#the continuity errors between shots in these scenes is so funny to me but i only noticed bc ive spent two hours on this gifset | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

koalatydm · 3 years

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Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast Episode 5 - The Deluxe Elf Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry

Transcription Part 1 of 2 (includes Wonderstorm questions and Kuno's questions)

[Transcriber's Notes: This took me SO LONG to transcribe, like multiple hours and I'm only halfway done... But I will make it through at least this one episode because I want fellow Moonfam enthusiasts to have a text source, not to mention make it easier for deaf/HoH people to follow along. I guess I'll tag @kuno-chan since she said it was OK at the beginning of the podcast, sorry if I'm bothering you!]

KUNO: Hi guys, so I have a personal request for this particular podcast episode if you guys could tweet, post, both at least one piece of information that you learned from this particular episode, that you love, that inspired you, that you thought was cute, whatever. Like, I really—one thing that really tends to happen is that people listen to the podcast and they kinda just go about their day. We don’t actually see the information circulate through the community, which we really try to have creative questions—questions that are fun and explore the characters in different situations. And it would just be really, really cool—it would mean a lot to me to see this actually circulate through the community, actually circulate through the fandom, and see, you know, it would be awesome to see it be inspired—to inspire fan works, fan fiction, fan art, especially fan art. I just—we talked like a solid hour at least—really like a solid hour about Runaan, Rayla, Ethari, that family, um, and Moonshadow elves a lot. We talked a lot about that. And I think this is information that a lot of people really wanted, even if it’s in largely headcanon form. But Devon and Iain were so gracious and we talked so much about that family, and including Ruthari, and of course some Rayllum in there. So if you guys could live tweet, or even just one tweet, at least one tweet. Tag us, tag me, tag Hailey, tag @HotPotion, even if you send it directly to me on Tumblr, that’d be awesome and we’d retweet, reblog all your stuff. It would be good for the podcast and I just really want to see this information circulate through the fandom, so at least one tweet. Alright, um, let’s get to the episode though. Thanks! Hope to see you guys on social media about this.

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KUNO: Alright, hey everyone, this is the Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcasts with your hosts Tamika and Hailey, and we are here with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry, two writers on The Dragon Prince at Wonderstorm, and Devon being actually the recently announced lead writer at Wonderstorm, so say hi everyone!

DEVON: Hi!

IAIN: Hi, this is Iain…

DEVON: Hi, I’m Devon… (laughs)

KUNO: And so we have a ton of stuff to get through today, um, a lot of questions, so—but we’re going to ask Iain and Devon a little bit about themselves first, since I think—I’m not sure if this is the first interview they’ve really had, personally, so uh, Hailey do you want to start—head that?

HAILEY: Um, yeah, sure. Uh, could you tell us about your roles at Wonderstorm?

IAIN: Uh, sure, uh—I’m also a writer at—official title “Senior Writer” at Wonderstorm. I was one of the writing team on the show, not quite as early as Devon, who was basically employee 1 after the founders but um, I joined sort of, end of 2016 when season 1 writing was really starting to get rolling, and was you know part of the process all the way through all the seasons. Uh, and since this—it’s such a small start up company, all the writers take a bunch of other, like, production roles on the show. Like, throughout all three seasons we’ve done, like, continuity notes work, we’ve given feedback on like every step of the production process. And then the other kind of side things we have, like you know, very top secret game that we’re making in here. And like, kind of straddle the line between the show writing and the game so that that’s all kind of on point and feels like it’s in the same universe with the same characters as The Dragon Prince, but ah, can’t say too much about that just yet.

DEVON: Iain does a lot of—a lot of secret work (laughs). Um, yeah as for me, I’m also a writer on The Dragon Prince and my—I was a Senior Writer until very recently, and now I’ve been made into a Lead Writer, which means I just get to flex a lot. Um, but I started in, I think the very, very end of 2015 when Wonderstorm was first getting off the ground as like a tiny, tiny startup. And we were basically four people in a room about, I don’t know, like 20 ft by 10 ft. It was really, really awful—

IAIN: Really smelly.

DEVON: Really smelly, really tiny, like only a skylight for a window, it was great. And I—so I was involved in like the earliest of brainstorming for the show. I helped sort of like put together a lot of the pitch deck when we you know took it around to studios and like, I named like most of the characters—is like my most self-indulgent claim on the show cause I got to do a lot of really silly stuff. Um, but yeah, and then I like help out on a million other fronts at Wonderstorm too because we’re a small company and—yeah, the funny thing about the—the small tasks we have, like you mentioned continuity checks. Um, we often had to make sure that Callum’s backpack and book and Rayla’s bindings were always correct, and that was kind of, the funniest and most intense, like, stage of production ever. Cause you would, you know, watch one shot and then the next shot would come up and Callum’s backpack would have disappeared. So we had to be like, “OK, let’s give Callum backpack back on.”

IAIN: Yeah, and it’s not just for accuracy, but like, the way fandoms operate, like, we just knew if Rayla’s binding reappeared sometime, it wouldn’t be viewed as an error. People would be like “WHAT DID THE KING GET UNKILLED WHAT HAPPENED OVER HERE”.

DEVON: No it was just the—

KUNO: Oh, yeah.

IAIN: Woo!

DEVON: —continuity’s way harder than anyone thinks it is (laughs). It’s a lot.

KUNO: Oh bless you guys for knowing that though cause we—we totally would. Like, think, there was a point I remember saying that they changed Viren’s eye color because they didn’t want too much continuity with Rayla’s eye color and I feel like we were really that close to having a ‘Viren is Rayla’s real father’ issue. We really were. Somebody had to have thought about that issue (laughs).

DEVON: I actually think there is—there’s still at least one shot in the show where Viren has the wrong eye color and if you can find it, congratulations (laughter in background). That’s where we missed—missed it. So it’s in there somewhere.

KUNO: Xadia CSI (IAIN laughs). So you two are married, um, can you tell us what it’s like being married writing partners?

IAIN: You wanna go?

DEVON: Um, yeah, I mean it’s—we actually knew each other professionally before we dated, so it wasn’t like we—it’s sort of like, it was easy for us to—to remain work partners because that was how we existed in the first place. Like I met Iain when I interviewed him for a job and I—he was great (IAIN laughs), he was fun, he was all right.

IAIN: Apparently I passed.

DEVON: But um, so yeah we had a professional relationship before we had a dating—‘dating’ relationship. Um, so it’s strange because a lot of people will say like, “Oh, that’s probably terrible. You probably, like, become absolutely sick of each other” but somehow we’ve managed to—to have like, two relationship patterns where when we’re at work and we’re working on writing stuff we have this very professional thing going on and then at home, we’re just married idiots and we have a lot of fun. So like, I don’t know, I’m never tired of you, personally.

IAIN: No, (DEVON laughs) yeah I mean when we’re writing it’s generally like, Devon’s the one on the keys uh, you know, putting the words in and so on, and it will kind of bounce back and forth between like, I’ll have the idea for the—how the scene should flow and I’ll kinda narrate bits and then we’ll go back and smooth things over. But I mean, I could imagine that with some people it would get tense, but I think Devon and I, we’re just absolutely the most comfortable with each other and neither of us takes it personally when it’s like, “that line that you pitched isn’t working” or “this joke could be funnier”, anything like that.

DEVON: It’s usually Iain who’s—cause I usually type cause I type really too fast.

IAIN: She’s really too proud of her typing (laughs).

DEVON: I type super fast, it’s my only real talent, but—like I’ll just sort of go off on some sort of like incredibly unnecessary, long description of something and Iain will sort of let me get about like four or five lines into this unnecessary nonsense and he’ll just sort start going like, “OK so like, do we really—do we need that? I mean, you know, could we sort of parse this down a little, a little less, a little less”. And then I, just like, “Ugh, fine” (laughs).

IAIN: But um, every word she writes is great.

DEVON: Mmm (skeptically)

IAIN: It’s perfect.

DEVON: Completely not true. Also in our scripts I think like—

KUNO: Aw.

DEVON: —in terms of the way that we work professionally, I think like a lot of my strengths are in—in really almost self indulgent levels of drama and he can kind of pull me back from being too indulgent on those fronts. And then I think that Iain is objectively absurdly funny and so when you kind of look at our episodes usually everything that’s pretty funny and lighthearted and like the sense of levity often comes from you and then if there’s anything that just feels really painfully sad it’s probably me?

IAIN: I’m the funny one.

DEVON: (laughs) It’s true.

KUNO: Aw, I feel such a connection to you Devon, because I’m actually, episode 3 was actually one of my favorite ones because I love all that like domestic stuff. I love just kind of like—oh, I don’t know what you call the trope, like a safe house trope where you go somewhere, you’re still kind of in the adventure but we’re in a space right now, a narrative space where people are safe, if that makes any sense. Like you—if you’ve ever seen How To Train Your Dragon, like (T/N I don’t know what was said here, sorry!), the base is the safe place, that kind of thing. So, I totally get that, I actually see—episode 3 was one of my favorites outside of pretty much every episode where Rayllum was a thing. (laughter from multiple people)

HAILEY: The whole season basically (laughs).

KUNO: Pretty much the whole season, um. I think there was one more question about two.

HAILEY: Yeah sooo.

KUNO: Before we get to the elves.

HAILEY: Yeah, definitely. Uh so it was mentioned that you’re now lead writer, Devon, and can you tell a little bit more about what that entails if you can, and how that’s been going?

DEVON: Yeah, I mean… I actually don’t know what I can say about it, um… I think it—it means that uh, for future Dragon Prince stuff I’ll sort of like take a bit more of an active role in leading the—the development and the storylines and things like that. It also means that from a company perspective um I’ve been kind of involved in some other side stuff that Wonderstorm is quietly looking into developing and um I help a lot with other IPs that we would love to make a real thing someday and that’s kind of all I can say about it I think or I’ll get in trouble.

HAILEY: All right, that’s great, that’s good to know, thank you.

KUNO: The Dragon Prince 2 (laughter from multiple people). I’m totally joking everyone that’s not a thing so don’t take that for—

HAILEY: Wow.

KUNO: I’m joking.

IAIN: Two dragons.

DEVON: The Dragon 2 Prince.

KUNO: Yeah. OK also if there’s anything that you guys say that you want redacted this is probably not going up for another week because I have to get our reaction episode out. So anything you guys think about that you’re like, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that” just message us and we’ll redact that. Yeah, cause we know that—

HAILEY: Or just say it. Just tell us, like, what’s—

DEVON: Hopefully we have some self-control but—

KUNO: Okay, so we are going to get really indulgent here and I think this is going to be really in Devon’s wheelhouse. We have a lot of questions and a bunch of the scenarios so try to get through as much of it as possible. Um so the first question is can you tell us more about the Silvergrove? What is the government system like in Silvergrove? Who runs it? If you could tell us that is that the only—at least like the leadership role? Um, is that the only Moonshadow elf village? And also do they actually get any real daylight because I noticed when the illusion thing happened it just got shady and I’m like, “They might be taking this Moonshadow thing too far”. Like the elves—do they really like that much? So like tell us about the Silvergrove and where Rayla grew up.

IAIN: So I guess it’s probably worth just starting off with a kind of blanket like, ‘if it hasn’t been in the show, we can’t say it’s 100% fact. A lot of this is just gonna be what kind of we thought, rough shape of things happen in our heads—‘

KUNO: Yeah, absolutely.

IAIN: —going into the writing and so on. So you know, don’t come after me with any, uh, fandom lawyers, anyone. But um yeah, I guess like it’s sort of—it’s most useful for us to think about it in comparison to how the Sunfire elves, like clearly they have very structured society. They have a queen, obviously, and they have large cities and so on whereas we think Moonshadow elves live in, as you saw, much smaller communities. And I think the Silvergrove is not the only one of those, it might be one of the better known ones where clearly the best assassins come from. But uh, I think are other ones out there, um, and maybe even Moonshadow elf people do not know where all the other ones are. Obviously the Silvergrove is hidden and maybe they don’t even have access to all the other ones. So I think there’s a sort of community run vibe to things. I think you know when they decided to—to ghost Rayla, and before that Rayla’s parents, I think that was probably a ‘let’s all come to a consensus before we make a decision about something like this’. I think, Devon, if you want to talk about the kind of like sunlight vibes things, because that was a big part of your driving force behind how this episode looked and felt.

DEVON: Um… well… first, I will say that it was potentially from the top down a complicated visual decision to have episode 3 take place in a Moonshadow elf shady forest grove and also the kingdom of sunlight.

IAIN: Yup.

DEVON: It created a couple production problems in terms of like the way we wanted the Silvergrove to look was very like evening themed and cool colors and you know shaded. And I had this really sort of self indulgent thing where I really wanted it to be as close to night time as possible and yet the story line in Lux Aurea was clearly taking place in the middle of the day. So we came to this sort of compromise that you know it is technically daytime through the whole day and there is enough tree cover that it’s already pretty shadowy but also I think there is some magic at play that’s sort of like generally um shrouds the whole thing in more of like a night time vibe. And my inspiration for that was I’m a big World of Warcraft player, or was I don’t super play a ton anymore but I really loved Ashenvale and some of the night elf regions and they had that similar thing that no matter what time of day it was it always felt like at least dusk or like this sort of like ever—ever shaded feeling. And I indulgently kind of wanted that to be where Rayla came from. So that’s what that’s about.

IAIN: Yeah and I think they’re magical beings. They don’t need vitamin D from the sunlight or anything like that. They’re totally fine if they just get moonlight every so often.

DEVON: But yeah, don’t write a script that has, you know, moon themed place and sun themed place at the same time. It was a… questionable choice (laughs). But I think it turned out—

KUNO: Yeah, ‘cause I was wondering—I was wondering—I was like “Okay” because a lot of the stuff you run through—you run the okay, if I were to write a fanfiction how do I use this. So it’s like, do they just never like—if they like—if Callum were to say live in the Silvergrove would he just have to get used to the fact that like it’s just never totally bright daylight or unless you leave the Silvergrove in the forest, uh, and like—that type of—is that what’s kind of like going on, they just like their shade?

DEVON: I think they like their shade. It’s like Scotland in the winter.

IAIN: Oh yeah, except we all get miserable by around about February when we haven’t seen sunlight in several months. But um yeah, I think it’s kind of like yeah, a combination of ‘oooh, magic’ and also just extremely, like, thick tree cover in the deepest parts of the forest. But I don’t think you have to travel too far. But uh, I think there’s a reason why everyone in that town was a Moonshadow elf and there were no Sunfire elves or random humans just like, chilling and living there. I think only the most goth of kids would be able to live in the Silvergrove without going a little bit mad.

DEVON: I mean you only have to go as far as the adoraburr field which clearly still gets a significant amount of daylight.

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: And you said there’s not really like a leader. They do as a community, but is there anyone that like makes decisions, like is there anybody that like if they were to go to somebody, like if they have like village leadership decisions. And obviously, um, blanket statement that all this we assume is kind a little bit of headcanon so it doesn’t have to be like for gospel, but you know for purposes of writing stuff.

DEVON: Um the way I thought about it—well, to back up a tiny bit, there was actually a version of the story where there might have—this was super, super early on, we were thinking about how the story might play out and we talked about there being potentially another Moonshadow elf leader type character that they would meet who, you know, was the one who ultimately called for the Ghosting decision. But that didn’t really fit the sort of, like, very personal nature of the story we wanted to play out with Rayla specifically. Um but thinking about that and the way that we were, you know, trying to shape it—I would imagine that like the assassins are sort of like a specific group that live in the Silvergrove which is otherwise—it’s not all assassins, like, not everybody there is an assassin. And I think that means that like you know Runaan was the leader of the assassins so he might consult with the leader of the blacksmiths who may be someone over Ethari but maybe it’s him now who might consult with the other general leaders—I don’t know. Like I think it’s more of a counsel of different groups than one single authority. It just seems like that would be a better fit for Moonshadow elves than the sort of like very, very strong-army, structured, high-and-mighty feeling that the Sunfire elves have, so, does that make sense?

KUNO: That totally makes sense, a little bit like an oligarchy, I think I had the idea that like they sound like they like a counsel. Like it sounds like a elven conciliatory.

DEVON: Yeah I think like someone might say, like obviously something horrible has happened and Rayla is exactly the person we thought she was. I’m calling for a—a ghost vote. And then you know—

IAIN: With a cooler name than that.

DEVON: No I think it’s canonically, I’m sorry—

IAIN: Ghost vote?

DEVON: The canon is “ghost vote” now.

IAIN: Okay.

DEVON: But yeah, they would all sort of like weight in kind of like a town hall scenario about of like why this is obviously the correct call and they would all sort of like have to come to some sort of agreement about what to do versus the Sunfire queen just being like “mph, time for the light, light decides!”

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: Okay um the next question being almost a little on that, does Ethari regret, um, what does he—does Ethari regret doing the banishing spell now that he knows the truth about Rayla?

DEVON: Oh absolutely 100%. But I don’t think he would have the power to—to reverse it. Like I think he could do a quick charm to help reverse it in the moment just to speak with her but ultimately it would take a lot for him to undo it and I’m not—we haven’t talked about what he’ll get up to in the meantime, but I don’t know he would be able to pursue it so directly—I’d have to talk about it, I think it would be an interesting side thought to think about how he might pursue redeeming her in the eyes of her people knowing what he knows, but—

IAIN: Yeah I think given that we said it would take everyone to do it collectively and make an agreed decision it would similarly everyone would have to understand the truth and go back on it and ‘oh I saw her one time and she said she didn’t do anything wrong probably isn’t enough to overturn that. But yeah I think he probably felt some regret even at the moment, but you know he’s in some of the worst grief of his entire life and he’s not going to make perfect rational decisions. And I’ve seen you know some people were slightly upset that he got so angry with Rayla in the moment of seeing her but I think like when you first see the person that you’ve tried to convince yourself sort of took the most important person in your life away from you, you’re gonna feel a big mess of feelings and it will bring up some grief that maybe you thought you were just—just starting to get over, so ah. Yeah I think hopefully he can turn that around in the years to come but they’ve all had a rough time. They’re at war. It sucks (DEVON laughs). Don’t go to war, kids.

KUNO: Hailey did you want to ask the next one or did you want me to?

HAILEY: Sure I can ask it. Could you—so I mean—you mentioned a stuff—a couple things about their government system and whatnot, but is there anything else you could tell us about Moonshadow culture, like what their day to day is like, and what it means to be a Moonshadow elf?

DEVON: Um I do think that a lot of the fandom I’ve been pleased to see has picked up on this sort of idea of a fairly rigid culture and you know there’s a lot of importance placed on things like honor, loyalty, and the ability to commit to things. And um I think that could come off as pretty strict but I actually think it comes from the place of valuing a close knit community. And I think, like, to the idea that we said like they probably have some kind of counsel instead of some single authority kind of ruler. It’s—I think their day to day would be very much going about their business in ways that support each other you know? Like does that make sense? It’s—you go to the blacksmith and he does work for you and it’s friendly and conversational but it��s productive—it’s all very for the good of the community.

IAIN: Yeah I think early on in season 1 even Rayla says that you know they’re not really meant to show their feelings. So I think everyone kind of commits to doing their task for the good of the village and doesn’t gripe about their day to day until something bad happens as the entire series to this point has been driven by. But um yeah I think they uh—they’re just committed to having a good, small, close knit village life and all supporting each other the best they can. And then occasionally the dragon queen tells you to go kill someone and that’s your job so you better go do that without complaining about it.

DEVON: I think we use the words “reclusive yet intimate” in the article we put up about the two moon creatures, the moonstrider and the shadowpaw. And I liked that a lot because I think they’re reclusive in the sense that they’re a little bit shut off from the wider world and they’re um isolationist in their preservation of their own culture but they are very close to each other and that is something that they hold at such an—like a preciousness level but it’s also a bit extreme, like if you betray that in any capacity like obviously they take that very seriously. And so it’s a double edged sword if you will, to have a community that supportive and that close but also your ability to perform all of yourself for the good of that community can be your undoing so—

KUNO: No I actually kinda get that um ‘cause I’m Pacific Islander so I think we’d call that what you’d call a collectivist society where it’s like the needs of the group supercede needs of the individual so I kinda like I—it’s not the extreme I think that they are because they’re very like reclusive but um I kinda live like that in a little bit of way. It’s what I grew up with. So I actually totally get that which might be why I like that so much (multiple people laugh). Um so the next question would be how does the banishing spell work that, um, that was used on Rayla politically and magically? I think we’ve talked a little bit about politically already but magically is—I’m assuming it’s a collective decision or does each person, like, opt in? Like could Ethari have opted out of doing it or did we—did they all have to agree?

DEVON: I think everybody have to agree?

KUNO: And how is it broken?

DEVON: I don’t think you can opt out?

IAIN: Um I think ‘how is it broken’ is something we definitely want to save for—for the future uh we really hope that Rayla manages to undo that. In terms of I think that it’s just culturally ingrained that you wouldn’t opt out. Um I think they would probably just argue forever until they manage to come to an agreement. So I—yeah I don’t think there’s you know half the elves in that village who are seeing Rayla and were like “Oh hey Rayla how’s it going?” I think uh they all came to the collective decision. That’s kind of the political angle. Um sorry, what was the other part? Magically how it works?

KUNO: Yeah? How would you do it?

IAIN: I—again, you know if it’s not in the show it’s not canon, but I sort of inspired by how the entrance spell works where they do a dance and there’s a ritual and I imagine it’s kind of similar. Like I think there’s a lot of that kind of like ritualistic style of magic and it’s kind of like what you see when they put the flowers out onto the water as well. There’s you know a collective dance probably involving a lot more people, a lot more cool intricate runes that happen only with a much more somber mood than the fun, happy times of Callum and Rayla dancing around in the forest. Um so yeah it’s probably—I would imagine it’s probably tied to some whatever the saddest phase of the moon is and that’s when they all get together and really somberly and really sadly uh commit to never seeing this person again. At least that’s the part of the plan. An interesting question that I think could be something that fanfiction writers such as yourself could get into is has any one of these ever been broken before or have they all been pretty sure that they would never need to go back on it? Is that going to be something that Rayla is going to figure out for the first time ever or is there a precedent for this happening. And we don’t have an answer right now but I think that would be a cool story to think about and write.

