#I plan to re-write the other post I mentioned later (and also explain why) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

puellafuriadarkmagica · 11 months ago

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So it's been a week, exactly as promised. It's just that it's also been some other weeks on top of that. I'll explain why at the end of this post, what I plan on doing about it, generally where my efforts have been lately, and how YOU (yes YOU!) can get involved.

Chapter 5: The Best Venue in this Small, Pathetic Town

From The Chats - Keep The Grubs Out. I mentioned before that my brother got me into The Chats. They're a world away from the kind of music I'm normally into, but they happen to be really fucking funny. That's generally enough for me to make an exception. Check out the music video to their big hit Smoko and try your damnedest to convince me this isn't one of the greatest music videos ever made.

youtube

"Oh, Kimmie, me 'n' Kel had the time of our lives. We had twenny-four hour room cervix, eggs derelict for breakfast..." the television blared feebly through its blown-out stereo system.

I've said it before but one of my favourite differences between our world and that of PFDM is that somehow the existence of magical girls has resulted in Kath and Kim still being on the air in 2009.

Fuck, I miss Kath and Kim.

"You, and me, we have an opportunity / And we, can make it something really good…" Zoey hummed from somewhere in the kitchen.

I also remember mentioning that this passage is included to remind people that despite her generally matronly(??) role to the rest of the cast of Part 1, Zoey's only in her mid-twenties. Bit sad, innit?

Thunk. A metal rail, roughly forty centimetres long, sailed neatly past Marie's head, drove itself clean through the skull of the Incubator perched on her shoulder, and dug itself into an oblique resting place in the pavement behind her.

Oh my God.

Oh my God!

They killed Kyubey??

"Introductions aside, have you run this past Lara yet?" "The thing is I think I've got to… warm her up to the idea first?" Danika smirked. "You can say she's too stubborn. It's not a crime, you know." "She's not as bad as you guys say she is, you know!" "Too right!" Hope leaned forward and coughed into a fist. "See, she's actually worse."

She's actually soooo cool and nice with it.

Hold on.

When did "such-and-so with it" re-enter common parlance? I remember it being a pretty ubiquitous way to suffix an adjective back in the late 2000's, and then it disappeared. And now it's back? Where did it go…

"Cool, cool. Hey, would you mind if I just confer with my friends about some stuff? I'm pretty new to what I do, and if we brought you on board that'd be a pretty major undertaking for both of us." "It's okay," Phoebe protested. "I can train her!" Hope shrugged. "Yeah, that's fair. Now it'll be a major undertaking for three of us."

Taking so long to reread this stuff presents the side-effect that I do find myself laughing at my old jokes that I'd forgotten I'd written.

Phoebe shot to her feet and clutched her skull (still contained within the flesh of her head, of course. Only one person with even the most tangential relationship to her life is intense enough to do otherwise). "I can't deal with you people! I can't… I'm… I need some air."

What?

Holy hell, what?

There's no way I foreshadowed Alex burning off her flesh this far in advance. Are you serious?

We've only just recently learned that she will be doing that, what, 45 chapters later? 46?

Hope's jeans pocket blared a harsh, percussive synth monotone. She noticeably flinched before practically ripping her phone out of her pocket and putting it to her ear.

Back when I wrote this, I said it was probably The Presets - My People. More recently I've locked that in. I was going to write that it's one of the few radio hits that's actually good, but then I realised my vision was completely clouded by nostalgia when I began to pen that. The past half-decade or so has been kind of nuts for mainstream pop. Charli XCX has got a couple tracks joint-produced by AG Cook and Hudson Mohawke on her new album, for crying out loud. Death's Dynamic Shroud is getting mentioned on the same electronic pop lists as fucking Beyoncé. Porter Robinson's… well, he's Porter Robinson. How did we get it so good? Should I be thanking Missy Elliot? Daft Punk? Dylan Brady?

Wait. I'm supposed to be talking about PFDM.

"Sure thing." Marie responded with a thumbs-up goodbye, like some kind of absolute mutant.

Not long after I wrote this passage, I did actually give someone a thumbs-up goodbye. Mind you, I was having an absolutely shit day and was pretty distracted, but I've still gotta live that down, on the inside.

"I'll get it," Hope announced. She opened the front door, saw who was behind it, and closed it again. Lara jammed her foot in the door before it could close. "Evening, Fearnley," she cooed. "Would you mind if I popped in for a chat?" "If I said no…" "I'd find other, less courteous ways to open this door, don't you worry."

I've barely started watching Utena, but she's Nanami, isn't she? She's totally Nanami.

"Shame. What's say you and I underthrow Deckard and find a new girl ourselves instead?" "Under… throw?" "It's like overthrow, but she's our inferior. She's really, really inferior, actually. You know how she spends her time? Going on witch hunts with this new girl just for kicks. I hear Woodward - not the dead one, of course - is third-wheeling whatever it is those two have got going on now."

"Underthrow" is one of my favourite Lara-isms, but it doesn't hold a candle to…

"Well then, why would I do that?" She smirked. "Face it, Fearnley. If I needed to psychologically outplay you, I wouldn't resort to spreading rumours. I've got a rapper wit." "You mean a rapier." "A what?" "She said rapier," Zoey huffed. "That's the expression. Rapier wit." "What, like a sword? That's stupid. The only thing a sword ever thinks to do is cut something, and that's only because somebody else tells it to. A rapper, on the other hand-"

"Rapper wit" is potentially my favourite malapropism of all time, and I came up with it. Thanks, me! Why, you're very welcome.

The Citadel, like all things, is metaeclyptic with an infinity of other things, places, times. One of these things happens to be a lighthouse on the west coast of Ireland, operated by a young man named Douglas Murphy. Though neither of them knew it, at the exact moment Audrey Wong lost her blue socks, he found a pair of green socks he had lost four months ago. The strangest part of all this, he would remark if he understood his circumstances to any meaningful degree, is that his role as a textbook example of metaeclypticism is, in fact, the only meaningful reason for his existence at all. The speaker god has, as it happens, written a proverb pertaining to this feeling of existential ennui, which goes as follows. From here until the end of the last chapter. It also goes as precedes, until the beginning of the first. Due to the impracticality with which one might quote it, it is considered a very unpopular proverb.

This is one of the passages which I think best encapsulates the style of PFDM, and hopefully my writing on the whole. It's definitely one of those key early moments where I Locked The Fuck In.

Well, that was a pretty short chapter, all things considered. I forgot how little time I actually need to write one of these. Maybe I should try for one a week, but given my track record regarding things taking a week, I don't think I can promise anything.

So what happened?

Life got busy again. I've got a job now, which does pretty much drain the life out of me. But it also gives my time some long-needed damn structure, so three cheers. Also, I've gotten a little carried away on an original webfic I conceived of last year and have been tinkering away at the planning stages of ever since. Actually, let's talk about that. And let's call it Project Anubis for short for now, in a pointless attempt to hide its true name - an aspect of the webfic I'm still uncertain about. It does have a name, and I am sort of leaning in-for-a-penny on that, but for now it's Project Anubis.

Sounds cool. What's Project Anubis?

Nothing!!! It doesn't exist yet, and won't for a serious while! Don't rush me here, okay?!?!

Actually, I'm going to talk about it here with you guys because there's like half a dozen of you maximum and I don't want to talk about this publicly yet. You won't see this on my main Tumblr. Anyone who reads that and doesn't read this, who I want to have see this announcement, already knows what this project is, and, in fact, what it's called. I mention it now, because I'm trying to open the doors to my friends who I know would be available for this, and frankly if you've spent the past… I don't even want to think about how long, conversing with my borderline manic ramblings in the comments section of my own anime fanfiction, well, are we not then friends?

Okay, but really, what is it?

Not too thematically dissimilar from a lot of the themes I've been spinning in PFDM. If you liked the oddball humour, the overly-researched science fiction, and maybe the weird underlying philosophical thriller, you probably will like this. If you were only into PFDM for the sprawling cosmology, the fight scenes, and the fact that it's Madoka Magica, you're gonna outright detest it. It will not be for you. Of course it wouldn't be. It's for me.

So what do you want from me?

I'm glad youu asked, line of bold text I put before this paragraph! Basically, I want anyone who knows a damn about more or less anything to give me a holler. I've got a lot of research to do for this, and anyone who can point me in the right direction would be a massive help. If you know anything about any of the following:

Speculative biology

Computer science

Feng shui

Biosemiotics

Astronomy

Gestalt psychology

Puzzle design

Card game design

Printing

Logograms

Conlang development

Chances are I'm gonna be coming to you for a lot of help. If this has legs, I might start hiring people to help me make it, too. If not on a stable income I can bankroll a team on, then at least on commission. If you're a visual artist who can illustrate things other than people with weirdly specific demands regarding colour palette and image composition, you're a writer and you feel like you can jive with my style (the more naturalistic, less-uranium-dense parts, at least, because this will not be the fuckin' slog that PFDM deliberately makes itself sometimes), or an actor - even if just for voice or photos - let me know that too. But don't expect anything to come of it, and definitely don't expect anything to come of it any time soon. Right now, I'm just trying to keep track of who I know who has X field of knowledge or Y specific skill. Gimme your email or your Discord or something, or just let me know if I can DM you here on Tumblr.

Why "Anubis"?

I had this idea for a gag in something where the main character dies and meets Anubis, who would be depicted entirely with photos of James Earl Jones. Anubis would then explain that everyone has a celebrity lookalike, and the gods themselves aren't excepted from this. Anubis just happens to bear a striking resemblance to James Earl Jones. I don't think this joke is going to be in anything, but I've been thinking about Anubis ever since.

What does Project Anubis mean for Puella Furia Dark Magica?

I dunno dude!!! I just work here!!! Maybe nothing? Maybe a hell of a whole lot? Maybe PFDM gets delayed for YEARS! Maybe the remaining chapters all mysteriously appear online tomorrow! I really don't know! I've just had a hell of a good idea and now I have to make it. I go crazy if I don't. I go. Crazy. If. I Don't!

Anyway see you all maybe next week I don't know? Bye

#pfdm reread #puella furia dark magica #Youtube

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rosedive · 4 years ago

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Hate To Think About You With Somebody Else - F.W.

Fred Weasley x Reader

Summary: Fred and Y/N used to be friends with benefits, but that arrangement ended in heartbreak. Can Fred handle seeing her out with somebody else?

Word Count: 4.7k

Warnings: 18+ NSFW. MINORS DNI. Mentions of alcohol, mentions of blood, small bit of violence/fight scene (the reader and Fred are not injured), possessive talk, fingering, degradation, bondage, orgasm denial, unprotected sex, a bit angsty with a happy ending. Please let me know if I’ve forgotten anything!

A/N: For @theweasleytwinsgirl who asked for the reader teasing Fred, leading to her being tied up! I added a bit of plot to it, because I cannot help it. Obviously, this fic is lightly inspired by “Somebody Else” by The 1975. I am not very confident in my smut writing abilities, so any feedback would be appreciated! I also feel I should thank @lumosandnoxwriting for giving me advice and reassurance throughout writing this. Pictures are from Pinterest.

I have not included all of my general taglist, because I do not know who is 18+ or who wants to be tagged in smut.

Fred, George, Angelina, and Alicia sat leisurely around the twins’ shared living room, laughing and giggling over drinks. The past few weeks had been hell at the shop, so the boys felt they needed a much deserved night to just relax. Previously, Fred would have liked nothing more than to relieve his tension with Y/N, but unfortunately, that was no longer an option.

“Have you heard about Y/N and Pucey?” Angelina prodded with a giggle, her eyes alit with mischief.

Fred’s jaw immediately clenched at the sound of her name, his grip on his glass tightening. He most certainly hadn’t heard about her in a few weeks, and he hadn’t expected to have such a visceral reaction at the mere mention of her name. Regaining his composure, he forced himself to relax a bit and quirk a brow, feigning both confusion and interest.

“No? They shagging?” George questioned, sitting forward in his seat.

“Apparently, but I guess it’s becoming a bit more serious than just that.” Angelina shrugged, turning her gaze to Alicia beside her for confirmation. When the second girl nodded, Fred downed another gulp of his drink.

That can’t be right, he thought. It hadn’t even been a month since the last time they had been together, Y/N pinned beneath him as breathy moans escaped her lips. In the dim light of his bedroom, she had whispered to him that her pussy was his, that she was his, and now, apparently, she was with someone else. Some part of him knew that he had no right to be upset, because truthfully, it was his choice to end their little arrangement. But she had left him no choice after breaking their number one rule.

Y/N and Fred had ventured past friendly acquaintanceship about a year before, after a few too many firewhiskys at an infamous Weasley twins’ party. The morning after, they had tiptoed around each other, clearly uncomfortable by the change in dynamic. But it didn’t take long for it to happen again, and again, and again. Before either of them had really realized it, they had become much more than friends but much less than really together, and Fred wanted to keep it that way. He wanted them to remain in that middle ground.

As far as he knew, Y/N was more than fine with where they stood with each other. Until one day, she wasn’t. He remembered clearly how she had bit her lip and gazed at him, only moments after finishing him off with her mouth. He had looked at her curiously, wondering where her usual, joking, post-coital self had gone.

“Have you ever thought of me as more than, you know, just an easy fuck?”

Her words had shocked him, because they certainly weren’t the turn of phrase he would have used. He didn’t think of her as ‘an easy fuck,’ he thought of her as a friend. Someone he cared deeply for. But as he gazed into her desperate eyes, he was struck with the realization that he didn’t care for her the way she hoped. He had swallowed deeply, preparing his words in his mind, before shattering her heart.

Now, he wasn’t sure why he cared. Sure, he had thought about her a lot in the weeks they’d been apart, but he was always so sure that he had made the right choice. Relationships were messy, and he was young, so he had no intention to be tied down so soon. Still, the thought of her with Adrian Pucey made his blood boil, and he wished desperately that he could put an explanation to the feeling.

“Fred?”

The sound of his name tore him from his thoughts of Y/N, and he quickly plastered on his signature goofy grin before sitting forward and re-immersing himself in the conversation. Still, in the back of his mind, images of Y/N and Adrian played on repeat, fueling a fire that he hadn’t realized was a lit within him.

A week later, Fred found himself at a party at Oliver Wood’s flat, celebrating a win for Puddlemere United. There was an array of different people there, ranging from his old Hogwarts team, to groupies, to people who had just showed up at the mention of a party. Fred had planned on getting drunk that night, but after seeing George and Lee sloppily grinding on a few witches in an intoxicated bliss, he decided maybe—for once—he would be the responsible one.

Fred had gone nearly an hour, just barely nursing a glass of firewhisky and chatting with old friends jovially, before his eyes landed on a familiar face entering the party.

Fred was frozen at the eye contact they held, his first time seeing her in weeks. Y/N held the gaze for a moment, before turning to grip Adrian’s wrist behind her and drag him further into the party. If Fred thought he had a strong reaction to hearing about their relationship, it was nothing compared to actually seeing it. Fred slammed his drink down and walked away from the poor girl he had been chatting with without so much as an explanation.

“Let’s get out of here.” Fred clapped a hand down on George’s shoulder the moment he reached him, pulling his attention away from the girl dancing against him.

“Now?” George questioned incredulously, his brows raising. He gestured to the girl in his arms before returning a pleading look to his brother. “Come on, mate. This isn’t a great time.”

Fred knew he could convince his brother to leave if he explained, but his mouth felt entirely too dry. He couldn’t seem to formulate the words as to why he needed to get out of there. So, instead, he sighed and offered his brother a nod before retreating back to the outskirts of the people dancing.

Normally, Fred was the life of the party. By this point in the night, he’d usually be plastered and singing or dancing with no remorse. But seeing Y/N with a bloke like Pucey caused him to have an entire demeanor change, leaving him scowling leaned against the wall.

It didn’t take long for his eyes to find Y/N amongst those dancing, pressed closely to Pucey behind her. She was dancing provocatively, even turning in the man’s grasp every little bit to kiss him sloppily. At first, Fred had been almost certain that she was doing it on purpose. The way she was right in his line of vision, acting completely out of character in her open demeanor, it all felt like too much for him to handle.

Then, she made eye contact with him, and held it, and he just knew. She was doing it on purpose. All of her actions had been a way to get him worked up, to see if he would get jealous, and dammit it was working. Fred chewed on the inside of his cheek, holding her gaze as she grinded her bum against Pucey. She held his gaze as she slowly craned her neck and pulled Adrian into a searing kiss, her eyes back on Fred the moment the two pulled apart.

That was the final straw for Fred. He wasn’t going to stand idly by while she taunted him so openly, showing him everything he was missing. So, he pushed through the crowd of people and found his way to the two of them, ignoring the small smirk that had risen on her face.

“Y/N,” He breathed out, just loud enough for her to hear over the music. Suddenly, he was entirely unsure of his next move, but he desperately wanted to regain control over the situation. So, he said the first thing that came to mind. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Oi, what the hell, Weasley?” Adrian paused his dancing, although his hands remained gripped on Y/N’s waist. “Can’t you see we’re a little busy here?”

Fred completely ignored the man at first, his eyes never leaving Y/N. He could see by the look on her face that he had played exactly into what she wanted, but with the jealousy coursing through him, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. She smirked slightly at Fred before craning her neck to look back at Adrian, almost as if she were challenging him to fight for her further.

“I can see,” Fred seethed, finally looking up at Adrian. “I can see a poor girl not having a very good time. So, I’m offering her a better option. Why don’t you let her decide?”

Adrian scoffed, taking a small step back from Y/N but keeping one hand on her hip. He looked down at her, waiting expectantly for her to deny any desire to go off with Fred. When she simply glanced between the two of them, Adrian’s brows furrowed and a look of offense overtook his features.

“Come on, Y/N.” He pleaded. “Tell him.”

Y/N bit down on her lip, the action only infuriating Adrian further. He looked at her incredulously before scoffing and turning his head away.

“Should’ve known a desperate little slut like you couldn’t be loyal.”

In an instant, Fred pushed Y/N out of the way and landed a hard blow to Adrian’s jaw. Y/N was dazed, everything seeming to move in slow motion as all eyes turned on them. Adrian had faltered only for a moment, cupping his jaw in his hand before straightening up and lunging towards Fred.

Luckily, George and Lee were there after a moment, tearing Adrian away and threatening to pummel him as they marched him towards the door. Y/N knew Fred wouldn’t need their help in a fight, but she was still grateful that a full out brawl hadn’t occurred because of her. Y/N rushed to Fred, cradling his fist in her hand and glancing up at his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Her voice was soft, but the music had stopped, so he could hear her.

“‘m fine.” He answered curtly, glancing between the way she held his hand and her eyes. “So, can we get out of here?”

Y/N’s lips formed into a tight line, so as to conceal the smirk that desperately wanted to break through. She offered him a quick nod, and in an instant he was dragging her out the door and apparating her back to his flat.

The moment that they were in Fred’s room and the door shut, his lips were on hers. Her back was pressed up against his door, desperate little moans leaving her mouth as she reveled in the feeling of having him against her once more. Fred took the opportunity to push his tongue into her mouth when her lips parted, taking full control of the situation.

Y/N was more than content to let him take over, having missed him in their time apart more than she would ever like to admit. Of course, the feelings she still held for him lingered strongly, but she tried not to think about that as Fred pressed himself further against her. Adrian had been nothing more than a distraction, a feeble hope that she had held onto as a way to get over the tall red head, but it clearly hadn’t worked. She felt a bit bad, because she knew Adrian cared about her far more deeply than she did him, but she also knew she had made it clear she didn’t want a relationship. The irony was sickening.

“That was quite a show you were putting on tonight.” Fred pulled away from her breathlessly, his eyes tracking up and down her body.

“Yeah?” Y/N cocked her head to the side, feigning innocence. “I don’t know what you mean, I was just having a bit of fun.”

A low growl crawled out of his throat as he pressed his lips to hers once more, using more force than previously. Y/N squeaked at the intensity, but quickly melted into him. His hands trailed up and down her sides as she rested her own around his neck, pulling him impossibly closer.

Fred’s hands finally made their way to the hem of her shirt, his fingers ghosting over the skin of her stomach and sending a shockwave throughout her. Slowly, he trailed his fingers up, raising her shirt up in his wake. Y/N was quick to oblige, breaking away from him to allow him to tear the garment off completely.

For a moment, Fred’s eyes trailed over her slightly revealed form, drinking in the way she looked half-naked. He hadn’t realized how much he missed seeing her like this, and he found that his breath hitched at even the littlest bit of exposure.

As his eyes met her pleading ones, he quickly recovered. Their passion resumed in an instant as he pressed his lips to hers once more, spinning her away from the door and walking her backwards towards his bed. Y/N allowed him to lightly push her back onto it, her heart fluttering at the sudden gentleness of his actions. She’d always loved the dominance he held over her, but something about what was happening between them now felt different. But, as he draped his body over her own, all of her hopes of actual romance melted away and her mind was entirely clouded with just the appeal of him.

Y/N arched herself against Fred, giving him the space to unclasp her bra. He slid the straps down her arms slowly, trailing open-mouthed kisses down her jaw and neck, until he finally met the tops of her breasts. He cast her bra aside, shooting her one last look before taking a pebbled nipple into his mouth. Y/N moaned at the contact, her fingers immediately threading themselves through his flaming hair. As his teeth gently grazed her nipple she gave his hair a tug, causing him to moan against her.

