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dekusleftsock · 3 years ago

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So, I've seen a lot of people getting mad at Bones for seemingly erasing bkdk moments and replacing them with Izu//ocha. As someone who began as an anime only and migrated over to the manga, I never really saw this though? I got bkdk vibes pretty fast, even when I was just watching the anime. Besides that, a lot of people forget that Bones has added shipping material for every ship, not just specific ones. They added the Kabedon (wall pound), and they also animate plenty of added little winks to the audience. I think a lot of them slip by the western audience though because I think they're more Japanese specific. I only found out because I was hungry for bkdk content and looked up the eastern side of the fandom and cultural meanings in Japan XD. Another person explained what Bones might actually be doing. Usually studios add shipping moments for multiple groups in the interest of making money, since animation is expensive. Due to this, they might be doing more filler for ships that don't have a whole lot of canon content, while moving ships that do get canon attention along through use of the plot. Idk, I just don't understand the arguments others have made. Bkdk is incredibly popular in Japan, Japan's culture on bullying means they don't (usually) have the same issues that we do with Katsuki himself, and they've added shipping moments for KiriBaku and bkdk, which means they're open to the idea. I think it's less discrimination and more about what makes sense monetarily. Business is really difficult to run, especially in the entertainment industry. Finally, for all people have complained about the distance, I noticed that in season 5 they started moving bkdk closer to each other in general. I also feel like the adding distance thing could come down to a lot of factors. They had a lot of moments of bkdk sitting next to each other or (in one case) outright leaning on each other, only to randomly be back to distance again. It could make a nice visual metaphor for how Bakugo has gotten closer to Deku, but is still internally rebelling against it. Idk, I feel like that could a lot of ways. All depends on how you view it.

Now, okay, here’s my take on this

It’s not necessarily bones as a company rather the audience they have to conform to. And they most definitely leave in a lot of bkdk scenes, yes, but that’s quite literally because they can’t go around it, not only for plot but also that like, unless you were completely clueless most people KNEW Katsuki was going to get a redemption or atonement arc of some kind. We just weren’t expecting horikoshi to make it so… romantic. And intimate.

Bones isn’t necessarily homophobic, the amount of kiri//baku scenes in the movies and in the show is undeniable. Ntm the fact that Rody and deku had a whole romantic song montage in their movie. But there’s a REASON why kiri//baku is seen as the “most straight gay ship” and that’s simply because every other boy in the show (excluding Katsuki) has a “main woman” if you will. Kaminari has jirou, kirishima has Mina (I know I’m contradicting but I’ll explain later), Izuku has ochako, etc etc.

My point is that the reason that Katsuki is never the one getting comments like “bakugou is straight” like they say “deku is straight” is because he is the most queer mother fucker you’ve ever seen. He doesn’t HAVE a love interest (see in Katsuki meta👀) like every other boy does. Some people say it’s camie but, let’s be honest here, in every scene she’s in she doesn’t even pass the bechtel test. The friend group is fun and awesome, and she teases him a lot, but, in reality, she just doesn’t have enough scenes or screen time to be a full character and develop out of a rare pair.

And bones is aware of this, just as the fandom is. Katsuki simply doesn’t have a woman to establish him as straight AND ALSO has a lot of queer coding by fitting the “gay delinquent” trope. Kirishima also fits a lot of the Japanese ideas of the “gay delinquent”. This, was entirely purposeful.

In a way bones, like many mha fans, fell for a lot of the bait hori threw and then even exaggerated it. There’s this scene in the anime where ochako is changed to questioning why she likes Izuku and then says how she’s going to “lock away these feelings”, but in the manga she says “what the hell am I doing? He’s trying his best to be a hero, I also need to try my best.” This is paraphrasing ofc, I’d need to rewatch the scene and grab the panel but I don’t currently have access to my mha books. (Which is currently my only way of getting the official translations for older chapters lol)

In some cases, it’s a stretch I won’t lie. But, while bones isn’t exactly HOMOPHOBIC, it doesn’t change how bones tries to appeal to, ultimately, a bigger audience. Shonen needs a girl and boy ending and because mha is a shonen then it will have a girl and boy ending.

Another aspect is that homophobic fans just straight up hate Katsuki. Not only because they’re usually bullied white boys that fell down the alt right pipeline, but also because Katsuki gets in the way of any of their straight ships. He’s competition for not only ochako but also Mina. And they don’t like that, but since they can’t be outwardly homophobic they just say that he’s abusive or completely un redeemable. (Which is also weird bc these people tend to also like endeavor ?????? I don’t get it. Like, I like endeavor too but what)

There’s no getting around Katsuki being a VERY queer coded character. Not only with Izuku but also with kirishima. Bones doesn’t want to take away from izu//ocha so they put their eggs into one basket; aka kiri//baku.

Anywho, there’s a reason why so many anti bkdk shippers are anime only’s and that’s both because bkdk is “cringe” in mainstream media (thanks alt right pipeline) and also because a lot of the subtext and magic was lost. Ultimately, anime is just an adaptation. The only thing that REALLY matters IS the manga. So, in the case of bkdk being canon, there’s going to be an influx of anime only’s that say that this wasn’t implied, rushed, he was forced, etc etc etc and they will ultimately just have to cope and cry and wine about it in their own pity party.

Yada yada, I kinda rambled, but yeah. I do think bones censors and then pushes a certain narrative. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing either since, well, like I said before, anime is an adaptation of the manga. It’s not going to be accurate a LOT and that’s just a fact we kind of have to accept. I watch the anime to get the scenes I love animated now. I started out as an anime only (who started shipping them after dvk2) and I’ve re read most of the manga at this point. A lot is different and I’d honestly recommend to anyone who has the time and patience to read the entire manga. It truly is a different experience. Bkdk was more implied in the manga and izu//ocha was even more boring too. The only reason I even like izu//ocha is because of the first two seasons of mha, and then ofc fandom content. Otherwise, I’ve stopped caring for it mostly. They’re boring and have been boring for a long time. The only reason they WERENT is because of bones.

Again, anime adaptations are just that, adaptations. I don’t think it’s really a bad thing.

#midoriya izuku #bkdk #mha deku #bkdk brainrot #bakudeku #bnha deku #bakugou katsuki #mha analysis #deku midoriya #mha bakugou #leftsock rambles #maybe unpopular opinion but yeah it’s what I think

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lol-jackles · 4 years ago

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⚠️⚠️SPOILER ALERT⚠️⚠️

⚠️⚠️🕷️Spiderman nwh question, so please beware spoilers if you haven't watched!!!🕷️⚠️⚠️

I asked you few months ago if you thought they were gonna bring the 3 Spideys together for nwh and honestly I'm so f*cking happy they did!!!!

Also, as an Andrew Spidey longtime fan I'm glad he's getting the love and recognition he deserves🤧❤️

I need to know your very detailed opinion on the movie!! Did you like it?or Did you find the plot holes a little too annoying like some ppl ? Who do you think gave the best performance or which was your favourite Spiderman?

Here was your Ask. I was incredibly joyful when the 3 Spideys were on screen together and interacting, sharing their common pain and encouraging and validating each other; it helped MCU Peter’s bittersweet fate feel just a little less bitter. Before I get to that, let’s start from the beginning.

Oy, the first hour....the plot holes! The plot armors! The plot devices! So they’re telling me that the Spider man who fought Thanos is struggling with the Green Goblin? The wizard who defeated Dormammu and almost beat Thanos couldn’t solve this? Ned can create portals because...bloodline thingy?

Then Andrew Garfield arrived (cue the screaming fangirls and fanboys), and all flaws stopped.

Sure the plot devices and armors and bullshit were still here, but the story changed and it got good. And I loved it.

Andrew Garfield’s charisma, energy, and overall likeability was just what the movie needed to bring all 3 Spidermen to gel into chef’s kiss. And him being able to “redeem” himself by saving MJ the right way and showing multiple emotions was just great acting; almost as if he never stopped playing the role.

Andrew undoubtedly and effectively stole the show.

Toby McGuire, I've always contend that he's played the best Spider Man because he succeeded in the real persona of Spider Man. People often think superheroes two identities aka Bruce Wayne and Batman. But they actually have three identities. Batman is Bruce when he is a confident, Bruce is Batman when he is a scary figure, but both personas are fake, the true Bruce/Batman is the trouble man behind both masks, he is complicated and has ambiguous motivations who sometimes doubt his own actions (Ben Affleck reigns here). Spider Man is Peter Parker when he is being judged and therefore behaves fearful to express himself, and Peter Parker is Spider Man when he is protected from society’s judgment, so he is relaxed and confident and behaves more freely, but both personas are fake. Peter is haunted with guilt over his uncle’s death and consequently feels the responsibility his powers brings. Tobey’s Peter chooses to stay away from Mary Jane because of Spider Man, he loses his friend Harry because of Spider Man, he fails in college because of Spider Man and he loses his job because of Spider Man. But despite all that, in the end, Peter is still committed and why Spider Man 2 is the best Spider Man to this day.

It was a huge treat to see Toby being able to play the seasoned, experienced, “older brother-type” Spider Man. It fits him so well, and him saving Peter from killing Green Goblin was such a Spider Man thing to do. Speaking of which,

There is no denying that Green Goblin played by William Defoe shines the brightest amongst the villains, though Alfred Molina’s Otto Octavius was a bright beacon too. We see Goblin’s conflict, the reason due to which he neglects any help, and hearing his evil laughter after so many years will be a treat for nerds around the world. The fact that Spider Man tried (and succeeded) to help save and cure each villain is pure Spider Man to me. That showing of compassion to people who may seem “bad” can be exactly what brings them to the light. Bitter Sam Winchester girls used to come at me all the time complaining about Sam being forced to work with his abusers and I explain that's what heroic protagonists are supposed to do; to with work with their worst enemy for the greater good, or reform their enemy.

I used to think Tom Holland failed the real persona of Spider Man in the first 2 movies, but in No Way Home now I understand that the first 2 movies are his Origin stories. Previously I’ve complained that MCU Peter Parker did not have a big goal or ideal and seems to being more concerned about being an Avenger and impress Tony Stark than to truly help others. The whole responsibility of being a hero is never really explored and uncle Ben death does not really have a weight in his character. Turns out there was never an uncle Ben in the first place, it was aunt May whose death is the turning point for Peter, haunted by her death and consequently feels the responsibility his powers bring.

Peter hugging his counterparts showed how vulnerable, conflicted, and in pain he was. In fact all three Peters shared their similar pain and was able to encourage and validate each other, something that perhaps the older Peters didn’t realize they needed as well. I admit, I almost teared up. Spider Man essentially ruined their lives but they remain committed to being Spider Man in order to help and save others.

Those last 45 minutes were some of my favorite movie-going experiences of all time. Just the sheer joy of the 3 Spideys jumping out and swinging together while being serenaded by Michael Giacchino’s glorious score transported me back to a younger me when I was still an uber superhero fanboy looking forward to the first X-Men and Spider Man movies.

In the last ten minutes when we see Peter in his new apartment, completely alone in the world with no money and only a handmade Spider Man suit, it felt that Peter truly is Spider Man. It was deeply affecting. The fact that this movie ends on such a bittersweet moment, with the entire world forgetting who Peter Parker is, and Peter having to deal with the consequences of the spell, while still being able to smile and be a hero, is the essence of Spider Man and made the trilogy and the movie all the better. For the first time I’m interested to see Tom’s future Spider Man movies.

My score: 9.8 out of 10. .5-point deduction for the mediocre first half. One half point returned for gorgeous second half. One half point returned for nailing the landing. One half point returned for fantastic fan servicing that actually served the story and for not being fan service for the sake of fan servicing. This is probably the best use of fan service I’ve seen in most movies, especially Marvel’s.

#Spider Man No Way Home

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thewillowbends · 4 years ago

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So I'm rewatching the first season and reading the book, and I've got Thoughts (TM)

And I've got a LOT of thoughts about what exactly Leigh Bardugo was doing here in terms of the moral and ethical statements of the narrative, so I'm putting it under the cut.

Something that's really glaring on the rewatch is just...the complete lack of compassion every character outside Aleksander has for the plight of the Grisha. The army treats treats them with reciprocal dislike, despite the fact that they couldn't even cross the Fold with the Inferni or Squallers. The tsar and tsarita treat them with condescension and disdain, clearly valuing them mainly as a utility that, historically, they've happily turned on when they felt they were growing too powerful. Baghra has just given up on trying to protect other Grisha who aren't immortal like her or Aleksander. Even Alina is guilty of othering them and has to be told off by multiple characters (Ivan, Aleksander, Baghra) to stop treating her power like a yoke instead of a responsibility and opportunity to help others.

We get this big, bad, armor-piercing line from her to Aleksander about how he doesn't care who suffers as long as he wins. Which is true to some extent, but...where is her compassion? Didn't we just spend a hefty portion of the narrative wanting to give her power away to somebody else so she can, what, be with her bestie? Meanwhile, there's, you know, an actual war going on. This isn't small stakes shit she sees going on around her. People are dying. We literally have an entire plot where we see a Grisha kidnapped, enslaved, and then sent to be put to death...who was given to the enemy by her own people!

And then we get that line from her in 1x07, only to have it followed up by her running away at the end of 1x08 for....why? Most people on the ship are dead or those that survived weren't his supporters. The people on the docks were killed, and most of them actually were traitors trying to kill Alina. Aleksander didn't lie about that. So she's running away to take the blame for some nebulous reason that's not really well explained, which is...well, what the fuck happens to the rest of the Grisha? Do we not care about how Aleksander's actions are going to reflect back on them and cause a potential backlash or something? Not to mention, nobody is on the other side to warn them that Aleksander is a threat to begin with. Even if you assumed he was dead, you'd definitely want to assume he likely had supporters back at the palace, too!

From a character writing perspective, I find it stupid that Aleksander doesn't tell her certain things because if he's such a big, bad, clever manipulator, he would absolutely be weaponizing his own pain and experiences to make her stumble in empathy. That's bad character writing to me when you're telling me somebody's an abusive villain but actually isn't using very real and effective abuser tactics. But then you also have Alina who refuses to even point out...Aleksander, I get it! I've talked to other Grisha! I see what you're going through! But this can't be the answer. You have to see this won't end well for you! Like, her own arguments make no sense to me. They're so myopic and self-involved.

One of the big things that bothers me that gets folded into Aleksander's other manipulations is this idea that he primarily associates and values her for her power, in contrast to Mal who primarily sees her for being herself. While I get the intent of that on a narrative level, in the scope of the wider story...it just literally makes no sense for Aleksander to parse those two as separate. Not when the whole reason Grisha are hunted down and killed is because they don't get the privilege of being people outside of their power. Aleksander doesn't get to be General Kirigan without also being the Darkling. Therefore, Alina doesn't get to be Sankta Alina without also being the Sun Summoner. Not a single other character gets to be relevant without being powerful.

Even on a narrative level, it makes no sense. One, it's frankly kind of sexist (when are male protagonists ever expected to be segregated from their power) and two...that's the whole reason we're telling her story! That's why she's the protagonist! She is special. She can't be separated from this unique power destiny has handed her. We don't tell stories about common, boring people; we tell stories about people who incite conflict or change. So even the mere concept to me of basing a character's identity or value around not wanting value is frankly kind of ridiculous.

There's just this strangely insidious underpinning to the story that power is inherently dangerous, even as it acknowledges that people who are NOT in power can very much suffer at the hands of those who do. So where's the moral and ethical reflection about what this means for the rest of us? What does that mean for minorities?

Think of the scene on the boat where Aleksander has Ivan kill off the nobility. The narrative wants you to see this moment as blackly humorous and awful, but stop for a moment and think about what happened there from his perspective. This is a man who spent centuries watching his people get killed and enslaved, and that isn't a false representation or manipulation from him, either. His statement is backed up both by what we see in the flashbacks and by other Grisha. Nobody created a safe haven for him and his people - he did that! He had to claw his way to the top, flatter, kill, and fuck his way through god knows how many noble houses, just to get to this moment where he could build a Little Palace. And it took him four hundred years just to get that! All while Grisha are dying!

And nobody did anything about it. Not the king, not the landholders, not even the peasantry. They were happy taking advantage of the Grisha's powers, of course, when Aleksander helped raise them up into a position of prominence, making them soldiers and enchanters. And even then, they're mocked! The army can't wait to get rid of them!

And then some noblewoman, who has enjoyed the benefits of her wealth and power, some of which were built on the backs of your people, sits there and tells you, the moment you take hold of the power everybody else has been grabbing for centuries, has the audacity to sit there and tell you that the world will hate Grisha and view him as a heretic?? When less than twenty years ago, your people were being killed right and left? When the enemy is still kidnapping and enslaving your people? When your own countrymen view you with fear and intrigue already? The audacity to sit there and frame it as a hypothetical when it's very much an actual reality still going on. Just look at the barely hidden seething rage and contempt on Barnes face when he delivers that quip about "needing to do that speech again." Motherfucker has been waiting YEARS for this moment, this revenge. And really, who can blame him...if you aren't wrapped up in the narrative wanting you to focus on just what he's doing to poor Alina.

The way the Grisha's situation is framed along with how the Darkling's descent into villainy is handled is so just incongruent to me. The pieces don't fit. You're asking me to see this man as completely irredeemable after you just showed me six episodes of Grisha being killed both for being what they are in the hopes of protecting Alina, after you showed me that Aleksander had already TRIED appealing to the protection of the crown by lending it his power, after making us see that lies and manipulation are the only way he and his mother have been able to survive as long as they have in a world that eradicated them. Where is the compassion in the narrative for that?

And okay, fine, you can do an irredeemable villain. You can do a Kilmonger-esque story with the Darkling, but that requires forcing your protagonists to empathize with the villain and change from it. But then I read ahead and...that doesn't happen?? She winds up walking away from it all at the end?? In fact, she even loses her power. And that's supposed to be a HAPPY ending? After we just saw how badly this minority was treated for how many centuries??

You know what it feels like? It feels like Leigh Bardugo read The Hunger Games, tried to replicate a Katniss, and then completely failed to understand the profound situational differences between her protagonist and that one. Katniss is a girl made extraordinary by her circumstances. She's not special herself other than the fact that she did the right thing at the right place at the right time and helped create the tipping point for a revolution that was already in the works before her. Katniss walking away from the world after makes sense because she's burned out after the war, but it also got its use from her. She helped make the revolution work; she showed up for the event while it was happening and did what she could. The situation was out of her control and power for the most part, and she still managed to rise the occasion.

Alina is NOT Katniss. She is inherently special. She is inherently powerful. She has the ability to create change and bring a new perspective that Aleksander has long given up on and which her country desperately needs. We know the world of the Hunger Games will be better because the creators of real change were always working behind the scenes behind Katniss. She was just their propaganda, their symbol. Alina is a symbol, but she is also a very real power. It's not an act of moral celebration for her to walk away from power at the end, namely because there's a whole minority class of people we still have to worry about. Putting a Grisha on the throne is no promise the country won't turn against them eventually, nor does that protect the hundreds of Grisha at the mercy of a superstitious peasantry and countries that will likely continue to invade them.

It's just...I dunno guys. It's frustrating because all the compelling elements are there in the characters and storyline, but it's like the author had a set of characters telling one story and then she had an entirely different plot in mind, and they just clash all over the place for me and become thematically inconsistent. But what really gets me is that she had seven years to think this shit over...and we're looking to get the same story all over again. Usually, it's a great thing to have an author involved in the show. This is a rare situation where I wonder if it hurts the chances of it improving.

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone spoilers #meta #long post #spoilers for the grisha trilogy too #critical analysis

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thefirstknife · 4 years ago

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hi, sorry to bother you 🥺 when was the first hint, in your opinion, that something was wrong with osiris?

You're not bothering me at all! I'd love to discuss it a bit more to mention some stuff I haven't before.

First chronologically would probably be the deliberate framing of the ending of Immolant. He is shown alive after Sagira's death and they mention that Sagira's Light stood above the Pyramid for days. Since this is the last Osiris POV we have, it implies that he stayed in the Hellmouth for ?? days until managing to message for help.

But personally, I wasn't thinking about it until some time midway through Season of the Chosen. Around Chosen, I started noticing minor things that would mildly irritate me about him, like the way he was talking. His tone. The way he kinda goaded Saladin into scheming against the Cabal? But I chalked it up to him being bored in the Tower. Rest under the cut because of length:

Presage got me thinking more. The way he spoke about the Crown of Sorrow, the way he told us about how "The Darkness" and "The Entity" are two separate things (something Osiris never mentioned before). When I first started considering the theory, the first thing that popped to my mind was what he says to Caiatl during Presage when they both hear voices. Osiris says that he heard the following:

The ignorance of my youth. The pain of change. Unproven faith wilted by logic.

I never understood what he meant by that. I mean, it could be a number of things. It's frustratingly vague, more so than Osiris is usually. This isn't too much of a direct evidence because it can be interpreted in multiple ways but it struck me really hard when I first heard about the theory. Because it could be applied to Savathun.

She was also ignorant in her youth, following the words of her father's worm and leading her siblings to the Worm Gods. The pain of change from simple krill into Hive and then further into Hive Gods. Unproven faith (in the Worms and the Darkness) wilted by Sword logic.

This is a huge reach btw and the reason why I don't include it as evidence. It's having a conclusion and then looking for evidence, in a way. But at that point, I decided to look into it more.

I think the first proper direct hints were all the strange encounters various characters had with him and the way he's described as "melting out of the shadows." Noted in the first part of this post. Specifically how Ikora and Saint think they can hardly recognise him. They are the closest to Osiris so they know him best (with Ikora saying Saint specifically knows him best and Saint was utterly confused about him post-Immolant, especially in Boots of the Assembler lore tab).

Once you start thinking about it tho, you can go to any point in any of the three seasons and there will be something that's off. For example, early in Hunt, Crow makes a note that Osiris has been coming to him (secretly?) to teach him about Hive stuff:

Now, again, Osiris knows a lot about the Hive. He participated in the plot to take down Oryx and he knew how to interface with the Dreadnaught in Immolant. So on its own, this isn't much of a proof. But when you look at all the stuff together, it starts being hard to ignore.

But yeah, I think the best proper hints were the way other people reacted to him. People closest to him. I'd also say that both lore tabs of Savathun's POV of being in the City are good hints too, but they don't work as well if you don't already suspect Osiris. Retrofuturist and Ripe. The "this form allows me some dignities" from Retrofuturist is weird, but fits when you apply it to Osiris. And in Ripe, she has to make a random civilian forget what he saw which makes little sense if the civilian just saw a random person. More about Ripe here. We're kinda expected to start piecing things together at this point.

While Hunt and Chosen were somewhat subtle overall and relied more on what we don't have (lore from Osiris' POV), Splicer really didn't fuck around. Most of the stuff he says and does in Splicer is really bizarre, starting with the fact that he seems completely uninterested in exploring the Vex Network, to randomly antagonising Mithrax despite being one of the first people to advocate for Eliksni allies, to "underestimating the Young Wolf," to helping Lakshmi with the Vex portal and then going all out with showing us that cutscene. I legit did not think they would show us something so blatant already.

Something I haven't discussed yet at all is the phrasing of Lakshmi's radio message (1 minute, 46 seconds if the timestamp doesn't work) and how she says Osiris helped her "open a rift."

First, this reminded me of the lore book Empress, lore page New Gods. The lore page is defaced with Savathun's scribbling where she explicitly states she corrupted Umun'Arath and gifted Torobatl to Xivu Arath, "her favourite sister." The page ends with this:

She laughed and laughed and laughed until her mouth began to ooze. Until Caiatl, disgusted, pushed her off the sword with her foot. The body tumbled back onto the green blaze.

[A gift for my favorite sister.]

As the fire consumed the corpse, a gargantuan portal opened in the sky.

A portal opening above the City and flooding it with enemies? Happened before, with the Cabal. This was a more direct intervention by Savathun because she used Umun'Arath's dead body for the portal somehow.

However, this isn't the first time Savathun tricked someone into opening a rift to unleash the Vex. She tricked Crota into cutting open a rift in space and unleashing the Vex into Oryx's throne world.

The portal/rift that let the Vex into the City also unleashed the Taken as well. With Quria dead, Savathun really (presumably) has no way of controlling either of them. It explains the chaotic nature of Override: Last City. And of course, Lakshmi would need help from someone who knows how to manipulate Vex portals AND from Savathun. Savathun using Osiris as her meat puppet is a perfect fit.

#destiny 2 #osiris #savathun #lore vibing #more stuff for the evidence pile!!#i'm thinking about this a lot #at this point if we're wrong about this whole thing i am SO INTRIGUED to find out what's happening if not this #like it must be absolutely mind blowing #more so than this is #ask

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queen-scribbles · 4 years ago

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The Long Burning Torch ch 3

Oh, look, another chapter for the 20s AU I started for the @shepherds-of-haven Summer Event, which has taken on a life of its own. In this chapter: A couple new (but familiar!) faces, and the plot thickens.

----

Five minutes into Ashtown proper, Xaeryn was exceedingly grateful for the directions Mr. Syndran had provided. He hadn’t been wrong comparing the place to a warren.

“You look lost, doll.”

Her head snapped up from the paper in her hand to meet the gaze of a lanky man lounging against a wall, a soft cap slouched down over his forehead. His--very familiar--green eyes were much more vivid in person than they had been in her scry.

Xaeryn arched a brow coolly. “And what led you to that conclusion?”

He smirked and pushed away from the wall. “The way you keep checking that paper for one, Sunshine.” His hands slid in his pockets. “Also, we don’t get dames that look like you here all that often. Anything I can help you find?”

“You’re awfully helpful,” Xaeryn said, resisting the urge to run a hand down her outfit.

He doffed his cap and sketched an exaggerated bow, giving her a wink when he righted. “Consider me the Ashtown welcoming committee.”

“And what a charming first impression you make.” Xaeryn regarded him for a moment or two more, then decided to see how things would play out. “I’m trying to find Chase Trinaeste.”

