#after seeing the really bad live action series trailer i had to draw

[millaneyy]

Why TOTK Ganondorf is the best Ganondorf in the series

This became a bit of an essay by accident hehe

Goes without saying: HUGE MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL BOSS AND ENTIRE STORY!!! All the gifs used are my own, and even though they're a bit crunchy, feel free to use them as you wish!

Anyways, starting at the start.

The Character

I'm not exactly a long time Zelda fan (botw was my first proper zelda game), and therefore didn’t know that much about Ganondorf before I saw him in the trailer and decided to research the lore like a crazy person. Based off of that, I think that Wind Waker Ganondorf is the best by far.

He had such an interesting aura to him- less like a power hungry madman and more like a wise old king who was also very evil, and his motivation made it difficult to see him as a true villain. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. His whole plan revolved around the fact that the Gerudo people, his people, were left to suffer in the desert while the rest of Hyrule prospered, and he decided to take action. At least, that's what I remember. Please correct me if I have that messed up!!

Anyways, I think that motivation is what makes WW G-man cool- he's a total asshole, yes, but he has this kind of twisted honour that almost makes you feel bad for him. And this brings me to my one little gripe about TOTK Ganondorf- he doesn’t really seem to have a motivation? At least, not that I heard of. So in that sense, he doesn’t really feel as driven as WW Ganon. We never learn WHY he wanted to rule over Hyrule, he kinda just did. He wanted power, that much was obvious, but that was it. On the other hand though, it’s always fun to have a villain who’s evil for the sake of being evil, and it didn’t detract at all from his presence in the game.

And boy, is he a PRESENCE. Some of his lines are incredibly cold- "I will rule. That is what a king must do" WITH THE ORGAN IN THE BACKGROUND AND HIS DEMON KING TITLE ON THE SCREEN, or "Do not look away, you witness a king's revival" (the line that drove the whole community insane for a little while- if you know you know) as he draws his sword with all the confidence of a centuries old evil incarnate.

Even better- "I will be taking far more than your arm this time", as if Ganondorf, through the Calamity, hasn't taken away everything Link knew and loved already. This dude is crazy.

(And a little bonus that I found out about right before posting this- apparently in the Japanese version, he does have a very clear motive? But it was lost in translation? I need to research that a bit more though. If you know anything about that, do tell!!)

Now, with that out of the way...

The Build Up

Thematically, I think that the build up to his fight is pretty awesome, even compared to the other three G's. If you did the entire story (geoglyphs included) beforehand, then you know that this dude:

a) straight up killed someone with his bare hands (he wasn't holding the knife when he killed Sonia, so I kind of just assumed he broke her spine or something)

b) is so powerful that 7 of the strongest warriors in Hyrule WITH secret stones couldn't defeat him, and was only taken down by sealing his power away- which is still only a temporary solution

c) lived on after reawakening despite being an actual emaciated corpse

d) was so busted that even in (kind of) death, the essence of his power (the malice) that leaked out of his seal was strong enough on its own to completely DECIMATE Hyrule

So yeah, I was a little scared on my way down because I knew this guy was going to kick my ass (spoiler alert: he did).

The little gauntlet of monsters to fight as you descend was pretty sick, and serves as a fairly good warmup for the army later on. The silver lynel totally caught me off guard though. As you get closer to the lowest point in Hyrule, you end up amassing some of the most powerful weapons imaginable thanks to all the silver enemies, which got me feeling so goddamn strong! That's important later.

And eventually, getting to the Forgotten Foundation and realising that I was back in the prologue area as that scary music started back up sent chills down my spine.

And the music. THE MUSIC.

Give this a listen (youtube because soundcloud links are jank, sorry)- skip to about 2:00 because that's the bit I'm talking about!

As you get deeper and deeper, the music gets more and more intense- and if there’s one thing I absolutely adore about TOTK, it’s the dynamic music throughout (see example: THE DUNGEON THEMES). The use of music that changes as you go- and this is by far the best example.

At first, you don’t really notice it while you’re preoccupied. You’re more focused on weapons and monsters and all that mess. But the first time I really noticed it was, as I said, when I realised I was in the prologue. The cut up voice clips and the drone in the background are a little creepy, and remind you of what happened the last time you tried to fight this guy,

Then, it starts to develop once you walk past the mural. There’s the choral singing, the drone in the background picks up into something with more melody, and the entire run up to the boss is completely enemy free- it gives you time to let the circumstances sink in as the music swells and you approach the heart of the depths. Also, the music builds as you get deeper and deeper, which from what I know is a subversion from the usual "music building as you climb his tower" or whatever he's in normally. Very nice.

Idk about you guys, but I slow walked down there for the DRAMATIC EFFECT.

At about 3 minutes into the video is how it sounds when you dive into the imprisoning chamber, where it all started (and I'll talk more about the parallels between this and the prologue another time... THE TORCH AUGHHSYWJHFH) and keep trucking on through the gloom, the horror movie piano kicking in as you walk through the final tunnel and stand on the precipice overlooking the dark, unknown pit below...

And jump.

Then the track finally reaches its climax as everything starts to overlap, the bells and organ (i think thats what it is?) screaming at you in the background as you fall, making the song feel like an epic of vengeance. There's so much dread, and an underlying ominous/threatening feeling that encapsulates the fact that Ganondorf is the embodiment of an ancient evil, one that has tormented Hyrule for centuries- but at the same time, there's an element of finality and inevitability, because you're going to put that evil down, and make up for all the grief and the death and loss that constantly follows in his wake.

I mean, just listen to the last 30 seconds or so of that track and tell me you don't feel excited. In awe. Because I deadass teleported back up to the mural just to hear it again.

I think I got a little carried away there, but moving on to the bit you probably came here for…

The Fight

Phase one - The Demon King's Army

Remember how I mentioned that the earlier monsters and busted weapons make you feel powerful? This is basically that x10.

The whole sequence feels very epic, ESPECIALLY after the build up, and with the appearance of the Sages mirroring the attack of the Champions from BOTW, it almost feels like victory is assured already as you cut down hordes of monsters with practically no effort, all while the strings in the background kick in and get more intense with every wave.

This serves to make you feel even more like God- taking out waves and waves of fairly tough enemies made me feel like I was on top, like nothing could stand in my way. It's pretty cool, a good way of integrating the monster army you keep seeing in the cutscenes, and manages to keep the energy from the descent going pretty well, while also being a casual reminder that this Ganondorf bloke can summon world ending horrors at will. ESPECIALLY when the dungeon bosses come back to life and force the Sages to stay behind.

Phase two - The Menace Unleashed

Once again, the music goes absolutely crazy. The first phase feels intense, but still like the fight is only just beginning. Just an ambient drone, near silent as he approaches, picking up as you start to duel. No one is here to help- no Sages, no Zelda- just Link and Ganondorf, a rematch that's been in the making since 2006.

If the army battle makes you feel powerful, then the first few seconds of this fight are what takes that power away- because this guy is a total damage sponge and moved a lot faster than I could predict. Additionally, you can't fast travel outside to heal gloom hearts if you have medallions set up (i thought i was so smart for that too), so if you used all of your sunny food during the army, you're doomed.

Most of his attacks in this phase are fairly simple, with only one or two for each weapon he can wield (and tbh the switching weapons really threw me the first time), but like I said, he goes pretty fast. Therefore, if you're like me and can't differentiate some of his tells, you're also going to lose a lot of hearts very fast. And did I mention he gives you gloom hearts instead of normal damage? Again, no sunny food = death of the instant kind.

On top of the general stress of trying to get the timing down, there were a couple of moments in this phase alone that had me yelling something along the lines of "WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIT"- one of which being some of the tricks he pulls under certain conditions. For example; a standard looking sword attack where he swings once, then as you lower your shield to get a hit in, as you naturally would, he swings at you again. He also kicks you if you hang too close, and fires off some of his gloom attacks faster if you're trying to attack him as he charges. It makes him feel more like an actual person you're fighting, and stops you from hanging close and swinging wildly the whole time.

(i was going to make this a video, but tumblr only lets you add one. anyways, see what i said about him swinging again if you lower the shield?)

As well as that, he taunts and mocks you when you get hit- make any misstep or stumble into an attack, and he'll laugh and insult your skill while he casually walks up to you like the absolute gigachad he is. It's not like the Twilight Princess walk where it feels a bit slow- this walk made me feel THREATENED. Circling in the opposite direction when he circled me with the spear made me feel like a pro swordsman. On one hand, I thought the taunting was super cool as a mechanic! On the other hand it made me want to kill him even harder.