Fred continued his trail downward, planting kisses down her torso until he made it to the band of her leggings. Y/N lifted her hips and Fred held eye contact with her as he slowly pulled them down her legs. Y/N realized that he seemed to be drawing all of this out, pushing her to the point of pure desperation to make her pay for teasing him all night. Still, she bit her tongue and held back any thoughts of pleading with him, she couldn’t give in that easy.

When she was left in nothing but her panties, Fred sat back on his knees and leisurely unbuttoned his shirt. Y/N watched him intently, her frustration increasing significantly, until she could no longer contain it. She let out a desperate whine, pleading with the man with her eyes alone.

“Something wrong, love?” Fred cocked his head to the side and smirked.

“Freddie,” Y/N whined, the nickname feeling foreign yet fitting on her tongue.

Fred discarded his shirt before circling his hand around on of her ankles and hitching it up on his shoulder. He placed a soft kiss to the inside of her ankle before slowly trailing kisses back up her leg towards her thigh. Y/N shuttered as his lips ghosted over her clothed pussy, her eyes squeezing shut.

“Please.”

Fred looped one finger under the hem of her lace panties, but made no effort to pull them down. When a low chuckle escaped his lips, Y/N knew she was in trouble. Her eyes flew open once more, immediately meeting his darkened, lust-filled ones.

“Did you really think I’d give in that easy?” Fred mocked, punctuating his question by snapping the band of her underwear. “You tease me all night, putting on a show for me, acting like a desperate little slut.” He paused to wet his lips, drinking in the soft moan that escaped from her lips. “That is what you are, isn’t it?”

“Only for you, Freddie.”

“Really?” Fred scoffed, sitting back up to begin fiddling with his belt. Y/N raised herself up on her forearms, desperation and arousal pooling in her core. “Because it didn’t seem that way tonight.” Fred’s tongue darted out of his mouth, swiping over his bottom lip as he gazed at her hungrily. “Think maybe I might need to remind you whose slut you are. What do you think?”

She whimpered, but managed a feeble nod. In their previous times together, her and Fred were nothing if not adventurous in the bedroom. Still, as he waved his wand and bound her wrists to his headboard, she couldn’t help but gasp and lightly fight against the restraints. Fred held a devilish smirk at her plight as he stood from the bed and sat his wand back down.

Fred crawled back over her, his intense dominance faltering for just a moment as he leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“Still remember the safe word, yeah?”

“Yes, Freddie.” She managed to speak, although it was difficult. Fred leaned back and searched her eyes for a moment before leaning in and placing a soft kiss to her lips. After that, any sense of gentleness faded.

Fred’s lips sucked and bit at her neck hungrily, one of his large hands trailing down to rub her through her panties while the other massaged her breast. Y/N’s thighs clamped around his hand, which quickly earned her a light swat to her hip.

“Stay still, or I’ll have no problem tying your legs up too.” Fred growled against her neck.

Y/N quickly obliged, spreading her legs further open. While previously she may have been more inclined to push Fred a bit, her mind was too clouded with lust to do anything but obey him. After weeks of mediocre sex with Adrian, she was ready to completely give herself over to Fred, and let him have her in anyway he wanted.

Fred’s hand pushed the fabric of her panties aside, allowing one finger to drag through her wet folds. She was already soaking wet for him, despite the fact he’d hardly touched her. Without a warning, he plunged one finger into her, lightly moaning at the way she constricted around him. Y/N’s back arched ever so slightly against him, tugging futilely against her bound wrists. He set a steady pace, thrusting his finger in and out of her before adding another and scissoring the two. He changed pace after a moment, beginning to curl his fingers up into her as his thumb rubbed circles against her waiting clit. The pressure in her core grew quickly from that, and she couldn’t help the way she loudly moaned out.

“Right there, yes, oh god…”

Fred was now smirking as he pulled away from her neck, significantly satisfied with the many markings he’d left as well as how quickly he could bring her to this point. He knew her body like the back of his hand, he knew her signs for when she was close, and it made it so much easier to enact his plan.

Just as Y/N was teetering on the edge, desperate whines and random babbles leaving her lips, Fred pulled his hand away. She let out a frustrated and confused groan, her eyes flying open as she felt the build up slowly slip away. Fred just grinned at her, before getting off the bed and ridding himself of his trousers and boxers. He lazily stroked himself as he took her in, chest heaving and covered in a light sheen of sweat, completely at his mercy. She had stopped her attempts at fighting her restraints, looking at him like she were almost defeated. In her mind, she’d begun to fear the very real possibility that Fred wouldn’t let her cum at all.

“You seem frustrated.” Fred cooed mockingly, coming to lean back over her and gently brush her cheek. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Fred.” Y/N spoke firmly, though her eyes portrayed her fears. “You’ve got to let me finish.”

“Hm.” Fred seemed to ponder that, leaning back to slowly pull her panties down her legs. “I don’t think I have to do anything. In fact, I could just leave you here all tied up and needy.”

“Please,” Y/N whined, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

“It’s a start.” Fred tutted, finally discarding her panties aside. He leaned down near her ear once more, his warm breath sending a chill down her spine. “What I’d really like, though, is to hear how much you need me. Wanna hear you say it.”

“Please, Freddie, I need your cock so bad. Need you to ruin me.” Y/N cried out, losing all sense of dignity as her sex-addled brain took over. Fred had intended to tease her much longer, but her desperate pleas were going straight to his cock, and he couldn’t hold out any longer.

“That’s all you had to say, love.”

Fred hitched her leg around his hip, gripping his cock in his free hand. He teased the head through her wet folds, shivering at the moan she let out from just the smallest contact. Then, he pushed his hips forward, not stopping until he was completely buried in her. Their low moans mixed together in the quiet of the room, Fred being careful not to move until he was sure she had adjusted to his size.

“Fuck, I forgot how fucking good you feel.” He groaned, burying his face in her neck.

“Move… Please.”

He needed no further encouragement. Fred pulled out about halfway before snapping his hips back forward, setting a brutal but steady pace. Y/N’s loud moans and Fred’s grunts mixed together, accompanied only by the sound of their skin on skin contact. Y/N could feel her orgasm building again as his dick hit her g-spot with every thrust, and she was almost embarrassed by how quickly he could bring her to this point.

“‘m so close, Freddie.” Y/N breathed out, knowing it would only infuriate him further if she came without his permission.

“Already?” Fred scoffed, although he knew he wasn’t far behind.

Still, he wasn’t ready for things to end so soon, so he pulled out completely, ignoring the desperate whine that left her throat. He pulled both of her legs together and pushed her knees up against her chest, holding her ankles together with one hand before thrusting back into her desperate cunt. The new position allowed him to hit deeper within her as he thrust downward, causing Y/N to scream out. The pain was delicious, it was everything she had longed for in their time apart.

“You really think you deserve to cum?” Fred grunted, landing a particularly hard thrust into her. “After everything you pulled tonight?”

“Please.” Y/N whined. She was so close, she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle it if he stole another orgasm from her.

“Answer the question, slut.” Fred demanded, his pace quickening ever so slightly. “That’s what you are, isn’t it? A desperate little cum slut.”

“Yes.” Y/N cried out. “But only for you, Freddie. Just a slut for you.”

“That’s right.” Fred’s rhythm had begun to falter, approaching his own orgasm quickly. Still, he was unsure if he’d let her finish or not. “You’re my little slut. Only I get to call you that, right?”

“Yes, Freddie.” Y/N whined, beginning to tug again on her restraints. She wanted nothing more than to scrape her nails down his back, but being completely at his mercy turned her on endlessly.

“Good.” Fred was close, so fucking close, but he had made his decision. So he had to hold off. “Cum for me, then. You’ve earned it.”

That was all the encouragement she needed, and as Fred hit one more thrust into her g-spot she was tumbling over the edge. Electricity seemed to shoot all throughout her body as she loudly moaned out his name. Her legs were shaking and she was certain she’d be sore tomorrow, but she had little time to care about that as he continued to pound into her.

Y/N knew Fred well, just as well as he knew her, so she knew he was close. Her mind felt almost entirely blank and she wasn’t sure she had much energy for anything, but she wanted to bring him to his release badly. So, she clenched around him, a moan leaving her lips when he stuttered and groaned. His thrusts were faltering significantly, and after a few moments he was crying out her name as he finished in her.

Fred pulled out and dropped her legs before crashing down next to her. He knew that he needed to untie her, but they also both just needed a moment to breathe. All that could be heard was the sounds of their mixed pants as they both came down from their highs. Once he was significantly more relaxed, he gripped his wand and swished it lazily, effectively removing the restraints she was held in.

Y/N hands dropped down and she quickly went to rub at her wrists, but Fred was quick to bat her hands away and do it himself. He examined both wrist closely, seeming to want to ensure that they were okay.

“They weren’t too tight, were they?” Fred implored after a moment. His genuine concern made her heart flutter, and she couldn’t help herself as she leaned in and placed a soft kiss to his lips.

“No, they were perfect—all of it was perfect.” She sighed as she pulled away from him. Her general cognition was beginning to return, and with it her fears of all of the pain she had gone through in the past etched their way through.

Sure, Fred had clearly gotten jealous at the party. Then, he had gotten possessive and claimed her in the bedroom. But that didn’t necessarily mean that he harbored the same feelings for her that she had for him. The fear nearly paralyzed her, and she wasn’t sure if she should quickly redress and flee the room or implore what this all meant. Luckily, he answered her internal questioning before she even had to ask.

“I don’t want to see you out with Pucey.” Fred sighed, his eyes not meeting hers. “Which is a total prat thing to say, but it’s true. I don’t want to see you out with any bloke, really.”

“Fred…” Y/N spoke tentatively, her eyes begging him to speak further.

“I want you, Y/N. Like, really.” Fred finally met her gaze. “Not just in my bed.”

“What, do you want me on the couch too?” Y/N tried to joke, hoping it would cover up her nervous tone. But it didn’t. So, her voice became soft. “Don’t get my hopes up, Freddie.”

“I’m being serious.” He shook his head. “I want to take you out on fancy dates, or watch movies with you on my couch. Bloody hell, I want to bring you to my parent’s house for Sunday dinners. I don’t know, I’m not good at this. Whatever it is that couples do.”

“Fred Weasley,” A small smile had begun to grow on Y/N’s face. “Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

“Yes.” Fred answered earnestly. “That is, only if you’re going to say yes. Otherwise, this was all just a joke—”

Y/N shut him up by pressing her lips to his, her mouth still curled upwards in a smile. It was impossible to hide the genuine happiness that his words brought her.

“Yes.” She answered softly as she pulled away.

A similar smile began to grow on Fred’s face as he completely registered her words, and he couldn’t help but dive back in for another kiss. Y/N was his, completely. Something he’d probably wanted for so long, but had simply been too daft to realize it. Now, as he held her in his arms, he promised himself he’d never make such a mistake again.

Tagging a few 18+ mutuals from my usual taglist: @wand3ringr0s3 @gcdric @theweasleysredhair

#fred weasley smut #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x y/n #fred weasley #fred weasley x you #Fred Weasley fanfic

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kanmom51 · 4 years ago

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JM JK timeline.- my observations how they grew over the years

Disclaimer: these are my own opinions and conclusions. Feel free to disagree, but hate or aggression will be unacceptable.

2017 - Part 3

Ooh, we have reached a major event here. Serendipity. 4 September 2017, or is it 1 September 2017 (??), as I will explain bellow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEMaH9Sm3lQ&t=16s .

Or what I like to call: JM’s love ode to JK.

Now tell me this: If Jimin’s song Serendipity was released 4th September 2017, and uploaded to BangtanTv on 5th September 2017, why is the date stamped on the MV 1 Sep 2017?

Does that date mean something? Let me think for a second….oh, it does, doesn’t it? It’s someone’s birthday !!!

JM tells us himself: “All of this isn’t just a coincidence”.

Serendipity is a beautiful love song, and I honestly believe it is JM’s love ode to JK, a birthday present to his love.

I am aware that Jimin is not the one who wrote the lyrics for the song. RM did though. RM, that at this point was very much aware of the relationship and JM’s great love for JK. RM that had written JK’s Begin, a song that everyone agrees is a very personal song of JK’s.

The “I am you, you are me” line actually originated from a song released by Zico in early 2016. There are theories that Jikook used a reference from that songs MV (the band aids on their fingers) during a Puma fan sign on April 2nd 2016. So, if this is true and the line had special meaning for them to start with, and it found it’s way into the song lyrics... feel free to make your conclusions...

And although we have no way of knowing just how involved JM was in the process of writing this song (did he ask for a love song? Did he give ideas to insert into the song, like destiny, not being a coincidence, the cat?), but at the end of the day, JM ‘owns’ the song, believes in what he is singing. When he talks about the song you can feel the emotional personal connection he has with the song. This is his song, and he sings it for JK. And JK knows this is Jimin’s gift to him.

Serendipity related, check out the 18th September Dance with DNA Vlive - https://www.vlive.tv/video/42069 .

JK’s reaction when JM says Serendipity is his favourite song. So cute. The thing with this one is that you could easily overlook it or not read too much into it. Only Suga’s reaction here is the tell all.

At the point that JK is acting all shy and smiley to himself, Suga moves closer to him, whispering “Jungkookah”, something that brings on a change to JK’s entire facial expression. There’s even a slight head nod from Suga when JK wipes the smile off his face.

Suga hinting to JK not to be so obvious, only made it more obvious. I also noticed that just before JM starts singing Serendipity, just after he was asked what his favourite song from the album is, JK looks sideways to Suga, as if he knows he isn’t supposed to react too obviously – looks a bit like little JK might have been scolded or reigned in prior to the live broadcast. Remember that this is really quite a short time after the song’s release, so JK’s excitement, happiness, is still really fresh. The song is for him, and it’s JM’s favourite...

I am not going to analyse the MV, but there are many who have done so before me. Was JM involved in the planning and did he have any input to the choices made? Idk. There is a similarity to the motif of the DNA MV. Is it a coincidence that the dominant colour used is JK’s favourite colour? Who knows. But doesn’t the song say “all of this is not a coincidence”?

Add to that JM starting to use the paw print emoji by JK’s name on Twitter? A coincidence? Mmm… interesting.

From this point on it is clear that “you are me, I am you” is a JM and JK thing.

21 September 2017 BTS comeback show. JK was in charge of putting together each of the members DNA. Very enjoyable. But why did JM have to mention again that JK comes to their room to sleep? Also, how does JK know that JM doesn’t wake up Hobi when he is playing games late at night? JM telling us how he now learnt how to play games – then what games was JM good last year (re: Vlive 22 April 2017)?

22 September 2017 Love Yourself fan sign– JM singing Serendipity, JK joining in. How happy JM looks when JK sings “just let me love you” with him all while making eye contact with each other at that point. The way JM looks at JK while singing the song. Singing to him.

Still think Serendipity is not JK and JM’s song?

They have a way of looking at one another that sometimes make me feel like I’m intruding on a very intimate moment.

24 September 2017 SBS Inkigayo Super concert – found it!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb-_jkdxgh4 start watching at 3.36min.

This is the one I remembered, where JM, saw the need to grab JK’s butt, run his hand up and down his back side, right through the crack, repeatedly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7fv0CaQT9M start watching 11:30min , JM walks to his place past JK, lightly brushing his hand against JK.

When I mention the brushes or light touches – this is what I mean (see attached photos). Obviously, there will be those who say it wasn’t intentional, that he was walking by him and didn’t mean to touch him. I say bollox to that (excuse the language).

First, there was plenty of room not to walk so close to JK. Second, if you notice, he circles JK only to make it back to the same actual side he was on to begin with. All he had to do was back up, just like JK did, and not circle JK to make it to his place on stage. Third, to me it looks as if he was aiming to touch JK’s hand, only it was too high up.

26 September SBS MTV The Show. Happy happy boys.

30 September 2017 Love Yourself fan sign Sinchon – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMIdoK9rfAI .

Another one I was looking for. I have seen this moment and wasn’t sure where or when it was from. This is one of those clips Jikook’s use to show Jimin being jealous, and to be honest, first time I saw it it made me wonder too. But watching it again and again, I have come to the conclusion that that wasn’t the issue.

To me this is more JM being protective than JM being Jealous. Setting the boundaries for V when it comes to JK, and it is something we see with JM more than once.

JM wasn’t happy. V wasn’t happy. Boundaries were set.

I actually wrote a separate post about this moment.

1 October 2017 BTS live – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwU-NOMLvqQ

Tipsy JK must be a Jikooker. His guard is down, inhibitions are gone and he becomes really chatty and tends to say and do things that he most likely regrets later on. We didn’t see the members drink what seemed to be alcohol, but the vibe I got from JK’s talkativeness and behaviour during the live was that he was tipsy. Not outright drunk, but tipsy.

To the fan’s request to show his abs, JK starts checking himself out, looking under his T-shirt, only to be scolded by JM to keep it to himself. This is also the first time we hear him Jikooking, talking about eating with Jin and JM, referring to them as Jin-jikook, and then turning to JM, while the others try to call them by another name (I wonder why…). Did I not say tipsy JK is a Jikooker???

3 October 2017 Run BTS episode 22. https://www.vlive.tv/video/43438 start 7.00min.

JM turns to JK asking him to vote for him. The softness in JM’s voice when he asks him acting all coquettish. The way JM approached JK and the way he spoke to him, that’s not the way someone talks to his mate, or to his ‘brother’.

There was a softness in the approach to JK. coquettish is the only way I can describe it.

Love hearts were added by the show’s editors, not me !!!!

12 October 2017 BTS countdown. Can be found on Dailymotion.

All JM had to say was one word – Jungkookah and JK, surprisingly (not) chose him. The look of joy on their faces at that point. And again the editors with the heart emoji effects. Uhm…

JM and JK’s team was the team chosen by the fans, and guess what song they both choose to sing, as JM piggy backed JK? Their song obviously… Serendipity.

And yet again, JM gets to tell us JK comes to his room to sleep. We hear you JM. We hear you.

Jimin birthday surprise (BangtanTV 1 November 2017) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aAhNAl53ZY.

JM gets flowers sent from his father. J-Hope and Suga pretend JM’s dad has arrived to surprise JM, Suga pointing and saying he saw him. JK slowly backs up, shocked and alarmed smile on his face, trying to move behind RM. Then the boys start laughing.

Now, why do I think this is a moment worthy of my timeline? Well, when the boys start laughing, revealing it was a joke, the one Suga points at, laughingly, is JK.

The whole thing feels like a joke on JK, not JM. JK is the one being teased. Why would JK be so stressed out from JM’s dad being there? And why would the boys be teasing him like that? Hm…

The funny thing is that the camera is on JK and Suga, not on JM, who was supposedly just told his father was there. That feels slightly strange to me. Wouldn’t they want to catch JM’s reaction? Not JK’s?

28-30 October 2017 JK and JM Tokyo trip together. This trip was long anticipated by JM. He had been looking forward for his trip with JK for a long time. It was a private trip planned and paid for by JK as a gift for JM. What we know about the trip is mostly what they tell us in retrospect.

Saying that, this was truly a memorable trip for them both, and they both can’t seem to shut up about it, talking about it at any possible moment. JK telling us how JM stayed up (only JM?) until 5 am, so they both woke up at 12pm and missed out on plans they had for the morning, JM tells how they went shopping in Harajuku, how during their trip was the longest walk they took, referring to their trip during interviews. As I mentioned – a memorable trip.

31 October 2017 - When returning from the trip JM posts a selca/selfie. I know I said I won’t be doing this, but rules are sometimes meant to be broken, and this specific selca is gorgeous, so…

BTS Wings tour Japan documentary - filmed October 2017, published 12 November 2017 - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7sz5rq .

Both acting cute together. For some reason, they are the only ones that are paired for the one on one interviews, when Suga, Jin and Hobi were all interviewed by themselves.

Felt like JM and inhibitions were strangers during the group interview.

Not really sure what JM was searching for in JK’s thigh during the group interview (when V was talking) – tupping, fingering and squeezing JK’s thigh. And yet again RM and J-Hope’s reactions to die for. Hobi eyes on the action throughout the whole episode, and RM when he notices, I would pay a lot of money to know what was going through his head at that point. My educated guess is: “God, please get me out of here, why did I agree to be the leader????” LOL.

Then when asked what their impressions were when coming to the dome, JM tells how JK was crying, all while caressing JK’s ear. JK tells how he was emotional, and they look at each other. All the while, RM’s face when JM touches JK’s ear, only to continue to place his hands on their shoulders respectively.

JM continues to surprise, telling viewers to anticipate for JK’s sweat. The minute he says that, RM turns to look towards Suga, the vibe I get is: “god, please help me here…”.

Then JM goes on to tell us how in his opinion JK’s sweat is beautiful, Holy water. What???? J-hope repeats JM’s Holy water, then glances for just a second towards RM and looks down nervously – great save Hobi.

The group interview was shot on JM’s birthday. Maybe that had something to do with his good un-inhibited mood.

8 November 2017 – GCF in Tokyo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrTNLkqGrlc .

While the Tokyo trip was JK’s birthday gift or JM. GCF Tokyo is JK’s love ode to JM.