The man’s eyes twinkled, bright as the scarf tossed ‘round his neck. “I think I can help with that. Right this was, Sunshine,” he said blithely, as if he wasn’t the aforementioned Trinaeste himself.

A large part of Mr. Syndran’s adamant belief Thieves guild had been involved in the theft rode on Trinaeste’s presence in her scryed vision. “He trusts his lieutenants with the vast majority of their... jobs,” Mr. Syndran had explained, nose wrinkling slightly in distaste. “His being there shows it was a heist of high importance to their gang, fitting the theft of an artefact.”

Xaeryn had no reason to doubt his logic. But she’d be a fool to show all the cards she held at the outset.

“My name is not ‘sunshine’,” she said briskly instead.

“Well, then, doll, what am I calling ya?” Trinaeste asked, unruffled by her tone.

“Miss Shrike will do for now, I think. And what do I call you?”

“Who says you need to call me anything?” he returned as he led her down several new streets in quick succession.

“It might come in handy if I want to commend your hospitality to Mr. Trinaeste,” she countered, trying her best to memorize their route. Left, left, right...

“I’ll get by, Miss Shrike,” Trinaeste said with a light laugh.

He was very good at dodging, she did have to give him that. “For politeness’ sake, then. Perhaps I’d feel better about following you into the depths of Ashtown if I at least knew your name.”

He laughed again, pausing by a wall decorated with a... creative interpretation of a cat’s head. “Well, then. I have a confession to make, in that case.”

“Oh?” Xaeryn marked the two brunos nearby--one down an alley, the other lounging by a door--despite their affected nonchalance. “And what would that be?”

“Chase Trinaeste at your service.” He skipped the exaggerated bow this time, instead shoving his hands in his pockets, elbows akimbo, and grinning at her cheekily. “Now that you’ve found me, what do you plan to do with me?”

“First thing that comes to mind is ask why we couldn’t have the introductions back where we first spoke?”

“Let’s say I feel safer on home turf, doll. Just in case your reason for wanting me is less fun than I’m hoping.”

She glanced significantly at one of the toughs. “And if this arrangement doesn’t thrill me?”

“You can leave,” Trinaeste said with a shrug. “We ain’t going to stop you.” His grin widened, cat-like. “But you seem the type who doesn’t like leaving empty-handed, Miss Shrike.” He gestured toward the door next to one member of their small audience. “Whatever it is you’re after, I think we’ll be more comfortable in my office, don’t you?”

She doubted he cared between the two locations as strongly as she doubted it was an actual office, but Xaeryn did have to admit some privacy for this conversation would be a good thing. “Do I strike you as the type to just follow strange men into unfamiliar buildings, Mr. Trinaeste?”

He laughed. “A dangerous question, doll. You strike strike me as the type who enjoys a good mystery.”

(Or even a bad one, Xaeryn finished wryly to herself.)

Trinaeste raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. “On my honor as head of the guild, I promise you will leave in the same condition and carrying the same things as when you got here, so long as you don’t threaten me or mine.”

“A fair deal,” she said in assent, and nodded toward the door. “After you.”

Red would have a heart attack if he knew what she was doing. She swallowed a laugh at the thought; less than a week reconnected and his reaction was one of the first things to cross her mind. Her gut said it would be a worthwhile risk. While Trinaeste was indisputably a dangerous man, there was a clear sense of ‘only when necessary’ to his skill that gave her confidence she would be fine.

“One more condition,” Trinaeste said as he led the way into the building. “Call me Chase. No idea who ‘Mr. Trinaeste’ is, but he sounds too high-class to be me.”

He’d kowtowed to her chosen address easily enough, and she did want him amenable to talking. She could grin and bear the informality for one conversation. “Very well.”

They didn’t go far from the outer door before Chase swung to the side through another doorway. Xaeryn almost tripped over the abruptness as she followed. There was no desk, or any other typical office furniture save chairs. There were five of those; loosely grouped on one side of the room. Opposite them a stack of shipping crates were shoved against a tapestry-hung wall. It was eclectic and flamboyant and (she’d just bet) full of secrets. A perfect match for the man now flopped in one of the fairly-comfortable looking chairs and grinning at her again.

“So, Miss Shrike, what did you want from me?”

(From the way his eyes twinkled, that phrasing was very much on purpose.)

Xaeryn chose her seat and her reply with equal care; the former so she could see both her host and the door, the latter to convey intent without accusing. Yet. “I’m investigating a theft and have reason to believe you may have seen something helpful.”

Chase laughed. “You think I did it.”

“You do helm the Thieves guild, Chase,” she said lightly, crossing her legs and flicking dust off her hem. So much for trying to be subtle.

“Fair point,” he conceded with another laugh, before leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees and his chin on his palms with still-twinkling eyes. “So, what is it you think we stole?”

“An artefact.”

She was interrupted before giving a description as Chase’s grin went cat-like gain and the twinkle in his eyes shifted to a hard glitter. “Syndran set you on us, didn’t he? What did he lose?”

“Mr. Syndran didn’t lose anything. Transit is a possibility for when a piece was stolen,” Xaeryn said primly. “And while, yes, he may have pointed me in your direction as an avenue of investigation, I wouldn’t be much of a detective if I followed accusations that lacked supporting evidence.”

“Ah, you’re a private dick,” Chase smirked, eyes once again twinkling in amusement. “Tell you what, Miss Shrike, since you bein’ here is bountiful evidence Riel’s people not only dropped the ball, but bad enough he doesn’t want to involve the cops, I’ll tell you whatever you need to help. That being the best news I’ve had this week and all.”

She arched a brow. “Whatever I need?”

He spread his hands. “I’m an open book, doll.”

“Chase!” a new voice scolded. The owner, a slender brunette, paused in the doorway to scowl along with her critique. “You know better than to offer open season on guild secrets like that!”

“Calm down, Ari.” Chase slouched back, waving one hand in Xaeryn’s direction. “Our guest seems a smart enough dame to not ask for more than she needs.” That glimpse of danger was back under the last word.

“I’m not after your secrets,” Xaeryn promised. “Just trying to find a missing artefact.”

“And what artefact would that be?” Ari asked, still wary, and still poised in the doorway. Xaeryn noted but didn’t comment on the jangling stack of bracelets that sheathed a good three inches of the other woman’s wrist.

“A pendent, this big.” she indicated the size. “Black stone and bronze.”

“Wasn’t us,” Chase said easily.

“You were witnessed along the transport caravan’ route.”

“Oh, we were casing it,” he acknowledged with a wink.

“Chase!”

He just grinned at Ari’s beratement. “We didn’t steal anything, though. Couldn’t get a good shot at what we were supposed to nick.”

“Supposed to?” Xaeryn interjected. “So this is something you were contracted to steal rather than...” She waffled a moment over word choice, “...personal?”

“Yeah. Like I said, though, we didn’t get anything.” Chase shrugged. “Just as well; our butter and egg man never showed his face after.”

“Hm.” Xaeryn made a mental note to look into how popular a target the caravan had become. “Did you notice anyone else who seemed to be casing it? Aside from your people?”

“N-” Chase’s brow furrowed and he stopped mid-negative reply. “There was that one mug Kato saw right before the trucks made the museum lot. Don’t have anything more than ‘foreign-looking’ and green hair, and he didn’t see where he went, just was a little too casual in his loitering, gave Kato an odd impression.”

It wasn’t a lead solid enough for her to really follow, but it did seem confirmation multiple parties were interested in the caravan. “I see. And what was your... client after?”

“That’s not something you need to know,” Ari said firmly.

“Knowing what else was and might yet be targeted will help my investigation, so I would have to disagree,” Xaeryn said just as firmly. “I’m not going to rat you out, in fact I plan to tell Mr. Syndran you were not responsible. But this information could be useful. Please.”

“A necklace. Gold, rubies, opals; sounded worth a pretty lyss,” Chase said, turning to flash a grin at Ari. “She did say please.”

Ari sighed but didn’t protest.

“Alright I’ll be getting out of your hair, then.” Xaeryn stood, smoothing her skirt. “I appreciate your talking to me, It was enlightening.”

She held out a hand to shake, and Chase kissed the back of it instead, shooting her a wink as she rolled her eyes. “Not a problem, Miss Shrike. Good luck catching your bad guys.”

Xaeryn couldn’t help a small chuckle at the comment as she withdrew her hand and headed for the door. She half-expected to be blocked from exiting, but that proved unfounded. She retraced the route to the edge of the Ashtown district, then headed for her office to call Mr. Syndran just as it started to rain.

---

Her call to update Mr. Syndran went about as well as it could; he was disappointed Thieves guild hadn’t panned out as a lead--Xaeryn detected some personal disappointment as well as professional they weren’t responsible. “Do you have anything beyond their word they didn’t do it?”

“No,” Xaeryn said, leaning forward over her desk to skim her notes as they talked. “Well... their word and a gut feeling they were being level.” Which is all I really have that you aren’t responsible. She was polite--and wise--enough to not make the comparison. “They were hardly going to let me search their warehouse.”

“So what’s your next step? There’s not long until the exhibit opens, and I dislike the number of dead ends you’ve encountered.”

“Oh, I’m not happy about them, either, believe me.” Xaeryn pursed her lips and fought to keep a sharp note out of her voice at his implied censure. “Next is talking to the curator at the Hall. They may have seen this green-haired foreigner Thieves guild mentioned, or something else suspicious that didn’t show when I scryed. Either way, I can get more information about the exhibit and the pendent’s owner.”

Mr. Syndran sighed. “I highly doubt this convenient and vague ‘foreigner’ exists as anything other than a red herring to lead you away from the Thieves guild, but your other goals are sound. Let me know what you learn, if anything.”

“Of course.” They exchanged farewells and hung up. Rain still pattered against the window, and a quiet growl from her stomach reminded Xaeryn she was overdue for lunch, so she bumped back calling the Hall in favor of a quick bite to eat.

And it was quick; she loved mysteries but hated being stymied at every turn like this case had done. She wanted a workable lead. While she agreed with Mr. Syndran the ‘foreigner’ was too vague to pursue on his own, green hair was far from common in Haven, even in the Mage community. If someone else made mention or he was spotted later, it wouldn’t be hard to connect the sightings. For now, she’d call the museum, speak to the curator. Hopefully that would get her somewhere.

The secretary who answered her call sounded both bored and frazzled, which Xaeryn found impressive. “Haven Hall of History and Culture, how may I help you?”

“My name’s Xaeryn Shrike, I wanted to speak to the curator about-”

“Ms. Acquell is very busy,” the receptionist cut her off. “We have an exhibit opening in just over a week, she doesn’t have time for meetings with random curiosity seekers or history aficionados right now.”

Xaeryn let a bit of edge color her voice. “I’m a private detective Mr. Syndran hired in regard to the artefact caravan.”

A long pause, the line crackling with silence, then, “Can you be here in half an hour? I’m sure she can clear some space in her schedule, though there may be bit of a wait.”

I thought you might say that. “I can. Thank you.”

“Very well.” The secretary hung up.

Xaeryn arched a brow at the receiver before she placed it back in the cradle. “See you shortly,” she muttered. Wonderful attitude for someone in such a socially involved position. She glanced out the window and was gratified to find the rain slacking off. She’d still drive, of course, but it would be less of a headache.

Xaeryn cleaned up from her lunch, gave her outfit a quick check to ensure it was still presentable after her visit to Ashtown and the Merchants Guild garage, and tucked her notepad back in her handbag before tugging on a hat and heading out the door.

The drive to the museum was uneventful aside from a couple pot holes and a pedestrian chasing his umbrella into the street with nary a regard for traffic. Still, Xaeryn did arrive in one piece. A determined breeze tugged at her as she made her way up the steps, and she almost dropped her handbag in her instinctive grab to hold her hat on.

It’s pinned, you silly goose, she chided herself ruefully, and brushed drizzle off her clothes as she stepped inside. She exchanged a brief conversation--light on pleasantries--with the receptionist,and was waved toward one of the long cultural wings to wait for when Curator Acquell found a moment to speak with her. She perched on a bench that sat between a statue of the first High Augar and a glass case displaying a map of the known world at the time. At this hour and with this weather, there weren’t many other people, and the gallery was mostly quiet.

Ample opportunity for Xaeryn to ruminate on the irony her chosen seat appeared to be smack in the middle of an exhibit on the Castigation, or one of the uprisings that followed. At least, if the painting across from her was anything to go by; a group of determined Norms gripping pistols as they surrounded a cluster of bloodied but unyielding Hunters whose hands glowed with grace as they clung to their weapons...

Xaeryn shook her head and very deliberately focused on reading her notes.

---

It took half an hour--closer to three-quarters--and Xaeryn had switched to roaming the gallery to take in the sights before a short, bespectacled blonde approached.

She hesitated briefly but noticeably before clearing her throat. “Are you... Miss Shrike?”

Xaeryn nodded and held out a hand to shake. “And you would be the curator?”

The blonde bobbed her head as she shook her hand. “Shery Acquell. I’m so very sorry about the wait.” She smoothed a hand down her rumpled brown and pink dress. “We’re terribly busy trying to get the new exhibit together.” She bit her lip. “Or, as together as we can get it, at least.”

“That’s actually what I’m here to talk to you about,” Xaeryn said. “But I think it’s something better discussed away from potential prying eyes and ears.”

“Oh, right, of course.” Miss Acquell briefly clasped her hands in front of her and bit her lip. “This way.” She gestured to a door. “We can speak in the Cultures of Blest wing if you don’t mind dodging crates and museum staff?”

“Not at all,” Xaeryn said as she followed the other woman through the indicated door. Getting to see behind the scenes of a museum exhibit was the opposite of an inconvenience, to her mind.

“It’s not terribly exciting, I’m afraid; lots of boxes and dust and swapping things around until you find the right arrangement. But I think we can find somewhere to talk. My office is a mess right now, or we could just go there.”

“It’s fine,” Xaeryn assured her. “A little dust won’t kill me. I dress practical for that very reason; no telling where an investigation will take me.”

“OH, that’s... smart.” Miss Acquell fiddled with her glasses and inclined her head toward an empty display pedestal. “That’s where the pendent will go, assuming it’s back before the exhibit opens.” Her face went red and she winced apologetically. “N-Not that I doubt your skill as a detective, Miss Shrike, it just seems to have vanished into thin air, and, well....” She half shrugged and let the words trail off.

“I’ve definitely hit enough dead ends for the comparison to be apt,” Xaeryn said, swallowing the spike of defensiveness to keep her tone level as she peeked at the other artefacts in the case. A belt with a snake-head buckle, a silver circlet set with a single moonstone, an ornately carved hair comb, a silver ring that resembled a basilisk eating its own tail. At least one item hummed quietly with magic of some kind, but enchantment and binding weren’t her forte, so Xaeryn couldn’t tell which. “So, to confirm, how long did the shipment sit before you and your staff started opening crates?”

“Oh, an hour?” Miss Acquell bit her lip. “Maybe two, at most? There was a... small kerfuffle in the art wing; some unruly children, and we didn’t get to the crates until that was settled. But there was a watchman outside and one in the museum, neither of them reported seeing anyone.” She played with her necklace. “As well as a Whitestone Couriers representative. Pink-haired young lady, very irate by the time I spoke to her, though that is understandable, with how long we kept her waiting.”

“Did you not have enough staff for someone to take care of the artefacts while others handled the... disturbance?”

“Normally we would have.” Miss Acquell stepped into a small alcove to move their conversation out of the way for the six or so staffers busily yet carefully removing things from crates to arrange in various displays. “But it was a lightly staffed day--Thursdays are usually slow--and I had a couple people who didn’t come in. We weren’t able to find anyone who could cover their shifts, so we were running a bit short.”

With Ms. Aerin keeping an eye on the artefacts once they reached the museum, it was no wonder Mr. Syndran was so convinced a potential theft would have occurred during transit. “What do you know about the pendent, Solimer’s torch? I’ve learn some things of its history, but what of more recent years? The last century or so?”

“A little,” Miss Acquell said, flicking a nervous glance to the side as a pair of workers fumbled the statue they were shifting. “The last century is a bit... muddy for that pendent. It’s changed hands several times, several people have made claims, few have been able to back them up. The current owner, Ms. Aescar, has the strongest claim. She can trace ancestry to the last known owner of the pendent.”

“Prior to the cheiftain of debated identity with whom it was rediscovered?”

She nodded. “Yes. The others who have tried to stake ownership claim ties to the debated chieftain, or the original tribe, or the first to conquer them, but none have ever clearly proven a connection like Ms. Aescar. And if they could, it turns into a debate predicated largely on the intricacies of right of conquest for who has the strongest claim.” She hesitated, wrung her hands. “There are some in the historical community--niche as this piece may be--who... feel it would almost be better if no further claims are validated. I-If someone can contest Ms. Aescar’s ownership, the pendent has to go in a vault until true provenance can be determined. Which means no one can display it....”

“And that process can take a very long time,” Xaeryn finished for her. It was an issue she’d run into a couple times during her years at Solhadur; an artefact she was researching was hard to get clear information about because three people had equally strong claims and it was tied up in the arbitration.

“Yes, it can.” Miss Acquell pursed her lips and looked back at the intended display. “For now, though, Ms. Aescar has a very open policy for lending it out. Far fewer requested protective measures than most. It’s as if...” she paused, brow furrowing for a moment, “as if she doesn’t really care what happens to it.”

Interesting. “Do you have her contact information? I’d like to speak with her if I could,”

“I do.” Miss Acquell nodded vigorously. “It’s in my office, so I’ll need a minute to dig it out.”

“No hurry,” Xaeryn said. “Are those watchmen here today by any chance? Accommodating as your staff has been with my other earlier inquiries, I haven’t gotten to talk to them yet.”

The curator, who had started for a nearby hall, paused and bit her lip again as she thought. “Theo is,” she finally said. “He was watching the outside lot that day. Today I think he’s in the exhibit on Norm innovation? But I can’t remember for sure. The schedule’s also in my office, I can check while I’m getting Ms. Aescar’s information.”

“Alright, I can wait.”

“Feel free to look around.” Miss Acquell waved a hand toward the progressing displays. “Just don’t touch anything? Some things would survive, but others are too fragile.”

“I generally avoid disturbing museum exhibits,” Xaeryn assured her. “I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

With a final nod and small nervous smile, Miss Acquell scurried off down the hall. From the way she’d talked about her office, Xaeryn gathered this might take more than a few minutes. She wandered through the half-assembled exhibits and display cases, careful to keep enough distance she didn’t disturb the staff or risk damaging anything.

A small smile curved her lips when she caught sight of a necklace--complete with matching cuff bracelets and a diadem--that fit the description of what Chase claimed his guild had been hired to steal. That backed his story up, at least. There was a placard declaring they had belonged to a Queen-Consort from Karzai once upon a time.

Xaeryn was engrossed in reading a Kettish tablet when Miss Acquell returned, and it took a moment to register her presence. In fact, it wasn’t until the curator cleared her throat timidly that Xaeryn’s focus was broken and she swung around.

“Sorry. This sort of thing is a passion of mine,” she explained. “Very easy to slip off to my own little world when I get a chance to indulge.”

“I understand,” Miss Acquell said with a faint smile. “I can be the same, when I get lost in my work. Here’s Ms. Aescar’s information” --she held out a small piece of note paper--”though I should warn you it’s for her estate out near the Jalis desert and she’s apparently not home much? Bit of an adventuress, away for weeks at a time without word of how long she’ll be gone. I’m honestly not sure if we’ve managed to contact her yet to tell her the pendent’s missing.”

“Thanks for the warning, both of them.” Xaeryn slipped the paper in her handbag after checking the legibility. “I’ll keep them in mind.”

“Theo is up in the innovations exhibit, if you want to speak with him.”

“Oh, I very much do. And if something comes up and I need to talk to you again, do you have daily office hours?”

Miss Acquell nodded, then blushed. “Oh, except... except Sunday,” she amended. “I-I have church.”

“Won’t be a problem, so do I.” Normally not a detail Xaeryn shared with strangers, but the woman seemed braced for blowback to the statement.

Her face lit up with the revelation, so it was apparently a good call. “Oh, really? Where do you go?”

“The Whitestone Cathedral,” Xaeryn said. She liked the crowds, the ability to simply sit in the back, worship, and slip out before too many people even noticed she was there and tried to be chummy.

“Oh, that one’s too big for me,” Miss Acquell blurted with a bashful laugh. “I go to the chapel over by the docks.”

“I know it,” Xaeryn said with a nod. She’d had a couple cases over that way. “Thank you very much for all your help, Miss Acquell. This visit has been very informative.”

“I’m glad to have been of help, and you can just call me Shery.” She held out a hand to shake farewell.

“Goodbye, then, Shery. And good luck setting up your exhibit.” Xaeryn shook her hand then headed off following signage toward the exhibit where this guard Theo was posted. She had some rather burning questions to ask him.

---

Her conversation with Theo held mixed success. His memory was fuzzy, which Xaeryn had expected after the time that had passed. He did remember some loiterers, but they were all far enough away from the lot he couldn’t discern features. One or two may have come across as “too casual” with hindsight, but he hadn’t clocked them as suspicious and thus hadn’t paid much mind in the moment. No accounting for street hooligans and how they spent their time, right? One might have had green hair, but they were wearing hats, and “like I said, I wasn’t payin’ much heed, Miss Lady Detective,” so he couldn’t swear by it.

With that tenuous connection possibly made slightly less tenuous, and a much-increased desire to speak with the elusive Ms. Aescar, Xaeryn wandered the museum a bit--might as well; she was here and it would help her think--before heading back out to her car.

“Ladies first,” a dark haired gentleman said, holding the front door open for her and allowing her to precede him down the steps.

Xaeryn nodded and flashed a brief smile of courteous thanks for his chivalry, noting he headed for a gleaming, high-end motorcar, black with red accents, that made hers look dingy. Bet it’s a nightmare to keep that fancy, she thought, paying the man no further mind. She started her car and flicked on the headlights to counter the settling dim of evening as she pulled away.

With her thoughts split between the road and mulling over the case, it took a few turns for her to notice a pair of headlights that appeared to be following the same route she was. That wasn’t terribly unusual, but the fact they were deliberately keeping back was. Tricky as surreptitious glances in a motorcar could be, Xaeryn managed one the next time she had to stop for traffic. Just as her... friend passed under a streetlight.

Black car, with red accents.

Gooseflesh prickled up her arms, and she shifted her planned route home to one with sparse enough traffic covert pursuit would be impossible. Two turns into the new path, her tail must have picked up on her plan and lammed off down a side street. Xaeryn wondered if he thought he was being subtle, and kept a careful eye out the rest of the way back. Despite not seeing any further tails, she remained on guard until she turned the key in her office door, slipped in, and locked it behind her.

“Intriguing development,” she murmured to the empty room as she unpinned her hat. And an interesting end to a very full day. Xaeryn sat wearily at her desk and kicked off her shoes. Even choosing comfort over style, her feet were sore from all the walking. Merchants’ Guild, Ashtown, the Hall... and barely a chance to sit all day. She returned her notepad to the desk drawer and locked it again, but left the stiletto blade in her handbag. She’d likely need it tomorrow anyway. Particularly if it was anywhere near as busy as today.

Busy enough to have missed any telephone calls that came while I was gadding about. Normally while already on a case, that would bother her less, but Red had said he’d call if he learned anything new. She’d hate to be missing information that could help the case, she mused, flicking a glance from the telephone to the clock on her wall. Hopefully this wasn’t too late for her to call him. She dug her notepad back out and flipped through the pages until she reached the section in Red’s sprawling shorthand. There, on the back of a previous page, tucked in the corner like a random doodle, was his office telephone number. Xaeryn smiled at the close resemblance of his eights and zeroes, but knew her own ones and sevens weren’t much better.

After only a brief moment of further hesitation, she pulled the telephone closer and started dialing. It wasn’t that late.

It was answered on the third ring, a slightly breathless, “Hello?”

“Liefred?”

“Xaeryn.” There was a note of surprise in his voice.

“Got it in one, smart man.” But I knew that.

He laughed. “Not that hard; you’re just about the only one who insists on calling me that, even if you don’t need to.” There was a small creak that conjured mental images of him leaning against the desk or slouched in his chair. “Everything alright? Did you need something?”

“Other way ‘round, actually.” Xaeryn fiddled with her notepad. “I’ve had a busy day and it occurred I wasn’t here much if you’d called, so I thought I’d check.”

“There are these people called secretaries, Xaeryn,” Red teased. “You might look into hiring one of them.”

“I know, I know.” She snorted softly. “Especially since most people don’t have your genial reaction to me missing their calls...”

“Most people haven’t known you since you were a gangly fourteen year old trying to cram yourself in the library loft to read in peace, either,” he said warmly. “I know how focused you get. And nothing new, I’m afraid. I got stuck lecturing first-years all day.”

“And you survived,” Xaeryn laughed, curling her toes in and out when they started to cramp.

“Barely,” Red said with a rueful laugh(she’d bet he was running a hand through his hair). “And that despite their best efforts.”

“See, this is why I didn’t want to stick around,” she said, only half-joking.

“Smart woman,” he deadpanned. “But I knew that already.”

Flatterer. It sounded coy and thus stayed in her head, replaced with an equally joking, “I won’t guest lecture, before you ask.”

“Damn,” he said lightly, “At any rate, I’m sorry I don’t have more yet-”

“Don’t apologize,” she cut him off. “I wasn’t expecting anything. Only checking. Just in case. Your responsibilities come first and they kept you busy today. I had plenty of other leads to chase today.”

“Where did they take you?” Red asked. “You mentioned being busy...”

“Merchants’ Guild to start. Then Ashtown-”

“Xaeryn.” His voice was already bristling worry.

“--to talk to Thieves’ guild.”

“Alone?! Ryn-” Red huffed a sigh of exasperated, retroactive concern and she bit back a laugh at how well she’d pegged his reaction. “Do you... take risks like that often?”

“Only when I need to,” she said carefully. Wouldn’t be mentioning the tail on her way home, then. “I know how to handle myself, Liefred. I was polite, we talked, I left. It was fine.”