And the other moment that made my jaw drop? This guy. Can DODGE your regular attacks AND FLURRY RUSH. And by flurry rush I mean take a really tough/fast swing at you. BUT STILL.

For as long as I can remember, the perfect dodge and flurry rush have given Link an unfair edge over most enemies and bosses- it's an opening to deal mass damage with no counters. It’s made link OP against everything the game throws at him- up until right now. This highlights the fact that Ganondorf is no pushover- him and Link are evenly matched, and you’ll need some actual consistent skill to take him out. The good news is that your own flurries are still pretty powerful, and 5 or 6 are enough to start the next phase.

As the fight progresses and his health starts to go down, the music starts to build up more (at about 1:25 in the video above)- the barely present drums starting to speed up and get louder, accompanied by sporadic piano, more choral snippets, and an ominous undertone as their duel grows more intense, eventually building to a climax and slowing down a tad (2:45) as he activates his secret stone and transforms, beginning the third phase.

Phase three and four - Master of the Secret Stone

Well this one was certainly something. Once again I jumped out of my seat and YELLED when his health bar started to refill past the normal amount, all the way off of my screen. It just didn’t stop. There are no words to describe the primal fear of realising how insanely busted this dude was. I tried to get it on the gif up there, but that made the video too long to convert :(

The music here is my favourite bit of the whole phase- as you face down the powered up Ganondorf and his phantoms, you hear the familiar but melancholy motif of BOTW/Dark Beast playing around the same time the Sages show up once again to deal with said phantoms (at about 3:22). For a second it's just that- melancholy, encapsulating the same kind of hopelessness that followed Calamity Ganon 100 years ago. But at the same time, as your squad comes to assist, you're reminded of the Champions and their aid, and suddenly it feels like you could still turn the tides of this seemingly impossible battle. Just like you did with the Calamity.

Yes it was cool, and yes I nearly cried.

The phantoms were actually the worst for a minute or so- it takes a while for the all of the Sages to appear and lighten the burden, meaning that you end up needing to take on 2-5 of these guys at once as well as the real deal. This got me killed more times than I'd like to admit. Once all the Sages arrive, the arena becomes a complete warzone with everyone duking it out at once, the real Ganondorf’s attacks start to get faster and harder hitting, and he starts to dodge and rush you more often- even dodging more of your attacks and forcing you to flurry him, so if you don’t have your timing down, this is awful. Not to mention, it's very easy to lock on to the wrong Ganon, which makes it harder to block the real attacks with a shield.

And also, this is the point where he starts destroying literally all of your shields in just a few hits, meaning that if you can't dodge or parry, then it's only so long until you're left defenceless.

Aside from that, this phase plays out like the Phantom Ganon fight in the Castle until you get his health bar down about halfway, when he recalls the phantoms and biden blasts the Sages away, beckoning Link forwards and starting phase four, which is basically phase two again but insane.

This is where the fight- for me, at least- became incredibly difficult, since Ganondorf not only dodges your regular attacks, but also dodges your flurry rushes and counters with his own EVERY SINGLE TIME, forcing you to flurry rush again to hit him. Not only does this require perfect timing, but is also the only way to damage him for the remainder of this fight (unless you cheese it with arrows or sneak in some hits in while he's switching weapons- but the latter is dangerous since he still attacks faster when you're close).

A little video to emphasise the flurry rush thing; the timing for that second dodge had to be dead on. What you can't hear is me yelling something along the lines of "GOD, FINALLY" after dying to this phase many times and mashing the y button like my life depended on it. LOOK HOW FAST THAT MF IS ON THE SECOND ATTACK

The soundtrack becomes super crazy again, this time using the motif of Calamity Ganon/the Blights (starts at 5:00, and you can also hear it in the video above) and bringing back that sense of hopelessness again- but this time with with a strong side of excitement since you're now in the final stretch of the fight. Because the Blights were supposed to be the equal match for each Champion, this bit of the theme makes it feel like Ganondorf is an equal match to Link- which I know I've said already, but that's kind of the thing that's blown me away the most about the whole battle.

It's the fact that you can't just wail on him and spam flurry rushes without him countering you in some way- which in this case mostly consists of him dodging you and attacking back at an insane speed. This isn't like Calamity Ganon where you just hit and dodge for five minutes, this is an actual proper swordfight, and exactly what I'd been hoping for from the final boss!

Additionally, the Blight/Calamity motif (well, more like entire theme) represents his ties to Calamity Ganon, the force of nature that took Link 2 tries to beat (with death included), and it's use in this part of the battle tells you that right now, Ganondorf possesses the same level of destructive power as that thing- and he's sure as hell going to make sure you know that.

As well as the whole "dodging the flurry rush and forcing you to pull it off twice" thing, he also pulls out a few more projectile based attacks. These aren't too bad (WE GET THE RETURN OF ARCANE PING PONG FROM OOT), but he usually follows them up with a quick swing, making them a distraction that takes a while to get used to.

And finally, as a last little surprise, getting hit by any of his gloom projectiles in this phase takes away one of your maximum hearts. PERMANENTLY. Not like the gloom hearts, where you can get them back and then heal. Nope. That shit is gone gone.

Once you finally whittle down his ridiculous health bar, we launch into the customary "massive beast" style phase as he straight up just rips the secret stone out of his head and eats it, giving up his mind, body and soul for the sake of defeating Link, becoming a Dragon and escaping through the top of the arena.

Phase five - Draconified Demon King

So like I said above, the Demon Dragon is basically Dark Beast 2, except it's so much cooler! The cutscene does a great job of highlighting the insane size of this guy- it's like 3x the size of the already massive elemental dragons and emerges from the depths in a way that eerily resembles the Calamity, right down to the glowing yellow eyes. And yeah, that's probably the point, but it's still cool.

Luckily for Link, Zelda/the Light Dragon swoops in and rescues him from the jaws of death (literally), taking him high up into the air so he can attack from above. It's an absolute spectacle, and the epic style remix of the game's main theme that plays makes it even better, instilling the same level of awe that Dark Beast does- at least for me.

Just like DB, the fight has you up against a massive malice/gloom infused monster (the dragon, in this case), getting close and attacking it's weak points and then finishing it off by destroying the secret stone on it's head. There's a lot of downtime, which is kind of to be expected with this style of fight, but I honestly don't mind because these colossal battles are supposed to feel less like a Dark Souls boss and more like a victory lap- like a "you're Link, the legendary hero, slaying this massive beast in the name of Hyrule" kind of thing.

My personal favourite bit of this whole phase is the fact that when you dive down to the Dragon's weak points, Zelda dives down next to you to get underneath and catch you afterwards. So sick. I also really like the use of skydiving! It pairs super well with the music and made me think of that final trailer we got in April- like THIS is the epicness we were promised.

(and also dodging the fireballs was way more fun than slowly sidestepping a laser. sorry dark beast, but i gotta say it </3)

Final thoughts

I'm gonna be honest: I kind of forgot to compare his fight to the other 3 mainline ones, but doing that now would make this way too long! I just love the TOTK fight so much and needed to get it out.

While I'd still say that each Ganondorf (in the mainline games) has their own unique trait that makes them cool: OOT Ganondorf is the original, and the most cunning, WW Ganondorf has the best character and TP Ganondorf is the most evil by a mile- TOTK Ganondorf feels like a combination of those best traits (minus the characterisation) paired with the greatest final boss I've ever seen in a Zelda game, which makes him the best for me.

The first phase in particular was my favourite- wayyyyy back in April when I saw big G in the trailer, my first thought was "oh man i hope we get an actual sword fight boss instead of calamity ganon 2.0" AND MY PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED!!!

Ganondorf literally just rolled up, delivered some cold lines, and then kicked my ass with his cool sword. Many times. And I think that's exactly the kind of boss fight he deserves. I'm just so happy that it feels like we're in an actual duel, mano a mano, instead of just being able to chance a win like with Calamity.

FIN

thank you for reading my zelda obsessed rambles! i just beat the boss last night and have been working on this on and off all day, so any reblogs or shares would be massively appreciated <3

GANONDORF FANS UNITE!!!!

[mayhaps-a-blog]

Thoughts on the Ahsoka trailer:

It looks good! I’m excited. The new Fallen Jedi look really cool, and I’m very curious to see what they’re up to and how they’ll tie in to the story. It’s great to see the Rebels crew back in action, and it looks like they’ll be doing the full Rebels epilogue in live action, which is exciting!