DEVON: Oh man I love the saddest phase of the moon idea. Imagine if they do it at the new moon because it’s like the moon’s face is hidden forever. Whoo.

IAIN: Whoo.

DEVON: Sad.

KUNO: Maybe we’re birthing things while we’re doing this interview. I actually think it would be like Callum does the Historia Viventum thing and it would be so—cause now I’m just imagining this whole village doing this sad dance which is the Banish Rayla dance essentially. And like that would be so sad for Rayla to witness that just for the drama of seeing her entire village decide to just not see her ever again. And that’s like wow, I’m so sad now.

DEVON: I love sadness.

IAIN: Yeah Callum just crushing a series of Moon Opals to show such a clip show of all of Rayla’s saddest history moments (laughs).

DEVON: Oh god.

IAIN: That’d be great.

DEVON: Thanks Callum.

KUNO: Thanks Callum. Um, she’d love him anyway. But um okay so some of my favorite stuff, what was it like for Rayla when her parents had to leave her to live with Runaan and Ethari and what was that transition like for them all? How old was like Rayla too?

DEVON: This was one that we’ve had a couple different ideas about so this is another one that’s like heavy not quite canon bubble. Like if we actually end up doing a story that involves some of these details it’s likely to change and be slightly different but the versions that I’ve liked have involved her being pretty young. And because honor is such a you know key part of Moonshadow culture I think like overall it was something that she felt you know sad about because she knew that she wasn’t going to be directly seeing her parents very often anymore. And—but it was uh such a huge honor that she felt you know pride in what her parents were being selected to go do. You know, act as Dragonguard and serve as these sort of like honorific, um, warriors that left the collective of the Silvergrove to go represent Moonshadow elves in the service of the Dragon Queen. And I think she had—she grew up being told what an honor that was and how much pride she should have in her parents because that is such a special thing. And then I think like it speaks a lot to how proud she was when she believed that they ran away and abandoned that duty because you know, how could they? If that was their reason for leaving her when she was a child and then they ran away from that job, like, how important could it have really been? And then you know, I’m sure that makes her feel very, very small. It made her feel so hurt that she told Callum at first that they were dead so she took it pretty hard.

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: But I think the other thing about it that we’ve sort of kicked around is that like, Runaan and Ethari were Rayla’s parents’ close friends and I think she was familiar with them enough that she didn’t feel like she was being you know left with two strangers. It’s sort of just like, you’re going to be under the care of people who are already very, very close to you and care about you quite a bit.

IAIN: Yeah I think with like Moonshadow elves in general the thing I think about a lot is like the good and evil that comes from suppressing your true emotions to show a different face to the world and I think we see a lot of that in Rayla. Like I think she probably committed pretty hard to Ghosting her parents because she had this like big mess of like sadness that she’d left but at least the soft landing of Runaan and Ethari to live with and so on. But believing like this sadness is worth it because they’re doing something so noble and then the betrayal of that—it just came out in kind of a messy like toxic way, right, where now she’s committed to becoming an assassin at a really young age in a way Ethari doesn’t agree with and so on. But I mean on the other side I think having a strong handle on your emotions is often one of Rayla’s strengths right? Like we saw in episode 5 of this season after she’s going through a whole lot of stuff, both her family situation and this new development with Callum, she’s just able to like operate as a cool badass extremely cool assassin without letting any of that affect her. But you know I think there’s balance in how you handle your feelings and how you externalize them in a good way that people can learn from, but sometimes you gotta—you gotta work (laughs).

KUNO: That makes sense. Oh well yeah I always had this personal headcanon which I kind of like incorporated into my fanfictions where she felt abandoned by her parents so in a way it’s kinda like slightly—kinda like that except it was all those feelings that have been repressed from years and years basically came out when she felt like—like the abandonment came to like the head when she felt like they had left because they had ran away—they kind of like ran away like from her.

DEVON: Oh yeah, absolutely.

KUNO: In a way—their duty to—

DEVON: I think that validates the suppressed feeling, you know.

KUNO: Yeah, since their duty to the Dragonguard was in it’s own way more important and that’s something that was like okay because it was an honor but since they ran away it’s like obviously it was more important in a terrible way, if that makes any sense?

IAIN: Yeah I mean I think it’s like she did her best and she’s trying to be a grown up but it’s hard at a young age to accept that you know there are meant to be higher callings than a bond between parents and children, right? Like that’s hard for her to grasp and she probably didn’t express that openly ever really. But I think it really did help that she had two genuine loving father figures ready to accept her with open arms even if one of them did train her to become the best assassin of her generation, which again I wouldn’t advise to—to most parents out there.

DEVON: I do think like even that was considered, you know, honorable. It was you know, you’re going to—not only are you going to get to live with Runaan and Ethari, like Runaan is the leader of the assassins, or at least maybe at that point in time he wasn’t the leader but he was very up and coming. I don’t know, it could be either or, but that I think was probably something that she fully embraced and fully wanted, like you know, ‘this is my purpose in life, this is my calling, my parents have gone off to do their calling and it’s a great honor for them, and this is my path and what I’m going to do with myself’. And that didn’t end up being true but it was probably a comfort to her at the time.

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: That makes a lot of sense. Moving on, okay, this, we’re getting real indulgent now—do you know what Ethari and Runaan’s wedding was like and what are Moonshadow elf weddings are like in general?

DEVON: Um, I have a, so a lot of the dancing stuff is because I have an enormous soft spot for tropes involving cute dances, like, just a huge, huge soft spot. And the thing that comes to mind is, if you’ve seen the movie Prince of Egypt, which is such a weird reference—

KUNO: Yeah, I love that.

DEVON: —the scene where he and the girl, I forget her name, they do the thing—

KUNO: Tzipporah.

DEVON: —with the ribbon and they do the cute little dance with the ribbon. For some reason that’s what I think of when I imagine what a moment in their wedding would look like would be a dance with a ribbon that they sort of use to—you know, Moonshadow elves love ribbons, I guess, but this is a good ribbon! It’s a love ribbon. But anyway, that’s just my idea. I love that specific—that song that, “Through Heaven’s Eyes”, it’s during that sequence but that—

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: —would be my go-to inspiration for like, it’s like that and then you know, everybody dances with them because Moonshadow elves like to dance.

IAIN: Yeah, I kind of like the idea of the—there’s a lot of these symbols that are sometimes extremely sinister. I mean I think Ethari even kinda calls this out when he shoots the—the Shadowhawk arrow to inform the queen that her son is in fact alive. But like, Moonshadow elves believe that death and life are not good and evil, they’re mirrors of each other and an important part of the cycle. And you know, the moon has cycles and that’s an important part. So I think thinking about all the rituals and stuff that they have, which initially you’re introduced to as ‘let’s go murder someone party’, like if that was—there was a kind of inverse to that that was a big part of their wedding ceremony I think that would make a lot of sense to Moonshadow elves because this is two people binding their lives together forever. Binding for a shared purpose in a good way and not the grim ‘let’s go kill Prince Ezran’ kind of way.

KUNO: Yeah. Cause naturally this is involving like several ships so I’m like, I had to ask that. And on the piggyback of that, as detailed as possible, can you describe courtship customs for Moonshadow elves?

DEVON: Oh man.

KUNO: I mean like dating—dating customs, like a headcanon even if it’s just headcanons.

IAIN: Devon is deep in thought (laughs).

DEVON: I’ve never—like for some reason the—the headcanons that I’ve thought about are more specific to like, Runaan and Ethari than I’ve really sort of like branched out into thinking about how Moonshadow elves do this in general. So I imagine there’s intended—there’s some formality to it, I would imagine, in that like, because they’re so, you know, purposeful and thoughtful with how they express their feelings if at all, I think it would be, you know, exchange of gifts like small favors and making your purpose known in a way that starts small but has purpose. So I think like, there’s versions where Ethari would put extra detail into the work he was doing for Runaan which you know, could be perceived as a sign of affection or Runaan was coming to Ethari asking him to work on his weapons or metalcraft stuff a little bit more than was necessary and—stuff like that, where it’s a bit stiff and difficult but I think like once—once there is clear reciprocation I think there can be more of an open discussion about it, does that make sense? But I think Runaan probably struggled with this a whole lot, like, ‘cause he’s—did I, it might have been you who I responded to on Twitter but someone asked me something along these lines and I think Runaan had a really hard time even with this first sort of like simple offerings of affection because that’s just him. Like he sort of takes that aspect to an extreme. Like he has a hard time being like “here is the way I wish to express myself in a soft way and not with a—a sharp object. So I think Ethari had an easier time because he’s just more naturally soft (laughs).

IAIN: Yeah I sometimes think that Runaan is the most Moonshadow elf of all Moonshadow elves, but like, you know, it’s—

KUNO: I was gonna say that.

IAIN: Yeah, um, you know when they have such a hard time showing their feelings and they sometimes feel like they’re not supposed to and so on, and so Runaan is trying to pick up on the tiniest possible hints through professional exchanges and so on. And I think when it’s actually time to confess that there’s a feeling there you would, I think especially Runaan would have to be 100% sure and then do it entirely in private, the most private situation possible where there could be no possible spies who could see this if it was going to go wrong because that would just be the end of his entire life, obviously.

DEVON: Yeah he would bind himself to his own death (laughs).

IAIN: Yeah, that’s it. Gonna assassinate myself because I confessed love and it didn’t get reciprocated. That’s that.

DEVON: It’s over.

IAIN: So yeah, lot of—lots of awkward advances where they’re trying—trying to have the escape hatch of “Oh I didn’t really try to suggest that I liked you, this was just me asking you for a professional favor by let’s never speak again”.

DEVON: And then he comes back the next day (DEVON and IAIN laugh).

KUNO: Oh my goodness. Uh I felt—I—I kinda like headcanoning now that Ethari tells Rayla all this “how I met, you know, your surrogate dad” kind of stuff. Like, and that’s how she—she’s like, this is how you do love apparently.

DEVON: I do think that like, yeah, he had a much easier time and probably picked up on stuff. And to me there’s a side of Ethari that you don’t really get to see in the episode because he’s very sad. I think he’s a—he does have a playful side and I like to imagine that while Runaan was doing his, like, really just not-the-best attempts to display affection early on, like Ethari would pick up on them but not necessarily give the full signal back. And he played a little bit oblivious but he absolutely was—he’s just more emotionally in tune. So I think, “Oh hey, you’re back again, wow. I thought I did fantastic work on your blades last time. I cannot believe they’re already dull!” Like and he just sort of like, he knows—he knows there’s something there.

IAIN: I think like this kind of gets echoed in Rayla, like where Callum in an effort to pick her up and be honest about how he feels that she’s just an incredible person. Like to her that’s like, ‘person being entirely open with their feelings in a positive way? That’s a love connection!’ And then it goes wrong for one entire episode and then it turns out that Callum was also not fully aware of how he was feeling and so on. But I think like, yeah, I think that’s why she was like immediately “Wow, this is clearly meant to be romantic and this is—this is going exactly the way I want!” and then it didn’t. But then it did! So we’re all happy.

DEVON: Aww.

KUNO: I am! I’m certainly happy. Um—uh let’s see—the next one is—okay. What was Rayla like as a child growing up in a household she did—household? Um, she mentioned going to school and we’d love to know how baby Rayla fared as a student and just a child growing up in the Silvergrove and what that experience is like for a Moonshadow elf child?

DEVON: You want—you want me to do this one?

IAIN: Go for it.

DEVON: Yeah, um, I think Rayla was feisty (laughs) in a word. I think she—for some reason there’s a scene in the beginning of Korra where she’s already mastered like, three elements and she like comes out punching. I kind of think about that when I think about baby Rayla. She knows she’s—there’s that end credit scene where she’s got the two sticks and she’s posing with them and Runaan’s sort of lifting one of them up and I’m thinking like, okay so sheg’s like, from a tiny, tiny age thinking like, “I’m gonna be the coolest assassin the Moonshadow elves have ever seen!” and she’s like rambunctious about that almost, because you know, as a child you don’t really understand what the ramifications of that are but it’s considered like a highly, highly valued, honored position and so she’s obviously like, “Yeah I’m gonna do that and I’m going to be the best at it and there will never be any complications whatsoever!” In terms of Moonshadow elf childhood, I think with the way that I would think about it is—we talked about the sort of community aspect. I imagine Moonshadow elves have pretty, like, what’s the word, like, a lot of general education, sort of, like, “this is what weaponsmithing is like and this is gardening and raising crops and things to provide for the community” and so I think they would have a lot of ‘school’ that covers a lot of just like, life basics because you are expect to find a place that contributes to the collective whole. Does that like—?

IAIN: Yeah, I think like it’s also lucky for Rayla that a big part of Moonshadow elf culture is what we would call PE. Like I think she excelled at striving to be an assassin warrior and so on. Especially like, she’s trying to live up to her parents who at first were honored Dragonguard and you know, Runaan as well. I think in terms of like, more academic stuff like if there was Moonshadow elf history lessons and “let’s go out and understand the, you know, ecology of the Moonshadow forest” and stuff I think she was probably a bit kinda like, rambunctious and not super paying attention and running off and not really giving it her all and so on. Um, you kind of get that impression from early on where she knows what Primal sources are and she’ll explain that to Callum but like, when she’s talking about ‘how do you do that Moonshadow form thing’ she’s like “I don’t know, it just feels right”. Like I think that’s—she did everything very intuitively and focused on the things she cared about and understood and kinda did what she—did what she could on the other subjects, I guess, but didn’t care as much.

DEVON: Yeah I feel like if you imagine the kid that is going to grow up to be an artist is doing doodles on their math homework and just sort of like doing the math homework but—but you know, clearly the effort is being placed elsewhere. I think it’s that but she was excelling at PE and assassin training and therefore fell very, very easily into her supposed path.

KUNO: The—this isn’t on the thing, but did—did she ever—did she ever really have any friends? ‘Cause she doesn’t really mention—ever mention friends. I—maybe that has to do with the whole assassin thing where if she wasn’t learning being at school she would probably doing assassin stuff with Runaan or assassin training stuff—I guess not really assassinating. But um did she have really friends growing up?

IAIN: I think if she had friends they were not super close. And I think she valued her alone time. There’s a sweet moment early in—well end of season 1 where she like tries to cheer up Ezran by saying that fitting in is overated and I think she felt that a little bit. Um and you know I think there’s some amount of when you’re being trained in the art of an assassin like you’re probably somewhat taught to—to keep people at arm’s length a little bit, right? And I think she—she took that to heart. So I think that’s a big part of why when she was first traveling with Callum and Ezran there wasn’t that much trust between then and it was kinda like, it was Ezran honestly that bridged the gap being most empathetic number 1 child. And yeah, I think having a close friend is relatively new to her.

KUNO: Makes sense. Like just few, not the many. Um okay then next question before we get to Hailey’s batch of them are um, what are Runaan’s feelings toward Rayla as of right now and everything that’s happened since season 1? I understand he’s in a coin, he’s in a finacial crisis, he’s probably not thinking about it too hard—

DEVON: Oh my god (laughs).

KUNO: But you know, like he’s gotta be—you know he’s not doing anything right now, I’m assuming, so like what would be his feelings about her at the moment?

DEVON: I mean he’s got a lot of time to think, wherever he is. I think like—I got into this a little bit on Twitter in a self-indulgent rant at one point where I think he went through a lot very quietly during the first few episodes of the show where he very, very much wanted Rayla to succeed, even if he wasn’t necessarily like being the dad on the sideline of the soccer game, like, cheering for her. But he thought this was her moment, this was her time to prove that she really was more dedicated to you know, her cause and her people than her parents were because they had, you know, been the subject of such shame. And then ah, everything goes the way it does, I think he has a brief crisis of, “Is this my fault? Did I fail to train her well enough? Like, was Ethari right?” Because he always thought she had, you know, a softer heart. And I think like those are the types of things that he’s still stewing on, um like did—”did he overstep? Was it something—was he so eager to give her the opportunity to prove herself that he, you know, ultimately put her in a position where she could not succeed?” I think like, the other thing that I mentioned on Twitter was I think he took her off the mission both because he very, very much wanted to give himself and the others a chance to complete the mission even if it meant their deaths. But it also meant that Rayla had the chance to survive even if it was potentially going to be misinterpreted and she’d get slapped with the Ghosting, I think he believed that her alive was better than everybody being dead. So I think like, he’s got a lot—a lot to work through and I think like—I think he feels guilty. I think there’s the smallest part of him that he has the—again, a lot of time to potentially stew on and reflect on is he does feel like he put her in a position that was, you know, not fully taking into account the type of person she was and more projecting onto her the type of person he wanted her to be and gift he wanted to give her of redeeming herself in the eyes of her people for her parents. And I think he’s gonna have to work through that. Poor dude.

KUNO: That’s so sadly heartfelt. That’s so sadly heartfelt. Here I am thinking that he’d be, like, maybe a little angry with her, ‘cause obvious reason, but now it’s like, oh he feels guilty. Like, “Oh, okay, let’s just slap the angst on, okay”.

DEVON: I mean, I think like—

KUNO: Yeah, mm-hm.

DEVON: Sure he’d have some anger, like, “Awgh, I gave her everything. I gave her the exact opportunity she needed”. But I think like the guilt and the reflection leads to the “Maybe I—maybe it was me who stepped too far here”.

IAIN: Yeah, I mean another part of it is like, we don’t know what it’s like being trapped in the hell coin dimension, right?

DEVON: Oh I do. I—I mean—

IAIN: Oh you do?

DEVON: It sucks.

IAIN: Oh it sucks?

DEVON: When it happens to me on the reg (IAIN laughs).

IAIN: But you know, does it feel like an eternity is passing? Does it feel like no time has passed? Is he in eternal pain? Because if it’s like real bad—

KUNO: Oh my god.

IAIN: —in there I can imagine that like yeah there’s definitely some of those kind of anger feelings that you don’t want to feel in but you do sometimes, right? Like it’s like, if he has a snap moment of “I wouldn’t be in here if she hadn’t gone off and disobeyed our orders and, like, lied to me and so on”. So if he ever comes out uh don’t know what side of the emotional coin he’s gonna land on.

DEVON: Ohhh, please leave.

KUNO: Oh my god.

DEVON: Get out, oof, ouch.

IAIN: Finger guns.

DEVON: I do think like that sort of complex—

KUNO: It sounds—

DEVON: —emotion is just, I don’t want to give any time to that pun, we’re moving on. Like that sort of complexity of emotion and relationships is something that I really like in the show overall. Like you said earlier, you saw some people that were a little bit upset that Ethari was so willing to lash out at Rayla at first and I think like to me that was always part of the big, big thematic of the show, which is this sort of endless cycle of people being willing to hurt each other and not forgive each other and not, you know, accept that you can choose peace. It’s, you know, it’s—Runaan having that impulse to anger is a very natural thing and it doesn’t—I don’t think it necessarily makes him a bad person for feeling that. And I don’t necessarily think that Ethari having his moments of grief lead him to actions that are ultimately like, regretful, like I don’t think he would want that to define him in the long run. Like those are very human things but those are the things as we acknowledge them and as are—so long as we are capable of recognizing how flawed we are and how violent and…

KUNO: Messy.

DEVON: Messy! Thank you, that’s like, I was going to say like churning, messy is good. Like messy emotions can be and how they can like, dictate the way we treat each other, um, but forgiveness and patience and acceptance are ultimately just so much more powerful than those negative perpetuating lashing outs. That was an inelegant way of ending that screed, but yes.

KUNO: I actually really love that um ‘cause I from the beginning I’ve loved their father-daughter relationship so I love how complicated it is, ‘cause the truth is you know every parent-child relationship is a little complicated, except theirs is a little more complicated with assassination going on in the works, the family trade. So I love that it is this complicated ‘cause I know I remember in the beginning where people were like you know—you know she does have a dad. And it’s like I know she has a biological dad but until I am told otherwise that’s her father. I don’t care and I love their relationship so I love that that really reflects that. Another—the next question out of me before we get to, um, Hailey’s, which are all about different elves, is um, course I have to ask, my policy is one Rayllum question per interview. Um what are Runaan’s feelings—whah, no, whoop, how would Ruthari and Runaan react to Rayla’s relationship with Callum considering he’s not only a human but a human prince? ‘Cause as far as we know Runaan really hates, um, humans and I’d love to see that story later, both individually and as a couple. Because as far as I know, Ethari probably doesn’t know that their in a relationship unless he sensed it?

DEVON: Oh man, I—I think you should take this one, but I do want to say that I saw one comment on Tumblr at one point where someone said that they wished that Ethari had said something to Callum along the lines of like, “Take care of her”. And I want to travel back in time and pretend that was in the script ‘cause I think that would have been really, really nice. And I do think like, he picked up on the fact that Callum was important to her even if it—he didn’t necessarily read it as romantic right off the bat. I think he mostly was like, “Oh this guy is kind of like a cute—he’s a human but he’s, you know, a friend to someone I care about and that in and of itself is valuable and there’s something there”. So I think—pretend that was in the script. I wish I had thought about something like that but—

KUNO: I will (DEVON laughs).

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: That’s canon as far—as far as I’m concerned that’s canon.

IAIN: I think uh it would be best for everyone involved if they found out together, uh, because I think Runaan’s impulse would not be good immediately. I think like, when you spend so much time as an assassin and you drill into your head that the people that you’re meant to kill are not people, they’re the enemy right? Like I think that’s—sometimes that’s a thing he turns on to do the job and so on, but I do think that’s gonna bleed into his personality and it’s—you know, especially given his extremely recent history he’s not got the best feelings about humans. So I think it would inspire an immediate negative reaction in him that would not be pleasant for Callum and Rayla, but I think Ethari just has a much softer heart and that is where Rayla kind of got that side from. So I mean I’m not going to say that he would immediately—you know, they’ve been at war for hundreds and hundreds of years with humans and they’ve been told all through their history that humans committed the original sin of dark magic, et cetera et cetera, but like, I think it would take not that much time of seeing Rayla and Callum together for Ethari to see that there’s something there and then I think Ethari would have the ability to ah, to talk Runaan down pretty quick. But I also think that like, Runaan might not even show any of this, there might just be a kind of seething resentment that he’s not really talking about inside. Um unless it was like on the battlefield or something and he was like, “That’s a prince that I’m meant to kill” or something like that. But overall I think Ethari would sense that Runaan was not like—was not taking this well and they would be able to talk it through. At least that’s my gut.

