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amphibious-entity · 3 years

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TMBS Book 1 Brain Dump

~An Embarrassingly Long Post~

I don’t know why I’m writing this or why I’m so determined to do it. Maybe to finally assume my true form and become a mega dork on main, or maybe just for fun!

This is basically a compilation of all the main points running through my head after reading The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007) for the first time. Rather than posting a ton and spamming the tag, everything’s here in one neat package! (hopefully this gets it all out of my system rip)

Contents:

The Book Itself

The Book Itself, for real this time

The Characters

A Funny Parallel

The S.Q. Section

Lines & Scenes I Liked

Spoilers abound!

The Book Itself

Upon acquiring the first three books (don’t judge me pls), I was surprised at just how long they are. Like, they’re still pretty light being paperbacks and all, but these books are hefty lads.

The first book has this Disney+ Original Series circle thing printed on it, which is kind of unfortunate. Regardless, I love the cover illustration and yellow is actually my favorite color :D It made me weirdly quite happy whenever I saw the book lying around in my room

Also, it’s really cute how there’s a letter from Mr. Benedict at the end! (It only reveals that you can find out his first name if you “know the code”, meaning the bit of Morse printed below the summary on the back.) Shock and horror, though, as I realized I’m starting to recognize some of the letters

The Book Itself, for real this time

It’s wonderful how the tone of the book really shone through to the show adaptation. Something about the deliberateness of the aesthetic, from the set designs to the fashion to scene compositions, that really sells that particular style— like it’s very clear that this story is being told to us, rather than one we’re seeing unfold, if that makes sense.

Where that narration style stood out to me the most was the first chapter. We are told (rather than shown) how Reynie gets himself to the point of the second test, and there’s this whole twisty time maneuver for that whole sequence of events that’s really interesting

A super secret fun fact about me is that I wanted to be a writer when I was younger! So this particular balance of show vs. tell is really neat, since it runs counter to my own tendencies. The sheer amount of commas in every sentence is also kind of comforting, since Ahah, I Do That in those few serious-ish attempts at writing lol

Overall this book’s style reminds me a lot of Roald Dahl’s books, which are very nostalgic for me :D The whole “kids are more competent than adults” angle helps a lot too haha

The Characters

Oh boy here’s where I get a little bit critical! Overall I did really like this book!! it’s just that that expresses itself in all this weird “”analysis”” lol

Reynie - much better in the books than in the show

It’s sort of a lukewarm take but I feel like show!Reynie is kind of boring? He doesn’t have a lot going on flaw-wise, and obviously since he’s the protagonist he can’t have too many weird traits or else the kids watching can’t project themselves onto him as easily

(I call it the difference between an aspirational protagonist and a vessel protagonist. Going off of the Roald Dahl vibes, think Matilda vs Charlie. show!Reynie is more of a Charlie)

Thus when we get to see him really struggle with the Whisperer and doubt himself it gives him a lot more dimension, at least in my opinion

It is a federal crime that the white knight scenes were not adapted into the show

Sticky - my son

I’ve long held to no one besides myself and my long suffering sister that Sticky is The Best Member of the Society

He happened to hit a lot of the Bingo squares of Stuff I Like In Characters: glasses, anxious, nice :), kind of a coward but ultimately is there for his friends, etc

For some reason I don’t talk about him nearly as much as you-know-who, but I love him just as dearly

Kate & Constance - I don’t have much to say

Kate is really interesting in this book! I like how we get to see more of her depths, in particular that one passage about her belief that she is invincible being the only thing that keeps her from falling apart? :c

Also her constant fidgeting is relatable lol

Constance is somehow a lot more tolerable in the book. I think I’m just one of those people with no patience for small children, unfortunately lol

(Some of) The Adults

It’s interesting that they had such an offscreen presence for most of the book. Giving them more time was probably one of the stronger changes of the show

However if that decision was made at the expense of the white knight scenes I think the choice should have been clear

I like the way Rhonda and Number Two are written

Milligan always on sad boy hours 😔✊

The “mill again” passage is touching but kind of messes up the pacing of the getaway, at least for me. Maybe I should read it again to make sure I didn’t miss something

Miss Perumal is much better in the show. We see so little of her in the book she doesn’t function well as an emotional anchor for Reynie, imo

The Institute Gang

Jackson and Jillson serve their purpose well, and Martina was surprising to say the least. I like the direction they took her in the show! I can’t imagine how funny it must have been to watch the tetherball subplot come out of nowhere lolol

These sections were written out of sequence, so random tidbit I couldn’t fit in The S.Q. Section: I like how he stumbles over his words. relatable

Mr. Curtain

While I think I know why they decided to not give Curtain the wheelchair in the show, we were totally robbed of Actor Tony Hale’s performance for the reveal during the final confrontation

Speaking of the wheelchair, it’s such a powerful symbol of his need for control or rather, his fear of losing it

The Contrast between him and Mr. Benedict. This point is expanded on in A Funny Parallel

Mr. Benedict

Oh boy, Mr. Benedict… How do I say this

I find it hard to trust Mr. Benedict, unfortunately

I mean to say, I do in the sense that I know he would never hurt the kids, thanks to knowing that a) this is a children’s book series and b) the meta (tumblr) states that he is really nice and lovable and stuff, but seriously. Why do the kids trust him at first?? I probably missed something somewhere

I like to think I’m an optimistic person, but unfortunately I’m also super paranoid. The premise of “a bunch of vulnerable orphans team up with a strange old man” is just so odd to me I don’t know how to explain it

I don’t know!!! I really want to trust Mr. Benedict

One of the strengths of the show is that we get to see him more often, and thus he gets to acknowledge more often that the plan is weird and that he feels really badly for putting the kids in danger and that he’s trustworthy and genuine

But his lack of presence for most of the book just makes him into something of a specter, invisible and unknowable, speaking only in riddles from across the bay

Which is why the white knight scene is so important!! I loved that scene ;-;

Because here’s an actual emotional connection! We can actually see it happening, rather than only being told that it exists

Reynie asking for advice and receiving encouragement, in words that demonstrate that Mr. Benedict actually cares about him and worries about him and agghh

It is a federal crime that the white knight scenes were not adapted into the show

But overall this whole issue didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the book at all! It’s just ->

A Funny Parallel

Okay, ready for my biggest brain, hottest take ever??

Mr. Benedict and Mr. Curtain…. are… the same

I mean obviously not entirely, given that one is benevolent and kind and the other is… Mr. Curtain

But seriously. Genius old man seeks out children (mainly orphans) to enact a plan. Said children often end up incredibly devoted to his cause and deeply admire him this is a little flimsy

Undoubtedly that’s intentional and is supposed to show the difference between them, like some kind of cautionary tale? “Let yourself be vulnerable and let others help you, lest you turn eeeeviiillll”

I guess that’s where the aforementioned epic contrast comes in. You get Mr. Curtain, strapped into his wheelchair and hiding behind those mirrored sunglasses, terrified (but unwilling to admit it) of ever showing the tiniest hint of vulnerability, vs. Mr. Benedict, who can let himself fall knowing that someone will catch him :’)

Anyhow I have nothing against the parallels, I just think it’s funny

The S.Q. Section

The S.Q. Quarantine Thread so it doesn’t leak out everywhere else <3

I’d like to meet the emo angstlord genius who read this book and decided to make SQ into Dr. Curtain’s son. What in the world

Okay I should probably preface this by saying that I absolutely adore both book!S.Q. and show!SQ with all my heart. Somehow, despite being a completely different character in both mediums, he has managed to be one of the best characters in either and certainly one of my favorites (besides Sticky of course) in the entire franchise, despite the fact that I’ve only read the first book/watched the show so far. I am confident in this statement.

But seriously! How?? Why?? I could probably write a whole other essay about why show!SQ is such an interesting character, and the change works so incredibly well. I’m just. Baffled

Okay, focus. book!S.Q. is such a sweetheart, oh my goodness. Like, 100% one of the most endearing characters in the book. Poor guy. I don’t even know where to start!!

He just seems to be a genuinely good guy at heart, despite being technically one of the bad guys. He’s genuinely happy for Reynie and Sticky when they became Messengers and helped Kate when she “fell” and was concerned about Constance when she looked sick and how he was in that meeting with Mr. Curtain and Martina?!!? aaahhhhghgh ;-; he just wants people to be happy TT-TT

Comparing him against literally every character at the Institute is probably what makes him so endearing tbh. When everyone else is so awful to the kids, it really makes him stand out. Like a cheerful little nightlight in the worst, most humid and rank bathroom you’ve ever been in

It’s kind of pointless to theorize about a book series that’s already concluded (I think?) but. Is the implication of S.Q.’s forgetfulness supposed to be that Mr. Curtain used him in brainsweeping experiments somehow? The timeline probably definitely absolutely doesn’t line up but like. How did he get to being a Messenger being the way he is now, given how cutthroat the process is? And then of course Mr. Curtain keeps him around as an Executive because he’s fun to mess with and presumably his loyalty. I’m very curious as to how their relationship develops in the other books, if at all. Those are probably where the seeds of the “let’s make them family” logic were planted

But wouldn’t it be hilarious if the reason we don’t know what “S.Q.” stands for in the books is that he just. Forgot

Another thing that occurred to me. Given that he and the other Executives were Messengers at some point, what were their worst fears? What is S.Q.’s worst fear?? Inquiring minds need to know

One last horrible little anecdote: I was thinking about book!S.Q. while eating breakfast, as one does, and suddenly it hit me.

I want to believe The Author Trenton Lee Stewart had the name for a character, S.Q. Pedalian, and was like, “Hm! What sort of quirky trait should this young fellow have?” Because, of course, in this style of fiction every character has to have at least one cartoonish or otherwise distinguishing trait to stand out in the minds of children. (For instance, Kate has her bucket, Sticky has his glasses, Constance is angry, and Reynie is Emmett from the Lego Movie)

Anyhow, he looks around the room, searching for inspiration. Suddenly he comes across a jumbo box of plastic wrap. Completely innocuous in design, save for one line of text. 300 SQ FT.

“…large… S.Q. …feet? THAT’S IT!” i’m sorry

Lines & Scenes I Liked

In no particular order!

Sticky quotes Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Evil combination aerobics/square dancing in the gym with the Executives

Everyone being happy at the end :’)

Everyone partying after Sticky reunites with his parents, and later finding Mr. Benedict asleep at his desk from the moment they shook hands :’’)

Literally any scene with Sticky in it

Any time Kate says “you boys” or “gosh”

[“Um, sir?” S.Q. said timidly, raising his hand. “A thought just occurred to me.” / Mr. Curtain raised his eyebrows. “That’s remarkable, S.Q. What is it?”] clown prince of my heart </3

S.Q.’s determined monologue about searching for clues after he bungled up the first time

Literally any scene with S.Q. in it (please refer to The S.Q. Section)

Reynie trying to resist the Whisperer.

[Let us begin. / First let me polish my spectacles, Reynie thought. / Let us begin. / Not without my bucket, Reynie insisted. He heard Mr. Curtain muttering behind him. / Let us begin, let us begin, let us begin. / Rules and schools are tools for fools, Reynie thought.]

NO MORE HURTIN’ WITH CURTAIN

Milligan showing up on the island!!

Remember the white knight hhhhhh

“controle”

A Super Secret Bonus Section

I would be extremely surprised if anyone read through all the way down here lol. Regardless, here’s a little acknowledgements section :D not tagging anyone since I don’t want to bother all of these people

Special shoutout to tumblr blog stonetowns for unknowingly yet singlehandedly demolishing my reluctance to read the books by posting a ton of cute quotes. Thank you for your service o7

Thanks to the two OGs that liked the post I made right before this one, for being my unwitting enablers and for sticking around despite being a) technically an internet stranger (hello!) and b) someone I haven’t spoken to irl in literal years (hey!!)

Last but not least thankz 2 my sister for putting up with me ranting about the book when I first got it and for asking about “CQ” sometimes lol. (i desperately hope you’re not reading this orz)

#the mysterious benedict society #this took me like three days to finish rip #it’s worked though! i feel less of a Mighty Need to think about this stuff constantly now #however!!! today through some conniving i have gotten the Second Book #now I’m at 3 out of 4 infinity stones. muahahaha #was going to include my villain origin story about why i like show!SQ so much but cut it for being too long and irrelevant. however #if the words jeff naomi and Sweet Dreams are Made of These mean anything to you please hit me up. it’s kind of a funny story

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stitch1830 · 3 years

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CHARACTER DESCRIPTION: KANTO

So this is a character description for the character Kanto that @precious-metal-girl and I created for AUs where he is in a loving and committed relationship with Toph Beifong. Part of this is to help me keep track of all of his features and personality traits, and if others are looking to write about Kanto but aren't sure about how to describe him, feel free to pick and choose characteristics that meet your AU needs! This will (hopefully) be a living document where characteristics are added and changed over time. If you are curious about our AUs or want to know about a particular trait/personality, feel free to ask us questions!

......

Born: ~88/89 AG (summer)

Residence: Republic City

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Green

Element: Earthbending/Metalbending

Occupation: Deputy for the Republic City Police Department, Metalbender Division

Nicknames: Hotshot, Dep (short for Deputy), Slick, Botany Boy, Pretty Boy, Metalbrain, Metalhead, Rockhead, K, My Rock

Relationship: Toph Beifong

Background:

Kanto grew up near one of the Fire Nation colonies close to what is Republic City today (part of the reason why his name has FN influence). His father took many different jobs and tried to avoid fighting in the war as long as possible so he could stay with his family, while his mother was a seamstress for the town. Often, he would help his mother sew clothes, and because of that he was pretty crafty and good with his hands. He lost his parents at age 7; old enough to remember them and his childhood, but all the memories are pretty blurry.

What he does remember is that his family was pretty poor, but they always had something to laugh about.

He loved learning new skills with his dad, and had his mom read the same two books they had every single night. And one thing he always remembers is eating together as a family.

His parents died either in an accident for rebelling against a FN rule (maybe the FN wanted to take Kanto away for being an earthbender), or from protecting Kanto in general.

Kanto was always pretty feisty as a boy, pushing people’s buttons and egging people on. It only got worse when his parents died because he pushed buttons out of anger now.

He also had a lot of friends, but after, he didn’t talk to anyone for a while because he ran away. Most of his fighting skills were learned while on the run, he never got any formal training until he went to the metalbending academy (maybe 17 or 18? Toph managed a different part of the academy so she didn’t know him. That or he went to a different academy branch entirely).

One thing he remembers is that he was happiest with his family, so he cherishes the idea of a happy family unit, and he constantly searched for something that made him feel close to that happiness.

Personality:

The first impression people get of Kanto is that he is a no-good, arrogant, bad boy. He acts as if he’s the coolest person in town and always has something sassy to say in response. More than half of the words that come out of Kanto’s mouth are flirtatious and sarcastic, a combination that initially drives Toph Beifong crazy.

But in reality, Kanto is an extremely loyal man who’s rather selfless, putting himself in harm’s way so no one else has to. His initial personality is a front to protect himself so that he doesn’t befriend anyone too much, because he knows what it’s like to love people and lose them. He hated how he felt when he was orphaned and never wanted to feel that way again.

When his facade finally cracks with Toph and she sees the real him, he’s actually… a dork.

He’s got a very goofy personality, he gets excited about little things, and his passions do not necessarily align with his looks and his first impression. When he loves people, he does so with his full heart, but again, he’s hesitant to do so with many… His family are essentially the only ones that see him this way.

Looks:

Kanto is most certainly a hunk. He’s got a similar skin complexion to Toph, thick and wavy (borderline curly) black hair (Toph loves playing with it), broad chest and shoulders (a fit and toned body overall), a mischievous, slightly crooked grin (left corner turns up higher than the right) that makes all the women of RC swoon, a crooked nose from being punched in the face one too many times, and classic earthbender green eyes. He’s also pretty tall, that’s where Lin gets her height from, well over a head taller than Toph And despite being an earthbender, his hands and fingers are actually rather long and nimble. Some popular fanart interpretations of Kanto can be found here and here and here and here and here.

Interests:

Kanto likes flowers, he often brings new ones home (especially when he’s with Toph) so he can teach her about its qualities and so they have a nice and natural floral scent in their home. He’s obsessed with pro bending like Toph, and often will attend matches with her. Astronomy and biology are also interests of his. Toph and Kanto also have a cool rock collection, both are trying to best each other to find the coolest one. Kanto reads science fiction novels to Toph in their downtime and he’ll play the guitar or pipa.

Fears:

Kanto is afraid of bugs, he doesn’t care for large fires that can get out of control, and big animals make him nervous at first contact. When Lin’s in the picture, he freaks out when there are too many sharp corners in one place. He’s always afraid she’s gonna fall and hit her head. Kanto also doesn’t like those rip tides or currents in oceans/large bodies of water.

Some of his deeper level fears include losing his family. He cannot stand the idea of losing Lin or Toph, especially if the reason they are missing or gone is because of him. He’s lost his family before, and he’ll be damned if he loses them again.

Flaws:

A lot of his flaws stem from his stubbornness and confidence. He’s arrogant, overconfident, prideful, and impatient. He knows he’s good at his job and he’s not afraid to talk about his skills and talents, and unless he’s working specifically with Toph, he assumes he’s the best for the job.

He’s flirty, sarcastic, reckless, and a bit of a slob (just his home, he keeps a clean appearance). Kanto’s constantly ragging on coworkers, has comments for days, and it’s rare for him to speak in a serious tone while on the job. Just doesn’t happen.

He’s protective, reckless, a troublemaker, skeptical, and vengeful. When he actually finds love and has a family, he is extremely protective, to the point where if criminals threaten his family, he’s not afraid to take the law into his own hands to eradicate the problem. One of these would be his fatal flaw, maybe vengeful? His vengeful tendency could be from a need to retaliate to protect his family from a threat, and that ultimately may take him down.

His flaws mainly seem to come from his overconfident front that he gives to the world. He doesn’t let too many in, or, he lets people in, but they don’t see the real him. Kanto doesn’t trust people right away, but it’s easy to get along with everyone if you just have this confident and charismatic face on. But his ‘face’ seeped into his actual personality, so there are times when he shouldn’t blurt out the first stupid comment in his head, but he does.

Gaang First Impressions:

Aang: He’s always extremely happy and excited to meet new partners, so he was thrilled to meet Kanto. They definitely don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but Aang is great at being friends with everyone despite the differences, so there’s no animosity.

Katara: She’s skeptical at first, because Kanto acts like a douche and has a bad boy persona. Katara just doesn’t want to see Toph get hurt, so she interrogates the man a bit (a lot), but even though the things he says concern her, he’s a gentleman to Toph, very attentive to her needs. So, maybe he’s not so bad… Later on, she knows the bad boy look was all a facade and that Kanto is a sweetheart, and she grows to really like Kanto.

Zuko: He gives Kanto a very cold shoulder at first. He’s very protective of Toph because he thinks of her as a little sister. So, he crosses his arms, glares a bit, and Kanto glares back because that’s what he does at first. But then, they start going on double dates, and Zuko and Kanto turn out to have a lot more in common than they realize. They’re buddies now!

Sokka: Sokka’s attitude really depends on ship preference with him, but in most HC’s, he’s Toph’s best friend, so he would also be distant with Kanto. He wouldn’t like how cocky he is, or that he’s super tall and talented at many things… he’s not a fan. However, Toph is always super happy around Kanto, he makes her laugh, and no one is allowed to insult Toph without an ass whooping from both Kanto and Toph, so, he warms up to the guy. He’s been seen buying Kanto a beer after a long day of work as a truce, and he often goes to Kanto if he needs police paper signed and expedited (Kanto does the same with Sokka, it evens out).

Suki: Suki is pretty chill about it all. She’s pretty perceptive about personalities and whatnot, and she can detect a bit of a bad boy mask. So, she treats the introduction casually and is super cordial with Kanto. They never become best friends or anything, but she was one of his first “allies” in the Gaang, and for that he is forever grateful.