Also, SHORT-HAIRED SABINE!! I was so excited to see her short hair in the Rebels epilogue, and I’m so glad they’re keeping it - there are so very, very few short-haired women on screen, it’s genuinely exciting to see a main character with short hair.

I don’t think she’s going to be Force Sensitive - honestly, the shot of her “using the Force” was brief enough it could be one of several other gestures, cut together with the Darksider to look like a Force attempt. I think she’d been training with Ahsoka to use Ezra’s lightsaber and pay homage to him and learn more about the Jedi to honor their culture. Remember, this is also a Mandalorian Sabine who’s now seen the fall of Mandalore - I can see her clinging to Jedi traditions as a way to keep them alive, now that she’s seen her own culture be destroyed like theirs was.

I’m honestly excited just to see what direction they go with the plot - I can see many ways this could develop, most of which would be really, really cool in one way or another. I’m very excited for Thrawn, and to see him in live action!

(this got... long)

I don’t think we’ll get much of Thrawn in season 1 - it looks to be focused on the Fallen Jedi, so I expect they’ll be the big bad of season 1 and we’ll get Thrawn in season 2 and onwards. We have been promised a twist, so I’m very curious to see if the Grysk will be brought in as a secret big bad. I think that would be neat, and could be a great twist after setting up Thrawn as the big bad in season 1 and maybe 2.

I do think Lars will do amazing as Thrawn - he’s a fantastic actor with experience with the character, and for anyone whining that he doesn’t look like the book covers, 1) No? Those are drawings? This is a real person? and 2) Yes? This is at least 10 years post-Treason, 30 years post-Ascendancy. Characters get older? And they’re still badass?

I’m also very curious what Ezra’s been up to. I wonder if he’s still a Jedi - 10 years stuck with Thrawn, he could very well have Fallen. Now that could be a twist! Heck, he could be dead. With Sabine left chasing a ghost... Not sure Filoni would try and pull that, but it would sure be a twist!

The less good: The costuming is a bit lazy. It’s pretty good considering Disney is getting quite lazy with their costuming, but it’s definitely not as good as it could be - more in range with, honestly, the rest of the Star Wars stuff coming out these days. I do wish Thrawn was a bit darker blue, and had the luster from the book covers, but I imagine that’s tricky in makeup. Still, it’s not bad!

The we’ll see how it goes: Thrawn is almost definitely going to be a villain, and will probably be killed during the course of the show. I don’t think that’s a bad thing - I know a lot of people cling to his book characterization, but I see the books -> Rebels -> HTTE series as the slide of a well-meaning person into fascism. As much as we’d all love to see him go back to the Ascendancy and defeat the Grysk, it’s equally in character for him to cling to his mission with the Empire as the “only way” to achieve victory (consider the sunk-cost fallacy, and tell me that doesn’t fit Thrawn to a T). He’s stubborn, he’s ruthless, and he believes in a strong military and the efficiency of a dictatorship - and the New Republic is a threat to all of that, and a threat to his goal of building the biggest military ever to defend the galaxy from the Grysk (and anyone else who might challenge him...).

There’s many ways it could be done well - acknowledging the complexity of his character and goals and making his darker actions a product of that - and ways it could be done less satisfyingly. I’m hopeful, and I’m excited to see what comes of it!

And, well, there’s always fanfiction.

[delyth88]

Loki episode 5 rewatch

It’s been a busy week so it wasn’t until yesterday that I had a chance to watch Episode 5 again. And I was a little worried I might not like it as much as I did on first watch, but thankfully I did still find a lot to like about this episode.

Spoilers below...

Firstly, I think it’s taken this long, but I’ve finally gotten used to this new variant of our Loki. To this overly emotive, sweetly stupid at times, often bewildered version of the character.  Let me be clear, he is absolutely not being presented in the same was at the first three films, Infinity War, or even Ragnarok. But I’m finding him easier to watch now that I have no hopes or expectations that he will be the Loki I was hoping we’d get to see again.  Sure, I’m sad they didn’t give us a continuation of the Loki we’re grown to love, but this guy seems to be starting to find his feet, and I’m curious to see what his potential is now.

I was again struck by the increased sense of purpose (no pun intended) of this episode.  It seems to be going places more so than previous episodes were. And again I loved the opening sequence and the music as we travel through the TVA and then out into the Void. It did make me wonder whether the destroyed city was actually a version of the timeline where Loki/Thanos win the Battle of New York, and that’s as far as the significance of that set goes.  My hunch is that we won’t see that long shot of Loki from the trailers in post-apocalyptic New York. They opted for the mirror of the Avengers scene instead as the way Loki finds himself in this place.

I laughed at Loki’s little rant this time too. Particularly the line “plus an alligator, that I’m heartbroken to report I didn’t even find all that strange!”.  In fact there were a few moment when I felt we were getting a little bit of Loki’s old humour. Such as, his “Delightful.” In response to kid Loki talking about cannibalistic pirates, “This is a nightmare.” and “Don’t die isn’t a plan, it’s a general demand of living”.

I do wonder though if this is just about comparison with the other Lokis?  Like they’re all so very much more on the extreme end of comical that it makes our Loki seem the straight guy in comparison? *shrug*

After several days I am still taken by Old Loki and his story.  And on watching it again I was able to appreciate the little moments leading up to his fighting Alioth. He gives the impression of being just so Over It and his crazy comics outfit also directs the audience away from how much he actually cares.  For example he is really quite upset at Lokis in general and presumably also himself after the betrayal by Boastful Loki. He says “We cannot change. We’re broken. Every version of us. Forever.”

And he seems quite affected by Mobius’ offhand comment that “it’s never too late to change”.

And then that look back towards Loki and Sylvie as Alioth approaches.

Gah! This is the kind of thing I wanted for our Loki.  I don’t have the right words to describe it, but it’s partly the back story, partly the change of heart, partly the stakes, the emotional depth. I’m really quite sad that we won’t see more of him.  :( 

@scintillatingshortgirl19​ you asked me what I thought of Loki’s response when Sylvie asks, “How do I know that in the final moments you won’t betray me?”

“Listen Sylvie, I…” Loki pauses and takes a deep breath “I betrayed everyone who ever loved me.  My father, my brother, my home.  I know what I did, and I know why I did it. And that’s not who I am anymore. Okay? I won’t let you down.”

To be honest on my first watch I think I just let it slide over me as yet another one of those lines where they keep telling us what we’re supposed to think of Loki (whether it’s true or not).  I think Episode 4 might have broken me – I didn’t even blink an eyelid.  I think I’ve just heard so many people saying things that I think are absolutely wrong about Loki that I’m just… used to it now?  I dunno. Maybe it was just my mood, or the fact that there were enough other things I enjoyed in the episode that I could ignore it.

But since you pointed it out I’ve been thinking about it and after my rewatch I kinda think Loki has been a little bit influenced by recent events and conversations.  He’s just watched with embarrassment several different versions of himself strike bargains and then betray each other, in such an extreme example of this behaviour that it seemed absurdly comic. Boastful Loki even says “I betrayed you, and now I’m king.” And as they leave the Loki fight behind Old Loki says “We lie and we cheat! We cut the throats of every person who trusts us! And for what! Power!”  So I can kinda see why betrayal is on his mind.  

And perhaps this is something he’s been thinking about for a while now.  Since he tried to strike a bargain with Sylvie before he even really knew her. Old Loki ask if Loki trusts Sylvie and he says” “She’s the only one [of the Loki variants] I do trust! “

But I guess the way I interpreted it is not just literal betrayal like he just watched with the other Loki variants, but also letting people down. Letting himself down. In this context betraying his father would be the events of Thor 1 where he betrays his father’s trust by letting the frost giants into the weapons vault (I think he’s talking about Odin here, not Laufey), and then by not being able to be a good king in the eyes of his father or even his own standards while Odin was in the Odinsleep.  I don’t think he would be thinking of the moment where he lets Laufey into Odin’s chamber because he always intended to betray Laufey and save Odin. Although maybe he feels guilt for that too, in terms of lying to his father.  In regards to his brother, I’d consider any of the times Loki is acting against his brother’s interests, in a serious way such as the times that he was evading and fighting against Thor in Avengers, or when he sent the Destroyer in Thor 1 as betrayals of a sort, and the frost giants at the coronation again. And in regards to his ‘home’ I assume from his perspective this is again about the coronation and the events that led to the destruction of the Bifrost and as far as he’s aware war with Jotunhiem.  Perhaps he’s thinking of the moment when Odin says to Thor “... you are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed!” Potentially he’s also thinking of Ragnarok and his actions in causing it after what he read in his file in the TVA. Personally I think he knows it was necessary but still feels a ton of guilt about being the one to actually do it. In this case it’s a betrayal in action but not in heart.