DEVON: No, that sounds right (DEVON and IAIN laugh).

KUNO: I feel like poor Callum is just always on the edge of “Am I going to die tonight?” while he’s there, “Is this gonna be it?” Just gonna be like, “Oops sorry I had an accident—hey I had an accident in the middle of the night, you know, just a knife to the throat, that’s all”.

IAIN: I mean, he’s doing pretty well, like he said as they were about to meet Ethari and Rayla was like, “Remember Runaan?” He was like “Oh yeah, that guy who tried to kill me as soon as he met me? Cool guy”. Callum’s doing pretty well on the acceptance front these days.

DEVON: I do—

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: I do want to say that I think Ethari and Callum would get along really well because I think they both have sort of like a soft hearted friendliness to them that they would have a fun rapport. And that’s the sort of like “Trees to meet you” line is definitely supposed to be like—they’d you know, crack some goofy back and forths and I think that would soften Runaan too because he couldn’t ever hate someone that Ethari liked.

IAIN: Yeah, I think it’s a weird—

KUNO: Aww.

IAIN: —reversal where like Callum’s the one doing the dad jokes and Ethari’s like humoring them and Runaan’s like, “I don’t understand. Trees do not meet.”

DEVON: “Please stop saying ‘trees to meet you’.”

KUNO: Aw it never gets old. I love that. Um alright, Hailey, take it away. Your turn.

#The Dragon Prince #Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast #HBMP Podcast #TDP #Ruthari #Moonfam #HBMP Podcast transcription #TDP interview transcription #my posts

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lizacstuff · 3 years

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Your thoughts on the epi?

This episode was everything! I don't remember when I've enjoyed crying so much. The funny thing is, though, that I've found myself crying more while rewatching those scenes, than I cried during the first time I watched the episode. This episode will definitely rank among my favorites. Let's talk about the B and C characters and then get to Edser and, of course, Kiraz at the end. I spent the first 30 minutes resisting the urge to punch my screen anytime Ayfer was on it. Damn, I wanted to slap her silly. Could she have been any more annoying? Eda's a grown woman, if she is finally doing the right thing and telling the father of her child he's a dad, then be supportive instead of a screeching pain in the ass. When she actually said "I told you so" to an upset Eda... seriously? That is awful. What a bitter, joyless, petty individual. I was cheering for Melo every time she told Ayfer she was negative. Good! At least we know the other characters recognize how awful she is.

(I get long winded, so this continues under the cut)

Also what was with her going overboard to protect Burak's feelings over his delusional aspirations? Why shouldn't he understand that Serkan and Eda shared a great love and Melo is rooting for them to rekindle it? What does hiding that from him do? It's still true. Ayfer treats this dude as a member of the family, so he might as well know. I get his feelings might get hurt, but dude needs a reality check and to move on, and no matter how hard Ayfer hopes, Serkan in their lives or no, Eda is never going to want Burak. She's made that clear. If Ayfer likes him so much maybe she should marry him, that way at least Melo would be saved from his milquetoast presence.

Speaking of that, they were clearly trying to establish some sort of connection or vibe between him and Melo. So far, I'm not into it. If he's still so into Eda that Ayfer doesn't want him to have to hear about Eda/Serkan possibly reuniting, then he doesn't deserve Melo. Melo deserves someone who wants her, not someone who pines after someone out of his league and then settles for her bff once he realizes he never had a shot with the great beauty. We'll see how it develops, but he has the personality of damp carpet so I don't have high hopes.

Aydan was a little screechy this episode, but I cut her some slack since she just found out these traitors stole 5 years of her granddaughter's life from her. My friend @echoapothecary made a good point to me that Aydan deserves no sympathy for this since she didn't tell Eda Serkan was alive back in amnesia times, and I don't disagree with that. That move by Aydan pretty much tainted her character forever, and it's near impossible to come back from, but viewing this story in a capsule I do feel sorry for her. She wasn't a good mother to Serkan, but she does love him, and I think she craves family. The main point being, Serkan wasn't the only one who lost something significant by not knowing about Kiraz until now, Aydan did too. Perhaps we can say that losing the first five years of her granddaughter's life is her punishment for keeping the secret about Serkan, it's about as steep a penalty as one could pay. Talk about karmic retribution.

Also, since Serkan is apparently not going to impose any emotional tolls on any of the traitors for the secret that was kept from him, I'm glad Aydan did at least make her displeasure known and made some of the liars uncomfortable. Piril, at least, felt it, even if she won't suffer any real consequences. I kind of wanted Serkan to kick her out of the company. I really don't like that character and I think every time she's on screen she just sucks the life out of the show. Engin when he's in scenes with Serkan or Eda or Melo or Aydan or Erdem = Interesting. Engin when he's with Piril = Zzzzzzz.

Pina and Kerem were cute, but to be honest I really don't care. It's inoffensive and I get that we need B, C and D storylines to fill out two hours each week, so I'm good with it, but let's be real I'm only watching for the main event.

Speaking of... now to EDSER! I actually like that Serkan walked out and drove away after hearing the truth. I can only imagine what kind of shock and betrayal he must have felt at that moment, escaping must have seemed like his best option. What I liked even more is that Eda followed him. What a relief after the last episode where she was looking for any and every excuse not to tell him and then made the nonsensical decision to flee in order to avoid it. Too many times in the past between these two pride has gotten in the way. There was a time that Eda might have thrown up her hands at him leaving and pretended like it didn't hurt, that it didn't matter. I'm so glad those days seem to be over. One of the hallmarks of season 2 has been the improved communication (sans secret) between these two and this episode took that concept to a new level.

How heartbreaking to watch Eda plead with Serkan through the door, and how double-y heartbreaking to watch Serkan sitting on the floor, head bent, clearly in emotional agony. You could feel it coming off of him. Kudos to both Hande and Kerem who KILLED IT this episode. Seriously, their best work to date. Their chemistry is always on point, but the way they flawlessly work off of one another in every scene they share, whether it's deeply dramatic or something light and romantic is truly something special to behold. That's one reason why I don't get the folks who are so hung up in hating the season 2 plotline, that they can't appreciate any of this. Because this is the point. Giving these two artists deep and challenging scenes together and opportunities to make more magic. Watching them this season is honestly a privilege and I plan on enjoying every minute of it.

Despite Serkan's emotional turmoil, it was so like him to put the blanket over her and then sit across from her sleeping form as he indulged in some more brooding. However, I really appreciate that by the morning he was ready to talk to her. That conversation was hard, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who was jarred by him saying that he would have told her to get an abortion. In light of his later confessions, I think there's a few ways to take that. I think it was in part a nod to what an emotional mess he was at the time, and in part he said it to alleviate some of her guilt. Because even a betrayed and hurt Serkan cares so much about her, and he knows what he put who through at the time. Especially because at that moment he still had no plans to tell her the truth about why he broke up with her, he was still playing the part of the man who just didn't want children. So stubborn! Thank goodness that over the course of the next 12 hours he'll change his mind about that...

On another note, how happy did it make you to see Sirius? It made me pretty happy. He lives!!!!

From the moment Eda went to his hotel room the night before to confess all the way until they met again at the hotel, Eda really did everything right in how she approached him. However, once back in Sile, she makes her first critical error. It reminded me of the Eda in episode 29 who started pushing so hard at amnesia!Serkan and coming at him with such extreme emotion that he shut down. And that's what happened during that conversation on the beach. Eda needed to give him a little bit of time to come to terms with things, instead of forcing a conversation the first moment they saw one another. Good grief, what was she doing demanding answers from him hours after he found out? She knows this man! She knows that he plans every aspect of his life. So to spring on him that you hid a child from him for 5 years and he's a dad, is a LOT. I like that in a later scene he knows he reacted badly, and actually also says to her "What did you expect?" While his reaction wasn't great, it was also pretty predictable and she should have known to give him some time.

Speaking of the conversation on the beach, what a powerhouse scene for Hande. One note on it, that was the scene they had just shot when Hande and Kerem did their last IGlive on premiere day. The one where Kerem kept talking about how he was in a mood because of an intense scene they had just done. After watching I couldn't help but note that he, as Serkan, mostly just stood there stoically as Hande did all the emoting as Eda let loose on all the pent up emotion she'd been carrying both for years and with Serkan's fresh rejection. It speaks to both their personal and professional dynamic that he was so affected by her being in that state since he didn't do the heavy lifting in that specific scene. The way they are attuned to each other is probably a big reason they are so flawlessly in sync on screen.

I liked how they weaved the Kiraz/Baba scene in at the right time. That was one instance where Aydan, Seyfi and Engin's meddling was for the good, engineering a situation where Serkan was alone with his daughter. Also excellent comedy from Can, ratting out his dad about throwing ice cream on him. Good stuff. I like Engin-as-a-father scenes, I like Engin-as-a-friend scenes, I could just do without Engin-as-a-husband scenes. Anyway, Serkan needed time to adjust, but he also needed to be exposed to Kiraz so that he could view their prior unlikely bond through the new prism of fatherhood. It's telling how easily he slid into Dad territory with teaching her how to tie her shoes. He had been doing that all along, but at that moment he knew about the relationship and still did what was natural. He is ready to be her father, he just needs to realize he's worthy of it.

You can't blame Eda for not realizing it, but it was lovely to see how quickly Serkan turned the corner. He was already adjusting his thinking not even 24 hours after he found out about Kiraz and that was really what inserting himself

into her dealings with the Italians was about. Staying in contact until he could beat back all his neurosis. As for the business stuff, she apparently needed him as an investor, but I also love the way he was there to first build up her confidence and then praise her after a successful presentation. I've said it before but Serkan as her professional mentor is one of my favorite dynamics between them. It did make me wonder, is she still 45% owner of the Holding? It seems like it, she sure didn't hesitate to present herself as his partner. If she is, though, it seems impossible that they could have had zero contact for all those years, unless she just placed her stake in a trust and gave him full voting control of it. Details I'm sure they won't explore in-depth, but I did wonder.

Don't you just love an unwitting guest character (Italian guy) who comes in and forces our two protagonists to spend extra time together? I do. Thank you Italian guy and Italian guy's wife! I love how quick Serkan was to accept, you see, he had already turned a corner and was looking for excuses to get close to her. It was his first step in his journey to opening up to her. Also, who noticed that Eda wore a slinky blue dress the night after Kiraz mentioned that it's Serkan's favorite color? Just checking. She is not as immune to his charms as she'd like us to believe...

OF COURSE Serkan was at Eda's graduation. I think pretty much the whole fandom had guessed that from their conversation in episode 40, but it still hit me emotionally to have it confirmed. What I really liked about it was that Serkan didn't tip his hand by accident. He quoted her graduation speech specifically because he wanted her to know he was there. And not only that he willingly admits that he thought of her every single day since they parted. This is a huge step for him. It has been driving him crazy that Eda thinks he forgot her and is totally unaffected by her. However, even just a few hours earlier he was still in a place where he had no intention to tell her anything, it's actually impressive how quickly he came around. Now I don't blame Eda at all for declaring it's not enough, he put her through emotional hell when they broke up. I mean on one hand you'd think she'd be able to see that he was already opening his heart and there was more to the story, however, her reaction was good because it spurred him on to go and tell her the whole story.

And what a heartbreaking story it was. As I said several times over the last few weeks, I was hoping that part of Serkan's motivation was that the doctor had told him he would be unable to have kids, what I wasn't expecting though was the double whammy of not being able to have kids AND there being a 70% chance of the cancer coming back. No wonder Serkan was eFFed up! Who wouldn't be, but then you add in his additional insecurities about not being worthy of love and his hypochondria and that is a bad mental cocktail. You know what's ironic, Ayfer hates him but in reality he did exactly what Ayfer would have wanted him to do. Push Eda away for her own good so she could have everything she wants in life without him dragging her down. What makes Ayfer the worst (and a hypocrite) is that this is exactly what she would have wanted him to do, but she also blames him for Eda's heartbreak in the aftermath.

The scene was so cathartic to watch as a viewer. We've been waiting for weeks for Serkan's point of view as he's hidden behind his usual confident and calm veneer, and when we finally got it, we really got it. He did not hold back. Serkan is such a complex character, which is a bit surprising for a silly show that you wouldn't really expect build a character with so many layers. On the surface he has everything and seems to be full of ego, but his arrogance is only surrounding his abilities, intellect, and skills as a businessman and architect. Personally, he has little self-worth and thinks he's not worthy of anyone's love, especially not Eda's. However, while that has been a truth of the character for a long time, this speech was the first time he admitted how deeply rooted his fears are. It was stunning, though, to have a character who is so rooted in being in control and who is worried about his outward image, open up in such a raw way and expose all his fears and insecurities to a woman he's been apart from for five years. It was breathtaking and Kerem was fantastic in the scene.

Initially, with the subtitles, I misinterpreted (though I knew it couldn't be quite right) his parting words. The subtitles I saw made it seem like Serkan was saying "Don't say you forgot me" as in Serkan didn't want Eda to say she forgot him. But it made so much more sense when I saw it translated as "But don't say I forgot you." which was a throw back to their dinner conversation in episode 40 when Eda says, "You forgot me." Once I realized Serkan was saying that he couldn't handle her thinking, or say, that he'd forgotten her, the scene hit doubly hard!

I saw some criticism of that scene that said Eda was just standing there with no emotion, but I didn't get that at all. She had tears running down her face and I thought she was fighting for his soul pretty dang hard. First by using both emotion-- telling him that everything had changed because now he had a daughter and that he'd locked his heart and soul in a cage. Then by using logic-- when she told him the cancer is gone and that's it's over and when she challenged him over why everything has to be perfect. Think from her perspective how disorienting it would be to find out that everything you thought was true, was not, and that if the love of your life wasn't such a stubborn, selfless, self-sabotaging martyr that you could have built a family together instead of been separated for 5 years. It's a lot.

On the first watch this doorway scene is where I started to get emotional, but I didn't really lose it and fully cry until Serkan's scene the next day with Engin. For whatever reason that scene hit me hard. Hats off to Anil for his work there, the way his voice broke at times during that conversation really got to me. This type of true friendship scene was something that was sorely missing during the era of the other writers, and it was wonderful to see it back, just when Serkan needed it most. Serkan needed someone to shake him a bit about his fears of dying. I think the writers did a good job here, because while Serkan's neurosis and self-sabotage is maddening, with his history it's believable that he was stuck in a headspace where he really thought he couldn't be a father to Kiraz, or a partner to Eda, because he might up and die on them. I loved how Engin pointed out that Eda and Kiraz would not be the only ones affected if he died and how ridiculous it was for him to lock himself away.

I'm glad we got the scene with the doctor to really get a full glimpse of Serkan's view of his illness and it's also a relief to not only Serkan, but to us viewers that since five years have passed cancer-free he now has the risk of a typical healthy person. Serkan isn't the only one who has hang ups about his health, I think after amnesia and cancer viewers do too!

Finding out that Eda had made videos specifically for Serkan over the years, talking to him directly, hit hard. I wasn't really expecting that. I thought maybe she just had general photos and videos, like any doting parent would have, but the fact that she was always wanting him, documenting Kiraz's life and preparing for a day when he would hopefully take his place as Kiraz's father... wow. On the cynical side it makes it that much harder to believe that she never made more of an effort to tell him once Kiraz was born, but I won't focus on that. Not when the scene was as perfect as it was. Kerem again was stellar, he made me cry buckets. I think since amnesia many of us wanted an emotional response from him, thank goodness this story finally delivered it. The emotions running through him at that moment were overwhelming and Kerem did a fantastic job of portraying all of them, the heartbreak over everything he missed, the joy at seeing moments

from his daughter's life, the regret of not being there and being the partner Eda needed, the pride in the job Eda did in raising their daughter alone, and finally the bittersweet relief that Eda never forgot him.

It was a lot, but it was a good segue to the next scene when Eda calls him frantic because Kiraz went missing. What was clear from those videos was that while Eda, when we first meet her in Sile, appeared on the surface to have everything handled as a single mom, she always really wanted to have Serkan there as her partner. While Kiraz was pining for her dad, Eda was pining for Serkan as well. And we see this displayed in full force when Serkan arrives. Several people try to comfort Eda, including Burak, but she's not having it. However, as soon as Serkan gets there you can almost see the relief hit her in a wave. She's not in this alone anymore. Kiraz's father is there to help. Even if nothing is settled at that moment, she knows she can rely on Serkan and that he will know what to do. Which is supported by the fact that he clearly took charge the moment he found out, calling the authorities, having them begin searches etc.

But while highlighting his competence, conversely can we talk about how incompetently everyone else was at searching for Kiraz? They all acted worried, but did any of them make any real effort to find her? LMAO, they all seemed much more concerned with their own personal dramas. Especially egregious were Engin and Piril. Hello! Your son is clearly trying to tell you where the missing person is! Stop ignoring him. Thank goodness Serkan is very good at finding people.

Of course he found her and our hearts collectively shattered as we watched her trying to send a message to her Baba in space when in reality he was kneeling right there beside her, helping her tie the note to the balloon. If anything else was left to convince Serkan that he is wanted and needed, by both Eda and Kiraz, this situation was it. Even though some careless crew member spoiled the astronaut suit in an unnecessary IG story from the set, (that would have been a really good surprise) it was still satisfying to see this fairy tale play out. Never over "Baba?" and "Happy Birthday, my daughter" and now I can't wait to see Kiraz's reaction that her new friend Serkan Bolat is actually her dad and it should be pretty great to watch the three of them form a family together.

Overall this was the most emotional episodes of the series, and also one of the best.

#Sen Cal Kapimi #Sen Çal Kapımı #edser #serkan bolat #sck discussion #sck episode discussion #edser discussion #sckask #sck 2x43 #sck 2x04 #asklizac #anonymous

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unkownknowledge · 3 years

Text

Genshin characters and their spider s/o

A little crossover HC post between terraformars and genshin.

Basically the reader is the result of a messed up experiment and now they look like a monstrous humanoid spider, like this guy:

Except you have no human skin or hair, just pure chitin, extra legs out the back, and mandibles(like a turian)

Also: request are still open, feel free to request!

Including: Jean, Xinqiu, and Razor

_____________________________

Jean: hollow knight

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Jean had been receiving reports of frightened merchants and townsfolk, all of whom had been found on the road ranting about a giant spider.

Jean was sure it was nothing more than hilichurls or hoarders or abyss mages and the people were merely suffering panic induced hallucinations, this was supported by the clear signs of such dangers at the scene of the crime.

But still, neither any of the knights nor adventurers in the guild reported saving these people, nor did Diluc claim that he did when she asked him.

So Jean decided to investigate, after all not only is there a chance of finding camps of the three above dangers, but also the chance of finding a new ally.

When she saw you in a clearing you looked like a normal human, until you turned your head in an inhuman manner and looked at her with eight red glowing eyes.

You screamed at her and used your geo vision to grow eight giant legs out your back, which you used to run away.

Jean, being the persistent woman she is, wasn't about let you go until she confirmed if you were a friend or foe.

She chased you through the forest for a while, and unfortunately didn't notice a group of hilichurls hiding behind some trees.

One swung out and struck her from behind, knocking her to the ground.

At the sound of this you turned around and saw Jean on the ground.

While she easily could have beaten the hilichurls, she didn't have to. This is because you were immediately next to her, sword drawn and slicing through the monsters like a hot knife through butter. Your geo legs acted like extra blades that parried any attack directed towards the knight.

Because you're other legs were busy, however, you were unable to block the attack from a crossbow that shot right through your knee.

You fell down and were beaten senseless by the hilichurls, the last thing you remember was the sounds of a blade and the monsters turning to dust before you blacked out.

You woke up on a soft bed inside an unfamiliar building. You tried to get up but your knee had a large hole in it, luckily for you your ability to feel pain was long lost.

Jean entered a minute later with some food, "good, your awake."

"Where am I?" You asked.

"In my home, the guest room to be exact."

"Why did you save me?"

"Because you were in danger."

"Yes but why? Aren't you afraid of me?"

"Considering how you saved me as well? No, not at all."

Jean poured some tea for both of you, "now onto-"

You felt your eyes water, something you didn't realize you could still do.

"What's wrong?" Jean asked.

"It's just, it's been so long since anyone was...nice to me. My appearance isn't exactly very welcoming."

"And yet you still help people, the same people who call you a monster?"

"Of course! I might be an abomination, but I'm not a monster. In fact, before I became...this I had always dreamed of joining the knights."

"Well, that makes things easy."

"What do you mean?"

"While I cannot officially make you a knight, I can make you an honorary member of the knights of favonius."

"REALLY!?" You said, a child like excitment on your face.

So you joined the knights, of course not everyone was happy about this.

But noone doubted the acting grand master's decision, after all she never once failed the city.

After a while the city warmed up to you, even hailing you as a hero thanks to all you've done!

But the city's attitude towards you wasn't the only thing getting warmer.

Infact, a certain person's cheeks seemed to grow red as Amber's ribbon at the mere mention of your name.

Lisa and Kaeya were the first to notice Jean's infatuation with you, and they were quite intent on helping her.

It would be easy for them to set it up: you were cold blooded, so you had a heater in your room during the winter, and thanks to a 'freak lightning strike', your house was under renovations for the whole season, this caused Jean to let you stay in her home until yours was repaired.

Now all they had to do was sneak in an 'cool it' down.

You awoke in the middle of the night due to the temperature suddenly dropping. You tried turning on your heater but that didn't work. You went downstairs to make some hot tea, unaware that Kaeya swapped the labels on Jean's coffee and your tea. After making the beverage you sat down in the warmest corner, covered in blankets, and with a warm drink in hand.

Fun fact! Spiders get hella drunk off caffeine.