Other Facts:

His mannerisms are that he walks with a slow swagger. Often the slowest of the group, he takes his time whenever he walks places. But don’t let that fool you—he can sprint really fast. He leans back in almost all of his chairs, sometimes he leans too far back. Kanto was a notorious manspreader when he would sit down, but since being with Toph, she put a stop to that instantly. When he’s restless, he bounces his leg a lot, and usually only stops if Toph reminds him (usually a hand to his leg to calm him down). Kanto also runs his hand through his hair a ton to either push it off his face, or just on instinct. He fidgets with his hands, too, Toph does as well. Usually, the two will hold hands or play with each other’s fingers to ‘remedy’ their nervous tick. In extremely stressful situations (like an AU where Lin is kidnapped), Kanto usually throws up and doesn’t sleep at all.

Kanto’s voice is a mix of a rural and city accent, once Republic City becomes prominent. He uses slang in his speech often and mainly uses city words (he picked up a lot of city lingo when interacting with criminals and undercover work back in the day). There are a few words and phrases from his childhood that he uses that scream ‘rural kid’ and that is mainly when the distinction in his accent and speech is picked up. His voice is smooth and deep when he casually talks. When he yells, it becomes a bit gravelly and husky sounding. Oddly enough, when he whispers, the same thing happens.

Kanto smells like the earth or something with a forestry scent (cedar comes to mind). He wears cologne, and the scents he usually goes for are ones that smell like earth, wood, or resin. Kanto likes wearing cologne, but he can’t put too much on, otherwise it bothers Toph’s nose, and he typically checks to see which ones Toph likes, and he’ll purchase that cologne again because he knows she likes the smell. He naturally smells a bit like metal and dirt and a bit of smoke (he was a casual smoker before he had Lin). All these scents are not prominent, but by the end of the day, these are the scents that can usually be detected.

Some of his pet peeves include fake apologies, when people kick or shake the chair he is sitting in, any slightly insulting remark toward Toph, close talkers, people that interrupt frequently, and those that correct his grammar.

Kanto canonically only has one daughter, Lin. In this AU, he’s a loving and committed father who emphasizes putting his family first and protecting them. He doted and hovered over Toph while she was pregnant, cried tears of joy when Lin was born, and is very attentive and caring toward Lin. He’s the one that soothes her when she cries out at night, he’ll get up in the morning with her so Toph can sleep in, and when he comes home from work, he smothers her in kisses and gives her raspberries on the belly (affectionate). Even as a baby, Lin was a Daddy’s girl and Kanto spoiled her as much as possible.

In the relatively canon compliant AU, Kanto dies when Lin is about 6 months old. He left for work, had a run-in with a bloodbender (or an accident on the job), and never returned home. On the day of his death, Kanto planned on proposing to Toph, but never got the chance.

Lin knew about her father growing up, but he wasn’t talked about often because it is a touchy subject for Toph (and for most that knew him well). On her 13th birthday, Lin receives the engagement ring on a necklace, along with a handwritten letter from Kanto.

There are many AUs and headcanons related to where he lives, but those are very fluid and change all the time!

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spine-buster · 4 years

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The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Chapter 21

A/N: I’ve always wanted to write a super-tropey scene like the bar scene in this so I went ahead and did it and I LOVE IT, OKAY?! Also, if you haven’t seen, I posted Part 3 of my Elias story last Thursday. It’s linked on my Masterlist!

Also, just a quick note that I will be returning to a full-time job after Labour Day today. I have enough chapters written out that I don’t think I will have to skip a week of posting, and I organize my time wisely so that I still give myself time to write, but this is just a PSA/FYI that I may not get to your asks/canon questions super quickly like I have been over quarantine. They will still ALL be answered, though, so don’t worry about that!

Anyways, enjoy this!

February 18th, 2020

Aberdeen Bloom was dejected.

The Leafs had lost their last two games, but these felt different. They’d lost to Buffalo on Sunday 5-2, and Buffalo was one of the worst teams in the league. It didn’t even matter that there were a majority of Leaf fans in the building. Now, tonight, they’d just lost 5-2 again, but this time to Pittsburgh. She couldn’t keep her eyes off her phone, with tweet upon tweet upon tweet calling this the worst game of the season for the team. Just an absolutely awful game. No effort. No heart. No soul. One that they would have to answer for at home, since they faced them again on Thursday, but this time at home. She didn’t even like hockey and she was taking everything to heart because, well – she was part of the team now. Everybody had told her that since day one. And now, at one of the lowest points in the season, she felt that.

She couldn’t stop scrolling. Couldn’t stop reading what everybody was saying.

It was Tyson who had volunteered to drive her home tonight. Ever since Morgan broke his ankle, it was a rotation of Tyson or John. When Emma picked up Tyson, she was just as nice, but she missed Bee. She missed seeing the way Morgan looked at Bee when they were in the car, because it reminded her of how William looked at her when they were alone.

Aberdeen shuffled into the backseat of Tyson’s SUV. Tyson was in the driver’s seat, and Emma was the passenger. Everyone was silent as Tyson began driving into the city – she and Emma could tell he was dejected and mad at the game that had transpired just a few hours ago. The short flight did nothing to quell his emotions. And as Emma laid her hand on his on the gearshift, Aberdeen watched as she moved her thumb back and forth, trying to tell him that it was all okay.

“Tys…it’s not your fault,” Emma said softly, finally, after what felt like a lifetime of silence.

“Em—”

“Tyson, listen to me.”

“—Emma, please, not right now—”

His eyes flashed to hers through the rear view mirror, but Emma wouldn’t listen to him. “I know it and you know it too. The whole defence is flawed. Plus, you guys are missing Mo. It’s not just you and you know that—”

“—Emma, I really don’t want to talk about it right now—”

“—and besides, if – or should I say when – you’re traded at the deadline, none of this will matter,” she dropped a bombshell. “Everyone knows you’re unhappy and it’s not working out and that you’re much better suited to play somewhere else.”

Aberdeen felt her body stiffen at the revelation. So Tyson was unhappy. Unhappy with playing on the Leafs. She knew he wasn’t having the best season, especially considering how successful he’d been in Colorado, but she didn’t think it was that bad. He’d gotten better when Sheldon came in, but apparently that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to make him happy. And in Aberdeen’s life, happiness was important. It was almost paramount. What you did and who you surrounded yourself with and your work should, ultimately, make you happy. Was it the same in hockey? Were hockey players allowed to be happy? Were hockey players on the Toronto Maple Leafs allowed to be happy? Or was everything just a business transaction? A long road to the ultimate success of lifting the Stanley Cup, regardless of who got hurt along the way?

Tyson let out a long sigh as he continued to drive, choosing not to answer his girlfriend or say anything else. When they got off the Gardiner and into downtown, Aberdeen was almost desperate to get out. She felt very awkward. Clearly Emma and Tyson wanted, needed to have a conversation, and she was stopping that from happening. Just by being in the backseat. She almost wanted to just tuck and roll out of the car. Tyson could return her suitcase later. She really didn’t care at this point.

When he pulled up outside her condo building, Aberdeen almost didn’t want until he stopped the car and put it in park to click her seatbelt off. “Hey Aberdeen,” Tyson looked at her through the rear view mirror. She paused all her movements to stare back at him through the mirror. “I uh…I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention to Brendan, uh, you know…what you heard…” he trailed off.

Aberdeen stared back at him doe-eyed. She shook her head slightly. “I don’t…I don’t tell Brendan about anything I find out about you guys. I mean I would never…” she said softly, trailing off too.

Tyson nodded, smiling slightly. “Thanks, Aberdeen.”

“Yeah, it’s no problem.”

When she got out of the car, Tyson popped the trunk so she could get her bag. After one last thank you, a polite wave, and a push of the button to get it to close, she walked into her condo building. She nodded towards the security guard before walking towards the elevators.

She wondered if William felt that same way when he played last year.

***

February 20th, 2020

“Get ‘em!” Aberdeen growled as she looked down onto the ice. “Get ‘em!!!”

Brendan chuckled as he watched Aberdeen, her hands balled up in fists as she practically hung over the box. He’d never seen her so into a hockey game before, and he didn’t know what had gotten into her. “You alright, Aberdeen?”

“Get ‘em!”

He got a kick out of it. Kyle, too, was doing one of those silent chuckles and getting redder by the second. “Aberdeen, you’re going to blow your heart out. We’re gonna need to put you on meds,” Brendan commented. “You gotta remember that you’re staying until the proofs get here. You can’t waste all your energy now.”

Aberdeen calmed down a bit, but she was still on the edge of her seat. “Sorry,” she said. She knew she was maybe taking it a bit overboard, but she couldn’t help it. After the awful game against the Penguins on Tuesday, the Leafs were dominating them right now. Freddie was playing phenomenally, Jake Muzzin had just scored to put them up 1-0, and they were getting really good chances. It’s like the team did a complete 180 from what they were. She also knew, though, that she needed to stay at the arena later tonight, because the final proofs for the St. Pats jerseys were coming and she was the one who had to sign for them and place them safely and securely in Brendan’s office to see tomorrow. She didn’t know how long she’d be up tonight, and she’d need to conserve energy.

“Don’t apologize. I just don’t want you to have a heart attack,” Brendan smiled.

With the Leafs on a powerplay, Aberdeen was like a hawk following the puck. With Tavares, Matthews, and Nylander on the ice, she was praying for a goal. And then—

“YES!!!!!” she screamed as William scored a beautiful goal, jumping up in her seat and throwing her fist in the air like she was Bender at the end of The Breakfast Club. From beside her, Brendan and Kyle stayed unnaturally calm. Aberdeen looked over at them and tried to settle back into her seat calmly. “Sorry. Again,” she said, gripping the armrests of her chair. “But how can you guys be so calm?!”

“You get used to it,” Brendan smiled.

“Well, maybe you do, Mr. Hockey Player,” Aberdeen joked.

“Especially when the camera is on you,” Kyle added.

Aberdeen’s face dropped. “Oh my God, I’m not on camera, am I?!”

Kyle shook his head, his smile spreading from ear to ear. “We’ll have to see, Aberdeen, but I don’t think so.”

The Leafs dominated the rest of game. Kasperi scored another goal only three minutes after William, and Zach scored in the third to make it 4-0. Freddie got the shutout. She knew he’d be happy about that, despite his stoic reserve. As she, Brendan, and Kyle made their way to the locker room, Aberdeen saw the media already speaking to Jake Muzzin. She knew they’d want to speak with the goal scorers too, and so when she saw William and Kasperi heading to the media room, along with John, Freddie, and Sheldon, she wasn’t surprised. It was a good game. Hopefully the media would back down a bit.

She congratulated the guys and stood on the sidelines as Brendan and Kyle spoke to some of them once the media left. By that point, some of them were dressed and ready to head home. “Hey, you want a ride?” Jason offered as he approached her, tightening his tie around his neck.

“Oh, I’m staying back, actually,” Aberdeen informed him. He looked at her skeptically. “The final proofs are coming in for your St. Pats jerseys in March and I have to receive them and put them in Brendan’s office under lock and key.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Well, I can wait with you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Aberdeen, it’s fine. We can grab a bite to eat afterwards.”

“Jason, I might be here until, like, eleven.”

“So we’ll have an authentic Italian-style dinner then. All the more reason since I miss my motherland.”

“Jason—”

“Aberdeen, are you really going to say no me?”

She glared at him. It was like St. John’s all over again. Before she could open her mouth and say something else, another voice interrupted her. “Why’re you giving Jason the stink eye?” William asked as he approached them.

“I’m gonna wait with Aberdeen until the proofs come and then we’re gonna grab dinner. You in?” he asked William, but everybody already knew the answer.

William shrugged his shoulders casually, like Jason hadn’t just invited him to dinner with his own girlfriend. “I’m in.”

Aberdeen rolled her eyes. “You two are insufferable.”

“I like to think it’s part of our charm,” Jason smiled. “Let me call Jen and then we can go trash Brendan’s office.”

*** It was about 10:45 when Aberdeen, Jason, and William ended up at a small bar none of them had ever been to that served small pub-style plates. It was crowded, for some reason, even though it was a Thursday. Aberdeen quickly learned, judging by the drink specials, that it was their grand opening weekend, and tonight was their first official night open. Opening on a Thursday meant pandering to the university crowd for sure (whose pub nights usually took place on Thursdays), but this place was pretty full with an older, gruffier clientele that were seated at the bar and congregated in small groups around the open space in the centre of the room, away from the few booths against the wall. She wondered if they marketed the place wrongly, or if they just wanted to fill the place so they could say they had a successful opening.

It was a bit loud, but she, Jason, and William ate their late dinner in relative peace. They spoke about the game only for a little bit before they moved on to other topics, making it abundantly clear to Aberdeen that they didn’t want to discuss hockey at all. The food was fine, and so, too, were the beers William and Jason had, but Aberdeen’s Long Island Iced Tea had way too much rum in it so she couldn’t finish.

By the time they finished, it was almost midnight and Aberdeen was starting to feel her fatigue. They were told to pay at the bar, so they gathered their jackets. Aberdeen insisted on paying for her meal, ever going so far as to run up to the bar herself, inching between some patrons in order to pay, before William or Jason could even get out of the booth. William, however, was right behind her, ready to Jason’s meal on his card.

“H—Hey! Hey! Look what we have here! Y-You’re Wiiiilliam Nylander,” a guy, older and very clearly inebriated, slurred out as he laid his eyes on them.

“That’s me,” William gave a tight-lipped smile, standing just slight behind Aberdeen, waiting his turn to pay.

The drunk guy focused his attention on Jason now. “You. Spezza.”

“Yup.”

He turned back towards William, shaking his head. “Teams like this can’t win the Cup. Esp-p-ecially not with this guy around.”

That caught Aberdeen’s attention. She furrowed her brows as the friend of the guy, obviously just as drunk, nodded his head in agreement. “Don’t have the heart like Dougie or Wendel. All a bunch of pussies now. Especially you.”

Aberdeen pulled her card out of the reader dramatically, turning her body so she could face them head on. “What the hell is your problem? There’s no need to be rude,” she said, her voice loud and firm.

“Aberdeen, stop it,” William said loud enough for her to hear.

“Y-Y-Yyyyou shoulda just sssigned the contract, man,” the drunk man grumbled out.

Aberdeen tried again, ignoring William’s plea. “Sir, this isn’t the time or place,” she intervened, but William’s hands went straight to her waist to move her out of his way so she wasn’t standing in between them anymore.

Suddenly, it was William closer to the drunk man that Aberdeen. The drunk guy apparently didn’t like that very much. “You’re damn – you’re damn selfish! Ssssselfish and greedyyyy,” the man continued to slur drunkenly. “Seeeelfish, no good—”

“Sir—” Aberdeen showed up beside William, refusing to stand behind him.

“I oughta hurt you like you hurt the fffranchise.”

Aberdeen’s eyes widened. That was a threat if she ever heard one, and even though he was drunk, Aberdeen didn’t like the tone of his voice. “Okay sir,” she chastised. “You need to stop overreacting. We’re just here trying to pay for our meal. This is no time to be a dick.”

“You know what? Let’s just pay at the other end of the bar,” Jason said, trying to diffuse the situation as much as possible. He even started to herd William and Aberdeen away from the drunk man and down the opposite end of the bar. “You have fun with whatever whiskey you’re drinking,” he gave one last look to the man before walking away himself.

“Fuckin’ pussy!” the friend yelled loudly at William, already half way down the bar now.

Aberdeen looked back. William had grabbed her wrist and was dragging her through the crowd so she’d get to the other side with him. She watched as one of them slammed his glass down on the bar dramatically. “Willy—”

“Ignore them, Aberdeen.”

“Yeeeeeah, fuckin’ pussy! Fuckin’ lowlife! Worst Leaf on the team! Shoulda traded you back to Sweden, ya Swedish piece of shit!”

The men continued to yell obscenities and taunt William as they stood at the other end of the bar. Aberdeen stared at William as he stuck his credit card into the machine, quickly punching in his pin. “Does that happen often?” Aberdeen asked him.

“Aberdeen, don’t,” he shook his head, refusing to answer her as he pulled his card out of the machine and stuffed it back into his wallet. It was as if he didn’t want her to know; as if he wanted to protect her from learning just how awful some “fans” could be – at least to him.

“Did you pay?” Jason showed up beside them. William nodded. “Alright, then let’s get the hell out of here,” he ordered, herding them again to lead them out.

It all happened so fast that Aberdeen didn’t really know exactly that – what happened. All she knew was that she heard the guy yell from down the bar. Then she heard the breaking of glass (commonplace in bars, really) and someone else yell “Put it down!” as she, Jason, and William continued towards the door. Then another voice screamed “Watch out!” and she, Jason, and William turned their heads to look behind them.

Then it hit her.

Literally.

A glass had been thrown – obviously by one of the drunk men who had been harassing them – intended for William, but it hit Aberdeen right on the forehead instead. She staggered backwards but didn’t fall. As she brought her hand up to assess the damage, she could almost immediately feel blood dripping down the side of her eye.

“Aberdeen!” Jason screamed.

William looked over and saw the blood on Aberdeen’s hand and it dripping down the side of her face. His eyes filled with anger. Jason, who was still looking at Aberdeen, saw the look she was giving William. He whipped his head towards William, who appeared ready to murder everybody in the room. “Will—William—” Jason tried to get his attention, but to no avail.

“Ohmygodareoyouokaaaaay?!” voices began to ask as they huddled around Aberdeen, William, and Jason worriedly, forming a protective circle around them. There were so many people, so concerned and so loud asking if she was okay that Aberdeen couldn’t even respond – she was too overwhelmed and too confused to even comprehend what was going on.

That’s when the two men ran out. When most of the people in the bar were distracted trying to see if Aberdeen was okay, the men had the wherewithal to completely book it out of the bar with nobody stopping them. It was only William who noticed, screaming out a loud “HEY!” to try and get somebody’s attention to stop them, but nobody moved enough for him to get out of the scrum around Aberdeen to chase him. William focused his attention back on Aberdeen even though he could feel his cheeks flush red with anger and tears forming in his eyes. She was still holding the area above her eyebrow cautiously as the bartender waved her over. Jason and William led her towards the bar, making sure she didn’t step on any of the shattered glass that now littered the floor. The bartender was already opening the first aid kit. William heard Jason tell everyone “It’s fine, it’s fine, we don’t need your help, it’s alright, we’ll handle it, we’ll handle it.”

Aberdeen was offered a bar stool to sit on, but she turned it down. She didn’t want to be on display for everyone to see; she was already embarrassed enough as is. “You wanna go into a washroom?” the bartender asked, and Aberdeen nodded her head. He led them to the wheelchair bathroom, since there would be space for all of them, and ushered them in. “The emergency rooms are just up the street. They’ll do stitches.”

William glared at the bartender. “Aren’t you even gonna call a paramedic or something? What about the cops?” he demanded, his voice shaking from the anger he was still feeling. “Can we look at security cameras to get a face?”

“Bro, we don’t want cops or paramedics here opening night. That would kill us,” the bartender said. William couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “We don’t have cameras installed yet, either. Just clean it up and take it to emerge. It’s, like, two blocks north.”

William felt like punching the bartender square in the jaw. And he would have, too, for being so insensitive about it, if it wasn’t for Jason opening the first aid box loudly against the counter. Jason, for his part, glared at the bartender too. “You can leave now,” he growled, focusing his attention back on finding what he needed within the kit. “Useless piece of shit,” he mumbled under his breath.

Aberdeen sat on the toilet, trying to collect her thoughts and emotions. She’d gotten hit with a fucking flying glass in the middle of a bar. A glass seemingly intended for Willy, thrown by a drunk guy, but it had hit her. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She was sure her hand was covered in blood at this point; she didn’t even want to know what her face looked like. “Did I get busted open?” she asked, even though she was well aware of the answer. She needed someone else to confirm it so this all felt real and not like a nightmare.

“Yeah,” Jason said softly. “Listen, if that dipshit isn’t gonna call the cops or paramedics, I want to clean it before we go to the walk-in. Your face has a lot of blood on it.”

Aberdeen nodded her head slightly. There was nothing else she could do, really. It wasn’t like she was going to reject any medical attention, from Jason or otherwise. “Is it gonna hurt?” she asked.

“Of course it’ll hurt, but I don’t want any of the blood to crust and dry,” he said.

“Am I gonna need stitches? I’ve never gotten stitches before.”

“Move your hand a bit and let me see,” Jason said. She moved her hand the slightest bit, too scared to move it anymore out of fear that blood would gush out like some Halloween decoration, and Jason looked up close. “Yeah, probably,” he deadpanned. William winced at the thought.

