#the movie action thing is from a back to back pose interaction

[bonesblackheadrotten]

someone in infold cooked when they designed conqueror sylus

[brella-boi]

Okay guys this is becoming a tradition of me seeing films recently so heres a

Sonic 3 review from a technical standpoint

Look im no film critic or anything, but i AM an animator and theres a lot of. Things. I see whether I want to or not. Its just how my brain is wired because of my profession lol

(This is full of spoilers btw so now's your time to fast scroll away)

Anyway lets begin!

The movie is great. Cool even. I liked it! But theres a lot of direction decision that I am just. Baffled by I guess?

First of all- the models are different. (Httyd ass moment) And the way they sculpted the characters lips absolutely destroys anything theyre trying to emote. It looks like theyre CONSTANTLY pursing their lips. Like they ate a lemon. Do you understand? Sonic also has much more pronounced brows which makes him look more pissed off constantly LOL

[Sonic 1 model vs sonic 3 models, pay attention to the lips]

Eggman and Dr Stone had possibly the best interactions in the entire movie. Their dynamic was fantastic, and I would argue they kinda carried the movie. Unfortunately! The ending left their issues unresolved. And Dr Stone looked entirely unbothered by the possible death of Eggman.

This brings me to some writing choices that I feel may be due to... Either infantalising or time cuts. The storyboarding of this film was just. God how do I even describe this. It feels like a lot of crucial scenes where cherry picked to be deleted between shots. Thats not good at all- and while character continuity WAS there, it really did feel like something crucial was missing in some scenes. This is especially evident in the Chao Garden scenes. Specifically when the general dies (WHY DOES HE DIE LIKE THAT. WE DIDNT EVEN SEE THE RUBBLE GO ANYWHERE OR PIN ANYONE DOWN OR SEE MASS PANIC FOR PEOPLE TO DIE?) The characters COMPLETELY gloss over his death- a death that feels like its out of a show for 8 year olds Im not going to lie to you. He just flops, delivers a line, and thats it.

It feels like the two halves of the movie were written by two different writers.

The first half is weak. The jokes are stale. And the storybeats almost feel off. The actions scenes- while there's nothing particularly offendish about them- don't *hit*. If you're an animator or writer you understand that important beats need to pack a punch. It was severely lacking in packing punches in the first half.

I also wanna speak to the animators. Are you okay? Was this made on tight deadlines? Where is the fun and whimsy? Did you outsource this? Did you give your workers a good environment or were they crunching and hating life? Or did you hire younger animators with no senior feedback because they're cheaper to hire?

Look, the animation is good. Just that. Its good. Its TV show standard, not movie standard. Its lacking a good push to the poses, its using slow keyframing between poses instead of it being snappy, with good silhouettes, with good visual gags. Instead were left with this.. subpar passable animation for every character instead of something energetic and snappy like Sonics personality. I think this is where I take the most issue with because guys come on. You didnt push the models to their limits at ALL. And Sonics speedy running is... Well read my previous points. Where are the fundamentals of animation about exaggeration? Not in Sonics run cycle.

The second half of the movie carried the first half on its back thanks to Eggman. I am SO GLAD to see giant spaceships and mechs and whatnot. Thats great! Loved to see the lovely mech models and once again- interactions between Eggman and Dr Stone. Id go as far as say they should be gay tbh (hello? The scene where theyre tied up?)

I didn't bring up Shadow entirely so far. And honestly Ive no notes about him. All my notes are entirely about just the animation and not hitting the beats well. His characterisation was great- it actually explains his aggression pretty well and then redemption. Genuinely the last arc of the movie was fantastic. And finally we got to hear a rock score to go with it. Maria was fun, the flashbacks were fun, the scientific exploration was fun. All in the second half of the movie of course!

My overall score is 6/10.

To untrained eyes the movie is going to be extremely fun- if a little more childish in some parts than others. I'm glad they took some risky moments, I'm glad the characterisation is well written. I just wish other aspects were tightened down, mainly animation and storyboarding.

6/10 but I never thought Id leave the cinema with the thoughts "I could storyboard some of these scenes in a lot more meaningful way, and Im not even a storyboarder."

I recommend a watch! Its not a bad movie. Its not a rock-it-out-of-the-park movie either though. I feel like maybe all the anticipation and high expectations maybe made it not as gut punching for me as it couldve been. Overall, all I can gleam from it is theres a lot of things to improve on! But nothing that really destroys it or makes it bad. Just a lot of room for improvement.

Thanks for reading!

[ironyadays]

About Monster High the Movie 2

Ok so I know it's been a couple of weeks ever since the Monster High live action sequel released, and whilst I did enjoy the movie and had a nice time while watching it, there is a specific topic regarding it that I can't stop thinking about it, and probably my biggest issue with the movie and its writing: The movie's allegory of witchcraft and queerness

Ok so first and foremost, I want to preface this by stating that this wasn't exactly an issue of mine regarding the first Monster High Live Action movie. The first movie establishes a metaphor that seems to be the key point of what will be the entire Live Action franchise, the idea that monsters are an allegory for BIPOC communities and humans are a metaphor for whiteness.

And even if some moments weren't laid out exactly the best way, and even if it definitely can't escape the problems every other DCOM or NOM has writingwise, the metaphor the movie was going for works in a way: Clawdeen's struggles represents the situation of biracial individuals struggling to find their place both among white communities and BIPOC communities, and with Komos' story and how it stems from his father being killed by humans due to the rejection of monsters to include him in their community and in their safe spaces as their own kind, it kind of nails into the idea of biracial kids belonging in BIPOC spaces as well, especially due to the lack of safety among white spaces. And especially, looking at the fact clawdeen has been mostly "monster presenting" for her entire life, it could be especially read as the situation of non whitepresenting biracial kids and maybe even some sort of criticism against the one drop rule and adjacent beliefs. Of course you can agree more or less with the way the movie handles this message's execution, but at the end of the day, the message is there and there are no elements in universe that contradict it.

The second movie though

Similarly, the second movie goes for an overarching allegory that is, personally, quite direct in its execution. Having the element of witchcraft been introduced during the first movie, the second movie develops into what witchcraft exactly entails in this universe, and especially leans of the idea that, if monsters are an allegory of POC and humans are an allegory of whiteness, witchcraft is an allegory of queerness, which essentially would make Draculaura an allegory of the experiences of queer children of color (the most obvious evidence being the "going back into the broomcloset" line).

At first glance, I had the same positive outlook for this allegory as I did while watching the first movie: the way draculaura describes witchcraft she does it as an irrepressible part of herself, and the character of Zamara would represent the danger that exclusively white queer spaces can pose, sometimes, for queer individuals of color, and that POC spaces can't marginalise them and leave them exposed to danger. Kind of reminding me about what certain figures like James Baldwin discussed regarding queer white men in comparison to queer black men.

However, when I rewatched the movie after discussing it with a mutual of mine, @lesbianemivanda, I realised one thing that made me have a PRETTY big issue with how this allegory is done. The way witchcraft is portrayed in the second movie versus the first one, it makes it seem as if witches are inherently dangerous and hated by themselves, not ostrasiced just as an "extension of humans". And especially Toralei's character is the one who causes the most harm to this allegory.

If we go back to the first movie, witchcraft is stated to be a dirty practice from humans. The way it is described especially after Draculaura is caught by Clawdeen and Frankie and with the interactions between Dracula and Draculaura during the end of the movie, the general implication we kind of get is that, whilst the war between vampires and witches is mentioned, witchcraft is hated because it is seen as an extension of humankind and thus, monsters associate it with humans. But never because of perceiving exclusively the craft as something harmful against monsters.

Now, what do we get in the first half an hour of the second movie?? Toralei waltzes in after coming back from Scaris and states that she hates witches, and after showing her scars left from having been the victim of a coven that tortured and tried to kill her and her pack, which kind of already bases her beliefs on trauma, she even goes as far as to explain how a lot of witch elements like wraith silver are inherently dangerous and lethal to monsters, to the point to imply they were created specifically with the pursuit of harming and potentially killing them. The same Toralei who is shown passive-aggressively stating that she deems Clawdeen as a human, yet never in the entire movie makes any move against her or any other HuMons, is shown to actively despise witches and establish them, not human witches or even just humans, but witches in general, as an absolute threat to monsterkind.

And the worst part about this? Zamara actually reveals at the latter part of the movie that she was the one who essentially caused Draculaura to develop an interest in witchcraft, essentially spying her and manipulating her from the shadows to execute her plan to kill all vampires. An idea that I definitely consider something that actively hindered this movie's allegory because it kind of implies draculaura was "taunted" into liking witchcraft (the way several conservative outlets will state that queer media "indoctrinates" children to become queer) and maybe not even being a true part of herself, it was such an unnecessary moment and it just causes harm to the overall message.

So essentially the movie, even if it wasn't its intention, proved that Toralei's beliefs and prejudice against witches and witchcraft, whilst it's being simultaneously represented it as an irrepressible part of some people, about it being a dangerous craft meant to target and seek harm upon monsters, were based on reason, and she was right. The last point you would like to make in a movie allegorically about prejudice against minorities of any kind.

It is absolutely saddening to see this because this is a very much important discussion to be had among queer and poc communities, where many queer poc feel ostracised and left out of their communities out of homophobia and transphobia, a lot of times under the guise that queerness is a "white thing" or at least a "western thing". The fact that the only monster we see interact with witchcraft is Draculaura, whilst every other witch is human, the fact that Toralei specifically is disdainful of witchcraft essentially out of trauma and several other arguments the very same movie gives validity to, and Zamara essentially having been behind Draculaura being interested in witchcraft all this time, all of this gives me such a sour taste to what could have been a rounded and exquisite allegory for the experiences of queer BIPOC.

And no, having Ellis AT THE VERY LAST MOMENT stop his mom to save Draculaura's life doesn't change this, this is just a "not all white people" moment rather than anything. If we had been shown other monsters who practiced witchcraft who had to live in hiding in the human world, constantly at the danger of being targeted, because they aren't welcome in monster spaces, it would have been a very much lovely element that would reinstate that witchcraft is a part of who these individuals are, that should not be repressed, and that is not some kind of trend or a "human thing". In that circumstance, Ellis doing what he does, even after being part of his mother's plan to kill Draculaura, and then changing his mind to save her life would have felt absolutely different, but alas, this isn't the case.

So yeah, TL; DR, whilst I consider absolutely great that they went with the route to use witchcraft as a way to code queer poc experiences, I feel like the allegory wasn't done exactly the best way, to the point in universe it is quite easy to excuse the bigotry against witches in comparison to the bigotry against HuMons in the first movie.

Extra: To end in a more positive note, if we are talking about the Monster High second live action movie, I have to say the last conversation between Clawdeen and Toralei was absolutely wonderful and I can't stop thinking about the "We're were-creatures Wolf. We share the moon" line while Toralei traces Clawdeen's scar, and Clawdeen just saying "I guess we do" THIS IS TOO CUTE.

[miss-cydonian]

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Review (If you want to read, of course).

Disclaimer 1: ⚠️HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️

Disclaimer 2: I’m not a professional movie reviewer, this is just my opinion™. I’m not a good writer either, so you’ve been warned. Also, this is my first time writing a review, a “proper” one.

These are just the main points that I have some critiques of.

That being said, let’s do this.

Alright, let’s organize this by chapters:

Chapter 1: Gabriel and The Entity

So Dead Reckoning introduce us to the new antagonists of the franchise, a man that goes by the name “Gabriel”, the major antagonist that Ethan Hunt used to know, before his time on IMF and a super intelligent AI, named “The Entity”.

The very brief plot explanation is that Ethan and his team are trying to stop said AI and Gabriel before everything goes awry. To stop them, Ethan must acquire a key that unlocks The Entity, rewriting its programming and setting things back to default mode. Or, as Ethan wishes, to destroy the AI completely, leaving no one to control it.

The whole AI plot is interesting. McQ and Tom took things more on the Sci-Fi route. And yes, you could argue that all MI movies are of a Sci-Fi nature, but that was narrowed down to the gadgets that they used. Here, this AI has gone rogue and seemly gained consciousness and is acting on its own, posing itself has a real threat to the whole digital world as we know, playing a huge role in the narrative as a real enemy.

And there’s Gabriel, the threat to the physical world. He was responsible for the death of a woman, named Marie, and it is implied she was close to Ethan. To be honest, I didn’t feel connection to this whole backstory plot, because it was shown merely seconds on screen. I was hoping they would show more of them interacting to make the audience feel something for her death, but unfortunately, that was not the case. Maybe in Part 2, will see more of this backstory unravels.

If a had to change something, would be that Gabriel was, somehow, involved in the deaths of Ethan’s first crew, back in the first MI, that I think, would get me more invested in Gabriel and his backstory, and be a stronger motivation for Ethan to stop him, he would be afraid that the same would happen to this new crew that he grew so close to.

Chapter 2: The Death of Ilsa Faust

This is a tricky one.

Ok, first of all, I don’t believe Ilsa is dead, but McQ could easily pull a “Kingsman move” and do that. After all, a death of a major character in which the protagonist cares about can be a great driving force to move the plot forward. The reason I don’t think she’s dead is because that would be too easy. Her death didn’t have the enough impact in my opinion and the characters didn’t seem very shocked by it.

Now, there’s some possibilities here. First, she survived, and Ethan gave her the “final choice”, a release from her espionage chains for good, but that also would be too weak of a plot, and it was discussed in Rogue Nation by Ilsa herself, her wish to just get away from everything and everyone with Ethan, but they're never really free from this world.

The other possibility would be that Ethan and Ilsa calculated a final plan, just the two of them, and which she is the main key (HA!) to this said plan, and is just waiting for the right moment, to be in the right spot, in the right time. That would give “Dead Reckoning” its true meaning of the word in the movie, at least, the meaning that I know of. The problem with this possibility is the whole “Deus Ex Machina” thing, in which is also overused in movie media.