You are a spider.

One sip of the coffee and you felt funny, you couldn't think straight and felt wobbly.

Kaeya and Lisa giggled watching you.

"So, how DID you get them drunk? You couldn't exactly have spiked their tea could you?" Lisa asked.

"I swapped the labels on their tea and Jeans coffee. Spiders get hella drunk on-" Kaeya noticed Lisa worried face, "fuck, what did I do this time?"

"Kaeya, spiders don't get drunk on caffeine like humans do with alcohol."

Lisa pointed Kaeya towards the window

"Whoops"

Caffeine doesn't make spiders drunk the same way alchohol does a person, which is what Kaeya expected.

Caffeine makes spiders hyper, very hyper.

When Jean heard skittering and clanging she thought someone was robbing the house, so she was reasonably surprised to see you lying in the center of the kitchen, crying, and with webs all over.

When she asked what happened you just rolled over and mumbled out gibberish about how you can't catch any flies.

Jean picked you up to take you to bed, but you wrapped your arms and legs around her and caused her to fall.

"(Y/n), please let me go." Jean pleaded.

You shushed her, "nap time" and fell asleep.

Your grip was to strong for her to get out, and with your weight she couldn't get up in this position, so she just had to wait for you to get up.

The next day Jean got up the same time as you, she would have said something if you didn't kiss her and pet her head.

"I love this dream." You said, nuzzling into the crook of her neck.

Jean was shocked, what dream? You were clearly awake.

"I wonder if Jean is this warm in real life....I wish I could find out..."

"(Y-y/n)" she stuttered out, "you're not dreaming."

You shot up with all your eyes wide as saucers.

You immediately thought of running. But where would you go? The forest? Yeah, that works, just go there a-

You felt a warm sensation on your cheek.

"So (y/n), how does this dream usually go?" Jean said with a suggestive wink.

"(Y/n)?"

404 error, reader.exe has crashed

After that rather unconventional confession session, you both started dating.

Jean was concerned about not having enough time for you, but that proved to be very unfounded. Thanks to your many years alone you didn't know what dating was, so to you simply working together was fine.

On every mission out of the city you would bring gifts or a picnic for when the sun was setting.

On days where you both had paper work you would make tea and buy little cakes or biscuits and sit on her lap as you rested on eachother's shoulders and fed each other snacks, under the excuse that "sharing a chair saves space".

On the rare occasion Jean gets to have a day off, she showers you in affection.

She'll make you breakfast in bed(it's not good 80% of the time, but you don't tell her), she'll cuddle with you all day, she'll even read to you if you want. She wants to give back to you for all the time she couldn't give you her full attention.

_____________________________

Xingqiu: it's like one of my Inazuman graphic novels

_____________________________

Your meeting with the guhua geek was far more coincidental.

You were just minding your business, catching some animals to eat, when some weird guy just walks by you, not noticing you at all, as he reads his book.

You were rather suprised and, by extension, curious about this boy.

Was he blind in peripheral? Was he that brave? Was he an idiot?

A bit of colum B, mostly colum C.

Xingqiu sat down on a rock and continued reading, given how he was reading aloud you figured you might as well take advantage of his lack of notice and learn to read.

But he did notice.

"Ah shoot, spaces out again." Xingqiu cried, "now I have to start all over."

Xingqiu started reading the book all over again, much to your joy.

You could easily match his words to the page thanks to your speed of comprehension.

When the boy noticed it was getting late he decided to head home, while you were upset you didn't try and stop him. In fact you immediately darted away before he saw you.

The next day he came back, and read from the same spot.

And again

This went on for quite some time.

Xingqiu knew someone was watching him, but he never was able to catch a glimpse. He just figured it was someone who wanted to read legends of the shattered halberd but couldn't find any copies, and so the chivalrous thing to do would be to read it for them.

One day he finished the fifth book and proclaimed it was the last one, which made you rather sad.

Until he spoke to you.

"Well my secretive friend," he turned around, "shall w-"

You screamed

He screamed

For about five minutes.

After which you both just stared at eachother.

He pointed a shakey finger at you, "you're-"

You turned away, 'a freak I know' you thought.

"SO COOL!"

"What?"

Xingqiu immediately ran at you and started inspecting you.

The whole time he had such an amazed look on his face.

"Woah!" He said as he grabbed your mandibles, "are these real?!"

"Ye ey are, a ah ee e ah a" you said hoping he would understand that you need them to talk.

"Oh. Hehe. Sorry." He said releasing them.

"Aren't you...scared of me?" You asked.

"Why would I be? If you wanted to kill me you would have. It's not like I was particularly on guard when I was reading for you."

'Y-you knew I was there?"

"I knew someone was there, and I knew they were watching me read. Since you showed such interest in my book I thought the only chivalrous thing to do was to keep reading."

You were shocked, most people just ran and screamed upon seeing you.

"Now, shall we go look for the sixth book?"

After that you and Xingqiu became fast friends.

He used some of the money he made from the scam he pulled on that scammer to buy out the forest you lived in, making it officially private property so that people won't go after you.

He kept coming back with books for you both to read, you absolutely loved it!

And while you never realized it, you also loved him.

He however, did know he loved you.

Being the menace to society he is, Xingqiu decided the best way to confess was to just kiss you.

You're sitting on a stump with your head on Xingqiu's shoulder.

"This book isn't as good as the others." You say.

"Ah don't be like that, fairy tales are the foundation of all those 'knight in shining armor books' you love."

"Yeah but this is boring."

"True, true. But I think it has a great ending." Xingqiu turned to the final page, "and then the knight told the (royal title) how much he loved them, and to seal his love he placed a kiss on their cheek."

"That wasn't good."

"Why? It was very realistic."

"In what reality does someone confess by kiss-"

*smooch*

It took you a solid five seconds to process what happened.

Xingqiu smirked at you like the bastard man he is, "this one I believe."

Your mandibles hung slack as your face got a dark shade of blue.

"Uh, (y/n)?"

"Clothes off, now."

Xingqiu stumbled out the forest four hours later. Chongyun, who was protecting his privacy, asked him what's wrong.

"Absolutely nothing." He responded with the largest grin a human could muster, before his legs gave out, "can you carry me home?"

Your relationship was more steady than just that bit though.

Xingqiu spent as much time with you as he could, he even learned how to hunt so he could be with you while you hunted for food.

You never left your forest though, you were far to afraid of people and especially the vigilant yaksha(which Xingqiu tried to convince you was friendly).

Of course, not everything goes so simply.

Xingqiu was skipping through the forest, far to enamoured at the idea of you to notice someone following him.

You sat calmly on your rock and awaited your boyfriend of two years, today was his birthday so you made him a beautiful silk picture of his favorite scene from 'the legend of the broken halberd'

You felt the boy drop into your lap, "hello my love!"

You wrapped your arms and extra legs around him, "hello my little knight, I have a wonderful gift for-"

"XINQIU! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!"

You both turned around to see a man who looked oddly like Xingqiu.

"H-hey big bro..." Xingqiu said, clearly nervous.

"You're his brother?" You asked, "nice to meet you! I'm your future sibling in law!"

His brother looked surprised, then angry, "Xingqiu, a word."

"No," he responded, "anything you can say to me you can say to my (s/o)."

"Xingqiu, this is not a game."

"ANYTHING," Xingqiu said, far more aggressive, "you can say to me, you can say to them."

His brother sighed, "you can't date them."

"I believe I can."

"XINGQIU! ME AND FATHER HAVE TOLERATED ENOUGH OF YOUR CHILDISHNESS! YOU ARE AN HEIR OF THE FEIYUN COMMERCE GUILD, YOU CANNOT DATE THAT-THAT THING!"

Xingqiu shot up into a fighting stance, "care to repeat that?"

Xingqiu stared down his brother with murderous intent.

"So you wont back down?"

"Never, I love (y/n) to much!"

"If you don't leave them, you'll be disowned by father, all your wealth, power, and influence will be forfeited. All for an inhuman freak!"

"Xinqiu please," you tried telling your beloved, "I won't let you sacrifice-"

"Sorry darling, but I don't give a damn." He interrupted you before turning to his brother, "I will NOT abandon my beloved (y/n)! They are the most precious thing in the world to me! So go ahead! Strip me if my title, my riches, of my very skin! My heart will yearn for nothing else but the cold hard touch of love that is my (s/o)!"

Xinqiu's brother smirked

"So, you promise to always be with (y/n)?"

"Yes!"

"Through both sickness and health?"

As smart as he was, Xinqiu couldn't see what was happening, "with all my heart and soul!"

"And you would take (Y/N) as your contractually bound spouse?"

"I would sooner bite my arm off than live another day without them as such! In fact!" Xinqiu turned to you, "(Y/N)! WE'RE GOING TO GET MARRIED RIGHT NOW! COME ON!"

"Hold it!" His brother demanded, "(Y/N)! Would you stay with my brother, Xinqiu, through sickness and health, through rags and riches?"

You nodded, "forever and always!"

"And would you take him to be your contractually bound husband?"

"E-even if I had to fight Rex Lapis himself!"

Two burly hands grabbed the couple and pushed them together, "You may now kiss the bride!"

Without thought, you two kissed each other, not thinking to question the cheering, clapping, and crying-

You both pulled apart, "what the abyss is happening here?!"

The burly arms, now wrapping you both, was an older crying man who also looked like Xinqiu.

Xinqiu's Brother was crying and clapping.

Chongyun was blasting off party cones(🎉🎉these things)

And several other of Xinqiu's friends were there celebrating.

"W-wait..." Xinqiu started to remember that his brother, as a high ranking member of a commerce guild, can officiate marriages.

The older man, Xinqiu's father, cried and said, "finally! Grandchildren!"

(If you can't have babies, adoption exists and is perfectly normal)

Needless to say

404 error, Xinqiu.exe and Reader.exe have stopped working

_____________________________

Razor: the big bad spider and the itsy bitsy spider

_____________________________

(Please understand that my knowledge of Razor is based on his quest, I know of his special vision but it won't be brought up for this. I will be sure to read the wiki page for him if I write him again)

Razor knew something was wrong.

His wolf side told him something was wrong with the forest, and his human side told him it should be either avoided at all cost or destroyed.

Because it had stayed away he had largely tried to just avoid it and keep his lupical away from whatever IT is.

Until a foolish pup decided to try and defeat whatever big bad monster had their protector so scared.

Razor ran faster than any lightning bolt upon hearing the news.

Razor didn't know what he was seeing: giant webs strewn out covering entire trees, boars and Hilichurls wrapped in webs and frozen in a sickly green.

And at the center of it all was a giant, monstrous creature with eight leg like roots coming from it's back, feeding off the life of all the creatures stuck here.

This is what he was afraid of, the beast that every inch of his primal self screamed to get away from.

But he couldn't, not until he found the pup!-

"Hello." You said calmly to the strange man coming into your home, "is this your's?"

You outstretched your hand and a sleeping pup drifted towards razor on a flower.

"He caused lots of problems, so I made him sleep. Don't worry, it's nothing permanent, give him an hour or two and he'll be right up."

After Razor left, you assumed that would be the last disturbance for a while.

But it wasn't.

Razor's wolf half still feared you, was still mortified when he pictured your spider like face, your towering body, everything.

But his human half...teembled.

Not in fear, but in a different way.

He couldn't stop thinking of you, and his primal upbringing did little to quell the less romantic thoughts about your gem like eyes, the way your mandibles clicked and moved when you talked, the overwhelming nature energy that you radiated.

But he still knew good enough to get to know you better.

Just not HOW to do it.

"Why are you spider?"

Is not a good first thing to ask.

But you explained regardless: you were taken as a kid and experimented on by some rogue students from Sumeru academy.

Then some purple lady rescued you, and while you were grateful you much preferred living out in the wild.

"Yes...wild is good! Wolvendom, especially good!"

Someone please help him.

"Purple lady....ah! Shockey wizard lady from knights?"

You nodded

"Razor good friends with her and honorary knight! Do you know red flamy girl?"

"Klee? Oh yes! I love her! She's such a nice kid!"

"Yes, Klee is like lupical! Even if she...burns down forest from time to time."

Lucky for him, your shared familial love for the pyromaniacal minor helped bridge the gap between you two.

Eventually he even got you to leave your grotto(?) And meet his lupical!

He introduced you to the wonders of actually eating rather than just sucking the life force out of animals.

You both love and protect the forest of wolvendom, and if any large threat arises to it then you both will fight fang and claw to protect your home!

Neither of you know what love is in the human sense, but you both feel it to each other and act upon it: giving each other a portion of your food, taking blows in battle for each other, and cuddling more intimately than just friends would.

You are his lupical, and so much more.

_____________________________

I started this near last year's end, it took me till now to realize I should only do 3 characters.

(Paging: @golden-wingseos, @storytravelled)

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #jean x reader #Razor x reader #Xinqiu x reader #xinqiu #genshin jean #razor

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frxstguardian · 3 years

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I finally watched The Croods 2! Yes I paid $20 to watch it legally online, no I did not risk COVID-19 by going to a movie theater.

Pros:

Love triangle plot successfully avoided! Eep and Dawn spend more time together onscreen as friends than Guy and Dawn who never express romantic interest in each other.

I really liked the character design of the Bettermans and the creativity put into designing their home. You can tell that the artists had a lot of fun coming up with ideas.

Sequel did a good job juggling all the characters. 10 characters is a lot! Everyone had something to do (except for Sandy but she can’t even talk so she doesn’t count).

Hot Pink Girl Sloth TM was thankfully barely utilized. I wish they had gone for a pale red or any other somewhat natural color instead of hot pink.

I thought it was quite funny. The jokes were a bit non-stop, so your mileage may vary, but I was entertained. Standard family movie humor.

Voice actors were all great!

Cons:

Alan Silvestri did not return to score the sequel, and the soundtrack is not as good as the original. However, the Jack Black songs that play during the credits DO go off!

Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco did not return to direct the sequel, and I felt like we were missing the low angle shots and stuff that helped make the first movie feel realistic.

Partial thematic retread of the first movie, yet does not reach the same emotional intensity as the third act of the original.

There were minor continuity errors between the two movies. I think the creators just didn’t really care, and the errors are minor, but they do bother me a bit. For example, Grug says he’s only eaten a banana once a long time ago, but Guy handed him a banana halfway through the first movie.

Surfacing/textures weren’t as good as the original, and it is most noticeable in the one (1) flashback scene to the first movie. Dreamworks in general has smoother characters in recent years, but holy shit the $65M budget probably also contributed to it. The Croods (2013) had a budget of $135M. I have no idea how Dreamworks cut production costs in half???

#the croods #the croods 2 #the croods: a new age #the croods spoilers

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lumilasi · 3 years

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I saw this in my feed and since I was pretty bored and FINALLY free from the said boredom, figured I could do this one. I generally enjoy question based tags, especially if they relate to art/writing/fandom/are some general things about favorite colors, music, foods, things about your home country etc.

(basically, you can tag me in stuff similar to listed above things and I’ll probably do them if I see them/have time lmao)

Fic Writer Questions!

How many works do you have on AO3?

44 total. I used to have more but I’ve deleted an old Bleach one I knew I’d never continue to write, and two bnha ones for the same reason (those two were also at the very beginning stages so nobody missed a lot anyway)

What's your total AO3 wordcount?

4 269 068......wow. It’s even MORE than I even imagined. Over 4 million words.

....Someone take my writing tools away from me lmao

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Three. I started with MCU, moved on to Bleach and now I’ve done most ofr BNHA

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Crossroads - 3069

Family Secrets - 3015

Reanimate - 1534

The neighbor - 809

Espada and Fraccion - 782

.....Admittedly this list surprised me. Not the first three but the last two. The fifth is an one shot for Bleach that I wrote AGES ago. I also for some reason expected this list to match the bookmark list more lmao

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I always try to respond to every comment I get, but often times when it’s just one word or a heart emoji I don’t really know what to say, so I might not reply to those. I do appreciate every comment I get, and read every single one, even if I don’t respond

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I don’t do angst endings typically, but Family Secrets is probs the most obvious choice, given what happens at the end.

- and its not even the real end, because I couldn’t help myself and made two more stories for the AU that was like “hey! this character I made you all love so much actually DIDN’T die, he just had unfinished business back home” lmao

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've ever written?

Rarely, typically they’re between my own fics (the story that crosses the paths of Crossroads and Family Secrets AU’s, literally titled Crossover, creative name I know OTL I was out of ideas)

Or between me and other people’s fics. Currently there’s two, both with Crossroads: one with Theteapotofdoom’s fic Something Good, and another with leontheneon’s fic Here with you. Both stories are basically a two part series that is non canon to actual Crossroads. The first story is finished, second one has two chapters left...that...I uh...struggle to write it seems OTL

(not tagging either person into this because Tea is very busy IRL right now so I don’t want to bother her, and Leon hasn’t been around in ages, IDK if they even use tumblr anymore)

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really no? I can only remember one time with somebody kind of demanding me to completely rewrite one fic in the past. It wasn’t really hate, more just...kinda unreasonable in my eyes? This was years ago by now.

While I did understand their side and the particular struggle they had (once they actually explained it, the first comment at the time came off pretty rude and demanding), I still feel them wanting me to re-write an entire multi-chapter fic just for them is a bit unreasonable, like said.

Like it wasn’t just couple of grammatical errors that was their issue, we’re talking weeks and even months long process of completely reworking multi-chapter story, because the grammar wasn’t tip top perfect. (I’m not a native speaker so there’s bound to be some mistakes; pointing out small occasional things is one thing - asking me to rewrite an entire multi-chapter story is another)

You can imagine that is not exactly high on my priorities list with IRL responsibilities and being more focused on the actual content of what I write, the ongoing stories I’m updating. This fic isn’t even finished yet either, so...yeah. Like after they explained their side of the story I was a bit more understanding, but its still....a bit ridiculous and unreasonable in my eyes to ask somebody to do such a massive overhaul when the story isn’t even finished yet?? Like maybe once its done and I have time I can go and edit it, but not when I haven’t even finished it lmao

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nah. I don’t care about smut a whole lot personally. I much more enjoy writing emotional scenes, character interactions and mystery. Plot over porn basically lmao

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t...do people actually do this? It feels like such a weird and pointless thing to do. It’s fanfic. stuff you write for fun and for free, for people to read for free. I’d also imagine its pretty easy to get caught given AO3 shows when you first posted your story.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, a couple of times. In Russian and I think other one was Chinese?

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Writing the crossovers was kinda that? Like I asked feedback from Tea and Leon on how to write them. there was also actually third crossover story that was supposed to happen (only I wasn’t going to be the one to write it) but this project has been shelved as the other person had to drop majority of online activity due to some IRL health related things. (I’m just glad they recently contacted me to inform they were doing better)

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Right now it’s..probably pretty obvious its Shigadabi, but I can never really say any ship is my all time fave, as it always changes depending on the fandom lmao.

I guess my favorite character x proper sleep/emotional stability/happiness will always be the OTP

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Oof. I always try to finish every single one, and if I absolutely know I won’t, I tend to just delete them. Thankfully I’ve only done it thrice. Which I guess is still a lot, but compared to how much I write, in context not really?

What are your writing strengths?

From what I’ve gathered of feedback, its typically emotional moments/character dialogue and interaction/character arcs and so. Mystery plots too. Or maybe that last one is just me lmao

What are your writing weakness?

Personally, while I tend to get positive feedback on both, sometimes I feel like I struggle to choose a good pacing for a fic, and fight scenes are always a pain. Namely, I might struggle with making the pace too long-winded and slow sometimes. Ironically, my IRL update pacing is probs a bit too fast in turn. (To add another layer of irony, I got an update ready for Unravel that I’ll post after making this tag)

Also writing shorter stories. I’ve been trying to write one-shots more (like the Spinaraki series thing) to kinda try and get myself to pack up my stories better and not let them always spiral out of control haha

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I did try to do that once with a fic I deleted, I had a native speaker help me with the canadian french bits. This person is no longer active on tumblr, and I deleted that fic because I realized I’d never finish it.

Technically tho, as a non-native English speaker, EVERY word is in other language to me lmao. I could only add Finnish as an extra one easily, and it rarely makes sense to do so anyway.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

MCU. It’s what I originally made my AO3 for, as I felt brave enough to post things. I also can’t remember writing fandom related stuff before that, it was typically more oc related. Writing fics has helped me learn a lot about world-building, character consistency and all that stuff, without having to make everything from scratch (tho I do enjoy doing that as well of course). I feel like my original work writing has improved too thanks to my fic writing shenanigans in a way lmao. Tho that might just be me, IDK

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oooof. This changes a lot depending on the time. I can never really pick just one either: my current favorites are Stringmaster, The neighbor and Family Secrets

Stringmaster because I love building the Steampunk AU, and Tomura’s relationship with Dabi and his Sensei, The neighbor because I personally think the romance build up in that one is probably one of the best I’ve done so far (the character dialogue in that is among my favorites I’ve written as well) and FS, because it taught me a lot about character building through writing a character like Hisashi.

Plus I just really like Hisashi.

And baby Izuku and little Tenko are super adorable.

And Inko is the best mum.

Also the fact the whole story is so ironic in a sense its still kinda funny to me.

The only writer I know that might be around rn is @nightlilly0110 soo...I guess I’ll tag them if they want to do this! Anybody who’s a writer can snatch this too of course ;)

#tag game #writer tag #fic writing

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snkpolls · 3 years

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SnK Episode 71 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 176 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

RATE THE EPISODE 172 responses

This week’s episode keeps up the high mark of the previous episodes, with 98.8% of respondents giving the episode a score of 3 or higher (overwhelmingly 4s and 5s). Nice!

It was aight.

It's cool

8.5/10

great!

Very rocky imo in terms of animation, as the cracks are beginning to show but overall look like the backgrounds and music choices were top tier.

Really good episode, I was disappointed in the jacket scene but it’s not the end of the world

loved it

It was overall a great episode I loved it.