One of JK’s grand gestures. Up there with RB, as far as I am concerned.

This is not an analysis of GCFT, but I do have a few words to say on the matter. Explain why in my eyes this is a JK’s love ode to JM.

This video was filmed and edited by JK, and JK alone. It supposedly documents their trip together. It was his choice and his alone to edit and publish this video and did so to JM’s surprise.

In the video to start with, he lets us know that it’s the two of them, but from there on, other than seeing JK through the mirrors in the elevator while he is filming JM, the one we mostly see is JM. JM smiling, JM goofing around, JM eating, JM enjoying himself on the Tea Cup ride at Disneyland, JM walking, JM dancing, and as a whole just JM having the time of his life. For a video that is documenting a trip to Tokyo, there is not too much of Tokyo we get to see.

The end credits name JK as the photographer, director and editor, while naming JM as the actor.

There is a strong romantic vibe to the video.

JK’s editing choices, including his music choice for the video are well thought out. His choice to edit to the beat of the song. All cleverly thought out to accentuate both the footage and the lyrics of the song he chose: ‘There for you’ by Troye Sivan and Martin Garrix.

JM told us already: “this is not a coincidence”.

The level of preparation from JK, acquiring the rights to use the song, the amount of time it took to go over the footage and edit the video, all while managing to do that will a full working schedule (working throughout the night). This was clearly something big for him. His joy and pride when it was uploaded to Youtube, clearly showed, him smiley and dancing.

2 days prior to GCFT, on 6 November 2017, JM published his short clip of the trip. JM too took the time to edit a cute footage of the trip, documenting both of them having fun. Putting them both side by side only emphasizes the difference and showcases just how much GCFT was all about JM, being JK’s love ode to JM.

To be continued...

#jungkook #jimin #JK #JM #Jikook #Jikook are real #Jikook timeline #JMJK timeline #JKJM timeline #GCFT #Serendipity #Kookmin #Kookmin timeline

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4stars-uswnt · 4 years ago

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My Muse, My Valentine [Christen Press x Reader]

requested by anon: Not sure if you’re accepting any request but can you write a cp x photographer gf where her gf surprised her at man u, like her gf secretly transfer there to be with cp. Thanks

A/N: please ignore some of the inconsistencies this story has with reality :) but anyways... hope you enjoy and have a happy Valentine’s Day (tomorrow) and remember it’s a day about LOVE, whether that be romantic, platonic, familial, or self ❤️

“I’m gonna miss you,” you whine, as you watch your girlfriend pack her suitcase.

“I know, babe. I’m gonna miss you too, so much.” Christen leans down to quickly peck your lips, before continuing to fold her clothes.

You and Christen had been dating for almost three years now, having met after you’d photographed one of the USWNT’s matches. You instantly felt an attraction to the curly-haired forward, your camera always drifting towards her wherever she was on the pitch.

After you’d posted a couple of your photos on your Instagram, which Christen made a point to like and repost, you gathered up the courage to approach her after a game, and thus began your relationship.

With yours and Christen’s busy schedules, it was sometimes hard to find time for each other, but you made it work, sharing an apartment in Portland during the offseason and flying out for matches when you could. But being a sports photographer did have its benefits, as your work often led you to spending more time with your girlfriend and admiring her speed down the field and score goals.

But now, with the pandemic, as the NWSL was struggling to field games, you found yourself with little work. Christen herself was not quite satisfied with the league’s plan for the season, so when Tobin proposed the idea of going to the WSL, she desperately wanted to, yearning to get back on the pitch.

At first, when Christen approached you with the subject, you immediately opposed, not wanting to be so far from your girlfriend for such a long amount of time. Additionally, with COVID, it would be nearly, if not completely, impossible for you to visit. But after a blowout fight and discussing it further, you realized that this is what would be best for Christen and her career.

“Do you have to go?” You pout, sitting up and moving to the end of the bed.

“You know I do, (Y/N/N).” Christen playfully rolls her eyes.

“Humph.”

“Babe, come on, don’t make me feel worse about leaving you.”

“Then don’t,” you quip, grabbing your girlfriend by the waist, pulling her down on the bed with you.

“Babe!” Christen squeals, as you blow raspberries into her skin.

You lift your head from the crook of her neck, your eyes locking with hers. “I know that you have to go,” you admit seriously. “Doesn’t mean I like it, but I know that this is what’s best for your career.”

“Thank you, (Y/N),” she says earnestly, giving you a small smile. “We’ll text and FaceTime everyday.”

“I’m holding you to that.” You cup her face and bring her in for a kiss, savoring the feeling of her soft lips on yours. “I also know that you’re gonna kill it over there in Manchester. The WSL isn’t gonna know what hit them.”

Christen ducks her bashfully, a small blush arising on her cheeks. “You know I love you, right?”

“Of course, Chris. I love you, too.”

“Good.” She gives you a quick peck, as she gets up from the bed. “Now, either quit bothering me or help me. My flight is early tomorrow morning, and I haven’t even finished packing.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

—————

It had been a little over five months since you’d dropped Christen off at the airport and she left for Manchester. Despite the constant texting and the nightly FaceTime calls, you couldn’t help but ache for your girlfriend. Without her, the apartment was lonelier and the bed felt bigger.

It had helped that your work had started back up, first with some freelance work and then with the NWSL fall series starting, which gave you something to do and kept you fairly busy.

Currently, you were sitting at the kitchen counter, sipping on a cup of coffee, as you edited some photos for the Thorns. Just as you were saving your work and closing Lightroom, about to shut your computer, a ping alerts a new email in your inbox.

Switching tabs, you notice the message is from an unfamiliar address, so you presume it’s a new client. You click and open it, your eyes widening, as you scan the email:

Ms. (Y/L/N),

I noticed your professional portfolio through many referrals, particularly your work form the World Cup. I am writing on behalf of the BBC News Media Centre, and we’re looking for an excellent sports photographer to join the team, specifically to cover the FA Women’s Super League and the Premier League.

Your experience is outstanding, adn your work speaks for itself. I think you’d be a great fit for this role, and I’d love to tell you more about it and hear more from you.

Would you like to set up a phone or Zoom call soon? If so, let me know when you’re available.

Best,

Charles Smith

Director of Media Relations at BBC Sport

You quickly reread the email, and then reread it again, just to make sure you’re not dreaming. This was too good to be true. But you shake yourself out of your stupor and quickly type out a response to set up a phone call as soon as possible.

After hitting send, you shut your computer with excitement and throw your hands up in the air.

“Yes!” You exclaim into the empty apartment, as you throw your fist in the air and jump off the barstool.

Knowing you needed to distract yourself, otherwise you’d just be staring at your computer, eagerly awaiting the response, you decided to go on a run.

Jogging through the city, you think of your girlfriend and your potential reunion if this job offer worked out. You decided that if you did in fact take this position, you’d surprise Christen at one of her matches, hopefully one that you’d be able to photograph.

As soon as you arrive back in your apartment, you make a beeline for your laptop. You anxiously open your inbox and beam when you see Charles had replied to set up a Zoom call at 9:30 tomorrow morning. You excitedly type out pleasantries, telling him you’re looking forward to it.

For the rest of the afternoon, you were in an increasingly good mood. So later that evening, when Christen called you for your routine FaceTime, she could tell something was up.

“Why do you keep smiling like that?”

“Can I not be happy to talk to my girlfriend?” You tease, a huge grin plastered onto your face.

“You can,” Christen trails off, not quite believing you. “But you have the weird giddy look you get when something’s up?”

“Nothing’s up. Just had a good day,” you shrug nonchalantly.

“Okay,” the forward accepts, still eyeing you suspiciously. “Anyways, you know She Believes is in a couple weeks, are you working the tournament?”

“Yup,” you nod and make a mental note to mention that to Charles tomorrow.

The two of you continue updating each other, chatting about topics ranging from what you had for breakfast that day to re-inc’s upcoming drop.

“Alright,” Christen yawns. “I think I’m gonna call it a night.”

You check your phone and see it’s 5:37 pm, meaning it’s almost midnight in Manchester.

“Okay,” your eyes softening at the sight of your sleepy girlfriend. “Good night, Chris. I love you.”

“Love you, too, babe. G’night.”

After ending the call and shutting your laptop, you head into the kitchen to make some dinner for yourself, getting on with your evening.

—————

The next morning, you anxiously await for Charles to begin the Zoom call, nervously bouncing your knee and biting your lip.

“Hi, (Y/N),” Charles greets, his face appearing on your screen.

“Good morning. Or rather good afternoon?” You correct with a light chuckle, to which he reciprocates.

“Well, as you know from my email, we are looking for a photographer to join our team, and from many referrals, you seem to be a very good candidate,

“So, I was thinking maybe we could look at your portfolio really quickly and then hash out the logistics to see if this is something that could work out.”

“Sounds good,” you agree, as you pull up some of your best pictures and share your screen.

The two of you look through your photos, many from the 2019 World Cup, some of the Olympics, and a few from random NWSL games.

“Well, (Y/N), your work is quite impressive. If you’re ready, and you’re seriously interested in this position, we can talk specifics, scheduling, all that good stuff,” Charles offers.

“I’m definitely interested, but can I just preface by saying that my girlfriend is a major part of this decision, so depending on what she wants to do at the end of the season will impact my contract.”

“Oh?” He raises his eyebrows, clearly not expecting your candor. “Your girlfriend plays in the WSL?”

“Yeah, well, technically only for this season. Her contract is up in May,” you explain.

“(Y/N), to be completely frank, we’re looking to hire because a couple of our photographers had some personal issues due to COVID and had to leave mid-season,” Charles reveals. “So if it turns out that your girlfriend wants to go back to the NWSL, then we can work that out. And if she wants to stay, and you end up liking it here and you fit in well, we can also work that out. We’re pretty flexible.”

You sigh in relief, giving him a small smile. “Wow, thank you so much. So what would my contract look like?”

“Well, we can sign you to three month contract with the option for extension,” he offers, as you nod along enthusiastically.

“That sounds great,” you exclaim, beaming. “And just to let you know, I’ve already signed on to work the She Believes tournament from the 18th to the 21st.”

“That actually aligns with the WSL’s international break, and there are a couple Premier League matches that weekend, but I think we can manage, so that shouldn’t be an issue.”

“You guys are too kind and so flexible. I really appreciate it so much,” you say earnestly.

“It’s really just us being desperate for a good photographer,” Charles jokes.

“Either way, I’m grateful for this opportunity.”

“We’re excited for you to join our team,” he reciprocates. “So, in terms of when you’ll begin, I honestly would like you to come over as soon as possible so that you can get settled and get acclimated.”

“I am honestly ready to start whenever you’ll have me.”

“How about next week? The Manchester Derby is on Friday, and honestly, given your portfolio, I’d love you to photograph that match,” the British man admits.

“That’s perfect!” You were in complete awe of how perfectly everything was working out. Photographing a Man United match as your first job meant you could surprise Christen, maybe as an early Valentine’s gift.

“Great,” Charles smiles.

The two of you discuss and finalize your contract and the logistics of you starting the job. Once everything’s settled and you each have the information you need, you wrap up the call.

“Well, thank you so much, Charles, for this offer, and I can’t wait to see you next Tuesday.”

“I can’t wait to work with you and meet you. See you next week. Cheers.”

After ending the Zoom call, you begin to make a COVID test appointment, book your flight, and arrange your hotel room for the few days that Christen doesn’t know you’re there, preparing yourself for moving across the world.

—————

After landing in London, getting settled into your hotel, and meeting with the BBC team and the other photographers, you were now on your way to the Manchester Derby.

In the back of the black cab, you pull out your phone to text a good luck text to Christen.

It was difficult to keep your surprise a secret, especially when you were actually in England, because it was much more difficult to FaceTime without her noticing your change in setting. You had to make up the excuse that you were swarmed with editing and preparing for the upcoming Thorns trainings.

As you pull up to the Academy Stadium, you hear your phone ding.

Chris ❤️

Thanks babe. Miss and love you 😘

You quickly type out a response, before heading into the building.

(Y/N/N) 💗

Love you too. I miss u too but go kick butt.

The match was exhilarating. Not only were you a sports photographer, but you were also a huge fan of the game, enjoying a good game when you see one.

You watched in awe, the level and style of play significantly different from than NWSL. While snapping hundreds of photos of both teams, your camera would always somehow land back on your girlfriend.

Your heart ached for the curly-haired forward, as you missed her dearly. Until you saw her back on the pitch, you hadn’t really realized that you missed watching her play the game that she’d mastered, her movements around the pitch and on the ball effortless and elegant.

As the ref blew the whistle, signaling the end of the half, you scroll through some of the photos you’d taken, deleting some of the blurry and unfocussed ones.

A smile immediately forms on your face when you see a picture of Christen during warmups with a huge grin on her face. You spend all of halftime editing said photo and putting together an Instagram post for your girlfriend.

About fifteen minutes later, the teams take the pitch and you go back to doing your job. Throughout the second half, you could tell that Christen was getting increasingly frustrated, her team getting down 3-0 with only about five minutes left.

You watch as the players high five and hug each other, and you want nothing more than to run onto the field to be with your girlfriend, but you had a plan to stick to.

As the team goes back into the locker room, you pull out your phone to post a photo on Instagram and then you shoot a quick text to Tobin:

(Y/N)🤓:

toby go check out my ig post :))

Back in the Man United locker room, after Casey went through her post match speech, Tobin checks her phone and sees a text from you. The injured forward playfully rolls her eyes at your message but follows your directions.

Upon opening the social media app, Tobin raises her eyebrows, her eyes widening. She glances across the room to see if her best friend had seen your post, but Christen was minding her own business, changing into sweats after her shower.

“Chris!” The older forward calls over to the other woman. “Have you seen your girlfriend’s Instagram post?”

Christen furrows her brows in confusion. “What? No, what is it?”

Tobin waves her friend over and shows her the post:

Liked by mrapinoe, ashlynharris24, and 638,231 others

yourusername: My muse, my valentine.

“As I sat and looked at her

and the rolling hills she sat upon

I thought,

what amazing luck I have

that the world had created

such beautiful things

and given me the eyes to see them.”

- atticus

tagged: christenpress

- - - - -

mrapinoe: Stunning pictures, (Y/N). Love you guys 💖

alikrieger: These photos are 🔥🔥🔥🔥

alexmorgan13: love this 😍😍

cdunn19: Beautiful!

glennondoyle: Love love love love this!!

ashlynharris24: Holy shit! Are you in Manchester????

↳lavellerose: Was this today??

↳sammymewyy: Oh my gosh it was!

↳kellyohara: Valentine’s Day surprise for Pressy?? 👀

Christen zooms in on the photo in the center, her eyes widening when she realizes that it is from today’s match.

“How did she get that picture?”

Tobin mentally slaps her forehead at her friend’s denseness. “Knowing (Y/N), she probably took it.”

“But that’s impossible. She’s in the States,” Christen states and shakes her head, dumbfounded.

“Actually,” you speak up, stepping into the locker room, deciding to make your presence known. “I’m right here.”

“(Y/N)?” Your girlfriend looks up at you, her mind in a state of shock.

“Hey, love,” you greet shyly.

Once her mind caught up with reality, Christen runs and jumps into your body, kissing you passionately but briefly and wrapping you into a bone crushing hug.

“I can’t believe your here,” she whispers into your neck. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, babe, so much.”

Unwrapping herself from the hug, Christen stares at you in awe. “What… how are you here?”

“We can talk about that later,” you give her another quick kiss. “But right now, I just wanna spend time with you. Maybe we can grab some dinner? You can show me around Manchester, considering I’m gonna be spending a lot of time here.”

Your girlfriend looks at you puzzled, but you just give her a wink with a small smirk on your face.

“Well, c’mon lets get out of here.”

—————

Back at Christen’s apartment, the two of you sit down for a nice and casual, but romantic, dinner you’d prepared along with a bottle of red wine.

After catching up, the forward finally decides to address the elephant in the room. “So how are you here? What’s going on, (Y/N/N)? You said earlier that you’d be spending a lot of time in Manchester, what does that mean? I’m so confused. Not that I’m grateful that you’re here right now and that I get to see you, but I thought you were working She Believes, and—“

“Chris,” you cut off your girlfriend’s endearing rambling. “Babe, you’re rambling.”

“Sorry,” she blushes, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

“I got a job with BBC Sport till the end of the season,” you answer her parade of questions.

“Does that mean what I think it does?”

You nod, while taking a sip of your water. “It means I’m yours if you’ll have me.”

Not having the adequate words to express her joy and excitement, Christen gets up from her chair, walks over to sit in your lap, and connects you lips for a searing kiss.

“I can’t believe you,” she breathes, rubbing her nose against yours. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you quickly peck her lips while rubbing circles on her hip. “But as much as I love you and all this romance, we gotta get going soon.”

Your girlfriend tilts her head in confusion.

“Do the words ‘She Believes’ ring a bell?” You tease. “If I remember correctly, our flight leaves in a couple hours.”

“You’re coming with me?” Christen asks, her brain trying to wrap around the fact that her girlfriend, who she hadn’t seen in almost five months, would now be living with her in England and flying back to the States with her for the next week.

“Of course, Chris,” you give her a cheeky smile, along with a kiss to her nose, as you quote a book Becky had convinced the whole team to read. “You should know by now that I’d follow you anywhere. You’re the only good thing left in this world.”

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #christen press x reader #christen press imagine #christen press imagines #uswnt #christen press

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shindidnothingwrong · 3 years ago

Text

I genuinely cant tell whos more useless at this point, Sumire or Code.

If it wasnt obvious this is gonna be an anti Sumire and Code post, you’ve been warned. Manga spoilers too so if your anime only dont read this.

For starters this isnt really anti Sumire as it is the writing, but given the writing for her is shit I have no choice but to work with what they give me.

Lets start with Code, he was talking mad spicy and his limiters being removed have been hyped up since they were first mentioned, and even before the topic of his limiters came up he was portrayed as still being able to rival Naruto and Sasuke.

He says after he gets his limiters off that now he cant lose to anyone, only to get his ass whooped by a child who looks no older than 8

Code is utterly useless, he was given a huge tip on how Daemons powers work and he still got his ass whooped and Daemon himself says hes the strongest out of everyone, a literal child is somehow stronger than unlimited Code, Isshiki, Naruto, and Sasuke combined. Thats a whole other bag of worms to be discussed later but right now we’re just focusing on Code.

This is pathetic, all that hype with zero pay off, all that big talk just to get overpowered by a child, all that planning yet he couldnt see the double cross anyone with even the slightest bit of common sense would’ve saw coming a mile away. The fact that everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE including Bug has called him useless is a testament to just how BAD he is at everything he tries to do.

Now lets move on to Sumire, self appointed ‘sherlock holmes’, remember all this?

We really should’ve saw this coming when Amado said this, he was right on the money because thats exactly what she is, stupid.

From the very beginning shes been suspicious of him, thats her whole reason for becoming his ‘assistant’, to keep an eye on him and of course to ask Kawaki about Boruto but thats a separate topic. She appointed HERSELF as a spy because SHE was suspicious of him, thats why shes there working with him. Amado even calls her a genius and claims she was such a ‘oh so big’ help to him during the process of recreating and reattaching Kawakis arm, which is an important detail for what Im about to say next.

EXCUSE ME? IRRATIONAL GROUNDLESS FEAR? NO PROOF?

HE TOLD YOU HE COULD RE-IMPLANT KARMA ON KAWAKI WHICH HE DIDNT TELL ANYONE ELSE

HE TOLD YOU HE HAD A HIDDEN AGENDA FOR KAWAKI THAT HES PURPOSEFULLY NOT TELLING YOU OR ANYONE ELSE WHAT IT IS

HES ACTED SUSPICIOUS MULTIPLE TIMES WITH HIS UNUSUAL CONCERN FOR KAWAKI THATS CLEARLY MOTIVATED BY HIS OWN SELF INTEREST

SO HOW TF IS HER SUSPICIONS GROUNDLESS AND HOW TF DOES SHE NOT HAVE ANY PROOF? HES LITERALLY TOLD HER EVERYTHING TO HER FACE!!!!

Now how does this make her useless you ask? glad you asked

Amado put Karma back on Kawaki right under her nose, keep in mind, the whole reason she became his assistant was because she was suspicious of him and wanted to keep an eye on him, AMADO HIMSELF says that she was VERY much involved with the reattaching of Kawakis arm, he says he COULDNT have done it without her.

Now this implies 1 of 2 things

1 Amado was lyin his ass off and Sumire really didnt do much of anything, he just said that to make it seem like she did something

2 Sumire is fkin useless and didnt pay attention to what he was doing like she was supposed to

But lets give her the benefit of the doubt and say maybe the Karma implantation was something unnoticeable, lets just go ahead and say thats true

Explain this then

He not only re-implanted Karma right under Sumire’s nose, but he also put an emergency shut down function right infront of her too that now gives Amado and Ada/Daemon all the leverage that should’ve been prevented.

YOU. HAD. ONE. FKING. JOB. AND. YOU. BLEW. IT.

I dont wanna hear Sumire stans ever talk about her being a genius, her having this grand plan, her being sherlock holmes which the fkin audacity to even put them in the same sentence when THIS is her detective work, I dont wanna hear none of it.