“Oh, Jesus. Is it gonna scar?”

“No. Not deep enough to scar. At least not to me,” he said. She trusted him, if only because he was a father of four and had been around the block a few times. He cleaned her face as much as he could of the blood that had streamed down. She watched as he got some alcohol and put it onto a pad, prepped a sterile gauze, and whatever else he needed. Now, are you ready?” he asked.

“I guess so,” Aberdeen braced herself. She took her hand off the injury, relieved that no blood gushed onto Jason’s shirt. “On three, okay?” she asked. Jason nodded his head. She began to count. “One…two—”

She let out a guttural scream as Jason put the rubbing alcohol on her early so she wouldn’t wince away. It fucking stung. The sound that escaped her made Will’s heart drop into the pit of his stomach. He never wanted to hear it again. When he looked over, she was writhing on the toilet seat. Even Jason’s face was pained at her screams, but he was doing what he needed to do. After doing as much as he could, he took one last look at it before putting the sterile gauze on it, grabbing Aberdeen’s hand to hold it against the cut.

“You ready to go to emerge?” Jason asked.

Tears had streamed down her face at this point. She didn’t have a good tolerance for pain. She nodded her head. “Let’s go.”

***

It was just past two in the morning before an emergency room doctor saw Aberdeen. Jason had called Jen to let her know what happened and let her know that he was going to be extra late, and William…well, William was silent. He was still red with rage as they sat in the emergency room, with Jason and Aberdeen making conversation, but he was silent. Truthfully, all Aberdeen wanted to do was hug him, hold his hand, and nestle into him, but she couldn’t. It would have made things a hundred times better, but Jason being there meant that it was impossible. She noticed William’s silence from the moment they were in the washroom at the awful place and Jason had cleaned the wound. She was hoping that he wasn’t blaming himself.

“So, Miss Bloom, what happened here?” Dr. Behari asked as she sat on the gurney, Jason and William standing near her with their arms crossed.

“Some guy at a bar threw a glass and it hit me,” Aberdeen explained simply. “I think I’m going to need stitches.”

The doctor nodded, then looked towards Jason and William. “And you’re her bodyguards?” he joked.

Jason smiled, but William didn’t. “Friends,” Jason said. “I cleaned it up a bit with rubbing alcohol at the bar, doctor. I – It was the only thing I could think to do.”

The doctor nodded, stepping closer towards Aberdeen. “Let me take a look, Miss Bloom, and I can clean it and see if you need stitches.” Aberdeen took her hand and the gauze off the cut and the doctor put on his gloves. “Aallllllright…” he mumbled as he checked it, Aberdeen wincing in pain slightly as he pressed down on it. “You’ve got no residual glass in it, which is great. All we have to do is clean it up and give you some stitches.”

The thought of stitches made Aberdeen a bit woozy. She tried not to think about what they’d have to do. “Is it a deep cut? Like is it gonna scar?” she asked.

“Not a deep cut at all,” the doctor shook his head. “I’m only putting it one layer of stitches. You’ll probably have the slightest scar once it’s all healed but it’s easily covered with makeup, and due to placement, it won’t be too noticeable.” Suddenly, the curtain that blocked off the room opened, and some supplies and medical equipment were ushered in. Jason and William looked to see everything that Dr. Behari would need laid out on the tray. “Ah! Here we go. Have you ever received stitches before, Miss Bloom?”

“No sir.”

“Think of it as me putting this beautiful masterpiece of a face back together,” he joked, causing Aberdeen and Jason to laugh. William still wasn’t laughing, and Jason took notice.

“You’re great, Doctor Behari,” Aberdeen giggled. “I’m gonna get a scar like a real hockey player now.”

“Ahhhhh, so you guys are hockey players, huh?” he gestured towards Jason and William. “I’ve stitched up a bad hockey injury once or twice in my day.”

Dr. Behari continued with what he needed to do, cleaning up the wound and making sure everything was well and prepped for the stitches. The second he picked up the needle filled with lidocaine though, to numb the area so Aberdeen wouldn’t feel the stitches as much, William became more visibly upset. For the last two hours he looked like he was about to cry, and now he just looked extremely pained, distressed at the thought of what Aberdeen had to go through.

It took Jason intervening for William to stop thinking over and over about when the glass met Aberdeen’s head; the look in her eyes and the blood on her face as she tried to stop the bleeding with her hand. “Will, can you breathe for me?” he mumbled, Aberdeen and Dr. Behari too deep in a conversation to hear them.

William started shaking his head. “He needs to be arrested. He needs to be charged with assault. We need to find him,” his voice was still trembling.

“Will, we’re not gonna find him. He ran off,” Jason tried to reason with him. “There aren’t even any cameras we can check – the manager said. We just have to let it go.”

“No. That’s not good enough,” William was persistent. “We need to—”

“Listen to me,” Jason said in a low voice, grabbing William’s forearm and turning him away from Aberdeen and the doctor. They stood right in between the hallway and the curtain sectioning off the room. “I understand this is personal for you because it’s Aberdeen, but you need to be level-headed right now, because as much as the doctor is making her laugh, she’s gonna see the stitches and probably get scared. And she’s going to be looking at you to help calm her down and tell her it will be alright.”

William stopped breathing during the first part of Jason’s sentence. He furrowed his brows, trying to brush it off, and brush off what Jason was implying. “I don’t know what you mean about this being personal for me—”

“Will, come on,” Jason interrupted him. “I’m too old to be fucked with. We all see the way that you look at her and we know you have the biggest crush imaginable on her. It’s not like it’s a fucking secret.”

“H—How do I look at her?”

“She’s the only person you ever see, Will,” Jason deadpanned. “But…beyond that. You have to remember Brendan’s gonna be asking questions tomorrow at the office. I’ll handle a majority of that but he’s going to want the story from you too and you better be on your best behaviour or else he’ll figure out your little crush and Aberdeen will be fucked. Do you understand?”

William couldn’t look Jason in the eye anymore. He bit down on his bottom lip nervously, knowing that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. “I think he already knows…” he mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“I think…Brendan already knows about the crush. At the Christmas party out on the ice I guess he caught me looking and he told me she can’t do anything with me until she leaves, and more importantly, I can’t do anything with her.”

Jason looked like he’d seen a ghost. “And?”

“And what?”

“Are you doing anything with her?”

Here it was. William’s first opportunity to lie outright to a teammate, a friend, a colleague, a guy that he looked up to immensely. Aberdeen had had to do it with Siena, now he’d have to do it with Jason. His girlfriend was a mere fifteen feet away and he had to deny that anything was going on. “What?! Of course not!” he said angrily.

“William I swear to fucking God—"

“Nothing is happening,” he stressed. “Jesus, Jason. How awful do you think I am? I wouldn’t do something like that to her.”

“Don’t fuck with me Willy. She’s got too bright a future for you to—”

“I know that,” William stressed. “I. Know. That. That’s why nothing has happened. That’s why it’s stayed a crush.”

“You promise me right here, right now, in the middle of this hospital while she’s getting stitches, that there’s nothing going on between you two, or so help me God, Willy—”

“There’s nothing going on between us,” William said bluntly. He saw Jason’s face relax slightly, meaning that he was buying it. “I’ve got my crush and that’s it. But there’s nothing going on between us. Nothing.”

“Woohoo! Boys!” Dr. Behari called out, interrupting their conversation. “Miss Bloom wants to hold one of your big strong hands just in case she feels anything. Any takers?”

Jason raised his eyebrows at William and gave him a look. William gave Jason one last look before walked over, stood next to Aberdeen, and offered his hand. She grabbed it without hesitation.

Jason watched.

***

February 22nd, 2020

“What in God’s name happened to your eye?” Brendan demanded as he got his first look at Aberdeen Saturday morning. In the town car, Lou had already commented on it. Now Brendan got to see it, bright and early in the morning before heading towards the office.

“It’s a long story,” Aberdeen mumbled.

“Well we’ve got a long drive to the office.”

She sighed. She recounted the events of the previous night to Brendan, from Jason and William agreeing to stay back with her, to them going to dinner, to the rude men, to the bottle throwing. Brendan looked more and more horrified as time went on, and especially angry when she got to the part with the rude men. They were essentially targeting one of his players, one of his star players, with assault; instead, that assault ended up hurting his executive assistant. And when she mentioned the no cameras and the clueless bartender, he got really angry, because there was nothing he could do either.

“And so, here we are,” Aberdeen finished. “I’m three days out from my 22nd birthday and one week out from my party and I have a giant scar on my face.”

Brendan could tell by her tone that she wasn’t necessarily upset about it, per se, but that she was more so a bit self-conscious about how it looked. “It’s not that big,” he said, trying to not make it a big deal. “The stitches will be out soon anyway. You don’t want to see some of the scars I’ve gotten. I mean…” he trailed off, pointing to the one on his top lip and the one on his chin, “yours won’t look as bad as these. Won’t end up as bad as these either.”

“You don’t think so?”

Brendan shook his head. “No chance. It’s only three stitches. Did you tell your parents?”

“Yeah, we FaceTimed so I could show them. They don’t want me in bars past sundown now,” she giggled slightly. “I’m going to have to go to my doctor before we leave for Tampa Bay to see if they can get taken out though. By then it will have been four days. The emergency room doctor said it should be okay by then.”

“I’ll call Noah and have him take a look at it once we get to the arena,” he said, referring to Dr. Noah Forman, the team’s head physician. “I’ll call Jason and Will in, too. To let me know what happened.”

Aberdeen nodded her head. It was only logical to talk to them about it to. William had been the one targeted, after all. “Are you excited for tonight?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

Brendan shrugged. “Last time we faced Carolina it was an…interesting game,” he said. “How much more interesting can it get?”

***

Aberdeen was absolutely horrified. Just absolutely fucking horrified at what was transpiring in front of her very eyes. A complete and utter collapse. Something that couldn’t be real. Something she didn’t want to be real. Something that was affecting her more than she ever thought hockey would. If Aberdeen thought that Penguins game on Tuesday was bad, this was a hundred times worse. A thousand. A million. A billion times worse.

The Leafs were losing to the Hurricanes. 6-3. And who was in net for the Carolina Hurricanes? Their emergency backup goalie, who was, somehow, also the Toronto Marlies’ Zamboni driver. Yes. The Toronto Maple Leafs were losing to a Zamboni driver. Their own Zamboni driver.

She wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Brendan had already left the box. He’d asked her not to follow him. That made her incredibly nervous, because usually when he was upset or disappointed about games, she was still following him like a little puppy. That wasn’t the case now; he clearly wanted to be alone and alone he would be, wherever he happened to be.

When the final buzzer rang, Aberdeen felt her heart rate go up even more, because it now meant that she did have to go find him. She didn’t want to be in the locker room right now. The team needed to be with their coach, and she didn’t exactly want to hear whatever was going to go down in there. She wanted to remain willfully ignorant. So instead, she began walking towards the offices, where a part of her knew Brendan would be.

She was quiet as she walked down the hallway and towards her desk. She saw Brendan’s door almost closed, and knew he was inside his office. She gathered her things, grabbed her jacket, and took a deep breath.

She knocked lightly on his office door. “Come in,” she heard him say absent-mindedly.

She pushed the door open slowly. When she revealed herself in the doorway, Brendan’s eyebrows rose slightly. He was surprised she’d come and find him. But he didn’t want her to know that. Most other personal assistants he’d had usually let him be when he did something like this. But Aberdeen was different. “Oh, there you are,” he said, his voice low as he cleared his throat. There were a few moments of silence as he thought of something to say. “We need to go over the, uh…the proofs for the St. Pats jerseys,” he held out his hand.

Aberdeen was nervous. He was a bit too calm for her liking, considering what had just happened. She knew he wouldn’t want to talk about it exactly, but still. “Okay. Um, yeah, sure. I have it right here,” she said as she began digging through her bag with all the files in it. There were so many to sort through, and she knew she was taking a while.

“By all means, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me,” Brendan said.

She pulled the proofs out of her bag and handed them to him. He took them, a bit dramatically she thought, and opened them up. “Okay, so…they’re done. They can be sent,” he said dismissively, putting his signature at the bottom of every page of proofs.

Aberdeen was shocked, slightly. There was so much back and forth on them because they had to be perfect and now he’d just signed off on them? “They…they’re done? So I don’t need to bring them back to the artist and fetch them back tomorrow?” she began to pull out her iPad so she could change her schedule.

“Well, if you think the team is worthy of even wearing these jerseys and want to convince me to not just scrap the whole damn idea…then yes, fetch away. You’re very fetching, so go fetch,” he grumbled out with a resolute emotion of nothingness in his voice.

Aberdeen stopped her movements. Okay, so he was affected by what had just happened. And he was going to let it all out now, in front of her, with no-one else around. No Kyle. No Sheldon. No team. Nobody but her. As she continued to stare at him, he couldn’t look her in the eye; he was looking everywhere in his office but her, even though she stood right across his desk from him. “You’ll need to contact PR, um…Leslie, to see what she can do to minimize the press on all this,” he continued, pursing his lips together, looking out into a void. “Another humiliating loss splashed across the Toronto Sun. I can just imagine what they’re going to write about us. The Toronto Maple Leafs lose to a Zamboni driver who works for them. The most embarrassing loss yet, and it’s under my watch. Every newspaper in this city should cut me a check for all the papers I sell for them.” He shook his head, pausing for a few moments to collect himself, and finally looked at Aberdeen. “Anyway, I don’t…I don’t really care what anybody writes about me. But the team. I just…the team. It’s just another disappointment…another let down. Another bad game. Horrible game.”

Aberdeen didn’t know what to say. She knew this was Brendan’s version of spilling his guts out to her. This loss had taken its toll on him – was going to take its toll on everyone in the organization, and he was the guy heading the entire operation. It all fell on his shoulders. And Kyle’s. But he was the overseer of it all. He put the brunt of the blame on himself – not on the players or the general manager. “Anyway, the point is…the point is…” he cleared his throat. Aberdeen could see him visually recollect himself. “The point is, we really need to get these proofs sent first thing tomorrow morning, because I’d like to see the jerseys before they get sent to the players.”

It was weird to Aberdeen how he could just switch like that – from experiencing the lowest of the low to going back to normal again. She wondered if it was a hockey thing, because Willy did it too – he would be upset after losses, especially bad ones, but it would quickly become dirt off his shoulder. She held on to her emotions and feelings much longer than them. “I’m so sorry, Brendan,” she offered. She knew there was nothing else she could say to him. “If you want me to cancel your morning tomorrow, I can.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would we do that?” he asked.

Aberdeen offered a tight-lipped smile. “Is there anything else I can do?” she asked.

Brendan nodded quickly. “Your job.”

***

Aberdeen called Siena the moment she was out of the office and walking home. She’d been okayed to go home by Brendan. She’d texted Will, but he wasn’t answering, so God knows what was going on in the locker room right now. She didn’t want to stay at Scotiabank Arena for that very reason. She just knew it was too much for her to handle.

She knew it was too much because she was already crying. Silent tears, but tears nonetheless. She prayed to God that Siena picked up.

“Hey,” Aberdeen finally heard her voice. “What’s up?”

“Siena…” Aberdeen’s voice was shaky. “Siena did you watch the game?”

“No, why? What’s wrong?”

Aberdeen sniffled. “I never thought I’d be crying about sports but here I am crying about the Leafs!” she blubbered out.

“Why? What happened?”

“We just had the most God awful game,” Aberdeen huffed out. “We lost to our own Zamboni driver.”

There was a pause on Siena’s end. “Aberdeen, are you drunk?”

“NO!!!” she exclaimed. “Go check the highlights or whatever. Go turn on TSN. It was humiliating. We’re going to get absolutely roasted. It’s going to be so bad and—”

“Aberdeen—Aberdeen you need to calm down,” Siena urged on the other end of the phone. “It’s not your fault, Aberdeen. And it’s not your problem. Why are you so upset about it? It’s not like you’re a part of the team.”

Aberdeen felt a punch to her heart at Siena’s words. But she was. Everyone had told her that she was – Brendan, Kyle, the guys, everyone – and she had no reason to think otherwise. It was hammered into her since the beginning. For all intents and purposes, she was a member of the team, which is why it hurt her so badly. Siena didn’t understand that. Siena didn’t understand how all the traveling together made them closer; how all the guys looked out for her – not in a patronizing way, just…in their own way – like they were her older brothers, especially after what happened at Christmas; how the word family was tossed around so often that Aberdeen really felt that this was a family in its own way, with a bunch of moving parts, often dysfunctional, but a family nonetheless. Siena didn’t understand any of it. “Yes I am,” Aberdeen said meekly, offering nothing. She couldn’t put into words what she’d just thought, and even if she could, Siena, with all her smarts, wouldn’t understand them. “I am a part of the team.”

“Just sleep on it, alright? I’m sure everybody is going to forget about it by tomorrow morning,” Siena offered, showing truly just how much she didn’t understand. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

At that exact moment, a car pulled up on the curb alongside Aberdeen. When she looked over, she saw William in the driver’s seat. He was already looking at her. “Okay, bye,” she ended the call abruptly, stuffing her phone into her coat pocket before approaching and opening the door, slipping into the passenger’s seat easily.

When Aberdeen looked over at William, he immediately noticed her red eyes. His heart tightened in his chest. “Why are you crying, minskatt?” he asked.

“How could you not be?” she asked back.

He leaned over the centre console to kiss her. “Please stop, minskatt. I can’t stand to see you cry.”

“I don’t know what to feel – what to do – I don’t know what to say to you to make you feel better about this,” she lamented.

“Shhhh shhh shhh,” William kissed her again, bringing his of his hands up to cup her face. “You don’t need to say anything.”

“Don’t I?”

William shook his head slightly. “You’re here, aren’t you?” he asked, as if that was enough. As if that’s all he needed, when really, Aberdeen knew he’d need so much more. That she would need so much more. “D’you want to come back to my place?”

Aberdeen looked William in the eye. He wasn’t asking politely. He was begging. She nodded. “Okay.”

***

Aberdeen was getting scared at how good she was getting at lying. She’d made up a stupid story about needing to stay late at the arena again for the trade deadline so Kasha would go to bed and not wait up for her. Kasha bought it. Aberdeen didn’t even know if she was staying at William’s tonight or if she’d walk into her apartment at three o’clock in the morning again, for the second time in two days.

(As if William would bring her to his apartment and then tell her to leave in the middle of the night.)

He took her to a tall, glass condo building, only about a ten minute walk from hers but closer to the south core that made him possible to practically walk to all the games if he wanted to. He held her hand firmly in his once they got out of the car and walked through the parking garage, getting on the elevator. William pushed the button for one of the top floors. Of course he’d have a penthouse.

Aberdeen was still too caught up in her own emotions to realize how big this was – every other encounter had been at her place, and now she was finally seeing his space. When he opened the door, she was pleasantly surprised at what she was greeted with. She knew it was rented, and so she half expected it to be kind of dull with no personality, but that wasn’t the case. There were touches of William everywhere in the apartment – the slight, boyish messiness just adding to it. Expensive shoes scattered at the entryway. A few plants that weren’t dead, so she figured they were fake. A giant, comfy looking couch in the main area with a massive TV that was hooked up to every gaming console known to man. And pictures. Lots and lots and lots of pictures everywhere. All of his family.

She could tell that there was a spare bedroom on one side of the apartment, and she saw a door leading to the master. William put his keys in the bowl in the middle of the kitchen island, watching her as she looked around his apartment. “So what do you think?” he asked.

“Do you miss your family on nights like this? When it’s a really bad game and really embarrassing?” Aberdeen asked, staring at a picture he had of him and him sisters together, holding them all in a giant bear hug as their smiles stretched from ear to ear.

The question caught him completely off guard. “Of course I do. I miss them all the time,” he said.

“What do you do on nights like tonight?”

“I sit on my couch and watch TV until I’m not thinking about it anymore,” William admitted. “Lately I’ve really been meaning to do it with my girlfriend.”

Aberdeen couldn’t help but smile. Even after a night like tonight, he was still flirting with her. “Do you have a change of clothes?”