As I said, it’s a tricky one. Guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Chapter 3: The Action and Found Family

There are two things I love about the MI franchise and that is: the action scenes, the commitment and passion Tom Cruise has to realism and to deliver a proper action scene that deserves everyone's attention, being a car chase or a fight, and the train scene, holy shit, THAT train sequence in Dead Reckoning... And the second thing is the found family that was formed since Ghost Protocol. To tell you the truth, I really begin to enjoy MI with Ghost Protocol and the other titles that came after it, and seeing the familiar faces every movie was so good and had me hooked in the franchise, especially Benji Dunn, played by Simon Pegg, he’s, by far, my favorite character. Dunn brings a lot of expression and personality to the movies and is a major backbone of the group, alongside Ilsa and Luther. Basically, Ethan can’t live without them, and them, without him.

This found family is what makes Mission Impossible movies unique and differentiates itself from spy movies overall and I’m glad this choice was made, and Ethan didn’t fall into the “Lone Wolf” personality of most protagonists of this kind of genre have. I’m excited to see where McQ and Tom are going to take the characters next in Part 2 because I felt that Benji, Luther and Ilsa didn’t get enough space in Part 1 compared to Rogue Nation and Fallout.

Conclusion

Is the movie worth seeing? Yes, absolutely. Dead Reckoning brings a lot more in action, sequences that will really have you in the edge of your seat, recurring characters that you know and probably love (at least love Benji, ok? He’s trying his best), breathtaking visuals, the cinematic and photography are marvelous! This movie had my full attention from beginning to the end and I can’t wait for Part 2.

Rating: 4/5 ⭐

[cyber-cry-baby]

Miasma pt. 10 "Back home"

Caustic x fem reader Words: ~800 Warnings: none Previous chapter | Next chapter

"I am so thrilled that we are a team. Time to break some hearts", Loba grinned, watching as you paced restlessly back and forth. You nodded in agreement. You felt victorious. It was great to have someone in your team whom you had already grown close to. Your teamwork could reach a whole new level.

"And with our tracking skills combined – we will slátra our enemies”, Bloodhound declared from under their mask. Your team was strong, and you had spent the whole week preparing for this moment. Practicing at the firing range and fine-tuning your equipment had boosted your confidence.

This game had a massive following, and winning would mean a lot. You briefly imagined a life as a famous legend, but more importantly, you wanted to see your progress and skills in action today.

When it was time to jump, you, as the jumpmaster, led your team to victory.

*

Outside of the games, Leni and Sierra were your best friends. After your victory three days ago, you were excited to meet them again and decided to take a short vacation in your hometown. The city felt familiar and comforting.

"Do you see how everyone's looking at you?" Sierra grinned, and you glanced around. People seemed to recognize you.

"Well, the last game was really something!" Leni added. You hoped they'd keep it down, not wanting to draw too much attention, but secretly enjoying the admiration.

"By the way, what's my favorite legend, Mirage, really like?" Sierra asked as you all sat down in a noodle restaurant. "You are my second favorite - of course!"

"He's great, fun to be around, one of my close friends", you replied with a smile.

"Can you set up a date for me and Mirage?" Sierra asked, dreamy-eyed.

"I actually really like Loba", Leni sighed. You went on to describe your fellow legends and the fun times you had together. You painted a rosy picture of your life, which was mostly true except for a few things. You didn't mention Alexander at all. You hadn't seen him in over a week, not in the game or anywhere else.

X hadn't contacted you either. You had been so focused on practicing and preparing that you hadn't thought about your operation Miasma. Now, you wanted to enjoy your vacation before returning to your routine. Dealing with Alexander was on your mind. You felt the need to do something about it. As you looked at your laughing friends, you wondered if Syndicate might harm them due to your performance not meeting their expectations. That was a troubling thought.

You knew you had to continue gathering information when you got back. You also wanted to know Alexander's thoughts. Was his previous action genuine or just part of some twisted game?

"And what about Caustic? Have you interacted with him?" Sierra asked in a hushed tone.

You almost choked on your noodles. The timing was uncanny.

"He's... different", you said honestly, quickly changing the subject to your friends' updates. Soon, an outsider approached for a photo, recognizing you as a legend. It felt odd but you happily posed for the picture. Your friends were overjoyed. It saddened you that you couldn't share your truth with them. They only saw the surface. They didn't know about the constant danger you faced, potentially putting them in harm's way.

(You also couldn't tell them about your secret fantasies involving Caustic. They wouldn't understand.)

Later that evening, you were on Leni's couch watching a movie with your friends. It felt like a taste of normal life. The city's neon lights reflected on the window, giving you a sense of belonging.

You chatted about everyday things, relishing the company of normal people dealing with regular problems. Talking about their issues grounded you amidst your own troubles.

Then, a message appeared on your phone:

'Your friends are charming; it would be unfortunate if they found themselves in trouble.'

Reading those words made your face go pale. Another notification followed:

'I assume that next week, you'll provide me with new information.'

A lump rose in your throat. Here you were just lounging around, putting your friends at risk. Should you have taken this information gathering operation more seriously? You hadn't made any progress at all. In secret, you had hoped that Syndicate would realize you were of no use and forget about you. But they were wicked men who enjoyed blackmailing and intimidating. You weren't getting out of this easily.

'Yes, I'll have new information next week'

You typed the message with trembling hands. What had you gotten yourself into? On the other hand, you had bought yourself some crucial extra time. You just needed to accomplish something soon.

For real.

[spydetectiveagency]

Adultery & Divorce Cases: How Private Investigators Uncover The Truth

Particularly when adultery is involved, divorce cases can be emotionally charged and complicated. Many jurisdictions allow adultery to be a major factor influencing divorce processes, therefore affecting property distributions, child custody, and alimony claims. While some situations are simple, others call for specific evidence to back up allegations of wrongdoing. Here is where private investigators (PIs) come in to find the truth by applying modern technologies and specific expertise.

The Role of a Private Investigator in Adultery Cases

By compiling evidence fit for use in court or mediation, a private investigator is quite important in cases involving divorce or adultery. Their main goal is to offer legally accepted, verifiable evidence of adultery. Photographs, movies, witness accounts, and digital forensics—all of which are evidence—often find their place here. Employing a PI can help for various reasons. - Legal Documentation:Courts may want physical proof of infidelity in order to affect divorce rulings. - Emotional Closure: Knowing the truth will enable a partner to go forward clearly. - Strategic advantage: Strong evidence can support a legal position, therefore improving the negotiating results.

Techniques Used by Private Investigators to Uncover Infidelity

Different techniques are used by private investigators to expose unfaithful partners in action. These methods guarantee accurate, moral, and legally allowed results. 1. Surveillance  Surveillance is among the most successful methods PIs apply. Investigators silently follow a subject's movements, noting conversations and actions. Surveillance consists of: - Physical Tailing: Tracking a suspected partner to several venues like restaurants, hotels, or covert meetings. - Video and Photographic Evidence:Using top-notch cameras and long-range lenses, video and photographic evidence can be gathered undetectably. - GPS Tracking: Legal in the jurisdiction, GPS trackers can enable one to monitor a person's location and spot suspicious trends. 2. Social Media and Online Investigations People may now connect more easily thanks to the digital sphere, but PIs also find affairs more quickly. Searching for evidence of infidelity, investigators check dating apps, social media sites, and covert messaging services. Suspicious behaviour might include: - Secret or deleted conversations - Profiles on dating sites - Unusual interactions with certain individuals 3. Financial Investigations Financial transactions, including hotel bookings, costly presents, or covert bank accounts, define extramarital affairs most of all. PIs can trace where money is being spent and whether it fits suspicious behaviour by examining bank accounts, credit card transactions, and receipts. 4. Undercover Operations PIs occasionally may go undercover in order to get direct proof. This can include pretending to be an acquaintance casually interacting with the cheating partner to evaluate their behaviour. Employing decoys to investigate the loyalty of a putative partner. 5. Forensic Analysis of Devices Legally allowed, a PI could examine a partner's phone, emails, or computer activity looking for concealed messages, erased texts, or proof of covert correspondence with a lover.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Private investigators must operate under legal and ethical limits even if they have a variety of instruments at their disposal. Legal consequences for the investigator and their client, as well as evidence inadmissible in court, might follow from privacy law violations. Legal financial evidence gathering, public surveillance, social media monitoring, and witness statement collecting are just a few of the things private investigators can and cannot do. NOTE: Access personal devices, eavesdrop without permission, trespass on private property, or pose as law enforcement. Hiring licensed and reputable private detective agencies helps customers to guarantee ethical and professional handling of their case.

Impact of Infidelity Evidence in Divorce Cases

Successful gathering of evidence of adultery can have a major influence on divorce processes. Here's the process: 1. Alimony and Financial Settlements Some countries allow proving adultery to impact spousal support. A spouse found guilty of adultery might have to pay more alimony or lose their access to financial reimbursement. 2. Child Custody and Visitation Rights Should a spouse's adultery involve exposing children to dangerous or unstable surroundings, custody decisions may change. Courts always give the child's best interests top priority; hence, proof of careless behaviour can help to prove a cheating partner is not in line. 3. Emotional and Psychological Closure Beyond only legal considerations, knowing the truth about a partner's adultery will enable the betrayed partner to proceed—emotionally, financially, or legally.

Hiring the Right Private Investigator

Hiring the correct private investigator is vital if you require expert assistance and suspect infidelity. These pointers should help you identify a trustworthy PI: - Review Credentials: Make sure your jurisdiction's licenses and certifications apply to them. - Experience in Divorce Cases Investigation: Select a PI with past performance managing adultery investigations. - Confidentiality: The investigator should keep secrecy to safeguard your right. - Legal Knowledge: They should act within ethical limits knowing the local regulations.

Conclusion

Although divorce and adultery cases can be quite painful, legal procedures and personal closure depend on learning the truth. Using surveillance, digital forensics, financial tracking, and undercover operations, private investigators are quite important in revealing infidelity. Working with a licensed adultery investigation agency that follows the law is absolutely vital, though. Seeking the help of a qualified private investigator could provide the clarity and proof you need to make wise decisions regarding your future if your painful divorce results from suspected adultery. Read the full article

[paradisetemporarilymisplaced]

So I was being a basic bitch the other day and listening to my true crime podcasts when it occurred to me just how suspicious Nile’s “death” would look to everyone not in the Guard, leading me to a train of thought that, 2200 words later, absolutely got away from me but I can’t let go so I’m inflicting it on all of you!

To set the stage, we know the movie takes place over approximately a week. Here’s what happens to Nile from the military’s point of view:

She dies is very seriously injured

She heals without a scratch

Just before she’s supposed to be shipped out to Germany, she vanishes, leaving two men concussed (and presumably reporting being knocked out by a woman with short hair wearing civilian clothes)

She goes AWOL for several days

They get word from the CIA that she is to be reported killed in action (details unclear)

So, at the beginning of this very weird week, the USMC has to tell Nile’s family of her death critical injury. What her family was told depends on how long she was dead – a Google search tells me that family will be notified in person within 8 hours of a soldier’s death, but we don’t know how long her first death lasted. For an injury, however, they’d get a phone call to notify them and the unit would arrange for them to visit as soon as the soldier is transferred out of a combat zone. Like I remember when I was in high school, a guy from my church who was a Marine was really seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Iraq and from what I could tell, his parents were told immediately and were flown out to Germany to see him, so it stands to reason that Nile’s family would have been informed relatively quickly after her throat was slashed, one way or another.

And then, she goes AWOL. Her family would be notified while the USMC tried to figure out where she went, not least because the military would want to know if she’s contacted them. (And it’s possible that her family may have been on the way to Germany to see her since we know that’s where she was supposed to go!) So for several days:

Nile’s mom and brother have no idea where she is

They know she was seriously injured and most certainly should not have been moving around on her own

They can’t get a hold of her

The military can’t tell them anything

And the next thing they know for sure is that she was “killed in action.” After being injured and vanishing into thin air. And they presumably cannot produce her body or any concrete evidence of her death. In any case, something sketchy is going on, so they’re like. SMELLS LIKE A MILITARY COVERUP.

In a surprise to probably no one, there is a well-documented legacy of mysterious US military deaths, particularly of women of color (TW for sexual assault in these links). The cases of LaVena Johnson and Vanessa Guillenin particular have made national news because of their families’ persistence in seeking justice. Likewise, Nile is a Black woman, and her mom and brother are most certainly hypercognizant of (a) state violence against Black people and (b) these high-profile cases of suspicious military deaths. So her family are seriously side-eyeing the situation, knowing that (a) the military has a serious incentive (and a documented history) of covering up things that make them look bad and (b) nothing about Nile’s disappearance and supposed death are adding up.

And Andy’s right. Nile does come from warriors. And you know who else does? Her brother.

Don’t get me wrong. Nile’s mom would absolutely not back down. She’d know something was up and want to get to the bottom of it. But based on what I know about Gen X parents (mine), they’re not the most technologically savvy. Like they can use the internet, but they didn’t grow up with it the way we young millennials and Gen Z did. So Nile’s brother takes the lead. And what do zillennials do best?

Social media.

Nile’s brother starts going hard on any site he can, trying to get the word out to see if anyone knows what happened to his sister. He starts a Reddit thread. He starts a Facebook group. He reaches out to the media and true crime bloggers and podcasters à la Sarah Turney, getting loud and being a general nuisance in hopes of getting some answers. He gets his friends and Nile’s friends involved. Maybe eventually Dizzy, Jay, and others from Nile’s unit hear about it and reach out, telling him what they saw and how weird it all was. He’s drumming up interest, and soon “Nile Freeman” becomes a household name (at least among the true crime fans).

