons they learned were deep, life-changing and not easy to swallow, and I think they accepting them will help kids all over the world.

Speaking of difficult things to bear: Soren’s kinda-disability. the way it was handled was magnificent, albeit with Soren’s slightly awkward acceptance of it. But Claudia? She reacted just like you would if you were hit with such grave news. Characters in TV shows get slammed all over place without any bones breaking, but here? No, they did not joke. A dragon smashes you into a rock, you get a spine broken. End of story. On one hand, it would be interesting to see his character with the disability, but given he is a part of the cast, it would be problematic, I guess. And Claudia using Bambi’s life forces to revive his ability to walk might have even more dire consequences. Will she have to sacrifice more and more animals to keep him alive? Will the dark magic flowing through him corrupt him? Will Soren have to sacrifice his ability to walk in order to cleanse himself? Who knows, the possibilities are quite vast.

Speaking of possessions: Callum and dark magic. That was something I wanted to see in S2, and I think it has been handled really well. Callum has potential to be a dark wizard, and while he has discovered his sky arcaneum, I have a feeling he will be tempted to dabble with dark magic in the future, breaking our hearts again.

And on top of that, you have relationships. Callum, Rayla and Ezran have very different connections to Soren and Claudia, as, say, Team Avatar to Zuko and Azula.

Callum and Ezra were - and arguably are - friends with Claudia and Soren, they do have strong bonds (in case Callum and Clauida something even stronger), since they’ve known each other since childhood. It is not just a hero/villain cliché - they are, once again, well-defined characters, and as a result their relationships are strong, well-grounded and believable.

And the hugs between Rayla and Callum are melting all of shippers’ hearts, I cannot overlook that (but still no kiss, or almost kiss yet, but have almost had “I love you”).

The action is superb. Fight scenes are fast, well-planned, and gripping, exactly what you’d expect from a fantasy series.

And of course, with a whole new half of continent to explore, as well as half a dozen plot lines in the human half to resolve, new seasons will have tons of opportunities to once again punch us in the gut, make us laugh, cry and be thrilled.

So, are there any negative aspects...?

Well... yeah.

One thing that is kinda unavoidable, are the parallels to Avatar The last Airbender. From occasional jokes and subtle nods, like with the haiku and syllables counting, through slightly more transparent like the animal hybrids, through bloody-freaking-obvious, like Callum being an airbender. Or sky mage, or whatever you name them here. It is pretty weird to see this happening again, since, well, it invokes the parallels to ATLA instantly, and let’s face it, ATLA is still better, so you might not necessarily want to remind us of a show we’d rather watch, Dragon Prince.

Another one is Ezran’s character. Mind you, he got better in S2, especially with the revelation of his father becoming a spirit birb hybrid dying forever, but he is just a bit bland and too perfect for a 10-year old. I joked about it in my recaps, but he is jesus - he can do no wrong. And that is bloody boring! Look at Callum - he has flaws, he makes mistakes, that’s what makes him complex. And what does Ezran do? He goes off-track and can’t even get himself mauled by a banther properly. Get rekt.

He reminds me of Charlie from Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate factory - that kid was freaking perfect, without any flaws whatsoever, spewing moralistic phrases left, right and center, contrary to the one from the book and the classic movie.

Plus, his abilities are never explained, and are so damn plot convenient! It is one thing to just having a skill of handling animals - that I would accept - another thing is being able to understand them - that’s a bit too much, but still cool - and something wildly different is TO HAVE A DIRECT MIND LINK WITH THEM. Ezran is OP, pls nerf. And the worst thing is, with just a bit of clever rewriting, they wouldn’t need that. Just move the splitting scene after they cross the moonpath bridge - so that Ezran is still with Zim when he has to fly to save them. Solved.

I guess you can make a counter-argument that he also learns it, just like Callum does with magic, but guess what: Callum makes mistakes, so we see he learns! I would like to see Ezran mistranslating some wild animal’s wish and getting comeuppance when he has to run up the tree. I KNOW! BRING THE TAFFY HIPPO FROM HIS DREAM! YES! HE WILL BE HIS SPIRIT TEACHER! Ekhm, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Ezran’s unexplained abilities.

In fact, I think so far TDP kinda delivered a disappointing deus-ex-machina payoffs in both seasons: mind link in S2 and Zim’s magic-breaking teeth in S1 allowing Reyla to have her hand. I was slightly disappointed then, and I was slightly disappointed now.