🔥🔥🔥

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 174 responses

46.6% of respondents overall were most excited to see Eren meeting up with Floch and the others, with 23.6% of those respondents favoring the scene of Eren putting on his jacket specifically. 12.1% most enjoyed seeing the angry citizens shouting out the Survey Corps motto. 9.8% were thrilled to see Zackley’s death animated. 8% were psyched to see Pieck in disguise at the end, and 6.9% most enjoyed the moment where Hitch caught Armin red-handed trying to touch Annie’s crystal.

YOUR REACTION TO EREN PUTTING ON HIS JACKET? 171 responses

Eren putting on his jacket was a scene many obsessed over when it first appeared on page and many looked forward to seeing it animated. Most of the response choices were focused on various forms of swooning over Eren and his abs. Some (13.5%) stated that they didn’t really understand the dramatism and some others (another 13.5%) simply stated that they did not see much in Eren outright. We’ve gotten a lot of write-ins about comparisons to the pre-animated trailer shot of said scene. More on that in a later question.

i mean i understand the thirst, but eh

Prefer manga :/

The trailer did it better

Meh. Better in the trailer and the manga.

TF was that? Well it's still good in its own way.

YES! YES! YES! YES! Y E S!

both "HOOOOOLYYYYYY 😳" and "so dramatic and for what?"

Trailer/Manga shot was way better

Manga shot/trailer version are way better. Dissapointed

Trailer looked better :(

Mappa only made Reiner thicc, why Eren is so frain he has 1,85! He is so strong in the manga

I don't care

Manbun.........👀

He can have my babies anytime 😌💅🏻

Not as sexy as advertised; that’s okay, though.

That scene looked weird af ngl. It looked better in the trailer 😔

Me after THAT eren scene: 🤰🏻🤰🏻🤰🏻

Eren makes my dick rise

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW HAPPY ARE YOU NOW THAT WE APPEAR TO BE GOING BACK TO LEVI AND ZEKE’S PERSPECTIVE NEXT WEEK FOR A BIT? 171 responses

Levi and Zeke’s chemistry has been the subject of praise for many, so it’s no wonder that 87.1% of respondents are rather excited to get back to seeing Levi and Zeke again. Wow!

ARE ARMIN’S FEELINGS FOR ANNIE GENUINELY HIS OWN? 173 responses

Armin’s feelings for Annie have been looked at under a microscope for a variety of reasons, which is why we’re asking if you believe that his feelings for her are genuine. A plurality, 49.1% think that they’re a mixture of his feelings for her, as well Bertolt’s. Slightly less (30.6%) believe that Armin’s feelings for her existed since before any of the recent developments. Only a select few believe that he either became interested in her post-timeskip or that his feelings are solely influenced by Bertolt. One person doesn’t think Armin has any feelings for Annie at all. And a few others just don’t care.

Bertmin simping for Annie and that apparently being enough for her to start considering him as boyfriend material is the fucking worst. I hate this shit. It's made me like both characters considerably less.

Uhh Armin where ya reaching?!

He was interested with her even before it was revealed she was the Female Titan and now that he has Bertholdt's memories, he sympathizes with her too and wants to understand her more so maybe Bert's memories intensified his feelings

His feelings for Annie are mostly his own. Bert's feelings might be in there a little, but the feelings are still Armin's.

CONTINUITY ALERT! EREN HAS HIS HAIR UP IN A BUN IN YELENA’S FLASHBACK. THOUGHTS? 173 responses

Uh-oh, Eren’s hairstyle moment. It would appear that there might be a continuity error with Yelena’s flashback and whatever that means for the timeline. A slight plurality (37%) didn’t seem to care about this, actually. But 33.5% appeared to believe that it was a mistake on MAPPA’s part that might get fixed in the BluRay version of the episode. 16.8% also believe that it was a mistake, but don’t believe it’ll get fixed. 9.8% think that it’s actually a retcon and that Eren’ll have the man bun when Chapter 123 gets adapted in Final Season Part 2.

I hope it gets fixed because it's bugging me.

I really wish it was like how it was in the manga. Eren looks good with his hair down in his 16-17-year-old phase. Despite the error, it wasn't a deal breaker for the episode.

He looks totally gorgeous with his hair up in a bun, please let this mistake be

Honestly I don’t mind it. It looks great either way.

Eren in a manbun is a total win for me!

WHICH PIECES OF INFORMATION MISSING FROM YELENA’S ADMISSION IN THE MANGA DO YOU WISH WOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE ADAPTATION? 163 responses

As with almost all dialogue-heavy chapters in this series, there are cuts. In this episode, these cuts mostly affected the conversation between Yelena and Pixis. The most yearned for cut material was Yelena never telling Eren to go along with the plan and Yelena saying that she used Floch as a “go-between” between her and Eren. Others also noted missing lines about Yelena wanting Eren to stand up for himself, Yelena stating that Zeke gave the volunteers a hopeful future and the idea that her and Eren came to quick agreement. The plurality (31.9%) however, didn’t seem to mind any cuts.

WHAT ARE YOU OVERALL FEELINGS ABOUT SOME OR ALL OF THE AFOREMENTIONED DETAILS BEING CUT? 161 responses

There is often a sort of expectation to have everything (or almost every) line from the manga adapted in the anime, so it’s interesting to see how people react to that sort of stuff. An almost 50% of respondents stated that they didn’t really care about the cuts, whereas smaller handfuls of respondents stated that the cuts either took away from the characterization of the conversation, or from the context and timeline-building purposes.

I'm not thrilled about the cuts, but I understand MAPPA can only fit so much in on each episode, so I'm okay with it

the yelena/volunteers plot has always been wonky and hard to follow

I don’t think it’s a problem, they need to cut certain things.

i literally never notice but i agree that it makes it harder to piece things together

Meh

It might seem for anime watchers that Yelena didnt do much, and Floch and Zeke that did the most part, in their own plans. Floch to betray and Zeke in predicting Eren wouldnt be on his side in some way. Yelena helped Zeke a lot to where he arrived in the rumbling

All of the above

ZACKLEY WALKS OVER TO HIS TORTURE MACHINE IN THE ANIME BEFORE MIKASA ASKS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO EREN, RATHER THAN GLANCE OVER AT IT AFTER HER QUESTION. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGE? 170 responses

There was a partially comedic insinuation in the manga that Zackley thought about strapping Eren to his “art piece”. The insinuation is possibly still there in the anime, but in a different form. So we asked how you felt about it. Slightly below a half (48.8%) stated that they thought the subtlety was still there. 18.8% thought the subtlety was lost with the small change and 8.8% believed the change made Zackley seem less unhinged. 21.8% really didn’t care at all.

Why is this a question?

The glance was funny as fuck in the manga, but might have been awkward to pull of in the animation

They're blown up tho, does it even matter?

DID EREN KNOW ABOUT THE BOMB? 170 responses

Whether Eren truly knew about the bomb is a bit unclear to this day and with how it endangered Armin and Mikasa. A plurality (40%) believe he knew about the bomb, but did not know about his childhood friends meeting Zackley. Slightly less (30.6%) think that Eren did not know about either the bomb or AM meeting the Artist. A minority (7.1%) does believe that Eren knew about both the bomb and meeting and 21.8% simply aren’t sure!

Even if he didn’t know, he obviously doesn’t care either way.

THERE IS SOME DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER EREN’S JACKET SCENE WAS BETTER ANIMATED IN THE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO OR IN THE EPISODE ITSELF. WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE? 170 responses

Here we go… The elephant in the room… Which Eren abs scene did you prefer? The Promotional video or the actual episode? A somewhat slight majority (57.1%) seemed to like the version seen in the promotional video more than the episode itself versus the ones who preferred the episode’s style (42.9%).

THE EPISODE MARKS THE BEGINNING OF FLOCH’S ACTIONS AS THE VOICE OF THE YEAGERISTS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT? 170 responses

Floch has always been a controversial character and the developments seen post-time skip have not been any less debatable. You may floching love him or floching hate, but he’s here and he’s staying for a while. A plurality (48.8%) notes that although they may not personally be a fan of the character, they truly do appreciate the nuance his appearance gives to the story. Just over a quarter (25.3%) stated that as big fans of the character, they’re looking forward to all the screentime the Flochster will receive. In contrast, 20.6% despise the man and his questionable haircut and are also dreading the showcase he’ll soon receive.

I hate Floch and will cheer again when he dies, but I enjoy his character.

I detest Floch but I'm not dreading all the screen time he'll take up.

Since he died in the manga, my hatred for him has cooled down somewhat now that I'm watching the anime.

I am once again asking for you to shut the fuck up, Floch.

WE KNOW NOW THAT EREN DID CONSPIRE WITH FLOCH TO BETRAY ZEKE TO ENACT THE RUMBLING. STILL, DO YOU BELIEVE HE DID IT BECAUSE HE HAS THE SAME BELIEFS AS FLOCH, OR WAS HE JUST USING FLOCH AND THE YEAGERISTS AS A MEANS TO AN END? 161 responses

An overwhelming amount of respondents (87.6%) stated that they believe Eren never truly saw eye to eye with Floch and his ideology and that Eren was simply using Floch as a means to an end. In contrast, 9.3% truly do think that Eren was ideologically similar to Floch and the “New Eldian Empire”. A select few thought you couldn’t just say one way or another.

They both wanted to protect Paradis

DO YOU THINK IF THE YEAGERISTS, BESIDES FLOCH, KNEW ABOUT THE FULL SCALE RUMBLING BEFOREHAND THAT THEY WOULD WILLINGLY FOLLOW EREN? 167 responses

The majority (53.3%) feel that the Yeagerists would see a divide if they knew beforehand that Eren wanted to initiate the rumbling, with some sticking around for the cause and others possibly leaving because it’s too extreme. 25.1% believe that they all would have fully supported the rumbling in the name of their own survival. 15% believe that every Yeagerist already knew about the plan to commence the rumbling, and only 6% feel that they would most certainly have betrayed the Yeager brothers (and Floch) if they had known.

I don’t know, this is a loaded question and I’m tired.

DO YOU THINK THAT, IF THE STORY ENDS PEACEFULLY, MIKASA WILL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN HIZURU? 170 responses

While this plotline may not be going anywhere in the manga (or so it seems), the reminder of its existence is brought to light again as we revisit these older moments from the manga. 32.4% feel that Mikasa wouldn’t leave Paradis behind to start a life on Hizuru. 23.5% think that she wouldn’t leave Paradis behind, necessarily, but will still have a role to play in Hizuru. 21.2% think it doesn’t matter because Isayama has completely discarded (or forgotten) about this plotline. 12.4% don’t know what to predict (if anything) and only 8.2% believe that her future lies in Hizuru beyond the main storyline.

The last two options plus me not caring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hizuru is already rumbled, gone, but she will continue the azumabito clan in paradis

Is no one else gonna question Kiyomi's hair being sucked into her skull??? HELLO MA'AM???

Hizuru is likely flattened

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 171 responses

Episode 72 has already broadcasted as of the completion of this poll. For scenes that were most anticipated, 35.7% were most looking forward to seeing Levi and Zeke’s interaction in the forest. 33.3% most looked forward to Niccolo leaning straight from Gabi’s mouth that she is Sasha’s killer. 18.7% highly anticipated the Blouses learning about Gabi killing Sasha, and 9.4% were looking forward to Gabi/Falco and the Blouses gathering at Niccolo’s restaurant. Only a small amount were looking forward to Niccolo protecting Jean and Connie from drinking the wine.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Man the animation was gonky

no levi </3

So many faces of Niles are weirds !

Let hange aloneeeeeeee and happy, please

I have no word for this, but I feeling good

Shit is getting really real now!

Everyone talking about Eren’s abs and I just wanna say the music in that scene was amazing!

I loved how it was all neatly put together and fast moving

Armin looked so good. Homie walked from point A to B and i SCREAMED. Thank you.

i wish they included eren's warhammer escape from the prison, besides that solid episode all around, the people chanting 'dedicate your hearts' gave me chills

I can't stand Hitch at all but MAPPA made her really pretty. Re: The jacket scene The trailer version was pretty much identical to the manga panel. But I liked the version that made it into the final episode too. People have been so ridiculous about MAPPA ""ruining everything"" this season, they should stop watching if that's how they feel. I thought Eren looked great and found the sun shining on his abs funny. The scenery was better in the episode, imo. I hope they don't cut Jean's line about booze not caring about what race you are. Lmao

Meh. It's not bad of course, I just find the rythm weird and I don't really feel many emotions watching the episodes. And I was so thirsty for the jacket scene, and it turned out weird too.

Mappa pls stop drawing eren like shit he is gorgeous in the manga

MMGH SOON!! LET'S GOOOOOOO

You friccin moron, you just got zooked!

i miss eremin </3

Wish they had shown how eren used his titan powers to escape.

I'm so not looking forward to the controversy that's gonna be reignited during the EMA talk scene. I'm actually dreading it, but we'll finally get the Levi vs Beast Titan scene so I'll be fine

112 will destroy ships

I felt the animation was flawless as usual but the script was kinda boring, I expected more of these aspects: -Yelena, it was bland with the cuts -Hange, they cut something I cant figure what in this Yeagerists coup act that turned her scenes a little bit lacking? Idk something -Again the soundtrack in the episodes is so silent. The only episode so far I liked the ost beyond the Opening and Closing themes is Reiner episode. I miss the melodrama of Witstudio osts

Eren putting his jacket on in slow-speed whilst talking at regular speed is fucking trippy

Just happy to see Hitch!

It was slow and mainly plot driven. I enjoyed it despite the changes.

goddamn is that a hella well-animated explosion

more abs please

Great episode. Really ridiculous how many people overreacted about the jacket scene. It's ok to perfer the way the trailer did it but to those who say Mappa is ruining the adaptation because of minor things like this, calm down.

I wish the jacket scene was better But over all the ep is pretty good

Boring, but then again so was this phase in the manga.

I really like the VA they chose for Onyankopon! His voice is very warm and genuine, which suits his character well

The sunset was so aesthetically pleasing

yoooo just read ch. 138 and im crying in da club :(

These MAPPA episodes have been a low point for me. I’m trying to enjoy them because I love this story but it feels like a chore.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 161 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

#snk poll #snk polls #snk spoilers #snk s4 #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk #aot

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alexlabhont · 3 years

Text

I didn’t mean to fall in love with you

Chapter nine.

Book: Queen B - Choices (Universe)

Pairing: Poppy Min-Sinclair x Trans!Male MC (Beck Hughes)

Genre: Canon re-write (Because I can)

Rating: Anyone can read it, really

Tags: @dopeyouth @theymakemegayer @save-me-the-last-dance @poppysmc (If anyone want to be tagged in, just tell me)

This is me trying to write by and for the Trans community, specially FTM community, meaning, trans guys, but I actually took the liberty to use They/them pronouns for everyone out there who´s interested (Also, the name Beck was the most neutral one I could find, trying to use the cannon Bea Hughes)

If you have any comment, PLEASE BE RESPECTFULL and patient with me. This is also my first english fanfic and english is not my mother language, so… i’m sorry fo the grammar errors. I also installed recently Grammary, so... hope its worth it.

CHAPTERS

Chapter eight

ONE-SHOTS

Just a dance (Zoey x MC)

——————————————————————

"Zoey, please... Can we just talk about this?"

Beck asked, sounding tired but worried while sitting in the common room. Their eyes glued to the other girl passing back and forth inside the kitchen, pretending to be alright as she made some tea to herself. Even Pepes knew something was off, that little ugly face looked at her with those sad cute eyes as if he was grounded because of something he didn't understand.

"Talk about what exactly?" Zoey stopped for a second to look at them, she was pissed, the tension over her shoulders was like concrete. "About how you always manage to take my warnings and toss them in the trash? The way you keep going on and playing with fire over and over again despite my attempts to keep you safe? Whatever Beck, is your life."

They closed their eyes for a second, breathing deep. This problem started the moment Zoey saw Poppy in the room with Beck a few moments ago, and while the Queen B left almost immediately after that because of some business back at the shelter, Beck could feel their roommate's disagreement so thick and still in the air that they could almost cut it with a knife.

"Why are you so mad about it, anyway?" Beck asked, feeling a bit upset. "I get that you don't like her and all, but..."

"I don't trust her, Beck." She replied sharply. "She's mean, she's selfish, she's a spoiled brat who is not up to something good and you're falling into her web. She's gonna use you the moment she has the chance and throw you aside when she's tired!"

Something inside Beck snapped at that. Yes, they definitely did understand where that came from, for all they knew, Poppy made Zoey's life hell since day one, treating her badly constantly. Even Beck was once a victim of the blonde's anger and resentment during their first months in Belvoire, so much so that Beck thought she was naturally mean and a complete bitch. But, somehow, they had a chance that maybe nobody had before, to get to know her, and slowly they began to see that- maybe she wasn't a born-bitch, maybe she didn't know another way. Maybe she wasn't taught better. Something on their chest knew that, deep down, Poppy wasn't that bad at all.

"How-how can you know that?!" Beck said, standing on their feet. They didn't like a bit the way Zoey was talking about the strawberry blonde. She wasn't there every single time Poppy showed them how much she cared about them, how kind and attentive she could be every time they were alone, and Beck was tired of all these misjudgments. "She can be mean and cruel sometimes, but it doesn't mean she has something planned to hurt me! I like her, a lot. And I think she likes me too. Why can't you be happy for me just this time?"

To their surprise, Zoey scoffed sarcastically, as if she couldn't believe exactly that.

"How can you be so naive, Beck? Do you think someone like Poppy is into someone like…"

She stopped abruptly, realizing how bad it might sound.

"Like me?" Beck asked suddenly, feeling hurt. All the times they heard people say shit like that, every single mockery and awful stares came back to their memory, making their chest hurt. The way Zoey looked at them broke Beck a little more.

"Beck... I didn't mean it like that..."

And they knew, Zoey would never say something to hurt them about being trans, but Beck couldn't help but feel a hit in the stomach. They latched their fists and looked down, clenching his jaw, waiting for her to speak before they let all their anger out.

"What I meant to say is... " Zoey walked towards them, stopping until both were face to face. "She has been awful to you all this time and suddenly, one day to another she treats you right? You are different from her... In a good way, you're kind, talented, and down to earth. I'm just afraid you’ll fall into her claws and come to be like her, or worse... That she'd hurt you badly..."

"I don't need your protection, Zoey" Beck said, feeling tired of being treated like some fragile being who needs to be protected. "I need you to trust me. Poppy has made some mistakes... But I know she cares about me. I know it! I can feel it every time we're together..."

Zoey remained silent as if she was processing every word Beck said. In the meantime, Pepes jumped over their legs asking to be held, Beck took him carefully in their arms and snuggled him against them trying not to hurt their rib as they felt him curl up with a whimper.

"I know, Pepes... Poppy's a whole different person to you too."

Just at that moment, Zoey rested her arms around Beck, hugging them by the hips.

"Beck, you know this goodie-Poppy better than anyone else on campus at least, so tell me... What do you think she feels about you?"

"I think she wants me," Beck said, petting Pepes’ head softly. That wasn't even a question to think about, it only took them a minute to bring back all the moments together, every time Beck could feel Poppy's concern and protective side... Zoey had a point, but Beck decided to bet on Poppy's good side no matter what. "She really wants me, Zoey. She has proven that to me in her way."

"Ok, next question. The real question. The one that matters." Beck could feel her taking a deep breath as if she were preparing herself to hear something she didn't want to listen to. "How do you feel about her?

"I..." Beck thought about all those moments together, how that caramel eyes made them shiver, every time Poppy managed to take their breath away, her touch, her smile, gosh, even their fights, and that thunder-like personality she had... "I want to be with her. She really makes me feel something special, Zoey. This thing between us is challenging, thrilling, and keeps me on my toes but it can be a good thing... I truly like her."

For a moment, Beck noticed Zoey's face fall for a second, defeated; but then, she pulled on a smile.

"Well, if you trust her... I can trust her as well."

Beck couldn't really believe that. Was she serious?

"Do you really mean that?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Zoey simply said. "I may still be skeptical of Poppy behavior, but I trust you, Beck. You're a one of a kind." Zoey sat down on the couch, slinging her feet up on the coffee table.

Pepes barked happily as if he could understand the massive step Zoey just made, and jumped right to her legs, licking her face as excited as Beck would do it if they were a dog.

"No, stop it! You're ruining my makeup!" Zoey laughed while Beck did the same, defiled by the scene. "You are so cute I actually forgive you for chewing on my Valentino pumps, you little monster." She scooped him up and placed him on her lap before turning her attention back to Beck. "'Kay, here's what you're gonna do about Poppy."

"Take her on a date?" Beck asked, resulting in a giggle coming from Zoey's lips.

"I love when we do this whole telepathy thing."

"Really? It scares the shit out of me sometimes..." They said joking around. "Like that one time when...!"

And because of that telepathic bound, Zoey didn't even let them finish that sentence, waving her hands in Beck's face while a red color crossed her cheeks.

"Uh-uh-uh... We swore not to talk about it!"

Yep, they both swore that. Sometimes, being roommates was a door to discover a lot of things about the other that may or may not be expected… at all.

"Anyway..." Zoey continued. "You're going to take Poppy on a date. A real date. We all already know her lifestyle, but it's time to let her know about yours. To get to know you. And if you're really willing to trust her… You need to tell her about Bree." Beck looked away, biting the insides of their cheek. That actually made their heart jump with a little bit of fear. "That's the only way she'll be able to find out where her head is at and what your limits are."

Pepes lunged for Zoey's fingers, but she snatched them back just in time.

“Not the manicure.” She said angrily, making him off to go to break something maybe. Beck followed him with their eyes, feeling actually amused by the interactions, secretly loving that love-hate relationship Zoey and Pepes had, it was quite funny. “Quit smiling, Beck. It’s not funny.”

“Oh, come on…!”

“Back to Poppy.” She quickly said, avoiding Beck's jokes about how she would rather have a broken finger than a broken nail. “You have to show her what’s going to happen if she dates Beck, if she wants it or not, is up to her. Just remember one thing: you are totally worth it and priceless. No more underestimating you. Trust me, there's a ton of ladies who would gladly take her place.”