Copley is, of course, trying his best, but at this point there is just so much that it’s impossible for him to scrub everything. Sure, he can erase new footage of Nile and the Guard, but what can he do about Reddit threads and podcast episodes that are speculating something weird has happened? Maybe he could hack the sites and shut those things down, but honestly, that’s the last thing he’d want to do, because that only adds weight to the theory that Nile’s disappearance is a military coverup. So eventually he has to tell Andy what’s going on.

Andy, obviously, does not take the news well. However, she is also completely computer illiterate, because that’s Booker’s job and he’s the only one who ever bothered to learn what the internet is in any meaningful way. (She probably calls Booker for advice, and for the record, I think Booker would have no qualms about shutting down conspiracy threads, tinhats be damned, but Copley is too concerned about the consequences. He’s ex-CIA for crying out loud, he knows how it’ll look if they scrub every mention of Nile’s name from the internet.) Maybe she confers with Joe and Nicky but, let’s be honest, they’d be equally unhelpful. So at this point, she knows they have to bring in Nile.

But the thing about Nile is that she, too, knows how to use the internet (duh). Aside from her being a young millennial/digital native, we know from the cave scene where she’s giving Booker suggestions on how to track Copley that she clearly is even more computer savvy than the average person. And for that reason she almost definitely took over the day-to-day tech stuff after Booker’s exile. So I think it would be foolish to expect her to be unaware of what’s happening. She’s not contacting her family or posting on the message boards or anything, but she knows what’s up. So Copley and the team probably sit her down to “break the news,” but we know the girl does not have a poker face (see: literally shooting herself in the foot and not being able to play it cool whatsoever) and cracks immediately, telling them she’s seen everything about her case – she’s not interacting with any of it, she certainly didn’t instigate anything, but she knows. (And she is so goddamn proud of her brother.)

At this point, I’d like to pause and consider Nile’s role in the overall narrative of this movie. She’s set up as a foil to Andy, obviously, but she’s also a foil to Booker. Booker, who, like Andy, is a serious pessimist, but who, unlike Andy, still has very fresh memories and trauma associated with being the new kid, which have destroyed him. In his mind (and Andy’s), if Nile communicates with her family, she’ll become just like him in a century or two – bitter, alone, and stuck with her grief and memories of watching her family die and knowing they died resenting her. It’s a small sample size, but this is the only experience they have to go off of.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

There’s been a lot of discussion of TOG being a fundamentally queer movie – a group of people brought together because of something inherent about themselves that is different, that must be hidden, that causes others to hate, fear, and reject them. Booker’s backstory is the archetypal traumatic “coming out” story – his family learns who he is, hate him for it, and attempt to cast him out of their lives. He’s stuck with his trauma, his pain, his loss, and it consumes him.

But what if Nile’s family would be the opposite? What if her “coming out” to them as immortal is met with acceptance, love, celebration? What if her family is just overjoyed to have her back, and they don’t care what the circumstances are? I'm reminded of this incredible post from @shitty-old-guard-deaths a while back, where Nile’s mother hits Booker with a frying pan because “my baby let me believe she was dead for FIVE YEARS based on your bad advice???” (which may or may not have inspired this whole tangent). Nile takes the advice of someone who did the same thing she wants to do because she doesn’t want to risk her family’s rejection. She wants the good memories with her family and is afraid that showing them her true self will bring her unbearable pain, forever replacing those memories. But, with high risk comes high reward.

Anyway. Nile and the team are trying to come up with a plan for how to handle this whole thing, but she’s not really participating because she’s too afraid to hope. Until finally, quickly, so she doesn’t lose her nerve, she suggests she reach out to them, knowing that, realistically, that’s the only solution before things snowball even further out of control. The team is shocked, but realize that she has a point. They decide that Copley should actually be the first point of contact, posing as a US government official to talk with them and test the waters.

So Copley goes to Nile’s family’s house to talk with her mom and brother. They’re probably distrustful and apprehensive, but nonetheless secretly ecstatic that their work has paid off. They talk and review all of the information that they’ve collected, including testimonials from the people on Nile’s base and recent sightings (along with photos) of Nile (with the same three people) over the last few years that people have sent them but they haven’t posted publicly. At this point, Copley’s like, yeah this is about to blow up, we gotta put our cards on the table. He convinces them to come with him to some safe house/black site/whatever he can get that is technologically impenetrable (I’m picturing them in like, an interrogation room at a police station kind of deal), takes their phones, locks the doors, and brings in Nile.

What follows is the most delightful reunion scene of all time, bringing Joe, Nicky, and even Andy to tears as they watch and listen from outside the room. With Copley’s help, Nile tells her mom and brother about her immortality and what’s been going on since she died (within reason, of course), and they are thrilled. They don’t understand why (because no one does) but they don’t question it and they see it as a gift from God – she’s been resurrected, she will live, and she has a purpose. Her mother and brother are so happy to see her again and are willing to agree with pretty much anything to stay in her life as long as they can.

So. They set up some complicated agreement (they bring in the other three for support/intimidation as needed) setting the terms of their relationship. They swear Nile’s family to secrecy, maybe bringing up the lab to show how high the stakes are, and they readily agree. They come up with some cover story for Nile’s brother to share on the message boards (maybe that the government has opened an investigation but because it’s an open case he has to shut it all down? Tells people to direct their tips somewhere else? Something to that effect). There’s still speculation, of course, but without Nile’s brother at the helm providing the energy, the hype dies down as news stories are wont to do without any movement. And Nile’s family goes to work for the team. The experience has taught them that Copley can’t possibly do everything himself, especially when it comes to social media, so Nile’s brother takes the lead on the day-to-day tracking/social media while Copley and her mom focus on finding jobs and scrubbing their traces afterward.

So there you have it: Nile gets to integrate her biological family into her found family and spend the rest of their lives with them as it should be, Copley gets some badly needed help managing the reality of social media, the team finally has a positive narrative surrounding outsiders Knowing About Them AND about interacting with people from their previous life, and the audience gets the happy ending to this very lovely and very queer story to counteract the pain associated with Booker’s family.

Plus, you know, I’m a sucker for both a good government conspiracy theory and for Nile getting every good thing she deserves.

[willel]

Will's Powers

I'm bored so I guess I'll talk about this again, compiling all the ideas formed over the past few weeks.

First and foremost, there's no way Will has telekinesis imo. I'd prefer if he didn't. If Will has powers, I want his "position" to be more like Kali. By that I mean little to no overlap with El's powers and no physical powers, only mental. I feel if Will has powers, they should be complementary to El's so that their characters aren't redundant. She should be able to do things he can't do and vice versa. Combined, they'd form a good team. Superhero and Superspy.

Will, unlike El, is not really a physical guy. I do believe the story and his character development is on the trajectory to be able to stand up for himself and others, but I don't think physical powers should be involved.

✨THE POWERS✨

🟡 True Sight

Although we haven't seen Will use this since season 2, I'm almost positive this is his own innate ability that he can learn to control for their benefit.

Definition- "notices Secret doors hidden by magic, and can see into the Ethereal Plane"

Usefulness - Going by its uses, maybe if Will learned to control it he could see through the illusions Vecna can cast (under the assumption Vecna will remain for season 5).

Potentially, he can grant this ability to others by touching them as the d&d spell specifies, so pairing him up with someone else (such as El) would be incredibly handy. It can also be handy for spying on their Upside Down enemies, but it does leave him vulnerable to their psychic influence as seen in season 2 when he gets possessed.

Evidence - Will was capable of using True Sight the moment he returned from the Upside Down. He continues accidentally using True Sight for an entire year before the Mind Flayer sees him and later possesses him. I believe he no longer accidentally uses True Sight because the gate El created was permanently closed at the end of season 2. It's possible he will be able to use it again now that there are multiple permanent gates.

🟡 Remote Viewing

This would be an overlap with El's. Remote viewing is that power El can use to find people and even interact with other psychic beings. The black void place.

At least one other numbered child had this ability, #010.

Definition- "the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind."

Usefulness- As we've seen from El using it, it's been extremely handy for tracking the bad guys and the good guys. Why would Will need it? Well, if it's possible to make contact with and communicate with other psychic beings in that void, it would be pretty handy if Will could give information to El from a distance whenever they needed it. There's only so much you can gleam from watching someone in that moment compared to actually speaking to them.

Evidence- In season 1, El is not only able to see Will like her other targets, she's able to touch him and speak to him. He's able to hear her and speak back. He even weakly holds her hand for a little before passing out. In season 2, it seems he might've used it to find Hopper in the tunnels, but it's unclear if that's just a part of the hive mind or if it was Remote Viewing. Will's actions (the closing his eyes pose and silence) is identical to when El and #010 used this power.

🟡 Detect Evil and Good

This is referring to his ability to detect when the Mind Flayer and Mind Flesher were present. The show has been inconsistent with the distance of his detection. On the one hand, he could sense the Mind Flayer from his house when the Mind Flayer was alllll the way at Hawkins lab. He could sense the Mind Flayer in an abandoned factory alll the way across town from the movie theater. But sometimes he can't sense the Mind Flayer until it's literally on top of them. This is also a form of clairvoyance.

Definition- "you know if there is an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead within 30 feet of you, as well as where the creature is located. Similarly, you know if there is a place or object within 30 feet of you that has been magically consecrated or desecrated."

Usefulness- If he were able to use this power consistently, it could be even more useful than Remote Viewing for "spying" on their enemies. Remote Viewing can't tell you exactly where someone is unless you get context clues like a street name or an address. It's even less handy for finding a monster.

But if Will can simply concentrate and listen to the tingles forming on his neck to determine what enemy is approaching them and how far away, they could form strategies better. Maybe even map them out. Like a radar device.

If we follow the d&d spell even more closely, he would be able to tell if a creature had been there previously. Like following invisible tracks. Maybe if he learned to control it, they wouldn't need to perform a "Sauna test".

Evidence- Will has displayed having this ability before and after his possession by the Mind Flayer. If nothing else, this ability is certainly of his own and warms him of danger.

NOTE: THE POWERS BELOW ARE FOR FUNSIES, they have in no way been hinted at Will having these.

🟡 Banishment

This is how it sounds, an ability to banish creatures to other planes of existence. This is a power El has, which she used to banish the Demogorgon and #001. Since Will himself is "stuck between the slides", it'd be interesting if he could force others to be on one side or the other.

🟡 Command

This is a spell to command creatures of your choice as the name implies. This is kinda how the hive mind works. It would be interesting if Will could give his own demands to Upside Down creatures and it'd actually work. Like say a Demogorgon shows up to attack their friends and Will shouted "Stop!". The Demogorgon would stop in its tracks, at least for a few moments. Super useful.

🟡 Gate

Another spell from d&d, something we have seen El and Vecna create. Maybe Will himself has the power to create gates, or temporary ones. People use the example from S1E4 as proof that Will nearly opened one in his living room, but I think that was just a temporary gate left over from the Demogorgon the previous day. Another example would be the gate in the school El used to get back to the real world.

With so many permanent gates sitting open though, creating another one, however temporary, might not be necessary. But in an emergency could come in clutch.

🟡 Remove Curse

An interesting spell. With something like this, Will could "cure" anyone that gets cursed by Vecna theoretically. That'd involve breaking the psychic link between them by touching them. Too OP?

🟡 Fire

Too lazy to actually look up a fire power related to d&d, but I know this one is discussed a lot. I still think a power like this is too "direct" for Will. It also seems as though season 4 has debunked the idea of powers like that. All the powers we've seen are much more related to the mind and manipulating physical objects rather than creating power from thing air, such as fire.

I do still like the idea that Will the Wise's main attack is "fireball" which he used to defeat his foe but maybe it doesn't have to be super literal or involve any powers at all. It could be just like Lucas using fireworks in season 3.

[caw4brandon]

Animated to Life

Anyone remember the virtual band; [The Gorillaz]? Its a band that consists of four animated characters who goes by the names; 2D, Murdock, Noodle and Russel who interacts with real life people and real life locations.

The thought of putting animation on-top of real life is a concept found in the cracks of the media we consume. They break realities and they fulfill the dreams of being able to interact with our favorite animated characters when the final product is finished. The names of what this media is may vary, but the agreed and the most used title is; Live-animated hybrid productions.

- A Trace Through Time -

Started as far back as 1900, the concept of animated characters on real life action began with; < The Enchanted Drawing > While it looked nothing alike with what we see today, The film shows the early concepts of this mixed media production. It shows a drawn character interacting with a real life actor and real life props with simple filmmaking magic.

The most famous productions that shares this concept is found through two popular movies. The film, < Who Framed Roger Rabbit > and < Space Jam > In theses films, the famous animated characters of the time are seen interacting with real life actors; Bob Hoskins and Michael Jordan respectively.

Through them, it showed the potential of playing with cartoonish physics and real life environments. Fulfilling a child’s dream to interact with their favorite childhood heroes or with their ideal lovers such is the case for < Cool World > with its leading femme fatale, [Holli Would] and its world building concept of a universe where the Noids (Humans) and Doodles (Animated Characters) live in their own worlds while the main character bridges between the worlds.

While what I talked about in this section is just a little Smitch of Live-animated productions through the years. I would like to take the time to highlight the less grand and technical side of things. See, aside from films. This concept has also opened up the idea of having them be made for commercials, pictures and even introduced virtual personalities as seen on [Trash Taste with Calliope Mori]

- Making Real Life Interesting -

While making films is tedious but rewarding, I would argue that its the small productions that makes me love this mixed media a lot more. As of late, I’ve been obsessed with finding and studying how Live-animated hybrid pictures get made by certain Instagram users.

The one I followed and used as study material is [ADUNIIS] for his interesting choice of scenery. his works features anime characters from various shows, blending in with mundane places like living people.

Similarly, [SamuelMB] does the same but with Disney characters. Having more than one subject to interact with and create fun gags during the editing process. Looking into it a little deeper, I discovered that a lot of these edits are found more on Pinterest under the tag; [Anime Girls in Real Life] and [Anime Boys in Real Life] The downside to this type of edit is that the good ones are few and far between.