They went into his bedroom – bed messy, but huge; closet overflowing, but orderly; giant floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the other skyscrapers around them – and she changed into a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt that looked Supreme-branded but instead said ‘spaghetti’. It smelled like him, thoroughly, and the second she put it on she felt like she was being hugged, even though it was about six sizes too big. They changed together, and when they were done, they made their way back to the living room and William turned on the TV, pulling her towards the big couch. He made her sit down first before kneeling down between her legs, resting his head on her stomach just beneath her breasts before wrapping his arms around her.

It was calm. It was nice. It was mindless. William was mindless as he laid there, his arms wrapped around his girlfriend in his clothes, watching TV but not really watching TV. Aberdeen was mindless as she laid there, running her fingers through William’s hair soothingly, watching TV but not really watching TV. It was a while before Aberdeen decided to speak again. “You know, it’s not healthy to not talk about it,” she said.

She felt William sigh. “You know I’m not good with words, minskatt.”

“Oh, I think that’s a lie. You’re great with words,” she said.

“No I’m not.”

“William, every author in the English language wishes they came up with the words, ‘I think about you when I’m not even thinking’, including me,” she countered.

William couldn’t help but smile. “Those words are only for you,” he said.

“I know,” she said, “but can you please give me some other words so I know that you’re okay? Because I’m worried.”

The fact that he was making her worried made him compelled to talk. That was the last thing he wanted. “I just…I just know that we’re never going to hear the end of it. And I hate that. I hate that it’s gonna be the big joke now. Because hockey isn’t a joke to me. Neither is the Leafs.” He paused and Aberdeen was silent, and he knew that silence was urging him to continue. “It happened because…it happened because they rallied around their goalie. They protected him. They had his back. And we didn’t. We just…we didn’t. And I hate it when we do that. Because I have…I have every guy in that locker room’s back. I do. But sometimes it just…” he sighed, shaking his head. “Sometimes it just doesn’t work out how I want it to.”

Aberdeen had continued to run her fingers through his hair. She nodded at the end of his speech. “I’m not going to pretend that I know what it feels like, because I don’t,” she said. “I haven’t been a fan of hockey and I don’t understand it like you do but I know how much a game like this can affect the group, especially with the media in this city. But I got emotional about it because I know how much it affects you. Even if you won’t tell me about it.”

“I don’t mean to not tell you,” William said. “I just…” he paused again, thinking if he should even say anything. “It’s that besides my dad and brother, nobody’s ever really…you know, listened. So I just stopped talking.”

Aberdeen’s heart broke. At that point, she stopped running her fingers through his hair and forced him to sit up, even though her legs were still wrapped around him, so she could look him in the eye. She thought about Mike Babcock and what he’d done to Will. She thought about all the other hockey coaches he had and wondered if they were just as bad. “Willy…” she said softly, running her thumb along his jawline and lips. “Willy, I want you to talk to me more. About hockey. About your family. About your feelings. About everything. Please. Please.”

William nodded. He understood completely what she was asking him to do, and he was going to make a concerted effort to do so, because he loved her. He loved her so much and he didn’t want to see her worrying about him. “I will, minskatt. I will, for you,” he said, kissing her quickly. He shifted them so she was straddling his body. “I just have to get used to somebody listening.”

“Willy, I’m always going to listen to you. Don’t forget that, okay?” she asked, cradling his face in her hands.

He nodded, quickly kissing her again. The words were coming now, and he couldn’t stop them. Aberdeen had that power over him. “What happened the other night at the bar was my fault,” he said.

“What?” Aberdeen’s eyes bulged out of her head dramatically. “Willy, that was not your fault at all—”

“Yes it was—”

“No it wasn’t—”

“Yes, yes it was,” he said sternly. “And I couldn’t take it. I was so mad, minskatt. I was shaking. I wasn’t able to stop it or to protect you or—”

“Willy—Willy, stop. Willy, it wasn’t your fault at all,” she repeated. “Those stupid guys were drunk.”

“But they were aiming for me. They hated me. I wish that glass would’ve hit me instead,” he said, bringing his hand up to her scar and touching it lightly.

“Don’t you dare say something like that. It was a freak accident, Willy. There was nothing either of us could do,” she said, hoping he would soon realize it.

William paused for a moment. “You’d talk to me too, right? Like you want me to talk to you?” he asked. Aberdeen nodded her head confidently. “Were you scared that night?”

Aberdeen shrugged her shoulders. “Just a little bit. But you were there. And Jason. And when I realized that, I wasn’t so scared anymore. I’ve been scared before in my life much worse and with less blood.”

William nodded. “Are you listening?”

“Yes…”

“I love you.”

Aberdeen smiled. “I love you too.”

They began kissing. Lightly, at first, and then Aberdeen couldn’t help but stick her tongue down his throat, and William couldn’t help but squeeze at the flesh of her thighs. As they made out like teenagers on his couch, Aberdeen placed her hands over his and guided them to her ass.

William giggled slightly into the kiss. “Aberdeen…” he said in a playfully accusing tone.

“I only want to remember feeling your hands there instead,” she mumbled against his lips.

William froze. Suddenly and all at once, her words hit him like shards of glass, cutting him to his very core. “I’ve been scared before in my life much worse and with less blood.” Ethan. She still thought about what happened with Ethan – she still thought about it and it affected her and it made her scared, something she hadn’t admitted to before. William felt like killing Ethan all over again right then and there, with Aberdeen sitting on his lap. What affected her wasn’t a physical wound; what affected her was something much deeper.

“Listen to me,” he said, his hand cradling her chin, thumb gliding over her lips softly as she’d done to him earlier. “Nobody is going to do that to you again, okay? Not while I’m here.”

Aberdeen nodded her head. She believed him completely.

“I mean it, Aberdeen,” he pressed.

“I know.”

“If I ever saw him on the street, I’d fucking kill him for what he did to you. For how he made you feel. And I want you to know that, like…you’re not what happened to you. You’re so much more. He was a pig who couldn’t see that but I can,” William said.

Aberdeen almost burst out into tears at his words. You’re not what happened to you. You’re so much more. She could have cried right then and there. But instead, she nodded her head before kissing William again, even more eager this time, wanting to show him just how much she appreciated him, just how much she believed him, just how much she loved him.

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glorytoukraine2022 · 3 years

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For salty ask list-elena of avalor-4,22,23

4. I have three, actually, and yes, one of them is a popular OTP. My three NoTP’s in this fandom are Carla x Alonso, Carzel and Eleteo. Given that I’m a Carteo shipper, this isn’t unsurprising. Even before I started shipping Carteo though, I never shipped Eleteo. I love Mateo and Elena’s relationship, but I’ve never seen it as something that could go beyond friendship.

Carzel though? With Eleteo I can at least understand where people are coming from. We’ve seen Mateo and Elena interact several times throughout the series. Enough times, that if they fell in love it wouldn’t be completely out of the blue.

A lot of times when people tend to ship a couple, their fondness of the ship and the dynamic of the couple is based on their on Screen interactions, even if romance was never intended. We’ve never seen Carla and Marzel interact even once. And all of a sudden people are expecting them to fall in love and have a future together? I cannot even understand where people are getting a dynamic from. I just don’t see the chemistry. At all.

While this pairing doesn’t seem to be shipped as often as the two I mentioned above, I’m also not a big fan of the Carla x Alonso pairing either. Alonso is somebody who would spend more time staring at his reflection than paying attention to his girlfriend. Carla doesn’t strike me as the type of person who would be attracted to somebody like that. Especially reformed Carla. I don’t think many people in the fandom understand just how deeply Carla has changed (expect a post on this in the future).

Post reformation Carla is a very kind, sweet, selfless and caring person. She would not want to be in a relationship with somebody that self absorbed. I would also like to issue out a friendly reminder that Carla saw the falling out of her own parents’ relationship firsthand. A big part of the reason for that falling out is because of Ash’s egotistical, self absorbed nature. So I would like to think that Carla would be weary of somebody who exhibits those traits.

Now, I’m not comparing Alonso to Ash by any means. He’s definitely a better person than she is by the end of the series. He’s learned to care for his people and others beyond himself. He has learned to be humble and take responsibility for his own actions. Yet as I mentioned above, he is still somewhat self absorbed, so I still do not think Carla would be attracted to him.

I think I understand why people ship this couple. I think it’s because people Carla as a girl that’s super focused on her looks and appearance. I understand why people get that impression from Carla, but I personally never did. Yes, she wears jewelry, but she never struck me as the type of girl who overly invested herself into her appearance.

She doesn’t wear makeup, and if she does, and I just never noticed it, she clearly doesnt wear much. Her yellow dress isn’t particularly fancy or gaudy either. So she never struck me as the type. It doesn’t seem to match her personality either.

22. I…..honestly can’t think of any! Any characters I hate, you’re supposed to hate because they are villain. Sure, there might be some characters who I’m not as enthusiastic about as other members of the fandom, but I would never say I hate them. I still enjoy them and what they contribute to the show, just like everyone else. For me, any flaws the characters in the show have only add to both the characters and their arcs, and I wouldn’t want them any other way.

23. Victor Delgado-he’s one of my favorite characters in the series. He’s such a fun, entertaining character, with a great sense of humor. He’s also the best father to Carla and I love their bond like nothing else. He’s the best father in the entire show in my opinion. He’s always there for Carla and knows exactly what she needs and when. I love him❤️

However, I feel like he always gets a lot of hate from this fandom, especially in comparison to Esteban. He is always seen as the ultimate bad guy, because he worked for Shuriki in season 2 and was a villain for the majority of the series. It also stems from his untrustworthy depiction ever since his debut in “King of the Carnival.” Whenever I read pre Shuriki fan fiction, Victor is ALWAYS depicted as the untrustworthy one, the power hungry one, and the most eager participant in their deal with Shuriki, if not the one to contact her. I also hear people insist that he was a bad father to Carla growing up because they lived a life of crime.

I’ll admit, hearing all of this frustrates and even angers me at times. Hearing and seeing all of this makes it clear to me that there is a huge bias against Victor in this fandom. It is unfair to assume that Victor is the one who first came into contact with Shuriki and put more “heart“ into the deal. Esteban too agreed and wanted the power that Shuriki offered. Victor and his family suffered just as much as Esteban’s when Shuriki took over. Him and his family were banished from Avalor.

Also, let’s not forget that Esteban was the one who joined up with Ash, whereas Victor refused to go with her. Even after what happened with Shuriki, it took Esteban over 41 years to stop trusting people who promised him power. Trusting those who “pretend to listen” as Cahu correctly said. First he trusted Shuriki, then Ash, and then the Shadows of the Night. It took all of this to happen just to make Esteban realize the mistake that he kept making over and over. Victor wanted power because he was bitter. He was genuinely treated with disrespect. Once he realized that this life of crime was endangering Carla, he didn’t hesitate to back out of it. I swear, I love Esteban and am not trying to hate on him. But he’s not exactly a Saint either, despite the fandom constantly trying to depict him as the better person.

Though the one thing that makes me the most angry, is when I see people say that Victor isn’t a good father to Carla. Hello? Where have you guys been Throughout the entire series? He’s always loved and cared for Carla. She means EVERYTHING to him. If you didn’t understand it in the beginning of the series, than it should have been hammered home to you by the second half of season 2 and the beginning of season 3. Victor stood up to Ash to protect Carla! Yet you’re all saying he isn’t a good father to her?!

We don’t know enough about Victor and Carla’s past beyond the fact that they were mistreated. Victor was never evil, yet the fandom always tries to frame him as being the more “evil” of the two because they assume, that because he’s Carla’s father, that he must have been using and influencing her this entire time! In “The Lightning Warrior“, it is shown that Victor and Carla weren’t always criminals and for a moment, Carla’s childhood was quite peaceful. But at some point, Victor and Carla clearly fell on hard times. Did any of you consider that Victor was a single parent, who had to provide for himself and his daughter after his wife left them? Did you think that was easy and wouldn’t be stressful or challenging in any ways? He had to provide for himself and Carla. How do you know that necessity had nothing to do with Victor and Carla’s life of crime?

#elena of avalor #eoa #eleteo #carzel #Carla x Alonso #elena castillo flores #queen elena #mateo de alva #prince alonso #marzel #Carla Delgado #Victor Delgado #Salt Asks #ask answered

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jcmorrigan · 3 years

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001 - Kingdom Hearts

Favorite character: On the villain side: VEXEN IS BEST ORGANIZATION XIII MEMBER. Shoulda stayed evil, though. I like it when he complains and screams about everything and hates everyone. He's one of my favorite villains, just, like...in general. So fun to write. Also attached to Demyx, but I actually liked him more in III than II because it reminded me of my rawr lolspeek weeb days when I f/o'd him without knowing what f/o'ing was and then transitioned this to shipping VexDem like heck. On the hero side: MY GIRL KAIRI! But honorable mentions go to Sora, Riku, Aqua, Ven, Terra, Xion, Roxas, Lea, Ienzo, any Disney character I loved beforehand (this is way too fuckin many to list), Merlin (OKAY I WILL SINGLE HIM OUT), Yen Sid (I'LL SINGLE HIM OUT TOO), you know what let's also single out the Mickey+Donald+Goofy power trio...just...any KH hero who isn't part of the Yozora stuff or the KHUX stuff. ...Except I also LOVE Strelitzia, and she is the only KHUX-exclusive kiddo I care about but I care about her MANY. (Oh, and there's a least fave I have who's a "hero" but that's a debatable label). I would go on about why I love all of them but...that's too many characters to elaborate on

Least Favorite character: See, I think the real answer is Yozora, but the thing is I just tend to forget about him or not care (unless I'm doing a weird AU where he's Noctis' bratty Nobody, don't ask). He kinda represents the Shark Jump and I don't like watching that scene where he literally petrifies Sora for not being strong enough. But again, I can just kinda forget about him if he's not fed to me through a social-media unit. The one I LOVE TO HATE is Master Eraqus. The man actually triggered me back in the day. He is purity culture. He is the overbearing parent who will not accept you unless you are perfect. He is by and large the reason VAT didn't communicate with each other properly. He was the one who taught Aqua to think in absolutes. He lied to Ventus for years and then insisted to kill him was the only option, and then, when Terra tried to defend his brother figure/friend without knowing WHY Eraqus was doing such a thing, Eraqus didn't offer an explanation and instead switched targets to Terra citing that the problem was Terra's lack of OBEDIENCE. Eraqus is just very "my way or the highway" and uses his moral high horse to justify doing things that utterly lack compassion in any regard, which is something that GETS to me on a deep level, and let me tell you, I hated him for so long until I realized he was actually a super fuckin fun guy to imagine as a Bigger Bad in AUs that either have the KH protags teaming up or have villain protags needing a "greater good lawful evil" figure. And I just have found too many good memes about him cheating at chess and killing children. I have to laugh. Making fun of him is fun. He's a ridiculous character. That said, this recent trend of "erase everything bad he ever did and paint him as the ultimate hero of the saga" makes me raise eyebrows for SEVERAL reasons

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): VexDem, SoRiku, Kairi x Jaune Arc (RWBY), Aqua x Rosalina (Super Mario Galaxy) x Bayonetta, IsaLea, Ventus x Papyrus (Undertale), that was six but they all needed to be mentioned

Character I find most attractive: Ienzo. HOO BABY he is adorable. I saw someone make a Valentine's Day gifset of KH and FF characters shortly after III dropped and seeing his smiling face paired with a romance quote made my heart FLUTTER

Character I would marry: Probably Ienzo, see above. He's also a very kind guy. Favorite redemption in the modern era.

Character I would be best friends with: I hope the Destiny Trio would adopt me into their friend circle the way they've tended to do with every other inter-world denizen they've come across. I would love to have them as my positivity squad. Or, y'know, two positivities and one "it's okay to screw up" guy. Just. I would love to hang out with them. I often worry that I'm unlikable to my faves, but even though I would usually prefer to hang with the villains, I can pretty much guarantee these three would be open-minded about me. (Do I kiiiiinda wanna be friends with Vexen though? Of course I do. He'd hate me but maaaayyyyybe he would see me as one of his pet idiots who makes him look smarter, and we could bond over our fragile egos?)

a random thought: You ever think about that one NPC lady in Traverse Town who refused to tell you where she was from because it was none of her business? You ever wonder where she WAS from? What her world was like? How she ended up being the survivor of the Ansem Apocalypse when it hit her? All I know is that when I read her lines out loud (I used to read KH speech balloons out loud all the time), I gave her a Southern accent for no discernible reason and I stand by it. That woman has a twang.

An unpopular opinion: I don't want KHUX to be canon because I feel it's smaller-scale and takes a lot of mystery out of the worldbuilding. I always assume that the KHverse just includes ALL worlds in fiction, and that includes their thousand-year histories, meaning the Age of Fairy Tales should've happened long long long LONG LONG LONG ago and not five generations. And whatever screwed up the world should've been more than just five people having a fight, and whatever saved it should've been more than just five people getting along, and Daybreak Town really suffers from having to stick to mobile-friendly graphics and therefore is the least aesthetically attractive KH town ever, and I don't like that Lauriam and Elrena used to be such selfless people. I do still love Strelitzia because she's shy and relatable and quirky (sitting on the roof) and she questions authority and if you go with shipping subtext she's probably bi (or pan?), but I don't like the "Lauriam's dead sister for his arc's drama" bit. I liked when Marluxia was angry because he wanted to run Organization XIII but it was in the hands of an idiot who wasn't him. And more than anything I just like imagining that the Age of Fairy Tales was something bigger, further in the past, and more mysterious than something designed for a mobile game. Scala ad Caelum, however, I like a lot better because there IS a lot of mystery there and also it's a very pretty town with an amazing design.

my canon OTP: I really only count the Disney couples as the "canon" ones, so this is a question of picking my favorite Disney couple that shows up onscreen. I hope I'm not forgetting an important one, but I think the title has to go to Aladdin/Jasmine, which is always perfect in everything. (This would be an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STORY if KH had ever adapted Treasure Planet, and if it ever gets the mind to adapt Treasure Planet then even if I don't care about that game I will immediately declare that Amelia/Doppler takes the KH canon OTP crown. *taps watch* Get on it Squenix)

Non-canon OTP: SoRiku, which I counted as "basically canon" after DDD until III decided it wasn't sure. But I'm just a sucker for how DDD is the two of them all "HE'S GOT MY BACK AND I'VE GOT HIS AND I'D DO ANYTHING FOR HIM SO LONG AS HE'S HAPPY." It's just the best kind of Friends-to-Lovers, except when you take all canon into account it's Friends-to-Rivals-to-Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers and that's a very juicy dynamic. BUT ALSO: VexDem, which is a nostalgia ship SO STRONG I had to accept that it eclipsed my former Vexen ships by a mile and I wanted to go back to my roots. That one, I have a much longer essay about that I'll just have you refer to so I don't repeat myself for pages. To make a long story short, their scene in III was JUST DELICIOUS.

most badass character: OOF THEY'RE ALL BADASS but in the end it's between Sora and Aqua, because Sora gets the widest RANGE of abilities across the series that he masters while Aqua gets the most POWERFUL abilities due to her Mastery (Command Styles seem like they'd be the most OP things ever in-universe and I'm here for it because flashy battle moves make brain go brr).

pairing I am not a fan of: SOKAI, Xehaqus, RikuNami, Vanitas/anyone not evil

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): OH BOY. KAIRI THE MOST. YOU ALL KNOW WHY: lack of screen time, Fridging for drama, forced romance to invite death flags (they really wanted to milk that death to get people talking didn't they?), giving Alyson Stoner ZERO direction to actually follow up on Hayden Panettiere's performance. But then I remember that they made Vexen redeem and lose his entire personality and I just...uuugghhhh. I can't believe he died twice in this series. And then Demyx is FUN but also I know he's flipped sides as well, which means he won't be fun much longer! Xehanort seems to switch motivations to whatever makes him the biggest threat (and several of Eraqus' old flaws seem to be mysteriously glued onto him), Sora isn't a motormouth anymore, Riku just doesn't get anyone who cares about him anymore because everyone's distracted by Sora and Kairi, IS ANYBODY GOING TO ADDRESS THE ACTUAL ISSUES THAT DROVE THE WAYFINDER TRIO APART, oh God Marluxia and Larxene you're good guys now what have they done to you

favourite friendship: I really like each of the trios. But you know what's even BETTER than the trios? If you put...all of the trios together...meaning Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Aqua, Terra, Ven, Roxas, Xion, Lea, Hayner, Pence, Olette...and then you added Isa back in there...and you gave them Ienzo...and you brought back Naminé...and you say that Subject X is Strelitzia and you have her turn back up so she can have justice done...AND YOU HAVE AN ULTRA KEYBLADE GROUP OF FRIENDS. As for Vexen, any purely platonic relationship I have for him is a crossover but trust me I have many crossover pals for he

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: See everyone I listed above in the friendship question. They can either mentor me or let me be their big sis/mom. But also, I will GLADLY be Merlin or Yen Sid's daughter. (But also would I kiiiiinda wanna be a VexDem daughter? This is the worst idea. Still wanna try)

#kingdom hearts

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forevealuna · 3 years

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So, I’ve been posting about her on DeviantART— but if there are some Creepypasta kids still out there— check this shit out. She is the first Creepypasta OC I’ve made in a couple years. Her original concept was just a slasher/horror sona— but I’ve fallen into hold habits and fell back in love with the Creepypasta fandom. Lemme know what y’all think!