A long moment of silence. “If you say so.” He didn’t sound completely convinced. (She decided not to tell him her office-apartment sat right by the boundary between Astown and Smoketown) “What else?”

“Just the Hall of History and Culture to speak with the curator.” She shifted in her chair. “That one took a while, but I got some good information to follow up tomorrow.”

“Best of luck with that, and... be careful?”

Xaeryn smiled fondly, unsure whether or not to hope it carried into her voice. “As I can be.” A beat, then she added lightly, “I’d hate to wind up a cautionary tale in one of your lectures, Headmaster.”

“Xaeryn.” She could practically see him trying to glower at her(and failing; Red couldn’t be that mean) through the telephone. “I’m serious.”

“I know.” And I appreciate it. She sobered her tone to match his. “But my line of work comes with risks sometimes.The best I can do is promise not to exacerbate them.”

“I’ll take it,” Red said softly, then was quiet a long moment. “I should let you go; it sounds like you have another busy day tomorrow?”

“I do.” She’d still stay up til midnight talking to him in a heartbeat, but, “and you probably need to recover from this one.”

“Mm. I get to do it again tomorrow, too,” he said glibly.

Xaeryn laughed. “I’ll keep you in my thoughts,” she said with mock solemnity “Good luck to you, as well, in that case.”

“Thank you, I’ll need it,” Red chuckled softly. “Goodnight, Xaeryn.”

“Goodnight, Liefred.”

She stared at the telephone a long moment after hanging up, smile curling her lips, before pushing out of the chair. After a day like this, she needed dinner, a hot bath, and a good night’s sleep. In that order.

She still double checked the door was locked before turning in.

----

(what you don’t see, bc I stuck with Ryn POV, is Pan was in Red’s office with him when she called. :3 Cue Pan promptly batting his eyelashes, making exaggerated lovestruck faces, and generally being a little shit bc He Knows, while Red’s gesturing for Pan to GET OUT of his office. and trying to get him to listen without actually talking so Ryn doesn’t know someone’s there(he doesn’t know why he doesn’t want her knowing that, he just doesn’t). Pan finally relents but hangs in the hallway til they’re done and comes back in with the biggest shit-eating grin “You’re still stuck on her, aren’t you?” Red, groaning and burying his face in his hands: “Pan, close your head, PLEASE. yes”)

#queens fic #shoh #xaeryn shrike #red antiqua #chase trinaeste #shery acquell #tlbt #ryn/red

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ordinaryschmuck · 4 years ago

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Why I (Want to) Love Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure

Salutations random people on the internet who most likely won’t read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

When I heard Disney was making an animated series based on Tangled, acting as a continuation from the original movie, my initial thought was, "Why?"

Sure, Disney is infamous for its unnecessary sequels of the story after happily ever after, with the many, many, many failures that follow suit. Even then, though, most of these continuations were movies that kind of have the potential to tell more of a story. But what more could be said about Tangled? Sorry to spoil a movie that's over ten years old at this point, but by the end of it: Rapunzel lost her golden hair, was reunited with her parents, fell in love, and lived happily ever after. Her losing the golden hair is the most essential part of that list because how can you do a series based on a Disney princess when her most iconic feature is gone? Then I found out that the series forced a way for her hair to come back, and my new initial thought became, "Oh man. This is gonna suck, isn't it?"

Despite the hesitation, I decided to give it a chance anyway. After all, I've been pleasantly surprised before. Things like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and even The Owl House (yes, really), were shows (and a movie) that I didn't think would be that special. Only to find myself enjoying nearly every minute. So after watching Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, I can certainly say I was surprised...but it was entirely for the wrong reasons.

And to explain how requires spoilers. So if you haven't checked the series out yet, I highly suggest you do it to form your own opinion. Just keep in mind that it's a bit of a mess, but it can be an enjoyable mess...sometimes...let me explain.

WHAT I LIKED

The Animation/Art Style: The series swapping from 3D to 2D might have been the most brilliant decision anyone could have ever made with this series. Usually, when an animated movie gets turned into a show, the most noticeable downgrade is always the animation. Whether it’s not as detailed or not as fluid, it's always subjective that the movie is better animated than the series. But by switching up the styles, the contrast becomes objective instead. 2D and 3D animation each have their pros and cons, so deciding which one is better is nothing more than a matter of opinion. So by changing the style, Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure avoids getting complaints of being a downgrade from the original movie. It also helps that the art style of the series is really unique.

The best way to describe how the show looks is that it's like a coloring book brought to life. At times, everything looks like it was drawn and colored in with crayons, which sounds like an insult, but in actuality, it's one of the best features of the series. As much as I love most animated shows nowadays, I will admit, they all look a little too similar at times. Then here comes Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, which tries to incorporate a whole new style that successfully sets it apart from most shows.

As for the animation itself, it's really well-made! It's remarkably expressive when required, while the movements are really fluid during the correct scenes. Sure the fighting can be a little floaty during some action set pieces (yes, those exist here), but the dialogue and comedic moments are really where the series shines with its animation. I may have problems with the series as a whole, but I give credit where credit is due for the perfectly executed effort that I see in every episode in terms of animation.

Rapunzel and Eugene’s relationship: This was not something I was expecting to enjoy from the series. In the movie, Rapunzel and Eugene were fine. They were the typical Disney couple that worked off of each other enough that it was always entertaining, even if it was unbelievable that they fell deeply in love with each other after, like, two days. They weren't bad, but they weren't anything to go crazy over.

But the writers for the series said, "You know what, let's make these two adorable in nearly every scene they're in." And they are!

Even though I don't believe in their relationship in the movie, I fully believe it here. Both characters have a large amount of faith in one another on top of having endless love for their partner. Like how Eugene knew Rapunzel would be fine when taking out an airship or how Rapunzel couldn't bring herself to say a bad thing about Eugene when making Cassandra a sparring dummy of him. It's legitimately pleasant to watch, to the point where I put Rapunzel and Eugene in my top ten list of favorite fictional couples. They're that good to me, and it's one of the reasons why I don't jump on the bandwagon of shipping the two main female characters together. I'm all for LGBTQA+ representation, but give Cassandra her own girlfriend. Rapunzel's taken, and most of my enjoyment of this show comes from her and her man. So, you know, keep things as they are.

Cassandra (Seasons One and Two): Seeing how I've already mentioned her, let's talk about Cassandra, shall we? Because when making a series based on a movie that had only four prominent characters, with two of them being comedic animal sidekicks, you're going to need to introduce more members to the main cast to write more potential stories. And Cassandra, in Seasons One and Two (I'll get to Season Three), is a worthy addition. She acts as a strict straight man (I know the irony) who interacts well with Rapunzel and clashes perfectly with Eugene on occasion. She was passably entertaining in Season One and developed amazingly in Season Two. Her growing frustrations with Rapunzel's actions lead to a slow build-up that made her betrayal heartbreaking but somewhat understandable. And as for the results in that betrayal...yeah, I'll get into that later. For now, I'll just say that Cassandra was a pleasant addition to the main cast, especially when she was a part of the main trio, and she's yet another good surprise that the writers supplied for the series.

The Songs: The songs are...not going to be for everyone. Most of them are passable yet kind of generic, while others sound like they belong on Disney Junior (Looking at you, "Bigger Than That"). But when Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure makes a hit, MAN, it is a home run. Numbers like "Ready As I'll Ever Be" and "Nothing Left to Lose" are sung phenomenally, orchestrated well, and are songs I can listen to on repeat multiple times. And "Waiting in the Wings" is not only something I consider to be the best song in the series, but it's also something I'd place as high up on Disney's best due to how f**king incredible it is. "Waiting in the Wings" is a powerful ballad that manages to be both tragic yet inspiring on top of how well it sums up Cassandra as a character. The writers may not always be on top of their game when it comes to music, but songs like these prove that they know how to earn that Disney name.

And that’s all I have for the likes...Oh boy. That’s not a good thing is it?

WHAT I DISLIKED

It Peaked at Season One: It did. It really did.

Season One felt like the writers had a grip on what type of show they wanted: A slice-of-life series with Rapunzel dealing with the issues of her kingdom with a meager threat of these black rocks growing in the background. It was all cute and well-balanced for the most part, but that all disappears in Season Two. Because now it's sort of about this adventure, but because Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure set itself as a slice-of-life series, there need to be these small-scale stories that intertwine the grand narrative being told. The issue is that the story comes to a grinding halt one too many times as fans are forced to sit through these filler episodes that, while not all of them are bad, still feel like a distraction. And by Season Three, the series does feel more focused while having some slice-of-life episodes added to the ongoing story instead of distracting us from it. But the writing isn't as strong, there are several plot holes in the narrative (how did Rapunzel's sunstone get into her dress?), and there is way too much time going back and forth on Cassandra's morality. They claim that she's a villain while arguing that there might still be some good in her, and they continue this train of thought for nine episodes when it really could have been settled in two. For me, it's a bad sign for a series when the first season is the best one. Because if it's all downhill from there, what's the point of even watching?

It Tries to be Epic: This might have been the worst decision the writers could have made.

Now, here's the thing: I don't mind grand epic tales of adventure and battles against demons. If anything, I'm all for them...when it's appropriate and fits with the tone of the series.

Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure suffers a similar problem Frozen II has, in which the writers felt like a big, life-threatening adventure was the perfect continuation of a meager, personal story about the relationships of characters. It isn't. If anything, it's completely missing the mark about what the original story was about. And sure, sometimes writers can succeed in telling personal stories through grand adventures. Just look at The Owl House and parts of Amphibia. But with those shows, it's established within the first few episodes that action and peril will be a series staple. With Tangled, while there was some action and peril, it's all very subdued compared to how high the stakes got raised in later episodes in the show. Especially in the series finale.

And, I mean, c'mon. You're making Rapunzel an action hero?

Judy Hopps? Yes.

Moana? Maybe.

Raya? Most definitely.

But Rapunzel? The character who’s all about optimism and seeing the best of others. That's the character you're going to morph into a hero that fights against an evil demon laid dormant for years? Did you even watch the original movie? Yeah, sorry, but I just don't buy it.

If you want to tell an epic story that gets the blood pumping for fans addicted to adventure, go for it! See where the wind takes you. But make sure to set that tone as early as possible while also making sure that it fits with the characters. If not, the end result is a series that feels like it's trying to be something it’s not.

Eugene is Kind of an Idiot at Times: It should be noted that Movie-Eugene and Series-Eugene are practically two different characters. In the film, Eugene was more or less the straight man, as he often questions the wackiness in the world around him and keeping Rapunzel grounded in reality. For the series, most of that personality got transferred to Cassandra. Thus making Eugene's new role in the series act as the egotistical imbecile. Sure, he had those moments in the film, but not as frequently, and it really pains me when the writers really lean hard into a minor aspect of his personality. Sometimes there are moments when Eugene acts like his original self. But it's all small scenes that are spread apart with entire episodes where he has half a brain cell. I'm sure some people didn't mind this change to the character, but as someone who adores the movie version of Eugene, I can't help but feel disappointed.

The Villains are the Worst: Now, I don't mean the one-off villains that show up, cause some chaos for a bit, and disappear at the end of the episode. Those are characters with fun personalities, occasionally cool designs, and do their job as villains of the week. It doesn't matter if their motivations are laughably simple, as their purpose is to be enjoyable characters above anything else. So I actually enjoy those villains...it's the ones that act as season-long antagonists that really grind my gears.

The purpose behind these types of foes is to build up how evil they are throughout the season. The issue is that the writers try to give these characters, or at least two of them, a point. To be fair, this can work. Just look at Killmonger from Black Panther and sometimes Karli Morgenthau from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. You understand and probably even sympathize with the logic and reasoning these characters have. It's just that their actions couldn't be farther from what you would do. The problem with Varian and Cassandra is that they have the motivation, but it's not written suitably for the story.

Cassandra is a whole can of worms I'll get to in a minute, but Varian is someone I can easily discuss for a brief time. Because while I can comprehend his pain for having his father frozen in yellow rock, I don't think turning evil is the best decision to go with that character. Because A. Everything is his fault. He blames Rapunzel for not helping him, but even if she didn't have a crisis to deal with, there was nothing she could have done to stop it. His frustrations are not only unjustified, but given the fact that this wouldn't have happened if he listened to his father in the first place, it feels like him becoming evil is too drastic of a turn. And B. Varian worked much better as a supporting character rather than a primary antagonist. He was just this hopeful, if not a clumsy scientist who wanted to prove himself, who causes minor catastrophes due to not thinking ahead. Turning a character like Varian into a villain is a bit of a misstep because if the guy acts hilariously incompetent as a good guy, it makes little sense to have him be intelligent and ten steps ahead of Rapunzel when being evil. If he were to become more serious and careful when helping the rest of the main cast, I'd consider that character progression done properly. But becoming a villain is just an overreaction.

However, none of that compares with my issues with the main antagonist of the series: Zhan Tiri. This goes back to my problems with the series making itself too epic. Because if Zhan Tiri existed in any other show, I probably wouldn't have any problem with her. She's built up well throughout all three seasons and is kind of threatening at times. But she doesn't belong in a series based on a movie that dealt with a small, personal issue where it wasn't even the character who killed the villain in the end. It was her love interest and animal sidekick. Even if Zhan Tiri works well as a character, the fact that it doesn't feel like she belongs in the show makes her too distracting to enjoy. And that's why these villains suck. If not poorly written, they don't belong in a series that should focus on small-scale issues. And if you can functionally write an antagonist that appears for only one episode but flounder with ones that show up in several, well, that's just embarrassing.

Cassandra (Season 3): OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH BOY, do I have some words to express with this character. Like with Movie-Eugene and Series-Eugene, Cassandra from Seasons One and Two is frustratingly different from the psychotic IDIOT from Season Three. Basically, just take the issues I have with Varian, multiply them by ten, add them with some bafflingly stupid decisions, and you still wouldn't get how much Season Three-Cassandra frustrates me!

First off, her motivation...what the f**k were the writers thinking? The big reason why Cassandra betrays Rapunzel and motivates all of her misdeeds was that Cassandra's mother was Mother Gothal...EXPLAIN THAT LOGIC TO ME?! Because Cassandra should know what type of woman Mother Gothal was. She should know what Mother Gothal did to Rapunzel in the first eighteen years of her life. So how is Cassandra being abandoned by Gothal the central motivator to cut ties with Rapunzel, who is probably an even bigger victim in this scenario!? Seriously, Rapunzel was cut off from the rest of the world and treated as an unknowing prisoner because she was beneficial to Gothal. Cassandra was adopted into a household with mutual love and got to actually live her life. In no way does it make sense for her to be angry at Rapunzel.

Nor does it make sense that the writers try to play it off as a good thing in the song "Crossing the Line!" Sure, it sounds nice, but thematically, it gives across the opposite feelings that the audience should have. Because if Cassandra cutting ties with Rapunzel is meant to be tragic and awful, why is the music suggesting it's the best possible thing that's ever happened for the character? If you like the song, fine, but even you have to admit that it's thematic nonsense.

But, sure. Cassandra's evil now, and she considers it a good thing. Whatever. I'll take it as long as it leads to good stories...but here's the thing: In the penultimate episode before the three-part series finale, Cassandra asks a question. A question I would have never expected her to ask, despite everything that has happened in the last season. A question that was so baffling, I had to legitimately pause the episode to process the fact that she asked something so stupid. Because Cassandra, the character who is intelligent and grounded in reality, asked, "Am I the bad guy?"

I was honestly shocked to find out she was shocked! How, in the flying, everlasting, cock-a-doodle-doodling F**K does a person like her not pick up that maybe, just maybe, she isn't the hero in this story!? Call me crazy, but endangering the lives of people you once called friends and family, dressing in black, AND HAVING A GIANT EVIL-LOOKING TOWER MADE OUT OF F**KING SPIKES aren't qualities I would give to a hero!

If Cassandra was like Thanos, a character so wrapped up in his ego that he can't even notice how evil he is, I would understand. But she doesn't have an ego. Anger, yes. But for the most part, her personality is based on having logic and reasoning. So turning her into a villain and having her unaware that she's a villain is an act of lunacy that I am incapable of understanding. I don't know who's idea this was, but whoever is to blame...you've got issues.

>Sighs<...This series isn't good, is it?

IN CONCLUSION

I like the animation and some of the characters...but that's not enough. Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure is a mess of a show that tries to do too much for a story that should have so little. Meaning that it's a D+ for me. I want to enjoy it and give it a higher grade, especially with how much I hear people praise this series. And if you do enjoy it, all the power to you. Your opinions are valid, even if I highly disagree with them. Because for me, this is a show that I won't get myself tangled up in again in the future.

#tangled: the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rapunzel x eugene #tangled cassandra #tangled varian #zhan tiri #what i thought about

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itsthenovelteafactor · 5 years ago

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Vanya and the Phantom

I asked and y’all answered (special thanks to @schizoidwire and @the-aro-ace-arrow-ace and all the people who responded to my earlier post for encouraging me!), so it is time for how The Phantom of the Opera song introduction can be read as a look into Vanya’s self-narrative and also foreshadows future events in a really subtle and interesting way.

I’m channeling my inner Elliot and going into full conspiracy mode. This is gonna be a long one, y’all.

Part One: In Which I Expose Myself as a Former Theater Kid

So, for those who aren’t familiar with The Phantom of the Opera, it was originally a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux back in 1909. In 1986, Andrew Lloyd Webber rewrote it as a musical. For purposes of my analysis here, I am just going to be discussing the musical because 1) the score used in the opening scene is from it and 2) I’ve never read the book. (If anyone out there has read the book and wants to weigh in, please do!)

It’s a very aesthetic show, and draws on a lot of gothic themes and imagery. The plot follows an opera house, and specifically a young chorus girl named Christine Daaé. I’m not going to explain the whole show plot in detail because wikipedia exists, but I will do a quick overview here and point out some things as they relate to things I’ll be discussing later. Also there will be a test after and it will NOT be multiple choice.

The show begins when the opera house is sold to new owners who 1) just want to make money and 2) do not respect the opera house’s resident ghost (who isn’t really a ghost, but we’ll get to that later.) When the Phantom makes his presence known, and freaks out the resident prima donna singer (who will be relevant later) Carlotta, who says she won’t sing under these conditions. It is then that Christine appears. She’s quiet and humble and has always lived in the background, but is incredibly talented. The woman who runs the chorus (also owner of the opera house’s resident braincell) suggests Christine sing the part. She does, and is amazing. Everyone is blown away, and she’s catapulted into instant fame and success.

We later learn that Christine has been studying under the Phantom, who appears to her in mirrors. She calls him the Angel of Music, and thinks that he was sent to teach her by her recently deceased father. He isn’t. He’s actually pretty malicious, and is obsessed with Christine, wants to control her voice, and doesn’t like her dating anyone. Which is a bit awkward when her childhood friend shows up and promptly falls in love with her.

Anyways, Carlotta is jealous of the attention Christine has been getting and threatens to leave prompting the new owners to cut Christine from the program. The Phantom doesn’t like it at all, sends a bunch of letters, things escalate, people are murdered, and the whole first act ends with the chandelier falling from the ceiling and crashing onto the stage (which is done with really cool effects, oftentimes beginning the show hanging over the audience. It’s a BIG MOMENT and one of the most iconic ones from the show. This will also be relevant later.)

Act two takes place a few months later, wherein no one has seen the Phantom. Shock of all shocks, though, he’s not dead. He’s been writing an opera and he wants Christine to star in it. More stuff happens, you learn the backstory of the Phantom (which is pretty sad, ngl, but in no way makes him less of a creep) and the story ends with the Phantom kidnapping Christine and giving her an ultimatum: stay with him forever, or he kills Raoul (aka childhood friend/romantic interest guy). She agrees to stay with him and he’s so moved by her compassion that he lets them both go and disappears forever.

Part Two: Casting the Characters

That’s interesting, Rosie (note sarcasm) but you said this was about The Umbrella Academy? I did, in fact. So, we meet Vanya when she’s playing a medley of songs from The Phantom of the Opera. Since it’s primarily the melodies and not one of the orchestral pieces from her performance later (I don’t think), we can assume she’s just playing it for herself (which is nice! good on you, Vanya).

Maybe she’s never seen the play and just likes the score, but for purposes here, let’s assume she’s familiar with it.

You can tell a lot about a person by the stories they connect with (for example, I like TUA because I like fun sibling dynamics, found family, music, and being sad). And I think that it makes sense that The Phantom of the Opera would be a story that resonates with Vanya. The overlooked chorus girl finds power in music, and, after years in the background, is finally given a chance to show how special she is.

So, yeah. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that Vanya sees herself as Christine. There are some discrepancies, sure, but this is Vanya’s self-narrative, which we learn pretty much immediately is unreliable. (Love her, but it’s true.) And if Vanya is Christine, then we can try and tap into her perspective to look at some other characters.

Anyways remember Carlotta (the prima donna opera singer who always got the spotlight and tried to destroy everything good that happened to Christine because she felt threatened that someone might be as good/better than her whose entire personality and role in the story I just summarized, rendering my plot recap useless)? Carlotta is how Vanya views Allison. (Kind of all her siblings, but her relationship with Allison is the most important here.)

Think about the scene in the cabin?

“You couldn’t risk me threatening your place in the house! You couldn’t handle the fact that Dad might find me special!” - Vanya, having a mental breakdown.

This always struck me as an interesting accusation to throw, since prior to this moment, I don’t think there was any indication that Allison had ever felt threatened by Vanya. She excluded her, sure, and wasn’t super friendly at times, but the idea that Allison has been pulling strings to keep Vanya out of her spotlight is new. But that is exactly the role Carlotta plays in Phantom.

Fun fact! At one point in the musical, the Phantom enchants Carlotta so that she loses her voice right before coming on stage.

Part Three: The Phantom of the Opera is there

So based on everything I’ve said so far, the most straightforward reading is then, that Leonard Peabody/Harold Jenkins (who for purposes here I’ll call Leonard) is the stand in for the Phantom, which works... really well. Both in helping to understand Vanya and also because it foreshadows the twist of season one in a really cool way.

So, the Phantom appears to Christine first not as an enemy, but as a friend and teacher, who encourages her to be more confident in her abilities. He trains her to develop her singing ability. While the teacher-student dynamic is actually inverted initially with Vanya and Leonard, from the get go, he is showering her with compliments, encouraging her to be confident in her abilities, and, at least on the surface, supporting her in a way she hasn’t been supported before (he’s a trash human but an expert manipulator).

But, in the play, the Phantom is also very possessive over Christine and her power (er, I mean voice). He also is perfectly willing to kill and/or hurt people who he views as standing in the way of Christine and her success (see the aforementioned Carlotta incident). Which is exactly what Leonard does to Vanya. He kills the first chair violinist to help her get it, and orchestrates a whole master plan to get her to reveal her powers on his terms.

Even the part where he starts “training” her to use her powers kind of resembles the second act of the play. The Phantom wrote a play for Christine and she’s going to star in it, whether she wants to or not.

(One could even make the argument of the parallels between Christine believing the Phantom was sent by her father to teach her and Leonard showing up because of his revenge scheme against Vanya’s father, but I honestly don’t have much support for that.)

Part Three: Two Conflicting Narratives

So, as you might’ve noticed, I sort of have two different threads of analysis going on right now. 1) The Phantom of the Opera parallel is part of Vanya’s self-narrative and in it she mischaracterizes Allison, making her more suspicious of her motivations and 2) Leonard Peabody is clearly the Phantom and doesn’t bother being subtle about it. I hope that I’ve been convincing (or at least intriguing) for you to get to this point, because here is where they come together.

Vanya has this parallel going, but she doesn’t see Leonard as the Phantom. In the beginning at least, he’s her Raoul. If I had to guess, I’d say Reginald Hargreeves is the Phantom in Vanya’s self-narrative (says he’ll train her but wants to manipulate her and keep her locked away for himself, strict teacher who doesn’t really care about her well being, wearing a mask to appear more normal/human... she wouldn’t exactly be wrong). Leonard, on the other hand, is Vanya’s supporter. He validates her, and believes in her, and taker her side when Carlotta and the opera house owners (er, the rest of the Hargreeves children) gang up on her and conspire to keep her out.

This is all building to, of course, the final confrontation. The Phantom says Christine has to pick one or the other. When Allison comes to talk to Vanya, Vanya feels as if she’s been given an ultimatum and lashes out.

And that’s where everything (including this parallel) starts to crumble.

(I honestly don’t know a lot about the other characters and how they fit in. I suppose we could have Five = Raoul if we ignore romance plot and focus on the childhood friend that hasn’t been seen in a while angle? And maybe also Pogo = Madame Giry. Vanya doesn’t really have any friends to be Meg.)

Part Four: It’s All About the Moon

So that is kind of the gist of The Phantom of the Opera as a window into Vanya’s self-narrative theory, but there are a couple of other loosely related ideas I thought I might as well bring up since this thing is already ridiculously long.

Remember how I mentioned the chandelier is like, THE scene from The Phantom of the Opera back in part one, and said it’d be relevant later? Bringing that back now, because I’m going to pull a Luther and connect everything to the moon.

So, to get the obvious out of the way, the moon exploding and the chandelier coming crashing to the stage are similar because something falls, breaks into a bunch of pieces, destroys a bunch of stuff, and creates a powerful and memorable image to close off before an act/season break (the next installment of which begins with a time jump).

Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that The Phantom of the Opera is told out of order. The opening scene shows a grown up Raoul at an auction for the items left behind after the opera house closes, and it switches to the past as the remains of the chandelier rise upwards to the ceiling, Phantom’s theme swelling (it’s a really cool moment, tbh). Following the prologue of The Umbrella Academy, we switch to the present with two images: Vanya alone on the stage, and then Luther alone on the moon. Which has a kind of symmetry that might mean nothing, but is still kind of cool.

(Also the item that Raoul buys from the auction is a music box with a monkey crashing symbols on top of it. Which might mean nothing.)