These edits require a good eye for character poses that make sense, locations in angles that is more generic and less outstanding. Understanding compositions that require trial and error and lots of outsourcing. Just looking at some of them gave me a splitting headache over the amount of hours spend just for one photo. Several creators brought them back to their roots of short videos like, [KOJER]’s take on Ghibli characters on real life.

- Capturing The Magic -

Its no secret that I love this movement and that I’ve been learning how to make it work with my characters; Sadie, Hector and The Hoodlites. Really, its just my way of using all the photos I took to be used for fun. Its a creative outlet that I believe could be useful for something in my professional career as a graphic designer.

As a person and as a designer, no creator can “just be” someone of one duty anymore. We have to experiment with the tools given and move above and beyond what we started with. In my case, I want to bring my characters to real life scenery and hang out. Be in a moment and although it is far from perfect, its the most fun I had in a while with this ambitious project of mine.

For me, I see Live-animated hybrid productions as that act. To go above and beyond. The medium itself is a perfect marriage of the two elements into one whole entity. Causing a pause in the midst of the bland scrolling over typical pictures.

Digital art is a new and thankless craft that the world has yet to appreciate because it didn’t feel like a lot of effort is put to them. Meanwhile, Traditional art is an expensive craft with the constant need to restock art supplies. If both sides aren’t receiving attention.

Why not put them together? [Credits to Lauren Tsai]

Surprisingly, its still very underground among new artists and I rarely find them within the community. Perhaps this can be a challenge for any new souls out there If you have an Original Character or subject that you think looks dull. Add them to a real life image, blend them. Test some settings. Play with the lighting, make your mundane lives more, alive~ 

With that said, I’m writing to inform you that things might go slow on December 2021. Work is coming in again and I won’t write and draw as much but I’ll do my very best to keep to my schedule.

Thanks for reading

- Caw4B -

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Lila Rossi: I’d Say She’s a Good Villain, but Then I’d Be Lying (300 Follower Special)

Deception and cunning are easily two of the most important traits an antagonist could have. It shows that even if they don't have the strength to overcome obstacles, their wit is more than enough. This kind of trait is why characters like Lex Luthor, David Xanatos, and Princess Azula are so beloved, simply because of how intelligent they can be as villains and pose a real threat to the heroes.

It's clear that the Miraculous Ladybug writers want Lila to be seen as this, but the writing seriously fails to back that claim up.

Easily one of the most controversial characters in Miraculous Ladybug is Lila, mainly for the writing surrounding her. But there was a time where she was actually more of an ambiguous character, mainly for the lack of screentime she had until Season 3. But unfortunately, the more appearances she's had have painted a very poor portrait of an antagonist.

Lila's Tragic and Sympathetic Motivation for Hating Ladybug

Lila's first appearance was at the tail end of Season 1, “Volpina”. She was a new transfer student from Italy, and quickly made friends with a lot of her classmates for the lies she told, including being friends with Ladybug (which Alya blindly believed without doing any research like any excellent journalist). But because of how close she was getting to Adrien, Marinette, in a rare act of selfishness, transforms into Ladybug just to chew out Lila for lying about knowing her, humiliating her in front of Adrien. And this is the only motivation we get for what Lila does afterwards.

I'm not saying that it's wrong for Lila to get upset at Ladybug for doing this, and I like the moment of weakness Marinette has, but this is literally the only explanation we get for Lila deciding to side with Hawkmoth, a literal terrorist. As much as I hated the way the arc turned out, I could still understand Chloe siding with Hawkmoth, as it was clear that Hawkmoth was manipulating her and taking advantage of her ego. Lila? Ladybug's mean to her one time, and that inspires her to conspire with a complete stranger who brainwashes people to attack the city, which endangers innocent people and causes God knows how much in collateral damage if not for Miraculous Ladybug fixing everything.

I just don't get how a single negative interaction with someone is enough to conspire with a literal supervillain. Even in Season 3, when Marinette and Lila truly became enemies, it was because she risked exposing all the lies she told, which could damage her reputation. Sure, it's petty, but it makes sense for Lila to want to keep up the illusion. If she was simply an antagonist to Marinette in her civilian life like Chloe was before “Miracle Queen” , I'd be fine with that, but the writers clearly want her to be seen as on the same level of evil as Hawkmoth. I'll get into why that doesn't work later on.

Why Lila is an Excellent Liar

In my Master Fu analysis, I had pointed out that despite all the flaws he had, the narrative insisted on portraying him as an incredibly wise mentor. The same problem applies for Lila as well. We're supposed to see Lila as an expert manipulator and liar, but her lies are insultingly obvious. She always claims to be friends with celebrities and does all these awesome things, and in an age where we can have almost any question answered thanks to the internet, nobody ever stops to question her.

It's even more frustrating when you hear Lila talk about saving Jagged Stone's cat, when Jagged Stone is established to be very fond of Marinette (evidentially more than his own daughter), and nobody ever points that out. I think if Lila's lies were more stories about her travels around the world than outright lies about real people, it could have worked. It'd still be hard to believe, but it's something.

But this is a problem with writing shows aimed at children. As much as we hate writers who need to spell out things to kids, sometimes, they just don't understand some of the media they consume. Seriously, I never got this joke in SpongeBob as a kid, and I can't believe Nickelodeon actually approved this.

So the dilemma when writing a show with children in mind is finding that sweet spot between assuming your audience can figure it out, but not being too vague in your details. It's even harder when you need to find a way to convey the fact that someone is lying without being too obvious. Unfortunately, the show clearly fails to do that

Okay, this is going to sound like an incredibly weird thing to cite, and I only know about it because I used to know someone who was a huge fan of the franchise, but the movie Monster High: Friday Night Frights does a better job of subtly explaining to the audience that a character is lying. Please, just hear me out.

The movie follows the main characters competing in their high school's roller derby for the season after everyone on the usual team gets injured, and the championship match is against another school whose team tends to cheat to win matches. How they manage to do this without getting caught is anyone's guess. While the main characters are practicing, their coach, Clawd, notices a spy for the enemy team taking video of them to study their moves. In response, he calls over one of the athletes, Operetta, to chew her out for her showboating attitude. In reality, he's alerting her to the spy. Only using facial expressions, he clues her, and by extension, the audience, in on the fact that they know what the opposing team is trying to do.

This soon leads to Operetta pretending to tell the enemy team about their secret plan for the championship match, which was really an attempt to outsmart them to gain the advantage in the final stretch. The brilliance of this is how the audience is informed of this with no dialogue, and there's no scene afterwards spelling it out for those who don't get it. It manages to convey deception without being too obvious that Clawd and Operetta are being deceitful.

I think if there were more subtle hints to show the audience Lila was lying, she would be seen in a better light. As it is, Lila's lies are just pathetic, and it's ridiculous that everyone believes her. Which leads me to...

Lila, the Master Manipulator

I once read a Star Trek: Voyager fanfic that poked fun at the series by claiming that the reason a lot of the dumber episodes like “Threshold” and “Twisted” happened was because one of the crew members was an alien who unintentionally produced mood altering pheromones, with Captain Janeway actually realizing they were all high because of said pheromones, while two of the unaffected crew members were wondering what the hell they were doing before they found out the cause. Why do I bring this up? Sometimes, it feels like Lila is an unintentional parallel to the alien in that story.

Like so many characters, it's clear the show desperately wants the audience to view Lila in a certain way, but her actions do very little to actually back up that claim. When she's not using lies to tell stories about so many famous people she knows like her uncle who works for Nintendo, Lila is using strategies to manipulate everyone that are so obviously deceptive, the Thermians could pick up on them. Everyone and their mother knows how ridiculous a lot of what Lila does in episodes like “Chameleon” and “Ladybug” are, and I've talked about them before, so I'll try to be quick.

First off, as someone who had access to accommodations through high school and has had assistance in college so far, there is no way in hell that Ms. Bustier should take Lila's tinnitus at face value in “Chameleon”. If a student has a disability that could interfere with the education process, physical or developmental, not only does the school have to evaluate their performance, and determine if they're eligible for an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, but her teachers would have to be notified in the first place. As her primary educator, Ms. Bustier would be part of the team to oversee Lila's IEP and determine what accommodations she needs to help her learn better with her tinnitus and arthritis. But because the writers don't know what Google is, they just ignore it,  assume that Lila can just say she has a disability, and have everyone believe it. Even when Eric Cartman pretended to be disabled to compete in the Special Olympics, he put in more effort to look the part, even if he looked like a caricature.

Then there's the fact that that in “Chameleon”, everyone just believes Lila when she says Marinette stole her grandmother's necklace when not only is said necklace from the Agreste line of jewelry, but Alya, who is Rena Rouge, can't pick up on the fact that it's a fake. All she does to justify these lies is come up with a sob story about how nobody believes her, yet nobody ever tries to defend Marinette except Alya one time, and it was after she got expelled.

Or what about in “Oni-Chan”, where Lila thinks having Kagami kill Ladybug while claiming she'll back away from Adrien is a good idea? Let's say Oni-Chan does kill Ladybug or at least take away her Miraculous, what then? We know Lila wouldn't go through with this promise, and as soon as Kagami sees her harassing Adrien, she'll be ripe for akumatization again. Overall, not a great plan.

And yet somehow, this last example is what made her worthy enough to become one of Hawkmoth's most trusted agents. I'm just going to say it: Lila is not a good fit for the power of illusion. Whenever she's Volpina or Chameleon, she always goes out of her way to make a big show instead of being subtle with her deceptions. “Chameleon” is the worst offender, as even though Lila gets the power to shapeshift into someone else, instead of being discreet and cornering people into kissing them and gaining their appearance, she just runs around to get Ladybug's attention instead of being subtle. Even Felix had the bright idea to pretend to be Adrien to catch Ladybug off guard. How do you lose to something that happened in “Felix”?

Despite all of these screw-ups, we're still supposed to see her as this master of deception worthy of allying with Hawkmoth in both his supervillain and civilian form, when really, she's a terrible liar on the schoolyard and on the battlefield.

Why Lila is an Important Character

In the grand scheme of things, Lila just isn't as important of a character that the show loves to parade her around as. She's nothing more than a plot device used to raise the stakes in an episode, given how much reality seems to bend over just to accommodate for her lies. Even when the show alludes to her being part of bigger things, like her deal with Adrien, or her rivalry with Marinette, they don't even go anywhere.

She just feels pointless when you remember Astruc's brilliant idea to force Chloe into being the final Akuma for the season while Lila isn't even mentioned once. She only really makes appearances whenever the writers feel like it, which is why it’s hard to take her seriously. Why should I take this character seriously as a threat if the writers refuse to take her seriously as a threat? Why build Lila up as a big threat and not give her a major role in the finale? Why even include her in the show in the first place when you could show Chloe being more manipulative to fill in the plots Lila plays a big part in?

As of the time I am writing this analysis, four episodes of Season 4 have aired, three of them have been about lies or deception, and Lila hasn't been mentioned at all. It honestly seems like she won't appear unless the writers need a easy way to drive up the conflict, so they can justify it by saying that Lila's “superpower” of lying is more powerful than the common sense of everyone else.

I'm sorry this post was shorter than the last one, but compared to Master Fu, there's not that much to say about Lila that I haven't already said. Even the show barely gives her any attention, so it's hard for me to really find a lot to talk about.

[trinrose3]

Love your ary!!! ❤️💕 Any processes for dynamic poses and colors?

omg thank you!! 🥺💖

I’ll do my best to explain without looking like the Charlie Day meme 😅.

also this got pretty long so I’m gonna make a second one about colors

So when I’m sketching out poses I tend to focus more on the flow/rhythm of them first rather than the anatomy. You can always go in and add the anatomy back in later but you can’t really do that with flow. I find doing a lot gestural studies helped a with this. So doing really quick (and I mean like 1-3 minutes) studies helped a lot. I recommend sites like sketchdaily for this. Also watching movies, especially with a lot of action/moving scenes (honestly musicals are great for this) and posing randomly at frames is also good practice.

weight and counter weight are also really important for posing. For example when shifting weight onto one leg, the body will naturally try to “line up” the body so the torso/shoulder might come to meet the hip on the X axis, this can apply to either shoulder depending on the pose but for typical standing poses with be on the same side.

The body will also try to balance and counter balance on the Z axis as well, so if the torso is pitched forward the pelvis will pitch backwards, if both are forward the legs and head will try to go backwards, the goal is to keep the head upright.The arms will also naturally try to help with this process.

of course these things can be broken in order to depict movement, specifically things that are mid action or falling, but there will usually be at least some aspect of this in place.

also perspective is REALLY important for this. The better at perspective you are the more you’ll be able to place things in a three dimensional space better. idk what other arts call this but in animation we call it an overlap/secondary action which can also add a level of livelyness /believability. so as you can see in the theo images above, the newt(?) has like headphone wires and bracelets “in motion” which look like they’re being pulled/dragged from a direction, implying where the position of the head/limbs used to be. This can also be applied to things like hair (like ryme on the right) and clothing.

From what I can tell there seems to be a hierarchy in which things choose to move: eyes, head, torso, arms/legs, then hands/feet. This can either be extremely subtle or exaggerated depending on the character/action. This also has a bit to do with that balance aspect.

Also it’s always a good idea to push your poses! Exaggeration is key, even when you use a reference! It doesn’t matter if it LOOKS realistic what matters is if it FEELS believable!

if your character is interacting with an object it’s also important that the weight of that object is felt, even if it’s as simple as a bed slightly dipping, paper creasing, fingers/hand flattening against it, or bigger changes like bending backwards/forwards.

the body is also very naturally squishy (no matter your weight!) so if characters are like sitting/leaning/pressed against something the flesh around that will react!

also things like line-weight, lighting and color can make a pretty decent difference!