--The Final Girl Becomes The Slasher--

Name: Juniper Adora Villanueva

Nickname (optional): Juni-- (a nickname her family and friends name her growing up, she stuck with it since she only wants to remember that as her name).

Kill count (How many characters has your character killed? optional): about 20 people, including the slasher that failed countless times to take her life, resulting in emotional, mental and physical scarring and losing vision in her right eye. (your left-- just for verification).

Proxy for (optional, you don't need to pick a side if you wish to be neutral): she’s pretty neutral, but likes hanging out with “s-man,” as she likes to call him.

Weapon(s): a barb-wire, nail-coated, and wooden baseball bat.

Gender + Pronouns: cis-female (she/her)

Sexuality: Demisexual

Age: 19

Date of birth/death: July 8

Height + Weight: 5’2 and 154LBs

Species: human

Scent: floral, like a mix of roses and baby powder

Appearance (picture is acceptable at bottom of ref): Juni is at a whopping 5’2, making her more on the short side. She’s also a little pudgy, which isn’t a bad thing. Her natural hair is curly and black, but she dyes it and straightens it-- then throwing it into a shorter version of Sailor moon’s iconic half-bun, half-pigtails. Her hair currently is dyed a bright red, mostly to match her long cyberpunk coat. She is blind in her right eye, and there is a nasty scar around the area, making it impossible to grow back her, so she shaves her eyebrows into sideways tear drops. Her make-up is a bit clownish, having dark purple eyeshadow around her eyes, then winged, spiked eye liner in a navy blue color. Her under eye is two thin, red triangles with dots at the bottom. In the middle of her forehead, a loose “v” shape, a few small markings above that, and a dot in the center of that. She also sports wearing very messy, dark purple lipstick. Her skin color has become more dull, and pale over time-- since she rarely goes out in the sun anymore and prefers covering up her scarring by wearing a coat all the time. Under the coat is a crop top with two buckles-- one on the neck, the other one the chest. It also twists downward, being sure to show the dark mesh top underneath. Juni also has a long pencil skirt being held up by a dark, corset-like belt. Under the skirt is a pair of dark panty hose, since she wants to cover up as much as possible, and she wears platform boots to appear taller. The amount of piercings Juni has is two facial piercings, an eyebrow piercing on her left side, and a lip piercing on her left side. She has no tattoos.

Hobbies (welding, reading, gaming, etc.): reading comics, playing video games, cooking, having a collection of creepy toys

Personality (including flaws in personality): Juni can often be a very bold person depending on who she is with, which can be a bad thing-- meaning she can get herself and others into trouble very quickly. She’s very care-free, and will sometimes just speak her mind without thinking-- another trait that can be bad. Like a lot of people who are trouble-makers and very bold, Juni is quite the softie. Kids, troubled teens, and people similar to her in ways are what makes her heart change tone, and she’s willing to protect them like a sister/mother figure. When Juni is overwhelmed, her personality flips a switch and she becomes very reclusive and would rather be left alone or talk to people she is closer to or can relate to.

Occupation (before becoming a pasta): she was a waitress at a family-run diner

Mental disabilities (do NOT add disabilities to your characters that you know little to nothing about, it avoids stereotyping and misrepresentation): Juni suffers from C-PTSD and survivor’s guilt-- both stemmed from surviving years worth of torment from the Slasher out for her life and losing those she cared about around her. Because of her C-PTSD, Juni will often forget how to regulate her emotions or recall good things from her past--sometimes even in that moment she’s interacting with someone and/or doing something. When she does, it is immediately plagued by the guilt she has of being the only one left alive out of her highschool friend group. This will lead her to push others away, even if she’s pretty close to them, since she’s afraid she’ll get that person hurt or even killed.

Strengths (name at least 3): With her weakened vision, Juni’s sense of hearing has heightened. Juni also is pretty strong, since learning how to wield her bat (and without accidentally injuring herself). Another thing, Juni is pretty swift and can usually take down her targets with ease.

Weaknesses (name at least 3, if your character has a strong ability like super strength, its 2 flaws to the one strength.): Juni’s vision is weakened and her blind spots are bigger because of her eye. Guns, and anything that requires two eyes she can’t do. Juni has to rely on audio cues at night.

How did your character become a proxy? (third party doesn’t need to answer, proxies do): Juni spent her days hiding out in the abandoned campsite outside of town after ultimately defeating her attack, bludgeoning him with his own weapon-- being the bat. One day, while on a limited amount of food, not having showered for a long period of time, and still caked in old blood, she saw someone in a mask looking through the campsite. Still very on edge from what happened, it being dark, and suffering from poor night vision, she grabbed her bat-- prepared to bludgeon the mysterious figure lurking in her territory-- only to find out it was someone who wanted to help her. This was after she was about to swing at the figure, a little confused by the pleas and begging for mercy. She was taken in, cleaned, fed, and sadly couldn’t get her vision correct.

Backstory: Juni had a pretty normal life growing up. She had a loving supportive family, a great friend group, and an amazing boyfriend. Also, she worked a pretty decent job, being a waitress at her family’s diner, and was top of her class. Life was pretty good.. Or so she thought. Sophomore year was here soon enough, and it would be reminding some people of how much homework, essays, or studying for final exams you’d have to do-- with the addition of planning for college-- but for Juni’s situation, that wasn’t the case. On the morning of April 20th, Juni-- and everyone in the school-- got an invitation to a party. Juni happily accepted, since she already knew her friends and boyfriend were going to be there. The party led to her seeing a mysterious figure with all black clothing--except for the coat, a red eye on the mask and a jagged smile. Juni thought her drink might have been spiked, not knowing this would be the person targeting her and all her friends. The day after the party, and Juni returned to school, everything wasn't like a typical school day. People were whispering about her, looking in her direction, and everything felt to quiet. Juni still pressed on to her locker, not minding the quiet discussions going on around her. Her locker had a putrid smell, and when she opened it-- a pool of blood and an almost unidentifiable body fell out of the locker. The body barely missed Juni, but smeared her in blood. The only way Juni recognized who it was, was because of the Letterman Jacket with her High School Boyfriend's last name on it. She screamed, sobbed, and was eventually interrogated by police about it.

Months had passed, and Christmas break was around the corner. Juni, who still mourned the loss of her boyfriend’s death, didn’t want to do anything except stay home with her family for Christmas. Sadly, her friends had booked them a trip to a ski resort in the area. It was the only thing the friends could think of to cheer Juni up. She reluctantly obliged, not wanting to upset her friends. This could definitely be a turn around in her mood, since she still had her friends, right? The ski resort was packed. It began to remind Juni of the party from April… the masked figure… then her boyfriend’s body. Her heart began racing, and she began to look for an exit, a way out. It took a lot of friends to convince her no masked man was after her, her friends, or even at the resort at all. This was reassuring to Juni, at least at the moment.

After settling in the cabin they were assigned, their hostess reassured everyone that what happened at the High School wasn’t going to happen at the campsite, for the ski resort has police strolling and people checking up on the guests. Juni felt a lot better about this. She regained confidence after being told this, and planned to really enjoy Christmas break now. That night, while everyone was settling into the cabin, one of Juni’s male friends discovered the bathroom wasn’t working too well. Instead of wanting to call someone to come take a look, he decided to go out in the dead of night. The next morning, he didn’t return. This worried Juni a lot and her friends tried to reassure her that it wasn’t anything bad. They knew the guy closely, and he probably got lost or ended up sleeping in the wrong cabin. Juni still insisted they looked, becoming a little on edge about it. Everyone finally came to a decision, and began searching for their missing friend. Not too far from where they were, they found the body. The head trauma was very similar to Juni’s boyfriend. She retched and began crying, while the rest of her friends panicked and cried as well. This time, Juni saw the figure not too far from where they were, still watching, a bloodied wired and nailed bat in his hand. Calling the police was a sham, for when they arrived, the man was nowhere to be found.

It was finally the summer of her Junior year, she had lost more friends to the hands of the figure that has been tormenting her for a year now. Juni experienced a lot of sleepless nights, set up traps during the night to keep her safe, had to take medication, and keep a journal on her for when she forgot about something or even wanted to document her night terrors. It was all the same. The figure, her friends, her boyfriend, then her. The friend group was now her, and two of her friends since elementary school. They were like sisters to her. She would tell them everything that happened, her nightly rituals, and then go into paranoid ramblings or simply murmurer herself into a state of dissociation that lasted 20 minutes-- simply because it was too overwhelming or she tried to remember something and another thing hit her intrusively. After more reassurance-- and safely snapping her out of her zone, she felt better. Her friends invited her over for a sleepover, since their parents were going to be out of town for that weekend and they got the house to themselves. Juni, of course, had to be talked into it. It could be fun, right? Juni got to the house, looking around before knocking. Her friends answered, and welcomed her in. Snacks were set up, drinks, and they got the backyard to themselves, completely fenced in, a security system that would sound and contact the police if an unknown figure forced an entering. The neighborhood was also supposed to be on watch for any suspicious activity. Juni felt very safe. After deciding to go swimming and chatting outside, the soda Juni drank went through her system and she needed a bathroom bad. She got out of the pool and began wandering through the house, going upstairs, and finally finding it. After washing up, it oddly sounded too quiet downstairs. She didn’t hear music, or laughing, or indication that anyone was there. Slowly, yet quietly, she came down the stairs and began looking around. As she drew towards the living room, there was a movie playing. Oh! They must be okay! Juni reassured herself for once, but went to talk and touch the top of one of her friends’ heads, instantly pulling back. Blood.. Was on her hand. She began to walk around the couch, no noise could escape her lips as she nearly fell, her hands drawn to her face. Both of them were bashed quite brutally, then propped up on the couch to look alive. This was her breaking point. She began yelling, both in Spanish and English, calling the killer a coward and wanting her to take her next. She wasn’t afraid anymore, until he actually appeared from behind the stairs. She panicked and began running to the kitchen to find anything. The police won’t do anything or believe her. The kitchen had a rolling island counter! If she could somehow push it fast enough and get the wheels stuck, the killer wouldn’t be able to escape! She went and hid in the kitchen behind the counter, waiting for him to draw closer. It took forever, but finally.. Footsteps! Counting down mentally in her head, she jumped up and pushed the counter as hard as she could. One of the wheels broke off as it collided with the killer and pinned him against the wall. Now, time to get out of here and call the police! Before Juni could even pick up the phone, something came hurling at her eye, suddenly blacking out.

She woke up in the hospital after a few days, hooked up to a monitor. Something felt off, she couldn’t seem to see out of her.. Eye! What happened to her eye? She panicked when seeing the doctor and demanded for a mirror. The doctor asked many questions before handing it over, standing there to assure she wouldn’t do anything drastic. The right portion of her face was bandaged up, soaked a tad in blood. She whimpered, putting fingers close to the bandages. She asked how it happened, and the doctor informed her they found her unconscious, face down with a puddle of blood next to her head. He also informed her that her friends were long gone when they arrived on the scene and couldn’t find the attacker. Overwhelmed by this, Juni broke down and began screaming that the doctor and nurses leave while thrashing and throwing stuff. Juni was released a couple weeks later, since the doctors did a psych evaluation and somehow deemed Juni well enough to leave, despite still being in complete shambles. She couldn’t work, couldn’t go to school or do school work, leaving her to drop out of High School. The new medication she had to take to help with her insomnia only made it worse for her. She officially was at the edge and felt like she had nothing else to hold onto to keep her going.

Late one night, she swore she could see the figure standing at the end of her bed. She kind of laughed and shrugged it off. Her bad vision and sleeping issues were to blame. Sleep-deprived hallucinations were common after a period of time without proper sleep. That’s when she was thrown out of bed by the figure, not believing it was a hallucination anymore. She stumbled to her feet, dodging and juking the killer as he began swinging at her. Dents in the walls, stuff on her desk becoming destroyed. This really seemed like the end, or so she thought. Juni had accidentally knocked over a chair! She kicked it towards the attacker, practically knocking him over and getting scuffed on the shoulder in the process. She pulled the bat out and from the attackers weakened hands, then pulled the mask off. Her eyes widened. It was.. Her boyfriend? No..he was dead, she saw the body.. Unless.. He had a twin she didn’t know about? She demanded to know who the man was, and it was indeed a sibling of the boyfriends, but not a twin. He longed for Juni’s life and friends, being an outcast of the family, and admired Juni for still gaining friendship while also being an outcast. Juni only knew that her bf had a brother and that was it. She didn’t know what happened to him, but that he went to juvie several times. Juni’s mouth quivered into a smile before she started laughing. “Admire me?? You did all of this.. Out of admiration? You killed your own brother, my friends, took away my vision and my future, all because you couldn’t handle your emotions and can’t make friends of your own? You call that admiration?” she exclaimed, lowering the bat close to his face. “If all of this was you wanting my life and admiring me, then let me show you how much I admire you!” she said as she began bashing him with the bat. Over, and over, and over. She stopped once she became too exhausted to swing again, and spat. “It’s finally over..” she said as she slumped onto her bed. She suddenly realized what she had done. Panic sat in and she looked around, writing a quick note to her family, grabbing the bat, the jacket the man was wearing, her shoes, and climbing out the window of her home. She fled and never looked back. No one she cared about will ever hurt again as long as she’s not there.

Rp example (must at least be one paragraph, please use proper spelling and punctuation!):

Juniper sat at the edge of the couch in the lounge, caught up on a comic book, since she can’t really read novels all too well anymore. Her leg was crossed over the other, and she didn’t look too bothered by anything around her at the moment. After a few minutes, she realized someone standing in front of her. Looking up, she closed her book and set it aside “you know I can’t see well. Use an audio cue, instead of just standing there,” she grumbled. “What the hell do you want?” she added on, folding her arms over each other. It definitely was a change adjusting to the mansion, but she still hates it when people sneak up on her or not let her know anyone is there. Not like could do much though, since it was a part of a job description to be sneaky and not heard. She’ll just have to let it slide, again.

#creepypasta #creepypasta oc #Creepypasta fanart #fanart #OC #art #final girl #horroroc #horror

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redeadepression · 5 years

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Hello, I hope you're feeling good today! Umm I was curious if you want to share some HCs about modern John and Arthur. What aspects would change if they lived in our present days? Or if they woke up a day and were here? :)

Modern AU | Arthur Morgan | John Marston | Headcanons

~~~~~

OMG yes. So I think about Modern AU Arthur and John A LOT. Both in the sense that they actually grew up in modern AU and that’s all they have know and the sense that they have just woken up in a modern world and have to come to terms with what the world is like in 2019.

I’ll just do a set for each of the boys on Modern AU because this post was getting SO long. But pleaseee if you want to hear about 1899 Arthur and John in a Modern world, send me an ask!

John’s HCs are MUCH more fleshed out than Arthur’s and really more of a narrative where as for Arthur I have a huge bunch of ideas as to who he is as a person but nothing super solid for his actual story.

I have SO many more headcanons about these guys and also Modern AU Abigail. If you want to see more, just ask. ♥

~~~~~

A little background on Modern AU Arthur and John. John’s Father died when he was They were both placed in the Foster-care system where they were taken in by Dutch and Hosea; an older couple that decided to foster instead of adopt. Arthur is still 10 years older than John. He is placed with Dutch and Hosea at around the age of 10 and then seven years later John is placed with them as well at the age of 7.

Arthur isn’t an orphan but he was taken away from his bio Father due to abuse and after that his Father spiralled and found himself in prison. His sentence kept getting extended due to bad behaviour and eventually Arthur writes him off when he reaches adulthood, realising he isn’t going to change. Dutch and Hosea adopt Arthur with his Father’s consent right before he turns 18. His mother died due to illness when he was a toddler.

John’s Mother died in childbirth and his abusive Father was killed when John was 6. He goes straight in to Foster-care and is bounced around from house to house due to his troublesome nature. His Foster parents find him challenging and he continues to be replaced until eventually he lands with Dutch and Hosea at the age of 7. After Arthur, they find John and his anxieties/acting out to not be all that much of a handful.