All that true heroine, important role, genius, super spy nonsense is all out the fkin window now, this is absolutely indefensible no matter how much you stan her shes a danm DISGRACE.

Keep in mind to put in an emergency shut down function that’ll effect his entire body he has to put SOMETHING in him, something that’d have to look suspicious for just reattaching his arm and you want me to believe she just DIDNT question it? and if she did and he gave a half assed answer she just went along with it? she didnt tell nobody?

Fucking USELESS.

But hey dont get me wrong, Im not blaming everything on Sumire because lets be real, none of this would’ve happened if the grown ass men in charge actually PUT Amado under tight surveillance by Jonin like Sai and Hibiki who specialize in spying, interrogation, and intelligence work, hell to be extra thorough assign a Yamanaka there as well to probe his brain if they sense he not bein totally honest with them.

Why was he constantly left alone with a danm child as the only person watching him and that was by her own CHOICE not cuz anyone was suspicious and asked her to spy on him no, she CHOSE to spy on him from her own suspicions, which means if she HADNT been suspicious then Amado would’ve been operating on Kawaki totally unsupervised!!!!

So please dont get it twisted and think this is me putting it all on Sumire nah, there are plenty of other ppl just as much at fault here if not more so, Naruto and Shikamaru being the biggest ones at fault for whats happening because of their complete and total incompetence.

Regardless that doesnt excuse Sumire from any of the blame, EVERYBODY should be held accountable for their role in this happening and that includes her, because she was the only one watchin him, she heard from his own mouth of his ulterior motives and alerted NO ONE, she watched and helped him work on Kawaki and she noticed NOTHING and if she did she clearly still let it happen without telling anyone what she saw to demand an explanation. She kept questioning Amado HERSELF and getting zero answers as if he has any reason to respond to some kid askin questions instead of going and getting ppl higher up who CAN make him talk like the mf Hokage or his advisor or hell even Sai who was RIGHT THERE WITH HER and she STILL kept her mouth shut.

THERE. IS. NO. DEFENDING. THIS.

Sumire and Code are the two most useless characters in this sequel thus far which is a feat I didnt think anyone could ever share with Code but this chapter just proved it can. I genuine feel bad for how Code has been utterly disrespected beyond repair and I feel bad for Sumire and how shit shes been written, be that as it may I dont feel too bad because we’ve been saying this was gonna happen for the longest now but stans kept claiming what a big important role she was gonna have and how she has this grand plan that not only was her role unimportant and simply to point out Amado was sus which everyone already knew, but she also had no plan and she herself admits she wasnt even confident in her own suspicions which is why she carelessly allowed all of this to happen right under her watch. Its a bad time to be a Sumire fan for manga readers right now.

And before you say it, its a bad time to be a Sarada and Mitsuki fan too, practically no one is safe from poor writing in this manga. Its just that as of right now Sumire and Code have it the worst.

#boruto manga #manga spoilers

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www-artforoddballs · 4 years ago

Text

Alright, so notice. Most of you probably know this, since you're following me for the Autistic Levi stuff (thank you, we're closing in on 100 followers!!!!), but people with autism can have "tantrums". I've kinda touched on this in a previous post (it's a full meltdown, but you can see that post here https://www-artforoddballs.tumblr.com/post/644803780958879744/autistic-levi-angstkinda-i-guess-this-is-him). For those of you who DON'T know, an autistic tantrum is not the same thing as what you'd think of in regards to a toddler or kid, it's just the word used for it. This is a mistake my mother and I made when getting the paperwork done while I was going through testing that later got cleared up lol

I had a tantrum yesterday, and so I figured that I could post about Leviathan having a tantrum, since it's still ready on my mind. I don't care if anyone else is proud of me for coping with it as well as I did, since it's a major improvement from last time I had one, but I am proud of myself!...with that in mind, here we go!!

There will be some angst in this post, like the last post in relation to this one, but like the last post, it turns out fine.

However.

Trigger warning for things such as self harm, both physical and verbal. If you or a loved one is self harming, either reach out to someone for help or reach out to that person to help, yeah?

OK on with the post.

-------------

First of all, Levi's autism is part of why his brothers always agree to help when there's a raffle for tickets or something like that on the DDD messages, because he can get overwhelmed if they don't at least help, even if he doesn't win in the end.

They figured out that his autism was the culprit for this shortly after his diagnosis.

Now when I'm writing for Levi, I like to think that his diagnosis was around the early 1990s since, while autism was a separate diagnosis in 1980, it didn't really start becoming fairly accepted and expanded upon until 1987. Hence why everyone is mostly used to it by now, but are still sometimes off put by his odd behavior; for them, as beings that have been around since...the beginning of the universe, pretty much as far as we know, but for at LEAST since humans were around (so at VERY least 2.5 million years now, but potentially up to around 7 million years (if they haven't been around since the beginning of creation)), this would be like...I dunno, give me a second.

Waiting

Waiting...

Okay, so from 1990(earliest year I have in mind) to 2019 (the year it was released) is 29 years. That's a minimum of 1/86,206.89th of their lifespan, and a maximum of 1/475,862,068.96th of their total lifetime.

So this is a VERY recent development for them on the grand scheme of things, but I digress.

So they're still figuring everything out, especially as the human race continues to learn about the condition itself.

So the first time Levi threw a tantrum and they recognized it for what it was...it was certainly interesting.

What had happened was exactly the situation described; Levi had wanted to go to a concert in the human world and they were raffling off free tickets. Except, unlike now, his brothers hadn't offered their support. They hadn't in the past, why would this time be any different?

Except now they viewed it through a different light. Leviathan had an image in his head that he desired so badly and had asked his brothers to support him, hopeful, only to be rejected at every turn. That he was used to, but it was still upsetting.

He put that to the side, though. He really wanted to see this band, and these were VIP tickets where you got to hang out with the band for a few hours after the concert! They'd cost a LOT of human money, and while they COULD afford it, he knew Lucifer would be bringing hell down upon him if he used that amount of family funds on a concert. And his anxiety was already somewhat raised, so he decided to enter the raffle on his own.

He sat there for hours, waiting for the results to come in. He'd hyped this up in his brain the entire time; He'd win, go to an amazing concert, have dinner with the band, maybe even make some friends....!...and then the results came back. He hadn't won.

As per usual, our snek boi went into one of his rants about how unfair it was, but instead of going on a rampage or something like that, locked himself up in his room and cried, hating himself for getting so excited over nothing.

As I mentioned before, I've made another post about a tantrum/getting too overwhelmed slipping into something even more dire, as that's almost always what happens to me. This would be in the 90s, so this would be their first real incident with one of these moments where they had the proper diagnosis, so bear with me, there will be some angst here, but like the other post, it'll be fine.

So Mammon ends up feeling bad for rejecting his little brother, and, not knowing it was too late, decided to go to his room and offer his support. It was almost Leviathan's birthday anyways, and Mammon knew how rejection felt and how much it sucked. So, he knocked on Leviathan's door.

No response. He knocked again...still no response, but a quiet sob.

Right away, Mammon switched from semi-carefree to worried. "Levi...?"

Again, no response. He decided to just go in and check on his brother...

The door was locked. And he smelled blood.

"Leviathan, I need you to open the door," Mammon said with a half hearted chuckle, his voice now becoming slightly strained. "Because if ya don't, I'm gonna have t' break the door down."

"Just go away!" Leviathan cried from inside his room. "Just leave me alone, you jerk!"

"I ain't goin' anywhere. Either open the door or I'm gonna break it down. Those are your two choices."

A moment of silence, before Mammon sighs, stretching, as he transforms into his demon form.

"Alright, option two it is."

He rammed into the door repeatedly, before the wood finally splintered and fell to the ground with a loud thud. Mammon quickly looked around, eyes widening as he saw Leviathan digging his own sharpened nails into his arms, multiple raked wounds, made by the same culprit, carved into his skin.

"Levi...look at ya..." Mammon said, voice faltering, tears welling up in his eyes. "I...how long has..."

"Just shut up! Don't act like you care about me, I'm the freak of our family, remember?! I'm the one whose brain isn't right, I'm just a shut-in, good for nothing, re-!"

He was quickly cut off by Mammon going to him and hugging him.

"I don't care who you are. You talk about my brother like that again and I'll kill you. Alright? You're a little off, but you ain't a freak, and your brain works just fine as is. You're perfect just the way you are, and if anybody else says any different, I'm gonna beat them the fuck up. Including you. Got that? So what if you've got that fancy lable on ya now...? Labels like that matter, but it didn't change ya. You're still my cringe, annoying as hell little weirdo of a brother...and I wouldn't have ya any other way."

Leviathan fully listened to Mammon talk, before clinging to him, breaking down sobbing again, and trying to explain what happened through his tears, the older demon gently rubbing his back and allowing him to cry it out, making sure no more harm was done.

A while later, once Levi had calmed down, Mammon ruffled his hair.

"Let's get you cleaned up, yeah? Lucifer is already gonna kill me for breaking your door, but he'd be even more pissed if I just left you here with those wounds."

So they did. And Mammon, after telling a VERY angry Lucifer what had happened hours later, had surprisingly NOT gotten chewed out by the eldest brother. Instead, that day, the entire family had a long discussion, and they all agreed that if it was something as small as entering a raffle, or even if it was bigger but not an inconvenience to anyone in the slightest, they'd all help out from then on. It's not like it was hard, and it would save Levi from hours of stress and negativity toward himself and others around him.

They also made a plan for if a tantrum were to happen while someone was around, or if he became too overwhelmed and started to spiral...because, as annoying as he could be, Leviathan was still family. And they loved him, oddities and all.

---------------

Alright, so...that was the post! I hope it was okay. I know I've written about this type of thing before a little, but different situations can end up with the same negative outcome, like being in an overwhelming situation, or not being able to change your thinking and not easily being able to get over your expectations. I've personally suffered with both, and it's a regular thing for me, so I like writing about it, because maybe, just maybe, it'll help someone out, or help someone that isn't autistic understand a friend or relative or classmate or employee better. And I love these characters, I really do. The only ironic thing is that I see so much of myself in Leviathan, but I adore him and despise myself. Go figure 😂

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed, and if there's anything you guys have questions about (in regards to me and my experience), or any specific writing requests, asks are fully open!

Thanks so much for being here to support me, you have no idea how much it means to a little oddball such as myself.

#obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me leviathan #obey me belphie #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me asmo #obey me beel #autism obey me #obey me autism #obey me neurodivergent #neurodivergent #leviathan autism #autism #headcannons #obey me hcs

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soul-dwelling · 3 years ago

Note

Is Soul Eater Not good? I really liked SE for Chrona and the battles but a friend of mine told me that it was non canon and just a very bland version of the original. So I wanted your honest opinion as I really like your post :D

Thanks for liking the post!

I enjoyed NOT, but that’s subjective. And that enjoyment was in spite of what is wrong with it, as I can describe below (slow plot, the kind of insufficient worldbuilding that rather than leave the audience wanting more just seems incomplete, lack of depth to some characters, fanservice crap). I like NOT because it was Soul Eater-related; if it wasn’t Soul Eater-related, I don’t know whether it would be memorable.

(Long response below, covering Crona, the fights, non-canon status, blandness, and other thoughts about NOT. Spoilers for NOT, Soul Eater, and Fire Force.)

Crona remains awesome in both the anime and the manga, but you won’t get Crona in NOT. Medusa is mentioned, I think, in the first chapter, and she shows up in person in another chapter, but she never interacts directly on-panel with any characters, so you never get to learn more about her–or see how what she witnesses in the NOT story influencing her plans to seizing Asura and perfecting Crona.

Hell, Medusa’s sister is the main antagonist of NOT, yet that sister never interacts with Medusa. It would have been so cool to have Medusa's sister Shaula show up, Medusa recognize her, somehow meet up with her later–and the two reach a stand-still. Medusa can’t out Shaula as a witch without outing herself as a witch too, and Shaula can’t over-play her hand without Medusa unleashing the full weight of her power down upon Shaula–and neither can afford a fight that not only gets the DWMA going after them but also the Witch’s Council. That plot has been sitting there for so long in my headcanon, and has to exist in some already published fanfic–and we didn’t get it in the manga at all. We get no more depth to Medusa in all of this–and imagine if somehow Shaula’s plan to infect students with her venom somehow influenced Medusa’s plans for using the Black Blood to infect others.

Whether NOT is “non-canon” is up for debate. I lean towards, no, it’s canon–depending on which version we mean. (And in this post-Fire Force world, jeez, do I really not want to treat that series as canon to anything Soul Eater-related.) The NOT manga doesn’t really contradict anything in the Soul Eater manga–in fact, it expands or ties into certain things (some worldbuilding explaining how weapons work and why we saw certain uniforms; how Jackie learned Kim was a witch; who Akane and Clay are and how they know Sid). The NOT anime, though, changes enough that it’s hard to tie that into the canon of other series, manga or anime. The first Soul Eater anime never really confirmed Kim was a witch, so to suddenly suggest she is in the NOT anime probably confused a few anime-only viewers.

(Although, if we treat Fire Force as in-canon, there is stuff in it and in NOT that, to me anyway, seems inconsistent and would justify saying NOT is now suddenly not canon. Akane refers to the “Great War”: if he meant World War I, that would have been before Fire Force changed our 3D “real world” into their 2D world; if he just meant “Great War” as a generic term, that’s kind of boring. And NOT explained why Death City has such an eclectic cultural and architectural structure–it just is like that–but if Fire Force remade the entire world to already be similarly eclectic, then why would Death City’s design shock Tsugumi? If that diversity is somehow already inherent to the entire world thanks to Shinra’s reboot, why should Tsugumi be surprised?)

Plus, upon re-reading NOT, I had somehow blocked how messed up the “Meme sleepwalks” stuff was, so if you despise “let’s have the underage girl doing fanservice stuff in her sleep for yuri content written by a man who keeps writing this kind of shit,” I would say “skip those chapters,” but, in his typical way, the creator makes that fanservice crap integral to the plot twist and climax of the story. So, yeah, pretty difficult extricating the crap from the story. -_-#

As for blandness: I think some of this story sounds better in the English dub of the anime, than it does reading the manga. Just about everyone in the English dub adds so much more weight and personality to the characters than I got reading the manga pages, although that could be my failure of imagination.

Among the three main characters, I like them fine. Sure, Tsugumi is not Maka–which is kind of the point of her arc in the manga (much more than in the anime, honestly): you can tie your hair up in pigtails, that doesn’t make you Maka, you have to be your own person. Tsugumi is not like other weapons: so what if other weapons are said to have only one meister, that isn’t true, Death Scythes have multiple partners, so why can’t Tsugumi? Anya and Meme get stuck as stock characters, but that doesn’t change that they are still fun characters, regardless how cliche the shtick is. I personally love Anya being the Ouran Host Club kind of character, a rich snob who wants to know how common people act. It’s why her attempts at offering condolences to Tsugui when she deals with a personal death come off as believability and helps show she is a mostly realized person, not just a characterization. Meme’s forgetfulness and sleepwalking gags can get tiring–but at least they lead to the plot’s climax, so you’re kind of stuck with them. And the anime does well at showing her regret and panic over not remembering things she has done.

As for the other characters: Akane and Clay are pretty bland, but their dynamic could have led to more comedic situations–and did a little bit in the main manga’s final arc, when Clay has a bit of an airhead moment before understanding what Akane is getting at about Asura’s madness. Sid, Naigus, Auntie, and the glorified cameos of the Death Scythes and Kid are all kind of there. I appreciate seeing what Patty was like shortly after being brought in from New York City–that was good content to understand just how different she has become since working with Kid.

The fights in the manga aren’t going to top what you get in any of Ohkubo’s other works, whether the rudimentary quality of B Ichi, the plodding dragged-out fight of the final Moon arc in Soul Eater, or (sorry, but this is how I feel) the disorienting and befuddling fights and logic in Fire Force. NOT just kind of falls with a thud: if Meme and Anya are not as well trained as meisters as Maka and others, of course their fights won’t be very impressive. But even when we have practiced meisters like Maka and Akane getting some fights in the manga, it’s just kind of there–the stakes don’t get much higher. The tension only comes from their opponents trying to off themselves: you don’t feel like Maka is really in an engaging fight, you just feel badly because Eternal Feather, possessed and forced to fight Maka, is commanded to kill herself, and you feel devastated that she makes the attempt.

(I’ll add that, yeah, the anime’s three major fights are going to piss people off. The Maka versus Eternal Feather fight is not animated anywhere near as well as anything in the first anime–and it wouldn’t surprise me if this got us stuck with David Pro on Fire Force and now potentially looking to a future where they are going to get any Soul Eater reboot, which is a shame, because I do not want to sit through a David Pro Soul Eater when BONES is more suited to the tone and humor of a well-done adaptation. The Meme versus Sid fight isn’t terrible in the anime, although I feel like it sacrificed a more dynamic approach that the manga gave: the anime doesn’t want to show Sid’s crushed head, so we cover it with debris; the manga just has a giant statue’s tip buried into Sid’s skull, his dead eyes staring blankly, which is more unnerving and, while not as animated [he’s dead–of course he’s not animated], is more memorable. The last fight, against Shaula, falls into a trap of the last-minute power-up by bullshit logic for Tsugumi to somehow get a Witch Hunter-level weapon form that kills Shaula–it’s going to be more bothersome than the “Punch of Courage” whining by some fans.)

Despite how offensive the fanservice around Meme gets, NOT is such a short anime that I think it’s worth a watch–it’s going to be largely inoffensive outside of the fanservice and quick enough to watch. The manga is also quick enough to skim, but asking people to pay for five volumes is a lot, when a lot of those chapters were never adapted to the anime and therefore do not contribute at all to the plot and are the epitome of what people mean by “filler.”

#soul eater not #spoiler #spoilers #fire force spoilers #soul eater not spoilers

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 5 years ago

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Re: Star Wars prequel novelizations - the Revenge of the Sith book is genuinely one of the best things I have ever read and changed my life.

THANK YOU, anon, for reminding me about the Revenge of the Sith novelization. I just reread it, and my crops are watered, my skin is clear, and — I cannot overstate this — I actually remember why I love Star Wars. That love has been for too long stolen by The Fandom Menace sucking the life out of those movies to invent a new definition of suffering while digesting them slowly over a thousand years.

Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover is one of the greatest works of adventure fiction I have ever read, and it continues to inspire the way I write action sequences and character conflicts. It does so damn much to transform a movie that is, to be honest, just okay. There are a couple of big additions from the novel that make the whole Skywalker saga richer, and there are about five hundred little tweaks that deepen the lore in a way that shows that Stover loves Star Wars to the core.

First big addition: having Obi-Wan tell Padmé that he’s in love with Anakin. This is great because yay, queer representation! But within the specific context of RotS, it also sets up the super-important contrast between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Obi-Wan, Stover’s novel makes clear, is the quiet and unassuming embodiment of everything a Jedi is supposed to be: he’s selfless, loving, hard-working, and incredibly skilled with the Force. Obi-Wan falls in love with Anakin, realizes that Anakin doesn’t love him back in that way, and... lives with it. He spends time with Anakin, supports Anakin, enjoys Anakin’s company, and doesn’t act like the world will end if Anakin isn’t his.

Anakin loves Obi-Wan, in a siblinglike way, and he loves Padmé. But he’s got a nasty habit of expressing that love through possession and control, through going behind Padmé’s back to “fix” her life without her permission. Anakin falls in love with Padmé and immediately concludes that he cannot possibly live like this: they must begin a secret relationship, and he must both marry her and remain a Jedi. Later he destroys the Jedi and eventually Padmé herself because he sees himself as having no way out of that dilemma.

And all the while, Obi-Wan is there in the background. Also in love with someone with whom he cannot have a relationship, and just… dealing with it like an adult. Because millions of people are in love with people who don’t love them back, and that’s just how it is sometimes. It’s selfish to obsess over “having” their love at all costs. For Anakin, that obsession with saving Obi-Wan and Padmé eventually leads to him killing them both.

When Yoda tells Anakin that he must deal with his fear of losing Padmé through letting go, Anakin takes this to mean “let her die.” But what Yoda means is not “let her die,” but rather “love her the way Obi-Wan loves you: quietly, selflessly, and with a willingness to do what’s best for her, whether or not that means you get to have her.” And Anakin never understands that, because Anakin’s view of the world is so intensely egocentric.

Second big addition: updating the Force to explain the Dark Side. Revenge of the Sith, even more so than any other Star Wars, is all about the contrast between the Dark Side and the Light Side. Here, Stover’s contribution is brilliant; he makes the Dark Side egocentric and the Light allocentric.

Terminology! “Egocentric” in psych refers to the perspective that focuses on how the world affects you and how you affect the world. At the extreme, egocentric thinking can be believing that a baby is crying in a deliberate effort to annoy you, or that every person in a crowded cafeteria will remember what shirt you wore when you ate there a week ago. “Allocentric” refers to the perspective that the self is one of several disparate elements buffered around by the world. At the extreme, allocentric thinking can be failing to realize that others are reacting to your presence, or viewing your own life as one thing you can give to help others.