But I am willing to forgive it. Because quite literally anything else in the series is top-notch. The characters, for the most part, are complex and three-dimensional. The decisions they take are not simple and black-and-white. The villains are superb and blood-freezing, being able to scare you from the screen. They have added just enough Azula and Ozai juice to Viren and Aavaros to make them menacing and entertaining to watch. I love it.

On more than a few occasions the show has caught me off-guard and surprised me with its decisions, and I cannot wait for more of them.

#tdp #the dragon prince #tdp spoilers

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under-the-lake · 5 years

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Crimes of Grindelwald - First Impressions

WARNING: THIS PAPER IS FULL TO THE BRIM WITH SPOILERS

I went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Crimes of Grindelwald on 14th November, when it was released in Switzerland. I had read quite a lot about it before, had asked a lot of questions (see this paper for them; it was written before the final trailer was out: http://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/176871006891/it-has-to-be-you-fantastic-beasts-the-second ), and got some answers and quite a number of new questions. Here’s a first and short delivery of my mind ramblings, but I need to see the film a couple more times to have all the details ready for a deeper delve into it.

The title of that first paper on Crimes of Grindelwald was It Has to Be You. I was sort of gutted because it seemed that this series was going to be The Chosen One all over again, but IT IS NOT, which makes me very happy. I liked the film, and I’m curious to see how the plot develops from here. I thought there would be more plot development, but actually this second film is preparing the Chessboard for the real action, I guess, narrowing the focus and clarifying loyalties and challenges.

The Crimes of Grindelwald (CoG) is, on the whole, the start of the Real Thing. Only the start, mind. Seeing the trailers and all the online theorising made me think that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was only some sort of prologue to the other four films. After having seen CoG, I reckon it’s right. If we compare with Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring, Fantastic Beasts was the first 500 pages, until the Company reaches Rivendell, and CoG is the bit from Rivendell to Lothlórien and the journey on the Anduin to the Falls of Rauros. So a bit slow, but setting everything that needs to be set for the rest of the plot to actually get going smoothly.

The film starts at MACUSA (and NOT the American Ministry of Magic, as stated in the film and unfortunately in the script as well- it was not canon), with Grindelwald being moved to Europe for trial. A couple of things happen here that were sort of easy to figure out would: Grindelwald escapes (that was obvious), with the help of Abernathy (which wasn’t obvious for everyone, I guess), and he has the Elder Wand and a pendant that holds some kind of blood-coloured moving liquid. You might ask why I thought Abernathy was going to betray MACUSA. Well, Abernathy (pic below) was always too oily towards Percival Graves not to be the local Pettigrew, wasn’t he.

Grindelwald’s pendant is a bit weird, at the beginning, because it apparently serves Abernathy to save his own life when he puts it into his mouth? Of course, later in the film we learn what it is, namely a blood pact of nonaggression between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, that they made when meeting in Godric’s Hollow, 30 or so years before. So THAT is the reason why Dumbledore cannot attack Grindelwald. Unless he destroys it, which we can guess he’ll end up doing because otherwise the Chocolate Frog Cards and A History of Magic are lying. Newt’s Niffler sees to the pendant’s being stolen from Grindelwald during that Germania-type meeting in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise at the end of the film, that is so reminiscent of gatherings of Nazi or Fascists during the rise of extremist governments after WW1.

I LOVE Newt’s basement. Just LOVE it. Even that Kelpie I was so very skeptical about. Those animals are great. I’d have loved to see more of them, and also more of the baby Nifflers, but they are all cute. The funniest, though, must be the Augurey, particularly because of the interaction it has with Jacob. Bunty, on the other hand, is just a flat version of Lavender Brown, and doesn’t seem to fill any role in the film. Is she going to be there later? Meh, for the moment I couldn’t care less.

About the new creatures we see in the film, they are really cool. Apart from the Matagots. I mean not the creatures per se, but the way it is so obvious they are CGI compared to the rest, which are brilliant work.

The Kelpie is great, but I still don’t get how Newt can have domesticated it as an underwater creature. It goes against all the lore and even against his own book. Or is it that it’s one more creature he’s nurturing back to health? Still, they tend to eat humans, Keplies do.

The star of the creature show, apart from the Niffler, who’s discreet but capital, is the Zouwu (see picture above), a sort of Chinese dragon, that Newt frees from his chains and that becomes a valuable ally. It is really amazing.