I’ll reblog this post if I can think of any more later :}

[kyojuuros]

Okay now that I’ve simmered down a bit and decided maybe I should slow down on the gifs and edits... lmao

I’m not generally a fan of anime filler as a concept (in the sense that a LOT of it is created just to stretch out a series run while they wait for more manga content and it ends up just being.... not good). However, when the filler actually adds substance to the story and helps to further flesh out a character without distracting from the overall plot, I’m pretty much almost always on board with it. So, aside from just being a Kyojuro stan (lol), I really was looking forward to this episode and praying that it would both be fun to watch and make sense within the story itself. Ufotable took great care with the movie and Kyojuro’s character, so I was less worried about whether they would do him justice or not.

They absolutely delivered. 

To start with the plot of the episode, I don’t think it did anything to take away from the main conflict at all. Nothing seemed convoluted or out of place (although I do wonder when the bento vendors ever get to sleep lol). It added more layers onto how the demon slayer corps operates. For example, taking care of the woman who suffered from the demon’s attack - and Kyojuro even mentioning that the corps would support this woman’s recovery not just physically, but also emotionally and mentally. It also, in a fun way, shed a little more light on the resourcefulness of demon slayers in situations where they need to be a bit more stealthy (as swords were not legal at this time). Kyojuro posing as a bento merchant was really entertaining and a good coverup for why he was heading for the train dock. It was also nice just to see him interact with the lower-rank demon slayers. We get so little interaction between the Hashiras and minor characters throughout the story, so it was a nice added detail. Blue haori guy was precious. 

Now about Kyojuro’s and the Rengoku family’s characterization as a whole...

The juxtaposition of Kyojuro sheathing his sword alongside flashbacks of Shinjuro was absolutely incredible. It makes Kyojuro’s internal anguish over the state his father is in so much more poignant. We only get a brief flashback to Shinjuro teaching Kyojuro how to wield a sword, but we never get to see Shinjuro himself in action. To see that Kyojuro really did learn from him and still carries down the same general flow of the Rengoku family’s swordsmanship was such a nice touch. Not only did it add to the relationship inferences about Kyojuro and his father, but also nodded at how traditional the Rengoku family is and how consistently they’ve passed down their fighting style over the generations. And for anime only viewers who are not yet aware of how far back the Rengoku bloodline runs within the demon slayer corps, it will be a nice thing to look back on later down the road when we get to meet Yoriichi. 

I also like that this detail was added in during events that transpire before the events of Mugen Train. For those who will be watching the arc for the first time, I imagine seeing Kyojuro’s dream later will feel like a sucker punch to the gut. Even more so because, for those who have not yet been introduced to Shinjuro, Kyojuro makes it sound like the relationship is still amicable and that Shinjuro is supportive when he says that he will tell him of how he saved the same woman that Shinjuro did 20 years ago. 

I also loved how, much like all of Kyojuro’s supplementary manga material, the episode really highlighted Kyojuro’s overall love of life. The joy he expresses when he’s enjoying good food (really, just how much he enjoys food in general), the kindness in every interaction he had with the civilians - particularly the bento vendors. The way he smiled and laughed when the girl apologized for doubting the existence of demons, telling her that to live your entire life and one day die without ever knowing about the existence of demons is both how it should be and the ideal way to live. While lighthearted, it also expressed Kyojuro’s desire for demons to be a thing of the past without him actually having to say the words. 

I also love the detail of him accepting the free bento box but insisting that he still pay for the rest. Idk that it necessarily adds much to his character that we didn’t already know, but it shows that he’s an honest person who believes in doing the right thing and supporting others. 

Another thing that was really neat was seeing him run after Discount Akaza™ and watching him speed up and eventually start incorporating his flame breathing into his movements. The way that the demon claimed no one was faster than he was and how Kyojuro completely blew him out of the water was really fun to watch. He’s just so cool!

Anyway, my thoughts are still a little scattered and I’m probably going to watch the episode like 1242353256 times this week. LOL I just really enjoyed what it brought to the table and, of course I absolutely loved getting more content of my beloved Kyojuro. I’m a happy lady today. 😊💕

[slowly-writing]

Get Through It

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word count: 3.2K

Requested by anon: Hi, could I request a natasha romanoff x fem reader where reader is from the red room and was trained to become a 2.0 version of the black widow and is well known for how successful and deadly she is. She is Natasha's long term girlfriend and informant inside the red room, which is unknown to the red room, the other avengers and SHIELD (maybe asides from Clint or Fury) until she breaks in the Avengers tower, with the avengers perceiving her as a threat until natasha tackles her, confusing them.

“I don’t want you to go back,” Natasha’s voice is quiet, not wanting to break the bubble you’ve formed in the few minutes you’re able to spend together.

“I know love. Just a few more weeks and we should be able to take them down for good, then I’ll be able to leave. I’ll be with you,” you promise and she nods, tightening her grip on your waist as you pull her impossibly closer to you.

“Just five more minutes.” You smile at Natasha’s words.

“Five more minutes,” you agree.

You’d met Natasha at a young age. You were brought into the Red Room a few years after her, she even trained you for a while before she broke out. Not long after she left she showed back up on one of your missions. She told you about the people she worked for now and how they needed your help. You immediately agreed. You’d do almost anything to end the program that ruined your life, you wanted out. Unfortunately for you, the plan involved leaving you there to be a mole for an unspecified amount of time. Neither you nor Natasha liked it, wanting you to be safe, wanting to be together, but you made it work. She’d come find you when they sent you on missions, and you’d steal a few moments together wherever you could. She helped you cope with the people you had to kill in order to maintain your cover, collateral damage, Fury had called them. It made you sick, but it was the only way to survive. If the instructors of the red room even vaguely suspected you disobeying their orders they’d kill you as soon as look at you.

Natasha didn’t know exactly what was happening inside the red room anymore, all she knew was that they had upped security since she left and things had gotten a lot worse. Fury wouldn’t let her in on the briefings he had with you, he said it was a conflict of interest and you refused to talk about what you were going through. When Natasha left the instructors had been furious. She was their greatest accomplishment and they knew it was only a matter of time before she returned with an army to take them down. So training was doubled and punishments were tripled. Everyone’s life became a living hell. Well, more of one. They were determined to be ready and you, having been the only one trained by her, got the brunt of the attention. They decided you’d be the new project and while Natasha didn’t know exactly what was wrong, she knows it’s bad, and it breaks her heart.

xxxxx

“Y/l/n, stand,” you’re startled out of your slumber and you’re on your feet in seconds, standing at attention. You know not to speak as you wait for instructions, if they decided to wake you up before everyone else then they weren’t happy, and you’re not about to piss them off.

“You will be training the new recruits today. They are sloppy and undisciplined, we expect you to fix that,” you’re told and you clench your jaw, not letting the words you want to say slip out. Not snapping that the new recruits are all below seven years of age, of course they’re all undisciplined. Of course they’re sloppy, they were brought here against their will to become killing machines. You know the nightmare they’re living through. You’ve been there before, and it’s because of that experience that you know anything you say won’t be taken against you. The children will receive the punishment. So you hold your tongue.

“Yes ma’am,” your voice is firm, hiding the pain and anger with an ease that only comes from years of experience.

“Training starts at 0500. Get ready,” they say before leaving your room. You look down at your watch, you have half an hour.

xxxxx

“Again.” your voice is firm, your face emotionless. You’re watching the young girls spar and pretending it doesn’t break your heart. You don’t remember much about your life before you came here, the instructors made sure of that, but you know these girls do. They remember the parents they were ripped away from, the normal lives they had, and even if they were bad, they were nothing compared to this. The sound of sniffling catches your attention. You look to your left, seeing a small girl trying to hide her tears. You kneel down in front of her and she stiffens, “hey, you can’t cry.”

“I’m sorry ma’am. I didn’t mean too,” her voice is shaking and there are more tears welling up in her eyes. She looks to the floor in an attempt to hide them and you find yourself fighting tears as well.

“I’m not mad,” you promise and she looks up, a sliver of hope in her eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Jackie,” she whispers and you nod.

“It’s going to be okay, Jackie.” You feel eyes on you and you look around, seeing everyone staring at the interaction and you wave them over. “Everyone come here, and be quiet.”

The girls half dozen all gather around you, sitting in a circle and looking every bit the young children they are. You glance behind you, ensuring the doors are closed before you turn back. “You all need to listen very carefully. I know you don’t want to be here, I don’t either. But I’m here to help you get through. I want to help you, but you can’t tell anyone, alright? I know you’re scared but you have to hide it, or you’re gonna get in a lot of trouble. It’s scary but you can get through this. I know you can.”

“I want to go home,” Jackie says and you sigh.

“I know. I do too, but it’s gonna be okay. You hide your emotions from them, but you’re allowed to feel them. Whenever you feel scared or alone, you lean on each other, or you come find me. You’ll get through this together.”

“How did you do it?” another girl asks and you smile softly.

“I had someone to help me through,” you say simply, memories of you and Nat working together to get through everything. As you look at the girls here you promise them silently, you’re gonna shut this down. You’ll get them all home, even if it’s the last thing you do. You hear footsteps coming and your heart stops.

“Everybody up!” Your voice is firm again and they all snap back into attention, knowing it’s time to work. “Again.”

“Y/l/n,” a voice comes from the doorway and you make your way over, “you’re done here for the day. You have a mission.”

“Yes ma’am.” you know not to spare the girls another glance, but you can tell they’re watching you go. You hope you’ll be back soon.

“There is an individual out there who poses a threat to everything we do here, more than anyone in the past. This mission requires a firm hand, that’s why you have been chosen. You will find your target and you will take her out, before she destroys everything,” the instructor says as you walk. When you enter the briefing room you see the photos of your target, and you feel sick.

xxxxx

“Intruder alert! An unidentified individual is in the elevator, approaching the common room.” Friday’s voice announces throughout the tower and everyone snaps into action, the movie they had been watching instantly forgotten as they prepare for a fight. Tony’s suit assembles around him and Clint grabs one of the many bows he has stashed around the tower. Steve’s shield appears out of nowhere and Natasha grabs a knife out of her boot and they all wait for the elevator doors to open with bated breath.

When the doors open there are three very different reactions from the people in the room. Natasha drops her knife and practically jumps into the intruder's arms, Clint lowers his bow and rolls his eyes fondly, while everyone else tenses up even more.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Russia. Did they send you on a mission here?” Natasha rapid fires questions, and the grin on your face only grows.

“I’m out. All the instructors from the red room are with Fury, on the way to the raft. All the girls are going to headquarters for interrogation,” you say proudly and Natasha steps out of your arms, taking both your hands in hers and trying to hide the tears in her eyes.

“It worked?” Her voice is barely above a whisper, and you nod.

“It worked.” With that she’s crashing her lips into yours, only pulling away when someone loudly clears their throat.

“Not to break up whatever this is but…what is this?” Tony asks and you try to stifle a laugh at the fear on the faces of Earth’s mightiest heroes.

“Agent y/l/n, nice to meet you,” you say simply and they all continue to stare.

“Uh, yeah. We’re gonna need a bit more than that because we all know who you are. We want to know what you’re doing here and why you’re so...friendly with Romanoff,” Steve says and you don’t hold back the laughter now.

“I’m y/n, I work with shield. I’ve been undercover in Russia the last few years taking down the training facility Natasha and I got our start in. I earned the reputation you all clearly have heard of, but I’m working on changing that, same as Nat. I would’ve left sooner but Fury ordered me to stay there,” you explain and he furrows his brow.

“The most prolific assassin of our time appears in our living room and says she’s on our side. You understand that we can’t believe that, right?” Bruce says and you shrug, attempting to remain calm about the situation.

“I mean, it’s obvious I’m not a stranger. You really think I’d still be standing here if Nat thought I was a threat? Seriously, have any of you met her? She’s the second best assassin in Russia,” you tease her and she rolls her eyes. “Anyway, you can call Fury if you want. He’ll back me up.”

“Why don’t you call him?” Steve is still skeptical and you let out a slow breath. This interrogation is getting really annoying.

“I’ve lived within an underground school training as an assassin for the last sixteen years of my life, three of which I spent undercover trying to take them down from the inside. Do you really think I’m dumb enough to have something as tracable as a cell phone?” your voice is calm but you’re anything but. Natasha takes your hand, trying to pull you out of the glaring match you’re engaged in.

“Alright. Sounds good, see you then,” you all catch the end of Clint’s phone call as he steps back into the room. None of you had even seen him leave. “Fury’s on his way. He had to stop at the raft but he should be here in the next few hours. It’s nice to see you again y/l/n. You okay?”

“You too Barton, and yeah. Just a few scrapes and bruises, nothing some time won’t fix. How is…everything” you trail off, unsure if the people around you know about his family.

“Laura’s good, the kids too. Don’t worry about them. They all found out a few weeks ago,” he explains and you nod.

“Now that I’m out I’d love to meet them sometime, put some faces to all the stories,” you suggest and Clint smiles, nodding in agreement.

“Okay, enough questions. I’m sure you’re exhausted, I’ll take you up to my room. You can rest there until Fury arrives,” Natasha pulls you away from the group and down a few hallways, effectively ending the conversation. She enters what you assume is her room and you smile softly as you take it in. It’s pretty simple, almost no decorations and it’s perfectly organized. You know where that habit came from, and you think about how tidiness has been beaten into your brain as you remove your shoes and carefully set them next to a pair of hers by the end of the bed. When you turn to her you see several emotions crossing her face.

“I know you must have questions,” you say quietly, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“I mean yeah, I have questions. You show up here out of nowhere? We weren’t supposed to take them down for weeks, what changed? I was supposed to help, I was as much part of this as you were. I should have been there,” her voice is shaking, a mix of fear and anger making its way through and you sigh.

“I know you wanted to be in on it. I wanted you to be there, you deserved that closure, but my next mission-” you cut yourself off, shaking your head. You grit your teeth as you try and push your last meeting with your instructors out of your head. “We couldn’t wait anymore.”