John isn’t adopted when he turns 18 and as a result has a strained relationship with the people he had considered his family for over 10 years. He attends family Christmas and other holidays but ultimately feels out of place.

~~~~~

Modern AU Arthur:

Okay so first thing you need to know about Modern Arthur is he’s a serial dater

A romantic always looking for ‘the one’

But total self-sabotager when anyone promising appears

Think Ted Mosby from HIMYM

He is HOT but he doesn’t really know it

Really low self-esteem

But at the same time weirdly arrogant because he can pretty much get any woman he wants

He has a new partner every couple of weeks

Always brings them to events and puts them in the photos which annoys his friends

When he is roughly 25 he has a bad break up and decides to ‘be single’ for a while

He meets Eliza and has a one night stand

She gets pregnant

He tries to make it work with her but in the end they are too different

They break up and Arthur is a little relieved

He’s a good Dad to Issac

But Eliza moves away with him when he is around 3

So Arthur only see’s him on holidays and when he can afford to fly out for a visit

He is an Artist

Actually makes some decent money off his work

But hates the whole ‘art scene’

Absolutely despises rubbing noses with “pretentious art folk”

But despite that, is really good at schmoozing to get his art recognised

His friends like to remind him that he’s actually really pretentious himself sometimes

But he likes to think of himself as ‘Down to Earth’

He loves food

Always has snacks

Lives off coffee

Has drank dirty paint water instead of his coffee many, many times

Arthur has a really good parental bond with both Dutch and Hosea

He gets along with them both really well and often voluntarily spends time at their house where he grew up

Dutch is an enabler to Arthur’s womanising

He instils the belief in Arthur that when he meets ‘The One’ he will know instantly

Hosea disapproves and encourages him to try and settle down

Not every relationship is perfect but they still work out etc

Arthur’s sibling relationship with John turned to more of a friendship when the later turned 18

He invited John to live with him for a little while, while he was setting up his business

They didn’t live together for long as they got on each others nerves too often

Arthur doesn’t have many male friends

He finds it easier to connect with women in a platonic sense

Besides John, his male friends are his friend’s husbands

(i.e Jake Adler)

Arthur likes to go away for a couple of weeks at a time

Sometimes he tells people where he’s going

Other times he just disappears

But his Instagram alerts his family to the fact he’s still alive

He never goes on extravagant vacations

Often saving enough for a flight and a stay at a hostel somewhere

Sometimes he camps

He uses these trips for inspiration in his work

Often has a huge influx of stylised work, based on where he’s been once he returns home

It gradually returns to his usual art-style

That’s when he realises it’s time to get away again

He feels content in his life and genuinely enjoys living

He actively yearns for more but deep down isn’t sure he actually wants it

He could live like this the rest of his life and not have many regrets

Modern AU John:

As a child, John never really had anything of his own

Never had anything new

Always hand-me-downs

So once he becomes a teen he is incredibly keen to enter the work-force

He’s very excited to spend his first pay cheque on something new for himself

He never flourished at school

Found that he was much better at working

Especially with his hands and machinery

He took on a trade and worked to become a construction worker

When he reaches adulthood and realises he’s going to have to live by his own means he takes a business course

Starts his own company at the age of 18, doing handy-man kind of work

Dutch and Hosea offer him money to grow it

He turns it down as he feels it’s out of guilt

This spurs him on to work even harder

He wants to prove himself

Eventually starts to make enough money to hire staff

Starts taking on bigger clients

Bigger jobs

Grows his company until at the age of 22 he’s got his own small business and it’s thriving

He does well for himself

He lives off Energy Drinks and coffee

Fast food is a must

Often eats in his car at lunch or on his way home from work

It’s lonely

He meets Abigail and they start casually dating

Not long in to their relationship she falls pregnant

John freaks out but recovers well

He doesn’t want his child to grow up like he did

Proposes because he’s young and dumb

They get married really quickly despite people trying to tell them it’s a bad idea

He takes a mortgage on a house and they move in together

Things are good for a while

But once baby Jack comes they go downhill

Abigail is a good Mother but very young and selfish

This is a whole other set of headcanons if anyone is interested, I’ll write them

John steps up as a Father because he has to if he wants his child to have a good life

He flails a lot

Almost drowns a couple of times

Eventually falls in to a good rhythm of work and baby

His relationship with Abigail crumbles

They separate with joint custody

He has a few good friends

He leans on them hard in during his divorce

He sells his house and moves in with a friend for emotional support/help with the baby

Puts the profits from his sale in to his business and grows it further

As a human; he has a lot of flaws

But they are very different from his flaws in 1899

He is full of anxieties and mental health issues

But refuses to work on them

As a Father he feels he is unfit

But he takes it on anyway and is actually a natural

As a husband he was clingy, yet distant at the same time

Wanting attention and then space when it suited him

He is resentful of Abigail for ultimately being the one to end the marriage

Despite knowing it was for the best

He starts dating a friend

He realises what a good, supportive relationship is like

He and Abigail fight often about what’s right for Jack

John grows frustrated with her childishness

Eventually fights for full custody because he feels like Jack isn’t Abigail’s first priority

Doesn’t win due to being at work full-time

Abigail settles on 70/30 because she is also working and knows John can afford a better Nanny than she can

He never confront Dutch and Hosea about not being adopted

Figures they just didn’t want him to be permanent in their lives

They were his parents for 11 years

It stings but he moves on

He’s in denial about how much it affects him

Affects the decisions his makes parenting his son

#Arthur Morgan #John Marston #Modern AU #modern au john marston #modern au arthur morgan #dutch van der linde #hosea matthews #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #headcanons #hcs #modern au headcanons #modern hcs

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flordidian · 5 years

Text

Which Anne is more like the book: Sullivan vs. AWAE?

I think this one is much harder than Gilbert. While the differences between the Gilberts is a product of the changes made in the writing, the differences between Follows’ and McNulty’s portrayal of Anne mostly come down to their own interpretation of the book. However, I will make the attempt to distinguish them anyways.

Here goes:

Sullivan Productions Anne

Differences

1. Immaturity

Now, in Anne of Green Gables the books and miniseries, Anne is characterized as immature. But, in Anne of Avonlea the book, Anne is nearing adulthood and acts like it. She is by no means completely mature, but she rarely “loses it” or whines. In fact, she also stops talking all the time. In the miniseries, this is not so. In Anne of Avonlea, Anne is as stubborn and immature as always. Sullivan gives Anne another character’s lines for Anne of Windy Poplars as Anne and Diana talk before Diana’s wedding day which do not reflect her impending adulthood.

The Anne of the miniseries is a bit more immature and naive than the Anne of the book. I get the impression Sullivan enjoyed Anne’s temper and was sore to be rid of it. Unfortunately, Anne is not allowed to grow up in the miniseries and acts not much different than she did at the end of their first movie.

2. Into an older man

Okay, I know a lot of people thought Morgan Harris was handsome, but to me, he was just old. In the book, the two men Anne shows romantic interest in are Royal Gardner and Gilbert. Both are barely older than her and considered super handsome. Royal is also rich and romantic while Gilbert is funny and smart. Meanwhile Morgan is...well...old. Sure he has some money and I guess he likes Anne, but he has a child and a know-it-all attitude.

Maybe this is splitting hairs, but I think Follows’ Anne is different in that her view of an ideal man is different. In the book, Anne is all hooked on romance; she wants to live as the heroines in her favorite novels do. Meanwhile, the Anne in Anne of Avonlea, the miniseries, is attracted to a man who is rich and old. Instead of having lofty standards for herself, Anne in the miniseries is satisfied marrying whoever happens to come along who is not dreadful. Perhaps this shows a lower sense of pride too.

3. Looking for Gilbert WWI

The whole plot of the Continuing Story bugged me. Why would Anne go to Europe to force her husband against his will to not serve his country? I can find no sense in it. The Anne of the book does not always agree with Gilbert, by they are equal partners. If she knew he felt strongly about something, she would change his mind or accept it, not go gallivanting across a war zone. Instead, Sullivan could have had Anne working as a nurse during WWI and saving lives. And/or using her storytelling skills to raise morale.

The Anne Blythe of the Continuing Story is a far cry from the Anne Blythe of the book. The Anne of the miniseries in the third movie has a much different relationship with Gilbert and thinks far more of herself.

Similarities

1. Romantic

Anne in all three miniseries movies I have watched is true to the book in her romantic nature. The Anne of the books lives in her own idealistic world which is captured well in Sullivan’s version with Anne’s monologues, writing, and behavior around kids. She appreciates nature and sees the good in everything.

2. Stubborn

Anne of the book is rather prideful and struggles to change her mind. The Anne of the miniseries is also stubborn. In the miniseries, Anne sticks to her goals whether ignoring Gilbert, being the best school teacher, or finding her husband. Just like the Anne in the book, no one can convince her to act against her convictions.

3. Self-reliant

One of the things that makes Anne an interesting character, especially for the time, is that she is very independent. Theoretically, her independence stems from her time as an unwanted orphan. Regardless, in the miniseries, Anne’s independence is clearly shown. She studies herself and gets ahead, she keeps writing even though her works get some criticism, and she takes care of herself when her husband is gone. She can get by all on her own.

Anne with an E Anne

Differences

1. Physical manifestation of trauma

One of the biggest differences in season 1 of Anne with an E is that Anne is actually seen to be affected by her years of neglect and abuse. In the books, Montgomery sort of dismissively addresses it (like with the window friend bit), but does not have Anne exhibit any trauma. The TV show, however, embraces Anne’s horrible past showing her to have triggers and nightmares and horror stories.

Because the Anne of AWAE is affected a lot by her past, she has a harder time making friends and fitting in. She has a reason to be wary of other people. She also comes across more as odd, because of the various triggers she has which the others do not understand and because she has stories like no one has ever heard. Much like Gilbert, AWAE makes their version more of a loner.

2. Activist

Anne in the book stands up for herself, she does, but not in the way of Anne in AWAE. In AWAE, Anne has all sorts of causes; she fights for feminism, gay rights, foxes (I want to say environmentalism, but she doesn’t value the lives of chickens, so I hesitate), and treating everyone the same regardless of race or culture. Anne speaks loud and proud in the show on all of these issues. Anne in the book does have convictions, but she is just not that loud. She does not speak against gender inequality. The only cause she really speaks out about at all is treating children right.

Anne in AWAE is more of an activist than the Anne in the book. While the Anne of the book may organize a letter writing campaign, the Anne of the show would be leading a march with signs and a bullhorn. The show has a far more outspoken Anne.

3. Good in Everyone

This one is sort of related to the first. Anne in the book assumes the good in everyone which is why she makes friends with some of the least liked people. In the show, they keep in her relationship with Aunt Josephine, but Aunt Josephine in the show is also changed so as to not be one of the least liked people. Instead of a selfish prideful woman, she is just a sad lonely woman who lost her soulmate. In the show, Anne has difficulty seeing the good in the people as evidenced in the number of people she does not get along with. Sure Anne doesn’t like Josie in the books, but the Anne of the show also doesn’t get along with Mr. Phillips, the pastor, all the boys who aren’t Gilbert or Cole, and most of the mothers. I’m guessing this change is related to Anne’s childhood trauma.

The Anne of the show is less friendly and has less friends than the Anne of the book. Perhaps she is automatically guarded or maybe her triggers or oddities threw them off. Or maybe some of them just don’t like an activist telling them to change. Regardless, Anne in the show comes across much more on her own than the Anne of the book who is generally well-regarded.

Similar

1. Romantic

I had to put this on both, because this is one trait the adaptations hit on the nail. Anne in AWAE, like Anne in the book, is memorized by the world around her. She fixes each flaw she sees with her imagination. Her capacity for creativity abounds which can be seen in her artistry in the pageant and her work in school.

2. Intelligent

AWAE does a good job of showing that Anne is smart. They have her rise through the ranks at school, like in the book, but they do much more. Her conversations with adults meet them phrase for phrase and she cleverly devises plans, like when she saved Ruby’s house or Diana’s sister. She is just as, and truly far more, intelligent as any boy in her town.

3. Confident

In the book, Anne believes in herself, even if she doesn’t always have the highest self-esteem. Anne in AWAE also has confidence. She speaks with boldness. In the book, Anne is willing to talk in front of her class or to the pastor’s wife and is not intimidated. Such is the Anne in AWAE.

Which Anne is More Like the Book?

I think Meagan Follows’ portrayal better captures the character. Sure, all the stuff in the Continuing Story was dumb and I don’t like that she liked an old guy, but ultimately she reminds me more of Anne. When I read the books, Follows’ Anne voice is heard in my head for her breathy romantic quality so well fits the idealistic character. Her character’s interaction with the other characters also fits the Anne of the book well. Anne of the miniseries gets along well with Marillia with little doubt of Marilla’s affection, her and Diana are chums, and she pretty much gets along with everyone.

AWAE’s Anne doesn’t quite beat Follows’ Anne for me because of her trauma and activism. Neither are bad, per se, they just are not in the book. McNulty’s Anne is much more alone and odd and outspoken than the Anne in the book.

So, that’s my take. What do you think?

Thank you to everyone who suggested this post! @lillypedalsxx @filmmakerdream @thetraveler10

#anne of green gables #anne blythe #anne shirley #anne of the island #anneshirley #lmmontgomery #anne with an e #awae #annewithane #canadian literature #book adaptation #meagan follows #amybeth mcnulty

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gotgifsandmusings · 5 years

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lindsay ellis is great and all but she thinks anti-got folk are either book pedants or hipsters. she recognizes some of got's flaws but her pov seems to be that deliberating excluding yourself from possibly the largest collective fandom event ever is stupid; these are exciting times. most of that is agreeable but it's stuff like this that I'm sure reminds you guys it's not nice being in the minority and in earlier days made you think if you're being biased or blowing things out of proportion.

so you guys have been pretty brave is what i want to say. sure, the hype around got is really exciting, but if only the show maintained the standard of its first season, it wouldn’t feel so hollow. and btw, if anyone had any doubt if your sizing up of got’s writing room was correct, it surely was blown away within the first 5 minutes. immediate on the nose season 1 reference with random kid running around winterfell and arya smirking like “now we’re here” oof this is such a spoof

also, you’d imagine the first spoken words in the opener for their widely anticipated final season would be a result of a considerable amount of thinking. and what did they come up with? eunuch joke. imagine thinking tyrion’s “i have balls B)” punchline is fucking hilarious and then writing a set up for it. it was so obviously worked backward. like this is what they thought people who have watch parties in pubs should be cheering for going “haha omg this show is back”

Yeah, I saw her tweeting a bit of that. It’s definitely disappointing because I do love so many of her videos, and find them very well-researched and pretty sound in her approach to dissecting where something erred, or what its core message is. But then I also feel like she has these hot-takes about every six months that I very much disagree with (like her weird James Gunn shaped hill she picked to die on). I feel like her point here was that people should be allowed to consume problematic media even for ~lesser reasons~ like “aesthetic pleasure” which…sure, so long as you engage with flaws and listen to the voices hurt by programming. But no doubt it was dismissive.

Also the very serious structural problems of the show, misaligned character motivations to the plot, inconsistent characterization, full on retcons, and ultimate audience take-aways you would think would be a bit accessible to the person who tore apart Disney’s Hercules on the same basis, ya know?

My own disappointment aside though, I definitely don’t think what we do is brave. Like wow, I feel very unworthy of that praise. I just sort of accept that there’s a bit of cognitive dissonance people have when it comes to GoT (often the result of book projections, which I was totally guilty of until 4x09), and I’ve gotten good at ignoring the inevitable hype oozing out of every corner of social media, even from people who don’t normally talk about tv shows and movies.

And I definitely still question myself if I’m blowing things out of proportion, lol. But sometimes the show is just the show! Like your example from the opening line…holy crap. What do people see in this?!

Frankly the dialogue yesterday about Sansa/Dany was one of those situations where I had to check myself. Because sometimes I think that “oh this is probably sexism” (in terms of anyone having issue with Sansa’s tone/words) is so like…basic and kind of dumb, that you wouldn’t think it’d even need to be expressed. But then when I saw people still struggling with what I was trying to argue (I wasn’t conveying it the clearest), I came to that “give her lines and tone to Tyrion” exercise. This is a super super weird show to talk about on the internet.

Finally, I try to avoid the term “gaslighting” with media, since I experienced gaslighting growing up, and “retconning” usually serves the same purpose. BUT. This show actively creates new motivations from season-to-season for characters, and tries to create rationalizations that make people forget how we got to where we were.

D&D talk in their interview about how Dany is doing this really nice thing for the North and is frustrated with the tepid reception, but that’s 100% NOT where we left Dany last year. She was honored at being given the North, and hoped she was worthy of Jon’s confidence in her, clearly thinking about winning everyone over. Not to mention Jon didn’t kneel “for the North” since Dany had ALREADY agreed to fight at that point. He kneeled because he believed his Lords would ‘come to see her for what she was.’

Now that’s all been put into a blender so we get fed cool sentiments like “how can you care about titles now?!” and we can nod and think about how small-minded everyone is being, but no…the actions to which people are taking issue were never particularly justified, and if titles don’t matter, then why was it necessary to kneel at all?

Sorry, this answer was all over the place. The show is…not good, and in a way that makes me need to pull receipts on their own damn writing from just two episodes prior. Yeah, it might be enjoyable aesthetically, but calling critics “hipsters” (even jokingly) just doesn’t feel particularly reasonable.

#asks #anonymous

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thepunktheory · 5 years

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Why GoT Season 8 sucked - Welcome to my TED Talk

I hadn't been a GoT fan from the first minute. However, once I had watched my first episode, I was all in. I binged all season, devoured the books. Needless to say, I was both excited and anxious about the final season. We could clearly see a decline in quality once the show had left the charted territory marked by George R. R. Martin's books. So, I had dialed down my expectation for the final season. Nevertheless, Benioff and Weiss managed to fuck it up beyond my wildest imaginations. About three episodes in, all I wanted was for the show to be over. It was almost painful to watch! So, what did Benioff and Weiss do to ruin it all?

What has Game of Thrones always been known for? Unforeseen plot twists, cleverly crafted stories, impressive characters along with intense character development, epic battles and (very important) strong female characters who seriously kick ass. Let me tell you in detail how all of that went down the drain with season 8.

I'll begin with the amazing female characters as that is what pissed me off the most. I have thoughts on Dany, Arya, Brienne, Sansa, Yara, and Cersei so prepare for a longer rant.

Brienne had always been one of my favorites in the show. She was strong, smart, stood up for herself and others. I was cheering for her when she finally got to be a knight in this season. Well, my joy was short-lived. After the big battle, Jamie, Brienne, Tyrion, and Podrick play a drinking game and Tyrion assumes that Brienne is a virgin. She stalks off into the night only to be followed by Jamie who ends up sleeping with her. The next he leaves a weeping Brienne behind as he heads for King's Landing (and Cersei). Let dissect everything that is wrong here. First of all, the fact that Brienne is a virgin is presented as something that appears to be a problem. Problems need fixing. So, of course, good guy Jamie is there to help her out. Seeing her cry because of some dude is jab the character that was built over 7 seasons. Don't try to tell me it was to make her human. We already know that. Brienne isn't perfect, she's also had her share of heartbreak. This scene only served one purpose: to remind us that in the end Brienne is a woman, weak and governed by emotions. No matter how amazing she is on the battlefield, she's still just a weeping girl. The scenes I mentioned have absolutely no relevance to the bigger story, don't do anything in terms of character development and were altogether simply unnecessary. Also, I was rooting for Tormund and was really sad to see him cast aside.

Next, some quick thoughts on Yara. Well, where was she this season? We get to see her for half a heartbeat before she's shipped off to the Iron Islands, never to be seen again. The fact that she was there in the final episodes, to say just about one sentence, felt more like a concession to fans than anything else. Her story arc doesn't really get any form of closure. It's like Benioff and Weiss had completely forgotten about her this season.

Just like Brienne, Arya had also been one of my favorites. I cheered when she killed the Night King (more on that later) but was somewhat flabbergasted during the penultimate episode. For the last 7 seasons, she trained to become this badass assassin and now she was headed to King's Landing. Killing Cersei had been one of the main driving forces that have kept her going and in the penultimate episode of season 8, she was closer to her goal than ever. Anyhow, once she and Sandor get to the capital he basically tells her to skedaddle as there's only death to be found here. Arya is like "K, bye." Her whole story was building up to this and now she just turns to leave. One could argue that she finally overcame the hate inside her, her thirst for revenge or whatever. But this is not the way it's presented here. A man tells her it's too dangerous for her and ever the good and obedient little girl, Arya decides to leave. Something sound off here?

With Sansa, I think I get what Benioff and Weiss wanted to say but their writing is just terrible, so it comes across the wrong way. I love that she ended up as Queen in the North but before that, we have one scene that really irked me. She’s talking with Sandor and kinds of says "well, it's really good that all this shit has happened to me. Otherwise, I'd still be a little bird." So, I guess, what writers were going for was for her to come to terms with her past and embrace who she is now. How it came across: being a little bird is a terrible thing, (There's nothing wrong with living a sheltered life, are you arguing that the only good way to live is to be mistreated?) ultimately all the shit that happened to her was okay anyways (it was not okay).