Now Queenie and Jacob. Well, that was sort of foreseeable, wasn’t it? I mean that they end up together. I (and other people online as well) had thought that since the Swooping Evil Venom used at the end of the first film didn’t really Obliviate people but only erased bad memories, Jacob couldn’t have lost his, since they weren’t bad. The last scene in his bakery at the end of the first film is clear enough about that. What is a bit far-fetched to me is the fact that Queenie thinks it obligatory to charm Jacob to make him follow her. Why? Because he wouldn’t leave his flourishing business? He does love her, so much so that he doesn’t want her to risk her liberty for him. She says it’s because of the laws: in the USA, relationships of any kind between the magical community and Muggles are strictly forbidden, and thus a marriage would end up with Queenie in prison and Jacob properly Obliviated (this time).

The use of a spell to enchant her lover reminds me a bit of Merope Gaunt, I must say, with the minor difference that Tom Riddle Sr. didn’t love Merope, and therefore her using a potion (yeh I know, Queenie used a spell) is more ‘understandable’. Plus, if the couple actually travels to Europe, why not marry there where the laws aren’t that primitive? Queenie suggests it, at some point, but Jacob still refuses. This is a complete mystery to me, I must admit. I mean the logic doesn’t fit.

BUT. If there was one of the four heroes who should rally Grindelwald, I thought it would have been Queenie, because she’s got a different sense of right and wrong, because she’s got that weakness when it comes to feelings, and because, on a more ‘evidence’ point of view, her head is straight under Grindelwald’s logo in the San Diego 2018 ComicCon poster. IT WAS QUEENIE. I’m glad she does. We’ll see how it gets going though, I’m rather curious about her future. Will she realise that whatever Grindelwald’s promises, Jacob is not part of them? And how come she doesn’t read his mind? Is Grindelwald using Occlumency against her? But she’s not a canon legilimens, whatever Rowling tries to explain about that. She can’t access people’s hidden stuff. Hmm…

However, I don’t think, as many reports do, that Queenie has turned evil. I reckon she’s only desperate to get above those MACUSA laws that prevent her marrying Jacob. She doesn’t think much, though, does she. Yet she’s been showing wit and presence of mind in the first film, where she plays an instrumental part in saving her friends: when she blackmailed that MACUSA official to get Jacob back, and helping the lot out of the building inside her suitcase. She knows how to use her charms with some cleverness and à-propos. So why the ruddy hell does she let herself draw in by Grindelwald? Why doesn’t she question his statements, while she knows who he is perfectly well? This is really weird. I mean she’d be the perfect character to show that it’s not because someone looks like the local Betty Boop she is a peabrain, and can do nothing of her life but be idle. She’d be superbe at that. Maybe she will, in the end, because she needs to travel through darkness to find her own light. Maybe we’ll have a spy again. Maybe… dunno. Maybe she’ll just stay with Grindelwald. Hope not, though.

About Obliviation…. I didn’t know that it also meant ‘removing only the bad memories off the head’. That sounds weird. So what the Swooping Evil Venom does is wipe off bad memories. That’s what Newt says in his suitcase to Jacob, in the first film (scene 46). Later, when the whole of New York needs to be Obliviated, he suggests the use of that same venom. If everyone in New York had their bad memories wiped off, that means they are starting a completely new life based only on their good memories from the whole of their lives. That’s a bit harsh, like a memory genocide. I mean imagine the whole city waking up and not knowing what bad things had happened, who is your foe or why you can’t get to do something you wanted? Plus, I’m sure that some people had good memories related to seeing creatures in Central Park or things like that. So they would still remember them. This isn’t canon Obliviation, and furthermore, doesn’t stick to the USA law that says wipe off ALL memories of magic from Muggles, not only the good ones. Mind you, how would it have looked like if they had been really Obliviated? A whole city of strangers? Big Loophole, I reckon. Which brings us back to Jacob’s situation. He apparently hasn’t forgotten about everything. But how could you say that being chased off by an Erumpent across Central Park could be a good memory? Yet Jacob hasn’t forgotten about them magical rhinos, since we can see Erumpent pastries in his bakery window display. This is all very strange. Kikimora suggested that actually after the canning factory (that sucks all the life out of him), having such an adventure can’t be a bad memory. I reckon she’s got a point here :P

Leta. Hm…. Well, she sacrifices herself in the end. Is that going to provide some kind of protection to the Scamander brothers? Or was it only because she couldn’t make up her mind between them or between light and darkness? Or because she was feeling too guilty? However, I’m glad that she’s not related to Credence, and that the Lestrange thing is something different. Leta is a complex character, and I’d have liked her to develop a bit more in the future films. It seems like a waste, for the moment.