“I understand you wanted to leave, I was trying to convince Fury to move up the date as well. I just don’t get what made you feel the need to keep me out of it!” Natasha yells and you’re on your feet in a second.

“You were my next mission!” A heavy silence falls over the room. You’re practically shaking, tears of anger gathering in your eyes as Natasha stares in silence. “That’s why I couldn’t wait.”

“I don’t…” Natasha trails off. You can see the confusion on her face and you step forward, gently taking her hand, but avoiding her eyes. You may be angry, but not at her.

“They’ve never forgiven you for leaving. I was called into a briefing a few days ago. When I walked into the room and they had pictures of you on the board, from missions, here in New York, from the times you met me on my missions. They’ve been trailing you for months. It’s a miracle they hadn’t seen us together. They knew they’d never get you back. They’ve been trying for years and so it was decided if you wouldn’t come willingly we’d take you out. I’d take you out,” you clarify with a shaky breath. “You’re too big of a threat and they knew I was the only one who could…That’s why it had to be now. That’s why you couldn’t be there.”

“Y/n,” Natsha tries but you shake your head, releasing her hand and stepping away.

“I’m tired. Can we talk about this later?” you ask with your back to Natasha and she sighs. She knows she won’t be hearing anything about this anytime soon. Not from you at least, but she nods.

“Of course, get some rest.”

xxxxx

“Now that this is all cleared up, you’re free to go. I think you have earned a vacation,” Fury finishes and you laugh.

“What, you mean all of your agents don’t spend sixteen years on assignment?” you tease and he smirks a bit, it’s the closest you’ve ever seen to a smile. “Thank you sir. I’d like to follow up with the girls if that’s all right, especially the younger ones. I promised I’d get them home.”

“You’re welcome to. Several of them have been asking about you. Other than that you’re free to go. You’ll be contacted with any further questions,” he says before walking out the door followed by the team, leaving you and Natasha alone in the conference room.

You relax into your chair and let out a sigh of relief, “we did it.”

“You did it,” Natasha corrects. “I knew you would. Now, I think it’s time to properly introduce you to the team. Ya know, now that they know you’re not here to kill them.”

Natasha offers a hand and you let her pull you up following her into the kitchen where the team is now gathered.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Steve is the first to speak up.

“I understand. I would have reacted the same way, you were trying to protect yourselves. I was trying to do the same,” you explain and everyone feels the tension begin to release. As you settle into conversation you hear a voice coming from the hallway.

“Miss Romanoff!” the unknown voice yells and you instinctively step between Natasha and the threat. A teenage boy comes running into the room, a backpack on his shoulders and a sheet of paper in his hand. A girl around the same age follows him in, much calmer and you stare, they don’t seem like a threat, but you aren’t taking any risks.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Natasha whispers to you, taking your hand before speaking loud enough for everyone to hear. “This is Peter and Wanda, they’re on the team.”

You spin to face her, a look of anger across your face, but she recognizes the pain in your eyes. “They’re kids.”

“Oh god. Another person to make fun of my age? I swear I can keep up, I’m not that young!” At Peter’s complaints you turn back around, looking the two up and down for a moment.

“You’re here willingly?” You ask and Peter’s head tilts to the side, resembling that of a confused puppy.

“Well, yeah. I was gonna show Miss Romanoff my chemistry test, she helped me study for it. I got an A,” he says and the girl behind him, Wanda you remember, steps forward.

“She means on the team,” Wanda looks at you intently, like she knows more than she should and it’s unsettling.

“Wanda, get out of her head,” Steve’s words startle you but he just keeps going. “This is y/n, she trained with Nat.”

“Their training facility had child soldiers, similar to hydra. That is why she was afraid we were here against our will,” Wanda says and you notice her accent, “I was raised in Sokovia. I was brought into Hydra at ten. I came here after.”

“So you just-”

“Know everything you’re thinking? Yes,” she cuts you off and you sigh.

“That’s gonna get annoying. On that note, I have to get to headquarters,” you say and Natasha speaks up.

“Do you have to go now?” she asks and you nod.

“The younger girls...I promised I’d get them home. I promised to be there when they were scared, and I know this is the scariest thing yet,” you tell her and Tony speaks up.

“Surely they’ll be okay for a bit longer. They have to understand that you’ve done enough for them. They may only be teenagers but-”

“They’re seven,” you cut him off, “some even younger. I won’t leave them alone.” The room falls silent as they all stare.

“When you say you’ve been there for sixteen years…” Bruce trails off and you nod.

“I was brought in when I was seven, same as most of the girls there.”

“What kind of sick organization is this?” Tony sounds angry and you smile sadly.

“Why do you think we fought so hard to take it down? Now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to go. Nat, we could use some help if you’re willing?” you ask and she smiles.

“Like I’m letting you go without me.” You smile at her words, taking her hand gently. “Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”

tag list: @rvgrsbrns @rororo06 @prizmix-and-friends @worlds-in-words @5aftermidnight @im-salt-but-not-salty @riotmaximoff @xxxtwilightaxelxxx

[hibiscuswolverine]

some more komahina parent au cuz I’m thinking about it + Lil baby makoto doin lil baby things cuz that's what he do! Kinda long under cut!^^’

+ They the adopted the young lad when he was just a newborn (Fresh outta the batterbox- yes and that is what she said!)

+They’re kinda concerned when they first met him because he was quite a tiny little thing and the nurse was like “Oh no he’s healthy! He’s just very small for a newborn that’s all!”

+ Idk if I said this already but they didn’t want to introduce Makoto to the former class until he was bigger, because they want to at least get him settled and not overwhelm him with so many new faces (and with the class in general being loud)

+ Newborn makoto acted like a typical newborn; crying through the night, hungry, you know newborn things. As for his parents, they mostly took ‘shifts’ (aka one finding the other passed out on the couch while the milk boils over and makoto is still crying in the bg)....yeah they’re totally fine :)

+When they were still prepping for makoto they actually went to quite abit of parenting classes and was practically dragged into a baby shopping spree with the girls. They wanted to go with more neutral colors as they didn’t know his gender at the time but instead uh... let's say lil’ koto has an interesting wardrobe  thanks to his aunts (and uncles too!) + He’s also in one of these (Nagito’s fault) cuz..LISTEN ITS TOO CUTE OF OPPORTUNITY TO PASS UP OK-

+ They often feared they were doing bad job with Makoto, but then they watch how other other people treat their kids or how the kids would treat them and they look at makoto who be vibing and they’re like ‘I guess we’re doing alright..’ =beyond this point is when he in his months and like 1st year= +I think its pretty obvious to say that makoto is more or less a happy lil baby! He liked to laugh and giggle a lot, and clap (no particular reason he just did.) and wiggle around (ibuki: It looks like little mako is dancing! Go on mako! show ‘em your moves!!). Still pretty small tho because he cursed like that. + Because he is so small he HATES being cold, like lil man will throw a fit if you even think about not bundling him up. Even if it’s just a lil chilly out so they always make sure to bring a spare blanket with them whenever they go out. + His favorite heat warmer is his papa (Hajime) he’s just lot warmer and softer than his dada (Nagito) both body and heat wise. (Nagito is still Nagito just without his illness, so he’s just really pale and lanky.) But that just means he has a lot of photo ops to take of the sleeping pair.   +People often ask the pair if makoto is their biological son because of just how similar he looks to the two of them, sometimes to mess with people they say yes. +Makoto likes to babble.. quite a lot, he likes to babble a lot to parents. Nagito plays along and also talk to him to. Hajime often watches the two interact and is like ‘what on earth are they planning???’ (M: bab bab ba ba *shierks* N: *Babbles back* M: *babbles and claps his hands* N: Ah yes, I know perhaps we can go do that later, we should be able to find that there.) +Whenever Makoto starts to babble to Hajime, the two talk like they’re having a conversation of sort back and forth. Though hajime talks normal words to him. (M: Ba! ba! ababab aaaa! H: Wha-? You want cereal? No Mako! I’m not giving you cereal yet your not old enough. M: *cries*)  +LoOK I know I said Izuru would only talk normally to him, but it's too funny not to think about Izuru babbling to Makoto. (Makoto and Izuru: *having a conversation* Hajime: *comes in* what are you two doing? Izuru: *sighs* you’re interrupting a important conversation here.) +In this AU nagito is an amputee (no left hand, he lost it due to the plane crash when he was young) Whenever nagito has his prosthetic off, Makoto often thinks that his stump is a great pacifier/teething toy.  +Now I have no clue what job Hajime or Nagito would have but, Hajime does have one (one that he could tell you about). Nagito.. well let me explain; If you ever watched Martin, then there was this running gag in the show where Tommy always said he got a job but he never said what the job and everyone would ask what he did and he’d just reply ‘ it’s my job’....yeah so that's nagito.  + So anyway,  Nagito also brings Makoto with him to commit arson, he carries him around in baby carrier don’t worry! he got lil headphones, glass and stuff for protection!  + Their family portrait is the three of them in all black with shades looking like they came outta an action movie (they’re posing dramatically too) while they’re like an explosion/ big ass fire behind them. Mahiru was very concerned for Makoto’s safety that day.   +They’re nicknames for him range from ‘Koto, Mako, lil nugget, hope nugget’ and then everyone else has different ones for him (tiny person of light, makutie, lil’ man, Koko, mini nagito, big or mini mac, and little shit.)   + Nagito holds him like he is the most delicate little thing, Hajime holds him like a normal person should, Izuru knows how to hold him properly but he doesn’t, he will pick his nephew by his leg and hold him upside down and just carry him around like that (Makoto will just giggle while his parents kinda freak out). + For his first birthday it mostly just consisted of his parents and his aunt + uncles (and their kids if they had any). He managed to “blow out” the candle by thwacking the flame with his hand, didn’t affect him to bad bc they got a cute cake smash photo with a cake covered Mako (A bad alternative would be him not touching the cake at all because he thwacked fire and it made him cry/scared the shit out of him) + Nagito came to find that with makoto his luck is a lil weird; like when he goes to play the lottery he finds that he isn’t winning  like he used too. But when it comes the big numbers something bad happens that day and he goes to play and he wins. Weird huh? (I'm sorry i don’t nagito’s luck cycle that well-) + The moment makoto learns how to use his legs properly and can run, it is ON. Also he is one of those kids that if he’s too quiet for to long he’s up to something.  + Makoto wants your food, and is not taking no for an answer. He’ll look at either of his parents and if they don’t give him the food fast enough or at all, he’ll just forcibly grab the spoon or fork and eat it (if its a finger food he’ll just aggressive grab the food from the bowl) don’t let it be one of his fav foods, he will fight you. Their drink aren’t save either if there's a straw he’s taking that too. 

[walkingdaryls]

the chosen one

pairing: loki x reader

request: hi i was wondering if you could write a fluffy loki imagine where maybe he’s like an ass to everyone but just kinda claims the reader as like his favorite person or something and honestly you don’t even have to stick to that i’d just love a fluffy loki if you could thank you!

warnings: some swearing, very fluffy

(gotta love fluffy loki. the best loki. also, this is a bit long so i’m sorry about that hehe)

The main thing you loved about the Avengers, your lovely teammates, was the fact that each one had something that set them a part from the rest. Bruce’s buzzing brain, Tony’s ego, Nat’s confidence, and so on. You adored every single one of them.

And what they adored about you was that you were always the “empathetic” Avenger. The one who believed in second changes. In never judging a book by its cover. And the one who believed people could genuinely change for the better. Now, everyone else was also fully aware of the fact that you could easily kick anyone’s ass with your powers or wit. Or both at the same time. But your welcoming, trusting personality definitely shined. Most of your teammates loved you for it, even if they teased you endlessly for being the nice one.

But what really threw your team off was the way you allowed Loki onto the team so easily with no doubts. Years after the incident in New York with the God of Mischief, Thor began asking for Loki’s acceptance into the Avengers. He claimed that even under his sarcasm and rolling eyes, he had changed for the better. The whole team was very hesitant, but after tons of psychological evaluations and close screenings, Loki was slowly turned into an Avenger. He’d aided on plenty of missions, proving himself to be good a bit more every time. But the team still wanted to suffocate him to death every once in a while.

Loki didn’t exactly like any of the Avengers, and he felt like none of them liked him either. But a job was a job.

The only exception was you. You’d been the only one throughout his time as an Avenger that never provoked him, or looked at him in a dirty way. Well, it wasn’t like you two even had conversations. You two simply minded your own business around each other. You never trashed him, so he left you alone. Simple as that. You were never one for hating on someone who was trying to change.

It wasn’t until one night after dinner, when Tony provoked an argument with Loki, that you finally had had enough.

“Someone tell me why we let him be an Avenger again. Please?” Tony said after Loki had dramatically left the room.

Clint sighed, “I’ve been saying, he’s too risky after what he did in New York.”

The others chimed in, and even Thor expressed reluctance about his brother. You couldn’t believe your ears. So you suddenly slammed your hands on the table, causing your friends’ head to snap towards you.

“Are you guys fucking kidding me? I wasn’t aware that we were gonna start contemplating kicking people off the team every time we talk back or start a stupid argument.”

Tony crossed his arms, “That’s not what we’re doing. And it is so much more than just the arguments. Loki-“

“No!” You exclaimed, “It isn’t fair to him! It’s not fair at all. How many of us have shitty pasts we’ve moved on from? How many of us have made stupid mistakes that we will probably regret for the rest of our lives? Most likely all of us. But do we give each other horrible looks every time we see each other? No! We forgive each other and ourselves. That’s the thing about us, Tony: we stick together no matter what.”