So I think he’s kinda focusing on the guilt he feels. And I think this is why he feels it could extend to Frigga, although he doesn’t mention it I think we as the audience are meant to assume it.  But again, this is in terms of the guilt he feels at a future version of himself inadvertently causing Frigga’s death – as he’s heard this story second-hand from Mobius. You know how if you start feeling bad about something it’s very easy to expand that to a whole bunch of other things you’ve done?  These are the times he feels guilty for his actions in hindsight.

I also think he’s kinda lumping a bunch of things together under the umbrella of the wording of the question that Sylvie has asked.  I think if she’d used a different word he would have echoed that back to her too.

I also think he starts of with “Listen Sylvie, I..” because he was about to defend himself, refuse to acknowledge that he would do such a thing and minimise it, by saying some version of “I would never do that”.  But he catches himself and takes the opposite approach of laying all his faults out plain. Admitting in a slightly exaggerated way that he has betrayed people in the past and he knows it, which he considers is more likely to be believed, and that he won’t betray Sylvie because he’s changed since then.

So I don’t know if I really have a conclusion to draw from this, but I think Loki is exaggerating out of guilt. 

But this is also one of those lines that where the character is telling us not showing us.  Which seems to have started in Ragnarok and is being continued in this series. It’s frustrating, I don’t like it, but it seems this is what they do now.  :/

***

So, it’s taken me a whole ‘nother day to get to finish writing this, and I’ve realised that this is the first episode in a while that has been on my mind since I watched it.  I��m actually invested again! Which I was very much not after Episode 4.

This episode had another piece of Loki’s story, in the form of Old Loki, and that was wonderful, and tragic.  And we’re starting to get somewhere with the plot now.  

And unlike in previous episodes where it looked like they’d left hints of things to come but that turned out not to be the case, I actually feel like we might get payoff for all those comments about Loki’s magic.  Probably not in a way I’d prefer, but at this point I’ll take any sort of change that gives Loki a bit more control over his life.

I’m also feeling again like this story matters.  With episodes 3 and 4 I wasn’t really feeling it.  I hope I’m not too disappointed. lol

I still don’t like the romance, but having resigned myself to the fact this is what they’re doing last week I was better able to watch this.  The fact that Sylvie is as utterly incompetent at personal relationships as our Loki does make it more tolerable to me, and if I take it as some weird AU (which lets be fair is exactly what this is) it is kinda cute. In a way I like that they’re both late 30s/early 40s in appearance, not teens or twenty-somethings. It adds this extra layer to their awkwardness and I think brings home how weird tit is that these thousand year old beings don’t know how to be friends if you can do the mental jumps required to believe this in the first place. I still want it to be platonic or at least not taken any further.  I will gag if they kiss in the finale. 

[shelf-care]

Winter Nights

Wolverine x OC

Lipstick mark series Pt.2

| Part 1| 

So its snowing in south Texas! that never happens. My parents are panicking and I’m sitting here writing fan fiction to calm myself. What could go wrong? 

So Victor Creed shows up in this because I’m a pantser and I come up with ideas as I go and see if it works for the plot, (For this miniseries I hope it does.) I was also watching Kate and Leopold last night (It’s become a valentines tradition for me over the last few years.) And Liev was in it. So theres that. 

Rated PG-13

Mentions of sex, medical examination, a former abusive relationship, obsession with an individual, slight violence, touch starved wolverine. 

“Your mission Miss hope?” The woman in the white lab coat asked while holding a clipboard ad clicking a pen multiple times, it had to be some sort of nervous tick. Maddie tipped her head back, swallowing her saliva, she was clad in a sterile white medical gown, her red hair sprawled out on the also white pillow as another individual examined her. “My mission was to come into contact with the Man known as wolverine, or James Logan Howlett.” She took a breath, the cold instruments the nurse had been using caught her rather off guard. “And you succeeded in not only finding him, but you managed to get a sample of his DNA?” The woman jotted some notes on the clipboard now, keeping her eyes locked on Maddie. The redhead looked away, staring at the ceiling stark white and formless like everything else in the room. “I did.” The doctor nodded her head. “We’ll be taking those samples back to the lab to confirm that its him. Until they are conclusive, you are free to go.” The young woman nodded watched as swabs left the room, she rather did not want to know what they wanted to do with him.

_

Blankly staring at the roof above her, Maddie couldn’t keep that night from playing over and over again. He was indeed her target, but, something was stirring in her, affection most likely. It would die within a couple weeks like it did with the men following shortly after. She knew he would be harder to kill. But he’d fall like the rest. Eventually. She closed her eyes, then she felt her phone buzz next to her. She reached for it, a voice message was visible. Holding the device to her ear, she heard his voice. A voice that in all honesty she enjoyed. “Look, I’m not that great at stuff like this. But I got your note, the other one, the one with the lipstick,” He paused, thinking about what he’d say next. “I thought we got on pretty well the other night. Lemme know when you make it back to the bar.” The message was short, and pretty sweet. He did care, at least a tad. Maddie slid her lips in a grin, she recorded a new message for him. “I’d love to meet again, this Friday at the bar?”

_

She waited at the bar again, it was cold, snow was on its way. This time the meeting was for more pleasure than anything else since her job was done, but it wasn’t a bad things to keep up with a target. The door swung open among the mostly empty bar. The few patrons turned their heads at the sudden commotion. In walked a man who was tall, very tall. Blond hair cascading down his shoulders, while some of it was put in a half ponytail. A long trench coat and fur, was joined by it, making him look that more intimidating. He made his way to the bar and sat down, eyeing Maddie like she was his new meal. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” He said keeping his sight on the bar ahead of him while he ordered himself a large glass of whatever was the strongest drink at the bar. Maddie rolled her eyes. “You here to babysit me creed?” She asked drawing invisible circles in the counter. “Here more on pleasure Miss Hope.” He looked her up and down again and licked his lips visibly so she’d see it for sure. He knew this made her one of two things. Hot and bothered, or pissed off. it pissed her off this time around, and Creed preferred it that way.  “I thought we were past this.” She turned fully to him now. “You might be.” He drank down half the mixture of bourbon, whisky and fireball and faced her, chest puffed in pride and confidence, a pointed and toothy grin showed itself. “But I sure as hell wasn’t girly.” He scoffed as his fist hit the bar making the redhead jump as he got her attention and everyone else’s in the bar as a matter of fact. “We were just getting good when you left.” A fire lit in her heart, anger and passion apparent in her face she took a moment to compose herself. “Victor, they removed you from my squad and as my partner because of your behavior towards me. That hit was the last straw and I won’t be coming back and I’m sure you know that.” Her tone was low and threatening, looking at him, she grasped the glass and slammed down the rest of the liquid before putting down a few dollars as a tip. Creed thought it was adorable when she was angry, and decided to take it as far as he could.

As she zipped up her jacket and made her way out, the large man grabbed her by the arm. “We’re done when I say we are,” He pulled her close to him, his breath brushing warm against her throat as his claw ran down her cheek. “And I’m not done talking to you.” His yellow eyes bored into hers, she felt her heartbeat quicken, she despised and loved this feeling, that’s what got her into this mess the first time. “I told you I was finished. You’ll get your chance with me another day.” She opened her hand to show her palm to him, illuminating a golden hue of color at the center and curving our like a flame, Creeds eyes didn’t change a bit, he seemed like he welcomed the challenge. “Sweetheart, if only you knew how much I craved that part of you.” He gave a guttural low laugh, daring her, as he smirked again, spurring her on. Seeing if she’d really follow through on her threat, which most of them were never hollow. “On any other occasion Creed, I’d let you have it.” She placed her hand on his fist that was still clenched around her arm. “But I’m not in the mood for playing nice.” His hand went visceral, veins becoming more visible as one could see the vitality of the large mutant being taken on by someone a third of his size. “Let me go.” He threatened as he began to feel his muscles failing him in his left arm. “You first.” She smiled, the grin widening as he raised his claws at her. but was too weak to do much else. She laughed and leaned into his ear whispering in a sensual voice, her chest touching his to pour more salt onto the wound. “I thought you craved this part of me.” He could feel himself become more drained the longer she stayed, he realized she wasn’t messing around this time, his grip loosened and she walked free, not another word was heard from Creed, and it would be like that till the next time those twos’ paths crossed. Creed was bent over the bar. He reached for his drink and it shook in his hold, and drank the rest fervently like he needed air, he watched as his hand shook like an elderly man and his hand similar to one too. “Babe’s been getting stronger.” He was captivated by the way her powers worked, he always had been.