Zoey smiled at them with a subtle hint Beck couldn’t fully place quite right, but they didn’t read too much into it, their mind was off, planning a lot of ideas for the date. There were a ton of possibilities for hot dates, but almost everything was so New York-ish that Poppy could do them with any person. Zoey was right, they needed to show her their true self, they had to open up to her…

And frankly, that was really scary.

So Beck took a deep breath and started typing on the phone.

Beck:

Hey. Wanna hang out?

Ok, that was it. Beck had to admit it, it was always Poppy, the one who made the plans, he wasn’t fully interested nor ready at the time, like… really, who would ever want to date their bully? But now things had changed and so did the dynamic.

Poison Poppy:

Missing me already?

Beck snorted, but a second message came in.

Poison Poppy:

I’m not surprised, tho

I knew you were obsessed with me. Happens a lot.

Beck:

Take it easy, baby girl. It's just a walk. Don't read too much into it.

It was definitely a date, but they refused to let her win this one over; Beck could be as hard to get like her.

Poison Poppy:

Ew, don’t you ever call me like that ever again.

Aren’t you supposed to be resting?

Beck:

Is that a “no”?

Poppy saw the message but then went off-line. That actually scared Beck a little, because even though they knew she was busy at the shelter, their nerves kept on saying she wasn’t as thrilled as them to hang out, maybe they should’ve waited until Poppy told them she wanted a date or something, but again, where was their initiative? They were interested, so they needed it to show her what they wanted. “Relax, you were fine.” Beck said to them, even though their heart was beating fast. The Poppy Min-Sinclair effect. So they spend a little too much time reading the whole conversation, was something they said? There were no signs of anything, it was actually a normal-flirty conversation… right?

Sooner rather than later, the typing sign showed up, alarming Beck. Quickly, they tapped the menu button just to get out of the chat. They definitely did not want her to think they were waiting for her reply… even though they were.

Poison Poppy:

I just don’t want to make something to worsen your rib. I didn’t pay a doctor to go to waste.

Same old Poppy, Imma right?

Beck:

It’s going to be low-key, I promise. Does tomorrow morning works for you?

Poison Poppy:

See you then, tushi face 😉

Beck let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding, as the realization of what was happening hit them loud in their chest. Beck asked the Queen of Belvoire, their old enemy, the one and only Poppy Min-Sinclair for a date. And she said yes.

“Well… here goes nothing….”

____

#poppy min sinclair #poppy x mc #queen b choices #choices stories you play #choices #choices poppy #bea hughes #mc x poppy #beck hughes #choices queen b mc #trans #ftm

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ms-interpretation · 4 years

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So... I wrote a small fic which I shared on AO3 a few days ago... Takes place after the reunion in episode 16, tried to be a little funny.

I’m a beginner when it comes to writing fiction so don’t expect much, apparently this show just makes me do crazy things haha @coreastories was incredibly nice and beta’d my first draft, I did re-write some stuff and edit after though so just know that there might still be some errors. Fic also included below:

Reunited

Tae-eul was the first to recover from their tear-filled reunion, standing outside of her home tightly embracing Lee Gon, the chill breeze sweeping over them.

He was finally back. He had found her.

Tae-eul felt a wave of relief wash over her whole body. All the tension which had accumulated in her muscles during the last year missing him and worrying slowly letting up.

Lee Gon meanwhile seemed to be getting more emotional by the minute, she could feel a few cold tears falling down onto her cheek, and while Tae-eul was softening in her embrace of him, he only held onto her tighter. As if scared that she would suddenly vanish.

The sudden thought made Tae-eul hug him closer. A memory of another version of this moment flashing through her mind.

“Is it really you?” he had asked her, half in agony half in hope. How many parallel universes had he been to since they last saw each other? He must have been lonely. She had never before felt so alone as she had during this last year.

Feeling yet another gush of cold air sweep over them, she decided to take action. She slowly and gently started to break up their embrace. Lee Gon allowed her to. She could feel his reluctance however, and he immediately took hold of her left hand.

She was going to tease him about being clingy, but looking up at him she was met with his adoring, but tear-stricken face. Her heart ached a little at the sight. So instead she flashed him a bright smile, which he returned with a gentle one. But then he looked away, avoiding her gaze while blinking repeatedly - seemingly becoming aware and slightly embarrassed about his lack of composure.

”Okay, okay…” Tae-eul said, while using her free hand to turn his head back towards her, using her thumb to try to wipe away his tears. “Come here, let’s go inside”. Gon only managed to chuckle wetly in response.

Taking the lead, she dragged him after her up the stairs and towards her door. Before going in, he tugged her hand to stop, and with slight desperation tried to wipe away his stubborn tears, which still kept falling.

”Don’t worry about it,” Tae-eul told the now slightly awkward and clearly struggling proud King. ”My father is not even at home… and he is a bit of a cry-baby as well.” The comment earned her a startled but bright laugh, making her heart feel impossibly light. She just couldn’t help teasing him. She had missed it. She had missed him, and now he was finally here.

***

Inside, Lee Gon was shuffling around in her kitchen. Officially for the purpose of making them tea, having insisted that he should be the one to do it while she sat down. Tae-eul saw through him however - he was clearly actually trying to regain some semblance of composure before returning eye contact again.

After hanging up the beautiful magic lilies he had brought her in her room she sat down at the dining table. Observing fondly how the now almost recovered King was moving around between the stove and cupboards, the memory of the last time they had been in her house flashing through her mind.

It felt like it was so long ago. In a manner of speaking it had only been about a year, and in another way - to most of the world, it had not happened at all.

She remembered her father’s face, the lack of recognition, when she had for once mentioned Lee Gon’s name. She had been too tired, and her father had asked about her necklace for the third time that evening. There were no words to describe how awful it had been seeing her father’s confused expression. It had been an unexpectedly stark reminder of Lee Gon’s absence.

Gazing out of the window, observing the trees now moving with the breeze, Tae-eul couldn’t help but recall how she had simply walked out of her house that evening. She had walked around Seoul for hours, not returning home until dawn. She couldn’t even properly remember where she had been. She had promised herself not to do that again, for her father’s sake - and for her own. Thankfully her dad hadn’t noticed, having gone to bed before she left and not woken up before she returned. He had however never brought up her necklace again after that.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the two blue cups of tea Lee Gon sat down on the table in front of her, his hand settling on her shoulder as he shot her a concerned look. “Are you alright?”

She just nodded in response smiling, and he dragged out the chair to her right to sit down next to her, his gentle smile in response to hers managing somehow to ease the pain of the memory.

They sat there for who knows how long talking and drinking tea. When Tae-eul told him about going into the in-between with Lee Lim, Gon suddenly clasped onto both of her hands on the table firmly, but didn’t interrupt, which she was incredibly thankful for.

As she told him exactly how everything had played out in the space between their worlds he only gave her a long look, a mixture of worry and guilt, but also gratitude being reflected in his dark eyes. She could tell that he had reached the same conclusion as her. That it likely was because she had been in the in-between when time ‘reset’ that she could remember him.

She couldn’t help but notice how his expression was not too dissimilar to the way he had looked at her when she had told him how she’d missed him, when he had finally reached her after she had escaped from Lee Lim’s henchmen. She also realized that she wanted nothing more than to erase that hint of guilt from his eyes, and she started to gently play with his thumbs to try to reassure him.

“Thank you for coming back”, she said, suddenly feeling that it was important to make him understand just how much it meant to her.

He just looked back at her and she was struck by how vulnerable he suddenly seemed. His hands had squeezed onto hers harder as she had thanked him. His expression now reminiscent of when he had admitted to her that he had worried, in the aftermath of her first visit to the Kingdom of Corea, that she wouldn’t want him to come back. She recognised that look of slight fear reflected in his eyes from that time.

“Thank you”, Gon replied, while he reached over and hugged her close. He repeated his thanks several times in a soft slightly wavering voice next to her ear as he held onto her, cradling her close.

Tae-eul was not sure if he was thanking her for simply being where he could find her, or if it was for remembering him. It felt impossibly big whatever he was thanking her for. Hugging him back tightly however, she couldn’t bring herself to ask at the moment. He was here with her. He was okay. That was all that mattered.

They sat like that for quite a while. Later when she asked him about how the coup had played out she could feel him tense up.

Being no stranger to interrogations with somewhat unwilling witnesses Tae-eul knew that he was holding something back, and promptly used one of her remaining unused rules to demand he tell her the whole truth. He leaned back and chuckled in response to her pragmatic request, the playful spark in his eyes having returned.

His laugh was probably one her favourite sounds in the world, she realized, shaking her head, internally chided herself for being silly.

When he finally told her about his initial plan to wait to shoot Lee Lim until the traitor was strangling his younger self her heart almost stopped. The sheer panic she had experienced when his flowers had started to disappear suddenly resurfacing. She hit his shoulder. Hard. He yelped, probably more in surprise than pain but still.

”Are you crazy?!” she exclaimed. He turned fully towards her in response, looking at her with a heavy expression and held onto her hands tightly while continuing to tell her about that night. About Yeong’s refusal to abide by the King’s final request, and about how her words about choosing to be brave had dared him to let the night play out differently.

“There was a beautiful, and simple equation”, he told her, smiling that gentle smile she had missed so much. Tae-eul felt her sudden distress drain away as she took in his words. Focusing on his hands which still held onto hers tight. The contact reminding her that he was here now. That there were no more murderous uncles hiding in the shadows and no universes on the brink of breaking apart.

They made more tea, and continued to talk about everything. Big and small, about how Eun-sup and Jo Yeong were doing. She was delighted to hear about Yeong’s new siblings and Gon was very excited to hear about Eun-sup’s career successes. He looked almost like a proud parent Tae-eul realized, crossing his arms with a very pleased expression when she told him about how Eun-sup had recently started working for the NIS. They talked about their new memories, Tae-eul laughing at Gon’s embarrassment as he told her about how he had as a child idealized his new rescuer to Yeong during their childhood, and at his complaints about how Yeong nowadays was way too smug with himself. They also talked about their “old” memories, about the two versions of their first meeting and the subsequent days. They laughed fondly at how they had both been taken aback by the other’s “forwardness”.

***

At some point later they were sitting on her sofa and Gon was tugging down his black shirt, having taken off the glorious suit, to show her his - or rather the lack of, his former scar. She couldn’t stop her fingers from tracing over where she remembered it used to be. Lee Gon went very still. She realized she could feel his pulse, which was beating fast as she started tracing over the top of his collarbone. Almost like as if under a spell she continued tracing her fingers over his naked skin, feeling his pulse beat harder and faster.

Gon suddenly took hold of her wrist, stopping her, and she realised that he was breathing harder than before. His face now only centimetres from hers, and meeting his eyes she saw how they had darkened and there was a soft, and slightly desperate look in them. She slowly brought her hands up to hold his face, gazing intently into those dark eyes.

Longing, was what she saw, and she knew immediately that he must be seeing the same sentiment reflected back at him in her eyes.

He’s really here.

She used her hands on the sides of his face to suddenly pull him into a kiss. It was hard and more desperate than anything else. She needed him closer and feeling him against her she was suddenly struck with the realization that she wouldn’t ever let him go.

Gon was not slow to respond. Deepening the kiss, slowly taking control and calming it down, withdrawing after a long moment, resting his forehead against hers,

“I missed you.” He said with such raw emotion, voice low and slightly horse, that Tae-eul suddenly felt almost overwhelmed, her tears threatening to resurface.

A few long seconds passed and then the playful spark returned to his eyes and he smiled teasingly at her.

In the next moment Gon had manoeuvred them so that he was hovering on top of her, while she was under him with her back against the sofa, his arms supporting him. The transition was not smooth, as she had simply refused to let go of him for even just a second. Her arms locking him to her from behind his neck, as she hanged onto him. Her heart racing.

Looking up at him, seeing the wanting expression in his eyes, she realized that he was too far away and pulled him down towards her.

“Tae-eul, are you home?” Her father’s voice suddenly rang out from the yard “Help me with the groceries!”

As quickly as Lee Gon had pounced he had thrown himself back. Standing suddenly very tall in her living room, hair a mess, and overall looking way too dishevelled. He had probably never looked less like a King and more like a normal boyfriend, Tae-eul realized. And she almost couldn’t stop herself from laughing at his frozen almost panicked expression.

It made him look younger. She also couldn’t help but notice that the red slight puffiness around his eyes was now matching the colour of his earlobes. She loved him. So much.

The sound of her dad’s familiar footsteps echoing outside from climbing up their staircase interrupted her musings.

This was not ideal, Tae-eul was no prude but this was... not great. So she threw herself at the door, locking it, and then grabbed the still quite frozen King’s wrist and dragged him into the bathroom. Gesticulating in an only slightly threatening manner that he should wash his face and be quiet. Gon’s face unfathomably managing to become even redder, while he opened his mouth to - most likely, protest. Not waiting for him to respond she shut the door in his face and ran back into the living room.

“Why did you lock the door?!” Her father grumbled, slightly annoyed as she opened it for him, no real frustration in his voice. He unloaded his bags onto the table and she started helping him pick out the groceries. Seeing the two teacups, he asked,

“Was Na-ri here?”, at the lack of response he looked back at her, “Eun-sup?”, “Ah, eh no…” Tae-eul at first hesitated, but seeing the confusion in her father’s eyes she made a swift decision, “My boyfriend is here.” She couldn’t tell what happened first, if it was Lee Gon almost falling out of the bathroom - a consequence of being slightly too tall for the door, or if it was her dad accidentally bumping over one of the teacups. Which she managed to catch just as it it fell off the table.

Lee Gon looked much more presentable now, still dressed in his black clothes, his hair almost covering his eyes, and thankfully neither hair nor clothes were in a state of complete disarray anymore. Her father’s eyes had gone round in surprise at her response and he was now staring at the tall stranger standing in his living room at 11 pm.

“Ah, yes… Good evening, sir,” Gon greeted awkwardly, looking a bit lost, before remembering to bow respectfully.

Her father merely blinking in response, stunned at the sudden development.

“I’m Lee Gon, I’m so sorry to disturb you so late,” Gon said apologetically, voice gaining its usual confidence - and now seeming genuinely, or at least very politely sorry for intruding.

“… Lee Gon” her father repeated, suddenly looking at Tae-eul. “The one who gave you that necklace?” He asked, startling Gon by suddenly shooting him a suspicious look.

“Ah, yes... He works with Eun-sup,” Tae-eul suddenly said quickly, realising that a job at NIS would be a good excuse to avoid having to answer too many questions about what Gon does. “He’s been away... and he’s staying over tonight.” She suddenly added, but before she was able to say anything else she was interrupted by Gon’s startled coughing fit and she realised that her dad looked like someone had hit him over the head with a shovel.

“He came a long way to visit, it’s late, and so we are letting him stay here on the sofa. Alright... dad?” Tae-eul said slowly, slightly worried that her father might actually be having a heart attack. After a few seconds he just nodded, still seeming a bit dumbfounded.

After a few minutes of very awkward conversation, where her father had finally greeted Lee Gon, he had simply wished them goodnight and withdrawn to his room to sleep. Seemingly choosing to simply retreat from the strange situation.

Tae-eul looked for a blanket in the old dresser for Gon, having already given him some oversized clothes to sleep in. She put away their tea cups while Gon was borrowing the bathroom to freshen up and change. Coming out a few minutes later, he was dressed in an oversized blue sweatshirt and black sweatpants that miraculously seemed to fit alright, and Tae-eul handed him the blanket and made him sit down on the sofa. Trying to leave the King on said sofa proved more difficult than expected however. As Gon simply took hold of her hand and refused to let go.

“Don’t go,” he said, and Tae-eul simply stopped pretending like she was going to, and sat down next to him, leaning onto him while he put his arm around her.

“That’s my line.” She said in her somewhat, but not actually, annoyed tone. The one she had used when telling him not to drop romantic lines when she was hungry. Sightly more serious she looked up at him and added, “Don’t you dare leave without telling me.”

“I won’t,” Gon responded, looking at her intently.

“I’m serious, I won’t let you go,” Tae-eul said, and then added in a casual tone, “Yeong can declare me a kidnapper if he wants, I don’t care - also the royal guards have no jurisdiction here.” Gon only laughed in response, seeming very amused at the thought of having been kidnapped.

“I’m the one who won’t let you go, you know,” he then said pointedly, demonstrating his words by grabbing onto one of her hands firmly and holding it up in front of her.

She smiled teasingly in response, burrowing into his side and added before she could stop herself, “Who knew that the King of the Kingdom of Corea was so clingy?”

Gon just chuckled at that and as if taking her words as a challenge he held onto her closer and whispered into her hair something about kidnapping her in turn tomorrow.

“I don’t think I’ve ever slept on a sofa.” He whispered a few minutes later, and Tae-eul didn’t know if she found his quite amused tone at the prospect annoying or endearing. Both probably. She did know for sure that she loved the royal idiot sitting beside her. A lot.

The next morning her father found his daughter sleeping on the sofa, covered by their green old blanket, her head resting on her boyfriend’s thighs as if they were a pillow. The boyfriend in question having fallen asleep sitting up on said sofa.

The breakfast was slightly awkward.

#tkem fanfiction #lee gon meets tae eul's dad #ALSO I totally stole half in agony half in hope from persuasion #stealing is called intertextuality in lit class just saying #please don't curse me Jane Austen I'm just such a big fan #written before I knew about the novels so no proposal in this fic but yes I believe they get married post-canon definitely #the king eternal monarch

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vaguely-concerned · 4 years

Text

I rewatched the mandalorian episode 8 and boy have I got feels for you

- lol gideon’s callouts to all of them though... you have ‘hey cara remember how we blew up your entire planet and killed your fellow soldiers’ and ‘hey din djarin yeah I know who you are lol the mysterious stranger thing doesn’t work on me remember how we apparently murdered a bunch of mandalorian children in one night’ (that’s how I’m taking ‘mandalorian recruits’ anyway) and then finally there’s just ‘greef karga. you’re really old enough to know better.’

- oh bb!din doesn’t cry at any point during the whole flashback :((( bb boy. he’s of course terrified but there are no tears. I’m guessing he’s in shock/dissociated the entire time. (probably also due to having a child actor but I think it makes a lot of sense in-universe too! to put on my trauma hat for a moment he’s always read to me as a combined freeze/flight type; he either dissociates or loses himself in work. I suppose he got started early)

- the look on Papa Djarin’s (I mean I assume) face as tiny din reaches out for him and he knows he has to turn away and leave to save him :) exquisite burning agony

I still wonder so much what his parents did for a living. those red robes look almost like uniforms/religious garb to me or it might of course just be the fashion in this place, people in the background seem to be wearing similar things.

- I LOVE the mando who saves him as a kid because that’s apparently the same actor who’s in the mando suit when it’s not pedro pascal or another stuntman (brendan wayne, I think it is?) so it gives this wonderful feeling that you get now where a lot of din’s body language and general bearing comes from but there’s also just enough difference that it’s clearly another person. with din there’s always this edge of reserve and a slight stiffness no matter how relaxed he is, and this guy has the same basic steadiness as him but seems a bit more open just from these few short shots. (there might be a little bit of character design in this as well -- din’s shoulder pauldrons are naturally uh ‘higher’ than this guy’s, who has smoother/flatter and more rounded shapes, giving the feeling of shoulders just slightly raised and relaxed down respectively)

it’s nice to see the mandos as a protective force even if they have the death watch symbol there to make you go ‘?!?!?!’, there wasn’t a lot of that in clone wars but it’s an ill wind and so on I guess

- this confused jawa looking at the dead stormtroopers is everything. don’t worry you’re doing amazing sweetie

- the context for why din picks up the e-web (channeling the spirit of baze malbus, a man who also didn’t let the fact that his weapon was really meant to be mounted on a tank stop him :’) ) makes it even better: he sees that IG-11 has the baby and that he’s getting overwhelmed and he literally grabs the biggest gun he can find and goes to town to let him get away.

- “I haven’t heard that name spoken since I was a child” ooof but also what are the logistics of that? I’m wondering if it might be the ‘Djarin’ part, if that’s his family name? maybe there hasn’t been a use for that among the mandos? surely someone has needed to call him by name somehow at some point in the last 30+ years lol

- one of the reasons gideon works so well as a villain is that he can get past the beskar. he knows exactly how to kill mandalorians because he’s done it before. he’s not only a huge threat emotionally -- he wants the baby and he’s done some fucked up shit to din’s culture -- he’s also one of the few people who can nullify the physical protection of our main boi in the helmet. and that scares me. because he’s my dad and I love him.

- I’m fairly sure din is properly unconscious for almost half a minute there. (which is very very bad. always go see a doctor if you lose consciousness after hitting your head if an IG unit with appropriate training and equipment is not on hand)

- baby yoda passing out after doing one (admittedly spectacular) thing is a wholeass mood, #same buddy ilu

- din is the first person to explicitly call the baby a foundling ;____;

- poor cara she’s already lost so much and her new bro is trying to convince her to let him throw himself on any sword made available to him. (I do love that neither she nor IG-11 buy mando’s bullshit for a moment here tho lol they’re openly saying they’ll take him with them anyway while he’s listening)

- oh. oh din starting to jumble his words even as the gun remains rock steady in his hand is hitting me really hard this time. ow.

- I think the baby can sense din and IG coming (he gives a little sound right before they show up)

- when cara checks in with him in the tunnel she touches her fingers to his chest so very lightly and he almost falls over backwards sdfaksdljhf

- well he definitely is trembling while picking up that helmet from the pile. so have fun knowing that with me

it’s so messed up too because there’s not that many of them left; he’s all but guaranteed to have known every single one of them.