No one said anything, so you continued, “And I’m fully aware that Loki’s mistakes are probably far worse than anything we’ve ever done, but the message still stands. I mean, how many missions has he helped us on? The amount of close security and psych evaluations he’s been through just to be part of the team? It’s been years, for fucks sake. Yes, he can be a dick to some of you sometimes, but that’s just him. It’s no reason to continue to hate his guts. Do you guys remember the mission France like 5 months ago that almost went wrong? Loki saved my life. I was this close to being killed. If he hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here today with you guys. So I think we owe him some thanks. Especially me.”

You were heated by that point. Everyone continued to stay completely silent, so you stood up.

“I-I’m gonna head to bed now. Just wanted to let y’all know you’re being a bit hypocritical,” And you walked away, catching just a ghost of a smile on Nat’s face.

“Jesus, I think she’s heard one too many of Steve’s speeches,” Rhodey muttered, earning a shove from Steve himself.

But what you didn’t know while you walked away, was that Loki had been standing in the other room, hearing every word you’d just said.

—

Over a week passed since your monologue at the dinner table. No one really mentioned anything about it afterwards, which you were really grateful. All you got was a random pat on the back from Steve and him saying, “We’re all proud of you, kiddo.”

You made your way into the kitchen, which was currently being used by most of your team. 9am in the tower’s kitchen on days off were always pretty hectic. Wearing your usual workout outfit, you made your way towards the mug cabinet.

You were the only one on the team that avoided coffee at all costs. Tea was your go-to. The only other person like you in that aspect was Loki. He was the kind of person you’d caught making tea at 2 in the morning when he couldn’t sleep.

As you reached for the mugs, you realized your favorite one - a minnie mouse one you’d bought at Disney World years ago - was nowhere to be seen. You were pretty sure you’d just put it away last night after helping Tony with the dishes.

“Here.”

You turned around to see Loki, still in his forest green silk robe, holding out your well-loved mug in his hand. You could smell your usual green tea steaming out of the mug.

You stood in shock more a moment before snapping out of your thoughts and taking the mug from him carefully.

“Oh, thank you,” You smiled genuinely. You could feel Nat’s gaze on you a few feet away at the waffle-maker. In fact, a few of the team members’ eyes flickered towards your interaction. Loki’s face remained neutral as he went back to making his own cup of tea.

Thor, noticing this, yawned, “Brother, could you please pour me a cup of-“

“No,” Loki walked out of the room with his tea in one hand, and book in the other. Thor’s mouth slightly fell, glancing back from the cup of tea in your hands to Loki. Steve snorted from the stool next to Thor.

What the fuck just happened? You made your way towards the gym a few floors down with confusion on your face. But mostly warmth in your heart.

The next day, Loki had your green tea waiting for you in your favorite mug once again. And you didn’t hesitate to give him your signature smile and a sweet “thank you”, even if you were a bit taken aback.

And he continued to do this for the next few days. Every morning, without fail. Green tea. Minnie Mouse mug.

At this point, Nat definitely became more aware. She pulled you aside after a while with slightly mischief in her eyes.

“Are you two friends?” She asked genuinely.

“Nat, it’s just tea.”

“Yeah, except Loki’s never even bothered to do something like that with the rest of us. Never.”

You shrugged, “He isn’t Satan. He’s capable of nice things.”

Nat chucked, “Not like this. And it’s just with you. He practically begged you have you as a partner during our last mission.”

It was true, although you wouldn’t exactly say ‘beg’. But he had been pretty adamant on having you as his partner for the mission. He’d asked you kindly first before letting Tony know. In the moment, you hadn’t thought much of it. But looking back at it, you now realized how genuine his actions had been. And you two made a hell of a team that day.

“Maybe he heard your speech that other night,” She smirked, walking away before winking at you. You stood there dumbfounded with a slight redness growing in your cheeks.

That afternoon, with your work done for the day, you made your way towards the main living room with your current book in your hands.

Upon entering the room, you should see Loki’s figure on the couch. He was slightly bent over which only meant he was probably reading as well. You hesitated, but made your way over anyways.

“Is it okay if I read here, too?” You asked quietly. Loki glanced up at you, nodding softly.

“Of course.” Was all he said. You gave him a ghost of a smile before plopping down the the other couch a few feet away. His eyes promptly followed you as you turned to the page marked by your bookmark. You began reading calming, posing no threat to him, so he continued his reading too. Loki felt quite at peace with the sun setting, your soft breathing, and his favorite book in his lap. And the best part: the rest of the Avengers were nowhere to be seen.

“What are you reading?” Your voice sounded softly. Loki placed a finger to mark where he last read before glancing up at you. You feared he’d be pissed off for the interruption, so you continued.

“I mean, I’ve seen you carry that book around for a while now. And it’s all worn out...which usually means it’s a good book,” You chuckled.

Loki watched you carefully before smirking, “Indeed. It’s called Pride and Prejudice. I’ve been told it’s a classic amongst mortals. Have you read it?”

Your face suddenly lit up. Your book was suddenly set aside as you leaned forward excitedly. Loki, although he would never admit it out loud, loved the sparkle forming in your glorious eyes.

“Yes!” You said, “Oh, it’s one of my all time favorites. The movie, too.”

Loki quirked an eyebrow, “There’s a movie? Well, I’ll have to watch that once I’m done with reading it.”

“So you like the book?”

“...Yes. I’m about three-quarters done with it. I have to say, it is rather enjoyable.”

You leaned back against the couch, gazing dreamily at the ceiling, “I’m a sucker for those kinds of romance stories. And I like to think I’m quite like Elizabeth Bennet.”

Loki squinted, “I think so, too.” You lifted your head slightly, making eye contact with the raven-haired God. The soft gaze on his face seemed to mean well, so you allowed for your cheeks to grow a light shade of red.

“Well,” You smiled, looking down at your book, “Let’s get back to reading, yeah?”

Loki nodded, but made sure to keep his eyes on your for a few seconds longer before opening to his page once more.

—

Another couple week passed, and Tony decided to call a ‘very urgent team meeting that has nothing to do with actual team stuff’.

You entered the kitchen where the rest of your teammates were sitting or standing around, chattering amongst themselves. Tony was waiting until everyone arrived before sharing what he needed to say. You slid on a stool next to Nat.

Bucky and Bruce showed up a minute or so later, which meant practically everyone was there. You looked around for the only missing person: Loki. But before you could say anything, the familiar God walked in with Tony followed a few feet behind.

“Alright,” Tony clapper his hands, “Glad we’re all here.” He walked into the kitchen where he served himself some liquor before turning to the rest of you. You felt Loki come up behind you, before situating himself right next to you.

You looked up at him, smiling softly, “Hi.”

“Hello,” He spoke extremely lowly, yet his eyes brightened just a bit more. You felt even more tiny compared to him now that you were sitting and him standing.

“So...what’s this meeting for?” Bruce asked.

“Great question,” Tony said, “I have decided that after tireless back-to-back missions these past few days...we all deserve a treat. That’s why I booked a reservation to the fanciest restaurant within a twenty minute drive. It’s at 8, so I want all of us ready to leave by 7:40.”

“God, Tony you know I hate when you plan stuff like this last minute,” Bruce stressed.

Tony shrugged, “It’s not like any of you losers had plans. Now, go get ready. You’ve all got less than two hours.”

You sighed, “The fanciest place in the city? I hope you’re paying.” A few chuckles sounded from your teammates.

“I wasn’t joking,” You looked at Tony.

The genius rolled his eyes, “Obviously I’m paying. Now, go! All of you. Shoo. Jesus, you try to do a nice thing and people still ask questions-“

Everyone groaned, getting up from their spots and leaving to their rooms to get prepared for the big night. You sent Loki a sympathic glance before going to your floor. You knew he hated going out.

So that’s how you ended up wearing your nicest white, tight-fitting dress that ended a few inches above your knee. It had a long, thick golden embellishment traveling from the bottom to your top left shoulder. It was very classy. And paired with golden heels, you truly felt otherworldly.

You, Nat, and Wanda were all up in each other’s bedrooms, trying to decide each other’s hair and makeup. Wanda was especially skilled with eyeshadow looks for some reason. And Nat more with hair. Your two blessings, you called them.

You three joined the rest of the guys in front of tower, all piling in the long, iconic Stark limo. You definitely hadn’t missed the look Loki gave you as you walked past him to get into the vehicle. He didn’t say anything, so neither did you. You just sent him your signature smile.

Champagne was passed around once in the limo with flashing lights. You were squished between Thor and Loki, which wasn’t exactly a complaint. Thor was cracking jokes to you and calling you “my lady” the entire ride. It was a blast, and you hadn’t even arrived yet. Loki on the other hand, stayed quiet as a mouse. He only said “thank you” when you passed him a glass, and that was it.

Upon arriving, your breath was almost taken away at how fancy the restaurant truly was. Tony never disappointed. Your team’s reserved table had each seat labeled with each of your names on paper.

Nobody noticed, but Loki created an illusion to switch you and Bucky’s seats so you’d be sitting next to him.

Loki allowed you to slide into your chair first before sitting down next to you. He immediately reached for the menu. Seeing that there weren’t enough left for you, you silently read over his shoulder. Without saying anything, he slightly lowered the menu to give you a better look.

Hours passed, and the entire table had fallen a bit tipsy. You were stuffed with more than enough raviolis and champagne. You even accidentally hiccuped while trying to tell a story to the rest, but everyone teased you so much for it, you couldn’t even finish what you were going to say. But how could you be mad? You were having the funniest, and most lovely night of your life with your second family. The rest of the restaurant probably hated all of your guts for your loudness and endless laughter, but none of you cared.

“I’ll be back,” Loki had whispered from beside you. You turned your head, watching him walk away towards the restaurant’s balcony doors. You looked back at your team, seeing they were all occupied with themselves, and followed Loki.

Feeling the fresh breeze outside somehow made you and your bloating feel a bit better. You spotted the familiar dark-haired man gazing out at the buzzing city at the edge of the balcony.

You sucked in a breath before speaking, “May I join you?”

He looked back, “Of course.”

It was always of course, you thought.

Your heels clattered lightly on the tile floor as you made your way next to him. You didn’t know if it was the champagne in your system, but you found yourself standing extremely close, touching shoulders with Loki. But he didn’t make any efforts to move away.

“You seemed awfully quiet during dinner. Is everything okay?” You asked.

Loki looked at his hands, “Just not the ‘going out’ type, remember?” You nodded, looking back at the skyline.

“You know, Loki,” you said, “I never properly thanked you for saving my life back in France months ago.”

You’d had a couple slip ups in missions before, but the entire team remembered that traumatic mission in France extremely well. You truly had been on the verge of dying. So close. But Loki had gotten in there and saved your ass. And Loki remembered, too. But it hurt him too much to think back on it. He’d been so close to never seeing your bright smile, or your infectious giggles again.

“Y/N, I-“

The alcohol in your system didn’t stop you from rambling, “I know I’m late, like, months late, but I just wanted you to know. I am so thankful. I literally owe you my life-“

“You don’t owe me anything, Y/N, heavens,” Loki watched you with a concerned gaze.

You blushed, “Well, I needed to get it off my chest. So, thank you Loki.”

“Well, I couldn’t afford losing the only person on this team I can somewhat stand.”

Your eyes flickered to his, seeing him wear an amused smirk on his face.

“I’m-I’m your favorite Avenger?” You teased. The God rolled his eyes.

Your smile was making your cheeks burn, “FYI...you’re my favorite, too. Well, maybe next to Nat.”

Loki let out a small, breathy laugh. You joined in, making him stare at you once more. His stare was so intense, you didn’t know what to do except awkwardly stare back.

Loki wanted more. He yearned to hear your voice again. So that’s why he said the next thing without thinking.

“You look beautiful tonight. Well, every day, of course. I forgot to tell you when you walked of your room a couple of hours ago, so I’m letting you know now.”

You were so thankful it was dark out, for you just knew that the look on your face was embarassing. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing.

“I think you’re beautiful, too,” You blurted. Loki gave you the softest gaze you’ve ever seen, so you couldn’t help but carefully place your hand on of top his.

Loki tenderly lifted your hand before pressing his lips to the tip of your fingers. All you could do was watch, breathless. He set your hand down before grabbing both sides of your face, and pressing another soft kiss, but to your forehead this time.

“That’s why we’re each other’s favorites,” He smiles cheekily at you.

You giggled, resting your head on his shoulder.

“Indeed.”

—

[valley-of-the-lost]

The Emotional Abuse of Eden Starling

    I have a massive soft spot for Barbie movies. They defined most of my early childhood, from the music to the dress transformations. It was an intense nostalgia trip to revisit them when I was older and through a more comprehensive lens compared to when I saw them last. While I was doing this, one in particular stuck out to me. Barbie in a Christmas Carol. It was the version of the classic tale A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens that I had grown up with, and while my memories of it were fond, it didn’t trigger intense nostalgic reactions in me like ones like 12 Dancing Princesses did. So, naturally, I rewatched it to refresh my memory. And it immediately shot up to my favorite Barbie movie, at least, of the ones I have seen, because it handles surprisingly more mature and complex themes than you’d expect for a piece of early 2000’s kid’s media. I’d like to dissect one of these themes today: childhood abuse, specifically how Eden Starling, the protagonist of the movie, was abused by her caretaker, Aunt Marie.

Aunt Marie was emotionally abusing Eden throughout her childhood by overworking, socially isolating, guilting, shifting the blame, and asserting control over Eden through verbal manipulation. All of the above can be seen in the interaction between Eden and Marie in the Ghost of Christmas Past flashback section of the movie. While the conversation is brief and I am well aware that technically due to how short it is, it could possibly not be representative of Eden’s entire childhood, the movie treats it as the standard for their dynamic when Eden was a child, so that is how I will be treating it as well when analyzing the quality of Eden’s upbringing. So, without further ado, let’s parse out what tactics Marie employs on Eden throughout the conversation.