 She was Outside, the wind howled and whipped the snow up, crating a curtain of nothing but white mist making visibility a little less than optimal. She pulled out her phone and started to text.

“Hey, the bar is full. Did you want to meet anywhere else for drinks?” She messaged him. Yes, it was a lie, but she didn’t want to be around Creed, for reasons that was obvious. She waited a few minutes till she saw the three dots pop up. “You wanna come to the trailer?” He asked bluntly. She shrugged. “Pick me up?” She shot back quickly. “Sure thing.” Was all he said back.

_

Maddie threw her head back against the mini sofa that was in the one room airstream. The warmth enveloping her as she sighed after her first sip of beer. The snow on her jacket seeping into the fabric further, making a chill run down her spine. “Thank you.” She said raising her head to look at him, happy to be warm. “Don’t mention it.” He said mirroring her actions. “I can’t believe you wanted to meet again.” She mentioned looking at him again, he was different from last time, but not. “I can’t either if I’m honest.” He sat on his bed across from her. There was a silence that fell between the two, but it was comfortable. “Sorry the bar didn’t work out.” Leaning forward trying to skirt the conversation along. “I’d rather be doing this.” He tilted his head referring to his drink. That made Maddie laugh through her nose a bit. “Really? You’d rather act like an old married couple than be out?” She teased him, but he looked at her for a moment. “Been there and done that.” She nodded. “I like this though. It’s nice.” She took another sip of her drink before throwing away the bottle in an open trash bin. “I never got to ask. What is it that you do?” She placed her palm under her chin and smiled, waiting for his answer. He played with his bottle, before drinking his as well. “What you saw the other night is what I’ve been doing for the last fifteen years.” He told her nodding and thinking about his past and his way of living. “I don’t remember much of what I did before.” Maddie looked at him, a blank face that he couldn’t make out, but made him curious. “You never told me what you did. How did someone like you wind up in this dump of a town?” He joked slightly but he wasn’t wrong, it was a little piece of nowhere. “I’m in military secret forces. I was stationed here, and have been here for the last three years.” She saw him tense at the subject. “You okay?” Her brows cocked at him becoming a little bit tense. She didn’t think he suspect anything, and she wasn’t outright lying about what she did. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He left it at that. She stood up and paced over to him, and sat down next to him. The mattress sinking beneath her. He looked at her not quite knowing what she was doing. She reached for his hand, and looked at him before she went any further. “You don’t seem fine.” She silently asked for permission and he let her have his hand. She traced his palm slowly and gently, comfort in every movement. He was starved of this type of affection. Most people were, but him more than others she found just from the way he acted. She laced her fingers in-between the spaces where his were not, interlocking their hands. He closed his eyes her for a split second, every curve, every bump, every imperfection written on her face made him want her more as he reveled in the feeling of them being so close. “Don’t do this to yourself.” He warned her, taking his hand out of hers, though she stopped him. “Don’t tell me what to do.” She was firm, but the firmness was met with a soft smile. Logans eyes studied her for a minute. No one had ever stopped him like that, not to his knowledge anyway. This time when he went to remove his hand she let him leave, but it was to place his hand under her chin and bring her closer, and there, their lips met, and he pushed her below him while she wrapped her hands around his neck and raked her hands through his hair, all while closing her eyes enjoying the warmth compared to the freezing outside.

_

While the campers light was dim, if one were close to it you could hear giggling, rocking, calling one another’s names in the dark, and a little obscene noises that you would only hear if you where right next to the airstream. Then there was the figure that stood a few feet away from the little camper, a figure that towered over most men. The same body that was blonde, and in the bar with Maddie that same night. “You made a big mistake girly,” He peered down at his still healing hand, it looked aged, like his hand was ten years older than the rest of his body. 

[daleisgreat]

Shawn Michaels: The Showstopper Unreleased

WWE has release a few Shawn Michaels DVDs over the years, but continuing on the theme of my last few wrestling-centered entries, WWE Home Video stuck with their “unreleased” brand of DVDs in 2018 with the three-disc release of Shawn Michaels: The Showstopper Unreleased (intro - I could not locate a trailer for this anywhere!). In that clip Shawn quips that the producers deserve an award for finding previously unreleased matches. I believe the criteria for this release is still similar to previous “Unreleased” collections where they may have aired on television (and thus likely in the WWE Network archives) or long discontinued VHS tapes, but this DVD will mark the first time the matches are available on disc. Also included is a new interview with Michaels that they broke up in several parts and sporadically inserted throughout the collection. The first disc is something special as it essentially is a “Best of Rockers” DVD. The first two matches are from Shawn’s rookie year in 1985 for Mid-South in quick enhancement matches for Hector & Chavo Guerrero and Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Matches serve their purpose, but it is nonetheless fascinating to see how Shawn had that already apparent potential in him way back in 1985. The remaining 11 matches on the first disc are all Rockers matches, with the first three tag matches being from their Midnight Rockers AWA days with two bouts against Doug Summers & Buddy Rose and one more with Brian Knobbs & Dennis “I’m not booked” Stamp. The two Summers & Rose matches are show-stealers that had exhilarating beginning/middle/end structures, and was fun to watch the 1980s crowd go nuts for.

The first disc is almost all AWA & WWF Rockers matches!! For the eight WWF Rockers matches, they consist of almost an all-star lineup of a golden age for WWF tag teams where they square off against the likes of Demolition, Brain Busters, Hart Foundation, Natural Disasters and Legion of Doom. The sad thing about The Rockers back then is that as charismatic and agile as they were back then, they mostly made other teams look good in their WWF run and that is the case here as they lose six of those eight WWF matches. Even worse is the two matches they win is a DQ win against the Rougeaus after Jimmy Hart’s megaphone is used, and a countout win against the Orient Express. That said, a lot of the other matches are pretty damn good, with high honors going to the Brain Busters bout, two Demolition matches and surprisingly working in a lot of good stuff against Legion of Doom. Worth pointing out is another good match against the Hart Foundation where it seems noticeable the teams missed their cue to go home because the match starts to feel there is no end in sight when out of nowhere during an abdominal stretch a bunch of wrestlers run in and an awkward impromptu brawl ensues and the match is declared a draw.

Disc two has 12 matches from Shawn’s first singles WWF run from 1992-1998. Some highlights from this are an unsurprising technical showcase with Mr. Perfect, oddly having a positive dynamic with Bret Hart to team up against the Blu Brothers in 1995 and predictable-yet-high quality formula matches during his first WWF Title run against 1-2-3 Kid and Steve Austin. Disc two has a disappointing triple tag elimination match with Shawn, Diesel and Undertaker against Psycho Sid, Tatanka and Kama filled with lots of stalling and headscratching booking for the eliminations. There is also a questionable match against Vader a month after their controversial-yet-excellent Summerslam match, where in this match Shawn takes 95% of the offense and quickly squashes Vader in three minutes. There is also a fascinating bout against Yokozuna from the summer of 1996 in Kuwait, when Yoko is nearing the end of his WWF run due to him putting on excess weight, and the match kind of expectedly plods along, until something must have clicked for Shawn to motivate Yoko into a pretty watchable match in the back half, and the two show respect afterwards which was awesome to see….until Yoko suddenly darts off to the back like he really has to go to the bathroom. The third disc consists of 10 matches from Shawn’s return run to WWE from 2002-2010. All the matches here are from RAW, so that means they follow the formula that still holds true for WWE TV main events today where it is either a cobbled together tag match, or a really good one-on-one match with interference or a hokey finish. There are a couple exceptions with worthwhile clean matches against Ric Flair during a Japan 2005 tour and against Christian in 2004 when he was building momentum with Tyson Tomko by his side. HBK’s matches against Rob Van Dam, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho are the highlights on disc three, but all three contests have varying degrees of interference to effect the finishes, and in some cases it actually benefits the match as is the case with Angle with the story they were telling. I was delighted to see a post-RAW dark match included with Shawn teaming with Batista against Triple H and Edge. WWE is notorious for usually doing a fun untelevised promo or bonus match for the fans after the cameras go off the air with some quirky moments that would never fly in a televised match. That is the case here with Triple H doing lots of exaggerated selling and fun jawing with the crowd that absolutely ate it all up for a fun time.