Now there’s one question, from one snake to another. The Maledictus is Credence’s friend (or whatever you want to call that relationship of two scarred souls). She doesn’t really have a part to play in this film, but I guess that she’s not there for nothing, because of her name, for one. Nagini. That’s Voldemort’s pet snake, that Wormtail milked to feed him when he was trying to survive in Goblet of Fire, which makes me wonder, by the way: how can a snake be milked, unless the final transformation the Maledictus goes through is not complete, and that at the moment of transforming she is with a baby and breastfeeding. Plus, she’d be over 90 years old when Voldy uses her. That’s a lot of interrogations. And second, she’s been separated from Credence at the end of the film, because he was once again lured by Grindelwald, who claims he knows his true identity. She can’t just see him go and that’s it, can she. Third, HOW THE BLOODY HELL COME that seeing this, she would end up joining Voldemort? HOW?

Credence… well. He’s alive, no big deal there, and starting to control both his Obscurus and his magic. He’s joined that weirdo circus because it was travelling to Paris, and he knew there were answers to his quest about his true identity on the Old Continent. He knew about that half-elf, Irma, who had taken care of him on his journey to New York when he was a baby (so it must have been around 1904, right?), so he goes looking for her with the Maledictus after they escape from the circus. Now I don’t get it why he’s drawn to her. Why are they escaping together? Maybe only because they’re both outcasts, and both being in an abusive environment they can’t stand.

Then there’s this Ministry of Magic (MoM) bloke who took the job to track him down and kill him (the job that was offered to Newt but which he flatly refused - You’ve never met a monster you couldn’t love), but he kills Irma instead. Like WHAT? Why? So that she wouldn’t tell him the truth? As if she knew it. We learn later in the film that Credence is the baby she delivered to MaryLou Barebone in New York, but that is should have been little Corvus Lestrange, who was apparently killed by Leta herself on the journey, because she swapped the babies (her brother Corvus was whining too much, and she couldn’t stand it anymore, so she swapped it with another baby, but then the boat sank).

That Ministry bloke is apparently secretly working for Grindelwald because the MoM policies are too soft (see scene under the bridge). So he probably was afraid that Irma’s hugging Credence would lessen his powers since love and family are -again- the remedy to the curse of the Obscurial…

In the end we learn, via the fact that Credence is having a baby Phoenix first (twice in the film, actually), but then because Grindelwald tells him, that he’s actually Dumbledore’s brother Aurelius. Right. I think I’ll keep that discussion for the second batch of reflections, because it needs a bit of digging. Still, I couldn’t resist adding a picture of the cover of the Crimes of Grindelwald screenplay, where it is obvious that a phoenix (or two) are hiding.

Flamel. Something weird about him. ‘We don’t keep food in the house.’ WHAT? Of course he and Pernelle are rich enough with the Stone not to have to cook themselves, but seeing how Flamel moves, I can’t imagine him rambling around Paris to go to restaurants thrice a day. Even climbing into a motor might be something of a challenge. Some could argue the Flamels don’t need to eat. Yeh. Well, since when does Immortality and Wealth dispense you from eating? That’s not consistent with the story around the Stone, be it only the glimpse we see in Philosopher’s Stone or the reality of the alchemical achievement. I’m a bit disappointed in the part the character has to play. Just a safe home for Yusuf to recover and have his water dragon parasite removed from his eye, and that’s about it? We do get a glimpse of the Philosopher’s Stone, and yes, Flamel has some kind of Palantir he uses to see what happens outside, and yes he’s at the Père Lachaise for the final scene, but still I’m like so that’s it right? meh.

We go back to Hogwarts. The young Newt is played amazingly well, given that he had to match Eddie Redmayne. Well done Joshua Shea (and David Yates for casting him and not using visual effects to make Redmayne look younger)! Apart from the pinch when you see Hogwarts appear from above with the Dark Lake and all, it’s nothing special. Leta takes a tour, which leads her to speak with Dumbledore and this dialogue is probably the one worthy of attention during all the Hogwarts sequences (apart from ‘would you like a cup of tea’ in the end) - and adds to the ‘why did you kill her?’ question.

Young McGonagall is completely out of character. Sounds like she’s been taken straight from Cursed Sh***... that was a disappointment. She’d never behave as she does in this scene.

And I still haven’t got over the fact that Dumbledore is teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. No explanation is given in the film. I’m annoyed.

The French Ministry of Magic is accessed via a fountain. As said in my previous paper, I was wondering how people would be entering it in a non conspicuous way, because apart from shrinking themselves in the middle of the street and jumping into the plumbing… well. Apparently they vanish and the fountain sprouts some kind of railings? Come on people, this is a heavy breach of the Statute of Secrecy. Muggles wouldn’t see people disappearing?? No way. It is already bizarre enough at King’s Cross. Second thing is that again, the location tag on the screen reads ‘French Ministry of Magic’. Well, that’s not in accordance with what it is called everywhere else, namely Le Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France’. Why??