The scene opens with the Ghost of Christmas Past and Eden from the present (whom I will call “Present Eden” throughout the rest of this post aside from this scene summary) arriving in a room via a golden portal. Eden as a child (whom I will call “Past Eden” to differentiate her from Present Eden, again, aside from this summary) is sitting at a long table, resting her head on her arm and staring out the window at the snow falling outside. She has food in front of her, implying she was eating or expected to eat at some point, but she doesn’t touch it until her Aunt Marie says her name and walks into the room. Past Eden then straightens in her seat, looking more alert, and quickly eats all her food as her Aunt Marie enters the room while staring into a handmirror. After she is done, Eden asks if she can go to the Beadnell’s house for Christmas, where she had been invited by her friend Catherine Beadnell. Aunt Marie refuses, and says that after dinner they rehearse. Eden tries to press the issue, but is shut down and told to rehearse until dinner is ready.

Already the movie itself is calling attention to a major disparity in this scene: there is no indication of celebration within Marie’s household, be it Christmas or otherwise. The room Past Eden is sitting in is literally bare floorboards and blue wallpaper, with the only lighting being the dim sunlight streaming through the window. The decor itself is the epitome of the bare minimum; it’s wooden and matches the floorboards, giving the room a homogeneous appearance. Taken altogether, the dim lighting, cool color scheme, and general emptiness of the space gives the room a cold, lifeless feeling.

To further reenforce this, when the Ghost of Christmas Past thinks she accidentally didn’t send them to Christmas due to the room’s clearly lacking Christmas cheer, Present Eden corrects her by saying “No… this is right…” establishing that this is indeed how she spent her Christmases as a child. If that was not enough indication that something is definitely wrong, the Ghost of Christmas Past is still in disbelief, pointing out the absence of typical Christmas fixtures like a tree or stockings, but then she comes to a realization and says to Present Eden “Oh… you poor thing”. This expression of sympathy shows that there’s not just something off about this scene, something’s terrible about it that would warrant this sympathy in the first place. The conclusion from just this section of the scene would be that Eden was not very happy as a child, and never had what would be thought of as a “proper” Christmas growing up for one reason or another. So what was the reason for this? Why, Aunt Marie of course. Not just because she’s Past Eden’s guardian and therefore these responsibilities would fall onto her, but for other reasons that are revealed in the following conversation when Past Eden asks to go to the Beadnell’s house:

"Eden: I'm all done Aunt Marie. Can I go over to the Beadnell's house? 

Marie: Of course not. After dinner we rehearse. 

Eden: I know... But I thought we could... maybe make an exception today. Because it's Christmas! They all said they'd really love to see me there. Catherine even said it'd make her Christmas!"

This immediately ticks off two red flags: social isolation and overworking. Marie is preventing Past Eden from spending Christmas with Catherine and Catherine’s family, and by extension, denying her positive social interaction. In the context of the date being Christmas, Marie is also denying Past Eden a better Christmas with this action, as when Past Eden sneaks out to the Beadnell’s house, it can be seen that they celebrate a more typical Christmas. They have family, food, decorations, a tree, and presents, even some for Past Eden. This shows that Marie shows a lack of regard for Past Eden’s mental wellbeing, as positive social connections and interaction is critical to a child developing into a healthily functioning adult.     In addition to isolating Past Eden, there are implications that Marie is overworking Past Eden as well. It is obviously cruel to make a child work through a holiday when they obviously do not want to, but Past Eden’s wording (“...maybe make an exception today…”) insinuates that working through the day with no known breaks under any circumstances except to eat is the norm for her. Barbie and Kelly, the former of which is telling Eden’s story to the latter, also confirm this:

"Kelly: Wait... Aunt Marie is making Eden work on Christmas? 

Barbie: Well, every day. But yes, on Christmas too. 

Kelly: But that's not fair! 

Barbie: It's not. 

Kelly: And there's nothing Eden can do about it? 

Barbie: affirmative noise"

Forcing a child to rehearse day in and day out with no time off except to eat against their will is not natural; it’s controlling. It’s a bad sign for their future development and mental health, as this constant pressure to rehearse and by extension be good at this thing they are rehearsing for will likely end with them pinning their sense of self and self-worth on this one thing they’re working towards. Thus, they will have a harder time coping with failure at this one thing, or have no other emotional rapports to fall back on if something happens. Marie is not setting Past Eden up for a healthy adulthood here in any way. She has no regard for Past Eden’s mental wellbeing, and is not above employing manipulation to force Past Eden to agree to her demands, as she proceed to do when Past Eden tries to press her request:

"Marie: Make (Catherine's) Christmas? Make her Christmas? What about your Christmas? More importantly, what about your future? You want to be a star, don't you? 

Eden: I do, but- 

Marie: More than anything else in the world? 

Eden: Yes, but- 

Marie: Then what Catherine and the Beadnells want doesn't matter!..."

    Now, what happens here is that Marie guilts Past Eden for considering Catherine’s feelings and manipulates her answers to shift the blame for the circumstances onto Past Eden. This is all designed to browbeat Past Eden into submission so she will do what Marie wants. First, with the guilting, Marie shifts the conversation from spending time with Catherine to Past Eden’s future (“...What about your Christmas? More importantly, what about your future?...”). Her word choice of “what about” and “don’t you” suddenly imply that Past Eden is putting her future singing career in jeopardy by wanting to spend one day with Catherine. In essence, Marie is saying Past Eden is putting her entire future at risk just for the sake of catering to what the Beadnells want, completely ignoring that it’s what Past Eden wants as well, and thus making her feel guilty for putting something so important as her singing career on the line just for the Beadnells and their feelings.

    Marie also shifts the burden of the situation onto Past Eden over the course of the conversation, by suddenly placing it on Past Eden’s shoulders. “More importantly, what about YOUR future?” and “YOU want to be a star, don’t YOU?” both imply that Past Eden herself is responsible for the perceived obstacle (her singing aspirations) blocking her from going to Catherine’s house, and thus absolve Marie herself from any of the blame she has for creating this situation for Past Eden in the first place as her guardian.

    In order to guarantee that Past Eden will comply, Marie manipulates the conversation in her favor. First, she poses a yes or no question to Past Eden (“You want to be a star, don’t you?”) giving Past Eden reflexively predictable answers, so she can more easily get the response she wants and shut Past Eden’s objections down when Past Eden clearly has more to say by interrupting her (“I do, but-”...”Yes, but-”). She employs the same tactic again with “More than anything else in the world?”, except when she gets the affirmation she wants, she uses the absolute of “anything else in the world” to dismiss what Catherine and the Beadnells want, and by extension, what Past Eden wants. The message from this she’s sending Past Eden is that by her own desire to be a star more than anything else in the world, it’s her own fault for not being able to spend time with Catherine or the Beadnells because they fall under “anything else in the world”. In short, the problem is Past Eden’s fault. Which it isn’t, but Marie wants Past Eden to think that it is, so she bends to Marie’s will more easily. And eventually, she wants Past Eden to bend to her way of thinking too:

"Marie: Then what Catherine and the Beadnells want doesn't matter! What do I always tell you? 

Eden: In a selfish world, the selfish succeed. 

Marie: That's right. And if you want to succeed, you must use every second of your time selfishly. 

Eden: Yes, Aunt Marie. 

Marie: Good choice. I'm proud of you. Now go work your scales until dinner's ready." 

Marie defines how Past Eden should feel, and then tops it off with a dose of conditional affection. She makes Past Eden repeat a mantra she has told her in the past (hence the “always”): “In a selfish world, the selfish succeed”. Her goal is to make Past Eden internalize this value and eventually have it dictate her life, so she shuts down any other avenue for Past Eden to deviate from this. No Catherine, no Christmas, no disagreeing with her on any level.

Ironically, it should be said that Marie is telling Past Eden to be selfish and to “use every second of her time selfishly”, yet there’s no room for Past Eden herself to define “selfish” for herself. How can Past Eden truly live selfishly if she’s not allowed to define what selfish is for herself? She can’t, it’s a contradiction, and it exposes that Marie doesn’t want Past Eden to live selfishly with regard to herself. No, Marie wants Past Eden to live selfishly with regards to her, and wants Past Eden to only think she’s living selfishly for herself. A line earlier in the movie supports this and puts Marie pushing Past Eden to practice in a new light: “(In a selfish world, the selfish succeed) was my excuse for not having the talent to become a star myself!" This makes it seem like Marie was living vicariously through Past Eden due to her failed aspirations, like those dance moms who live through their daughters.

Of course, Past Eden finally relents to Marie as she’s no longer being allowed a voice in this conversation and Marie rewards her with “Good choice. I’m proud of you”. The “good choice” sounds vaguely threatening, as if implying there was a BAD choice in the first place, but the small bit of praise in “I’m proud of you” is an example of conditional affection, especially in the context of Marie giving it. Past Eden bowed to her wishes, thus she “earned” Marie’s affection. This is a bad message to send to Past Eden, as it says to her that she’s only worth the affection when she agrees with Marie. Essentially, she’s not worth loving as her own person, only as what Marie wants her to be.

After this, Past Eden sneaks out when her Aunt is asleep and sleds to Catherine's house. She briefly gets to celebrate Christmas with her friend and the rest of the Beadnells, but then a knock comes at the door. Aunt Marie had woken up and is there to yell at Past Eden and drag her back home.

When the knock comes, Present Eden’s reaction is worth noting, especially to determine how the following events affected her long after they initially occurred:

"Present Eden, to the Ghost of Christmas Past: Take me home. Now. 

Ghost of Christmas Past: Why? We're having so much fun! 

knocking gets louder and more insistent

Present Eden: NOW! 

Door opens to reveal Marie standing in the doorway

Aunt Marie: Where. Is. EDEN?!"

    Present Eden’s immediate distress with the smile vanishing off her face to be replaced with a scared expression at the sound of the knock and her increasingly insistent demands for the Ghost of Christmas Past to take her home before the door opens signifies that this particular part of the memory was traumatizing for her. It also implies that Eden, both Past and Present, is afraid of her Aunt Marie. This isn’t the first time Present or Past Eden have shown fear in Marie’s presence. Earlier, in the beginning of the flashback, when Aunt Marie addresses Past Eden, Present Eden recoils with a fearful expression on her face at the sound of Marie’s voice. Past Eden also has trouble keeping sustainable eye contact with Marie, especially when Marie is looking directly at her, which could be a sign of intimidation or anxiety.

    The traumatizing part of this event wasn’t just Marie angrily demanding to know where Past Eden was though, as is revealed when Present Eden relays the rest of what happened in her bedroom with her knees pulled up to her chest:

"Present Eden: She ruined the whole holiday. Just stood there, screaming, for what seemed like forever. At me, at Catherine, at the Beadnells, oh, it was horrible. That was my last Christmas there. Aunt Marie never left me alone for a second after that. 

Ghost of Christmas Past, placing a hand on Present Eden’s: I'm so sorry, Eden. 

Present Eden, shrugging off the Ghost of Christmas Past’s hand and getting up from the bed to fluff her hair: Don't be. Aunt Marie was right! I wasted time on those silly Christmas pageants for the Beadnells. After that, I concentrated on myself. And you know what happened? I made my Covent Garden debut at thirteen. Thirteen."

    According to Present Eden, Marie screamed at not just Past Eden, but everyone present. Not only is it already traumatizing for Past Eden to be yelled at by an adult figure she’s already shown signs of being scared of already, but it would also be mortally humiliating because she’d likely think the Beadnells are being yelled at because of her. As if Marie hadn’t already heaped enough undeserved blame onto Past Eden, intentionally or not.

    This event also marked a turn for the worse in Past Eden’s life. If Marie wasn’t controlling enough before by depriving Past Eden of social contact in favor of having her rehearse, she apparently became worse by “not leaving (Eden) alone for a second after that”. That, coupled with that being Eden’s last Christmas at the Beadnell’s, likely means that Eden was completely socially isolated for the rest of her upbringing, except perhaps in special Marie-approved and supervised interactions.

    As if this wasn’t all bad enough, Present Eden also reveals two key pieces of information through mentioning her Covent Garden debut at thirteen years old. It confirms that Past Eden in the flashback was at the very least younger than thirteen, as Present Eden speaks about the debut as if it happened after Marie forced her away from the Beadnells, and that Eden was a child star. The abuse has been happening at the very least since Eden was younger than thirteen and she was a child star, which she does not have the proper support system to manage the stress that would come with that. And even Present Eden herself doesn’t seem too happy about it either for a split second.

While the peek into Eden’s childhood is brief, dissecting it reveals that it is far more insidious than it appeared to be upon first glance. Marie’s methods of molding Eden into what she wants is terrifying as she’s willing to sacrifice Eden’s happiness and agency as a person in order to further that end. And the worst part is that she succeeds. The Eden at the beginning of the movie is the result of years of being subjected to Marie’s abuse, someone who was never allowed to grow into her own person and probably doesn’t even know how to express herself properly beyond the toxic methods that Marie taught her. But the extent of Marie’s damage to Eden’s life will have to wait until another post, since that’s another deep hole I want to dive into but for the sake of staying on topic we’re leaving that for later. Thanks for reading!

Loose ends: 

- The hell was Eden eating in the flashback? It looked like burned potatoes and toast. I remember being baffled by this even as a kid, because I was confused that I was supposed to see that as food. The implication seems to be that Eden didn't have good food and nutrition growing up, which @/barbie-movie-reviews pointed out in their review of this movie could be why she was so passionate about her crumpets. I plan to expand on that later for another post, but Marie apparently can’t be bothered to get decent food for Eden.

- Aunt Marie's handmirror and her looking at herself in it is likely a visual shorthand for her being a selfish person like how she wants Eden to be, especially since she is supposed to be the Jacob Marley of the story and the mirrors are her “chains”. Though now I get more of the impression of "narcissistic tendencies", which are apparently common in emotionally abusive parents.

- Aunt Marie tells Eden that after dinner they rehearse, implying Eden just ate dinner, and then later orders her to practice her scales until dinner is ready? It's either an inconsistency or awkward wording.