Shawn didn't disappoint in his 21st century run, with matches included here that don't disappoint against Ric Flair and Kurt Angle. A couple of promos are uncovered like Shawn doing an open Q&A with the fans when Sensational Sherri was managing Michaels early in his singles run. Another amusing bonus promo is Shawn and Diesel doing a Times Square workout session to hype up their upcoming WrestleMania 11 match with the one-and-only Todd Pentigill hosting. The several interview clips inserted throughout the DVDs has Shawn hitting on certain parts on where he was at that stage in his career and reflecting on the infamous Barber Shop break-up with Marty, his 2002 return, rebooting a less edgy, more goofball version of DX in 2006 and retiring in 2010 (this was filmed before his ill-fated Saudi Arabia return match). From these series of introspections, it was fascinating to hear Shawn think back on why he was not all-in for teaming with Jose Lathario in his WWE Title run, and hearing him settling on being a family man in retirement and turning down multiple

WrestleMania return matches. There are also a few sets of interviews with NXT talent commenting on how lucky they are to have Shawn as a teacher at the WWE Performance Center. Shawn comments a few times here too on being proud of passing on his knowledge, and it is obvious he is genuine on his passion for his new role building talent in NXT. WWE has once again amassed another recommended collection of un-vaulted matches. I am digging this format following the Piper and Macho Man sets where they break up the action every few matches with a set of interviews. Wort mentioning is about a quarter of the 35 matches here have no commentary because they were either dark matches, or from arena shows WWE use to film at regionally in the 80s and 90s and never recorded commentary for and/or lost the rights for the commentary. While there are some skippable matches, the good-to-bad ratio is largely in the positive here, and the not-so-good bouts usually at least have an entertaining backstory or era they emanate from. This all adds up for Shawn Michaels: The Showstopper Unreleased being another must-have installment of the Unreleased branding. Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Clash of Champions Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story For All Mankind Getting Rowdy: The Unreleased Matches of Roddy Piper Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Hulk Hogans Unreleased Collectors Series Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story The Kliq Rules Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat NXT: From Secret to Sensation NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1 OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold Randy Savage Unreleased: The Unseen Matches of the Macho Man RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge Shawn Michaels: My Journey Sting: Into the Light Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder Then Now Forever – The Evolution of WWEs Womens Division TLC 2017 TNA Lockdown 2005-2016 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania III: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28-Present The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

[saharamae21]

Never Ran Smooth (Part 14)

Hey guys! Thanks for all the love and support! I loved writing this chapter and couldn’t wait to post it... Enjoy!

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

For you, in my respect, are all the world.

The night past quickly and the next morning, we got straight to work. I sat next to Pope as JJ and Kie bickered back and forth. I smiled at how cute he looked while he annoyed her. Love really blinds you quickly.

“You guys are sickening sweet,” I heard Pope groan as he looked back and forth between John B and I. Both of us looked like lovesick puppies, staring at their love like no one else was there.

“Have you ever thought about telling Kie how you feel?” I asked giving him a quick shove with my shoulder.

“That doors closed,” Pope said. “Before you were around JJ tried really hard to open that door. Even John B tried. She just doesn’t see us like that.”

“You never know until you try,” I said and looked back at JJ. “I never thought he would like me. I’m part of a whole community that he’s grown to detest, yet I can’t help thinking that he’s in love with me.”

“Thinking?” Pope questioned me.

“He hasn’t said I love you,” I said back, thinking about the first time I said it to him. “To be fair, we just started dating and maybe he doesn’t feel that way yet. I’m not in any rush for him to tell me.”

Pope gave me a small smile. I could tell he was happy for JJ and I. Everything I had said was true, I was in no rush. This was the first time that I had ever felt this way and I wanted to savory and draw it out as long as possible. JJ noticed me smiling at him and gave me a little wink. Even that was enough to make my heart flutter.

After everything was prepared, we filed into the van and took off for a pawn shop. I listened to JJ continue to fight with Kie, even after we were out of the van.

“Hell of a job melting it down, Dr. Frankenstein,” JJ said with an attitude.

“Like you could've done better,” Kie retorted, both of them clearly upset with each other.

“I could have. I took a welding class,” JJ said, both of them getting in each others faces. I grabbed JJ’s hand to calm him down. John B helped to diffuse the situation at hand and we made our way inside. “How did I get this job anyway?”

“'Cause you're the best liar,” Pope said as we opened the door. Then someone caught my eye. I said I would join them inside in a second. I saw Topper’s mom walking up to me from across the street. What was she doing over here?

“Savannah!” she greeted me.

“Hi Mrs. Thornton,” I said.

“You really need to stop hanging out with those lowlifes,” she said, eyeing the van. “I can’t believe your dad paid off that deviants restitution for ruining our boat. Keep hanging out with them and your whole family will go bankrupt.”

“I’m sorry, my dad did what?” I asked, thinking I must’ve misheard her or something.

“He paid for our boat,” she said. “I thought you knew?”

My heart swelled for a minute as I told her I had just forgotten. Why would my dad do that? I said my goodbyes and made my way into the shop. I watched as JJ tried to pawn off the melted down piece of gold. The clerk argued back and forth for a while, running a series of tests while JJ sassed her. I watched as JJ gave her this sob story about how his mom tried to melt the bar down. She walked away to talk to someone about what they could offer us and finally settled on 70k. They sent us out and on our way to the warehouse because they didn’t have the cash laying around in the store. We all filed back into the van and I sat down next to JJ. We drove a few miles and I let out a yawn before laying my head gently on his shoulder, zoning out while the others talked.

“So they keep money out here?” Pope asked skeptically.

“That's what she said,” JJ said in response. Then he let out a small chuckle. “That's what she said.”

“You’re such a child,” I said with a giggle. I closed my eyes and felt JJ play with a strand of my hair.

“How are you so tired?” he asked me, ignoring everyone else in the vehicle. “You slept all night.”

“I don’t know. I sleep so nicely next to you,” I muttered back. In reality, I was tired, but I was also confused. Why would my dad do that after everything that’s happened? He’s planning something. I opened my eyes to see him glancing down at me affectionately. Everything seemed perfect at that moment, until I heard the siren behind us. I sprung up and helped JJ hide the gold and his belongings. Why are we even getting pulled over? Why was there a cop all the way out here? Then it hit me. We’re being set up.

Everything began happening so quickly. A gun cocked and we looked forward to see a man pointing a shot gun right at John B’s face. He told us all to put our hands up. He told John to get out and let all of us out. I could feel my heart beating in my chest as I got out of the van. I watched as JJ told the dude to calm down. I was shaking as he pointed the gun at JJ. We all got down into the ditch and laid there. I was so scared and as the man dug around in the van. Then John B got up slowly. We begged him not to be a hero, but he got into the robber’s backseat and waited. The man found the gold and walked slowly back to his car, threatening us the whole way. Once he got in, John wrestled him for the gun. As soon as he got the gun, JJ was up and running. I got up quickly after him, wanting to help, but more importantly wanting to protect JJ. I watched him get punched down and went in swinging. I landed a few punches before getting nailed in the ribs. I fell hard, but the fight was over quickly. There was six of us and one of him. He didn’t stand a chance. Pope got the gold and then we pulled his face mask off. “I know this piece of shit!” JJ yelled. A rage overtook him as this became personal.

“Listen, I couldn't hurt any single one of y'all-” before the man could finish his sentence, JJ beat him with the butt of the gun.

“JJ!” I yelled grabbing his arm, but he shook me off roughly. He proceeded to grab the man’s license and inspect it thoroughly.

“We got one last stop,” he said and stormed back to the van. “Let's go see where this son of a bitch lives.”

The man threatened us over and over as we got into our van and drove off. JJ drive quickly and even recklessly. We pulled up to this rundown trailer home. I watched as JJ stormed out of the van and into the house, John B following closely behind. I wanted to go after him too, but Pope told me not to. This was a new side to JJ that I had never seen before. He was so overcome with rage that I was scared for what would happen next. When they finally came out of the house, I ran up to him.

“All right, so we're looking at five grand each for reparations for putting us through that bullshit. Sorry about that, y'all,” JJ said nonchalantly. I watched as everyone instantly realized what JJ had done and tried to talk some sense into him. Then John B and JJ instantly got into it. JJ got into the van and waited for us. He looked at me and waited for me to follow suit, but I couldn’t. This was wrong. He got out of the van.

“We're sick of your shit,” John B. said firmly.