Part Five: How is she STILL talking about this? (AKA Conclusion)

To be honest, this is more a very tangled “things I noticed and thought were interesting” discussion than a formal essay with any clear thesis. While there is a chance that this was all coincidental and I’ve gone full Pepe Sylvia, the music selection in The Umbrella Academy is one of the things that they seem to be really deliberate about.

I would love to chat with anyone about this theory, so feel free to reach out in the notes or message me! My inbox is always open. Much love, and thank you for reading, if you got this far! ❤️

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mediocre--writing · 5 years ago

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The Only Aussie I’d Fuck

Luke Hemmings x Reader

Word Count: 3K

Summary: Luke’s girlfriend, Y/n, is a famous actress she’s been begging him to watch her show and he’s finally caving, watching with his band mates, but how will Luke feel at her and her co-star’s on-screen relationship?

Warnings: Despite the title, this isn’t smut, a few mentions of making out but no smut.

All the boys sat crowded around the television as the screen was being switched from Cable to a streaming service.

It was unlikely that the boys would just sit around a TV when they weren’t touring, since they usually wanted to do things they weren’t allowed to on tour, like spend time with loved ones or, the least likely thing they would actually get to do on tour, have a good night's sleep. But this was a special occasion, Luke’s girlfriend, Y/n, had been practically begging him to watch her show for the past few months, and he wasn't ignoring his girlfriend, he just never really had the time to.

She had wanted to watch it with him, something that she had expressed multiple times to him on the phone, but she was busy filming the next season of the show somewhere in the mid-western US, Nebraska, he thinks. It was some sort of horror/comedy/teen coming of age thing that she never really explained other than she was in it and alluded to him a time or two.

Luke was immensely proud of her and all that she had accomplished, when they met in 2014, he never thought that they’d both become who they were today and they never imagined the relationship that grew between them, especially a healthy relationship, given their current occupations that set certain restrictions on their capabilities on getting together in person.

They fit together well, where he was introverted to an extent, she would push him out of his comfort zone, and vice-versa depending on the situation. They both understood each other on different levels, they both had a really creative and artistic side, yet they also enjoyed the quiet peace of being home just laying in the quiet; sans Petunia’s toenails tapping on the hardwood floors as she roamed about the house aimlessly.

All the boys settled in to watch, given they were all close to Y/n as well, for she had gone on the american leg of the Sounds Live, Feels Live and Meet You There tours with them and bonded with the boys, gaining three more friends, real friends, not some snobby stuck up bitches that she worked with regularly. These were normal, down to earth boys who understood more than money and fame and could take a joke.

Luke snapped a picture of the screen and the boys and their load of snacks and sent it to Y/n, proof that he was actually, finally, watching it, something she’d been begging him to do for far too long.

As the show loaded and began to play, Michael nudged Luke’s shoulder a few times as Y/n’s face came into view, showing her sitting in a classroom gnawing on the eraser part of her pencil.

“Look at our girl” Ashton said as they all watched the screen with more attention than they ever gave at a business meeting.

The show was set in a private-school like setting, all the kids wearing white and navy blue uniforms. The whole scene had a white noise, disturbed only by the slamming of a book, which made Y/n’s head shoot up to look at the teacher. She had a kind of glare to her eyes as she stared at the older man, who looked very displeased at her attention focused on her daydreams rather than school.

“Ms. Carter, what was I talking about a moment ago?”

“Dinosaurs!” She said with confidence.

“This is a calculus class, Ms. Carter, detention,”

“Aye, Aye captain,” She saluted him, causing him to shoot her another glare as she smirked and high fived a few people around her.

The scene changed as she was now walking through the hallways, towards a crowd around the bathrooms, “What’s up, Maggie, we watching people piss or something?”

A girl, who Luke distantly remembers Y/n complaining about at some point, begins to speak, “There’s a new hot guy in the bathroom and some girl said that he’s from a different country.”

“We live in fucking Nebraska, who the hell would move here? People move away from here, not to here.”

“Just wait, I swear he had a weird voice!” Another girl said from the group.

“Was it anything like yours? Because if so we may need to fumigate the place” Y/n snapped at her. “What’s his name? Or do you know nothing other than his ‘weird voice?’”

After her statement, the boy came out to see the small group of seven-ish girls standing near the boys bathroom.

“Hey you! What’s your deal?” Maggie yelled at the boy.

He turned, showing his TV-perfect face scrunched in confusion, “What'd ya mean?”

“Where you from, why are you here, what's your deal?” Maggie spat at the poor boy who was blushing redder than a firetruck.

“I’m Oliver Hunnington and I’m from Sydney, my dad got a job somewhere here and so I’m here too.” He shrugged, looking far too uncomfortable with the situation

“Sydney like as in Australia?” Maggie asked with a raised eyebrow, to which he nodded and ducked his head in embarrassment at the herd of girls staring at him like raw meat.

Y/n’s character stepped up with a hand held out to him, “I’m Savannah Carter, and you look like you’re about to shit your pants so do you need help finding your classes or are you just generally terrified of women?”

The boys chuckled at the statement, thinking of how Y/n had said something similar to Luke the first time they met, the boy was blushing so bad he looked ready to pass out.

“Little bit of both, not gonna lie,” He chuckled, to which she grabbed his hand, looked him in the eyes with a smirk, and led him down the hallway, the girls hooting after them, Y/n turning to playfully glare at them.

The first episode just established the basic plot, it ending with a threatening scene of some gloved hands cleaning a bloody hammer as screaming is heard in the background, the end credits rolling as the next episode begins to load.

The show was good, it wasn’t like the cringy ones that have creepy staring contests that were meant to be intimate, and the comedy wasn’t forced, it was just generally sarcastic, and it was actually enticing to watch, not just another boring Riverdale-type knockoff.

Y/n’s character had made a few flirty remarks at Oliver, mostly jokes about eating him alive if he’d let her and asking him if he’d ever done...things with girls, which were awkward scenes but funny nonetheless.

She had teasingly trailed her fingers down his neck and shoulders a few times. There have been a few make-out scenes between her and a few other characters, most of them being guys though there was a point when she kissed Maggie, but those scenes only caused mild discomfort for the boys, three of which had been eyewitnesses to her and Luke’s make-out sessions every once and awhile.

Her character was so different from the Y/n they knew, Y/n was kind and soft and would bake them cookies when she felt like it and she would never force anyone to do anything. Her character, Savannah, however, was sexual and not at all the socially anxious Y/n they all knew too well, Savannah had an air about her that couldn’t be ignored and practically begged for attention.

They were on the seventh episode, they were gonna end on the fifth but they got intrigued by the plot and decided “just one more” which was really just an excuse, though they knew none of them wanted to actually stop the next episode from playing.

The show is all about a person who is going around and hurting people, but never killing them, just slow torture, but you don’t know who they are and nobody can figure it out, and one of the characters involved with the main characters in the first episode was attacked by the masked person, so they all get involved; Savannah, Maggie, Oliver, and the other, more minor, characters in the show.

Another character, Jess, an innocent girl who was a class below them and looked up to Savannah to guide her, so she became like a little sister and helped them all figure things out because she was really smart.

Oliver and Savannah got really close too. She would always make sexual jokes at him and make him uncomfortable just so she could see him blush and have his hair fall over his face as he looked down in embarrassment.

The scene the boys were at now consisted of them being at a party, Y/n’s character and Jess being in a bedroom looking for anything suspicious, while they talked idly.

“Do you ever worry what this all could mean for your future?” Jess asked.

“What do you mean?” Savannah asked, stopping her searching and leaning on the bed.

“Like what if something happens and things go wrong and… i don't know what if someone thinks we are the ones doing… all this?”

“Listen honey, I hate to tell you this, but my only goal in life is to get that cute little Aussie downstairs to pin me down by my neck and fuck me so hard that I can taste it, so if you’re asking me for advice about the future and shit, I’m really no help at all, kid,” Y/n’s character said with a smirk as she returned to looking for whatever she was looking for before.

Calum, who had just been taking a sip of water, choked on it as all the boys looked up to Luke, who was staring wide eyed at the TV with a prominent blush across his cheeks.

Michael and Ashton, who had moved to the floor in front of Luke and Cal on the couch somewhere between the third and fourth episode, were wiggling their eyebrows while Calum turned around and rubbed his hands over his back as if he were making out with someone, making Luke flush even more than before.

A weak “Stop,” could be heard but the boys just laughed at Luke as they returned to the show.

They ended up finishing the series that night, since there were only 11 episodes and they had to finish it then or else they would never be able to find the time to sit and actually finish it.

It ended with Y/n’s character being attacked by the masked killer guy, but surviving and finding out that it was Jess’ dad who was behind the attacks, and he was manipulating Jess to get information on people going against him.

Savannah and Oliver ended up having their little moment, which gave the boys another reason to make jokes at Luke.

The scene consisted of her grabbing his silky looking shirt and pulling his face to hers, whispering, “Is that a telephone pole in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”

“Well maybe I was promised a chance at something and now I finally have the perfect moment to get it.”

“Then come get it, we don’t have all day,”

He shoved her into the wall by her hips and reached a hand up to her neck, “We have as long as we want,”

She smirked and the scene was moved to an overview of the city, turning into a map, then a big, red X was placed over the house that it had zoomed away from, then the credits rolled.

The boys decided that, since it was roughly 4 am anyways, that they’d all just stay the night, especially since they were gonna meet at Luke’s and have brunch together the next day anyway.

Ashton and Michael ended up knocking out on the floor, Calum curled up in a chair and Luke took the couch.

The sun rose only a few hours after they had fallen asleep, which didn’t disturb their sleep in the slightest, but the knocking on the door sure did.

KayKay and Crystal had been knocking on the door for at least ten minutes before Crystal tried to call Michael, who didn’t answer, so she called Luke, then Ashton, but neither of them answered either.

Calum was woken up by the buzzing of their phones, so when his phone rang, he answered with a groggy voice, and had to pull the phone away from his ear at the sound of excited squeals, “Thank God!” Crystal said, “Let us in, we've been here for half an hour and it's COLD!”

Calum chuckled as he walked to answer the door, kicking Michael and Ashton’s backs as he walked by, causing them to stir in their sleep.

Cal let the girls in and the other boys woke up soon after, getting semi-ready for their brunch, which was looking to be more of a lunch as they took forever to wake up and get ready-- the boys claimed it was payback because the girls always took far to long to get ready.

The boys told KayKay and Crystal about how they finally watched Y/n’s show, to which they made a few remarks of “What took you so long?” and “Isn’t it great?!” and “Damn, I wanted to watch Luke’s face when she made the Aussie jokes at Oliver!”

When they finally were about ready to leave, there was a knocking on the door, each of them looking around in question since their whole group was already here.

Given it was Luke’s place, and he was still getting ready, they had a silent debate on who would get the door before Crystal’s eyes widened almost comically and she shot up to go to the door.

Michael made a face at her as if asking “What the fuck?” but made no verbal response to her actions until there was loud squealing heard from the door.

Luke came down the stairs as the guys rounded the corner to see the door when they saw Crystal jumping and hugging someone--Y/n.

Luke came the rest of the way down the stairs and shoved through his friends, towards his girlfriend, and picked her up just moments after she had escaped Crystal’s death grip.

“Hi Bubs,” She whispered into his curly hair, which made him hold her even tighter than he was before, Crystal had taken a secret picture of the couple hugging (which would soon become Luke’s phone wallpaper).

The hug lasted a bit longer than it should have, but they hadn’t seen each other in person for over four months, so the rest of the group ignored it for now, especially since they were just hugging and not having a fun little make out-sesh in front of them like they had a tendency to do every now and then.

Luke set her down and looked into her eyes, which were filled with happy tears that had yet to fall, “When did you get back?”

“I took the weekend off to come see you because I don’t have to work until Tuesday next week and I really wanted to see you and then you sent me the text last night and I wanted to watch the show with you even if it was cringy for me. Then I realized that I really, really needed to see you and so I booked a plane ticket and it left at like four this morning and I’m really tired but I'm here and I’m with you.” Y/n barely breathed as she explained herself, but Luke just fell more and more in love with her, if that was possible.

Luke put his hands against her jaw as if he was going to kiss her but he just looked into her eyes and smiled, a big toothy grin that took up his whole face and made her smile too, tears dripping down her cheeks freely now as they hugged again.

After their hug, he invited her to come to brunch with them unless she was too tired, in which he would stay at home with her, but she agreed to go to brunch because she hasn’t eaten in almost 12 hours and “might drop dead of hunger soon” if she didn’t eat soon.

They went to a smaller cafe for a lunch/brunch thing where half of them got waffles and the others got hamburgers or pasta.

They joked and laughed for a few hours, basking in being together as a group for the first time in forever. The boys recounted tales of touring that the girls may have missed and also complimented Y/n on the show they finally watched, to which she shoved her head into Luke’s shoulder in embarrassment, but thanked them nonetheless.

They all hugged Y/n, as it would likely be the last time they’d see her that weekend, then they all drove to their respective homes.

When Luke and Y/n got inside, Luke grabbed her waist from behind as she squealed, “Put me down, Bubs!”

He ignored her and just walked up the stairs to his room and threw her onto the bed, causing her to squeal again.

“So are you saying that you don’t want me, a hot Aussie, to pin you down by the throat and fuck you?” She groaned, not an erotic groan but one of annoyance as she looked up at Luke who was also giggling at her reaction.

“I hate you! I really do! I really, really hate you! I swear to god, Hemmings, I can not stand you!” Her cheeks became hot as she shoved her head into the pillows.

Luke just giggled as he laid down next to her and pulled her in by the waist and cuddled into her like a koala, “I love you, you know that?”

“Matter of fact I do know that, and I love you too,” She said, “but I don’t love you when you use my character’s dialogue against me, hurts my heart a little bit, not gonna lie,”

He pushed his bottom lip out in a pout, “Well I’m sorry, how bout we cuddle then we can just watch something on TV or nap, because I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t fall asleep til after 5 and you had an early flight, so I feel like i’m gonna crash soon.”

“Fine by me, bubs,” She took a deep breath, inhaling the way he smelled as if it were the last time she would be with him and she snuggled her face into his chest a bit more, electing a giggle from him, “Fine by me.”

“I’m still the only hot Aussie you want to fuck though, right?” Luke asked quietly, looking down at her.

“Of course you are, you’re the only Aussie I’d want to fuck, you big baby,”

They both giggled for another moment and Y/n drifted to sleep, soft snores coming from her parted lips as Luke could almost see the small velvet box sitting in his underwear drawer that he couldn’t wait to give her soon, really soon.

#luke hemmings #luke hemmings x reader #luke hemmings fluff #luke hemmings x y/n #5sos #5sos x reader #5sos fluff #5 seconds of summer #actress!reader #luke hemmings x actress!reader

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nicnacsnonsense · 4 years ago

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Been thinking about my hypothetical live action remake of Korra (seriously Netflix, call me, I have so many amazing ideas) and how I would tackle season two since it’s definitely the season that needs the most work, specifically and especially the Unalaq & Raava-Vaatu plotline. I kind of got carried away, like I do, but I’m very excited about it; a lot of good strong themes here. I’m going to start by talking about the changes to the first half, pre-Beginnings interlude, then the Beginnings episodes, then the back half. For the most part, all of the major plot beats still stay the same, at least until the climax, but the way those beats are contextualized are going to get pretty different building up to a radically different climax (no spirit being kaiju fight, yay!).

With Unalaq in the front half, the one major change is I want the religious fundamentalism vibes that come on so strong when he’s introduced to ramp up after the Northern Tribe soldiers show up and especially after Korra finally realizes he’s a bad guy, rather than petering out like happens in canon. I want to actually see him impose strict expectations of behavior in accordance with what he feels honors the spirits on the people of Southern Water Tribe. Let’s get some misogyny and restrictive gender roles up in here. That’s going to be great (from a storytelling perspective, obviously) because it’s relatively low-hanging fruit to communicate that the bad guy is bad, it fits in well thematically with where we’re going and the religious fundamentalism, and there is canon precedent in The Last Airbender that restrictive gender roles are a traditional value in the Northern Water Tribe.

A quick sidebar related to themes, in whatever episode where we first have Unalaq really cracking down on those gender roles, I want a B or possibly C plot with the Tenzin family vacation, where Jinora comes out to Tenzin as nonbinary. She is questioning with regards to the exact nature of her gender, but does say its some combination of both masculine and feminine, though other nonbinary identities – including agender, genderfluid, and a gender that is completely divorced from male-female – are floated. Tenzin is supportive and affirming and also suggests Jinora talk with her Aunt Kya, who he identifies as being a transwoman. (Kya is a trans lesbian in my version; you gotta deal with it.) This obviously serves to contrast Unalaq with his strict gender roles, and continues to build our theme.

For Korra in the first half, I do want to drag her emotional volatility down just a tad as compared to where she’s at in canon for these episodes. I still want her getting emotional and acting rash – that’s a huge part of her character – but I want her anger to feel sympathetic to the audience. Though I do also want at least one moment where Korra gets angry for good reason and starts yelling at Unalaq and he chides her for being emotional and irrational and he’s not going to discuss this with her if she can’t behave calmly and logically, blah, blah, blah, misogyny.

The final and biggest change that we’re making in the first half is Korra does not yet have her bending back. Season one does still end with her talking with Aang and learning energybending, which she uses to restore everyone else’s bending and restore her own connection to the other three elements, but in the opening episode of season two, we learn that she still can only airbend. She says that as far as she can tell everything should be alright and she should be able to bend fire, water, and earth, but obviously she can’t. She also mentioned that while it looks like it should, she feels like there is something missing, or maybe something there that she can’t see. Which my clever readers of course realize is a reference to Raava. After her flashback coma, Korra gains the other elements back, explaining that what she was missing was her connection to Raava had been damaged. Not broken, which is why she could still airbend and do all the other Avatar stuff she was doing, but damaged enough that Raava could no longer switch elements for her or give her access to multiple elements at once.

Moving on to Beginnings, right off the bat, I’m getting rid of the notion that all humans have to huddle on the backs of lion turtles out of fear of the spirits. The two worlds are connected, but humans and spirits co-exist peacefully for the most part. The lion turtles instead act as mediators when necessary, and do sometimes give out bending for humans to defend themselves with, but not as a regular thing every time they need to leave their city. We’ll have to switch up the stealing fire and Chin plot a little to accommodate this change, but somehow or other it happens and Wan gets banished with firebending.

Eventually he comes across Raava and Vaatu fighting and these two characters are getting some major shake ups. First off, in canon Raava identifies as being peace to counter Vaatu’s chaos, but peace is not the opposite of chaos; order is. Now, looking into yin & yang, chaos & order are not aspects that traditionally apply to them, but we’re going to let that addition of order to yang and light and chaos to yin and dark stand. Not everything has to be perfectly aligned. That said, one way in which we are going to switch things to make them fit better is yang is the masculine energy with yin as feminine. We’re switching the voices.

So Wan sees them fighting, and Vaatu calls out for help. And Wan is like, oh no, a damsel in distress; I’ll help you, milady! So, he helps, giving Vaatu the advantage. She beats up Raava, then flies off. Raava chastises Wan, explaining that he is the spirit of light and order, and he has been trying since the beginning of time to defeat Vaatu, but their battles have always ended in a draw. But now Wan has given Vaatu the advantage and if they don’t fix this, she’ll be victorious at the upcoming Harmonic Convergence, sending the worlds into ten thousand years of darkness. To which Wan is like, oh no, that sounds horrible. Well, Mr. Masculine Manly Spirit-Man Raava, I like light and order and you seem like a logical rational person; I’ll for sure help you put that emotional crazy spirit lady in her place. (Have I made the irony here clear enough? I don’t think I can get much more blatant. Though obviously in the show version it would be a little more subtle.)

After that we get Raava & Wan’s training and learning the elements montage, with some encounters with “corrupted” spirits along the way. Corrupted being Raava’s word, and he elaborates to say that all spirits fall under either Raava or Vaatu’s domain, all with varying inherent levels of light & order and dark & chaos to them. Vaatu gaining in power is causing the levels of dark& chaos in these spirits to rise, throwing them out of balance. Eventually comes time for Harmonic Convergence, Raava & Wan vs. Vaatu, and Vaatu wins. Ten thousand years of chaos, baby. With the last of the spirit energy as Harmonic Convergence ends, Wan fuses with Raava, then unleashes a crazy, amazing spirit attack, imprisoning Vaatu, banishing all the spirits from the physical world to the spirit world, and sealing the portals, all as an attempt to mitigate the fall out from chaos ascendent. Since then, the Avatar, imbued with the spirit of order, has fought back against the chaos to try to restore balance to the world.

Korra wakes up and panics. They have to stop Unalaq who is trying to free Vaatu, probably because he wants to destroy the world or something. But when she next has a chance to confront Unalaq, he’s like, not you stupid girl. I’m not trying to destroy the world; I’m trying to save it. Wan was right to side with order, but wrong to think he could stop chaos by teaming up with Raava and destroying it from without. No chaos is inside all of us, the evil infesting every human heart (Unalaq’s words, not mine) and it can only be dominated through one’s own strong force of will and conviction. So his plan is to fuse with Vaatu and then dominate her, destroy her chaos and using her power to allow him to bring his order across all of existence, both in the physical and spirit worlds. Korra’s not too keen on that plan either. She’s still going to stop him.

Korra fails to stop him. Harmonic Convergence begins, Vaatu is freed, she goes inside of Unalaq, and she immediately subsumes him. Turns out you can’t eliminate all the chaos in the world just by willpower, you absolute looney toon. Vaatu explains that even as Unalaq was planning to use her, she was using him to get free and now is going to use him as a meat puppet to help her fight Raava & the Avatar.

So, they fight, and for a bit it’s evenly matched, then Vaatu gains the upper hand. Just as Vaatu appears she’s about to deal the finishing blow, Unalaq briefly regains control and interrupts her – to be clear, he manages this because of his desperate need for order and control, not out of any affection for Korra. While he’s in control he says something in defiance of Vaatu that coming from Unalaq we can hear is clearly some fascist bullshit, but also echoes something that Wan/Raava said back in their battle with Vaatu. And Korra’s like, wait, hold up a second.

Lightbulb turns on for Korra at that moment, and by the time Vaatu has resecure control, Korra has dropped her offensive stance. She tells Vaatu she doesn’t want to fight her; she wants her to fuse with her and Raava. Neither Vaatu nor Raava like this idea. Korra has to go on the defensive holding off Vaatu’s attacks, and has to internally fight against Raava wanting to attack Vaatu all while trying to sell them both on this idea. She explains that too much chaos has been bad for the world, but too much order would be bad too – case in point, Unalaq. Both chaos and order, both Raava and Vaatu are needed for balance. And yeah, they can achieve balance by constantly fighting each other, with every encounter ending as a draw, or they could achieve balance through harmony together. Because even as they are opposites, they are one and the same, a part of a greater whole. A bunch of stuff to that effect, including mentions of the Northern Water Tribe upsetting the balance by trying to dominate the Southern Water Tribe, and also a shout out to Tui and La in there somewhere, the original Yin/Yang Avatar couple. Eventually Korra convinces them, she fuses with Vaatu, and Harmonic Convergence ends in a tie, returning the world to balance once again.

And of course, now that balance has been achieved, Korra leaves the spirit portals open. Remember in this version spirits and humans got along fine, and the separation was only necessary because the world had fallen out of balance. And yes, the rejoining of the physical and spirit worlds was probably something Unalaq wanted too, but we’re not giving him credit for it, because for every good idea a fascist ever had, there’s someone else who isn’t a fascist who had the same idea, but better, because it wasn’t coming from a fascist.

#the legend of korra #atlok #unalaq #raava #vaatu #long post

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popculturebuffet · 5 years ago

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Ducktales Reviews: The Battle for Castle McDuck!

How to sum up how I feel about this episode....

Yeah that’ll do it. This wasn’t a BAD episode. It flowed nicely, had two great new additions to the cast.. but after weeks of really good episodes, warts and all.. this one was just.. okay. Part of the problem isn’t the episode’s fault as I went in expecting the answers to scrooge’s immortality, the answers to hortense we didn’t get last week, and you know donald and della actually getting to interact with their grandparents. I got.. pretty much none of that, though I did get some answer as to how Hortense lived long enough to have donald. But we’ll get to that. Point is part of the episodes baggage is on setting my expectations too high, the same happened with “Astro B.O.Y.D.” earlier this season and in hindsight, that one is really excellent even if it wasn’t the fenton episode I was hoping for, it’s still really damn good. THis one... even if it’s not what I was hoping ofr, while not bad it’s still pretty medicore. Let’s get into why shall we? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We open at Castle McDuck, where Webby’s narrating for people who didn’t see the last episode set here and aren’t obsessive about watching the show like you or I. And also because this time she’s not so starstruck that she can’t actually speak or function, so she can actually get all the lore she wants in. The family is here because while the Druid stones seem to be working, the mists protecting the castle, and keeping it out of lockstep with reality every 5 years, have suddenly vanished. Naturally Fergus blames Scrooge for that. I’m mixed on this version of Fergus. While i’m fine with chanigng things up from life and times, having him live and having him resent scrooge on some level, it worked better last time as there was emotional weight and a reason behind it: Scrooge and him didn’t get along becasue Fergus missed his boy and resented that his sucess lost him a son and made him cold and bitter like Fergus himself. It fit both men to just be too damn proud to talk it out. So while Fergus being a bit crotchety still isn’t ENITRELY out of character him still being a dick to his son for no real reason and given no new one for being an asshole to him just annoys me. The character last time was three dimensional, understandable and likeable. This one is just a bitter old man constantly yelling at his son and doting on his daughter. More on that bit in a bit.