Stover doesn’t use those terms, but he does describe how Dooku “drew power into his innermost being until the Force itself existed only to serve his will” (p. 64). Later, Obi-Wan “gave himself to the living Force… the Force moved him, let him collapse as though he’d suddenly fainted, then it brought his lightsaber from his belt to his hand” (p. 285). Dooku ultimately loses his fight against Anakin because he focuses on how everyone is responding to him, and misses that Anakin and Palpatine are beginning to build an alternate alliance right under his nose. Obi-Wan ultimately wins his fight against Anakin because he allows the Force to shove him around, and sets aside his concern with both his own life and that of his best friend while fighting for the greater goal of peace.

Not only that, but Obi-Wan’s understanding of the Force moves beyond that of most Jedi. He compares “the will of the Force” to “the will of gravity,” in essence stating that simply because it is beyond human comprehension doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own rules. One can be a Jedi without needing to understand the Force in the same way one can be a pilot without needing to be a physicist. In RotS, we see that his refrain of “search your feelings” is a way of calling on a Force user to be mindful enough to accept realities that are already evident, if one can only allow oneself to have that knowledge.

Stover also uses these competing perspectives — allocentric and egocentric — to explain why the Jedi Order falls. The tight control the Order exerts over the Jedi moves them away from the will of the Force and toward the will of the Council. Its insularity creates a sense of superiority, which is the reason so many Jedi fail to see their clone troopers as threats until it’s too late. Stover tweaks the Jedi Purge scene to emphasize that the only reason Obi-Wan and Yoda survive is because of their selflessness. Obi-Wan takes the time to befriend his alien mount, repeatedly confirming her well-being, and then she shields him with her body when his troopers open fire. Yoda respects the Wookie command and puts himself in a position to assist rather than lead the resistance movement on Kashyyyk, meaning that when a fight breaks out between him and his troopers the Wookies don’t hesitate to side with him. Yoda and Obi-Wan are the only two Jedi who truly give themselves to the service of others, and thus they are the only two to survive the Purge.

...and the million little favors this book does for the movie.

During the opening battle, having Obi-Wan tell Anakin to “use the Force” to fly a narrow trench and having Anakin roll his eyes at such an obvious suggestion. It’s a callback to A New Hope, but one that drives home how much more the Force is integrated in the lives of Old Republic Jedi than it is in the lives of Imperial kids like Luke.

Fixing the minor continuity error from Episode III to Episode IV — why would Admiral Motti dismiss Vader as following outdated superstitions if there were millions of Jedi within his lifetime? — by explicitly stating that the Sith are considered a dead culture. Ergo, Vader’s “ancient religion” isn’t the Force in general; it’s specifically the Sith creed.

Making Palpatine scarier and more seductive than he is in the movie. Stover’s rhetoric about killing even the Jedi children is frighteningly rational and coherent, and he uses it to give Palpatine some stomach-churning speeches while corrupting Anakin.

Using the novel format for all it’s worth. Stover skims over the physical-comedy elevator sequence in favor of having Dooku and Palpatine discussing their plans for the war. He only tells us about Anakin’s conversation with Yoda after the fact, in scattered flashes as a panicking Anakin runs through the halls of the Jedi temple. He gives us intense focus on Anakin’s mindset while trying to land the broken halves of Invisible Hand, less on what the ship itself is doing. He cuts away from Anakin and Obi-Wan’s final battle, toward R2D2 and C3PO as they struggle to drag a dying Padmé into her ship out of a desperation to find some small way to help her.

Revealing that Palpatine spends the entire story trying to kill Obi-Wan. This gets hinted at in the movie, but Stover includes several moments throughout Palpatine’s “rescue” from Dooku when Palpatine sets Obi-Wan up to die, and mentions like eight other attempts on Obi-Wan’s life as orchestrated by Palpatine. It’s a great character addition, that Palpatine assumes he cannot get Anakin to fall unless he first eliminates Obi-Wan.

Expanding Padmé’s role in the movie (set dressing, and later refrigerator filling) by having her secretly organize and launch the Rebel Alliance right under Vader and Palpatine’s noses.

Those are just examples of how Stover clearly knows the Force, gets the Force, and strives to make the Force more internally coherent. How he sometimes translates, sometimes preserves, and always improves the pacing and tone of the film.

I haven’t even touched on the FUCKING AMAZEBALLS imagery or introspection in the book yet, but this post is getting wicked long, so I’ll go ahead and leave it here for now. Point is, all y’all should go out immediately and get a copy from your library and/or used bookstore, because Nonny is right and it’ll change your life.

#star wars #revenge of the sith #star wars episode iii #matthew stover #revenge of the sith novelization #book review #long post #nothing to do with animorphs #the force #star wars episode iii: revenge of the sith #anonymous #asks

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ebaeschnbliah · 4 years ago

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SHERLOCK’S WEBSITE

‘Reading the document is the same as seeing the author’

This says a Chinese proverb (X). What does it mean then, when John tells Sherlock in A Scandal in Belgravia: ‘nobody is reading your website’?

SHERLOCK: I have a website. JOHN: In which you enumerate two hundred and forty different types of tobacco ash. Nobody’s reading your website.

Some more musings about Sherlock’s website ‘The Science of Deduction’ and its content below the cut ...

Just a little while later in the same episode - while he writes aboout the unsolved plane crash case in Düsseldorf ... ‘Sherlock Holmes baffled’ - John describes his own blog as Sherlock’s ‘living’.

JOHN: Look at that. One thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five. SHERLOCK: Sorry, what? JOHN: I re-set that counter last night. This blog has had nearly two thousand hits in the last eight hours. This is your living, Sherlock – not two hundred and forty different types of tobacco ash. SHERLOCK: Two hundred and forty-three.

‘This is your living’ is basically the same as ‘this is your life’. This is YOU. The way John describes Sherlock on his own blog, shapes how the public eye views the great detective. The same way as Dr Watson did in canon in his stories for The Strand. This fact becomes even more clear during the greenhouse scene in TAB. Although Dr Watson is aware that he doesn’t tell the truth about Holmes, he doesn’t change his stories about him either.

HOLMES: .... as I have often explained before, all emotion is abhorrent to me. It is the grit in a sensitive instrument ... the crack in the lens. WATSON: Yes. HOLMES: Well, there you are, you see? I’ve said it all before. WATSON: No, I wrote all that. You’re quoting yourself from The Strand Magazine. HOLMES: Well, exactly. WATSON: No, those are my words, not yours! That is the version of you that I present to the public: the brain without a heart; the calculating machine. I write all of that, Holmes, and the readers lap it up, but I do not believe it.

If John’s statement ‘my blog is your living’ can be translated into ‘my blog is your life’ - my blog is YOU - what then can be said about John’s other comment, regarding Sherlock’s website ‘The Science of Deduction’, when he tells Sherlock: ‘nobody’s reading your website’? If the document, the blog, the website reflects the personality of the writer, the author and when nobody is reading Sherlock’s website because nobody is interested in its content ... doesn’t this translate into: 'nobody’s interested in who you really are’? I assume one can indeed read it that way, because the plot confirms such a translation as well.

Oh, don’t worry. I know who you really are. I’m never off your website. (THOB, Dr Frankland)

If Dr Frankland knows who Sherlock really is, just by looking at his website - at Sherlock, the author - maybe it would be a good idea to take a look as well. ... the same way Sherlock advices Kitty Riley in TRF: ‘Well, look at ME and tell me what you see ... you can just read what you need’.

First of all, I’m not going to use the external internet website created for Sherlock BBC in this post. @possiblyimbiassed did already a detailed and very interesting analysis of it in ‘The Science of Reduction’. In the comments of that post I tried to exlpain the reasons for my doubts as to whether those external informations - as fascinating and tempting as they are - could lead to a solution for the story told on TV. Anyway, in this post I’m going to look at Sherlock’s website just as it is presented on screen. But what can be deduced about The Sciene of Deduction by using solely informations from TV? There’s not much to go on, one might say ... and as I’m no Sherlock Holmes either, I will most likely ‘miss almost everything of importance’, like John did with Carl’s shoes. But looking at Sherlock, the author, is definitely worth a try ... :))))

The Science of Deduction

Sherlock’s website ‘The Science of Deduction’ can be seen already in the Unaired PILOT when he is about to answer requests from various people. The very first message he is just writing, is directed at his brother Mycroft who apparently contacted him in a somewhat ... ‘impossible situation’. Sherlock’s answer is a quote from canon, probably the most well known and often used statement of the great detective ... in canon as well as in many adaptations:

Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth. (The Sign of the Four)

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? (The Sign of the Four)

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet)

We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (Adventure of the Bruce Partington Plans)

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (Adventure of the Blanched Soldier)

Five more requests wait for Sherlock’s attention. His Inbox is indeed well filled ... at least six possible cases ...

Sherlock answers Gregson’s request about a ‘Church bell theft’. This done, he is clearly pleased about DI Lestrade’s not very informative message ‘Please call me’. When he is about to answer Jones request about ‘Samson and Del’, Mike Stamford and John Watson enter the room and Sherlock stops working through his Inbox.

The next day Sherlock and John meet for the first time at Baker Street 221b. John mentions that he’d found Sherlock’s website the night prior but contrary to Sherlock’s big expectations, John isn’t much impressed (unlike Jeff Hope who thinks Sherlock’s Science of Deduction is brilliant). This scene happens in both versions - PILOT and ASIP - almost identically.

JOHN: Oh, I, um, looked you up on the internet last night. SHERLOCK: Anything interesting? JOHN: Found your website, The Science of Deduction. SHERLOCK: What did you think? JOHN: Quite amusing, I suppose. SHERLOCK: “Amusing”? JOHN: You said you could identify a software designer by his tie and – what was it? – a retired plumber by his left hand. SHERLOCK: Yes; and I can read your military career by your face and your leg, and your brother’s drinking habits by your mobile phone. JOHN: How? SHERLOCK: You read the article. JOHN: The article was absurd. SHERLOCK: But I know about his drinking habits. I even know that he left his wife.

Sherlock BBC, PILOT

One of the small and also strange differences between the two versions is the ‘identification’ text line from Sherlock’s website, quoted by John. In PILOT Sherlock refers to a plumber and his left hand and in ASIP to an airline pilot and his left thumb. “It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles” tells Holmes in The Man with the Twisted Lip and “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important” in A Case of Identity. A lot of such little, seemingly unnecessary modifications and inconsistencies can be found throughout this adaptation. Maybe they are indeed there for a reason?

JOHN: I looked you up on the internet last night. SHERLOCK: Anything interesting? JOHN: Found your website, The Science of Deduction. SHERLOCK: What did you think? JOHN: You said you could identify a software designer by his tie and an airline pilot by his left thumb. SHERLOCK: Yes; and I can read your military career in your face and your leg, and your brother’s drinking habits in your mobile phone. JOHN: How?

Sherlock BBC, ASIP

Why had the profession to be changed from plumber to airline pilot and the body part from hand to thumb, one wonders? Unless it’s because plumbers have to do with water and work down to earth or even underground. They install pipes/tubes or mend broken ones. By the way, in german language the phrase ‘install a pipe’ (ein Rohr verlegen) has the same meaning as the english ‘put up shelves’. Airline pilots on the other hand often tend to be situated high up above the clouds. Well, this sort of topic runs like a red thread throuout the whole story. And that strange change of profession isn’t the only ‘small’ modification from PILOT to ASIP either.

(Strange little changes Plumber musings)

Also interesting ... there are no visuals of Sherlock’s website in the official episodes ASIP and TBB. Only in the following episode, TGG, the viewer is able to take a first ‘official’ look at The Science of Deductions, when Sherlock writes his messages to the bomber. The look of his website has changed completely.

The Great Game: the first entry in the Forum is about Carl Powers shoes and botulinum toxin ... that’s the reason for food poisoning. (Under the microscope)

Next time the website can be seen, is after Sherlock solved the second case and sends his congratulations regarding Ian Monford’s relocation to Columbia ...

And a third time when Sherlock has solved the murder of Conny Prince ...

There is no picture of Sherlock’s website connected to the fake Vermeer painting because this time Sherlock sends the solution not on his laptop but uses the pink phone dublicate instead (Yes, besides 2 Johns, 2 Faiths, 2 Charles, 2 serial killers, 2 empty houses, 2 flights of the dead, various pairs, doubles, twins ... etc, etc ... there are also 2 pink phones present in Sherlock BBC). Anyway, the Science of Deduction can be seen again when Sherlock suggests a meeting with the bomber at the same pool, where once little Carl died, to hand over the stolen missile defence plans ...

There’s no picture of Sherlock’s website in ASIB. The Science of Deduction turns up only in the two short but very interesting pieces of dialogue between John and Sherlock with which I started this post.

John utters the opinion that their clients come to Baker Street just because of his blog. Sherlock reminds him that he too has a website. John then mockingly mentions Sherlock’s analysis of 240 different types of tobacco ash on said website and adds ‘nobody is reading your website’. Sherlock is clearly offended and corrects the number of tobacco ashes from 240 to 243. Some time later John raises the tobacco-ash topic once more, proudly refers to his own blog - and the 1895 hits on it - and tells Sherlock ‘this is your living’.

The next visual presentation of the website can be seen in THOB, when Sherlock shows John the Inbox message of little Kirsty about her vanished, luminous rabbit Bluebell ...

In the same episode Sherlock tells Mrs Hudson that a ‘little blog on the identification of perfumes’ can be found on his website. It turns out that Sherlock hasn’t only extensive knowledge regarding ash, he also knows a lot about perfumes. (Perfumes in Sherlock BBC by @gosherlocked )

The HOUND-episode is also the one in which Dr Frankland tells Sherlock: ’I know who you really are. I’m never off your website’. The Baskerville scientist knows John’s blog as well and is a bit confused that Sherlock isn’t wearing the deerstalker hat, as shown there.

The Science of Deductions turns up next in TRF, in an newspaper article about the recovery of Turner’s masterpiece, the ‘Falls of the Reichenbach’, that Sherlock was able to recover (last line on the left column).

Sherlock’s website is mentioned a last time in TSOT. Not on Sherlock’s laptop but on John’s phone. Mary suggests that John should go on a case with Sherlock. John opens The Science of Deduction on his own phone and asks Sherlock to pick a case from his already ‘bursting Inbox’. Sherlock chooses The Bloody Guardsman. Sadly it’s impossible to get a clear shot of the small mobile-screen. (John’s blog stops at TSOT by @gosherlocked)

THE LOOK

Blue is the main colour Sherlock has chosen for his website ... shades of different blue ... a dark midnight blue and the skyline of a city by night can be dimly seen in the background and - a little bit clearer - on both sides.

As Sherlock Holmes is one of London’s most popular characters, it’s easy to assume that the skyline used for his website is that of GBs capital. With this in mind, the water in the bottom right corner, that can be seen rather good on the first pic above, should be the Thames and the shallow arch above it, most likely one of its many bridges. On the opposite site, in the upper left corner, next to the small, pale tower and right behind the ‘The’ of the website’s headline, the vast vault of Saint Paul’s Cathedral can be dimly seen (the view is better on a TV screen).

If one connects the images of river and bridge on the left with St Paul’s on the right, I guess the background of Sherlock’s website could be a panorama photo similar to the one below. That’s a view from the Southbank of the Thames with Blackfriars Bridge in the foreground. And this location does play a role in the story ....

Blackfriars Bridge is located between Southwark Bridge and Waterloo Bridge. The name derives from Black Freres ... the French 'frère' meaning 'brother'. This referes to the black habits of the Dominican monks. A monk is also called a brother, a nun is also called a sister and the opposite of a ‘black brother’ would be a (ghostly) ‘white sister’. Just saying. :)

(The Roads we walk Vatican Cameos A Christmas Tale)

As mentioned above, this particular cityscape plays a role in Sherlock BBC. It’s a crime scene from TGG.

SHERLOCK: View of the Thames. South Bank – somewhere between Southwark Bridge and Waterloo.

At this place, Alex Woodbridge was found, the security guard and hobby stargazer, killed by the Golem, in the Vermeer case ... the same case which doesn’t turn up in the messages on Sherlock’s website because he uses the pink phone and conveys the solution verbally. Viewed metaphorically ... he speaks through the heart.

Blue is the colour of the sky ... high up, where the aeroplanes fly. Blue is also the colour of the water, deep down below ... where powerful emotions run freely and London is Sherlock’s city. The country, the city, the houses, even cars are closely linked to the famous detective. They seem to represent his ‘body’.

Just put me back in London. I need to get to know the place again, breathe it in – feel every quiver of its beating heart. (Sherlock, TEH)

Brother Mycroft IS government and ‘queen’ at the same time. There are all kinds of networks above and below ground and steam trains run behind fake facades. Saint Paul’s Cathedral and the river Thames are often special eye-catcher. The coat of arms ... with dragon, lion and Saint George’s cross ... make their appearance as well as the great fire of London in 1666, the Isle of Dogs and the Greenwich pips. ‘Transport’ goes from standstill to movement ....

666-The number of the beast Every quiver of his beating heart Saint Paul’s Cathedral Still at the centre of the web From standstill to movement

WEBSITE ... A SITE FOR THE WEB

Sherlock has a website .... John has a blog. Why the difference? Both men, Sherlock and John, are given strongly internet-related nicknames ... Hat-man and Robin:The web detectives ... Sherlock & John: Blogger Detectives. Sherlock is also called ‘Net Tec’ and ‘net phenomenon’. What’s the difference between Blog and Website:

BLOG: The word ‘blog’ is short for ‘weblog’ (web=net + log=logbook), jokingly broken into the phrase ‘we blog’. A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. 'Blog' and 'blogging' are now loosely used for content creation and sharing on social media, especially when the content is long-form and one creates and shares content on regular basis. (X)

WEBSITE: The word website consists of web=net + site=place. Literally web-site means ‘a place in the net’. A website can be used in various fashions: a personal website, a corporate website for a company, a government website, an organization website, etc. Websites can be the work of an individual, a business or other organization, and are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web. (X)

Of course, the word ‘web’ immediately reminds me of Jim Moriarty. The spider at the centre of a criminal web, woven with thousands of threads and Jim knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances. Sherlock is going to monitor the underworld in order to notice every quiver of that web, so he will notice when the spider makes his move.

As mentioned above, all kinds of networks - above and below ground - play a major role in Sherlock BBC. There are Mycroft’s people, his agents and spies. There are terrorists who threaten London with a massive attack. General Shan has a vast network with thousands of operatives and Sherlock calls it ‘a cult’. A surveillance web is closing in on Baker Street, their attention focussed on Sherlock. An Underground network as well as an underground network runs below the surface of the big city. A secret cult of revenging birdes meets in the crypt of a desanctified church. Sherlock is convinced that the ‘world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics’. So many threads - linked and interwoven - they create a web, a net .... a web-net. Basically, that’s exactly how brains work as well. Every brain is a very vast and highly functional biological network ... and Sherlock’s is faster than most ‘... still catching up with my brain. It’s terribly fast’.

Recent models in modern neuroscience treat the brain as a biological computer, very different in mechanism from an electronic computer, but similar in the sense that it acquires information from the surrounding world, stores it, and processes it in a variety of ways. Neurons typically communicate with one another by means of long fibers, which carry trains of signal pulses to distant parts of the brain or body. (X)

And then there's also Sherlock’s ‘own’ network ... the ‘homeless network’ it is called. According to Sherlock, it is ‘indispensible and faster than the police’. Those group of people is based on the Baker Street Irregulars from canon. There, in Victorian London, they are street boys, sometimes employed by Holmes to run errands for him. Holmes speaks of them as ‘division of the detecitve police force’. Dr Watson describes them as ‘little scoundrels’ and ‘half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped eyes on’.

While the idea of homeless people who sometimes assist Sherlock in his cases is taken from canon, the name - homeless network - is not. Names are always important in this story. So basically, what is a homless network? It is a network that has no home. At times it is usefull for Sherlock and he pays them for their help. In a way this reminds me of Eurus. She says abut herself: 'to remember everything one just needs a big enough hard drive’. Her intellectual abilities are also of occasional use for the government. In return she requires treats. Similar to Sherlock’s homeless network, Eurus has no home either. She lost it long ago in her childhood days. Sherlock has a website ... a site, a place in the web ... but only very few people are interested in it. Actually just Jeff Hope and Dr Frankland as it seems. Sherlock has a homless network ... a network without a home.

The women of the ‘cult’ from TAB first gave me the idea that all those dangerous groups ... agents, spies, terrorists and the various networks ... could actually be metaphors for something that happens inside Sherlock’s mind. That all those groups represent the awakening of emotional stirrings ... desires, fears, impulses ... that haunt the great detective. There seem to be aspects of Sherlock’s personality which he views as rightous criminal and puts them behind padded walls or elephant glass. Others are just annoying and distracting. Some he ignores most of the time because he considers them to be irrelevant for his system. Some have no home, although they turn out to be usefull now and then. Then something unexpected happens ... something new is coming ... and this marks the beginning of a change of perception in Sherlock Holmes, maybe a revolution.

The reptile in 221b Underground networks AGRA-Under the sign of four Eurus, the emotional memory & The cold war by @raggedyblue

FOUR MESSAGES and a GAP

Four messages can be read on Sherlock’s website. All of them are from TGG, related to four of the five cases, written by Sherlock and directed at ‘the bomber’. As it turns out at the end of the episode, this person is none other than Jim Moriarty, the spider in the centre of the web.