Same question in the USA: Why, in the name of Merlin’s most baggy pants, is MACUSA referred to as ‘American Ministry of Magic’? First of all, America is a continent, not a country. Referring to it as ‘American’ (YES, I know it’s common to do that but it still irks me) means that there are no other countries that can claim to be American in all three subcontinents. Try and tell Canadians that they don’t live in America, or Brazilians, or Mexicans. That’s not right. Well. If we set this ‘detail’ aside, the name of the United-Statesian Ministry of Magic is The Magical Congress of the United States of America, and NOT The American Ministry of Magic. Rowling made it quite plain in all her writings on Pottermore, for instance. So why WHY change that now? It only makes canon void of sense and nomenclature confusing.

Apparently, there’s a whole Wizarding layer to Paris, unlike London or New York, that you can enter via a statue of a woman sitting on a column (pic above). The Paris you enter has exactly the same map as the Muggle one, but it’s a parallel Paris. A bit weird, but probably the only way to manage a magical travelling circus without having to make yourself unplottable. Mind you, the Hogwarts Express can’t be seen by Muggles. So why couldn’t the same technique be used on a circus?

I’ll save Grindelwald, the raven and the Lestrange vault for my second piece, as well as Newt, Tina and Dumbledore, I think. I thought I’d leave the Deathly Hallows for the second bit too, but no. WHERE ARE THEY? They are everywhere from the title of the film to all the artwork by MinaLima, but not once are they mentioned in the film. Apart from the Elder Wand, in the hands of Grindelwald. Like the Potter films. Me. Is. Lost.

Many people around me or online have been complaining that this film had killed the wizarding world. Well I reckon it hasn’t, quite the contrary. It’s embedding Hogwarts in the Wizarding World, and not the other way round, folks. Rowling always stated that the Fantastic Beasts series would not be a children’s film series. She also often spoke about this as an allegory of the Interwar period, meaning the rise of extremism in Europe, culminating in WW2. It’s not a fairy tale, and not meant to be so.

Some more questions remain unanswered from before, or some details from this film, regarding the things discussed - or rather said - in this bit of writing:

Why didn’t Grindelwald kill the MoM official at the beginning, and ‘only’ made him fall into the Hudson river?

How come people can Apparate on the Hogwarts Bridge while all sources tell us you cannot Apparate on the grounds?

Why is a bloke called Travers the head of the MoM delegation sent to Hogwarts?

Why is the man replacing Newt to track down Credence so ambiguous? What’s his real role?

What’s Credence’s real family tree? Is he Dumbledore’s brother or half-brother? What’s the story behind this?

Phoenixes come to the Dumbledore family members when in dire need of help. Are there two phoenixes or is the one that comes to Credence actually already Fawkes?

So many questions, and so many more to come... when I get time enough to write the second part of this. Happy thinking, and please comment below with your own thoughts, agreements, disagreements, etc...!

Sources

Rowling, J. K. (2016). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Rowling, J. K. (2018). Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

#louhi #J. K. Rowling #Crimes of Grindelwald #Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them #Queenie #Jacob #Flamel #Credence #Leta #The Maledictus #Abernathy #First Impressions

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elisaenglish · 2 years

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What Love Really Means: Iris Murdoch on Unselfing, the Symmetry Between Art and Morality, and How We Unblind Ourselves to Each Other’s Realities

“Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.”

Decades into his long life, the poet Robert Graves defined love as “a recognition of another person’s integrity and truth in a way that… makes both of you light up when you recognise the quality in the other.” A generation later, the poetic playwright Tom Stoppard defined it as “knowledge of each other… knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face.” This unmasked fact is the antidote to the most dangerous fiction the Romantics bequeathed us — their model of love as union between lover and beloved, a kind of fusion of selves, with its connotation of mutual completion rather than mutual recognition of and rejoicing in two parallel completenesses.

Such gladsome recognition of the other’s otherness is the foundation of love and the foundation of morality — both requiring not a bridging of selves but an unselfing, both vulnerable to same fundamental misconception that fissures the very foundation upon which they rest. Almost every religious, spiritual, and contemplative tradition in the history of our species, when stripped of its mystical and counterscientific aspects, holds at its centre an ethic of love. But also central to almost every tradition, especially of the West, is a dangerous warping of love in the hands of the self.

Most commonly known as the Golden Rule, it mistakes the reality of the self for the only reality, taking one’s own wishes, desires, and longings as universal and presuming that the other shares those precisely — negating the sovereign reality of the other, negating the possibility that a very different person might want something very different done unto them.