Now what you all have been waiting for: Dany. Benioff and Weiss really murdered her for good. She's always been an intricate and complex character, not without flaws but with a desire to become a better person. Writers decided to take all that, wrap it up real nice with a bow and throw it out the window. What we get in season 8 is a mad Queen with no feelings and no remorse. I was so angry when Benioff and Weiss claimed it was foreshadowed that she'd go mad. Why? Just because the Gods toss a coin when a Targaryen child is born? It wasn't foreshadowed that she'd go batshit crazy within the blink of an eye. We knew she struggled with her heritage, but in the past seasons, Dany always made a point to distance herself from her father's actions, made a point to not be like him. Remember when she was heartbroken because her dragons had grilled an innocent child? Over my dead body is that the same character who burns down an entire city without thinking twice or without the slightest hint of internal conflict.

When it comes to Cersei Lannister, I was equally disappointed. We barely get to see her this season, she has just about 6 sentences and isn't quite herself. I was already pissed during the first episode. Euron Greyjoy (don't even get me started on that twat) wants to bed her. And Cersei holds a more or less elaborate speech, basically telling him to go fuck himself. However, he cocks his head to the side and claims that he'd rather have a go with her. So, of course, Cersei gives in without further discussion and sleeps with him. That is not the Cersei we know. I talked with some people about it and they argued that she had to in order to convince him that the child in her belly was his. Well, I beg to differ. It's just written terrible and out of character. Cersei has always been a strong character, she doesn't bow to no-one. In this season she's but a shadow of herself. Especially the penultimate episode was a letdown. Her life ends with Jamie holding her and Cersei keeps muttering that she doesn't want to die and she doesn't want her baby to die. Well, Cersei had faced death before and we know this is not the way she deals with it. She's always held her head high, unwilling to give, strong to the very end. The Cersei Martin created never would have cowered like that.

As we were talking about foreshadowing with Dany. Does anybody remember the prophecy Cersei got back in the day before she was married? It stated that she'd have three children with golden crowns (Joeffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella) but Cersei would have to watch them all die. Thus I am convinced that however much she wanted the baby in her belly to live, Cersei knew that it wouldn't happen. That's another reason I am convinced her final scene is absolutely out of character. I won't even talk about the rest of the prophecy as Benioff and Weiss really fucked up that front. This leads me to one thought that was also expressed by Martin himself.

Writers nowadays try so damn hard to surprise the audience, they don't even care that the stories often don't make sense anymore. The fact that somebody might have guessed the correct ending isn't a bad thing. It means that what you wrote/produced so far paints a picture of the characters it's coherent. You can't build a story, fill it with clues and then just take another route because you feel like. What you get from that is endings like GoT Season 8 (or Captain Rogers in Avengers: Endgame).

So, what else did I hate in season 8? The battle of Winterfell. Sure, the battle scenes were rather epic but there were just so many things wrong in that episode. The first 20 minutes were almost black, meaning most viewers weren't able to see a thing. I heard the explanation that you simply need a super expensive TV, then the episode looks fine, that's what the colors were calibrated for. If that's not a big fuck you to all the fans than I don't know what is. Next, there were so many strategic mistakes in there. We don't have time to unpack all of that, but who had the brilliant idea to put all the women and children in the crypts? With the dead people. When the Night King is coming, whose best trick is to resurrect the dead. Also, killing the Night King didn't seem that big of a deal. After 7 seasons build-up for that battle, I expected him to be a bigger problem. I mean, I love that Arya was the one to take him down. But one dagger was really all that was needed? Somebody could have sent a sharpshooter in season 1 and the problem would have been dealt with

Finally, let me give you some examples for the lazy ass writing done by Benioff and Weiss. Do you remember that in the past seasons it was actually hard to kill a dragon? Well, in season 8 Euron Greyjoy kills a dragon with a single freaking bolt. Why does that happen? Because Danaerys forgot about his fleet (According to Benioff and Weis). Are those guys seriously trying to convince me that nobody in Dany's council remembered that Greyjoy is still alive and kicking? What the fuck?! Another example is the scene were Missandei gets executed. Had it been written by Martin, Tyrion would have held a smart speech and pleaded with his sister (nope). More importantly, Missandei would have had some inspiring last words for Dany. All she says is Dracarys. You know how that felt to me? I bet this was Benioff's and Weiss' thought process: "Well, we could let her do a speech. But then we have to come up with a speech. Let's just make her say Dracary and the audience can come up with the rest."

I’m sorry to say that it's obvious how overwhelmed Benioff and Weiss were with writing season 8. They clearly lacked the skills to bring the show to a worthy end and I'm sad to see so much money being wasted on that. Honestly, it felt like they didn't even care anymore and just wanted it all to be over. HBO should have just hired some fanfiction authors to do the job. They would have done infinitely better. I don't even think that all the decisions made in this season were bad. They were just terribly executed. You know, I can imagine Dany going nuts even in Martin's version, just not the way Benioff and Weiss portrayed it. It's the kind of story arc you can only pull off if you are an excellent writer, otherwise, you just slaughter your characters. You need internal conflict, development - more than CGI effect and dragons. As we are speaking of dragons: I had hoped the dragon would turn Jon into a piece of steak and grill him instead of the Iron Throne. But of course, the golden boy had to survive...

Season 8 is a really unworthy end to a show that had once been great. My only hope is that now George R. R. Martin has some motivation to finish his books. Hopefully, he'll show us soon how it was meant to be and how you get the job done properly.

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

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primeadv · 6 years

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SITS DOWN

PULLS OUT 10 GIANT ALBUMS :)))

(this came out way longer than I intended im so fuckgkdsdf sory)

How I feel about this character: EVERYONE WHO KNOWS ME KNOWS I’M IN LOVE WIHT RATCHET. I love him in all iterations of Transformers because he’s always the tired, pragmatic one of the group. In contrast, he’s also almost tiredly optimistic in some ways. He won’t get out of bed, but if someone gets shot in the head he’ll spend however long and beyond to resuscitate them. There’s 2 halves to this--the me who identifies with the beating exhaustion he exudes, and the me who’s in awe that he’ll still fight his way through life. I won’t... get into each continuity...because that’s too much, so I’ll stick with probably the most unpopular version of him and that’s IDW (my impression, anyway). IDW Ratchet gets a lot of flack for being way too sour and like, maybe not selfish, but uncaring. He cares! A lot! He’s always thinking about everyone in really surprisingly thoughtful ways. Like when he’s 90% sure he’ll die due to Overlord and his last words are to promote First Aid to CMO (he’s ready!! god that’s sweet), and to give his hands to Whirl (though maybe a bit blindsided, he’s paid attention to some roots of Whirl’s trauma). Or yeah he’s hella mean to Drift in the beginning, but when Drift is dying in his arms he’s scREAMING at him “you’re gonna make it! You’re gonna be fine because I’m gonna make sure you’re gonna be fine”. He can be an asshole, but he knows the time and place. Death isn’t something to play with--he’s seen probably countless friends die, and he doesn’t want that to happen again. Even now, even after the war. So I feel very confused when ppl act like he’s this mean, cold person. He’s exTREMELY emotional. He’s probably way too invested in everyone’s lives, honestly? He interrupts a round table story for Rung just to reminisce on the veery last time he, OP, and Roller were together in the same room (not even hanging out or anything, just being together one last time. who remembers that after 5+ millions years??). He started an illegal clinic in the bad part of town because he wanted to put his skills to better use! Like! LOL. ALSO, a point that i think is unfair is that ppl think his atheism is just really mean. IT is! But I think it shows just how much of an emotional and extremely, deeply hurt person he is. It gets aggravating when he’s condescending of religion, because there’s no simple logic to it. He reacts the way he does because he’s a hurt person who’s gone through years of trauma and this is his way of coping. Is it healthy or right? Nah, but it’s humanizing. It’s why when he becomes closer to Drift he occupies this weird between space where he snarks but also tries to indulge more in perspectives outside of his own in his own dumb old tsundere way. He’s a person who believes in justice, ultimately, and religion to him doesn’t fall under justice. ALSO, can I say that his inability to say good byes is so.. like relatable? I have rly bad social anxiety, and so I’ve definitely ghosted people who’ve been nothing but really supportive for me. It’s not because I wanted to burn them, but it freaks you out needing to, not even say goodbye, but communicate with ppl. And for Ratchet--how many times was he FORCED to say good bye to friends + patients who were dying beyond his help? Maybe, if he could help it, he doesn’t want to say goodbye. And it’s tragic the times he’s just left, these were people who ended up either dying for falling astray into insanity, i.e., beyond his help. But he learns. He chases after Drift, who he actually said, in a way, good bye to (helping him off the floor after being attacked, also I should point out that a very tiny handful of people were comfortable interacting w/ Drift at all, and how much Ratchet just doesn’t give a shit abt how other ppl think abt him. he’ll help drift off the floor bc t’s the right thing to do). He says goodbye in his old dumb way--First Aid calls him out on it. ALSO his trust in First Aid is super cute. ALSO he’s like.. genuinely nice to Ten (he helped him get a date with Minimus!!!). And he’s not afraid to call out on other ppl’s bullshit (telling rodi straight you dont deserve to be captain which, at the time, was really true). He’s also SUPER smart. Also there’s that post on tumblr that pointed out that Ratchet immediately goes to deescalate conflict. He’s willing to put aside pride and anything if it means ultimately coming to a resolution where EVERYONE involved is safe. The only time he doesn’t is FUCKING OVERLORD who he rightfully, immediately, tries to briefly incapacitate to lockdown his medibay (protect patients/information). Ok I gotta stop I can go on forever just going page to page. Also, despite my love, I can totally point out his flaws. He’s grating when it’s unnecessary, he’s abhorrently bad at communicating, he’s privileged, he’s narrow-minded at times, etc. ec. But again what I love about him is that despite all that, he’ll throw his own self out the window for others’s well-being bc he genuinely, genuinellyyy cares about other people. If only he could care for himself //cries All the people I ship romantically with this character OH god... everyone. He’s my bicycle. ok look, ya’ll know I’m an intense dratchet shipper and I could literally write a god damn essay. ... here’s another essay???!! So, I’ma be real, I wasn’t a super dratchet shipper before. I wasn’t anti (i have no notps), but I was just “yeah they’re cute i guess haha”. But 99.99% the reason why I ship anything is all for super cute adorable fanart. and I kept drawing them because 1) ratchet’s my fav, 2) drift is super popular so I figured I should learn to draw him. And they became the only 2 mechs I could draw. I used to be way more into Scavengers + megarod. I used to only like 1 dratchet fanfic and that’s bc it was less romantic and more plot centric (still a fav tho). Then I kept seeing cute fanart, I would read posts by other dratchet shippers too about what makes them so nice? And I was yeah.. oh yeah. And it doesn’t help that in Lost Light, drift is CONSTANTLY by Ratchet’s side. He’s constantly checking up on him and holding him and touching him, like as if Ratchet is the thing that he needs to make sure, at all costs, is safe. In Drift’s life, Ratchet is the one who appears to him when he needs support the most but is in the most denial of it. When Drift is at the brink of death, overdosed and about to be broken apart and Orion brings him to Ratchet’s clinic. Ratchet patches him up pro-bono and tells him that he sees something special in him. like??? can you imagine how that feels? To have no one believe in you--you don’t even believe in yourself, and yet here’s this person who tells you “you’re gonna be great”. And it totally doesn’t hit Drift in anyway, at least in a way that’s tangible to him, until much later in life. Or maybe it does (hey, how do you weave character narratives when it’s been written by like 3 different ppl shrugs). And that statement means 2 different things to them. To Drift, it’s a reminder that he’s worth something, even if it’s a sliver of nearly nothing to hold onto. To Ratchet, it’s a reminder that the greatness he saw led to the deaths of thousands of people. HEY can you imagine this person you saved, patched up, tried to encourage, ended up being a mass serial killer in the future? (have you ever read Monster by Naoki Urusawa). Ended up killing people you loved? So it’s no wonder that a good part of Ratchet is absolutely mad at Drift. And I think if that was all, they probably would’ve ended up being amicable. But Drift also ended up being super religious and seeing the hand and primus in everything and oh my god is this person really waxing poetry on the value of life when he, himself, shot several bullets at me at one point? I also believe they are uncomfortably similar as they are different. The reason why they constantly butt heads is they’re two people trying to escape a past they don’t want and found complete opposite ways to cope with their losses. Drift found religion, Ratchet is gratingly pragmatic, and they see each other and go “how could this guy choose to be this way?”. I’ve heard ppl like to cite the annual as the reason why they could never work out. BUT, can I point out, that they act around each other in a way they don’t with anyone else? Drift gets SO MAD. Ratchet gets extremely talkative and incredibly personal (pulled out an electro slug from someone’s spark, holy shit that fucking traumatized you didn’t it??). They challenge each other emotionally, and it’s so fucking difficult bc they’re both extremely depressed and suffer from PTSD and would probably rather just go on their dumb space adventure and look at stars--take 2 emotionally constipated idiots and you get them. And hell no, don’t tell me Drift is in-tune with his feelings bc he’s 10000% not. He uses religion to cope with a past and life that he doesn’t want to think about. He tries to re-contextualize himself because he hates who he is. OUCHHH. And Ratchet MAKES him confront the parts of himself he hates--bc Ratchet has seen his worst traits and isn’t afraid to make him think about it. So why do they work out eventually? They realize how important they are to each other. Delphi, Drift saves Ratchet’s life while he’s barely holding onto his own because he probably feels like he owes Ratchet his own life. And that’s a huge turning point in their relationship--Ratchet sees that... Drift tries really really fucking hard. My friend Zig pointed out that post-Delphi, Drift is eating energon w/ chopsticks (what a fucking nerd), and you can see in a later panel that Ratchet (who chose to sit next to Drift) is using those chopsticks too. IT’s such a small thing, but they’re becoming closer by sharing and learning from each other. And then Drift takes the fall and leaves. And Ratchet realizes just how important Drift’s presence is in his life. I mentioned it already lol but the scene where Ratchet helps Drift up off the floor and it’s superimposed with the love message Rewind left for CD. They care about each other so much!! And Ratchet chases after him!! HOLY SHIT. If that isn’t romance, what is?? lol I kid, but it’s obvious just how important Drift’s presence meant to him. IT’s really because they became so so so close in a way that can’t be described as just friends. They deeply understand each other in really uncomfortable ways and bring out the absolute worst and absolute best in each other. And this point is where Ratchet again appears when Drift doesn’t realize he needs someone in his life. Drift thinks he can be a loner and just float aimlessly and voicelessly--hell no! He needs friends, he needs community. He NEEDs belonging, because he wants to belong somewhere. And Ratchet helps bridge him back to friends and found family. And Ratchet slowly changes the more he’s with Drift. He reads religious text and tries to brag about it bc he’s a dumb tsundere lol but he’s trying to understand Drift’s interests more even if it takes a decade and more to get there. And Drift values him for being his rock. That’s why he’s constantly making sure Ratchet is safe and unharmed, because he owes at least that much to him. And yeah they eventually fall in love because they value each other in a way they haven’t anyone else. IM EMO I CAN GO ONE, this all probably didn’t make a whole lot of sense but yeah. I’m just so soft to the fact that they’re horribly hurt people who don’t know how to redirect their pain, but by being together they come out healthier and more confident. IT’S RLY ROMANTIC IDKKK My non-romantic OTP for this character As much as I also love OpRatch, they are also great best friend platonic ship. They know each other best, they’ve been through SO MUCH together. It’s honestly a shame they barely interact in IDW bc the small tidbits we have, they obviously deeply respect each other’s opinions and deeply value the relationship they’ve had over the past millions of years. I’m also all for non-romanceOTP for dratchet because I can totally imagine they go to each other to talk about things they feel uncomfortable sharing with others (they’ve seen the absolute worst of each other afterall). My unpopular opinion about this character I don’t... think I ahve one. Some ppl view my love for his as grating lol. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon. Medic spin off.

#ratchet #dratchet

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tumblunni · 5 years

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OH FUCK I THINK I FINALLY CRACKED THE CODE OF WHY I ALWAYS LIKE THE VILLAINS BETTER

Like man it always makes me so confused cos i mean im a soft AF person and i always end up having sympathetic redemption headcanons for them so its not like i like VILLAINY ITSELF but what else do all these characters have in common?

Thats it. Thats it, ursula helped me crack it.

I just WANT THOSE TRAITS ON THE HEROES

I really want a nice confident sassy funny chubby trans auntie who promotes body positivity to our young hero and always gets to say the coolest lines and get the best moments and BE LOVED FOR WHO SHE IS

And like usually whenever you get anywhere close to seeing those "villain traits" on a hero they like.. Remove all the good parts. If you have a supportive hero aunt she's always boring and generically supportive instead, and has to look like the most stereotypical boring mess ans have a super small plot role and uuuugh thats IF SHES EVEN THERE i mean seriously aunties and grandmas are weirdly less represented as mentors than grandpas who are already REALLY HARD TO FIND and again OFTEN GENERIC AND UNFUN WHENEVER THEY GET TO APPEAR

And how damn often are we allowed to have a chubby gay aunt!! WHERE IS MY CHUBBY GAY AUNT!! ive met SO MANY chubby gay aunts in real life like 90% of all my psychologists have been either that or like.. The exact same but a straight lgbt ally instead. Sassy plus size aunties are THE BACKBONE OF OUR SOCIETY DAMMIT! I've had so much help thanks to sassy gay aunts!! And like even just looking at any damn crowd scene in a normal city centre youre gonna see so many chubby aunts and long nosed uncles and all those sorts of bullshit "ugly people" that mass media pretends are ugly and relegates to One Minor Role In The Entire Cast despite them being infinately more common than supermodels and NOT UGLY AT ALL GEEZ IT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH

I cant believe im a fuckin disney villain fan cos of body positivity

Tfw u suck so bad at making hateable people that the fandom universally hugs all your villains and ignores your boring protagonists like fuckin TAKE THAT DIDNEY

God i wanna hug hades sooo bad he just needs a friend aaaaaa

And i mean its not just disney, every damn time ive obsessed over a villain its been because they have some trait thats supposed to be "bad" but its actually good and we dont get to see it on the heroes

Like my thing with science villains in particular is that when i first played ff7 i really liked the idea of an evil minion who's a bad sidekick not just because he's "dumb" or "bumbling" but because he's actually not interested in any of the evil stuff and he works against his own boss and is like.. Friendly to the heroes, i have no particular grudge against you and i wont stop you if im off duty and all. I liked the Turks for the same reason but in the origibal ff7 translation they were kind of stoic and serious and i didnt really become as much of a fan of them til i saw them being more goofy and comic relief in some optional sidequests and then their movie adaptation. But hojo was always being all "lol my boss's plan is so stupid amirite" and had that very memorable scene where he's just sunbathing and tells you everything you need to know to get to the next thing to ruin his boss's plan cos i mean fuck it who even cares im just here to soak up some sun while fully dressed in a turtleneck and labcoat. It sucked so much that he was such a reprehensible bastard with creepy sexual assault vibes and murder and child abuse and experimenting on people and basically just NOT A LOVEABLE VILLAIN but his CONCEPT held so much potential to be filled by a sympathetic character instead...

So yeah then cos of him i kept being obsessed with finding SOME CHARACTER SOMEWHERE that actually lived up tp that potential, and thats why i was instantly interested in charon from pokemon and totally on edge waiting for the slightest chance for him to become That Perfect Sass Gramps Of Legend. And then he was indeed sassy!! And had so little screenyime that there was potential for interpretation of him as potentially redeemable cos i mean the game never said he wasnt, the game barely said anything about him at all, lol. And he was so old and small and frail looking and i just wanted to protect him!! And then that one wifi event that actually hinted at synpatheticness!! Aaaa its a recipe for a Forever Fave~

And i guess maybe it all started with my grandma being awesome and me really missing her? Cos i had shitty abusive parents and she was my ONLY good family member who showed me what love was like. And she was also basically a supervillain. Like every damn supervillain trait except being evil! She was bombastic and confident and sassy and mischievious and loud and passionate about stuff and always had something funny to say and never gave up no matter how many times she failed. And she also used all that great power for the forces of good!

So yeh thats why i love sassy good guys and i hate that often even when a sassy villain gets redeemed they seem to lose all their edge and become more generic now theyre a good guy. Or they get totally sidelined with no screentime anymore, or they ONLY get to be comic relief and dont get the full and complex redemption they deserve. Or just a lot of bads!! Its never the simplest answer of just fuckin.. Keep the character the character. Thats kinda why i didnt feel too much for the maleficent movie even though the concept itself sounded like everything i ever wanted. The character in that movie is a very different person to origibal maleficent, she's more just a stoic tsundere mumsy figure than a hammy badass iconicness. Still a nice villain redemption but it felt like it would have been better as an original story instead of an attempted maleficent. Also i wish they handled it better with the whole "true love's kiss could be from your mum instead" thing cos i get sooooo grossed out whenever i see people shipping movie maleficent and aurora! Like yes sleeping beauty with lesbians would be great but not when one of them is old enough to be her mum and raised her like a mum and changed her goddamn diapers! Also why did they have to ruin the three good fairies just to make maleficent have the mum opportunity? Like just remove them from the story if you wanted maleficent to raise the kid instead. No need to rewrite them into incompetant assholes when they were everyone's fave part of the original! Dont sacrifice the rare and elusive Good Sassy Gay Aunts!! THEYRE LIKE THE ONLY ONES IN DIDNEY!!! (Incodentally merlin is the equivelant of this to hades as the fairies are to ursula)