FOUND. Pair of trainers belonging to Carl Powers (1978-1989). Botulinum toxin still present. Apply 221b Baker St.

Congratulations to Ian Monkford on his relocation to Columbia.

Raoul de Santos, the house-boy, botox.

xxx

Found. The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect. The Pool. Midnight.

Only one of the cold cases is not mentioned on Sherlock’s website, because Sherlock uses the pink phone duplicate, sent to him by the bomber in a strong box at the beginning of the ‘great game’, to submit his message. Sometimes it is useful to ‘mind the gap’ as Sherlock says. Sometimes that, what is left out, is just as important as that, what is there. The ‘gap-case’ is the one about the fake Vermeer painting, whose forgery was first noticed by security guard and hobby stargazer Alex Woodbridge, murdered because of it by the Golem. His body was found at the Southbank of the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge ... the same location Sherlock uses as background for his website. Sherlock discovers and proves the truth due to the display of an impossible supernova on the painting.

A picture pretends to show a scene from the past, but the massive explosion painted on it reveals, that the picture has actually been created much more recently. That massive explosion had never happened in the past.

The bomber’s hostage in the Vermeer case is a kid who is never shown on screen. The little boy transmittes a countdown from 10 to 1, that mirrors Sherlock’s own countdown in TFP (Countdown) while the boy’s plea for help mirrors that of the girl on the plane and also that of Victor Trevor, the boy in the well near Musgrave Hall. Victor Trevor and Musgrave Hall represent two canon stories - The Adventure of the Gloria Scott and The Musgrave Ritual - both set in Sherlock Holmes’ university time, long before he met Dr Watson. Both cases lead back to a time ‘where Sherlock began’.

(Why Victor Trevor was turned into a child by @sagestreet)

THE HOUND & THE GUARDSMEN

Little Kirsty Stapleton’s cry for help in THOB to ‘please, please, please’ find Bluebell, her vanished, luminous rabbit, marks the beginning of the HOUND case. Chemistry, triggered by the pressure of feet, fills the air and drives everyone exposed to it, crazy. Love is in the air .... At the end Jim Moriarty (Mr Sex) walks free, released from his cell by Mycroft Holmes himself ...

Private Stephen Bainbridge’s request in TSOT, regarding a mysterious stalker, marks the beginning of the GUARDSMEN case. Jonathan Small (literally: Jonny Little), a brilliant, ruthless monomaniac (who strongly reminds me of Jim Moriarty), stabbs guardians/facades with a ‘meat dagger’. At the end Mary Watson is pregnant ... ‘stabbed’ by ‘Johnny boy’ (Hamish=James) Watson ... the HOUND hidden behind the facade of the facade .... Matroshka ‘poppets’ indeed.

“Mary – lots of love ... poppet ... oodles of love and heaps of good wishes from CAM.” (Telegram from Magnussen, keeper of the deepest and darkest secrets and scandals,TSOT)

THE BLUEBELL COMPANIONS

Alongside little Kirsty’s message about Bluebell there appear two more requests on the Inbox page of Sherlock’s website (they can be easily read on TV screen). In films neiter images and certainly not texts appear on screen out of coincidence. Pictures are there for certain reasons, even if it’s just for the purpose of a fitting decoration. Texts on the other hand are much more specific. Someone must have had the idea to put it there and someone had to create the image. Especially the makers of Sherlock BBC have repeatedly mentioned that everything that appears on screen has its meaning. With this in mind, what can be deduced about those two earlier requests in Sherlock’s Inbox?

1- Please help victims of China earthquake. It costs just 5p.

China - right from the beginning a certain ‘easterly’ theme appears and runs from there throughout the whole story like a red ribbon until the moment the Eastwind finally approaches in the shape of Eurus. In a metaphorical reading I connect the East to emotions and memory.

An earthquake is a sudden outburst of held back and bottled-up energie. When the pressure gets too high it results in a violent release of that energy. Explosions .... rocks crack, the earth shakes. Earthquakes can trigger landslides, volcanic activity or cause a tsunami. Major changes are also often referred to as ‘earthquakes’.

Costs of 5p ... A penny (p) is a coin and a unit of the britisch pound (£), the official currency in the UK (a currency Sherlock doesn’t know how to spend?). 5p is money. The saying goes that time is money. A minute is a unit of time. Viewing it in reversed order ... money is time = 5 penny are 5 minutes. ‘It took her (Eurus) just five minutes to do all of this to us.’

Reading it that way, a possible translation of the first request in Sherlock’s Inbox could be: “Please help victims of emotional upheaval. It takes just 5 minutes.” :)

2- Re. Mudchute Query

Mudchute is a railway station situated in the Millwall area on the Isle of Dogs. The name Millwall has its source in the large number of windmills built on the river wall in the 19th century. They were needed to ground corn and wheat into flour that was brought along the Thames. The original station was located on an old Victorian railway line that had been disused for many years. An elevated station opened 1987. When the line was extended under the Thames, the station was rebuilt close to the tunnel entrance. It opened 1999 and was finally completed 2009. The station was originally intended to be named Millwall Park but then renamed in Mudchute, refering to the engineering overspill when Millwall Dock was being created in the 1840s. (X)

Basically ... the second request in Sherlock’s Inbox is about a query regarding a railway station, built in the Victorian area at a place linked to mills (♪ Remember the maid ... the maid of the mill ...♪, TAB), disused for years, rebuilt and elevated, named, renamed ... until it was completed in 2009, the same year the Unaired Pilot was created. Well .... that sounds a bit ... familiar?

PERFUME AND TOBACCO ASHES

Appart from Sherlock’s cold case messages addressed to Jim Moriarty and two requests from - Kirsty Stapleton and Stephen Bainbridge - there are only two other entries on The Science of Deduction ... Sherlock’s own analysis about perfumes and tobacco ashes. Basically that’s about ... scent/smell and fire residues.

SCENT: From Kasbah Nights to Claire de la Lune, perfumes play a significant role in this story and Sherlock is a true expert in smellig and recognizing the different brands. The first thing that comes to mind, related to the word ‘scent’ is a dog - more precisely a scent dog. One of the most prominent representatives of that breed is the Bloodhound. And it is well known that Sherlock Holmes is indeed compared to a blood hound in ACDs The Sign of Four. That same quote has been adopted in TEH (Sherlock the Bloodhound), it appears on John’s Blog and is read by Mary. But in Sherlock BBC the bloodhound isn’t only linked to Sherlock himself. The HOUND is also connected to John Watson, Jim Moriarty, Victor Trevor, Eurus and Redbeard the Irish Setter, also a scent dog.

(The dogs in Sherlock’s mind palace The bloodhound in his hands Transformation of Redbeard and the ‘Follow the dog’ series by @sagestreet)

FIRE RESIDUES: Sherlock has an extensive knowledge regarding tobacco ashes. This characteristic has also been taken from canon.

I have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar or of tobacco. (ACD, A Study in Scarlet)

In TSOT drunken Sherlock proclaims loudly ‘Ash! I know ash!’ Almost the same words (‘I know human ash’) uses the guy from ASIB, whose aunt had been among the plane crash victims in Düsseldorf (’Sherlock Holmes baffled’). In the same episode Sherlock steals an ashtray from Buckingham Palace. In TEH Sherlock’s return from hiatus is underlined with at least half a dozen scetches of phoenixes, rising from the ashes, at the walls of the Landmark Restaurant. Another bird that has great resemblance with a phoenix can be found on Brenda’s gravestone at Musgrave Hall (Among the funny gravestones).

Ash is the residue of a fire damage. Fire and burning is one of the main themes in Sherlock BBC. From Jim’s threat to burn Sherlock’s heart out to the gingerbread man burned to a crisp, from John’s Guy Fawkes bonfire to Sherlock’s admission ‘I’m burning up’, from the Baker Street living room in flames to the great fire at Musgrave Hall ... not to mention all the exploding or not quite expoding bombs throughout the show ... fire anf burning is never far away in this story.

(Love is a burning thing A case ablaze Set this house on fire by @gosherlocked)

TOBACCO ASHES ... CHEMISTRY BURNED

Tobacco s the common name for plants belonging to the Nicotiana family. It contains the highly addictive stimulant nicotine. The dried leaves of the plant are mainly used for smoking in cigars, cigarettes, pipes, etc ... Nicotine is a widely used legal drug. The burning of tobacco results in smoke and the residue left behind is ash. Sherlock knows ash. Interestingly and unlike to canon, in this modern adaptation Sherlock doesn’t simply know ‘any known brand of cigar or tobacco ash’, he has analysed exactly 243 different types of those ashes and he explicitly corrects the number 240, cited by John. Is this seemingly unimportant correction just there to emphasise Sherlock’s annoyance over John’s mockery or is maybe another meaning hidden behind that corrected number?

243 ... ‘This is your living, Sherlock – not two hundred and forty different types of tobacco ash’ - ‘243!′

243 different types of tobacco ash are not Sherlock’s living. 243 different, tobacco products - burnt to ashes - are not Sherlock’s life.

As mentioned above, tobacco contains nicotine and nicotine is a drug. Viewing Sherlock BBC on a metaphorical level ... all drugs are chemistry and chemistry is love. The chemistry of love, burnt to ashes ... 243 times over. Hmmmm .... Then an idea hit me and I asked Google a question:

This answer is from January 2020. The first official series of Sherlock BBC aired 2010 and the Unaired Pilot has been produced in 2009. I seem to recall that the first and the second series have been accepted by the BBC at the same time and since 2009 several more Sherlock Holmes adaptations have seen the light of day (Guy Ritchie Holmes, Elementary, New Russian Holmes, Miss Sherlock, Mr Holmes, Sherlock Gnomes, Holmes&Watson, Enola Holmes ... to name just a few).

Could it be that the number of different tobacco ashes, analysed by Sherlock, mirrors the number of different adaptations about the famous detective? Sherlock Holmes ... reborn again and again with each adaptation, like a phoenix from the ashes, and yet he was never able to live a full life ... including emotions, love and sex?

‘All lives end. All hearts are broken’, that’s what Mycroft tells Sherlock in ASIB. Chemistry burned to ashes in an endless row. ‘So many days not lived, so many words unsaid’ ... says Eurus in TFP and referes to the coffin whose lid is adorned with a brass plate, I LOVE YOU, written on it (A coffin for love). You are absolutely right @loveismyrevolution with your idea of Sherlock standing between two ‘angels’ in that scene, although I would rather call them ‘choices’. Because this scene has great resemblance with the three solutions/choices Sherlock has to choose from after the event on Barth’s roof (Solutions or choices).

At that time Sherlock is confronted with two elemental forces ... love and sex. The one is represented by Molly (mirror for John) and the other one by Jim Moriarty, Mr Sex. Sherlock chooses neither one of the two. He backs away and walks a third path. He decides to live a celibate life - married to work - solely dedicated to reason and intellect, represented by Mycroft. That’s why he needs to create a strong facade to hide his true feelings for John. But then, unexpected and without noticing it at first (delayed action stabbing), even this facade gets ‘penetrated’ by John. Love (Rosie) is conceived and this changes everything. (Changing of the guard)

After the first shock (shot), Sherlock starts to go deeper into himself than ever before. He repeats the investigations about himself (the pink case) from a different perspective. Everything that happens in S4 reflects, in one way or another, occurances from S1-S3 ... arranged differently and some new actors are added. For example: the morgue-scene in TLD is a mirror of Sherlock’s fall in TRF ... it’s another Reichenbach. Eurus’ five tasks of Sherrinford seem to be a sort of ‘final distillate’ of Sherlock’s repeated analysis. In the coffin-scene Sherlock is once more confronted with a choice. This time though SEX is excluded. Sherlock has to choose between LOVE or BRAIN. And just as he did after the ‘first’ Reichenbach, Sherlock tries again to back away. At that stage though Eurus doesn’t let him. Sherlock’s emotions force him to go back to the very beginning, to find the truth. What that truth is and what consequences will come from it .... is still untold in this story, as I read it. There’s a final distillation but not a final solution at the end of S4.

“This is your living, Sherlock ... not 243 different types of tobacco ash”

... says John, refering to his own Blog. But is this really the truth? The counter on John’s Blog stops at 1895 in ASIB and the text entry, read by Mary in TEH, is a quote from canon. Already in the first series, in TBB, Sherlock asks John - his blogger/biographer - to pass him the pen and near the end of S4, in TLD, John’s Blog has ‘gone a bit downhill’ and people actually think it's Sherlock’s Blog. This leaves the question: is Sherlock taking over the narrative of his own story now? What kind of story will it be? How will it end? Will Sherlock have to make a third choice in the future? A choice between Dr Watson, the ‘fixed point in a changing age’ and John Watson, who could be so much more than just an ‘eternal’ friend? After all, there are two Faiths in the story, two serial killers and Hamish (Jim, Mr Sex) hides right in the middle of John (H) Watson ... at the very centre of the web, one might say.

Two times John Pairs-Twins-DoubleOHs Double OH seven Bond Air is go The big question and an excellent explanation of the idea about ‘Two-John’s’ in the comments on this post by @lukessense

Will Sherlock BBC turn out to be one more adaptation that ends as a ‘missed oportunity’ ... one more chemistry burned to ashes .... another sample of tobacco ash for Sherlock to analyse and add to his list? Or will it be different this time? Something new ... something big? Will it be the story about the emotional and sexual awakening of the literary character Sherlock Holmes?

Only the future will tell ....

Thanks for reading and thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.

February, 2021

#sherlock bbc #the science of deduction #sherlock's website #reading the document is seeing the author #nobody is reading your website #nobody is interested in who you really are #this is your living #this is your life #messages #inbox #analyses #tobacco #perfume

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blue-bower · 4 years ago

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Lotor Rewrite

I’ve given my thoughts on how horrendously Prince Lotor’s character arc was handled. I’ve reblogged a couple posts that sum up my thoughts on the matter. https://blue-bower.tumblr.com/post/185061129226 https://blue-bower.tumblr.com/post/185061352401 https://blue-bower.tumblr.com/post/182574536376 So, this is going to be my personal re-write of the end of season 6, and the events following in seasons 7 and 8. This is not going to be a rewrite of the entire last 2 seasons; I'm just focusing on Lotor (and Allura later on). There's just so many forced/rushed plot points and distasteful choices on the writers' part that it would take an entire essay to break everything down. But ultimately I feel like Lotor - and at the very end of the series, Allura - were given the worst treatment of any character. Also, keep in mind that it’s been four years since I’ve watched the series in full, so I may not be remembering things 100% accurately. But frankly I do not feel like returning to season 6-8 again just to flesh out a headcanon. This also isn’t a fully set-in-stone fanfic or script, just a general gist of ideas. I have several ideas for potential rewrites with various branching paths.

There are two main ways that I believe the end of season 6 could be revamped.

In the first rewrite, the plot twist with the dead Alteans in the lab never happens. A lot of people saw it as a very ham-fisted way of adding conflict for the hell of it. There could (and imo, should ) still be an Altean colony founded by Lotor, and Romelle would still be a character that is introduced to the Paladins at some point. But I feel like the only thing she would really contribute - at least in season 6 - is siding with Allura in trying to warn Lotor about the dangers of messing with quintessence. If she had a bigger part in the last couple seasons, I personally would have liked to see more of her learning magic and fighting from Allura.

In my opinion, there was already a plot element in place that could have just as easily led to a conflict and possible falling-out between Lotor and the Paladins: Giving the Galrans access to unlimited quintessence. It baffles me that no-one at any point even questioned this, or tried to warn Lotor of the possible ramifications of handing over this kind of power to a power-hungry empire. They just went along with it. So I think they should have steadily built up the unease with going through with this plan, ultimately leading to a battle over whether the gate should be destroyed. It could still be revealed that Lotor did have the ulterior motive of starting his own empire, using quintessence for his own gain. But it would still paint Lotor as a sympathetic antagonist, who truly believed he was doing the right thing.

If the twist with the Altean colony & lab has to happen, then at the very least, it should have been given more time to be resolved. The audience should have been given more answers.

So in this rewrite, the confrontation with Lotor and Romelle still happens. She explains what she and Keith saw, she explains her brother's death and sees Lotor attempting to cover up his death. Lotor still looks like a deer in headlights, but also seems to look guilty. He doesn't deny the facility existing, however. Cue his ass still getting knocked out by Allura.

Whether the facility happens or not, season 6 still leads to Voltron and Lotor confronting each other at the rift gate. In the first scenario, Lotor tries to reason with them; he claims that under his new leadership, the Galrans will not be using the rift for evil purposes. In the second scenario, Lotor pleads with Allura to let him explain himself; that he never intended to kill Alteans. Allura and the Paladins are conflicted on what to do, and whether to believe him. Most importantly, though,

Allura does not compare him to his shitty abusive father.

If anything, I think she may point out that he's actually a lot more like Honerva than he's willing to admit. It still stings, but doesn't send him into a violent frenzy or a cringeworthy monologue fitting of a Saturday morning cartoon villain. Allura tries to compromise with him; she says she'll come with him to the Altean colony if he destroys the gate. He refuses.

I can see either of these rewrites branching into two potential scenarios: A solo battle between Lotor and Voltron like we saw at the end of season 6, or an interruption to their confrontation: A fleet of Galran ships appearing in an attempt to claim both the phase gate and Voltron. Lotor and the Paladins are forced to cooperate, and get into a battle with the Galrans. Lotor realizes the only way to get them to back off is to destroy the gate, but he also tells the paladins that his ship can phase into the Quintessence field at will - which prompts Voltron to do the same. He convinces them to phase there with him after they destroy the gate.

In either of these conflicts, Lotor starts to lose control of himself in the Quintessence due to his stress and heightened emotions. In a rage, he starts phasing in and out of the quintessence field in order to attack the Galran fleet outside, despite his own advice on staying hidden. The Quintessence starts messing with his mind, making him start to go power-mad (because let's face it, this scene is still hot).

The Paladins try to get through to him, and Lotor fights off the darkness that corrupted his father. But it isn't enough. Voltron is forced to fight him, and blasts him into unconsciousness.

And instead of leaving him to fucking rot in the quintessence field, they manage to save him in time.

Mortally wounded, they place him in a stasis pod. It's going to take him a while to recover, but it's clear that the quintessence is healing him - and quite possibly making him undead like his parents.

In the meantime, Allura wants Romelle to take her to the colony (or the research facility if that plot point stays), but Romelle keeps refusing, saying it's too hard for her to go back - not to mention the fact that travelling there is extremely dangerous and has the effect of warping time - plus it's imperative that Voltron focuses on undoing the damage done by Lotor creating a rift in spacetime.

I see most of season 7 playing out as normal, since it mainly focused on the Paladins fighting for Earth. I feel like we should have gotten a season 9, because there was just too much going on in season 8 and not enough time to tie up loose ends. The main plot point I would change is Lance’s confession. He does still confess his love to her, but acknowledges that she may not reciprocate it. And she doesn’t. She tells him that she’s just not in a place to move on yet, or pursue another relationship. And he respects her decision.

After Lotor recovers, he isn't quite the same. He seemingly hasn't been corrupted the way his parents were, but his Altean marks are now permanently glowing bright purple, and his eyes are glowing light yellow, mirroring the vision that Honerva had of him.

The others reveal that everyone's actions in the Quintessence had altered time, and two years have passed. He feels remorseful for his actions, but also angry that the Paladins didn’t listen to him. They nearly get into a fight with him because he is still somewhat unstable, and very clearly carrying a massive amount of power within him due to the quintessence, putting him on par with Honerva’s abilities. Allura demands him to take her to the colony, against Romelle's wishes. Lotor’s powerful magic enables them to transport the castle/ship directly to the colony; something they weren’t able to do before because of the massive amount of spacial distortion coming from that region. And again, depending on whether the facility is kept, it can go one of two ways.

They arrive at the colony, and it’s clear that the Alteans don’t worship the ground he walks on the way they did before. Not only do his glowing eyes remind them of Zarkon, but Romelle has been sowing the seeds of distrust in some of the Alteans since the beginning. I know a lot of people were expecting Romelle to be outed as a traitor, but personally, I don’t really see her as the type to try and frame him. I just believe she genuinely disrusts him because of what Galrans did to Alteans in the first place, and she doesn’t feel comfortable with him declaring himself as their new ruler. But hey, maybe there could be a twist that Romelle lied about the facility all along? Some food for thought. But the combination of genuine unease about the half-Galran, and the testimony of what happened between him and Voltron, makes it clear to Lotor that he no longer has their complete trust. If the facility stays: When they arrive at the colony, there is almost immediate distrust and maybe even hostility toward Lotor. As it turns out, before Romelle returned to the Paladins, she told other Alteans what she saw that night her brother died. He tries to talk them down, explain that what he was doing, he did for the sake of Alteans and their future. Some of the Alteans don’t believe Romelle to begin with; others want to banish Lotor. Since he can’t persuade the masses to believe him, he tells Allura to come with him. When they arrive, Allura sees the chambers that Romelle described. When asked about Romelle's brother again, Lotor explains that he tried to save him, and that he never intended to kill the Alteans. He only wanted to harvest a partial amount of quintessence, because it would be the key to locating Oriande. This would make sense as to why he specifically needed quintessence from Chosen Alteans. But somewhere along the lines, something went wrong with the process. Lotor attempted to cover up the deaths, partially out of shame, but also because he knew Romelle already didn't trust him and didn't want more reason for her to lead a revolt against him. Though he feels remorse, Allura calls him out on his bullshit: Covering up the tragedy was a cowardly move. The consequences of Lotor always being the type to leave unfavorable outcomes in the past and keep moving forward have finally caught up to him, and now it’s his responsibility to face his mistakes. At the very least, he gives the Alteans’ bodies a proper burial. The arc ends on a somber note. Lotor is not a hero, nor a villain. He is the culmination of the tragic life that he had been forced to live; for better and for worse.