- this image of him on his knees in front of this pile of the empty armor of the dead feels. I don’t know how to describe it but like a repeat. like he has been here before, this isn’t the first time and it’s hitting him all over again. (considering how things have been going for the mandos recently that might very well be true too. metaphorically this is essentially what’s going on in the background of the entire show, anyway. Friends I think mando Saw Some Shit during the night of a thousand tears or a similar event)

maybe what gives me this feeling is how clearly he is in another time in some way during this part, before the armorer diagnoses him with Dad and brings him properly back. he’s trying to send them away with the baby, who’s like. basically the symbol of his will to live at this point. “I can’t leave it this way”, he can’t leave the dead behind and be alive, some part of him wants to stay with them.

you can see this from how he talks about the baby too: in the scene where he’s hurt and trying to get them to leave he consistently calls him the child or the baby (not to mention the first foundling we get!) and focuses very specifically on keeping him safe. in this triggered state the baby briefly becomes it again and he doesn’t even mention him, he just tells them to take his ship and leave. in that moment all he wants to do is fight and probably die on behalf of those who are already gone. (I think bessel van der kolk has called PTSD ‘a profound loyalty to that which is lost’ or something like that. that rings very true to me here)

the talk with the armorer is basically a very short debate between ol’ coping mechanism!din being like ‘hey I just remembered before all this I was doing my very best to work myself to an early and likely shallow grave, I should get back to that’ and Papa Wolf!din being like ‘except this is my son so we’re not doing that we’re gonna have to improvise something new on the fly here’. bless.

(all of this is so subjective and probably me reading things into it that don’t really exist so don’t quote me on any of this but his anger at greef karga sounds to me like that of a younger, emotionally rawer man too, it’s so openly hurt and... active? I guess? these days when he gets angry he seems to tend more towards getting deathly quiet. then again this is one of the most genuinely upsetting things in the whole show so it could just be that)

- hahahahahaha greef rests his hand on his gun before he follows them into the armorer’s workshop; it would seem he did not think it guaranteed either she or maybe especially mando wouldn’t try to shoot him

- the way the armorer’s voice gains a brightness/warmth when she sees the child! the mandalorian ‘protect babies’ instinct in action haha, she’s like ‘oh this is why you did this bugfuck insane thing. perfectly reasonable, keep up the good work’. the foundlings are the future is not just lip service it really is a central tenet of their culture even when it’s inconvenient

there’s this sense that... in the face of his hurt she’s basically telling him to go be alive, to raise this child, to choose surviving and healing. I think she understands him very very well, I wonder how long they’ve known each other. (she had the mould for his signet ready <3)

- he sounds so crestfallen and lost when he asks if the baby is an enemy. and then she’s just fondly like ‘no it’s your son you absolute dummy’ and he’s like ‘...yeah I know’

- I. love that in these scenes he’s hurt (and not just physically) and other people are there to carry the baby until he can pick him up at the end fully as a father would.

- I have talked about it before but I must restate how hilarious and endearing I find it that mando conscientiously leans the thing he tries to pry the boat loose with against the wall again while cara shoots the place up. one is never too busy to mind one’s manners. (this scene really showcases each of the characters too. greef: just keep fuckn pushing! mando: briefly kicks the thing with a growl then tries attacking the problem from a new angle. cara: GUN.)

- oh the absolute sweetness of how IG says “And you will live”. there’s so much emotion in his droid voice there and all of it is peaceful and affectionate. I agree with din IG don’t goooooooo don’t leave us we need an adult

I keep whispering ‘pls someone think to shield the baby’s eyes’ through my tears in this scene, he didn’t need to see that happen D:

- I really need to repeat that despite what IG-11 says, he goes ahead with his plan anyway even though mando never satisfies his ‘programming’s’ demand. droid’s got free will and a huge big heart Y___________Y anyway... droid rights in the star wars universe when (...it would be very funny if din became embroiled in that fight somehow after this, oh how the turntables)

- another continuity error: mando puts the jetpack on, then we get a shot of cara shooting and he’s standing there with it in his hands again haha. unless he realized he put it on upside down the first time around or something that seems unlikely. (he’s also lying in slightly different positions between cuts in the scene where IG-11 heals him, but that’s so small and subtle I don’t even really count it)

- the jetpack scene is a beautiful encapsulation of din’s fighting style. he flails and gets jerked around a lot. he nearly blows himself up. I don’t think he’s fully in control of anything that whole time. and yet he gets the job done yet again. a disaster, but a glorious disaster still standing at the end of it all. one simply must stan.

- a) I think din remembered how to take off better than he remembered how to land haha and b) BABY’S HAPPY LITTLE FACE WATCHING HIS DAD COME BACK DOWN c) THE BABY & MANDO MUSIC PLAYING WHEN DIN NOTICES THE BABY CLUTCHING HIS LEG *elmo surrounded by flames gif* (it’s a calmer/more grounded version of the same song that plays when they have that moment of connection right before the other mandos come to the rescue in ep 3 and also a few other times)

- baby’s joyful little trilling sound when his dad turns his head to check on him 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 and he strokes the cape with such contentment because it’s a safe familiar texture because this is his dAD (officially and legally too now, mandalorian-wise :’) im so happy)

- the unsympathetic comedy stormtroopers at the beginning could conceivably have survived (if not uh happily lol). if they become a recurring duo who show up and get more and more screwed every time I wouldn’t be mad haha

- I support these jawas in everything they do, I feel a great kinship with these lil goblins

- anyway I love this show so much and I hope season 2 is good too and knows it holds my fragile heart in its hands

#star wars #the mandalorian #meta #get ready to be rambled at haha #can I even tell how much sense I'm making anymore? no but I'm having a lot of fun #the mandalorian meta

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prune-life · 4 years

Text

Patience, baby (Samuel Drake x Reader) One-shot

Please read the A/N so you won't be confused, thank you!

Tagging: thank you so so much @missdictatorme for wanting to be tagged in this monstrosity of an attempt of a fanfic

Warnings: Nothing, but the reader has a moment (But, Sammy to the rescue! (Yay!))

A/N: Okay, where to begin? lmao I initially wanted this to be a 1920s AU but it got mixed in with a lot of my ideas so, just take it with a grain of that 100 years old, 20s-70s salt. All the flapper slang will be under the fanfic! Also hi hello hi this is my first time writing a Sam fic and I was disappointed when reading this crap, but I do hope you'll enjoy it nevertheless haha. Thank you for reading! (Also, Sully is a bartender, hope you like it!) Also, also, sorry for any grammatical errors!

✧*。 ✧*。

A suggestive tone picked up when you entered the many familiar rooms within the of yore building. It was no grand, simply striding between the many alleys and rat holes which imitated a classic neighbourhood, including the rats within - the people - giving it an excellent vibe of life and long driven days with thrill and fun.

Despite the early-late chatter and noises that eluded out of the nifty house, it never ceased its lively, but overly relaxing atmospheres.

That is, after all, what you came for.

Artie Shaw's clarinet waltzed, his music coming out of a crooky gramophone near the corner of the counter, where stood the man that you’ve been meeting almost the whole week until now, this glamorous week being more than welcoming to the many ideas and opportunities you’ve been met with. Today was, to your own anticipation, hopefully the same day as the others have been.

“Hell-o, darling. When did you get here?” the hair greying man greeted out of nowhere once you stood infront of his wooden counter, a cigar hanging from the side of his mouth, his frame sporting a white button-up, complimented by a typical black vest with - what appeared to be under the everlasting, golden dim of light – an embroidered rose with a story tale red down the sides of his torso.

His grim hands worked themselves on a glimmering piece of glass, which even from your own position, smelled of the nectar called alcohol.

“Just now, all these nights have me feeling like a lonely dud.” You sighed, slumping your shoulders, the black, thick coat which kept you warm throughout all these nights revealing a white fuzz from the inside. You slipped it off to the crook of your elbow and reached the stool you’ve placed yourself yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. “What about you, Victor? Still have that cuddle-cootie slat biting on your ankles?”

Sully stopped in his tracks, rising an eyebrow at you curiously, before exhaling, a smile tugging on the corners of his smoky lips. He set down the freshly washed and wiped glass infront of you and turned himself around, reaching for the drink of runny rum, which had the nickname of your 'usual'.

“I believe they had a wonderful... Night. Together.” His gruff voice directed towards you, and he tilted the bottle forward. "Elena is quite the catch, Nate's doing well for himself."

You put your palm onto the ring of the cup, giving him a subtle smile, and he halted.

“Not today.”

Sullivan’s arm spread wide and he slightly bowed, turning around, setting the glass up on its mighty spot, “What will it be, then?”

“Just juice will do,” you whispered, looking around the bar, before giving him a twinkling wink, “only for tonight.”

You continued after he popped open a boring bottle of fruit juice, setting it infront of you like it’s the holy essence itself.

“I’d think that Elena would know better than to... Get it on with a forty-niner,” you took a short sip from the bottle, quickly putting it down, “no offense.”

“Don’t say that to me,” he chuckled, “feathers is much obliged, they might've had a couple too many drinks than was planned,” Sullivan sent you an amiable grin, before you turned around and stood on your feet.

“Going to test your skill on billiards?” he questioned from behind you, tapping his finger on the side of the juice jar.

“As if I ever will,” you smiled back at him from behind your naked shoulder, the pearl necklace hugging your neck tight shifting, “I’d much rather keep it calm this time, had a stressful day.”

“Want to talk about it?” Sully offered.

“Nah, I’m alright,” you sighed, but looked forward and began step-stepping away form the busy man.

Victor exclaimed after you through the loud musica, “No hesitation to talk to me, sugar!”

You smiled to yourself.

I know.

✧*。 ✧*。 ✧*。

A tiny tinkle rung above your head, your shoulders immediately getting the breeze of cold air from the closest window, hair bobbing with the silent wind. Music played, this time in a hum, the people around the table eager and keen, some of them hanging by big cushioned seats under a light that shined in the middle of the pool table, as above, so below, a glass visible inside it, staring almost trimmed back at you with it’s shiny reflection.

The place was a brown green aesthetic, with alcohol and cigarettes flaring up your nostrils, wafting through the air like a swarm of bees. The people were lucky there was a window.

“Hey, dude look at you making a spiffy!” an arm swung over your bare shoulders, the warmth creating a sudden, harsh sensation.

“Hey, Chlo,” you snickered at the drunk girl, her ponytail swimming around from behind her neck as always. Her shimmy moving ignited your alert, her stumbling more than foreign to her usual self.

“I’ll tell you what, I’ve seen some keen molls around gin mills- Jesus,” Chloe followed, before Harry stood up infront of the two of you.

“She’s... wasted,” you laughed gently, grabbing her arm and hoisting her arm up yourself, her legs regaining their balance.

Harry nodded in return, crossing his arms over his chest with a soft, inaudible sigh that you only caught by a grumble.

“Bad day?” you asked, pointing to the girl.

“Bad day,” He nodded, “we all have them.” He continued, chuckling, grabbing the girl by her armpits and quickly striding with her to the closest, unoccupied cushion that could work as her own throne.

You shook your head at the girl, eyes trailing around the pool game.

The silent group of people that orbited the room were engaged in touchy-feely kisser conversations, and you felt a sudden feeling of loneliness run over you.

You decided to pack your loneliness out on the club of crickets that played out by the dumpsters from behind the bar's doors.

Together with the unboxing of your halfway empty cigarette box, the everlasting, sickening strawberry scent piled in a round swiftly sticking onto you and your clothing. Your run down, 20s lighter flickered your cigarette on and you took the deepest breath you have all day.

Alone with your thoughts, finally being able to breathe, your back goosed up from the cold, accomodating with the change of icy temperature. And you enjoyed it. To an extent, it brought you an unfamiliar feeling of serenity.

In this hectic world, it was hard to find this one feeling. Except it was there, for a split second, growing and manifesting into euphoric silence.

Tears suddenly welled up in your eyes, and you took another drag of your cigarette, your exhalation a shaky breath.

Warmth spread on your cold shoulders, and the moment you didn’t budge, a sweet, honeyed voice whispered in your ear.

“’vening, princess,” rough hand slithered their way around your shoulders, gently ringing themselves around you, a subtle contact of the person’s lips sitting atop of your exposed shoulder.

You slightly smiled and blinked the tears away, tilting your head to the side to give better access.

Chapped lips enveloped your skin in tender butterfly kisses, and whilst your bad mood didn’t exactly falter, you felt a strand bit better just because of his presence.

“Hey... Sam, where have you been?” you breathed out when his mouth moved to your jaw and began rubbing his cheek against your own, hugging your waist from behind, front lingering on your back for deeper contact. The warmth of his opened button up warmed up your whole spine.

“Funny story. For another time,” he chuckled slightly, the scarred skin of his temples sitting under your jaw, his hair tickling your side gently, “where have you been?” he asked softly.

You inhaled sharply, but didn’t budge, holding the breath for a little longer, eyes focusing on the lamps of the back alley. They flickered and peppered the scene with a nice glow, and your eyes adjusted only to a fraction of the flashing lights.

Sam suddenly took hold of your wrist and brought the cigarette hanging loosely between your fingers to his face.

Snapping out of the brief trance, your head turned to his side, and your breath hitched in your throat when you tried to take another, without exhaling.

The handsome man stared into your eyes, before he took a slight drag out of the cigarette, smoke slipping past his ever chapped lips upon taking it out.

Just then did you force the breath out.

“What’s on your mind, dove?” he took the cigarette in his other hand and raised his other one to caress the other side of your face with his knuckles.

“There’s alot of things on my mind,” you sighed, closing your eyes for a split second, letting your cheek press onto his knuckles, his bruised skin inching closer into the plush.

Sam remained quiet, straightening up, and your eyes snapped open at his movement.

“Let’s go for a ride.” He said, slipping the cigarette into his mouth, hopping off the stairs, grabbing your hand.

You raised your eyebrows, but smiled slowly and pushed your coat up, reaching your hand out, your fingers intertwining into his.

“Where to?” you asked.

“You’ll see,” his eyes lingered on yours.

You took a step forward, “Alright.”

✧*。 ✧*。 ✧*。 ✧*。

The wind splashed into your face like cold water, each and every single bump available on the road making Sam’s motorcycle jump up and down. The green and yellow hue that blended in with the night created a soothing vibe, and you couldn’t help it when your voice chimed out in an exaggerated yell of excitement the more Sam sped up.

Sam was a good driver, especially on motorcycles, so you trusted him with his skills to not crash the two of you into a nearby dump.

The screeching of tires suddenly stopped your voice, and you fed your sight to the beauty of reflections within a far sea that stretched out into the unknown over its width.

The many shades of purples, blues, greens, yellows and even pinks created a translucent shade which screamed in your face.

“Wow..” you breathed out, stepping off the vehicle, your low heeled t-straps clicking along your speedwalk to the metal fence separating you from the ocean.

You heard Sam’s steps behind you, their sound coming closer and closer, before he was right beside you, his hand flying to your own, fingers slithering their way between yours.

“Do you.. you like it?” he stammered out, his voice a soft snickery, eyes watching your every move.

“Do-do I like it?” you whispered, the cold catching onto you slowly, “Sam, it’s... Beautiful,” you giggled, tapping the fence. “But cold.”

He let out a breathless chuckle, standing closer to your frame, his finger curling under your chin, “Sure is.. look at you, going all shaky on me?”

Your knees slightly buckled and you pursed your lips in embarrassment, gaze flowing down to the waters.

Sam’s finger tilted your head back to face him, your eyes locking onto his shining, hazel ones once more.

Your teeth gently dug into your bottom lip, the plump skin creating a sudden pillow for your ever growing nervousness. His warm fingers spread under either side of your jaw, and before any of you could speak a word, your lips were seduced by his in a slow, starting kiss, your hands trailing up his chest, to the crook of his neck, where you ringed the exposed flesh of it in a slow, lustful motion.

His chest rumbled in a groan when your fingers dug into his scalp, and you tugged back. The tip of your tongue spread on his bottom lip, and he much obliged in twirling his own over yours, slowly and steadily, gaining control over your pace.

The cold pipe holding the fence in place pressed against you, and the coat which provided enough warmth for the time being of your heated moment, turned into pudge, sliding down your shoulders, far off your elbows and fell on the ground, the length now shocking your skin through your thin gown, the frozen material hissing on your lower back.

You squeaked and jumped, Sam holding your hips in place so you wouldn’t fall over, your arms tightening around his neck, lip slightly bruised red from the gentle nibbling he’s been giving you.

“You okay?” he asked, his lips quivering in a held back laughter.

“Oh, oh yeah, yup,” you cleared your throat, reaching down for the coat, putting it over your shoulders hastily, “absolute dandy, swell.”

You looked up at him through a pout, I ruined the moment, what a way to go..

Sam sucked in his lips and licked them, tilting his head and coming down to your height, giving you a quick, breathless kiss, before scooping you up, his strong arms ringing under your armpits.

He took you like a ragdoll, hanging you to his full height, walking towards the motorcycle.

“Well, doll, seems like the clock’s ticking and we’ve got a bit more time to go,” he said in a sing-song voice, plopping you down on the back seat, your form emitting a gentle huff, “and I know just the right way to make you mine throughout all of it,” he sent you a kiss on the cheek, hand on your shoulder, a slight smirk candying his handsome face.

You pursed your lips into a thin line and looked up at him in anticipation, eyebrows rised whilst awaiting his proposal, which you would without hesitation, accept.

“How is that?” you slowly asked, letting a small smile appear.

“With drinks, of course,” he bowed down to you, giving you a smooch on the lips hastily, before he sat on the motorcycle.

You slumped behind Sam in disappointment, but continued on slipping your arms through your clothes nonetheless, giving him your soft, sad puppy eyes that bore into his back.

Sam gave you a side look, before turning around fully, a finger rising up to under your chin.

“Don’t worry, baby girl, I’ll make sure you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.” His slow whisper forced your breath to hitch, goosebumps running up your arms surprisingly, and before you could respond, the motorcycle worked more as a stimulation to your growing nerves than you could’ve expressed to him.

The rest of the night bugged your mind, your eyes always flickering to the clock, counting minutes with Sam only giving in his mischief through those sinful, hazel eyes, the message in them always demanding to you, 'Patience, baby.'

✧*。 ✧*。 ✧*。 ✧*。 ✧*。

Dud - A wallflower

Forty-niner - A man who is prospecting for a rich wife

Slat - Young man

Cuddle-cootie - Young man who takes a girl for a ride on a bus

Feathers - Small talk; light conversation

Spiffy - Elegant appearance

"I've seen some keen molls around gin mills-"

Keen - Attractive or appealing

Moll - A gangster's girl

Gin Mill - A bar

#uncharted #uncharted4 #fanfiction #sam drake #x reader #uncharted+x+reader #samuel drake #sam drake x reader

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paintedrecs · 4 years

Note

I was going to name a different one, but: the scene between Owen and Demona at the beginning of "All Is Mended" chapter three. :-D

That’s 800 words, so you’re cheating. Also what other one were you gonna name hmmmm.

For this meme.

Excerpt from this fic. (Gargoyles, Owen Burnett/David Xanatos, 11k, Owen POV, canon compliant.) Discussion under the cut.

“I don’t understand you,” Demona said.

Owen watched her approach; he’d heard her glide down to the castle but hadn’t bothered to move from his seat on the edge of a wide stone wall, overlooking the bright lights of the city stretching out far below. She was an ally for the present, working with Xanatos on his latest attempt at immortality. That didn’t mean Owen trusted her.

“You’re not human,” Demona said, folding her wings as she perched beside him—graceful, and dangerous, but not someone he wasted effort fearing. “Yet you act like one. Why.”

“I made a promise,” Owen said. He could’ve left it there, but he swept a sidelong look at her, then added, dryly, “Perhaps you need the word defined.”

“Funny,” she said, in a tone so casually uncaring that he could tell he’d poked at a particularly tender spot, one she’d spent centuries ignoring.

“So I’ve been told,” he said.

Demona’s lips pulled back slightly as she spoke through her fangs. “That’s what I mean, Puck. Why do you persist in masquerading in this skin, when we both know who you are?”

“I’m Owen,” he replied, adjusting the glasses that had slipped a little down his nose. The frames didn’t fit right around his ears anymore; he should have the screws tightened, when he had the time.

“You’re pining,” she spat, as though she’d never heard a fouler word.

That, he hadn’t expected. He didn’t bother denying it; Demona was many things, but never a fool. “I don’t see what relevance that has to you,” he said. “You wish to gain immortality; I’m doing my part. Owen is perfectly capable of playing his role.”

“And Puck has powers Owen could never dream of.” Demona tilted her head, watching him thoughtfully. It was unpleasant, but he let her eyes scrape over him. “When you were last in your true form, as Puck—” she began.

Owen let out a sudden, scoffing breath. “When you held me in chains and made me do your bidding.”

She shrugged, lightly. “You said something to me then. You told me that if I wished, you could make Goliath love me again. Was that true?”

“I bend the truth,” he said. “When the mood strikes me. I do not lie.”

“So it was possible.”

“Yes,” he said. He narrowed his eyes at her, unsure where she was heading. “Titania’s mirror is beyond your reach now. Even if you had it in your grasp, you know full well I wouldn’t carry out the wish the way you wanted.”

“Because you’re a trickster,” she said, with annoyance that bordered on grudging respect. It was clear that she hadn’t often run into someone who could best her. “But my point, Puck, is that you have this power. You could make David Xanatos love you.”

Owen’s lip curled in disgust; he turned away from her.

“Don’t pretend you have a human’s misguided sense of honor,” Demona chided, human sounding like the darkest expletive she could harness. “You’ve done worse, over the centuries, as have I.”

He didn’t bother dignifying her with a response.

“Answer me, Puck,” she demanded, then, dripping with disdain, when he remained silent: “Owen.”

“You think ill of humans,” Owen said, each word precise, biting. “You blame them for all your errors, for the foul deeds only you were responsible for carrying out. You think yourself above them, and you assume that I, as someone who has lived far longer than you, who has seen worlds you cannot fathom, will treat humans with as little esteem.”

Demona rose to her feet, towering over him, her eyes flashing red in fury.

Owen cast her a look that carried the full weight of his contempt. “Yes, I have the power to do as you say, and far beyond that. What you don’t see—what I suspect you’ve never seen—is that forcing someone to bend to your will is meaningless. All it does is show how weak, how petty, you are.”

Demona hissed at him, but did not approach. She unfurled her wings, and as she dropped from the turret, she cast back her parting shot. “You should know, then, that Fox is pregnant.”

“I know,” he said, to the now-empty sky. He watched as she followed the currents across the city, well past the clock tower where her former love resided, no longer thinking of her.