The remedy for this malady of selfing is to remember that there are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives, each with its singular longings for and visions of beauty, goodness, and gladness. Nothing reminds us of this more readily than art, with its invitation to step into the intimate realities of other lives — the word “empathy,” after all, originated in the imaginative act of projecting oneself into a work of art — and no one has irradiated that reminder more luminously than the uncommon philosopher-novelist Iris Murdoch (July 15, 1919–February 8, 1999).

Long before her 1970 classic The Sovereignty of the Good, with its lovely conception of art as “an occasion for unselfing,” Murdoch began developing these ideas in an essay titled “The Sublime and the Good,” originally published in the Chicago Review in 1959 and later included in the altogether superb posthumous collection Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (public library).

She writes:

“Art and morals are… one. Their essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love. Love is the perception of individuals. Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality.”

In the same era when, across the Atlantic, Alan Watts was cautioning that “Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others” as he was introducing Eastern teachings in the West, Murdoch builds on the parallels between art and morality through the multiple dimensions of love — the personal and the political, the individual and the communal:

“The enemies of art and of morals, the enemies that is of love, are the same: social convention and neurosis. One may fail to see the individual… because we are ourselves sunk in a social whole which we allow uncritically to determine our reactions, or because we see each other exclusively as so determined. Or we may fail to see the individual because we are completely enclosed in a fantasy world of our own into which we try to draw things from outside, not grasping their reality and independence, making them into dream objects of our own. Fantasy, the enemy of art, is the enemy of true imagination: Love, an exercise of the imagination… The exercise of overcoming one’s self, of the expulsion of fantasy and convention… is indeed exhilarating. It is also, if we perform it properly which we hardly ever do, painful.”

In a sentiment that calls to mind James Baldwin’s reflection on love and his haunting observation that “nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom,” Murdoch adds:

“The tragic freedom implied by love is this: that we all have an indefinitely extended capacity to imagine the being of others. Tragic, because there is no prefabricated harmony, and others are, to an extent we never cease discovering, different from ourselves… Freedom is exercised in the confrontation by each other, in the context of an infinitely extensible work of imaginative understanding, of two irreducibly dissimilar individuals. Love is the imaginative recognition of, that is respect for, this otherness.”

Complement this fragment of Existentialists and Mystics — which also gave us Murdoch on art as a force of resistanceand the key to great storytelling — with her almost unbearably beautiful love letters, then revisit Tolstoy on love and morality.

Source: Maria Popova, themarginalian.org (8th January 2022)

#quote #women writers #love #art #complexity #meaning #existential musings #all eternal things #love in a time of...#intelligence quotients #depth perception #understanding beyond thought #perspective matters #essential thinking #the marriage of true minds #this is who we are #stands on its own #elisa english #elisaenglish

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douglaskimberly94 · 4 years

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Save Marriage During Separation Mind Blowing Useful Ideas

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How To Avoid An Ugly Divorce

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How To Stop Hurting After Divorce

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#Save Marriage During Separation Mind Blowing Useful Ideas #How To Stop A Divorce Once Filed

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review-that-film · 7 years

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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Review - Spoilers

I am very proud to be part of the Potter generation, growing up as the books and films were released. I know my house, wand and patronus, so when the news that there would be another film allowing us to return to the wizarding world I was very excited. However, there were a few worries in the back of my mind: would they contradict any information already given to us? Would they be able to get us to care for characters that we’ve only just met? Would it live up to the phenomenon that is Harry Potter? So I approached “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” with a little trepidation but when the time came for the midnight viewing on a Thursday night with some of my closest friends, and Hedwig’s theme started to play, with the slight twist in the melody, I knew I was hooked once again.

It’s a great start to the film, seeing the back of Grindleward, alerting us to the looming presence of this famous dark wizard. It reminds us that however much fun the film will be there is an underlying darker nature to this new series. I enjoyed the flashes of newspaper articles from around the world, reminding us that even though we have only seen the wizarding world in the UK, there are wizards all over the world. It also allowed us to get an idea of the times that we are in – the 1920s. The soundtrack for this film is brilliant and rivals that of the original Harry Potter series. The interwoven sections of old melodies with the new is great, allowing us to feel as though we’ve already been to this place before.

When we are first introduced to the hero of our new series, Newt comes across instantly as a kind-hearted, loveable and slightly odd character. Eddie Redmayne is brilliant in the role, portraying perfectly how socially awkward Newt is but also how caring, especially towards his creatures, he is. Newt’s blue coat is a brilliant bit of costuming as it shows there is something a bit different about this character, it’s even different to the way the rest of the wizarding world dress, being such a bright colour in contrast to the darker colours used for the majority of the cast. On the boat we get to see him stroking his case and trying to calm down whatever creature, Doogle as he calls it, is inside. The clasp unbuckling itself a couple of times in Newt’s first few scenes are a nice touch as a forewarning of what chaos is to come.