Downy meanwhile is just as lovely as last time: Since she lived long enough to see her grand children this time, I love seeing her as a wonderful doting grandmother to her great grandbabies. She’s wonderful and I’m thrilled to see her again. It does however bring up one of this episodes biggest issues: Donald and Della are absent and this time for no good reason. Last time, it was fair enough to exclude Donald as there was no real space for him in the narrative, and he likely , even if he loved grandma and grandpa, didn’t want to have to explain his estrangment with scrooge to them and break his poor gram-gram’s heart. That’s fair. This time though? Their not there because.. frank didn’t want to use them. That’s.. literally it. They could’ve fit fine into the family fued narrative epseically since we’ve seen them sibling squabble, and unlike other adventures they’ve been absent, where they clearly just wanted scrooge to have time with the kids, or in the case of rumble for ragnarok scrooge had valid reason for not using them, this time? There’s no good excuse. Della would want to see her grandparents, Donald would get drug along. They only appear every 5 years. WHy the hell wouldn’t they be here?! I get trying to have character ballance but we’ve had several episodes this season of just scrooge and the kids. We DIDN’T need it this time and the lack of characters dosen’t really change anything. It instead wastes plots like getting to see what Donald and Della’s relationships with their grandparents is like, or their aunt, or finding out how their mother died or at least fucking MENTIONING hortense outside of one word and a photo. YOu think the fact their sister is dead would be important to Scrooge and Matilda but it just.. never comes up. Their niece and nephew never come up and my patince comes up short. I’m fine with character ballance but i’m not fine with wasting a golden opportunity for character interactions we haven’t gotten. I get we just had two weeks of donald and della I do, but it dosen’t make this any less frustrating or nonsensical. Having characters appear two episodes in a row dosen’t magically make them irrelevant or we’d be seeing less of Huey or Louie or Dewey and outside of last week, we REALLY haven’t. If they can show up once an episode why can’t their parents?

Point is a mystery’s afoot, and so is THE PHANTOM BLOT.. to no one’s suprise as he was both in the episode’s description and frankly magic being drained is his mo, this time using a portable generator. Webby dosen’t catch on to this.. but I let it slide as while she’s the only one to have really met and fought the blot.. she’s also busy with mc duck family stuff and frankly while a missing mystery is here, given how deep the mcduck rouge’s gallery goes, it’s not a stretch to say it could be any one of them. Especially Glomgold, who while not magic is willing to pay for rediculous shit why would “dispersing scrooge’s family castle’s mists to bug his parents” be any diffrent. Or possibly replace them as their son because he’s kind of nuts and entirely made of stupid and that’s why we love him. And Magica has the obvious motives of revenge on scrooge, as this isn’t her first set of dead parents, and a castle full of mystic wonders. It’s plausable to wait and see who it is first instead of just assuming it’s one guy.

And yup there’s a mysterin town:A set of mystical bagpipes of the clan mcduck that can bring life to where there is none. We don’t know if they can raise the dead but they can bring inanimate objects to life so there’s that. But seriously Donald should take them to his parents graves just to be safe. But before we can get to duck necormancy we have to find them so we get... (checks notes) a Louie and Huey team up again where Louie is an abrasive jackass to his brother for planning ahead, despite the fact he’s been proven wrong on that front twice now, and is entirely insufferable and has learned nothing about trying to find a quick and easy way of doing things depsit elearning this lesson 80 times already.

As you can tell I hate this subplot and am getting it out of the way NOW because it’s not good and treads ground we’ve tread THREE TIMES ALREADY. and you did it right the first time, you did it okay if sloppiily with let’s get dangerous. Why this ? Louie learns nothing, Huey learns nothing and it’s not funny.The two just search for the mystery, and Louie is impatient. Though talking with a friend in a ducktales server, i’m in one now and it actually really helps with these, did make me realize that Louie’s character development has stalled like I thought... it’s simply a Marco Diaz situation. Like the third season of star vs the forces of evil, it’s basically a coin flip if your getting a well developed verison of the character that’s been built up over multiple seasons.. or a jackass whose learned nothing and treats other people badly. Their different FLAVORS of jackass but jackass still tastes awful no matter who it is. It’s not as BAD as it was there as while it’s not helpign the character, it’s not actively having him do the worst things possible, but it still makes Louie’s plots a chore to sit through at times as when he’s not well written like with split sword, rumble for ragnarok or tickening, he’s just a 2 dimensional greedy jerkhole and I don’t want to spend time with him. And the other brothers have had times of being written one dimensional, not going to lie, but all I get from Louie in these plots is this:

After almost getting his family killed, after getting scrooge’s fortune overnight with minimal effort and having everything he wanted only to learn, suprise, it takes a lot of work to maintain.. and he still just dosent’ get that the easy way isn’t always the way, and after the trickining and let’s get dangerous hasn’t learned his brother is usually right when he’s being anal retentive. This was fine in the last 2 seasons but too much has happened for him to get away with this shit and not come off as obnoxious. It just drags any episode it’s in down with it. I”ll leave the rest of the review under the cut.

One more subplot before we dig into the main one: The Phantom Blot and his new partner, Pepper! If you don’t remember her it’s fine as she wasn’t named but she was the egghead voiced by Amy Sedaris who showed up for one scene back in the Blot’s first apperance and who frank said they had more plans for. Well we see those plans now as Pepper has been paired with the Blot for this mission as Bradford’s policy for missing mystery missions now is the buddy system. No going solo, despite the Blot really not liking any of this. Which honestly both fits Bradford, as he’s endlessly practical, and is just a good idea: most of his agents are kind of wild cards and have their own agends so forcing them to work together not only gives them better odds with scrooge, but prevents them from working their own angles against FOWLS better instrests. IN this case having the peppy, energetic and talkative pepper go with the closed off and dogmatic blot keeps him from going overboard, as Castle McDuck is basically one large magical nightmare for him to destroy and Blot keeps pepper on task and on stealth since, as we learn now we get to know her, she’s a bit overly excitable and not all that subtle, if not to dewey or della levels. She can stealth when necessary. She’s also DETERMINED to get the blot to bond with her and work with her, and is delighted to work with him, getting the job because.. no one else wanted it becasue the blot scares people and puts them off with his intensity, which he’s shocked about but really shoudln’t be.

IT’s just a nice dynamic, he helps her be a better agent and she helps him realize he can’t do EVERYTHING alone and that blindly destroying all magic in his path, as much as he’d like to isn’t the option, using some runes to track them. Sure pepper makes their presence obvious once or twice, btu she’s also essential to the mission more often than not and by the end, even if they loose, we’ll get to that, Blot has fully accepted his partner. It’s.. honestly heartwarming when you think about it: The blot’s probably closed him off from personal relationships of any kind because A) his family got brutally murdered by the person he’s hutning and B), he has a mission he can never rest in. He likely wanted to work alone because it’s how he rolls nad i’t sonly through seeing someone who genuinely WANTS to be around him and wants his missiong ot succeed that he realizes he dosen’t have to push everyone away and allies are more useful than none. It’s a warped way of thinking but for someone with as much baggage as blotty, it’s progresss and it’s a really sweet story. HOpefully this relationship will go farther.. I mean strange relationships have happened than a dogmatic dog who hates magic and a peppy go getter both working for an obliviously evil businessman.

So onto the main plot: Turns out Scrooge wasn’t the first person Fergus called this episode as we meet the DT17 version of Matilda! Horay! She’s voice by Michelle Gomez who like David Tennant and Catherine Tate before her is a doctor who alumnus.. though this time she’s past my time watching the show. I really gotta get on catching up. She played Missy, the female regneration of the master. Gomez is spectacular in the part here, and while I have no past experince with her I certainly want to see more of her work as she’s a delight. Matilda is Scrooge’s sister. In the comics she was the duitful sister who looked up to her big brother as he left Scotland to make his fortune, sending money and mementio’s back she scrapbooked. She eventually went with Scrooge to america with him... but this didn’t end well as Scrooge took advantage of his sisters as help and when he finally did take them along on an adventure, it was his lowest point, going from an honest buisness man to a cruel robber baron for one moment and left him and his company. She and Hortense TRIED building a bridge with a suprise party.. but by that point while Scrooge had backed away from being a monster, he was still such a dick things blew up. As far as we know he never saw hortense alive again, and he only saw matilda in her old age with the two reconcliing. I’ll get more into ALL of this when I get to those pieces of life and times obviously. Point is she’s a good character. And so is her reboot version.. but the reboot version did catch me off guard as, much like her dad she’s not really much like the sensible sweet woman from the comics. But given DT17 tends to really play fast and loose with previous versions of characters, and it often works out i’m not going to gripe about it: what they did here works. As for what EXACTLY they did here, this version of Matilda is more flighty: not incomptient or lacking in charm, but due to sort of bouncing from one improable venture to the next and staying at her parents between ventures. She’s sort of a female version of Jubal Pomp, an itallian duck comics character who modelded himself after Scrooge, but dosen’t have the common sense or work ethic scrooge does. That’s really matilda here minus the looking up to scrooge part: she dosen’t seem untalented, just a bit footloose. She also likes needling her brother and is unsuprisingly her dad’s faviorite since she’s around more. The two naturally get under each others skin, and we get our main conflict... not just because of their fighting.. but because Webby can’t help but mettle. She’s what makes this plot work: Webby can’t help but try to interfere because she dosen’t get siblings sometimes fight and have long standing resentments, something I relate to, and that stepping in or trying to end it sometimes just makes it worse. Granted sometimes’ it’s necessary, but in this casey Dewey, whose trying to inch her away is right on the money and after the awful plot with these two in SPlit Sword, it’s nice to see Dewey be in the right, but for actually good reason instead of just because the episode says so. Here he’s right that her getting involved will only escalate and her attempt to do so only reveals Matilda kidnapped scrooge’s pet hair clump and died it. She also has something resembling an emu. This only makes things worse and starts to escalate tensions leading to some between both sides, as Fergus takes Matilda’s and Downy takes scrooges. Again REALLY could’ve used the twins. We do get a nice bit where Webby coaxe Dewey, who understandably dosen’t want to help her further spiral into her own issues by helping mend family issues she really isn’t qualified to solve.. because she’s you know... 13. I mean granted Steven Universe did this sort of thing at her age.. but given he eventually repressed his issues so much he had a mental breakdown and turned into a giant angst monster, and only got better with therapy.. maybe get some therapy instead Webby. Just saying. Therapy everyone? Therapy? But yeah she coaxes Dewey with a statdew, and yes she says that exactly. This gets the family breifly united, as Dewey fakes an injury.. but finding out it’s fakkkke combined with Huey and Louie coming in just causes the enitre family to spiral into squabbling and webby to shut down a bit, with Scrooge planning to form his own clan after bickering iwth his parents and sister. Oh and it only gets worse when Pepper accidently brings some statues to life, and they get in on it too while Webby’s convinced the families over and she just wanted a place in it. And even if this isnt’ the BEST episdoe the show’s ever done, i’ll get to why in a second, I do like this. Webby’s nearly LOST this family once, way back at the end of season 1 when no one but beakly thought of her feelings about her best friends and surrogate uncle all leaving her after her other surrogate uncle you know.. said some pretty unforgivable things. She’s trying SO hard to force it to fit, so hard to fix things because she can’t stand them being broken, something I PAINFULLY relate to given my own personal issues with not being able to stand people being upset with me. She just wanted a family and i’ts gone. Of course it isn’t and webby’s sad words coupled with some house crashers get the clan mcduck statues included to kick Blot and Pepper out and get the bagpipes back, while Scrooge points out it’s the good families that can withstand a squabble. So the mystery’’s gotten, Scrooge and Matilda are squareish... and this episodes thankfully over. Happy day! Final Thoughts: This episode is okay. I very clearly have my problems with it.. but it’s a fine half hour of television and funny enough to bounce through it with some good character stuff. It’s just after the last few weeks, and really this whole season.. I expect more. There was no real emotional core besides webby this episode and her issues wer eboiled down to “Families fight but it’s fine”.. which itself is a pretty uncomplicated message when family dyanmics can be complciated messy and painful. My family is thankfully fairly stable, if not without issues because hey no one is, but given other people watching might come from far worse homes where the bickering is far worse and far more toxic.. yeah maybe have some nuance here. And this is from a show that usualy does that WELL: We saw it with Fergus last time before he was hollowed out for this episode and reduced to an angry dick. We’ve seen it with Donald and Scrooge’s estrangment or Donald and Della’s relationship: Family is complicated , messy and even good ones have problems. That should’ve been the message: family can squabble or even have serious issues but they come back together. Instead we just got a bunch of bickering for a cheesy message that dosen’t quite fit with what the series done. It fits for thanksgiving: family , the good kind, can last arugments and is there for you regardless.. and I know my family is. I just feel they could’ve done the message better. Basically the episode was fine... it just wasn’t up to the high standard this season has set even in it’s down turn and is easily the weakest epseically since Matilda really dosen’t feel all that fleshed out even though what we got of her was great. Basically not a BAD episode.. but it could’ve been a great one, and i’m disapointed the series didn’t try harder. NEXT TIME: regular coverage for the year concludes as we go back a few months chronlogically to find out why Santa and Scrooge hate each other. IT’s christmas time ya’ll! Until then if there’s an episode of ducktales or another disney series you’d like me to take a look at, suggest it in the comments or comission it outright for give bucks via my direct messages on here or send an ask for my discord. Until we meet agian, there’s always another rainbow.

#the battle for castle mcduck!#ducktales spoilers #ducktales #scrooge mcduck #matilda mcduck #webby vanderquack #huey duck #louie duck #dewey duck #fergus mcduck #downy mcduck #the phantom blot #pepper

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itsonlystrange · 5 years ago

Text

I’M CALLING IT:

Jason or Argyle are going to die in season four.

Why you may ask?

Well because, I don’t think they’ll have any usage beyond season four. Obviously we don’t know much about them, but we already have so many characters, that I don’t think they’re going to be appearing in season 5, along with new characters too. Now obviously I could be wrong, a character obviously doesn’t have to die for them to not appear in next seasons, maybe Argyle will move away? Or more realistically, the Byers move back to Hawkins. However, this is stranger things. If a character as important as Argyle is supposed to be (I’ll get to Jason in a second), who’s supposed to be a regular for this season, I don’t see how he can be of really any use in season 5.

AGAIN.. we don’t know how season 4 will end, if it doesn’t have a time skip then ofc Argyle will probably be in it, however If we DO have a time skip like usual, I don’t see how he can bleed into the next season. Again, we don’t know his plotline or what he’s importance is really, so we can’t really say if he’ll be needed for season 5 or not. Same goes for all the new characters too, I’m just speculating!

My reasoning behind this is because, they already have so many characters, that I feel like Argyle would really need to have major importance to season 5 for him to reappear, because if he’s just gonna be along for the ride without really any input, they wouldn’t need him. All characters in ST carry their weight, and when the duffers feel like they just aren’t needed anymore, they d!e.

Think of it this way:

ALEXEI: great character, however, how could he have been implemented into season 4? There’s already going to be so many new Russian characters, and I doubt the Russians would let him join their side again, so what would his purpose be if he doesn’t even know where the new gate is? He’d just be a character that existed, with no real purpose. The duffers realized that, so he got the boot.

BILLY: same thing here. I don’t think they really knew how to use him going forward. He was a perfect candidate for being flayed next, and that was also the writers ticket out to finally k!ll him with an actual reason.

I can go on and on as to why specific characters had to die, the only character I genuinely feel like could have 100% been used in season 3 is Bob. Bob would have fit in perfectly in season 3 IMO, to this day I still wished he hadn’t d!ed.

Anyways, you get the point. Again, this is just a theory! Maybe Argyle will have something major to add to the table that HAS to be implemented into season 5. Maybe he’s super smart, or maybe he is a good problem solver, so much so, that they need him in season 5. However if all he does in s4 is crack a code that’s on relevant IN season 4, then he probably won’t be needed for season 5. We GENUINELY DONT KNOW!

HOWEVER...

I feel like he’s a great candidate to d!e because..

1. He’d be lovable enough that we’d miss him if he passed but not so much so that we’d be all hung up on him, it’s a good way out to k!ll a new character so they don’t have to k!ll any of their mains until the finale.

2. They usually k!ll off/fake k!ll off an already existing character and a new one, which is why I think one of the teens (Steve, Jon, Robin, Nancy) will probably d!e in s4, with one of the new characters (or multiple as this season is supposed to be the darkest) dying as well. I think one of those people will be Argyle.

3. It’s an easy way out. If they genuinely don’t have any use for him beyond s4, instead of just having him move away or for Jon to stop being friends with him, it’s in Stranger Things fashion that he just goes out and d!es.

NOW ALSO: I want to tamper with the more REALISTIC possibility that the Byers move back to Hawkins. Depending on how season 4 ends, and what the state of Hawkins and the Byers are in, I definitely could see them moving back. This may be wishful thinking, however If we do get another time skip, it could mean the Byers moved back assuming everything’s all dandy and fine and then the events of season 5 start around 5 months later. I don’t think they’ll move back if S5 picks up right on the tail of s4 with no time skip, though. BUT: if the Byers DO move back, that’s an easy way for Argyle to not appear in season 5, as obviously he’d be too far away, and it’s a nice cop out if they really needed to.

EDIT: have to clarify: I think the Byers will only move back to Hawkins if Hopper and El come with, which I know is unrealistic but we gotta see how the season plays out. I still have no clue how they’ll justify Hopper coming back after being “dead” for a solid 6 months, but if he did, I’m sure the government could come up with something like they always have, or maybe they’d just outright say he was kidnapped by Russians and just leave out all the upside down stuff. Murray said it himself, water it down! Instead of “Hopper got kidnapped by Russians who brainwashed him and used him to help teleport random green goo into an alternate dimension.” It could be “Hopper got kidnapped by Russians just out of natural selection and not because there happened to be a Russian base under Hawkins and an alternate dimension seeping into our world.” Because THATS more believable. Obviously they’d never outright say that Hawkins had a Russian lab underneath it for a year, or that the Upside Down exists, or any of that stuff, they’d most likely say something like, “oh! Hopper was just mindlessly minding his business and then Russians kidnapped him- no deeper reason or meaning.” Again, “water it down!” I know the writers could come up with something.

I don’t think the Byers would move back if Hopper or El doesn’t come with. It really depends on how season 4 ends and if there’s a time skip or not. But it’s a possibility for sure. And I’m sure Joyce will realize how much Will and El miss their friends, and if all is well during the s4 epilogue, she may cave in and just move back, especially if Hopper is back, and she would feel more inclined to go back to Hawkins FOR Hopper, depending if even Hopper himself wants to go back to Hawkins. IT ALL DEPENDS! The relationship status of Mike and Will, Jonathan and Nancy, and Mike and El all depend aswell. I think if Jancy is still going strong (which I hope for) and everything is safe in Hawkins, and Hopper is back in Hawkins as well, and Mike and Will/Mike and El (depending on whoever Mike ends up with by the end of s4) Joyce would feel much safer going back to Hawkins knowing her oldest son’s girlfriends there, Hopper is there, and her youngest son’s bestfriends / crush/ significant other is there, and her adoptive daughter/El’s friends etc are also there.

IT ALL DEPENDS ON HOW S4 ENDS! :)

AGAIN, argyle could really be super helpful in season 4, so I’m not saying I want him to d!e as I feel like he’ll be a new fave of mine for sure, what I mean is, just judging my past ST seasons, if he has no usage beyond season 4 he’ll probably d!e and that’s that, that’s just the stranger things way.

NOW ONTO JASON:

Jason’s described as the “irredeemable Steve.”

Do I even need to explain why he’s probably gonna die?

He’s an airhead jock. I have a feeling that he’s going to go looking for Chrissy (his GF that probably d!es in the first few episodes to the Demogorgan, based on the audition tapes.) and he’ll be so stupid to wander into the Upside Down assuming he can just kick the demogorgons ass, because his ego is inflated, and even when everyone else warns him not to, he does anyways and ends up dying.

Jason’s supposed to be the preppy version of Billy, essentially, so I’m definitely intrigued to see where his plot goes.

But if he’s really supposed to be as bad as Billy or the irredemable version, he’s probably gonna hit the bucket, probably doing something stupid. He probably will think this whole “upside down” stuff is BS and just goes into the UD voluntarily because he thinks he’s all buff or whatever and then d!es after severely underestimating the circumstances theyre all in

HONORABLE MENTION:

I think Eddie has a good shot at dying too, but I’ll go more into detail about that as well

I’ll be making a post about who I think will d!e in season 4 and what episodes. I could he totally wrong and probably will be, this is all a theory based on some evidence and speculation!

I’ll probably make my post later today or tomorrow explaining who I think will d!e in S4, and I’ll go more into depth about everything I mentioned as well, along with why I think one of the already existing teens (Jon- Robin- Nance-Steve) could possibly d!e too aswell

We’ll see! But if I’m wrong I’m wrong and if I’m right I’m right, we’ll just have to wait and find out :)

#stranger things #stranger things 4

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miraculouscontent · 6 years ago

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I just saw Felix, I am enraged beyond belief, and right now, I want someone to tear this episode and Astruc a new one. And who better than the Salt Fairy?

s-sALT FAIRY?? JDNGKFDG

WELL, WHO AM I TO DENY SUCH A REQUEST?

[Vanilla Graham Crackers]

So, I totally understand the idea that making new models is hard and it’s best to cut corners where one can, but that should only be done if it can be used in a way that doesn’t - you know - reuse two important character models and add almost nothing new to them.

To start off, you have Amelie, Emilie’s twin sister who they obviously reused Emilie’s model for.

Then you have Felix, whose mother’s genes must’ve kicked the tar out of his father’s genes (and the same must’ve happened to Adrien unless Gabriel’s model is reused for Felix’s father’s too if we ever get a flashback/picture but we’re not getting into that) considering that Felix looks like Adrien’s twin rather than Adrien’s cousin (if they pull some sort of thing about Felix actually being Adrien’s twin just as some sort of cheap “gotcha,” I swear–though I doubt it because Amelie has a line about them looking “just like twins” which would be strange for someone who would’ve already known they were twins unless she doesn’t know that they’re twins either because some weird things happened and–I’m getting off-topic…).

Already, these are both new characters who are being introduced in this episode that are edited versions of previous models we’ve seen on the show.

The thing is that I don’t care much if the models are reused, but they should at least have facial structures that look different enough to make them their own characters. At least reverse Amelie’s hair, gosh darn it.

Even Felix, like–I don’t even think any of the characters would find it odd if the “Adrien” in the video had different cheekbones or a different jawline. Felix could even have blue eyes but edit the video to make his eyes green (and then make an excuse as to why his eyes are blue when the villains show up). The Adrien model could be reused but still adjusted so he at least has a different freaking eye style, since those are usually the big thing that gives away the feeling of, “oh, the model is just reused.”

I mean, it makes sense for Felix’s name to be in the title of the episode, but that’s only because he actually got different hair and a different outfit, since even the people who get akumatized in this episode are reused.

Lady Wifi, who’s been seen multiple times in Season 1 and 3 now.

Princess Fragrance, who’s been used the least out of everyone else but has still been seen multiple times (counting scarlet edition Princess Fragrance).

And Reflekta, who’s been used multiple times even if you’re only counting Season 3. Reflekta even makes the least sense out of all the characters since she’s a bad combination with the others. Dark Cupid would’ve even been a better pick since Lady Wifi could freeze someone and then either Dark Cupid could get a clear shot or Princess Fragrance could force them to inhale her perfume.

They don’t even have a proper unique theme to them, like a design that they all share to show that they’re a team. It’s just a repeat of their past akuma forms except Lady Wifi doesn’t have to worry about being defeated in the same way as before I guess (not that they try it anyway)? I don’t question Alya being the only one to get an upgrade because the tablet is hers, but when we’ve already had an episode where a tablet was used as a “hey akuma, aim here” object, and the people who held it combined in that one because they had a shared goal, only to have this one be different and just turn them into separate forms?

Yeaaaah, no, that’s weird. That’s just weird. It’d be one thing if they were sure that there were two Adrien around and they needed to be separated so they could cover multiple people, but they’re not aware that Felix is around nor that he disguised himself as Adrien, requiring them to cover multiple grounds (and even then, that doesn’t need three of them).

I’ll say again that I don’t mind repeat akuma, but it has to make sense. Stormy Weather 2 and Gamer 2.0 made sense to come back even though I didn’t like their episodes or the messages behind them, but Reflektdoll and the Trio of Punishers here?

No, just–no.

(this is also once again keeping the “girl squad” quota in place which everyone knows I dislike; I just want the boys to be more involved sometimes and not have anyone’s involvement be based on what gender they are)

(also also, Ladybug defeating all of them in a few seconds demonstrates how incompetent they are as a team; defeating Nathalie is not a high bar for efficient villainry)

So, already with that, the episode is bland and doesn’t provide anything interesting; even Felix disguises himself as Adrien perfectly later on, so the model that was edited in any sort of significant way changes back to its oRinGaL fOrM partway through the episode just for the like, two viewers who couldn’t tell that he’s a duplicate of Adrien structurally.

Heck, and even once Felix does disguise himself as Adrien, he’s still making very “Adrien” faces. The camera switching from Adrien to Felix (disguised as Adrien) when the villains show up is a perfect example.

Same face, same pose. It’s like they’re the same person at times (and no, I don’t believe that Felix is that good of an actor when he just got jumped by three teenage girls in outlandish clothing who came out of the phone in his hands).

There’s also the plot with Gabriel and the twin rings. Firstly, the opening is basically the one from “Chat Blanc” with the ring detail added. I remember seeing “Chat Blanc” and then being weirded out when “Felix” hit like, “Wait, is this–?”

Even disregarding that, there’s a certain awkwardness to Gabriel’s behavior. Of course, we all know that Emilie is actually alive and (un)well, so Gabriel being upset with Adrien isn’t entirely wrong (since, to Gabriel, it sounds like his son is supporting him having an affair), but for Gabriel to lash out in an almost childish manner when we’ve seen Gabriel hold Nathalie/Mayura tenderly and we can see that they have something going on, it seems extremely unprompted and just an excuse for Gabriel to not have to tell Adrien that he’s Hawk Moth.

It also brings up the question as to what changed between Gabriel saying that he already wished that he could tell Adrien what he was doing since Adrien would understand, compared to now where Gabriel is completely okay with telling Adrien.