“Oh, my shit?” JJ asked.

“Yes. Your pulling guns on people shit,” Kie said.

“You acting like a maniac-” Pope tried to add.

“Okay, Pope, I took the fall for you, man! Know how much I owe because of you?” I listened to him demand Pope pay him back now. I listened to him become unreasonable.

“JJ!” I yelled getting his attention. “You don’t owe any money, I handled it. It’s done! Stop treating your friends like this!”

“I don’t need your money, princess!” he snapped at me. My heart sank as princess became an insult again. “God, everything is the same with you kooks. Money, money, money!”

“That’s not true and you know it,” I said, tears filling my eyes as he lashed out at me.

“I could’ve handled it! You look at me like I’m something to fix!” he screamed at me. “I’m not a project for you Savannah! You don’t get to just fix me because your bored and have no friends!”

“JJ!” I yelled, tears streaming down my cheeks. I began to get mad at how he was treating me. I couldn’t control my emotions and finally yelled back at him.“Is that what you think of me? Is that what you think I’m doing? Does I love you mean nothing to you?”

“You may think you’re in love with me, but you’re just like every other kook. You look down on us. I don’t need your money. I don’t need your help. I certainly don’t need your pity. I’m not some mistake you can just fix,” he said coldly. “And because you treat me this way, I will never love you.”

He turned his back on us and walked quickly away. He went off on his own. I sank to my knees and let out little sobs as Kie wrapped her arms around me. I just crouched down with my face in my hands and bawled.

After I composed myself a little, we got back in the van and went back to the chateau. Everyone was silent as we parked the car and got out. I forced a smile onto my face and decided that it was time to go back home.

“I’ll head out first,” I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear nervously.

“Are you going to be okay?” Kie asked. I could see in her eyes that she was genuinely worried about me. I nodded, fiddling with my thumbs a little.

“I’ll see you all soon,” I said and walked to my car. I gave them all a small wave and began to mentally prepare myself for what was to come.

The drive home was shorter than I remembered. The driveway no longer seemed so long. I stared up at the mansion I lived in and let out a sigh. I turned off the engine and checked my appearance in the mirror. My eyes were red and puffy. I looked like a mess. Still. I gathered all the courage I had and got out of the car. I opened up the front door and walked in.

“I’m home,” I said in a hoarse voice. My mother came running into the entrance. She hugged me so tightly and cry. She begged me to never leave like that again. I felt bad for everything I put her through. Then my dad walked into the room. I walked up slowly and began to apologize for my actions, but before I could finish them my cheek burned. I fell to my knees and let some tears slip out.

“You embarrassed us. You disappeared. You cost us a fortune. Get your shit together Savannah,” he said. “I didn’t raise a failure.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I talked back for the first time in my life. Then he said the only words that could make me want to die inside.

“And because you believe that, I will never love you.”

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

Tag List : @jjmaybangme @thebendslikebendover @jellyfishbeansontoast @justcallmesams

[ladywhaiyvern]

Musings of An Otaku #7- Of Machine Animals and Relics of Old Ones

Ever since life took its course a few years ago, I stepped away from the video game scene to spend time with family. Back and forth hospital trips and long days of surgery among the other stressors of just being in a busy hospital environment would have been a great excuse to lose myself in a game. But for some reason, I just could not for the life of me sit down long enough to get into any games. Mobile games hardly counted in my book. If that was the case then the only “game” I played during that time frame was “Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.” Hell, that’s the only mobile game I still play now. Religiously. Every day. Do dailies on Pocket Camp and then switch over to New Horizons and do my dailies there. Shit, I wish some of the items they offer in PC were available in NH! I digress. At this point, I had not sat down with say one of the next generation consoles at the time and played a newly released game. 

I guess I am trying to make up for lost playing time now as we are in the middle of pandemic. Limiting the time out in public to essential trips only. No eating out as much as I used to. What better way to pass the time, then catch up on games that I wanted to play but never got around to. Lord knows I have all of them purchased. Just haven’t played a single one yet. Then again, this goes for anything. I still have a very large pile of Anime blu-rays and dvds sitting around that I haven’t touched. Manga on shelves yet to be cracked into. I am working on getting through my Dragonlance books though! Just started book 2 of the Elven Exiles. Things are not looking good for the elves at all. ANYWHO!

Horizon: Zero Dawn. A game I remember seeing trailers and game footage for when it was in development back in the day. I was interested in it then, but then things had happened in life (as I have said). Started picking my way through it early last year. It was different, interesting. Your typical open-world action RPG. Beautiful graphics and landscapes. Didn’t think too much about it as I set it aside for a little while and then came back to it full force. Aloy did not draw me into the world, as much as the lore did. I wanted to find out what the hell happened to the world and why these animal shaped machines were so hell bent on killing everyone. I liked the look of these animal machines. Come on, I absolutely love Power Rangers and the seasons that used animal motifs (or mystical creatures). So, mechanical beasts were nothing new to me. They just were not sentient and hellbent on destruction. I mean, one can argue for a few seasons about it but I’m not here to discuss and argue Power Rangers. This is about Horizon: Zero Dawn. 

I do not recall how many hours I spent going through the main scenario of the game (as I did spend A LOT of that time hiding and planning ambushes on machines). And, well I am the type to go through the entire friggen map and get every single item and complete every quest. Okay, maybe not EVERY quest. I still have the hunting ground trials to do but I’m not really concerned with those as I am getting all the metal flowers, and ancient vessels. What can I say?! I laughed at the recommended level you had to be for the final showdown. I was way over that….and I mean…..wwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaayyyyy over that. I had the nice ancient amour as well. The one where you had to go around and get the power cells to open up the bunker. The one that has the nice shield factor. Yeah, I liked that. I liked many of the outfits with the added bits and bobs of machines and wiring. It was different and yet still very tribal looking. I also enjoyed the tribal aesthetic. We, as humans went back to the typical hunter/gathering tribal lifestyle after Zero Dawn. Nice to see the different kinships emerge. All the old memories of my cultural anthropology and archeology classes came flooding back which was not bad at all! 

I completed the main scenario the other day and WOW! Overall, that was a damn good game. While I did not connect with Aloy at the start of the game, I did become interested in her side of the story. I mean, seriously she was one of the only people that could unlock things with her genetic connection. The basis of how the world came to be destroyed and basically overthrown by these animal machines is a little on the scary side. We are becoming more and more reliant on technology. And that technology is slowly becoming more and more self aware and sentient. Everything is going that way. Look at our security systems, look at the smart houses, our cars, our smartphones, our smart watches. Machines that help us with cleaning and cooking are completely different then what I grew up with. Machines implanted into the body to help extend someone's life! I saw this first hand with my father and his LVAD (left ventricle assist device). Technology is both amazing and scary at the same time. It can be used for both the good and the bad. Dark and light. Shadow and sun. 

 Shit, I read an article the other day that both China and France are looking to create their own mobile military with biologically engineered supersoldiers. Taken from the New York Post’s article: “The French seek to improve “physical, cognitive, perceptive and psychological capacities,” and could allow for location tracking or connectivity with weapons systems and other soldiers.” https://nypost.com/2020/12/19/france-china-developing-biologically-engineered-super-soldiers/

 And that, my friends, is how the basis of Horizon: Zero Dawn started. No joke, machines built for warfare that went rogue and self-replicated by the use of absorbing plantlife, animal life and human life. Drained the Earth of its resources and caused “Zero Dawn” to be implemented. The basis for these “super soldiers” and “machine warfare” is nothing new to the Sci-fi genre. I mean, it’s been used in many many movie plots, video games, television, anime, manga, comic books and novels. It’s just scary to think that something like this could actually happen. It is not as far fetched as we think. Yes, many of these forms of entertainment have one more aspect going for them that we currently do not. Space travel. Another living planet humans live on. But the overall thought of some rogue machines being capable of self-replication and eradicating human life is still scary. And with any technological form- you know there will be some people who will be dead set on hacking these machines. I mean, even Aloy is hacking the machines to get them onto her side. Which, if you have not overridden one of the bigger machines in the game- it is so worth it! Love just sitting back and watching the machines fight each other! We are not that far from a Cyberpunk dystopian future. Hack the planet! 

I am moving into the DLC of the Frozen Wilds and am pretty close to being done with that as well. As I am enjoying it as I get to play more in this world and explore areas that are new, I am also a little on the disappointed side. I was hoping to learn more about the previous world and it’s demise. Granted, I am not done with the Frozen Wilds. I am in the process of traveling to the Thunderdrum- so I am hoping that will shed some light on these “demonic” machines and maybe expand the lore some more. I am done with the majority of the side quests and gathering the pigments, animal figures, and blue gleam. 