Newt’s arrival at customs is a lovely scene but there is a little tension. He is obviously a little nervous when talking to the customs officer, especially when he asks to look in the case. However, magic saves the day with a very nifty “Muggle Worthy” switch to change whatever is in the case to show some of Newt’s belongings. This includes an old fashioned Hufflepuff scarf. I’m so glad that the filmmakers have gone in the direction to show us some notable characters from other houses. In the Harry Potter series, we had some great characters that were not in Gryffindor, such as Luna and Cedric, but our Golden Trio were all in the house of scarlet and gold. Most of my friends are proud Hufflepuffs and it’s nice for them that they are starting to get just as much great merchandise to show off their house pride as us Gryffindors. For casual fans of the Harry Potter series, there has tended to be a thought that Gryffindor is the only notable house so it is brilliant that we die-hard fans can prove them wrong with such a kind and brave character as Newt.

The scene at the bank is a great introduction to some of our other main characters. Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) is trying to look inconspicuous whilst standing in the middle of a crowd listening to a woman, Mary Lou (Samantha Morton) preach that all the mysterious events occurring in New York are due to witches living among them. Newt arrives to listen to Mary Lou, then sets his case down. A slightly flustered man, Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), bustles into the crowd, bumping into Newt’s case. This draws attention to Newt and Mary Lou homes in on him. The next few lines are some of my favourite in the film. You can tell Newt feels quite smug with himself. Mary Lou asks Newt if he is a seeker and Newt replies “I’m more of a chaser really”. It’s a lovely way to incorporate something to do with Quidditch and made even funnier with how oblivious all the Muggles are to this reference. We are also introduced to Credence (Ezra Miller) who seems a very sad and scared young man who we can’t help feeling instantly sorry for. Ezra Miller does a fantastic job as the beaten down character.

We are quite quickly introduced to our first fantastic beast – the Niffler. The design of the Niffler was just as I imagined in when I first read J.K.Rowling’s description in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He is just as mischievous and fond of shiny things as described and it was a lovely moment to finally see something that I had only imagined. I love all the scenes which involve Newt trying to catch his Niffler and the bank scene is no different. It is made all the funnier with Tina following Newt with confused looks from her and other patrons at the odd behaviour of this man. I particularly love Newt’s looks of disapproval towards Niffler as he tries to collect a gold bar from the bank vault and later as he tries to stay inconspicuous to Newt in the jewellery shop.

The lines in this film are brilliant. They range from very funny, Jacob’s confusion “I was there, now I’m here” after Newt disapparates with him being a great example, to nods to the world that we have already learnt about, such as spells we watch Harry and his friends learn, and even to slightly more thought provoking ones. One of which is a line my friend and I always say to one another during exams “Worrying means you suffer twice”. I love this quote as it is so true and definitely a mantra to live by.

When Tina refers to Jacob as a No-Maj, we are all a little confused just as Newt is. It makes sense though that throughout the world there would be different names for people with no magic. I liked how Newt didn’t start calling them No-Maj’s but continued with Muggle as that would have been what he grew up calling them. There could have been a temptation to have our hero start referring to Muggles in the American way since he was in New York but I was glad they kept the distinction between the two countries.

Seeing the MACUSA building is a great way to introduce us to the difference within the wizarding world. Here we meet Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), the Senior Auror and Seraphina Piquery (Carmen Ejogo), Madam President (the equivalent of the Minister for Magic in the UK). They are discussing the threat of Grindleward when Tina interrupts with Newt. We learn here that Tina used to be an auror but has been demoted to a position in wand permits. Graves seems fond of Tina, most likely from being a mentor to her. This, however later on, doesn’t stop him sentencing her and Newt to death on false terms.

On meeting Tina’s sister Queenie, we can tell that, just like Newt, she is slightly different to the rest of the magical world. Also like Newt and his blue coat, she has a coat of a very bright shade of pink. Queenie is a very kind character, who is quietly a very powerful witch, which we can tell after being told she is a legilimens (can read minds), a skill that only very powerful and talented witches and wizards can master. The magical community in America is very different to that in the UK, such that they don’t allow any interactions between themselves and Muggles. This is something that Newt and we, the audience, find very strange but Queenie shows us that not every witch or wizard in America feels the same way as we get to see her develop strong feelings for the Muggle Jacob. I particularly love the relationship between the two sisters, especially when hearing Queenie talk so proudly of her sister Tina being a career woman.