Also also villains tend to have ACTUAL FLAWS in stories that have a more boring bland protagonist. I wanna see the story behind charon's neuroses and how he struggles with overcoming his temptation to be bad because of greed but ultimately manages to conquer his own negative side because power of friendship and such. Thats a great character arc that provides so much more than he does as a villain where they just wasted him entirely :(

SO BASICALLY IN SUMMARY

* villains are often more complex and well developed characters with flaws while the same wroter might make shitty heroes due to the illogical fear that nobody would root for them if they werent 100% perfect and successful at everything ever

* villains are also often made as negative stereotypes of minorities and other rarely seen traits, which means its easy to reach out to them and reclaim them as a more positive version when theres literally no other options for you to cling to

* the quite common accidental sympathy factor where a villain will seem to be hated more than they deserve for their actions, ir unjustly punished so much that they feel like an underdog, since the writer assumes you'll think theyre "more evil" for being a stereotype and if you dont agree that this thing is bad then it seems like they have way less sins than the story claims they do

* also sass. Sass is good.

But basically the whole root of it is that its stupid and cruel and doesnt goddamn work when you make villains bigoted stereotypes. It just makes me love them! The only person i hate when i see a stereotypical villain is the writer who thought that was a good idea, lol. Just imagine that meme of the samurai holding the cat but its me holding all disney villains!

Also even if a villain isnt outright intentionally meant to be "this minority is bad", it can still make me symoathetic to them if theyre still something thats rare amoung the hero side in the same series. Like charon being the "most unredeemable" villain despite being the most harmless and funny and his plan being so much less world destroying than cyrus, and also he's the only grandpa villain in like.. The whole of all. And he's drawn very much in that way thays supposed to be "ugly" i.e normal grandpa, vs that weird sort of younger than he looks grandpa that hero ones tend to be because blablabla beauty ewuals goodness anti body positivity whatever. Tho actually sinnoh was good with that, they had the best grandpa professor in my opinion cos he got to be sassy too! Rowan always reminds me of auron from ff10. Sinnoh was a good game where i liked a lot of both the heroes and villains even if i still had more villain faves cos i mean pokemon is always biased towards that for me since every game has a voiceless perosnalityless main character and often theyre the one doing most of the heroing with the supporting hero characters having surprisingly little proper screen time. Thats a big part of why i loved hau gladion and lillie in sun and moon! They felt more like a real friend group than any other ones before.

ANYWAY now im just going offtopic into more "i love lots of stuff about every pokemon game" so ill stop typing now

But just basically VILLAINS ARE GOOD COS THEYRE GOOD CHARACTERS and if those stories gavethe same character a good guy role then id still love them just as much, if not more. I dont specifically like villainy, its just that my definition of a good character is often considered a bad character by lazy writers, apparantly?

Also WHERE IS MY SUPPORTIVE GOOD GRAMPS CHARON GAME AND GAY AUNTIE URSULA GIVES YOU FASHION TIPS SMARTPHONE MMO

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madfictionland · 5 years

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KHIII - Strengths and Weaknesses of Nomura’s Insanity

1. Xehanort Saga’s Closure

Great:

- Axel vs Xemnas sequence and that entire battle alongside Xion and Roxas, with Shimomura’s orchestrated music - Sea Salt Ice Cream Rules!

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it was just golden and weighted heavily on me! Lots of emotions and great closure there

- Xemnas and Ansem... being awkward... it was extremely weird at first, seeing them on strange errands, behaving the way they did, no Darkness lines for Ansem, and overall the two of them kind of less important than Xigbar, for example.

But it was actually perfect and then it all came full closure with their defeats! They were taken from their own timelines (in which they were soon to be defeated or right before the final blow?), briefed on the current situation and assigned tasks under MX. And Ansem being the most awkward because...

no madness, no darkness showdown! Being approached by some children! it’s just aren’t his thing, clearly... Oh, and Xemnas handling the “benched” Norts as if they were his students, something that he does proudly. Pretty much the only thing that gives them both purpose after that time travel ordeal is the sense of companionship and MX’s goal which they feel obliged to pursue “because they are him” - only not really, actually. Because as it turns out... they found they did not really care, in the end.

So yeah, in the end it’s actually pretty sad... and they fade away to be ultimately defeated in their own timelines!

- Young Xehanort being an utter dickhead of darkness (although the bad thing is... no more backstory, explanation and only minimal amount of screen time for him, damn)

I mean, seriously, I enjoy the fact he turns out to be one of the most engaging KH3 villains, so focused and bitter. When you think about it, then it makes sense since he was given great power early on and explored through time... obtaining even more power. He never met Eraqus, he never created his bizarre self-rightous grand goals to begin with... He was just... alone, traveling through time, and exploring the outside world through darkness and his dark future selfs, the future that he embraces fully. He is the embodiment of everything what’s dark about Xehanort, in some aspects perhaps even more souless than the old man himself, and we even have him take on Ansem’s role... lol

I like his interactions with Sora, especially here.

- Goofy being smart in the Xehanort’s plot business, lol and they’re always debriefing Sora on Mickey’s encounters from BBS. Nice!

- Finally we know how Axel and Saix got turned into Nobodies - we really needed that backstory...

- The replica research plays a big part here and it serves to create vessels for hearts... with data!memories... and we even get glimpses of artificial hearts being researched now... nice, it REALLY does bring into closure all this data madness that Nomura had started

- Vanitas regenerated through negative emotions of children’s screams in the Monster world + his entire ending with Sora/Ven which was amazing - Vanitas was darkness and it was his own choice because his very nature was darkness... he wouldn’t have it any other way! but despite this, he appears to be actually humanized in the end, at least as much as a rebelious pure darkness plucked from someone’s heart can be

- Terra reveal and him being Ansem SoD/Terranort’s sidekick pet all this damn time... like, I never thought that’s a possibility... even though it does make sense...

Now that’s the kind of crazy Nomura reveal that I like!

- Yen Sid finally takes action! WOOOOW

- final battle with 3 main Norts, and Master Xehanort doing a fingers thingy!

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With a glorious MAD score and mix of all three bosses themes! YESSS

Bad:

- Kairi situation... although to be honest it was expected so it doesn’t weight on me too heavily, personally

- very few cutscenes/very few long dialogues and NO backstory cutscenes... now that’s a BIG flaw

- none of the time travelling stuff from DDD gets explained... we don’t know why Young Xehanort is still here despite (apparently) dispersing at the end of DDD... and we don’t even know which Norts are time travelers... and we don’t know their backstories either... how they got Norted? When? How many are there??? It’s not even clear if all of them (those that we meet in game and cutscenes) are present at the final battle because 13 figures showcased with MX prior to battle... all of them with hoods! And we know Demyx is not one for fight so maybe he bailed? Plus Vexen betrayed them? Also, Marluxia, Larxene, Demyx and Luxord were all secondary vessels... kept only due to their Keyblade War connection... so I would assume they had other more serious Norts in store? So who exactly was fighting and who wasn’t? Who was a time traveler and who wasn’t? Who was in a replica body and who wasn’t? Also, is Xigbar a Nobody or somebody Braig with Xigbar’s features? Just FUCK IT. I really like all these convoluted little details but none of this was discussed... which is so unlike Nomura...

- very little presence for MX, no backstory explored and... overall VERY anticlimatic final boss fight and weak ultimate resolution to his “big” saga

- Vexen is just too good at pretending... he really does seem like a bad guy again, who just wants to do research, I don’t buy his sudden redemption and I actually thought he was going to double cross Ansem and use him as his puppet! How can Vexen even feel anything, especially redemption desire, as a freshly cooked Nobody? lol

- Big big flaw is that many Norts were... not really Norts. What’s the point of them getting Norted if they don’t get a slight change in personality and aren’t driven by Xehanort’s purpose? It worked so well with Saix... only think what kind of Demyx or Larxene we could get if they were actually Norts. Seriously, that was disappointing. Frankly enough, we even have Demyx say this line...

which is EXACTLY the case, he would make an interesting vessel, and I assume one capable of good fighting skills or intimidation... if only they were influenced by the entire process and written as actual Norts - important to the plot - not just some toys and Keyblade War Legacy research project for Xemnas...

2. Union X / more...

Good:

- Ephemer and all the Keyblade wielders coming to help! With players’ names shown! Just wow, this was super powerful, and great soundtrack for it too. Also, it kind of confirms my suspicion there were two Keyblade Wars? The “Lost Masters” one and “Union Leaders” (the one in which Ephemer fell, thus he is there with the “spirits” of the wielders).

- Ven’s Chirithy, such a cute little detail :)

- The Final World - atmoshere, music and design... all of them GREAT. It makes sense in the lore + some of its design/animation reminds me of data worlds... Hmmm, could it be... some kind of bin folder on the MoM desktop?

In any case, the future of Nomura Mindfuck seems bright

- the ending with Sora vanishing (to another plane/world?) and Secret Movie with MoM fucking conceptualizing Kingdom Hearts under the normal’s moon light, all of it in a remake of the newest FF title......

I mean, we are one step closer to ultimate shit, right? Which would be Nomura self-inserting himself into the game as Master of Masters... and I’m all for it! XD

- seems like the time travelling Ven + other guys from Union Cross will be progressing places... diferent worlds, planes, realities? And I like it, this seems more interesting and like a fresh surge of madness from Nomura that he kind of wanted to do with Xehanort (hence time travel) but wasn’t really able... in the end. So maybe, just maybe... MoM will get a better conclusion?

- Xigbar makes it to another game. What can I say? I like him, he’s entertaining, that’s all

Bad:

- Xigbar being Luxu seems to be poorly explained, like... he ONLY pretends? Even in those Braig scenes from BBS? And when talking with YX? Really? Even though his BBS scenes were short and we knew nothing about him... it could have been done better, like maybe Luxu planted a piece of himself into Braig and pointed him towards Xehanort, but he wasn’t actually Braig? Hence the guy who gets Norted - Braig - isn’t Luxu? At least not yet? But then Luxu can take over? Well, I think that would be much better... unless there is more to it that we don’t know but i really doubt

- Maleficent, the Box, Xigbar searching for the Box... (wtf even? what MX has to say about this? what’s that box Xigbar? and how dare you hide shit from me?)

All of this... is quite different than earlier KH hints or reveals. It’s just extremely CRYPTIC. It leaves you with nothingness because the characters themselves feel like nothingness when they are forced to speak about this. I could understand it if it contributed to KH3 plot in any major way, like the box being a catalyst in MX’s plans maybe, but it wasn’t - it was pointless, so the attention it got, and they always speak about it in such vague terms... what’s the point? because that’s hardly a surprise and we knew about the box...

- Maleficent and Pete are pointless, especially pointless because the only way for Maleficent to be interesting was to explore some of her hidden (?) memories regarding her time travel experience (which she does not remember, I assume?). Instead, something was “etched”... and a black coat told them about the box... and replica Riku has an akward encounter with them... but nothing is explained or actually said in clear terms. OK, so it sucks, why don’t you skip their cutscenes then - it does NOT create a *Nomura mystery*, it just says “here is some random gibberish that won’t be ever explained because it doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t introduce anything new” A Nomura mystery would be to explain to us whether Maleficent actually remembers the box from her time travel experiences and THEN introduce a new solid mystery, like: she doesn’t remember, but there was a mysterious black coat guy who said there was a box (and there would be a flashback of this past encounter!). But at this point it seems like Nomura just completely doesn’t care, at least not in KH3

The Final Judgment: KH3 was quite a letdown (as the Xehanort’s saga conclusion) but still enjoyable and with grand potential for better mad shit in the future.

PS: Also, it delivered the greatest score in the history of KH... so that’s a win!

#kingdom hearts iii #kh3 spoilers #kh3 opinion #xehanort saga #tetsuya nomura

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tyrantisterror · 6 years

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Well Made Futility: Infinity War Thoughts

I saw Infinity War for a second time and have some thoughts. SPOILERish thoughts, so, y’know, a cut here for the sake of those who care about such things.

I mean, I actually think this movie is better if you know what you’re in for going in, but I’m weird so what do I know.

So like... Infinity War is fucking difficult to evaluate. It’s a movie that does something completely unprecedented in film - while we all enjoyed joking about it, no single movie crossover has attempted to weave this many VERY different stories, characters, and (especially) tones into one coherent narrative before. It is a crossover unlike any other in film. And it’s mostly successful!

but

I know we all like to dunk on Marvel’s films because they’re popular and make a lot of money, and all of us have an inner hipster who hates things that are successful regardless of their actual quality or content, because fuck that man we’re not normies we only like things BEFORE they’re cool. But as a person who loves “genre” fiction - i.e. Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, anything that isn’t set in standard reality - the Marvel movies have been kind of revolutionary. Genre films had gotten so LIMITED before Iron Man, and it was stupidly limited at that. We could accept that a billionaire fury who punches criminals could walk into a police department without making everyone burst into laughter, but we couldn’t accept that a strange chemical bath would permanently bleach a clown-turned-criminal’s skin. We could accept a guy getting powers from a spider OR a guy being really good at science but not both. We could accept a guy growing claws out of his hands, but god help you if that man also wears something other than black skintight leather. Everything had to be “grounded” and “real”, and I put quotations marks around those words because what they REALLY meant in the context of Hollywood was “boring.”

but

And then Marvel slowly chipped away at that. Not at first - Iron Man and The Hulk were about as restrained as the superhero movies that preceded them, but slowly the movies conditioned us to accept weird shit. Thor brought in Norse mythology and a certain kind of magic, although they dressed it up as “advanced science”, because we were in a transition and that was a concession they could make. Captain America took us out of modern day - a risky idea, period piece action movies are never a sure thing - and also introduced the idea of a serum that can turn you into either the ULTIMATE BEEFCAKE or a red skinned skeleton man depending on your moral compass, which is PRETTY FUCKING WEIRD when you think about it.

but

Then The Avengers happened. Before that movie came out, every conventional Hollywood line of thinking told us it would fail. Movies with multiple heroes don’t succeed. That’s why Batman and Robin sucked, right - too many heroes? And Batman and Robin, why, that’s the worst film ever! Spiderman 3 had too many villains! You can’t have more than two super powered guys in a movie - that’s just movie law! Having more than two super power guys is box office poison.

but

But The Avengers wasn’t. Maybe most of you don’t remember it because we’ve had 10 years of these Marvel movies and their success seems like an inescapable fact now, but The Avengers defied expectations by being both good AND a box office success - a ridiculously lucrative one at that! The Avengers took a huge fucking risk and it paid off.

but

Then it happened again. People assumed The Avengers was as weird as you could go. Critics were CERTAIN these movies would peter out eventually, that they couldn’t keep doing the impossible. One of these risks had to doom them. And a lot of critics looked at one movie on the post The Avengers slate - Guardians of the Galaxy - and said, “That’s the one - that’s gonna be the turd. A movie about a talking raccoon and a tree monster - two RIDICULOUS character concepts that sound more like jokes than something a studio would actually put in their action movie - along with some d-listers no one but hardcore nerds care about, all directed by a guy best known for gore-filled low budget b movies? That’s going to kill Marvel. There is no way that film can be good, much less a financial success.”

but

Guardians of the Galaxy was not just good, but it’s the best series within the franchise. Yeah, fuckin’ fight me on it nerds. (no actually don’t I’m voicing a subjective opinion in this paragraph I don’t actually give a shit about ranking movies like this)

but

Even when their movies weren’t game changers, they were still solid and fun. Whether or not they’re your cup of tea, Marvel’s superhero movies are never worse than “good.” Some of them are “great.” Some, like The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Black Panther, are arguably transformatively great. At the very least, these films taken as a collective whole have changed the way we approach Genre Films. They have redefined what is possible - they reminded Hollywood that suspension of disbelief is a malleable thing, even if some studios haven’t quite grasped the concept yet.

but

Which brings me back to Infinity War. Like The Avengers before it, Infinity War brings different characters from many different stories with many different tones and styles and, to an extent, genres/subgenres, and blends them into a coherent and emotionally resonate whole. It requires you to have seen at least the majority of the previous DECADES worth of movies to work, but that’s not a flaw - no more than, say, the twentieth chapter of a novel requiring you to read the previous 19 at any rate. Infinity War needs those previous films to function, and to its credit, it not only uses what they built, but does so in genuinely surprising ways. You didn’t think you needed a Rocket Raccoon/Thor team up in your life, but this movie proves you did. You also didn’t think you’d see Rocket Raccoon genuinely reach out to Thor (who, to him, is a relative stranger) and try to help him through his grief, but it happens, and it’s a legitimately interesting moment that movies both characters forward in their respective arcs. This movie is more than just taking a bunch of toys out of a toybox and smashing them together (though yes, there are parts of it that are very much that - these are action adventure movies, after all). Characters develop and bounce off each other in glorious and meaningful ways. There is a weight to everything beyond the obvious, mercenary Hollywood mandate to make as much money as possible by getting fans of all these different franchises into one theater.

but

The movie even tries to rectifies some of the franchise’s most notable flaws, in particular their lack of decent villains. You could count the number of actually compelling and interesting villains from the previous 18 films on one hand. Thanos, the big bad of this film, finally gets us to the other palm. His motives are understandable but NOT justified - that is to say, you can understand why a person may believe what he believes, but at the end of the film you know for a fact he’s wrong. Thanos is a bad guy whose evil plan will destroy countless lives, but he manages not to be the cartoonish caricature of a villain whose over the top “destroy the world” motivation makes no sense. It’s nuanced, is my point. I don’t think he’s the best Marvel has offered us - he wouldn’t crack my top three just yet - but he’s miles above most of the competition.

BUT

So here’s the crux of my review. When I got to the ending of the movie - an ending that, admittedly, I spoiled for myself ahead of time, because I do that for most movies ever since I got majorly burned by Jurassic Park III when I was a teen - I couldn’t stop thinking about it, because it’s... it’s a paradox. Not just the ending, either, but the whole movie. This is a film that both does and doesn’t work. It is both an amazing feat and... and fundamentally broken.

And it all has to do with those 18 films before it.

Ok, so: if taken as its own story, that is to say, as just it’s own thing, not the part of a greater whole... then the ending of Infinity War is exactly the ending this story needed. This is Thanos’s story more than anyone else’s, when you get right down to it, and from the perspective that this movie is meant to tell his story and his story alone, the ending is the only one that would fit. Thanos gets everything he wants, at the cost of everything that mattered to him. His crazed vision finally comes true, and the audience feels the full weight of how horrible that is. That ending - that maddening, confounding ending, where almost every hero we’ve come to love over 18 goddamn films is killed with the snap of his fingers - shows us exactly why we can’t let monsters like Thanos come to power, and how even the monsters like Thanos himself are destroyed by following those mad dreams through (a point reinforced by the cameo of a long forgotten past villain, Red Skull).

However, as I said before, you really CAN’T take this movie on its own. Structurally it DEPENDS on you seeing those previous films. You have to have seen them just for this movie to make sense, and to be emotionally affected by it you must also have cared about those movies and their characters. This movie is a sum of those parts.

And as a followup to those 18 films - as a part of their greater whole - it fails. So many characters we followed and love - Black Panther, Spider-Man, every fucking guardian of the galaxy except Rocket and maybe Nebula if we count her, just to name a few - is killed off in a literal instant. With the exception of Loki, each of these deaths kind of renders their preceding journey pointless. Peter Parker was just starting his journey in his preceding film - so was Black Panther, so was Dr. Strange, so were many of the others. Imagine if Hamlet was killed in act 1 of his play - everything about him would be unresolved, and all of his supporting cast would have no anchor to the plot since the conflict they’re involved in is removed with Hamlet’s death. You’d have to start over. Other characters are farther along, but with rare exception, none of them had what could be called a satisfactory end. If the deaths in this movie actually hold true, then most of the preceding 18 movies have been broken. They are wastes of time.

Of course, a savvy person would note that literally every character killed in this movie has been cast in the next Avengers film, due out next year. Spider-Man and the Guardians have announced movies with release dates after that one, too. Black Panther’s sequel has been announced although the release date has not. These deaths are highly unlikely to stick.

BUT if that’s the case, well... then this movie’s broken again, because now that ending has no weight. Now that ending is pointless - in fact, this whole movie is, because it’s all just going to be undone by the next. Either this film was a narrative waste of time, or the preceding 18 were. There’s no other option.

...but...

There is, I suppose, a possibility. A faint one, admittedly - I have no idea if they can achieve it. There’s a possibility the fourth Avengers film could find a way to make this movie’s weight hold while still putting all those dead characters’ stories back on track. Infinity War was conceived as a two part film story, after all, even if they dropped the “Part 1″ label come release. No matter how much this film wants you to think otherwise, it is just part of whole - and maybe, just maybe, the second one will make the first work WITHIN that whole.

I don’t see how it can, but then, I didn’t see how they could make me care about fuckin’ Rocket Raccoon. And Guardians of the Galaxy is, as I said, the best one.

If I were a betting man, I’d bet on this movie ultimately being a narrative cul de sac - a very well made, but ultimately pointless entry that is invalidated by what comes after it. If that ends up being the case, then that’s kind of sad - but there’s a chance they may make it work after all, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s not to bet against Marvel.

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