After this point, it's up in the air as to how the last season (or two) could be rewritten. I can still see a plot with Honerva trying to recruit Alteans to her side in the time span that Lotor was gone, manipulating them into believing that Lotor would have wanted them to continue Honerva’s experiments, and to fight Voltron in revenge for what they did to him. But ultimately, Lotor would confront them and force them to surrender. All I know for sure is that, before the final endgame battle, Lotor would sacrifice himself for Voltron and to protect the universe. Likely in a very intense, emotional battle against his mother. I know that the most ideal outcome would be for him to stay alive, marry Allura, and rule the new Altean colony together. But this series has never been a stranger to death and the theme of sacrifice. If done well, I think a heroic sacrifice - especially from a character that was previously a villain - can have an extremely positive impact on a story. Maybe, in a scene mirroring his first encounter with the White Lion on Oriande (maybe Honerva has taken possession of the White Lion instead of just destroying it?), he would realize that fighting won’t do any good anymore. He’s forced to surrender. And in doing so, frees the white lion, the massive amount of quintessence within him, and all of Oriande. Honerva no longer holds power over the Alteans. And in a tragic sense, it means that she can no longer be accepted by Alteans either.

I’ve been very back and forth on whether or not Allura would still die in the end. I completely understand the fanbase’s frustration with the decision to kill her off. It felt very gross for PoC fans to see a main PoC character die in such an unceremonious manner. It felt like a cheap way for them to pay homage to the fact that Allura dies in the original series. But like I said, if done well, the theme of heroic sacrifice will leave a positive lasting impact on a series. On top of that, Allura has been shown since the beginning of the series to be an extremely self-sacrificing character. She was willing to put her life on the line on many occasions; and I almost feel like the scene with her surrendering to the white lion was foreshadowing her ultimate fate. If Allura does stay alive, then I feel like she would become queen of the new Altean colony, but would still leave on diplomatic missions across the universe. Altea IS NOT RECOVERED after all the space-time bullshit. The universe doesn’t just magically overlook complete time paradoxes to bring back dead planets. Allura and the Alteans have long come to terms with the fact that they will never get their original home back, but they can start anew. But, if Allura does die, then it damn well be a goddamn Iron Man from End Game moment. No cheap off-screen Deus Ex Machina, no half-assed goodbyes. Her sacrifice would leave a lasting impact through the universe/multiverse. We’d need a solid full episode of the Paladins (AND CORAN BECAUSE HOW THE FUCK DID THEY LEAVE HIM OUT OF REACTING TO HER DEATH) mourning her passing. Truthfully, the ultimate reason I believe they both might die is because I’d want to keep the final image of the series (before all the epilogue stuff). It’s such a profoundly beautiful image that perfectly encapsulates the sacrifices that Allura and Lotor made in order to bring peace to the universe.

And that’s obviously meant to be Lotor right next to her. The figure is purple. You can see his hair, boots, even the outline of his skirt thing. Why would they put this in if Lotor was always intended to end up as a villain? The fact that they kept that silhouette after treating his character arc so poorly makes it clear to me that he was meant to have more of an overall impact on the story, but was ultimately thrown to the wayside just so the writers could go “WhAt A tWiSt!!!”

And that about wraps it up. Like I said, there isn’t one set storyline that I have in mind, because I have a few different ideas. IMO literally any path the story could’ve taken would be better than what we were given. If anyone has any suggestions or feedback, feel free to comment/reblog and add your thoughts. Again, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve watched the series in full, so there may be some key moments I’m forgetting. What would you change?

#voltron #voltron: legendary defender #lotor #prince lotor #vld #headcanon #allura #princess allura

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turtlethon · 4 years ago

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"Return of the Shredder"

Season 2, Episode 1

First US Airdate: November 26, 1988 First UK Airdate (Hero Turtles version): January 3, 1990

Shredder re-emerges from Dimension X with a plan to frame the Turtles.

Turtlethon continues with a look at "Return of the Shredder", the first episode of season 2 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987). A memorable and historic episode in many ways, so apologies in advance if I go on a bit! This one is a story by season one's writers David Wise and Patti Howeth, but with a writing credit for Christy Marx.

"Return of the Shredder" is the first episode to air on the BBC in the UK as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles at the beginning of 1990, opposite Mr Majeika on ITV; The TV scheduling equivalent of being the first jobber to lose to Goldberg.

For most UK kids, this would have been the first piece of Turtles media they'd ever seen. And without any knowledge of S1, it raises a lot of questions. As mentioned in the "Turtle Tracks" recap, things like the comic adaptation and trading cards would do a lot of heavy lifting to fill in the gaps. The other notable thing is there's STILL a lot of ninja content in this episode, and some weapons use. It was largely edited out of the Hero Turtles version but the BBC took it upon themselves to make at least one additional edit.

2021 UPDATE: When I first revisited this episode in January 2020, I only had access to a German dub of the Hero Turtles version for comparison purposes. Since then I’ve been able to acquire multiple English language VHS releases of the TMHT edit of Return of the Shredder, so I’ll discuss the changes made in a separate post.

This episode opens with Michelangelo and Leonardo witnessing a robbery while shopping for groceries. They make short work of the crooks and after making their escape, April interviews the cashier about the incident for the Happy Hour News.

vimeo

The German dubbers took some interesting liberties when they adapted the above interaction between April and Burne Thompson.

USA version

APRIL: They're heroes, I tell you!

BURNE: Bushwa!

German dub

APRIL: They're heroes, I tell you!

BURNE: BULLSHIT!

This episode includes the first appearance of Burne's girlfriend Tiffany, whose shtick is that she finds turtles disgusting. She considers anyone that defends them a "lousy turtle lover".

(Tiffany definitely went on to become one of those MAGA blondes that has a selfie of themselves in the car wearing giant shades as their userpic)

We then get a scene where the Turtles explain at length their connections to Splinter and Shredder, no doubt much to the relief of anyone watching the Hero Turtles run.

One of the first major turtle mix-ups here, where Raph is depicted talking at length but has Leo's voice. There's a way better one later on in this ep though.

Splinter has a vision that Shredder is about to return. I'd forgotten about this aspect of his character, where he has some vague mystical sixth sense about things and isn't just a wise old man that got turned into a rat. I kinda hate it to be honest.

Krang teleports Shredder to Central Park(?) where he's approached by two knife-wielding muggers, all of which remains intact in Hero Turtles. Why are nunchucks verboten and knives aren't? Your guess is as good as mine...

Shredder sees off the muggers by chopping a branch off a tree that kinda falls in front of them. They're so impressed that they give all THEIR money to HIM and run away.

This isn't even the only time in this episode that he gets people on-board by just wrecking up the place.

At the Slash-For-Cash Dojo, Shredder encounters Smash, voiced by Peter Cullen in sadly his only TMNT '87 appearance.

Ironically, Smash looks nothing like Smash from famous WWF tag team Demolition (Barry Darsow) but kinda does resemble his partner Ax (Bill Eadie).

Persuasion, the Shredder Way:

1) Walk in to someone's place of business and announce you're in charge now

2) When they object, destroy their property

3) Everyone will be so impressed they'll immediately fall in line

London, Tokyo, Paris, Washington. I'm impressed that Channel 6 is apparently so well-connected, considering we typically only ever see about four people working there

Over an unspecified amount of time Shredder turns Smash's useless students into super ninjas. They're all presented with spiffy turtle shell tunics.

WHO MADE THESE? Was Shredder up all night on the sewing machine meticulously crafting turtle outfits for the entire class?

The fake turtles go on a crime spree that mostly involves Smash karate-chopping cash registers and kicking bank vaults while the others watch, making the time Shredder spent training his pupils seem completely worthless. This soon makes the news, and the Turtles end up being blamed.

Shredder breaks into the asylum where Baxter is being held and they escape. They don't take the guy who thinks he's Napoleon with them, and frankly the rest of the series will be a little worse off as a result.

April's Turtlecom has a tiny satellite sticking out of the side of it.

Not a satellite dish, an actual satellite, the kind that orbits the Earth from space.

Donatello what are you doing

vimeo

I love this scene where the animation just flakes out.

Raphael = Leonardo

Leonardo = Leonardo

"Something strange has happened, now there are TWO Optimus Primes!"

5.1 billion people on Earth in 1988, and only two of them could teach a person this very nuanced method of kicking a door in.

Bizarrely, these lines of dialogue from Burne and April were sampled in Turtle Rhapsody Remix (from the 1990 TMNT movie soundtrack).

A recurring theme of the series later on will be that Shredder doesn’t know where the Turtle Lair is located, but Baxter just found it six episodes in. I guess they had to relocate after this.

Our heroes soundly defeat Smash’s minions and grill him for info. He tells them where Shredder is, and they’re on their way.

The whole thing ends with the Turtles tracking down a kidnapped Splinter, some convoluted hi-jinks involving Baxter's rat-catcher and a battering ram, and the bad guys getting away. Pretty standard stuff.

April exposes the Crooked Turtle Gang as imposters. An infuriated Tiffany demands Burnsie debate her in the free marketplace of ideas.

The show ends with the turtles arguing about who April was winking at in her news report, only for her to break reality by responding from within the TV that it was intended for Splinter.

“Return of the Shredder” is a notable outing in a number of ways, particularly given that it ended up being the de facto first episode of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Putting that aside, it also expands on some ideas developed in the first season about the media shaping the public perception of the Turtles, something that we’ll see more of in the future (in “Turtles on Trial” next season, for example). The idea of the team being framed for crimes committed by someone else will pop up again even sooner, in “Invasion of the Punk Frogs”.

Sadly, neither Peter Cullen nor Smash will appear in TMNT after this. Other Transformers alumni will appear in guest roles throughout the series though. One character introduced here who will return is Tiffany, who we’ll see again next season.

As I alluded to previously, this episode was heavily edited to bring it in line with the BBC’s broadcast standards, in fact it might actually be the most censored in the entire run. Some of the changes made are downright ridiculous, and I’ll cover them in a future post.

#TMNT #TMNT 1987 #Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #Turtlethon #ninja turtles #Return of the Shredder #1988

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thetaylorfiles · 5 years ago

Note

To your anon asking about TTB promises. She promised no second wedding, no male pronouns or male love interests on Lover, a coming out, Karlie leaving in August, no Josh at holidays, no way they go to awards, absolutely would she not include him in her documentary because it woul be about coming out. The list is rather long. The truth is people left over stopped calling her out on always being wrong. And every month for the last 2 years dont worry, its almost over the girls are fine.

Wow. Great memory.

Let’s list all of TTBs lies, promises and predictions that never came true. For posterity.

TTB promised there would be:

[[MORE]]

1. No Joshlie wedding. At all. And no second Joshlie wedding. (Both happened!)

- in fact the plan, according to TTB was: to gently introduce Kaylor to the public.

- announce engagement > call off engagement > have Taylor be seen providing emotional support to a heartbroken Karlie > after a while, explain that spending time together amid this upset made them realize they were more than just friends!

Oops. Never happened.

2. No male pronouns on Lover (several songs with male pronouns!)

3. No male love interests on Lover (clearly a male interest in Lover. And no, London Boy isn’t satire. It’s tongue in cheek)

4. Karlie being “free” in August each and every year. (and many, many more times)

5. No Josh at holidays.

(Yet somehow they seem to be together for thanksgiving and NYE and several Jewish holidays every single year.)

6. Joe and Taylor not attending awards shows together (so far they’ve attended: Golden Globes, Cats premiere, and NME awards)

7. Joe not being included in the documentary (Taylor literally runs into his arms backstage)

8. The documentary would be about Taylor coming out

I remember (and edited to add other peoples recollections)

9. Taylor was supposed to come out after Rep tour was over.

10. Taylor was supposed to come out the day she announced her new single “ME!” In fact, the announcement was meant to be her coming out, but instead was her new single.

11. Joe would be gone before Rep Tour

12. Joe would be gone after Rep Tour.

13. Joe would be gone before Lover Promo

14. Joe would be gone after Lover release.

15. Karlie would be free from Josh literally too many times to count. She always says that the contract is up in August. Then she says Karlie re-ups.

16. Taylor was going to come out on the last day of Pride month but scrapped those plans and instead released her statement about Scooter and Scott. That the masters changed everything so she couldn’t come out.

Now, had she intended to come out, and changed her mind that very last day upon learning of the master sales, she would’ve had to:

- add 4 new songs about a male

- chang all pronouns on lover from “her” to “him”

- remanufacturing every copy (how many DNAs did that need)

- create and chang diary entries

- all this would’ve had to be done whiles Taylor spent the first week of July with her friends on vacation. And while Karlie was on a yacht with Scooter, posting several instagrams documenting it.

- Then she went straight into filming ‘Lover’ video with a man. All this in a matter of a week or two, while on vacation, right before Lover came out. (Thanks to the anon for help!)

17. She claimed Karlie never followed Joe, when in fact, she did after K’s Rep concert. A week later, she unfollowed him. Also her sisters and Josh unfollowed Taylor in that same time frame.

18. She claims that when a beard wears blue, a breakup will occur and Taylor will be free of her contract. That Taylor plans it this way. TTB has said the inevitable breakup is going to happen when Joe wears blue numerous times yet this has never come to fruition.

19. Any time there is an article about Joshlie or Joe and Taylor, ttb claims its ALWAYS “seeding” a breakup. Yet, the breakup never, ever comes. (And no one in entertainment uses the phrase “seeding”. That’s a pure conspiracy theorist term. Like “crisis actor”).

20. She once promised a nervous anon that Josh and Karlie would never actually marry. They’d only be faux engaged to make it all seem real.

21. Claimed that Karlie and Josh didn’t go to New Zealand together over the New Year. Said Josh went alone and Karlie only flew in one day to take all the pics with him- in multiple clothing changes- to get all the pics necessary for the “stunt”. Even though everyone outside of Kaylorland already believes they’re a married couple and the “stunt” got zero publicity.

22. TTB claimed many times no beard would ever attend an important event or red carpet with Taylor. Then Joe went to the Golden Globes with her, then the Cats premiere, and then the NME awards. Oops! Wrong each and every time.

23. When Joe and Taylor vacationed in the Turks and Caicos TTB claimed Joe was flown in for a quick photoshoot and flown right back out. Except the next day, he was still there and there were new pictures.

24. Claimed for MONTHS after the Joshlie wedding that it was a “photoshoot”, not a wedding. That it would soon show up in Vogue. Then it was Vogue Brazil. (The wedding was never in a magazine)

25. She also claimed it was all a giant ad for Dior. The photoshoot would be one big advertisement for Dior. (The wedding was never an ad anywhere for Dior)

26. After several Vogue magazines came and went after, TTB claimed that Josh was having the article and photoshoot put on hold so that they could release it at a time that Trump made a big gaffe and Josh would need good press. The idea being that if Trump messes up, this somehow reflects badly on Josh, though it never has.

27. TTB and Kaylors claim that the reason why Karlie and Taylor stopped hanging out in public was so as not to tarnish Taylor’s reputation by being associated with Trump. Yet, Kelle went backstage at Rep after Trump was elected.

Anyone who knows about magazines or has seen the documentary The September Issue knows that the magazine layout is planned months in advance and articles and photo shoots are put in in a timely manner. Someone like Josh would have no bearing on getting to hold it back. (The wedding never showed up in any magazine and Trump made gaffes constantly).

28. TTB also claimed that they were no longer being seen in public anymore so that the public would start to ask and wonder why they weren’t “friends” anymore. Which would “seed” a coming out story.

29. Ttb claims she’ll have definitive proof this Monday, 9/7/20/, in the form of “tea” she’s been dangling in front of her followers for months now, that will prove the existence of Kaylor.

And she posted a submission that proved absolutely nothing! Just a screenshot of Karlies insta story from May that shows the reflection of one open white umbrella and one closed white umbrella. Apparently Taylor has two white umbrella near her pool in Beverly Hills. Ttb believes this is definitive proof that Karlie and Taykor have been together in LA for months.

This was wholly underwhelming and easily disputable. Taylor’s jet has been in Utah, with Joe posting a few pics of him hiking there. Her jet has also been in RI. Then the jet went to England. While the jet doesn’t prove Taylor wasn’t in BH the whole time, it sure does make it much more likely than a reflection in glass of an umbrella.

30 TTB claims that josh posted an Instagram on 9/3 of a sunset to indicate the sun setting on his relationship with Karlie. A message sent to Kaylors. No divorce as of yet!

31. Going along with the above, TTB also claimed that she expects Joshlie to announce their divorce on 9/4/20 because it’s the slowest in the news cycle. A Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. Yet, no divorce news and Trump calling fallen soldiers “lovers and suckers” is dominating the headlines.

32. Prior to the Kushner biography being released TTB predicted/promised that it would mention Josh’s homosexual proclivities in some way: the bearding or Mikey. And at the very least, it would paint him to be the giant criminal that she claims he is.

Instead it did nothing of the sort. It only talked about how strong his love for Karlie was. That despite his parents being unkind and unaccepting to her for several years, he stuck it out with her. It also addressed her conversion to Judaism.

33. Ttb likes to claim that Karlie never converted to Judaism. She says that because Karlie has never spoken the exact words “I converted” that it means she hasn’t. Despite the fact that many Jewish people have told her that when Karlie told Andy Cohen that she “joined the tribe” that, was, in fact, how Jewish people say they converted.

Karlie has also spoken at length in interviews and her own musings about her conversion. Ttb still refutes this and sometimes will post anons who write in questionable and anti Semitic references.

34. There was a period of time where TTB claimed that Josh needed Karlie as a beard in order to get an inheritance from an old aunt of his. This aunt stipulated in their will that he MUST be married to a woman in order to collect the money. Shockingly (to no one) TTB started claiming this right after josh and Karlie got married.

A few months later, the aunt and the inheritance disappeared never to be spoken of again. Which was absurd to begin with considering Josh is reportedly worth $800 million. Which could be off considerably, but even if it is? Even if he’s only worth $100 million? Yeah, he’s good. He doesn’t need an aunts inheritance.

35. These days (September of 2020) TTB is claiming that Karlie is staying with Josh in the contact for bearding willingly. This is a drastic change of narrative from years past when she claimed he was essentially blackmailing her to stay. For the Aunt inheritance, for not telling the world her and Taylor’s secrets, etc.

**** this hasn’t been updated in a few months. It’s now Dec. 1st. I’ll do my best to fill in a couple more below soon. There’s been a handful or two of lies that need to be recorded.****

36. People Mag announces that sources close to Karlie say she’s pregnant with Josh’s kid. Ttb refuses to believe it until Karlie herself confirms it, though in the past she has specifically stated that People is the one mag you can trust as publicists use it as a vehicle to get the truth out about their client.

36. Ttb stated emphatically and multiple times that IF Karlie is pregnant it CANNOT be a Kaylor baby because it would not tarnished by having a Kushner last name and being tied to that “organized crime” family. Nope. Taylor is in no way involved.

And now that Karlie has confirmed the pregnancy, what do uou know? Ttb conveniently changes her time, forgets all she’s said in the past and seems to be firmly on the “oh, it’s totally a Karlie/Tayklor baby. I thought so all along”.

Now, Karlie is there willingly. And when an anon asked whyC her answer was “it’s all part of the narrative.” As if that’s a sufficient answer.

37. TTB said Joe and Taylor’s career paths would never intertwine.

And now they’ve written 5 songs together. One on which he played the piano too.

There’s a lot more especially about Karlies pregnancy but I don’t have the time or energy to fill it in right now. Back soon to do it.

Anyone else remember anything specific? Let’s come up with a comprehensive list.

#taytaysbeard #ttb #ttbs lies #taytaysbeards lies #pinned post

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grayyxv · 5 years ago

Text

A Comprehensive Analysis of Eustass 'Captain' Kid

I've been wanting to write this for awhile now as Kid is undoubtedly one of my favourite characters in One Piece. Also, I'm majoring in Psychology so I can't help but think about why I love his character so much.

Disclaimer: As we all know, Kid doesn't have much screentime so it's quite difficult to understand his character completely. So, whatever you read will be my own intepretation of his character (based on the little amount of scenes that he has). Of course, you don't have to agree with it but it might give you a bit of a different perspective!

So, withour further ado, let's begin!

*P.s I'll try to make it flow in but it might end up really messy so I apologize for that*

Note: NOT SPOILER FREE!!!

1. Assumptions

I guess I'll begin with some of the common assumptions of his character based on posts/videos I've seen about his character. They frequently refer to Kid as 'cruel' or 'heartless'. Basically, there are many negative remarks about his character that makes him seem like a total psychopath.