The wait to finally see inside Newt’s case was definitely worth it, the sight is absolutely breath-taking. This is the perfect time to talk about the special effects in this film. They are utterly outstanding. Being able to create very life-like creatures using VFX software is very impressive. The whole segment with the creatures is brilliant and you really get the feeling at just how fantastic this world that has been created it. Even the smallest of details, such as those creatures that are only in the background are superb and allow us to be completely immersed in the wonder of such strange creatures. Newt’s scene with the Thunderbird Frank was heart-warming and reminded me so much of the scene in Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry meets Buckbeak. The names that have been given to some of the creatures are brilliant and so obscure. We have Frank the Thunderbird, Pickett the Bowtruckle and Doogle the Demiguise. Newt cares very deeply for all his creatures, as shown that he carries Pickett around in his coat pocket because he has a slight cold. I think their relationship is one of the closest that Newt has with one of his creatures, close enough that some of the other Bowtruckles accuse him of favouritism.

A truly hilarious part of this film is Newt’s Erumpent mating dance. I have no idea how Eddie Redmayne would have been able to keep a straight face. It doesn’t matter how many times I see that scene; it always has me laughing out loud.

We get to hear a bit more about Newt’s background when he, Jacob and Tina are in front of all the leaders of each magical community. We learn that Newt has a brother, who is a war hero, and we get the sense that Newt has always been in his brother’s shadow. We also learn in his interrogation with Graves, that he was expelled from Hogwarts, due to an incident with a magical creature, but Albus Dumbledore was the only teacher that fought his corner. What actually happened has not been fully explained to us yet but I think it has something to do with Leta Lestrange and it wouldn’t surprise me if Newt had taken the fall for something that she had done. It was heart-breaking hearing Newt shout in pain at the thought of them hurting his creatures and hearing him insisting that none were harmful as they dragged him away, was painful.

The filmmakers did a great job at having us believe that the child, and as we later find out is an Obscurus, Graves was so intent on finding was the younger sister of Credence, Modesty. This was done via the editing where we would swap from a scene with Credance and Graves to one where Modesty was present. We saw that there was a bond there between the two siblings and since all we knew of Obscurus’ was they couldn’t live past the age of ten. So when the big twist in the film is revealed, the audience is left stunned that it was Credence all along. I definitely believe that Credence survived and I hope we get to see him again in the upcoming films.

The other big reveal in the film, is that Graves was not who we thought he was. In fact, he was Grindleward all along. This was a great twist and has made me quite excited about the story to come. The twist did clear up some of the earlier scenes such as Graves giving Credence a Deathly Hallows sign and why Graves was so intent on finding the Obscurus. The only thing that I’m unsure about with this film is the casting of Johnny Depp as Grindleward. On the whole I associate him in comedic roles such as Captain Jack Sparrow and, personally, I don’t think that sort of character would work for one of the most powerful dark wizards of all time. However, I will not write this casting off and I only hope that my concerns will not come true.

The final scene for our four heroes to be together is very emotional as they say goodbye to Jacob, who has to be obliviated. It was nice that Newt told him that he considered Jacob his friend. But the truly heart wrenching moment was after a final kiss from Queenie, Jacob opens his eyes, and his friends have been removed from his memory and we see that the antics that occurred over the past days is all forgotten. It was a lovely touch that Newt gave Jacob the Occumy shells to act as collateral to allow him to open up his bakery, also being quite fitting that their final meeting was a parallel to that of their first; them bumping into one another and switching cases. Newt and Tina’s goodbye is very sweet and gives us a glimpse of a potential romance to come between these great characters. The ending to this film is very uplifting and brightened all of our hearts after so many goodbyes. Finally seeing Jacob succeeding in his dream, by conjuring up baked goods in the designs of Newts creatures. They leave us suspecting that, maybe due to Jacob’s long exposure to magic, he may subconsciously remember more than the normal Muggle would and when seeing Queenie, we can only hope all these wonderful memories will return to him.

To sum up, I absolutely loved this film, with its instantly likeable characters, amazing special effects and a great story line, it definitely holds its own against the Harry Potter series. I could even say I have preferred this film to the Harry Potter ones, as there was nothing for me to compare it to and so it didn’t allow me to feel disappointed with the exclusion of any of my pre-existing favourite scenes and characters. It has been a wonderful introduction to the new wizarding world franchise, characters and time. I can’t wait for the next films to come out and will definitely be enjoying them once again at the midnight showing with my friends.

Mischief Managed

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