Everything’s too up in the air, too vague, and nothing hits like it should. The episode throws five shots at its viewers at once (”Amelie and Felix,” “The Twin Rings,” “Gabriel Almost Telling Adrien That He’s Hawk Moth,” “Three People Getting Akumatized at Once,” and “Marinette Successfully Sending a Confession to Adrien”) but none of them strike properly. They’re all fighting for screentime to the point where we don’t even see Alya’s more detailed reaction to “Adrien” rejecting Marinette’s confession (she looks slightly more annoyed than everyone else, I guess) when Alya had made such a big deal about Marinette confessing beforehand (I’ll forgive her just this once for flashing her tablet, unprompted, in Marinette’s anxious face since Alya largely does nothing bad outside of that). The episode tries too hard to be big and impactful but misses the mark because none of the things it’s trying to do can play out in a way that makes it feel like they’re important.

Amelie and Felix don’t have original models.

The twin rings haven’t been brought up in any significant way before.

Gabriel and Nathalie talk about Adrien knowing about the Hawk Moth thing once and then presumably give up with no explanation as to why Gabriel isn’t going to try again since Adrien clearly just misunderstood him.

The three people getting akumatized end up turning into forms we’ve seen before, all of which have been in this season, even if it was sparingly.

Marinette’s confession doesn’t even get misinterpreted by Adrien; it’s viewed by Felix and promptly deleted.

Oh yeah, and then there’s THAT scene…

[Consententious]

Alright, so I can’t really talk about this scene without talking about the supposed reason for why this episode exists.

For the 0.01% of people who aren’t aware, Felix is the original Adrien from the Miraculous PV, which is what Miraculous Ladybug used to be before it became the show it is now. Astruc has said, time and time again, that he did not like this character and that was why Adrien had replaced him.

The fandom clung to Felix, however. People were still interested in the “what-ifs” and “what could’ve been”s, especially as situations rose in-show where people felt like Felix would’ve reacted in a way that was different/better than how Adrien would have reacted.

Astruc was the one most known for disliking Felix, but another thing he was known for was lying to people in order to keep future things in the show a secret.

You know that scene in “Kwamibuster,” where Tikki keeps something from Marinette, and when she then tries to explain something else to Marinette, Marinette points out, “You see, the problem now is that I’m always going to wonder if you’re lying or not”?

Yeah, that’s basically the fandom with Astruc. Whether Astruc’s behavior was justified or not, it’s harder to believe what he says when he openly admitted to lying to everyone.

This brings us back to Felix. In terms of what Astruc has told us on him, it’s been inconsistent, to say the least.

He claimed that Adrien was created because Felix wasn’t an interesting character, then said that Felix was interesting even though he wasn’t fit to be a hero despite later claims of Felix being a weak character who was more of an anime cliche, which was then further uprooted by outright stating that Felix was bad/evil.

Essentially, regardless of what has been said about this episode’s existence, this entire episode feels like a response to the side of the fandom that firmly believes that Felix would have been better than Adrien, and that looks bad because such episodes tend to never go over well with the fandom.

- Felix is shown as cold and unfeeling whereas Adrien is understanding if a bit solemn.

- Felix and Adrien are compared directly by both having a dead parent who died recently.

- Felix reacts negatively to Adrien’s behavior whereas Adrien tries to excuse Felix’s actions and be a good person.

- Plagg (who Felix would’ve had in the PV) is given a MUCH bigger input on things than he usually is, even to the point of comparing Felix and Adrien directly. The episode also has Felix ruining a piece of cheese in Plagg’s stash, whereas Plagg is typically not directly affected by the actions of other characters.

- Felix’s actions of rooting through Adrien’s things may or may not be a comparison to Lila (another character that Astruc doesn’t like) from “Oni-chan,” who riffled through Adrien’s things while Adrien was distracted. This is further supported by Plagg calling out both of these to Adrien and Adrien excusing both of them.

- Felix literally disguising himself as Adrien and Marinette not only noticing the facade straight away, but proclaiming angrily that Felix!Adrien is “not Adrien.”

- Felix implied to even be emotionally weaker than Adrien by his face at Chat’s comment about him not having many friends, his face in response to Marinette’s confession, and Adrien asking him to call if he needs support.

And then, we have the big scene where Felix (disguised as Adrien) tries to force a kiss on Ladybug, in which there’s a clear “no means no” message followed by a punch to Felix’s face.

Now… first off, yes, this is obviously yet another jab at the comparison between Felix and Chat. Felix tried to force a kiss on Ladybug whereas Chat has–

…well, he’s never gotten one off, at least, and stops when something happens (either Ladybug gets pulled back into the fight or she stops him with a hand/her words).

This is also shown by how Ladybug states post-punch that “Adrien would never be so pushy,” immediately followed by Chat Noir showing up and insulting Felix.

…Yeah, I’ll tackle the message first.

While this idea of “no means no” is nice and all, it ignores the nuance of what actually means “yes.” The forced kiss still would have been wrong if it’d been towards someone like Juleka, who would’ve locked up at the sight of someone trying to force themself on her, or someone like Rose, who may’ve been completely oblivious as to what the forcer would’ve been doing until it was too late. It might seem like a small thing, but just saying “what part of ‘no’ did you not understand?” leaves the obvious loophole of “WELL, if they DON’T say ‘no’ then that makes it okay.”

As for Chat, well… the setup not only didn’t make sense as a comparison to him, but it doesn’t function as a comparison in the episode itself.

See, the setup is wrong because Felix is not doing this because he’s a creep. He’s not someone who’s crushing on Ladybug and disguised himself as Adrien in hopes that she would favor him and let him kiss her.

In fact, Felix is fully aware that kissing someone without their consent is wrong; the reason he’s doing it is to ruin Adrien’s reputation.

Would Felix actually do that if he were lusting over Ladybug or crushing on a girl legitimately? We don’t know, and that’s exactly why Felix and Chat’s actions are not comparable.

This isn’t a case of, “Character B and C are attracted to Character A. Character C stops when told/prompted to stop whereas Character B continues despite those things.” Chat and Felix have entirely different motives when trying to kiss Ladybug.

Chat leans in for a kiss multiple times and is stopped by either Ladybug or whatever’s happening around them. Even if he stops when told/prompted to, he starts back up, whether it’s later in the episode or in a later episode beyond it.

Felix’s actions are wrong and I will not deny that, nor will I compare him directly to Chat and say that one is worse than the other.

I will just say: Felix is aware that he’s doing something scummy and is doing so to make someone he dislikes look bad. Chat may be aware that he can’t proceed with a kiss if Ladybug denies it or prompts him to back off, but he still tries over and over to flirt and/or lean in for a kiss in hopes that she’ll return it eventually. Whatever form of “no” Ladybug gives him (as it can come in many forms), Chat still believes that trying again later is perfectly fine and that asking is not necessary no matter how many times she’s denied him or rejected his feelings.

As for why the setup doesn’t function, it’s because we, in this episode, do not have a direct comparison between Felix’s advances and Chat’s. Chat isn’t given the screentime to properly flirt with Ladybug or try to make any sort of advance on her, so there’s no “that was Felix, this is Chat,” moment.

Is that because the writers were aware that Chat’s behavior is still not up to speed with how people should act in reality? Maybe, maybe not, but the point is that they didn’t have it.

Now, that said, there indeed was a character in the episode who made it very clear (both through his body language and through his words) that he respected the actions, space, and choices of the one he was in love with.

But, who was that again…?

O O P S

Like, look, I’m not getting into Luka’s role in the episode (though I’ll just say that, while I adore the boy, this wasn’t the episode for him and - had I not needed to go into other subjects - I definitely would be rambling about the disservice both he and Marinette get in general), but I’m just pointing out the very obvious misstep taken. If this episode was a response to the fandom, I guess one could argue that this is knocking any idea of Felix being Marinette’s other love interest instead of Luka, but when people think of “someone trying to kiss Marinette/Ladybug,” Luka is not going to be the first one who comes to mind; that’s gonna be Chat and the writing dropped the ball entirely because it couldn’t pull it off without having to address his behavior or risk sending an, “only no means no,” message.

Oh, and speaking of dropping the ball, even Felix doesn’t get dropped entirely, because the writing didn’t even do Felix dirty CORRECTLY.

[Failing Felix]

Just for a moment, let’s roll (completely roll, this time) with the idea that this entire episode is a response to the side of the fandom who really liked Felix and preferred him over Adrien.

By that logic, the standard thing to do would be to make Felix as evil and possible and make everyone hate him, yes?

However, that “standard thing” is completely missing from this plot.

Felix, by the end of the episode, already has two motives.

The first is stated outright by the end, though could also be inferred early on as well: Felix wanted to get the twin rings back for his mother. In addition, it is not for his own selfish gain, as he isn’t even aware that his mother wanted to get the rings back so she could give them to him.

Felix wanted to get the twin rings back because his mother had told him that they were part of their family, not Gabriel’s, and Felix sought to retrieve them himself.

The second motive is for his actions outside of Gabriel, which is him judging Adrien and trying to ruin Adrien’s reputation.

Even Felix’s bitterness towards Adrien is showcased, though in small doses.

When Adrien apologizes to Felix for not going to his father’s funeral, Felix retorts with,

“You always do everything your father tells you to do?”

Right there is Felix’s problem with Adrien: he views Adrien as a doormat (a common fan complaint anyway tbh). This is not helped when Adrien excuses his father’s actions with a smile (which may come off as insensitive; Adrien, be UPSET by your father, not sheepishly smiling about what he did) by saying that his father is “very protective.”

Felix only initiates his stealing of Adrien’s things after this scene takes place; immediately after this takes place, as a matter of fact.

The other key interaction that takes place is when Felix enters the mansion. He reaches out for a handshake, but Adrien goes in for a hug.

Adrien doesn’t know that a hand reaching out in a handshake gesture isn’t consent.

Already, Adrien has come off as touchy, unable to read Felix’s gestures, and possibly insensitive.

Further on are Felix’s comments on the things he finds in Adrien’s phone:

Adrien’s obvious crush on Ladybug - Felix sees it as idiotic which… yeah, it would look like a childish celebrity crush without context

Nino’s video - 90% sure the reaction there was the “teenage” version of how Gabriel judged Nino in “Bubbler;” pretty standard rich boy judgment

Rose’s video - …I’m sorry, I can’t blame Felix for that one; that was so overly gushy and cheerful that I winced

Max’s video - Felix doesn’t seem like the type to like jokes and he also thinks that whole thing is weird (also not knowing that Markov is “real”); could go either or on how out-of-place his comment was.

Chloe’s video - Felix doesn’t like Chloe and I can’t blame him for that one either.

Marinette’s video - Felix has a different reaction to this one and I imagine he either thinks that Adrien is dating Marinette (and could think it’s pathetic for a variety of reasons from “Adrien is already crushing on Ladybug” or “the doormat boy has a girlfriend”) or thinks that Marinette confessing over video is pathetic

Even when Felix goes against Ladybug and Chat, he’s probably realized at that point that impulsively impersonating Adrien won’t get him anywhere close to sleight-of-handing Gabriel’s ring away. Also, Ladybug punched him (regardless of her reason why) and Chat insulted him despite only knowing things about him from what he heard from someone else.

None of this excuses any of Felix’s actions, but it is a reason that is introduced within the episode where said actions take place.

Unlike, say, Chloe, whose mother was shown off in the season after Chloe herself first appeared, giving us no context, reason, or motive for her behavior outside of “she’s a spoiled brat.”

Felix also did manage to come up with a convincing enough apology to get Gabriel to shake his hand, allowing Felix to safely snatch one of the twin rings away to return to his mother.

I don’t think anyone is complaining about Gabriel getting screwed over after “Chat Blanc,” just saying.

Even athletically, Felix scores a one-handed point in basketball with his back turned to the hoop, and he can go toe-to-toe with three akuma at once.

He even has a hobby in doing magic tricks, said hobby allowing him to steal Gabriel’s twin ring. Characters having hobbies is an important thing for fleshing them out, and Felix weirdly just… has one, and one that benefits him.

So, is Felix’s presence in the show an insult due to having a repeated character model and being used as a forced comparison to Adrien? Yes.

Does that mean he’s not workable in any form and can’t be used for the fandom’s desires?

Not really, no. At least, I certainly don’t think so.

The reality is that Felix was never a warm person, PV or otherwise, and his initial reaction to Adrien (”I don’t like you. You hugged me without my asking you and you let your father walk all over you.”) is honestly something I’d expect of him.

It’s when combined with the already terrible ideas of the episode and the convoluted nature of things that everything (including him) turns into a problem.

#category: salt #category: crtique #episode: Felix #category: long post #word count: over 3000 #other: ask and answer #((I'm with Punch on this one.))#((The episode itself is bad but Felix isn't as bad as he could've been.))

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kickingstonesandbones · 5 years ago

Text

ADA: Songs the BSD characters remind me of (even though no one asked)

I’ve recently watched all 3 seasons of the Anime, the movie and the OVA and have started reading the Manga from the beginning. Right now I am only at chapter 40 because I started reading like 2 days ago, so idk stuff that would happen after the Anime storyline (if it goes that much further than season 3 ending, I wouldn’t know). I based this off on either specific lyrics that made me think it would fit the character or a certain vibe I was getting from a character. For some characters it was easier, for some not so much lol It is why some characters have multiple songs that make me think of them while others only have one (if they even do have one, that is – but the ADA does, except for Katai). So please do not rip into me because you think a song might not fit them as well as I do, because I just have not gotten to the latest chapter of the Manga yet, so there are some characters I do not know that well yet but I wanted to do this for fun. Other than that, I hope you enjoy this list~ Also, feel free to add to my list if you have songs that I haven’t mentioned but think would fit the characters, if you want to~

My taste in music is also pretty broad and not limited to certain languages or genres (though I do have my preferences), so I will provide translations of the lyrics in different languages from English. The German ones (like Kontra K, Elif, etc.) were translated by myself (on the spot), for other languages like Romanian or Korean, etc. I had to look up translations on the internet.

Disclaimer: For the songs for Dazai, one might want to consider a TW, for one of his songs has extremely open-no-room-for-speculation suicidal lyrics. If this affects you, please skip that one, I will put that song last on his list.

And, well, because this is 12 pages long in the document, I will be making a cut here…

𝔸𝔻𝔸 𝕚𝕟 𝕘𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕝

💙 Wölfe (Wolves) by Kontra K 💙

It’s about so much more than just strength, it’s about solidarity and virtue / It runs so much deeper than your wounds could ever get / We’re walking through the fire together until the day we die […] /

And we are so infinitely far away from being perfect / But what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger / And hope dies last / It dies last /

A lot of the members have been through quite some shit, but they hold it together all the time and always pull through and manage to keep moving forward sooo (some random arsehole I talked to spoilered me about Yosano and Mori -_-)

💙 Born For This by The Score 💙

A force that they can’t stop / They just don’t get it, I think they forget / I’m not done until I’m on top / I know I was born for this / I know I was born for this […] /

We are the warriors, who learned to love the pain / We come from different places but have the same name / ‘Cause we were born for this / We are the broken ones, who chose to spark a flame / Watch as our fire rages, our hearts are never tame /

ℕ𝕒𝕜𝕒𝕛𝕚𝕞𝕒 𝔸𝕥𝕤𝕦𝕤𝕙𝕚

💙 Believe by Hollywood Undead 💙

I can’t believe / That when I breathe / That there’s something good inside of me / Just one good thing inside of me / So close to me / That memory / Of that one good thing inside of me / Just one good thing inside of me /

If I went out the back door, nobody would stop me / But, where would I go? / ‘Cause I ain’t never had a real home / So, what do I know? / So, I could keep runnin’, hide until they find me / But, what would that do? /

That he really hates himself that much and how insecure he is in his right to be alive not just simply because he is a living being really hurts to see.

💙 Face it by NF 💙

Don’t know how to face it / Let’s go back to basics / Yes, say what you mean, do what you say, but man I hate this / I just don’t know what I’m chasing, don’t know what I’m chasing / Yes, somebody told me / Life is something you don’t wanna play with / But I just keep on playing like life is just a playground […] / I look at myself and I ask what the goal is / Yeah, tell me what your goal is / I’m just so lost in emotions, I don’t even notice / I just slip into a place and I don’t think straight / Devil in my ear tryna tell me everything’s great / And in a year realize I’m in the same place / Running in the same race, same pace […] /

Get that sickness out my mouth / I feel like my train is derailing / I can feel it / Yo these words are only words until they actions / Words until they actions, strive on empty satisfactions / Yeah, the fact is I don’t know, fact is I don’t know /

💙 월식 (My Tragedy) by Taeyeon 💙

At the end of an empty day / Everyone busily returns from somewhere / In the red night sky / I disappear into the darkness little by litte / These many sparkling lights / There isn’t a single light that’s mine / Under the cold shade by myself / Like it wasn’t there from the start /

💙 Oceans by Jacob Lee 💙

I learnt to let go when I was younger / Scared of growing old / I would swim far into the ocean / And try to stay afloat / Until my lungs would cough up water […] /

I don't want love no more / Though it's the one thing I've been searching for / Though it's the one thing that I miss the most / Now I'm afraid to be alone / I learnt to grow old when I was younger / Scared of staying young / Afraid of the thoughts that I had conjured / That sat atop my tongue / Knowing I'd change the worlds opinion / If they would just, listen up / But they won't, now /

I feel worthless / Maybe I should open the drawer / Burn the pages / Write poems with the ash on the floor / Pour the ink, into the sink / And watch it drain from the shore /

𝔻𝕒𝕫𝕒𝕚 𝕆𝕤𝕒𝕞𝕦

I know Dazai has a looooot of songs, but tbh I could’ve added at least another 15 because. There. Were. Just. S O . M A N Y . T H A T F I T H I M S O W E L L ‼‼ (Well, at least the ones I could think of off of the top of my head right away.)

💙 Believe by Hollywood Undead 💙

Don’t you know, little boy, they’ll lay you to waste, man / Little do they know, every song is a lifespan / Yeah, they’ve taken one, but I’m takin’ my last chance / To hold all we know and let go with both hands / Though, don’t you know that plots are made from concrete / Right through the stone, can you hear my heart beat? / Beats through my bone, like no memory left me / Not for a second or a minute when I dream […] / My heart beats heavy in an open chest / And, I wanna say goodbye, but there’s nobody left /

I broke it all, and I put to the test / Put your hands in mine, and feel this emptiness / There’s no beat in my chest / ‘Cause there’s nothin’ left / No, it ain’t goodbye, its a last caress / What’s another dream? / You could hardly sleep /

Makes me think of Oda aka the bond they had aka the admiration Dazai had for him.

💙 Face it by NF 💙

I ain’t sleeping lately / I ain’t sleeping lately / Yes, I know that I’m the only person that can change me / Maybe, that’s why I ain’t changing / That’s why I ain’t changing / I got too much on my mind, I guess I don’t know how to face it /

He obviously has a lot of issues, and I bet he still doesn’t think of himself as a good person. It strikes me as if he’s thinking that Agency Dazai is not much different from Mafia Dazai. “Your hands are black. Mafia black,” as Higuchi said. I think he did not deny it when she said that, so he doesn’t disagree with her.

💙 Rain by Hollywood Undead 💙

I don’t mind, no I don’t mind, I don’t mind the rain / Simple things and subtleties, they always stay the same / I don’t mind, that I don’t mind, no I don’t mind the rain / Like a widow’s heart, we fall apart, but never fade away (fade away) /

Run like a child, do you know where I came from? / No, I don’t, but I’m singing all the same songs / I’m alone, and you’re looking for your anyone / Does it hurt just to know that it’s all gone? / I can feel the pain in the words that you say / Hidden in the letters that were written to no name […] / Buried in red, white, and a side of some blue / Some will die too late, and somebody too soon / If he could come back, we’ll see what it cost him / We had to lose it all, just to know that we lost one /

💙 Lass mich lieber allein (better just leave me alone) by Kontra K 💙

Man, don’t explain the world to me, it isn’t perfect / And just as imperfect are also you, her and me / All of that isn’t a problem to me / But tell me, since when does hatred laugh so audaciously into my face? / But it’s somehow alright for me […] / Man, I wish for a minuscule part of naivety back / But it seems it’s somehow too late for me / Somehow already too late for me […] /

Already been wandering for so long, you forget / Who is worthy of sacrificing yourself for and for whom you better not do it / You run along the street of success without any luck (on your side) / But she walks out of hell into heaven only once and then right back / If you end up where you started then where is the meaning? /

Because I also have my baggage to carry all on my own / Just like all of the fuckers that think I’m living in heaven all by myself / But the fire and the flames in which I’ve been standing in for so long already / Man, they refuse to see them / But it’s somehow alright for me /

You better just leave me alone / Because when they carry you on their hands, they will (eventually) let you drop / I’d rather fall alone/by myself / Rather alone/by myself /

💙 Lies by Will Jay 💙

I'd rather tell myself if I ignore / These thoughts they'll go away / And my toxic friends have changed / Truth is I hate confrontation / Deal with it tomorrow / 'Cause there's nothing I can do / That's my favourite excuse / Feeding my procrastination […] /

And I think I just realised I would do anything / To keep hiding the pain I've been burying / That's why I tell / Lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lies /

💙 Du willst es (You want it) by Kontra K 💙

Only the good ones die young, and not long after the best ones follow / No idea, ask death why he thinks that I am so damn bad / Still here, we’re almost not worthy of heaven / Working day for day, only the hatred kills the pain / Life will shoot you in the chest but only ever hit your heart / Thank God that place in my chest has been emptied a long time ago […] /

We asked God, “why” / But the devil said, “doesn’t matter” / We’re swimming in a pool full of misery / But bring us another glass of it /

💙 Wie gemacht dafür (like we were made for it) by Kontra K 💙

Pretty normal, normal / Because you can’t get me, get me further down (the hole/ditch) / Than I’ve already been, you get it? […] / I’m going one-on-one with my inner demons, and I’ve been doing that for the past 13 years / I’ve been there, no matter what happened / Ask your gangsters, they know my voice / Have respect, respect for the realness / But fucking piss me off, and I’ll be sending you to heaven […] /

What pressure are you talking about, I inhale this city deep into my lungs / Put it on the beat and I’ll be giving you a new reason for your hatred /

Like we were made for it, we’re running through hell barefooted / We’re living rent-free in their heads, with the real ones, with the real ones / Like we were made for it, always loyal to my people / Swapping none of my friends for money, for the real ones, for the real ones […] /

If you’re my enemy, I’ll give you lead (bullets) / If you’re my friend, I’ll give you love / Because a wolf stays fucking loyal only to his family /

💙 Lonely by Nathan Wagner 💙

Is everybody lonely? / Is everybody scared? / Is everybody worried / That no one really cares? / See I'm afraid to love, but afraid to be alone / Still I wonder why my heart is always broke / What a way to live, let the fear take all control / Oh, this ain't life, no / I'm not alive […] /

'Cause I'm afraid to show the people who I am / I'm not special, I'm just a simple broken man / So I will hide my face with my picture perfect mask / Oh, this ain't life, no / It's just a lie […] /

If I looked you in the eye / And showed the broken things inside / Would you run away? / Would you run away? / If you saw my darkest parts / The wicked things inside my heart / Would you run away? / Or are you the same? /

The following one makes me think of Mafia Dazai

💙 Body Count by Grey ft. Thutmose 💙

I got a hunger, I got a fever / And it just won't quit / I got a temper, I got a bullet / With your name on it / Everybody wonders what it's like on top / I don't gotta wonder 'cause I call the shots […] /

My blood runs cold and my feet run faster / I still got heart, I hear a heart don't matter / Say what you want and it'll be your last words / It ain't a secret, I got a hit list / And baby, you're up next /

Stack 'em up, stack 'em up / Teach 'em not to fuck with me / Bag 'em up, bag 'em up / Let 'em know who runs these streets / Take 'em down, take 'em down / Count 'em out like one, two, three / Add a-na-na-na-na-na-na-nother one / To the body count /

T r i g g e r W a r n i n g !

💙 Bullet by Hollywood Undead 💙

Gone too far and yeah I'm gone again / It's gone on too long, tell you how it ends / I'm sitting on the edge with my two best friends / One’s a bottle of pills, one’s a bottle of Gin / I'm twenty stories up, yeah I'm up at the top / I'll polish off this bottle, now it's pushing me off / Asphalt to me has never looked so soft / I bet my momma found my letter, now she’s calling the cops / I gotta take this opportunity before I miss it / 'Cause now I hear the sirens and they're off in the distance / Believe me when I tell you that I've been persistent / 'Cause I'm more scarred, more scarred than my wrist is / I've been trying too long, with too dull of a knife / But tonight I made sure that I sharpened it twice / I never bought a suit before in my life / But when you go to meet god, you know you wanna look nice /

We hit the sky, there goes the light / No more sun, why's it always night / When you can't sleep, well, you can't dream / When you can't dream, well, what’s life mean? / We feel a little pity, but don't empathize / The old are getting older, watch a young man die […] /

When you were young, you never thought you'd die / Found that you could but too scared to try / You looked in the mirror and you said goodbye / Climb to the roof to see if you could fly /

So if I survive, then I'll see you tomorrow / Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow

𝕐𝕠𝕤𝕒𝕟𝕠 𝔸𝕜𝕚𝕜𝕠

💙 Brunette Ambition by Qveen Herby 💙

'Cause it's been three weeks and four days / No days off, just runways / I’m fucked up, I'll throw shade / Outwork you on a bad day […] /

On a mission, got no competition / It's hard to sleep with brunette ambition / Revenge is sweet, pussy: my religion / They say slow down, but I never listen /

Old me forsaken, these rules are for breaking / I get lonely with no new friends / Associate, but they can't relate / When you want the world, they’re uncomfortable /

This one is 50% lyrics, 50% overall energy of the song. Yosano is a bad bitch, and I love her.