Xanatos hadn’t told him yet, but Owen was familiar with the signs. He’d seen, too, the way Xanatos had grown more careful with her, how his hands would instinctively stray, now, to her waist, her still-flat belly, not yet swollen with life. How he looked at her, with a light in his eyes that would’ve burned one less worthy to cinders.

“I know,” he repeated quietly and, adjusting his glasses and briskly dusting off his suit, returned to his work.

Commentary! Oof we’ll see if this gets long. Character limits on twitter make it easier to be concise. And please please let the read more actually work this time, tumblr.

So this is actually one of my favorite parts of that fic.

In general, I reach an Avoidance Point with my own writing; I edit obsessively, post, edit the posted fic a little more, then panic and stop rereading it. If you don’t check your bank account, it’ll never be empty. If you don’t reread your fics after you’ve posted them, you’ll never find out that (a) they’re terrible (b) there are a dozen more areas that could use more editing.

Nevertheless, I’m still, I think, really proud of this one. This particular section isn’t something that’s terribly new for me, not like other parts of the fic that stretched me beyond my usual comfort levels, but it is an interaction between two characters I’d never written before.

I’m really pleased with Demona’s voice here. The way she spits out Owen’s name, the hatred she shows for anything human, her very dubious (and self-centered) morality, the hints of lingering heartbreak over Goliath, her deep confusion over Puck choosing to take on human form. It’s the worst curse she can imagine - and since this scene takes place after “The Mirror,” you’ve seen how horrified she is at seeing herself as a human, a “gift” Puck bestowed upon her so she won’t turn to stone during the day.

Demona pissed Puck off, so he gave her what she asked for, but at a price he knew she would absolutely despise.

But Puck loves being a human. He loves being Owen. It’s something Demona can’t ever understand, and here she’s trying to, as much as Demona ever tries to truly understand anything that doesn’t directly benefit her.

Why would Puck spend his days in a form where he doesn’t have ready access to his exceptional powers? Why would he allow himself to continue serving a human - when he broke away from her so quickly, so easily? Demona might occasionally work with Xanatos, but she doesn’t like or trust him, and she’d readily destroy him alongside the rest of humanity, after she’s gotten what she wants/needs from him.

Why would Puck fall in love with a human - something that’s become obvious even to Demona, from working alongside the two of them. Worse: why the hell won’t he do anything about it, when he clearly has the power to make Xanatos do whatever he wants?

These were all questions I wanted to pull out of the story, and Demona - as someone who actually knows who Owen truly is - was a natural choice to press hard for some answers.

I layered a bunch of stuff into this interaction, but here are three main concepts:

1. Love isn’t selfish.

I don’t think Puck would’ve actually cast a love spell on Goliath if Demona had asked - not without throwing in a few twists and tricks. But the fact remains that he could have, and that it would’ve been comparatively easy. Demona didn’t ask for and didn’t really want that, but she did love Goliath for a long time, as much as she’s capable of loving anyone, so that offer would stick with her.

And Demona...well, Demona already used one free-will-spell against Goliath, so it’s not like it’s an idea she’s entirely adverse to.

Owen, on the other hand, would never consider making Xanatos do something against his will. (This is, in fact, something he and Xanatos share - Xanatos’s immense caution against pushing Owen into something he might not want contributes to that stupidly long gap before they resolve their relationship.)

If Xanatos doesn’t love Owen, that’s his choice. Owen is heartbroken about it, and he’s out here on the rooftop indulging in some quiet reflection on how it feels for a human heart to shatter, but he’ll shake it off and go back inside before long. Demona’s an unwelcome intrusion, and he’s understandably sharp with her.

2. Puck is a trickster, not a villain.

I have a lot of thoughts about Xanatos, too. While it’s not entirely relevant to get too into depth with here, I do think that a huge part of Puck’s attachment and loyalty to Xanatos comes from the fact that Xanatos is fascinating - not dull and full of preachy speeches like Renard - without being actually evil.

Demona is interesting, sure - she’s lived a long and exciting life - but Puck would never, ever willingly serve her. She’s selfish. She’s cruel. She’s vindictive. Puck doesn’t want to destroy humanity; he likes humans. He likes Xanatos best, yes, but he enjoys being in this world with the rest of them.

In the City of Stone episode, Owen stands toe-to-toe with Elisa and says, “Mr. Xanatos is trying to fix things. What are you doing to help?”

And that, I think, is the crux of the relationship between Owen and Xanatos. Owen sees Xanatos’s delightful trickster spirit, and he also sees the good in him. They’d both upend a city but would be careful to put it back to rights if things went too far. Demona would gladly stand back and watch it burn to the ground.

Demona can only see reflections of her own cruelty now. She hates humanity because they’re the easiest target to blame for her own flaws. Owen sees humans’ complexities and loves them for it.

And because he isn’t truly human - because he’s a fae who’s wandered the earth as long as Demona has, and has lived longer, with a much wider perspective on the world and all of reality - he has no reason to listen to her petty whining. And she might actually, for the barest moment, listen to what he says to her.

Of course, she has to get in one last dig before flying away in her usual dramatic huff, but he already knows that, too. Demona can’t hurt him; Owen made his own choices, knowing the consequences. And, unlike Demona, he’s willing to live with those consequences without trying to reflect the blame elsewhere.

3. You can choose your own identity.

Demona has very rigid ideas about...well, about pretty much everything. Humans are bad. Gargoyles are good. (As long as they side with her.) Her human form is something that’s useful to her now, but she’ll never stop loathing it or wishing she could shake it off.

She thinks everyone sees the world the way she does, and she assumes that Puck is (a) not entirely happy being trapped as a human, chained to Xanatos by a contract, like she attempted with the mirror (b) “pretending” to be someone else when he’s wearing his Owen shape.

But what I wanted to show throughout this fic is that Puck is Owen. And that even a fae subject to Oberon’s Rule can choose his own identity, his own name, his own place in a life that he wants to lead.

At one point here, Owen refuses to respond to Demona until she calls him by his proper name. She spits it out, hating it, but he’s already told her once that’s who he is. He gave himself that name; it’s the one he wishes to use.

Owen was born into a specific life. This life - with Xanatos, as Owen Burnett, glasses and suits and clunky flip phones and all - is the one he’s chosen for himself. And he’ll do everything in his power to keep it.

#owen burnett #demona #gargoyles #puck #xanatowen #fox/xanatos #gargoyles spoilers #meme #about my fics #fic talk #wow did that even answer anything you were looking for #don't give me unlimited space to talk about these characters or my headcanons or my own stories #mad-madam-m

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daisycandothings · 4 years

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A twilight movie review, yes I know I am a decade late.

Hello, this is a review of the twilight movies.

Okay now that nobody is reading this anymore, I have a note on how this will be formatted. Basically, I will have five sections where I go through and review each movie, and then I will have another section at the end where I look at the series as a whole.

I would also like to say that these are not good movies. Everyone here knows that. There is a lot of negative criticism out there and chances are, I agree with basically all of it. However, I do not want to say the same shit that everybody already says, that would be boring. People do not watch these movies because they are masterpieces of cinema, we watch them because it is fun to sit down with your family/friends and laugh when Jacob says “I am hotter than you” with a straight face. What I’m trying to say is I will not be analysing these academically so much as talking about what I enjoyed/didn’t enjoy about the surface level experience of watching them. Comparing these films to actually good masterful movies is like comparing kids playing floor hockey in gym class to olympic figure skaters. Like they just do not belong on the same scale

I really do want to take a look at these films on their own without the influence of the books messing with my opinion of them.

Also, there will be spelling AND grammatical errors, I promise.

Twilight the First One:

Good things:

This might be my favorite on its own. I just think the plot is probably the most exciting and it has the best split of drama, vampire bullshit, and fighting. I like the vampire family, I think they’re funny, and I actually genuinely think the baseball scene is a clever concept that is executed well. That scene, Anna Kendrick, and the dad are the high points of this movie, but Anna Kendrick and the dad are basically the high points of every movie they’re in, so I think I’ll speak on them later.

Also I really like the soundtrack of this movie. To be fair I only remember two songs (what do you think, I was taking notes? I’m not a nerd) but those two songs were cool. The pieces in question were the electric guitar thing during the baseball scene and the lovely piano song™ . God do I fucking love that piano piece, I think there will definitely be a paragraph dedicated to that one song, you’re welcome.

I like the hinting at the werewolf stuff in this movie.

Neutral:

The color saturation/tone (I don’t know movie words) were different in this movie. It’s like bluer. I don’t really know how I feel about it, its just kind of jarring to have this really blue movie and then move on to the next on and it’s normal idk.

Bad:

My biggest criticism is with the main characters. Like Bella and Edward have no chemistry, dude, I cannot name a thing that they bond over. Really their relationship only works because they are both hot, and the movie is relying on that in order to get the viewer to feel compelled by it, and I mean I guess it worked? I mean, I spent way more time wondering what Robert Pattinson’s hair product budget was than considering the fact that neither character had a substantial personality.

I also have this weird issue with the pacing, maybe I’m an idiot and this is wrong, but it really seemed like Bella transferred at the beginning of the year. Then she meets everyone and like 30 minutes later we’re talking about prom? A spring event? And then the rest seems to take place over the span of like 2 weeks. Its just hard to tell how much time is passing at some points and I’m not a huge fan of that.

“I like watching you sleep”

The effects are not good, but I don’t give that much of a shit, I just wish they’d been more obnoxious with the glitter. I’m not entirely sure I would have noticed if I lived in that world

I think that’s all I have to say here

Twilight New Moon

Good:

Jacob is the best main character in this movie. He has personality traits, and his wolf transformation plot would be good if he weren’t such an asshole about it all the time. To be fair though, I have never been through such a transformation, so I can’t really judge. That said, I do like the scene where he freaks out at Mikey (that one blonde kid who decides to be a part of the series every once in a while).

Also there is some genuinely funny shit in here? Like, even moments that the movie actually intended to be funny. That guy, Harry, who hangs out with Charlie? He has some really great moments. Also the theater scene where Bella is sitting between Jake and Mike, and they both have their hand out hoping that Bella will hold it? That is just really funny. There’s obv more, but these are some highlights

Yes Jacob, please take off your shirt in order to dab the blood off Bella’s face. That seems like the best course of action to me. God the weird shit he does is really funny.

Bad:

Charlie’s friends keep dying, and his daughter is shitty and that makes me sad

The characters continue to have very little...well… character, not to mention actual development. I shouldn’t have to explain why that is a huge issue, especially for a movie that is primarily character driven.

THIS MOVIE IS SO LONG. there were moments when I would just take a sec and be like. What is happening? What is this movie? What story is even being told here? God when is this going to be oveeeerrrrrrrrrr?

I’ve said a lot less here, but this is undoubtedly worse than the last one.

Twilight Eclipse

Good:

The plot is built up a lot better in this one compared to the last two. In the last two, the main conflict wouldn’t even be fully introduced until like half an hour before the end of the movie. There was just a bunch of time that went by very slowly where basically nothing happened, and then all of a sudden there has to be a climax so the actual rising action takes place over a ten minute period, That's just weak writing, and this movie does not have that problem.

I like the depth that we are given to the other members of the vampire family members. That said, Jasper was a confederate soldier, and you can not convince me that he isn’t racist.

I think the scene where Edward and Jacob see eye to eye for a bit is pretty good if you disregard the fact that they really talk about Bella like an object. Like they spend so much time in this series just being NEEDLESSLY rude and mean; like you guys couldn’t even pretend not to hate each other for half a second? For real? Anyway, this scene kind of has them getting along and having a constructive conversation and I liked that.

“Let’s face it. I am hotter than you”

Neutral:

The plot is definitely more exciting in this one, but Victoria’s plan seems needlessly complex.

Are there other werewolves, or are the ones in forks just all of them? Like there seems to be this giant vampire government that spans the whole world, but the werewolves just have like ten kids in forks?

Bad:

I get that you all are natural enemies, and you are in love with the same girl, but god you guys don’t have to be such assholes to each other.

Viewers are CONSTANTLY reminded that Edward just wants to protect Bella and that Jacob might be a better fit because she wouldn’t have to change. Like really hon? You’ve said this shit twelve times, but please go ahead and tell me again.

I know I was laughing about it before, but Jacob, can you please put a shirt on, it’s snowing.

The ring that Edward gives Bella is terrible, I would not wear it.

Why did the cullens just let the volturi kill that girl? They shouldn’t have.

*Sigh* and now we are at the really bad thing that I really didn’t like. TW for sexual assault. There is a scene where Jacob basically tells Bella that he kNoWS she likes him. She actively says that she DOES NOT, and then Jacob kisses her. THAT WASN’T CONSENSUAL. THAT WAS SEXUAL ASSAULT, BUDDY. Some people might say that she did actually want it, but if you look at her face during that kiss, she really doesn’t seem okay with it; in addition, she punches him after. BUT WHETHER OR NOT SHE WANTED IT DOESN’T MATTER!!!! SHE SAID NO!!!!

Then this yucky shit happens again, when Jacob finds out Edward and Bella are engaged, and Bella feels the need to kiss Jacob so he doesn’t do anything stupid. That is bad for obvious reasons. It is very frustrating because if it weren’t for these events, I would totally be team Jacob.

Also I get you guys both love her, but I challenge you to tell me exactly what you love about her.

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part One

Good:

This movie is fucking hilarious and amazing. I have watched all of the movies up until this point, and maybe it’s just the fact that this is my first time watching it, but this might overtake the first one. It’s great, I love it.

As I mentioned, this movie is very funny, there are a lot of really good moments, Charlie and Anna Kendrick’s wedding speeches are amazing and I love them. There are a bunch of other ones that I cannot remember at the moment, but I promise it is great.

I also loved when Rosili (I’m sure I spelled that wrong) had to cut Bella open, and then she really wants to eat her blood. Very fun and also amazing for raising tension.

I like that this movie is not pretending to be an action film. All of the other ones are mostly drama with a pretty shitty action plotline grafted over it. That does not happen here. It is literally just a romance movie that uses vampirism and werewolfery as an added layer of drama. The other movies do this, but they also have those bad action plotlines, so it feels like they are lying to me about being monster fighting movies when they are really just romance dramas. This movie KNOWS that it is just a romance drama and it owns it and I think that is cool.

I really liked the thing where we got those close up shots of bella’s blood vessels becoming vampire-y and stuff, I thought it was fun. Also when bella is having that dream about her wedding and everything is white and red and they end up on a pile of bodies? I cannot explain why, but I thought that looked really cool and it was kind of chilling which was the desired effect.

Seth and Leah, need I say more?

Lovely piano song ™ is BACK!!!

Neutral:

*sigh* Jacob. I have a strange relationship with Jacob. He constantly goes from being very cool to being very terrible. I will talk about this more later, but in this movie it was especially prevalent. He would say unnecessary, mean shit about the Cullens, and I would be like “god when did you become such an asshole?” and then he would leave because he didn't want to watch Bella destroy herself and I would be like “when did you get coOL?” and then he would tell Edward how much he wanted to kill him and I would be like “jesus, when did you become such an asshole?” and then he would distract the wolves so the Cullens could hunt and then I would be like “Yo dude, when did you get coooool again?” and then I would remember that he kissed Bella without consent and just……

There was a similar thing with Sam because at the beginning he was like, “the Cullens are fine,stop being such a little bitch about it, Jacob.” And then later on, he’s like “nvm we gonna kill this baby”

I know these are actually just character inconsistencies, but I’m not putting them in the bad section, no I will not be taking criticism.

Bad:

I wish they had told us more about stuff. Like they didn’t really explain why Jacob was so obnoxiously against them fucking. And Bella says it’s impossible for Edward to get her pregnant but umm how? Why? If that is the case, please explain to me why he is able to get her pregnant. Like this was the entire plot of the movie, and there was very little actual explanation which is annoying. I would like to understand the crux of your story, thanks.

There was that thing where that woman from Argentina like, knew that Bella was carrying a demon baby. I feel like that is kind of painting woc as being mystical, and hey, that’s not great.

Jacob imprinting on a literal baby yes I know it is more complex than that, but still, come on stephanie.

“EJ for Edward Jacob if it’s a boy” EWWWWWWWNODONOTNAMEYOURCHILDTHAT!

“Reneesme if it’s a girl” that’s good by comparison, but you set a super fucking low bar, my guy

The wolf talking was uhh, pretty terrible. No thank you, sir.

GIVE ME MORE CHARLIE!!!! WHERE IS OUR KING???!!! WHY ISN’T HE ON MY SCREEN?!!!

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part Two

Good:

this movie is also a lot of fun. I liked meeting all the vampires from across the world, and I did like the plot more or less. I thought that it was exciting enough, and I have no issue with them splitting it into two movies, I actually liked it. There were two distinct plots with distinct tones, so I thought they were justified in the split.

I liked the opening montage. I thought their use of white and red (just as they did in part one) was very cool and chilling. In addition, the shot where Bella opens her eyes and adjusts to seeing in a vampire-y way is really cool. Like it makes me get why people like this franchise, like it’s cool!

Jacob is fucking awesome in this movie; basically because he isn’t attracted to Bella anymore, and so he is no longer attracted to Bella, so he isn’t constantly whiny and mean. I liked that he made up with Sam, and I do think the movie did a good job making the imprinting thing not weird. Jacob is just cool here. I REALLY liked that everyone was like “we gotta pretend Bella is dead” and he was like “no fuck that, charlie knows I’m a werewolf, and he’s on his way over to see her.” He is just constantly doing the right thing, and I love it.

Lovely piano song™

The fight scene at the end was fun to watch. It was by no means a masterful spectacle of choreography, but I liked it anyway.

RAMI MALEK IS THE AVATAR?!!! I FUCKING LOVE IT!

Bad:

There were some moments where things were not explained all the way like there was this part where Jacob comments that more wolves are turning than before, and I was kinda like “wait what why” and then it is just not mentioned again. And I feel like there were a couple other moments like this that just felt like they were trying to say something from the book and then just didn’t have time to expand on it. Maybe I just missed something.

What made Alice think that only Bella would be smart enough to go to the book that the page is from? That was my first thought when she left that note.

The movie made it seem like the volturi really just wanted a reason to fight with them, and only Aro seeing himself get killed was able to deter him. But um… why? Why do the volturi give a shit about fighting the Cullens? Also I was a little annoyed with the final battle like for real dude? The ‘it was all in his head’ trope? Fuck that, if you are going to kill a bunch of good characters, at least commit to it yaknow?

I’m also not a fan of what they did with Alice. She just became a device to solve all of the problems. Like she leaves for the whole movie, comes back and fixes everything? That’s not good writing, mate.

I wish that they told Charlie things. Like I wish he was in the loop. Speaking of.... GIVE ME MORE CHARLIE AND ANNA KENDRICK. SHE WAS NOT IN THIS MOVIE AT ALL!! FUCK THAT, HER CHARACTER IS GREAT. AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT, MORE LEAH AND SETH, TOO!!

As a series

Yes, watching these movies is so much fun despite all the dumb shit. In fact, it might even be because of the dumb shit. I would just like to make it very clear that I legitimately loved watching them, and I really liked writing about them as well. I say this because there have been (and there will be more) harsh criticisms.

This part will mostly be me venting.

Edward and Bella are both very bland, and Jacob is for sure, the most interesting of the main cast.

Okay I don’t wanna spend too much time on this one, but Edward is 109 and Bella is like 17 when they meet. I don’t have to explain why that is kinda messed up.

I really really wish that there had been more Carlysl (another spelling mistake I am sure), Emmet, and Alice. I liked them both a lot, and we don’t really get to learn about their backstories. There is also supposed to be this friendship between Bella and Alice, but I wish that had been fleshed out a lot more. I would have liked to see more bro time between them.

I also wish there was more Seth and Leah. And let's throw in Charlie and Anna Kendrick for that matter.

Not a fan of the way that threat of sexual violence is used with Bella in the first two, TW for minor discussion of that here. In the first one Bella runs into some guys who harass her, and Edward saves her. The thing is, he only knew it was happening because he was following her, and I’m not a fan of the narrative that perpetuates. In the next one, she actively seeks out a dangerous situation with a man, so that Edward might come save her, no thanks.

Green screens are used, and they are not always very good.

There are moments throughout the series where you are like “oh yeah, that is definitely a direct quote from the books” like when Jacob says “stop looking at me like that” “like what” “like I’m your favorite person in the world” like okay bro turn down the emo.

Okay and now the most important thing, the lovely piano song ™. This is going to be the longest paragraph about it because this is possibly the most missed opportunity in the entire franchise (yes this is the type of person that I am). If you aren’t sure, the song in question is the one from the Ed/Bella relationship montage in the first movie, where Edward actually plays it on the piano. As I’m sure I’ve said, this piece of music is FUCKING AMAZING. Like it makes me actually quite emotional, and its association with the movies makes me feel more strongly about them. That is where the missed opportunity comes in because IT IS NOT IN NEW MOON OR ECLIPSE. Perhaps I just missed it, but I was making an active attempt to find it. It would have been ridiculously cool if they had used this song as Bella and Edward’s love theme. It would have been super cool if they had gradually added instruments throughout the series, making the piece grow and change, just like their love. It would have been so cool if they had added a counter-melody when Reneesme was born to symbolize the addition to their family. It would have been so cool if the closing shot was Bella and Edward in the field, and the original piano solo plays to remind us of the foundation of their love (and the series); cut to black and then the song plays through the credits for the main cast. God that would have been so cool, I get emotional just thinking about it. Instead, it is just a song they play sometimes when they want us to feel something. It works like that, but it isn’t as cool as it really could have been, which makes me sad.

Alright that’s it everyone, holy shit that was a lot. I am going to give you two ratings. On a scale of 1-10, how good is the series? not better than a three. But MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY, on a scale of 1-10, how enjoyable are they to watch? At least a seven.

If you read all of this you are great, thank you for dealing with me for this long, I did spend hours on this.

#twilight #twilight movies #bella swan #jacob black #edward cullen #charlie #movies #movie review #review #bad at tags #vampires #werewolves #im having a crisis #bad at tagging #funny #movie critique #movie critic #im funny i promise

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