Their reasoning for this would be because:

- He mentioned that he would kill anyone would mocked him

- His high bounty = He's notorious & violent

- The way he acts makes him come off as a bloodthirsty pirate

From another standpoint, I can see why people might think that way about him. The way he speaks and acts does make him look villainous. In addition, his primary role in One Piece is to be Luffy's rival. (I'll expand on this point later.) So, one might think that his morals would contrast Luffy. Whereas Luffy is the kind and benevolent pirate, Kid is the 'bad guy' who is cruel and heartless. The question is, though Kid is rival character, why does that necessarily mean that he would be a bad guy? I strongly disagree that Kid is a psychopath and that he is heartless. Firstly, the term 'psychopath' shouldn't be used so loosely. A true psychopath would have no regard for other's feelings which is not true of Kid because he cares very much for his crew. On the other hand, Doflamingo would be a good example of a psychopath. Next, even if Kid WERE a psychopath, not all psychopaths are violent. So it'd be nice if people stopped misrepresenting psychopaths.

Now, if there is one thing I learned in psychology, is that people tend to make assumptions about a person's actions as part of their personal dispositions rather than because of situation. This would be the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). What do I mean by this? Let's take a look at Kid's scenario. He mentioned killing people who mocked his dream. Killing people would make people automatically assume that Kid is 'violent'. But here is a different perspective, what if 'mocking him' had meant that they tried to start a fight with him? Provoking other people repeatedly would cause anybody to get angry. There are many other characters who acts this way as well. Sure, Luffy doesn't go as far as to kill them but I'm sure that many other characters do because they are PIRATES.

In contrast, I think of this situation as Kid standing up for himself. He believes in himself and he would beat anyone up who tells him otherwise. If you think about it, Luffy is kind of similar because he ends up fighting anyone who tries to stop him from attaining his goal.

That is pretty much all the assumptions that people make about his character. It's sad how they don't delve deeper but fret not!! I still have more to say.

2. Pre-Timeskip vs Timeskip Changes/Growth as a character

During Pre-timeskip, Kid is seen as overconfident. I actually agree with this statement quite a lot. His high bounty was a result of his reckless behaviour. He could easily triumph over anyone before the timeskip. That was when he started to become a little too full of himself. Consequently, he suffered heavy losses. His arm was taken by Shanks, his crew was utterly defeated by Kaido (curse you Apoo) and his reputation as the top supernova was instantly lost to Luffy. His true character development was in the Wano arc where we see how he starts to take a step back and re-evaluate his situation. The most obvious evidence for this was when he got captured in Udon. He was quiet (before Luffy's arrival) and deep in thought. So many things had happened to him, you could even argue that he was feeling slightly lost and helpless (not depressed) because he was utterly defeated. The motivation and drive he had in pre-timeskip was shattered- Until Luffy arrived of course. When Luffy arrived, he was battered and bruised but he was still ready to fight. Kid, who saw how Luffy still had his fighting spirit, was somehow inspired to keep on fighting. It's almost as if Luffy is Kid's drive to be stronger.

So, what does this all say about Kid?

I think that this makes his character believable as it can represent real life. There are some points in our lives where we could be the greatest but, sometimes, life can be pretty cruel too. If you get too cocky or overconfident, the world will punish you. I saw a comment that says Kid is Luffy but without the plot armour. That is very true. Kid isn't perfect. He made tons of crappy decisions and dealt which the consequences. I'd say he's as reckless as Luffy, perhaps LESS reckless than Luffy but he suffers more than Luffy does. While Luffy could bask in glory, all Kid got was the short end of the stick. I think that is the reason why I find Kid such an appealing character- because its an accurate representation of real life. Sometimes you can try as hard as someone else but you won't always get the spolight.

The other appealing aspect is his persistence. He made mistakes and bad decisions but he knows that he can't undo them and has to move on. Kid isn't as lucky as Luffy because he didn't have someone like Rayleigh to train him so, he had to put in more effort somehow. The main point is, he had to learn everything the hard way. Yet, he still strives to be the best which is very befitting of a rival character.

3. interactions & Personality

Another thing I frequently see when people Kid and Luffy is that: People say that while Kid makes enemies, Luffy makes allies which is why he has so much support from others around him. I was thinking about this a lot and I can't help but disgaree. I saw another post where they mentioned Kid's MBTI personality is INFJ which made me think even more about that statement. From here on, I will include several headcanons about his character as well.

Let me offer you a different perspective. Perhaps Kid isn't good at expressing his feelings. The way he speaks may come off as cold which makes other people dislike him because they think he is rude whereas he simply doesn't know how to communicate with others very well. Luffy is no doubt an extrovert, seeing how he is easily able to interact with others. Kid on the other hand, if he is an introvert, it could be an explaination to why he doesn't have many interactions with others. I don't see him as someone who's very 'sociable'. So he could experience some difficulty when communicating his feelings. He's shown to be closer to his crew more than anyone else. He is deeply respected by his crewmates because he is sensitive to their needs as well. He isn't the tyrant that everyone paints him to be, he earned that respect by first respecting his crewmates. Also, he would essentially DIE for any of his crewmates. This part is quite self explainatory if you've read the chapter where they revealed what happened to Kid and Killer in Wano.

I just want to add that while Killer suffered so much in Wano, imagine how much it hurt Kid to see his first mate suffer and how he couldn't do anything about it. The expression on his face is perfectly the anger he had towards Kaido, Apoo and more importantly, HIMSELF for not being strong enough. Yet, people call him heartless though he would literally die for Killer.

But anyways, Kid is an excellent listener and he cares very deeply for people he is close to. I just think he's bad at communicating. Look at the way he talks to Luffy. In Wano, you can see how Kid actually does LIKE Luffy as a rival. He just has trouble expressing himself. Anyways, this is just a headcanon but I think that he's rather sensitive to other's feelings- Especially when it comes to his crew. I really like the idea that he's an INFJ because he seems more like the 'advocate' type of character. I still think he makes a very good leader but his approach would contrast Luffy's.

4. Intelligence

I could probaly go on forever about why I love Kid but this is another thing that I see about Kid and kind of annoys me. I'm not sure why everyone seems to think he's a dumbass. Like REALLY. I think he's pretty intelligent. He even kept tabs on the whole SMILE situation and Doflamingo and planned the alliance. He IS intelligent but his recklessness just makes him seem like an idiot.

Kid isn't perfect, he is flawed just like a real human being would be. By no means is he a GOOD person but I don't think he is as 'cruel' or 'bad' as people paint him to be. He cares a lot for his crew. He is very driven by his own personal values and he wouldn't 'change' for anyone. He believes in himself and if anyone tells him otherwise, he would simply beat them up. He isn't happy go lucky like Luffy, he is much deeper than that. He would consider his options and plan- to a certain extent because he is also quite idealistic. Hence, the reason why I feel like his character is such an interesting one is because there is a lot of opportunity for him to grow and stray away from stereotypical anime character traits. His character is believable because his personality is realistic, it could reflect a real human being.

TLDR: Stop sleeping on Kid.

With that, thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Anyways, that's it for now! I'll make a part 2 if I feel like I want to add something. If people like this, I'll consider making another analysis for other characters. Currently I have Law, Ace and Sabo planned in mind but we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for reading!

#one piece #eustass kid #eustass kidd #kidlaw #killerkid #kid pirates #eustass captain kid

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sparklingdisneyprincess · 4 years ago

Text

Having Amber know for weeks affected fans view of her and why it was not done well.

In the tags on a reblog of one of my posts, someone mentioned that the scene where Amber tells Mark she knew he was a hero was bad writing and I low-key agree. I plan on doing an analysis on that specific scene later, but today I wanted to get into why the way the writes handled that situation just wasn’t great.

Keeping in mind the context of who the writers are can somewhat explain the thought process behind the decision. The creators of the comic book said themselves that's the comic book very often pokes fun at superhero stereotypes and tropes. One of the main stereotypes in superhero comic books is the main non-super female love interest being upset with the male superhero love interest for constantly flaking on her/being unavailable trope. In this trope the conflict is typically resolved when the female love interest is told or discovers in the moment usually by so accident that the male love interest was the superhero the whole time and the revelation is suddenly supposed to negate all the negative emotions that the female love interest was put through and everything just ends up fine.

In today's time it wouldn't matter if he was a superhero or not. He still made her feel terrible, he still lied. I do think women today wouldn’t allow that to excuse all the hero’s behavior especially when it was evident that said behavior was hurting them.

We know the writers like to poke fun at stereotypical superhero comic book tropes and plot points, and a good way to do that it to utilize trope subversion.

Trope subversion definition:

A subversion has two mandatory segments. First, the expectation is set up that something we have seen plenty of times before is coming, then that set-up is paid off with something else entirely. The set-up is a trope; the "something else" is the subversion.

Pure trope subversion vs Partial trope subversion:

Executing a “Pure trope subversion” means to follow the blueprint for “Trope subversion” to a tee. The writer sets up the story with essentially no hints that the outcome will be anything but traditional, and then proceeds to suddenly turn the outcome on it’s head in a way that was unanticipated. In the case of the “Partial trope subversion” it’s the opposite. The writer will drop subtle hints and clues teasing that the outcome will not be traditional for the trope. The hints must be subtle because the writers goal is still to trick the reader into believing that the traditional outcome will occur.

The main problem with them writing it as a pure trope subversion is that Amber ends up looking really bad and that people already didn’t like her as they wanted Eve to end up with Mark.

The set-up of the secret identity relationship trope leads us to believe that the female was mostly if not completely unaware that their male love interest is a hero. They often times are suspicious, but the dots don’t usually get the chance to connect before it’s all revealed. Going with that type of trope set-up leads the audience to believe that it’ll end like it always does. The girl will feel sorry for her actions and completely forgive the hero (even though I don’t find think that’s realistic), so instead of it going in that direction they subvert it. They have the female love interest (Amber) figure it out herself and silently not be in the dark for a period of time till it’s revealed that she knew. This is fine unless it’s written as a pure trope subversion because the traditional trope buildup includes anger over canceled plans, late arrivals, and feelings of neglect. That anger makes the female love interest look completely irrational in the case that she knew! (Though perhaps she was not truly angry over those things after she discovered the truth, but she was angry with him lying and couldn’t tell him that without saying she knew, so she expressed her anger through those situations instead of the main reason??? Hmm, I just thought of that and that’s an interesting theory for another time.) Anyways...

I found that the trope subversion making Amber look so bad to be a glaring issue that should have been weeded out in the writing room. They had to have known how it would be perceived. There’s no way they wouldn’t. The only logical reason they’d do this is if they plan to go through with what I suspected was happening at the beginning of the show, which would be that the writers are telling us that Amber is not Mark’s endgame and that she’s just taking up space until Mark and Eve eventually get together. The only problem with that theory is that they had Mark and Amber get back together at the end of the season which is another trope subversion. In the usual love triangle bait-and-switch trope the first female love interest the male superhero chooses gets booted out to make room for the second girl in the love triangle who he was apparently supposed to be with the whole time, however the writers didn’t got through with that trope. They instead subverted it (whether purposely or not) by having the original couple get back together and setting it up in a way that shows the couple potentially growing stronger, rather than him staying single and eventually ending up with female love interest number 2. The writers even took the subversion a step further by setting the outcome up in a way that showed potential for female love interests 1 and 2 to actually start a beautiful friendship instead of a rivalry.

I’m honestly confused by what the writers wanted us to perceive. If they wanted us to root for Amber and Mark why set them up like that? To prove that they can move past it? But who will support the relationship after everybody now hates Amber? It is contradictory, so I’m very confused. I did write another post speculating that though Amber knew Mark was a hero, she did not know he was Invincible. The theory does shed more light on the situation and it resolves a lot of issues, but it still doesn’t negate the fact that the use of a pure trope subversion in this instance made Amber look really bad. Especially when people would sooner find ways to cancel her, rather than attempt to understand why she did it. To understand someone does not mean to agree with or support them, but it reminds you to humanize the other person, a value we are all owed.

If the writers had not done a pure trope subversion and instead decided upon a partial trope subversion the fallout would not have been nearly as bad. If they had done a partial trope subversion they could’ve allowed Amber to be more patient in some of the later scenes, while showing that even though she’s patient, she’s also very upset. It would show more understanding on her part, however I think Amber was actually already understanding of his situation. What she did not understand was the lying and how it seemed that he didn’t even care enough to lie well. She was hurt that he didn’t trust her and during their relationship she was constantly questioning whether or not he was serious and if he actually cared about her and honestly we questioned it too as an audience! Imagine how frustrated she must’ve been those 5 months out of 6 when she didn’t know why he was lying to her.

Amber and Mark didn’t have any relationship issues that I noticed aside from his secret identity. Their dynamic was interesting to watch in my opinion because Mark wasn’t phased by Ambers weird sense of humor and her having essentially no filter, in fact he embraced it and was also snarky in return. He liked that she has strong core beliefs and clearly enjoyed spending time with her. Even though Amber is sarcastic and pokes fun at Mark she finds his enthusiasm to be endearing and often laughs with and smiles at him. Heck, she even approached him first! They’re just two teenagers dating and it’s nothing too exciting like it’s usually portrayed in media. They text, go on dates, make out, enjoy the others presence without really needing to talk, it’s just nice normal dating stuff and it’s realistic and lowkey, and I really liked seeing it. Upon my first watch of the show I liked Amber and Mark together, but I didn’t see the chemistry. I think it’s because everything about their relationship needed to happen in the span of 8 episodes, but also that the reasons why their attracted to each other are very subtle. They don’t shove it in our faces, they just place it there and if you caught then you caught it, if you didn’t then you didn’t. It took me re-watching the episodes a second time to realize why Mark and Amber enjoy being with each other. The body language speaks volumes when you also pay attention to the little things that go on between them. I’ll probably make a whole other post about it because I think it’s something to talk about, but yeah.

In conclusion either the writers truly didn’t realize the outcome of their choice, the writers knew the outcome and did it on purpose to set the audience up to root for Eve and Mark, the writers knew and set it up in order to later on grow/redeem Amber and strengthen her and Mark’s relationship by having them over come it, or they didn’t think it’d be a big deal due to assuming that the trope subversion would take everyone by surprise and that we’d like it.

(If you made it to the end, I’m impressed cause this was long. Also, shoutout to the person who first brought up this topic in the tags. I didn’t realize I felt some kind of way until I started typing and couldn’t stop. It was honestly kind of cathartic😄 I didn’t tag you cause I didn’t know if you’d like that but, thanks for unintentionally giving me the motivation to write this!)

#Aark #Amber Bennett #Mark Grayson #Mark x Amber #Invincible #SDP reviews #SDP thoughts

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stray-tori · 4 years ago

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TPN S02E04 - Initial Thoughts (anime-only)

viewing + post-ep talk with my friends: Google Drive (sorry, youtube denied me again)

(i) Translations are in the English (USA) CC (including the english bits as well for those who struggle with the audio/language, etc.)

pls validate my efforts and watch it.

there’s some anime-only talk about the adaptation towards the end, I wasn’t trying to be arrogant, just mention it to my friends based on some things I’d heard and without spoiling them about what is different that I do know of specifically. But if you want to avoid that, feel free to!

I definitely said it a bit too in favor of the anime, and obviously my friends’ just got my simplified thoughts on it? Like when they said it makes sense for the anime to move on quicker, but that’s not really what’s different.

So yeah, please forgive the dubious things in that segment, I really just didn’t think about my words a lot.

. Random thoughts

The fish bug scenes were delightful TvT Also the animation during them trying to grab them???

The OST during Isabella’s scenes???? take me

I think we also heard the OST sneak peak from a while ago during the cave confrontation with the army force human

Don is a useless nightwatch, goddamn it Don

Don is an epic chairman.

Loved the shot of Ray shooting at the big demon (why didn’t Emma get a cool shot? :THONK:), very dynamic, very epic.

Also them running together to push the man off the cliff was... something haha.

I’m losing my mind that we’re actually just ending on the way ep1 started. Same animation loops too, eh. to be expected, and obviously adjusted for different clothing and items but. still as someone who wants to praise for not re-using animation, rip.

EMMA HAVING SLEEPING CHILDREN AROUND HER AWWWW

Eyy Ray took a bath with the others too, yay

. The bunker

So, the twist was that there was really.... no twist at all. Minerva was a good guy, he tried his best, he got discovered and chased.

And yet, I don’t think the bunker was previously discovered by the farms, which would at least warrant a “scare” like that, effectively making it a trap. They may have been aware of a shelter’s existence, but I don’t think they’ve been there before.

You could probably assume that the Troup that attacked our characters may have also removed the previous escapees from the scene --- but if that was the case, why leave all of the letters and other things in place. Not getting there immediately is understandable, they seem to arrived by foot (what? do you plan to keep an eye on the children the whole like 5 day march back or however long it took?? dang). So that’s not it.

So: what caused the HELPs? the person writing in the book seems to have been abandoned or more likely, are the only survivor of their group (maybe the only person in the group at all). Now it’d be an option for them to have found this safe haven and decided to just spend their days there, slowly losing their minds and doing the things on the wall. But then the message in the book, on the other hand, seems traumatized and sad, but not as lost as the carvings on the wall.

So either, they calmed down after going crazy and then once they did, they decided to leave.

Or it’s from two different people (or multiple), the one after the “HELP” one probably leaving the uplifting message in the book nearby of the scribbles.

I’m not sure which I’d find more likely, but all in all, I’m not sure why they didn’t just have the demons already know of the place and just have the letter (they probably wouldn’t have searched everything in the place) not be as obviously placed and then boom, they could still have made all discoveries they needed and when they found the help wall, it would have been from children trapped in the room while the men searched the bunker, wanting help.

* Clearly that’s not what they were going for, since there’s also day-counting things, but even that you could have explained by saying, they missed a child and the other escapees convinced them that they died, somehow and so they were left behind, traumatized by their friends being taken back and giving up for a while. It still runs into the same “but how can it be the same person?” doubt that my friend brought up, but I think that it’d justify the shock value of the wall more. Still not really making the whole “HELP” thing add up though, since that just sounds like there’s an immediate threat, when there isn’t. The only other thing I can think of is that the entire wall wasn’t one instance, so the counting could be solitude, the HELPs acute danger and the names probably also solitude. The drawing on the right also makes me think it was probably a child as well, fairly young. Poor kid.

Unless there’s something more to it I feel like it makes a little more sense, but still not a lot (WHY’D YOU LEAVE YOUR SNACKS, BRO) but seeing as we’ve left, I don’t think we’ll get to know.

I’m assuming the way the farm knew now is either a) they were aware but didn’t see any reason to go there unless there were children there, b) they saw the coordinate carvings (thanks Ray) or c) the pursuers contacted the farms (which would make sense, and again, thanks Ray).

.. the farm has a military force???

I also find it kind of funny that the farms have a military force??? Because so far, we’ve never seen them use guns to do anything. Which makes me think they might not be farm-intern but from an outside force, maybe the humans who are more “on-level” with them?

Like, what do they do all day. They’re probably not part of the buff demon guards and.... idk man haha-

. Isabella

Ahh I was happy to see her! I was even happier to be like “hah, prison. Knew it.” and then later reacting to the offer, even though that wasn’t exactly what I called, but damn. the pride. my fucking expression too lol, i couldn’t hide it at all pff.

Her jump in motivation is a little weird, but I do see it as, someone who has basically accepted their fate, and when that gets challenged, the will to live takes over.

I’m also not quite sure how she’s supposed to capture them if she can’t leave?

And then of course there’s whatever they promised her aside from “freedom” (which, if that just means being let outside, good luck ma’am there’s demons everywhere) - or is the transportation to the human world included? :D

Based on her clothing in the OP, I might have guessed it’d be “become a grandma” but that doesn’t really go well with the promise of freedom so.... I don’t know where that entire thing is going pff-

We don’t know a lot about what drives Isabella but one of the few things we do know is a) will to live and b) Leslie (????), hence the lullaby in “stressful” situations.

She already got the will to live with the baseline deal, so the only thing I can think of that would make her react more than freedom would be that Leslie’s alive and she can see him if she helps.

I’m not sure if she’s interested in anything else, like how the world works or what she can do for anyone, like.... hm. Of course it could totally be something that we just don’t know yet but yeah I guess that’s my guess.

They probably won’t give up Ray and seeing as she’s more concerned about his brain than anything, I don’t think even if they did allow her to take him with her, it probably wouldn’t mean a lot to her. Plus, why lose another high quality cattle.

I guess it could be, she did seem she wanted to be a proper mother figure, but idk something tells me it’s probably not something like that.

It would also be more “???” than “OHHH” of an reveal. Then again, Leslie is also an obvious choice so.

Maybe it’s something entirely new, we’ll see :D

. The possibily wrong date

So when Anna writes a journal thingy, we see this

And, well, their escape happened in January 2046, so... for that to be true, somewhere along the line, an entire year would have had to pass.

I’m assume this is a production error because

they didn’t get to harvest once

they wouldn’t wait a year to talk about the plan to go back

Ray wouldn’t need an ear patch for so long, he only has a cut

the montage only showed 22nd and 23rd, if an entire year had passed, we’d have been shown more varied dates, etc.

then it makes even less sense for why the army shows up one year later out of nowhere :D

...

Smh, CloverWorks, what can you even do right.

Yee, thanks for reading!

#tpn anime #tpn s2 #tpn anime-only #tpn isabella #tpn anime spoilers #tpn #tori has opinions #tori talks

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