💙 STFD by TeZATalks 💙 [Flash Warning for epilepsy]

I'm not here to take no names or reservations / I'm the devil telling Satan I'm just wild / Sit the fuck down / Imma kill it let me live just how I'm livin' / Ghetto heart with good intentions / I'm just wild / Sit the fuck down /

I'm chasing freedom for the fearless / I gotta do it 'cause I can't chase fear myself / I'm 'bout as broken as I confess / But better than most that lay cower / Proud of who they crowd / You don't know me / Coming to take your crown / Bow down / You know that I can do better, better / I don't need you to come in and show me how / Settle down / Cause you know that I can do better, better /

This song is mostly just the vibe for me. Quite…. unapologetic. Like the badass bitch vibe Yosano gives off, despite (or probably especially because of) her past.

💙 Nur mir (only to myself) by Elif 💙

Can’t believe what’s happening to me / Your words have manipulated me / I shouldn’t lose the connection to myself / Because otherwise your words will always stay with me / At first, you were there for me / But then you wanted me as your property […] / This city is big enough for the two of us / I have to share it with 4 million others anyway / I get onto the same train, stand on the same platform / Oh, everything’s profit (to you), everything’s yours /

But I only belong to myself, only to myself / Belong to myself, only to myself / Not to her, not to him, not to you /

💙 Disease by Hollywood Undead 💙

Our words are broken but they’re spoken aloud / So come together, come together again / The time is now, let Armageddon begin / They say beginnings always start with the ends / I say forever and forever, Amen /

Forget what you are / Forget what you feel / We stand apart but fall together / Nothing ever lasts forever /

We’re born to live, we’re born to die / We’re forced to swallow these pills and to never ask why / What I’ve become, why can’t you see / That everybody, everybody, everybody’s got this disease? /

𝔼𝕕𝕠𝕘𝕒𝕨𝕒 ℝ𝕒𝕟𝕡𝕠

💙 The Wolf by SIAMÉS 💙

Each and every day / Hiding from the sunshine / Wandering in the shade / Not too old, not too young / Every night again / Dancing with the moonlight / Somewhere far away / I can hear your call […] / Ain’t no fairytale / What I see in your eyes / Awaiting your mistake / Not too close, not too far /

Honestly, finding a song for Ranpo somehow was harder than it should’ve been lmao Originally, this song is about addiction, but if you read them in the sense of it being about a criminal, whom Ranpo is about to catch, it makes more sense. I am sorry I can’t provide a better song for him right now djhfksjlhdfujhhgkfc

𝕂𝕦𝕟𝕚𝕜𝕚𝕕𝕒 𝔻𝕠𝕡𝕡𝕠

💙 Fuck You by Silent Child 💙

Am I wasting my breath on you / Feels like my words are never getting through, yeah / I never said I hate you to someone so much before / I'm light headed when we talk and then you shut the door, god damn / Like what are we still talking for, yeah /

I really hope you don’t see tomorrow / I tried to play nice with you / 'Cause all you ever do is try to fuck up my day / And you were successful / (But I know the truth) / No you don't have anything better to do / Everything you ever loved has tried to escape you / So why would I want anything to do with you /

Fuck you /

Don’t lie, he would blast this at full volume when Dazai fucks up his schedule again HAHAHA (I love their dynamic)

💙 Waiting by Zhavia Ward 💙

The truth is you don't even / Know what the hell you believe / But you should believe / Lions don't lose sleep / Over the opinions of sheep /

So if you're waitin' / To watch me fall / Watch me fall / Watch me fall / I'ma keep you waitin' / To watch me fall / Watch me fall / Watch me fall / I'ma keep you waitin' /

Empire State kinda view / And I'm up here with the crew / I got the feelin' that you wishin' / You could be up here too / Maybe I should feel bad for you / Be a little sentimental / But I don't, no I won't / Make excuses for you to hide behind /

This one makes me think of the time Fyodor tried to break him mentally by making that little girl sacrifice herself (Season 3), but he got back up pretty quickly again after having his ideals get shaken like that.

𝔽𝕦𝕜𝕦𝕫𝕒𝕨𝕒 𝕐𝕦𝕜𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕚

💙 S.C.A.V.A. by Hollywood Undead 💙

Here's the massacre, a mausoleum fit for me / Lived a hundred years, a hundred years I didn't see / Gave all my hope away, isn't any left for me? / Bombs are splitting atoms, what can the future bring? / We can fill a million choirs and wait till children sing / We can walk a million miles and end up in the sea / And our lungs just keep filling and lying when we breathe / The world's filled with liars, liars like me / And I look at my child, it's finite, this feeling / Eyes blue like the sky, I see all of this meaning / I reach up to God and I ask if I'm dreaming […] /

Everybody says greetings and goodbyes / Everybody pays, no one knows the price / We know the price of sin, the sin of sacrifice / I know I'll sin again, but who can save me twice? / How much can we ask? You'll get the answer first / How much can we kneel with the air that chills the earth? / The air keeps getting colder, my knees keep hitting dirt / The innocent can cry without the guilty getting hurt / You ask who you love and you don't know, no, do you? / The spirit of God just passes right through you / You gave away heaven, handed right to you / And I can see it all, tell me, is it true? /

Fukuzawa is that anime character that’s visibly been through a lot of shit (and has done a lot of shit as well, even morally grey or black), which could be why he’s so stern and not a man of many words. Marked by life, if you will. He also gives off a very “wise man” kinda vibe right from the beginning, so I think that this song somewhat fits him because it is wondering about the state of the world and human nature.

💙 Courtesy Call by Thousand Foot Krutch 💙

This is your last warning / A courtesy call / I am not afraid / Of the storm that comes my way / When it hits it shakes me to the core / And makes me stronger than before / It’s not a question about trust / But will you stand with us? […] /

There’s a rumble in the floor / So get prepared for war / When it hits it’ll knock you to the ground / When it shakes up everything around / But survivial is a must / So will you stand with us? /

This song just has that badass vibe. And no one can deny that Fukuzawa has a badass and intimidating vibe as well as he seems so stern and stoic most of the time.

𝕋𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕫𝕒𝕜𝕚 𝕁𝕦𝕟𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕣𝕠𝕦

💙 Nesimtit by Mark Stam 💙

I don't have lots of cash / But enough for me to buy you an ice cream / For us to go on a walk / And for you to whisper to me in the waves of the ocean / I've taken some days from the border / And I put some behind the door, on ice / For cloudy weather / So that we can have them when the movie of life passes […] /

Let me be your lifeline / When your world is in the process of demolition / Let your dreams fly / I promise, we'll catch them somewhere around the sun /

Oddly enough, the Tanizaki siblings were just as hard for me as Ranpo… There aren’t really that many songs that would make me think of them. But this Romanian one made me (partly) think of him, I also think it’s cute and would probably fit him lol Especially the last four lines make me think of him and Naomi. After all, he’d even burn down the whole world if it was for her sake. All in all, this just sounds like him in the sense of a really supporting person/friend/brother.

𝕋𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕫𝕒𝕜𝕚 ℕ𝕒𝕠𝕞𝕚

💙 You Should See Me In A Crown by Billie Eilish 💙

You say, "Come over, baby / I think you're pretty" / I'm okay, I'm not your baby / If you think I'm pretty /

You should see me in a crown / I'm gonna run this nothing town / Watch me make 'em bow / One by one by one / One by one by / You should see me in a crown / Your silence is my favorite sound / Watch me make 'em bow / One by one by one / One by one by one /

Naomi isn’t giving me the same “badass bitch” vibe as Yosano does, but she does have that “badass princess” vibe. Is that making any kind of sense? Like, she does not have an ability, but she is neither dumb nor completely helpless in all situations. So, there is a slight badass vibe, but not the “I can and I. W i l l . Kick your stupid. Bitch. Ass.” – so a…. “badass princess”? Because she also has that elegant aura about her. I hope I am making sense…?

ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕦𝕟𝕠 𝕂𝕚𝕣𝕒𝕜𝕠

💙 2! 3! by BTS 💙

We know that you are happy right now / That you're slaying right now / You have all what you deserve / And we are so damn proud / But you're people, like us / You have spars, you get hurt / You get tired of the pressure / You get tired of the rush / God, thank you so much! / For giving us the chance / To tell you that we're here for you / And this will never change /

Lay on us / When dark times come and surround you / Our light will help you to get through / Our love is gonna heal you / Lay on us / The ones who would go to space to / Steal some stars just to give you 'cause it would make you feel good / We're gonna stay with you forever, until the end / We swear that we're not going anywhere / Yeah we're not going anywhere / We know the road can be so tough / But with holding hands / Together we take a nice deep breath /

Haruno strikes me as the kind of person, who’d be a really supportive friend, so I thought this might fit her. I have not seen much of her and her character neither in the anime nor in the manga yet, so I don’t really know whether this is any good or if it does her any justice.

On the other hand, I feel this song would also fit the Tanizaki siblings well.

𝕄𝕚𝕪𝕒𝕫𝕒𝕨𝕒 𝕂𝕖𝕟𝕛𝕚

💙 Puste sie weg (blow them away) by Kontra K 💙

Love in the air – blow it away / 9mm on the chest – then blow it away / 3g on the mirror – better blow it away / And the wind will do the rest / Hate in the air – blow it away / Pressure on the chest again – then blow it away / Seven sins in my head – better blow it away / And the wind will do the rest […] /

Because everyone’s talking, talking, talking too much / But unfortunately never do it, do it, do it / And I don’t hate, hate, hate the player / But I’d rather kill a whole team by myself /

I’d rather have three, four warriors than one thousand “brothers” / I’d rather pick up cents from the ground than break bread with liars / I’d rather be broke like I used to be than be a part time dealer / I’d rather have a heart of gold than sharing with no one at all (no one) /

Hatred in the air – blow it away / Pressure on the chest again – then blow it away / Seven sins in my head – better blow it away / And the wind will do the rest /

Take the lyrics quite literally, “blow them away”. The feeling of this song fits him, I think, because of his sheer strength. He just blows away hatred, malice, etc. and is unaffected by any of it as his heart and his head stay innocent and pure, even if naive.

I have to say though, it can be a pun, especially the part of “9mm (gun) on the chest” would be most obvious for it (especially considering that the “on the chest” part does not specify in German whether it’s your own chest or you are holding a gun to someone’s else’s chest lol). In general “puste xy weg” means to blow it away with the air out of your mouth, but colloquially it can also mean gunning down something or someone. And if you apply that meaning to every single line with “blow it away”, the meaning turns around from not letting it bother you to killing it, which I find interesting with this character. (Because he definitely has great potential to actually kill someone with his ability alone.) Though what I thought when I heard this song was that it might fit him with the meaning of him letting nothing bother him.

𝕀𝕫𝕦𝕞𝕚 𝕂𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕜𝕒

💙 Alaska by Elif 💙

Sometimes I’m thinking, I’m going insane like everyone else / They said I’d be going nuts and yeah, I’m starting to believe them / -7°C, I’m walking through the city park by myself / The down jacket is keeping me warm, but in my heart, there’s Alaska /

I don’t know what love is / No matter how much of it I get, I need more of it / It’s tearing me apart on the inside / When I, once again, don’t know where I’ll be getting it from / Even my therapist says, he doesn’t know any further / My dark side, it’s stronger than the good one / My youth was poisened, the future is uncertain / It is how it is yeah, it is how it is /

💙 Godsent by Smash Into Pieces 💙

I used to share, I used to care / The good in me is gone I'm bad / I used to give, I used to feel / The things you did will never heal / Take a look at me now / See what I've become / I will no longer feed the machine / Can't control the monster in me, no / The way that I feel / Makes it harder to breathe / When I'm thinking about you / The monster is real /

This makes me think of her in the Port Mafia.

💙 Boomerang by Smash Into Pieces 💙

I've been gone for a while now / But only to gain my power / I've been fighting my demons / And I'm back up on my feet (and now) / The harder you fall down / The stronger you come back later / Now I feel like an army / And I've only just begun /

This one in turn makes me think of her in the Agency.

💙 Circles (제자리) by G.Soul 💙

Oh, we know the ending / No matter how you escape / Here again / Always come back to me / Back again / Eventually / Here again / Why is it so hard to leave? / Here again / We always stay here […] / Answer me, I don’t know, no / Just don’t know / You’re getting stuck / Forever / Oh, we know the ending / No matter how you escape / Here again /

This makes me think of what Kouyou (I hope I am remembering her name correctly) was saying about her as a flower of darkness, as she was kind of turning in circles (no pun intended)–between wanting to be in the light and “accepting” that she only belongs into the darkness–at the beginning before she finally joined the Agency.

💙 Excuses (변명) by G.Soul 💙

I told you not to be too good to me / That it would make it too hard on you / No matter what you say now / I don’t hear a word of it […] / Even though I may be making a mistake / Even though I may regret this as time goes on / Baby, I think that we should just end it here now /

Even though the song in total has a different vibe (and story lmao), these parts of the lyrics makes me think of Kyouka telling Atsushi that there is no saving her, and that the light is no place for her (directly after saving her from the Port Mafia). It kinda makes me think of the part, specifically, where Atsushi suggests going on a “date” and at the end of it, Kyouka wants the last place they go to to be the police station.

𝔻𝕒𝕫𝕒𝕚 & 𝔸𝕥𝕤𝕦𝕤𝕙𝕚

💙 Sing To Me by Missio 💙

Somehow I got nominated as a king of sadness / Got so much I know that I could even feed the birds / And that's why / I prayed, I prayed, God sent me right to voicemail / It's like, all day my vanity is for sale / Take it away, my head is in my own hell /

Sing to me, I am not doing well / Getting tired of my own words / Sing to me 'cause I can't hear myself / Through the loudness of my own hurts / Call me selfish when I say this, say this / I'm kinda helpless, and I need you / Sing to me 'cause I'm not doing well /

Somebody told me that there's two sides to this life / I think I might've chosen darkness over light /

These two are two sides of the same coin, but no side is brighter than the other. I feel like they are kind of mirroring each other in the way they feel about themselves, which is why these lyrics mirror both of them towards each other as both are in need of salvation as they’re drowning in their own minds. Dazai is just better at hiding it from Atsushi.

💙 Namae wo yobu yo (Call A Name) by Luck Life (Season 1 Ending) 💙

I was searching / For the reason I’m able to remain as myself / If there’s a version of me / That exists within your heart / That even amid the darkness on this long, hilly road / I feel I can become a new me / Able to make my way through / So that each of us, walking our individual moments, can keep on smiling / So that we can keep moving forward, exploring the meaning of life together / I’ll call out a name / Your name / So that you can remain who you are /

Technically, lyrically it’s the entirety of the song, but I will not write down all of it lmao And it’s the Atsushi and Dazai parallels here again. It’s not just the ending with the animation that shows it for me, but the lyrics reflect both of them in them as well. I absolutely loved this ending. I never ship characters as I do not care about that, but I really love these two (separately)~ (What they mean for each other aka what they might mean for each other in the future [peace of mind/finding worth for Atsushi, and a reason to live for Dazai, etc.], how they’re already helping each other [Dazai helping Atsushi with feeling worthless, and Dazai finding a bit of piece of mind], etc. etc. etc.) I haven’t loved 2 characters in an anime as much as this in quite a long time (The last time was Kougami and Akane in Psycho Pass) as I find making up characters as complex as them and make them fit together as well as them/make them complement each other/balance each other out is actually pretty hard to do really well.

Making up this list took waaaaay longer than it should’ve. (I did not include Katai because I couldn’t think of a single song for him, sorry.)

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kylermalloy · 5 years ago

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my Thoughts on rebels

Now I don’t have any hot takes or any controversial opinions to put out here. Rebels is a simple show with a simple plot. There’s not a whole lot to analyze, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to enjoy. Sometimes all you need is a straightforward concept with lovable characters. So let me proceed to squeal about Dave Filoni’s second masterpiece, Rebels.

Spoilers abound!

Before I say anything else...

THEY HAD A BABY I haven’t stopped squealing.

Zeb Okay I’ll start with Zeb, for no particular reason. He was the only main character I hadn’t really heard about or seen much of before I started watching. In the first few scenes with him, I was afraid he’d become his stereotype—the thuggish gorilla who argues all the time, disobeys orders, messes up plans, and borderline betrays his friends. I was so pleasantly surprised when none of that happened. Maybe by virtue of being a kids’ show, these characters don’t have *edgy* or twisted nuances. Zeb is fiercely loyal. He likes smashing heads in and gets grumbly sometimes, but he’s never a hindrance. He’s not just “the muscle”; his ingenuity saves the day on more than one occasion. If anything, his nuances take him the other way—he’s incredibly sensitive and childlike in some ways. Being one of the last of his kind is a major plot point of several episodes, which brings so much depth to him and his psyche. It also informs SO MUCH on his relationship with Kallus. Speaking of...

Kallus I never, ever expected Kallus to be anything more than a season-long plot device. The fact that he stuck around and went through actual character development?? Amazing. The episode where he and Zeb are stranded together is gold. He’s got a sense of honor even as he works for the Empire, sparing the rebels as Zeb spared him. He develops a new set of ideals thanks to our heroes, and he begins to question and regret the things he’s done for the Empire—ethnic cleansing of Zeb’s Lasat people included. And that last scene of them in the epilogue? I’m not gonna lie, it was a bit shippy.

KANERA I know while the show was airing, fans were constantly asking when Kanan and Hera were going to get together. But for me, they seemed to be married from the first episode. Hera calling Kanan “love” and teasing him? Kanan constantly worrying after Hera while simultaneously believing in her ability to do...absolutely everything? Their parenting of Ezra, Sabine, Chopper, and even Zeb? Explicitly referring to them as “the kids” and themselves as “Mom and Dad”? Yeah, they’re married. And let’s not underplay their strengths as individual characters. Kanan—or Caleb—is exactly what you would expect of a Jedi whose training is only halfway complete. He’s cool and awesome, but also riddled with self-doubt and uncertainty. And Hera is the mature voice of reason this merry band of children so desperately needs—except of course when she’s the one rushing headlong into danger, whether to get a fighter prototype or to steal a family heirloom or to save a couple pilots in a suicidally risky move. She’s a perfect blend of mature reason and headstrong determination that makes a true rebel. (Wait a minute...she’s totally Katara! Maybe that’s why I love her so much.)

Now back to them as a couple! Most of the show did nothing to advance their relationship—further reinforcing my headcanon that things were always happening between them behind the scenes. Even though they became official canon in the last season, the appearance of their kid in the epilogue proves I was right—based only on what we saw, there was no time for them to make a baby. Of COURSE there were things going on behind the scenes. 😏 (I found the interview that explains exactly where Jacen came from, and I was equal parts ecstatic and freaked out.)

Did I mention THEY HAD A BABY???

Ezra So apparently there are people in the Star Wars fandom who hate Ezra? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; Star Wars fans hate everything. Except the OT. If you hate the OT you’re a heathen. I can’t really think of a solid reason why people hate Ezra, except for the fact that he seems to be a Luke Skywalker analog. He’s a poor kid with Force sensitivities who gets adopted by a Jedi and becomes a venerated leader of the Rebellion. He also finds an oddball group of friends he comes to call family but eventually bids them farewell after the death of his mentor. They’re not carbon copies, of course—Luke’s an optimistic idealist; Ezra’s a cynic. Luke whines; Ezra snarks. Luke blows up the Death Star and defeats Vader; Ezra completes a series of far more complicated missions and defeats Inquisitors and Thrawn. Again by virtue of him being the star of a tv show instead of just three feature length movies, he gets a lot more time to have his adventures. Maybe there’s some resentment over him getting more screentime than Luke? Maybe it’s because I’m just Not a Luke Skywalker stan. I like him fine, but I don’t hold him up as some perfect saintlike hero. (I didn’t have any problems with his TLJ characterization.) The people who do need to rewatch the OT they hold so dear. Luke’s a beautiful drama queen and you all should love him for that. But I’m here to talk about Ezra! Listen, this child is a disaster and a half—just like Luke, just like Anakin, just like young Obi-Wan. There is nothing to not like about him—except that he reminds you of your favorite characters but he’s not them.

Clone Wars characters I initially started watching this show solely for the characters I already knew from Clone Wars. Ahsoka Tano has been my girl ever since I started watching Clone Wars, and I didn’t even consider watching Rebels until I knew they had undone her death. (If there was just ONE character they could needlessly save via time travel, they picked the right one.) At any rate, she’s perfect in this show. She’s more grown-up, more mature, but still retains that *young and plucky* spirit. (For the record, I usually hate the *plucky* characters. Somehow, she works for me. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t really do that annoying cocky smirk thing.)

But it’s not just Ahsoka. Rex survived! I’m so glad at least one clone (two? Wolffe?) made it out of the war okay. And he’s great here. His constant snarking with Kanan reminded me so much of his banter with Anakin (and I’m sure it reminded him of that too ;-; ) His presence on Rebels isn’t strictly necessary, narratively speaking, but it’s just a nice tie-in to the world we got used to in Clone Wars. It reminds us that this world with the Empire was once the world of the Republic, and there are still clones out there—even if there’s no place for them in this new order. This of course reinforces the tragic narrative of clones as sentient beings created for nothing but combat. And again, I commend both shows for making me feel that narrative so deeply!

Hondo and Maul were two of my favorite antagonists from Clone Wars, so seeing their multiple appearances here filled me with joy. Hondo cracked me up, as usual, and Maul’s farewell was touching and heartbreaking. I almost wish he were still around! There’s still his duel with Ahsoka in season 7 of Clone Wars... 👀 Honestly what surprised me most about those two were the way they were both presented as protagonists. Hondo especially, and Maul does become an antagonist again. But it really speaks to the way all paradigms in the galaxy have shifted after the Republic became the Empire. In Clone Wars, Hondo was portrayed as an annoying hindrance to our heroes. Now with the Empire as an adversary to our main characters, Hondo is an ally. An untrustworthy one of course, mostly in it for the money, but his interests usually lie with helping our heroes, not hurting them. Besides, nothing tops his relationship with Ezra. Their first meeting had me in fits: “You lied to me?? I KNEW I liked you!” (Also I forgot to mention the running gag of Ezra introducing himself as Jabba the Hutt? Genius. And hilarious, since some people actually believe him at first)

THEY HAD A BABY!!!

Thrawn I need to see this guy again. Whether in a continuation where we learn what happened to him and Ezra, or some other moment in time where we see him younger, rising through the ranks of the Empire full of ambition and ideas. He’s quietly menacing, always confident and meticulous. He does a great job of making the rebels feel helpless in their fight, needling their pressure points and taunting them—but he never makes the conflict personal to him. He always remains detached, just a guy doing his duty. He’s just there to pick up interesting art pieces. I love the way he’s acted—always quiet, cultured, practically whispering. I didn’t know he was voiced by Lars Mikkelson until after I watched, but that was a perfect choice. I found the Inquisitors a little flat as villains (antagonists, whatever) and the other Empire ministers and governors not very threatening. Thrawn was the perfect balance (lol) between interesting and a genuine threat.

MANDALORE For all of Sabine’s merits as a character, I love her most in the Mandalorian arcs. The episode where she comes into her power and wields the darksaber is one of my favorites. She’s not a traditional stern, stoic Mandalorian character. She’s a free spirit, incredibly creative and intellectual. Yet she’s also afraid of her mind and what she could create—for years she created weapons for the Empire to feed her hubris. Maybe that’s why she mainly sticks to painting throughout the series. :) Anyway. I look forward to the follow-up detailing her adventures with Ahsoka.

Chopper I rolled my eyes so hard when I first saw Chopper. Everything from his name to his design screamed “kiddie version of R2D2” and I was fully prepared to hate him. I don’t. He’s just like R2, in that every sentence he says sounds like it’s punctuated with about ten different swearwords. It’s hilarious seeing such a cute character being so surly and even threatening on occasions! Chopper kicks some serious butt. He even comes with a tragic backstory!

Lastly, I don’t think I’ve mentioned...

THEY HAD A BABY AND HE’S ADORABLE

#star wars #rebels #mymeta #ish #kylerrambles #zeb orrelios #kallus #kanera #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #ezra bridger #jacen syndulla #ahsoka tano #rex #hondo ohnaka #darth maul #grand admiral thrawn #sabine wren #chopper

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moonlightreal · 5 years ago

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Fate Episode One

At long last, it’s tiiiiiime!

First: whitewashing bad. Fact acknowledged. Everybody else has said everything on the subject (ad nauseum...) so no reason to say it all again!

I’m diving in with questions. The main one is “Will there be a good reason for Musa to be a mind fairy rather than a music fairy?” Dunno why that’s what I’m wondering the most, but it is. There’s also “Is Fate!Stella truly an unholy union of Stella and Diaspro?” and “so what makes them fairies not witches/psychics/mutants?” and “So what’s up with Beatrix? We know nothing about her, and as an Umineko fan I’m favorably disposed towards witches named Beatrice!” and also “They’re not really having sex are they?!”

I’m going to try and approach Fate just like I do every season of the cartoon, ready to celebrate the good, snark at the bad, enjoy many headcanons, reference random stuff, and have a good time. Pretending I haven’t had my fannish heart nigh to broken by the state of the fandom and that I’m worried I’ll get hate for even posting this. I’m’a try to start from zero to find my own answer the really big question… “Good, bad, or totally irredeemable?”

So… In which we discover a new world.

We start with… a night scene. Not promising when “too dark can’t see” is one of my pet peeves! An old fella comes out to check on his cute Irish sheep. He passes through the barrier, into the dangerous forest beyond to look for a missing sheep. Yup, he’s gonna be guest victim in the first five minutes.

Oh no! Something has disemboweled a sheep and left it hanging in a tree! Clearly there are leopards in the magical realm!

There is a great roar and an unseen but very large-sounding beast chases our poor shepherd! The guy trips and falls just as he’s about to get through the barrier and is set upon and devoured by the unseen beast! Blood spatters the rocks!

Opening! It’s the wings we’ve sen and some really beautiful music. One point for the music.

Then a gorgeous flying shot of the outside of the barrier and Alfea. Whatever the plot turns out to be, the outdoor setting is beautiful. Music that seems to be both pop and edgy plays as we zoom in on the logo on the gate, and there’s Bloom coming in the gate.

And there’s Terra with her father and a tray full of plants.

And there’s Aisha walking by with her dreads

And there’s Stella taking a selfie with other students.

And there’s Musa leaning on her suitcase, headphones on, looking at her phone. Another girl says something to Musa and she turns and replies and smiles.

And there’s one of the guys twirling a knife. I’ve heard Sky starts out in a pink shirt so this must be Riven. The camera comes back to Bloom as she gives him a doubtful look. In the novelization she’s mentally labeling him an edgelord, and that kinda fits. Any dude showing off his willingness to twirl weapons at a high school probably is best avoided—except the dudes here are training to fight so the weapons rules must be different. I wonder if Bloom knows yet that dudes with swords are normal here.

Bloom gets a text to meet Stella at the gate. She waits.

Camera pan to Sky talking to another guy. Sky looks… Sky-ish. Chris Evans style handsome, blond. I’d’ve made him grow his hair to mimic cartoon Sky’s silly shaggy haircut, but points for making Sky look like Sky! Minus points for not dying Riven maroon. They could’ve made it work!

Sky is indeed wearing a pink shirt. In the novelization Bloom thinks he’s wearing it “because gender roles were for the weak” which is a line I think is funny and intend to use in a story somewhere. There is no obvious hint in the show that Sky thinks gender roles are for the weak

Bloom’s tired of waiting. She heads off. Sky ditches his buddy to go meet her. “Wow, you are so lost. I’m impressed with your confidence in the face of complete ignorance. Issue is, you’re overcomitted. You’re essentially running. And now that I’m here you can’t possibly give me the satisfaction of turning around.” he says, all in one go.

I can’t decide if that’s jerkish or charming. Maybe Bloom shares my weakness for men with accents because she decides on charming.

Bloom says she’s a fairy, giggles because that’s something she never thought she’d say, they’re standing in the courtyard of a college for fairies, Bloom’s from California, not the Otherworld. So we get all that established. Sky is kinda charming here and points out the specialists’ hall and fairy hall.

Sky: “I’d be happy to-”

Bloom: “Mansplain it?”

So the writing team does know some modern issues! Bloom says Sky seems like a mansplainer, which seems like quite a leap since she is new and he is helping her, in a friendly-sarcastic kind of way. She’s giggling, clearly charmed.

Then Riven comes up, and he’s like a foot shorter than Sky, and Bloom escapes for some reason so maybe she wasn’t enjoying the conversation as much as it looked? Or maybe it was just the plot needs to move along. Riven glomp-hugs Sky. He’s got a great accent too.

Bloom must’ve left because she saw Stella, they say hello. Bloom says she got impatient waiting and Stella says, “How very American of you” So American stereotypes are known in magical worlds also?

So, Stella! Blonde, tall, zero Stella vibe. Accent. Long pale coat and a satiny top with big chunky pendant. She gets to her ring quick, “Portal ring, the only thing that keeps me sane in this place is the ability to leave it. Your world may not always be thrilling but it beats this one. There are seven realms in the Otherworld, each a different kind of boring.” All spoken in a jaded monotone. Ugh, what have they done to our Stella!

The girls walk inside while Stella speaks, the school is pale stone and arches and plants. Other students are arriving, hauling suitcases, hugging. At least some of them seem happy to be here!

Cut to the globe! and it’s a magical globe, the water moves and there are lil sailing ships! But the lands are totally blank, so it’s a cheap magic globe Dowling didn’t pay enough for the one with tiny forests too. Alfea is in the realm of Solaria.

Maybe they shouldn’t have made Ireland = Solaria. I’ve only been to England but we did not see the sun the whole trip! Bloom’s in Dowling’s really cool office. She spins the globe but the camera pans away before we see the names of the other realms. Bloom’s talking nervously about seeing people updating their insta stories, expecting Tinkerbells, and the lack of wings.

Dowling: “We had wings in the past. As we’ve evolved, transformation magic has been lost. Tink was an air fairy, you’re a fire fairy.”

Dowling says classes tomorrow, learn to use magic slowly but safely… we establish Bloom is here to learn to control her magic so she can go home and not keen on ‘slow.’ Dowling says, ‘trust the process’ which immediately makes me mistrust her.

Then she gives a great lil speech: “Alfea’s graduates have ruled realms and led armies. They have forged powerful relics and rediscovered long lost relics. They shape the otherworld.”

But Bloom just wants to get done and go home. She says, ‘I'm here because you promised you’d teach me control.” and Dowling says, ‘no, you’re here because you knew you have no other choice.” and Bloom looks betrayed.

Yeah Dowling’s sus.

Next scene: Bloom showing her dorm to her parents over video call! How does that work between dimensions? Her folks look nothing like Mika and Vanessa, dad’s got a beard and silver temples, mom’s got big blonde curls. Neither of them have burn injuries or the sort of freaked out vibe I’d expect from folks whose house was just on fire.

Roommate pan-around! Terra puts potted plants everywhere! Stella preens at the vanity! Musa headphones-and-laptop but smiles at Terra. Aisha comes in with her laundry bag.

Bloom’s parents get suspicious about the timezone thing, they think Bloom’s in the Alps, and Aisha comes and covers for her saying it’s time for lights out.

Aisha intro! She is wearing a pink and brown checkered dress that’s not super fashionable or flattering. I like her blue braids though. Aisha does not seem to have the accent that many Alfeans have.

Bloom explains the “human parents, fairy daughter, I must be a throwback to an ancestor” thing. Aisha looks dubious. Then they mention Harry Potter!

Bloom; ‘Ravenclaw, sometimes Slytherin.’

Aisha; ‘Explains the lies then. Gryffindor.’

Bloom: ‘Explains the judgment.’

Congrats, you both were jerks in three short lines. 9_9 But they’re smiling so I guess it’s friendly sniping.

Bloom goes to see Stella, who’s holding up sparkly tops to herself. She’s also got this weird rainbow skirt that looks like gymnastics clothes not real clothes. Stella’s changing for the party because people have already seen her in her clothes. Bloom asks confused, ‘People expect you to wear multiple outfits?’ and Stella comes back with, ‘people expect me to care how I look.” In the same jaded monotone.

Before Bloom can WTF outta there like a sensible person Stella snaps her fingers and creates a ball of light. Bloom gapes, but not nearly as much as I feel like she should. The magic is beautiful, it’s all rainbowy and sparkly. Bloom just hesitantly asks, ‘Can I ask, how exactly you..?” and Stella shuts her down with an almost kind, “I’m a mentor, not a tutor.”

But she does give a little infodump. “Fairy magic is tied to emotion. God thoughts, bad, hatred, fear, the stronger the emotion the stronger the magic.”

And Bloom says, ‘Do you hate me or fear me? You were looking at me when you did that. And I’m pretty sure you don’t love me.” Smart cookie, Bloom! Points to you! We know it’s because Bloom was talking to sky, and that gives Stellla some emotions.

And points to Stella, she thaws out her voice and talks like a real person, ‘I don’t know you. I’m sure once I do I’ll find something to love.” She sounds rather doubtful about the last bit but yay actual emotion!

Then Stella goes over to Terra for her intro scene and I cringe because the novelization did Terra dirty and I’m not keen to see it on screen. But it works ok. Stella gently calls Terra on the number of houseplants and says the secret garden was better kept secret, Terra responds that wasn’t really the message of the book, Stella looks at her with amused patience and leaves Musa and Terra to continue the scene. And I decide if there’s no infodump about how earth and the Otherworld relate to each other in this show I shall be cross.

Then Terra chatters on about her family and how she grew up at Alfea since her dad works here (she’s holding a 100% fake plant) and drops that Stella is a second year. Musa asks why a second-year is in a first-year suite and Terra says it’s some administrative thing probably best not to mention. But Terra totally knows the secret.

Musa’s eyes glow purple. Magic! But we don’t hear what she hears. She starts putting her headphones on. Terra goes on to say they should all not mention it to Stella, then interrupts another headphones-attempt to offer Musa a succulent, “They’re low maintainence, perfect for you, not that I really know you...’

Musa: ‘If I take it will you stop talking?”

Terra visibly deflates and Musa apologizes and grabs the succulent before finally getting to escape into music.

Aisha leans in to ask Terra if Alfea has a pool. It has a river and Aisha’s been swimming—twice a day every day! Terra says no pool, just the pond where the specialists train but nobody swims there, at least not on purpose.

And we immediately cut out to the pond, which looks pretty mucky, I wouldn’t want to swim there either! Two specialists, a boy and a girl, are whacking away at each other with wooden swords on the shore. They’re all dressed in black pants and tank tops, very Divergent movie poster except with the Alfea logo on the front. There’s a bunch of specialists training all around the pond and one does indeed knock their opponent in with a splash! But we home in on Sky and Riven and I cannot get over how short and skinny Riven is compared to Sky! And the fact that I’ve just been rewatching Lord of the Rings and Riven doesn’t look 100% not like Dominic Monaghan… sorry Riven’s actor, I’m sure in future episodes I’ll stop thinking you’re a hobbit!

Anyway, Riven’s teasing Sky about his crush on Bloom, says Sky always goes for the crazy ones and all redheads are crazy. Sky puts Riven on the mat and Riven says he was getting high all summer and not practicing. Before Sky can give him a “big brother speech” on that riven skedaddled because here comes the teacher with a different speech!

This show’s Codatorta, whose name is Silva and who looks very irish and I like him, does a little speech about how y’all gotta train, singles out a black guy I think is Dane and says, ‘even you will be able to fight like him.” and attacks Sky, who fights back. They spar for a minute.

Infodump: “Sky’s father was Andreas of Eraklyon, that makes him a legacy.” Also, some of these kids are from families of specialists and some were selected by Silva based on their talent for combat and weaponry. “This place will seem like hell until actual hell comes. We are the first line of defense, a certainty when the future is uncertain!’

Then Dane snickers about the whole ‘school full of kids with swords’ and Silva says it must be nice to be so ‘soft’ he can make fun. And Dane drops that the barrier exists ‘to protect the school from Burned Ones.”

As he says it, we cut to Sky going out through the barrier to smoke.

Burned ones are gone. But Silva saw one when he was a kid. His father shot it but was killed by the Burned One’s poison. Burned Ones are inhumanly strong and fast, and have a terrible poison, or disease that kills people who get away.

Sky looks over and sees the shepherd’s body. Yikes!

Cut to the staff arriving to look at the remains. Just three: Dowling, Codatorta, and Terra’s dad. Is that the whole staff? Who teaches? Could’ve been a wolf or a bear… Terra’s dad collects some gunk from the body and I think calls it “char residue.”

Dowling says, “She killed all the Burned Ones.”

She? This world’s Marion/Daphne, likely.

But the adults clean it up so the kids can party! Our girls are gathered around the food, and they’re better dressed! Aisha’s got her hair up and a blue hoodie, Musa’s got a little red coat. Terra has not been blessed by the fashion fairy, she’s in some overalls it looks like, not flattering. Terra is saying hopefully that maybe the shepherd died of old age and Musa’s ‘Yeah, that old age decapitation” is gentle ribbing not cruel.

Aisha’s loading up a stack of cookies, says how much she eats and, ‘If I didn’t swim I’d be massive.” it’s not aimed at Terra , but Terra flinches. Aisha heads off and Terra says something that boils down to, ‘Musa, you’re tuning out me in particular.” which, Terra you’ve known Musa for what, six hours? Way too short a time to take it personal. Musa says, ‘It’s a me thing, it’s not you.” and Terra just flusters and heads away. Musa looks troubled but not sure what to do and puts her headphones on.

This is SO much better than in the book. Not perfect, all the interactions between the girls have been very weird as if they’ve been given a script full of cruel catty lines and instructed to say them in a kind way, but at least they’ve tried for the vibe of “trying to be nice to people we don’t know yet and flubbing it” rather than “we are all terrible people” like I feared.

Terra meets her dad and tries to go to the greenhouse with him but he makes her stay to enjoy the party.

Cut to some grownup dude—Dowling’s secretary? Apparently searching for something in a desk that I presume is outside the headmistress’ office.

Beatrix… or possibly a gothed-up Bloom… comes to see Dowling and when told the headmistress isn’t in says, ‘I’ll just take a water, room temp, thanks love.’ and then when the door opens Beatrix greets Dowling with a simpering ‘I'm your biggest fan, I’m obsessed with Alfea...” and cascading apologies for swearing, with more swearing. Dowling and her secretary are as confused by this as I am but Dowling says Beatrix can study the history of Alfea in the library if she wants to. I assume this is evil Beatrix slyly getting permission to hit the books. Is Beatrix even a student at Alfea?

Cut to Bloom’s notebook, she’s already started taking notes about powers being linked to emotions, love hate and fear. Great initiative Bloom, but are there no textbooks you could be reading ahead in?

We get dumped back to a flashback: Bloom’s mom wants her to go out on a Saturday night, to a party or a movie or whatever teen thing. All Bloom wants to do is go to antique sales apparently. Bloom doesn’t want to be a “basic bitch” like her mom and her mom doesn’t want her daughter to be a “weird loner.”

Pause while I urban dictionary “basic bitch.” Huh. Not a term I ever heard in my circle of nerds.

Bloom and her mom are awful to each other. Back in the present Bloom’s eyes flame up as she remembers. She decides it’s time to go experiment! Right now! Before even one day of magic class or one page of a textbook! The idiot ball has entered play.

Night has fallen because of course it has. Bloom runs into Sky at the party. But she’s not looking to party, she’s looking for a place to be alone outside. Sky directs her to beyond the barrier, because we’re about to have Plot. If it weren’t for Plot I‘m sure Sky could’ve suggested a specialist workout area inside the barrier. Sky says there might be wolves or bears or “maybe something much scarier” and Bloom catches the idiot ball and says, ‘But no people? Perfect!”

Sky offers to go with her but Bloom says no thanks in a “I think you may be flirting and I may be down for that in the future just not right now.” kind of a way. Good character interaction! Except Stella grabs Sky for a chat once Bloom heads out to meet the Plot.

Sky and Stella have an opaque exchange that really just establishes they have a past of some sort that everyone knows about because everyone stares—or at least Stella thinks everyone is staring. I’m starting to feel weirdly sorry for this Stella who has none of her namesake’s sparkle and confidence. Why does she think all the realms are boring? Is she ever enthusiastic?

...wait, it’s still day! Why was it night inside?? This show is weird about lighting. Gosh Ireland is beautiful! Where’s this castle they got to be Alfea? Can I go there? This FOREST! It is a fully magical forest. Aisha is swimming in the river, with goggles and a cap but Bloom heads into the amazing forest. Good music here too! Forests and magic and music, come on Fate you CAN be a good show, I believe in you! Just put down the idiot ball and step away... Bloom goes through the barrier and outside it sees a swirl of orange and white sparkles in the air. She watches it and laughs and then hikes through a little more forest.

Finding a clearing Bloom calls her fire. At first she can’t, then she looks through the pictures on her phone looking for emotion. “Pictures of my sad teenage years are not happy thoughts. Noted.” She says with an angsty little smile. Then there’s a photo of the burned out house. She zooms in and stares at it taking in all the details. And we get flashbacks to the line of fire racing towards her parents’ bed.

Fire! Bloom turns her handful of fire this way and that, delighted, then tries for two hands. This is the scene from the trailer, playing with fire. Good music here. And good that Bloom thought the magic was neat… uuuuntil she realizes she doesn’t know how to put it out. She freaks out and waves her hands around trying to blow out the flames.

Aisha comes to the rescue and says dumb things like, “You’re losing control.” and “If you get angry at me...” and Bloom does get angry and throws lines of fire right at Aisha. Who looks terrified. Sensibly, but also has she never seen fire magic before? She grew up in a magic realm, does she know nothing about how to help someone get control? Is control taught to magical babies so teenagers rarely see someone wigging out? But if magic is emotion then everyone will lose control sometime since we all get upset. How does an emotion=magic society function?

Anyway. aisha pulls water up from the ground and puts out the flames.

Inside Aisha gives Bloom what for about losing control. Including, “Is that American for sorry I almost set you on fire?” Srsly, this show is Irish people and Italians stealth throwing shade at Americans! *Laughs in January 2021* Bloom retorts that she went away from people to experiment for just that reason, and tells Aisha about not having had fairy parents or any magical experience.

Aisha responds with the story of flooding her school including the toilets and having to wade through poo. (I also tend to call it poo, after watching Mike Rowe. I wonder if they watch Dirty Jobs in the Otherworld.)

And Bloom tells her story. Bloom isn’t a cheerleader, she likes antiques and staying home by herself, so she and her mom don’t get along. Her parents removed her door, which is awful! And Bloom got flamey eyes and sent fire straight at her parents while they slept. While Bloom sat on her bed in a rage trance. Understandable level of fury after that fight. And Bloom feels awful, also understandable. And she snuck out to sleep in a creepy warehouse to protect her parents. Her folks didn’t know it was her of course, they don’t know about magic.

Aisha says that beats her flood story, but Aisha is also wondering about something. “You drew on a good deal of magic without even trying. it’s hard to believe you’re from a dormant bloodline. Is there any chance you’re adopted?”

Bloom laughs. Then says she heard the story of her birth a million times, she was a miracle baby diagnosed with a heart defect but then after birth her heart was fine.

Aisha: “Oh god, you’re a changeling!” … ‘It’s barbaric and it barely ever happens anymore….”

Bloom has had enough and just says, “why would you even tell me that?” and leaves. Musa comes over and asks Aisha what she said. Aisha: “The truth. Because someone’s been lying to her.”

Cut to Dowling, lookin’ sus!

This changeling thing had better be fully explained later. Why was it done in the past? Why is it considered barbaric? What happened to the parents’ real kid? I assume she died of the heart condition, but that’s a bigole dangling bit of Plot. In the unlikely event that Fate goes for many seasons that baby will turn up with magic too or as a specialist or something.

Dowling pours tea. Then she telekinetically locks her office door and opens a secret passage! Dowling is sus.

Back at the party, where it again seems to be night. Dane is leaning on a column hangin out when here comes Riven with a flask! He offers, Dane says no thanks, Riven says, ‘There are two types of first-years: pussies and aspiring former pussies.” and pours the entire flask’s worth of booze into Dane’s cup anyway.

Dane says something about, “It feels like less a binary choice and more like a spectrum.” And points for the actor delivering this line like it’s a sarcastic comment on social juscice-ness rather than the large sign saying “Dane is not straight!’ that the writers intended. Dane drinks, makes a face, and Riven bullies him into drinking the rest, tipping the glass so Dane chokes.

Terra rides to the rescue, “Bullying the first-years? Can you be more basic?” and Riven says Dane was into it which he wasn’t.

Terra: “Thinks he’s some badass but you should’ve seen him last year he was just a tragic nerd in disguise.”

Riven: “And she’s just three people in disguise.”

Dane does call Riven out on that bit of nastiness but Terra just does a great lil speech and strangles Riven with vines. Thought I’d hate that but I kinda liked it. Go Terra. Then she introduces herself to Dane, says that wasn’t a great first impression but Dane says he’s about to make an impression by throwing up after a single drink, and Terra hurries him away presumably to the nurse.

Bloom google-imaged changelings! Lotsa woodcuts, someone’s fanart entitled “horror of fairy babies.’ There’s more nuance to it than that… Bloom looks at a family photograph.

There’s Stella, coming to be sympathetic? Nope, she’s coming to conivingly advance the plot! “You know there’s no shame in that, wanting a normal life, wanting to be home...”

When the girls get back Bloom is nowhere to be found. Musa mind-reads that Stella is wracked with guilt, They put it together, Bloom was talking to Sky and now she’s gone. Apparently Stella did something nasty to the last girl who talked to Sky. Terra is kinda straight up badass. Stella confesses, she kindly loaned Bloom the portal ring so she could go back to “the first world” but to use it Bloom has to go deep into the forest outside the barrier to a door in a graveyard.

Portal’s super low special effects, Bloom pushes open a door in a cemetary, the ring glows, and Bloom walks into what must be the warehouse she hid out in.

It’s very dark inside both buildings but away from the cemetary it seems to still be day so we can see a Burned One’s shadow coming towards the portal. Day and night seem to depend on location in this show, and anywhere you need a monster it’s gonna be dark! Bloom seems to leave the magic portal open and we see her step out on the warehouse into a weirdly well-lit night on earth.

Real actual nighttime on earth. Bloom walks to her parents’ house and calls them from outside. Her dad’s surprised she called twice in one day. This call her folks seem just worried and nice, not awful like they were in the flashback. Bloom cries. She can’t ask her parents about the changeling thing. Her mom says very kind, ‘Your path isn’t like mine or your father’s but I can’t wait to see who you become.” Bloom hangs up and cries and watches her parents in their house, then walks back to the warehouse to return to Alfea.

But first we get to see where she was camping! In a little office in the warehouse. She brought a lot of stuff, bedding and pictures for the walls and everything. She opens a notebook and we see that she was experimenting already, discovered she was fireproof, wondered if she had superpowers. Then she senses something and looks out through an interior window into the rest of the warehouse.

Yikes! it’s a Burned One!

Bloom staggers back, trips, and drops Stella’s ring down a grate in the floor.

Bloom’s never heard of Burned Ones at this point but she knows a monster when she sees one. She cowers, back to the wall. The Burned One breaks through the window and tries to grab her!

Bloom escapes into some kind of tunnel, I guess she opened the grate that the ring fell through? It’s not totally clear. There’s the ring, on the other side of a different grate or screen, Bloom can’t reach it, there’s lots of roaring, Bloom runs like hell!

And there’s Dowling! She says, ‘don’t stop now.’ and gestures Bloom through the door back to the cemetery. The door closes behind her. Terra, Musa and Aisha are waiting to make sure Bloom’s ok. Bloom says the Burned One got the ring.

Stella, meanwhile, is on Sky’s bed when he comes out of the shower! Dressed, at least.

Sky is not interested. “You can’t be here, Stell. If Silva finds out-’ Sky goes for his trousers but Stella comes over and snuggles up to his bare back. Sky is still not keen. Seems Stella dumped him then went silent all summer and now she’s jumping in since he talked to Bloom. Stella… comes out and says, “I got jealous. I did something really stupid.” and she says, “I can’t sleep in a room where everybody hates me.” For sending Bloom into danger to get home when that’s what Bloom wanted? Not great, Stella, but hateworthy? Did the girls all tell her they hate her or does Stella just think she’s an awful person? And is Stella actually desperately unhappy or is she just trying to get in Sky’s pants? Not sure what to take away from this. Sky hugs Stella and tells her she’s better than she thinks she is.

The others get back to the dorm and Aisha reassures Bloom that Dowling can take care of the Burned One.

Cut to Beatrix leaving her raid on the library with armfuls of books. She passed Riven, who’s smoking. They say flirty things and Beatrix says she’s been “snorting the midnight adderall” to show that she’s a bad girl. Riven offers her a puff but her hands are full of books so they do this almost-kiss so Riven can blow smoke into her mouth. Erotic, also gross. Is that a real thing people do? Riven asks Beatrix if she’s a first-year and she says “I’m lots of things” and walks off leaving Riven and the room he’s in, which has the most gorgeous arched windows with trees in them. Is this place real? It’s the same place the party was but now it’s night and these windows are glowing green with tree outlines in them. This has gotta be something the filmmakers added.

Pajama scene in the girls’ suite, Terra waters plants, Musa hops in bed with headphones on. Terra does a needy little wave. Musa reluctantly un-headphones. Terra offers a speaker she borrowed from her brother so Musa can have her music without shutting other people out.

And I cringe so hard because just let people tune you out if they want! Communicate by whiteboard! People not wanting to share doesn’t mean they hate you, it means they have their own thoughts they’re busy with! Come on Terra, be better than your novelization self!

Musa calls Terra out on her fake-happy bullshit. Musa can feel all of Terra’s insecurities and anger. Seems like maybe empaths shouldn’t have to share a room! What’s the range on mind reading? How did Musa hit 16 without learning to tune stuff out or going mad? But Musa says, ‘but if you want to know how I really feel...” and switches her music to a speaker, it’s guitar-y and nice.

Up in Dowling’s office, Silva says she should’ve killed the Burned One not left it chained up and knocked out in a shack outside the barrier. Dowling needs to investigate this Burned One, see if there are more of them. Then Dowling spills that Bloom is a changeling, from the time the last Burned One disappeared. And she says, “Rosalind kept so much from us. I’m worried about the students. The Alfea they know is very different from the one we attended.” There’s something very “there was a war before” about the two of them. Dowling may not be sus after all, though that may make her a terrible headmistress depending on how the next episodes go.

Montage of sleeping students. Terra and Dane are texting. Dane accidentally likes one of Riven’s sexy photos. Riven’s pleased. Sky and Stella are sharing a bed but after the last scene I can’t imagine they actually did anything. Sky seemed pretty unseduceable.

And outside a Mysterious Cloaked Figure passes through the barricade, finds the Burned One in the hut, and zaps it awake with lightning. It pushed back its hood… Beatrix! So if she undid her too-tight braids she’d be Stormy? So is Beatrix the villain? I mean obviously she’s a villain but the threat of the Burned Ones feels... bigger than one teenager in Bratz clothes who has not got the presence of even one Trix much less all three wrapped up together. But anyway she’ gets to be a doomful cloaked figure at the end of episode one.

Very pretty ending credits music. Listened to it several times. I can’t understand the lyrics which is probably just as well. Is it in irish or is it just sung in a way to not have clear lyrics? C’mon fate, Irishness is a big thing you’ve got going for you, please milk it for all its worth!

I… I LIKED it! Now my friends say future episodes get worse so I can’t get my hopes too high but this wasn’t awful. None of the girls really had any vibe of their characters, only Bloom and Sky really look like Bloom and Sky. The worldbuilding is lacking, I’m left with more questions than answers.

And oh god one episode was ten pages and about five hours. I… I meant to do this with every episode but I’m not sure I can. There’s so much to comment on it takes forever. Maybe I’ll do each one in parts. Or maybe I’ll abandon the writing and just watch the show like a normal person. It’s a lot of fun to fine-toothed comb each scene but I’m’a be here forever!

#fate the winx saga

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