I am really glad that I finally decided to sit down and give this game a try since it’s been on my “to play” list for a few years now. I enjoyed the overall story and despite me not being one to enjoy a whole lot of stealth play- I did enjoy this one. I can definitely see how they set the series up for a sequel. I’m excited to learn exactly where we shall be going in the second game.

[marshmallowgoop]

Gushing about Promare (Mega Spoilers!)

I know not everyone has gotten a chance to see Promare yet, but I first saw the movie months ago and have been dying to talk spoilers ever since. So, avoid this post if you haven’t had the opportunity to watch the film yet, but since there’s a tiny bit more availability now, I finally just wanna gush for a sec!

First of all, Promare surprised me. I wasn’t really too interested when the project was revealed, and even when I learned more details at last year’s Anime Expo, I was only moderately invested. The note that the film would be kid friendly is what got me more on board, but I suppose what really got me, more than even the stunning soundtrack (which I think might be Hiroyuki Sawano’s best OST, honestly), was the Trigger x Monster Strike collab.

Maybe surprisingly, I am actually somewhat self-aware, and I recognize that I’m totally biased, but okay, seeing Ryuko and Senketsu noted as characters for the game, right beside Lio and Galo...

Let’s just say that my heart was taken. Seeing that image of Lio and Galo made me fall in love with them, and the comparisons between Ryuko and Senketsu’s relationship and Lio and Galo’s that I found in the 鮮流 (Senryu) tag on Twitter sealed the deal. Teaming up and fighting with the Power of Love is my jam.

So, I got hyped. I expected to like the movie. 

But I didn’t expect to find it to be the best thing that Trigger has ever made.

(Well, that I’ve seen, anyway.)

And even after sitting on it for a while, I still think Promare is Trigger’s strongest work (that I’ve seen). Sure, I’ve read many complaints that the film tries to do too much in its short timeframe, that there are too many characters who don’t get fleshed out as they should, that it’s way too predictable and cliche... but I respectfully disagree.

I mean, I do feel Promare would have worked better as a series, sure. But Promare uses its time excellently. Maybe it’s an odd comparison (or maybe not?), but while The Shape of Water devotes a ton of screen time and attention to subplots and fleshing out characters other than the main leads, Promare stays focused. This is the story of Lio and Galo, and it never, ever forgets that. Whereas The Shape of Water drowns its monster love story inside plots of Russian spies and rotting fingers, Promare stays focused. Promare knows what it is and knows what it’s about. It’s the most cohesive and thematically strong piece that I’ve seen from Trigger, and I’m more than glad that the artists decided to focus on Lio and Galo rather than shove in all sorts of good stuff about the other characters at the expense of muddying its heart and soul.

Because as much as I love Kill la Kill—and as much as it’s still my favorite Trigger work, even if I don’t see it as Trigger’s best—that’s... exactly what that show did. I can’t even say for sure what the heart and soul of Kill la Kill is! Sure, I’ve argued that it’s most definitely a love story between a girl and her sailor uniform more than anything else, and I most definitely have evidence to support that claim, but I recognize that tons of other claims with tons of other evidence behind them could be made as well. Maybe, for example, as expressed by director Hiroyuki Imaishi before the series premiered, Kill la Kill is really ultimately a story about the rivalry and eventual friendship between Ryuko and Satsuki. Or maybe it’s about overcoming fascism, or a warning about wearable technology, or about puberty, or finding family, or really a million things. I’ve been in the Kill la Kill fandom for years, and let me tell you: I’ve seen just about everything.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But the huge variety in interpretations for the anime most certainly points to the idea that it ain’t all that focused. It’s... a bit all over the place. Too much good stuff shoved into one work, resulting in a mixed mass of awesome that’s maybe kinda hard to make sense of.

(And, for the record, I’ll point out that as much as I often feel alone in my reading of Kill la Kill, I’m really not alone at all. An interviewer for Newtype magazine once said, “When you watch through to the last episode, you keenly feel that Kill la Kill is a story about the relationship between Ryuko and Senketsu,” writer Kazuki Nakashima himself has pointed out several times that Ryuko and Senketsu’s relationship is central to the story, such as in his note in the Kamui Bansho that “You could say that Kill la Kill tells the story of a lonely young woman meeting and losing an irreplaceable partner,” and even among English-speaking fans, I can at least link to this one comment not by me that reads, “It's also weird that they say that Ryuko vs. Satsuki is the core of character drama; while it’s majorly important so far, it’s seemed more like Ryuko and Senketsu share the most important relationship.” I know I’m biased, but, okay, I have support, seriously.)

In my humble onion, Promare combines probably the two strongest story threads in Kill la Kill by essentially making the Satsuki character and Senketsu character the same person. You get the rivalry that turns into a friendship, and you also get the synchronization and coming together of two different people who seem like they shouldn’t get along—the combining of “oil and water,” as Galo himself puts it. The fact that the designs of Lio and Galo’s robots were confirmed to look like Kamui in the last live-drawing session (with eyes on the shoulders and teeth on the chest) only strengthens the Ryuko and Senketsu connection, and, c’mon, you can’t tell me that those trailers and promotional materials weren’t hyping up the Lio/Galo rivalry like Kill la Kill hyped up the Ryuko/Satsuki rivalry. Promare takes two of the greatest parts of Kill la Kill, smashes them together, and makes something fantastic. This is what I would have wanted Kill la Kill to be like.

Yes, Promare’s plot is absolutely predictable and cliche, but that ain’t at all a downside! The film utilizes its cliches well, and our main leads are so charming that the journey is endlessly enjoyable. Promare is ultimately a sweet character drama with lots of flashy action, and that character drama is excellent.

I love so much about it. I love how Galo makes an offensive remark to Lio and immediately apologizes, understanding that it was wrong. I love that Galo saving Lio’s life is presented so respectfully, and I love that Galo isn’t at all bothered or embarrassed by pressing his lips to Lio’s, and I love that when Galo freaks out afterwards, it’s simply because he started a fire when he’s devoted himself to putting fires out. I love how Lio’s flames protect Galo, I love the lyrics to “Inferno” and how they amplify the story, I love that there’s a happy ending and the Burnish don’t all die out because that’s somehow “for the best,” I love that there’s a beautiful heart explosion when Lio and Galo save the world. I just love love love these two characters and this film.

But of course, to address the elephant in the room, I do wish that Lio and Galo’s relationship were more explicit; as is always the case in Trigger works that feature potential LGBTQ+ romances, it was stated at both Anime Expo this year and in the latest live drawing that there are no wrong interpretations and everyone is free to think what they would like. But when someone asked if there would be more “boys kissing” in future Trigger works at Anime Expo, and the answer was “yes,” I’m hopeful and don’t feel bad about what we got. Lio and Galo are a sweet, sweet step in the right direction, and I hope for more explicit, charming, respectful LGBTQ+ content in the future from this studio.

Tl;dr, as silly as Promare is, it almost feels like the studio is growing up. The film is what I consider to be their strongest work to date (that I’ve seen, of course), and I crave more over-the-top, kid-friendly, endearing works from Trigger moving forward.

[obsidiancorner]

Celebrity Overnight- Chapter 2

ObiYukiWeek 2019 Pairing: Obi/Shirayuki  Word count: ~2500 Prompt: Gluttony

Shirayuki follows two steps behind Obi as they walk up the stairs to his apartment. Everything about the decor of the building is carefully neutral. The walls are a soft eggshell white in the pale light of specialty light bulbs and fixtures. The grayish early-American style stain on the wooden wall trim and matching stairs feels timeless. 

She feels anxious, like a nervous energy is simmering just below her skin and banking, only in part, by the solace she takes in knowing Obi has been the very definition of ‘a perfect gentleman’ over the course of the evening. She had been so eager to get out of the limo, which had felt smothering after the heat of their red carpet performance had been followed with a glance into what Obi might be like in bed thanks to the obligatory sex scene of the movie. 

Even the knowledge of how the film industry works, knowing that the director had literally been involved with every touch, every kiss, every angle, and every thrust, hadn’t broken the spell of her heated fascination. Then, she’d had to endure a limo ride while she radiated tension. He’d given her space but his knee would bump hers every now and again and each time her fever surged higher. 

When he had asked if she wanted to come up while he changed, she leaped at the opportunity to get out of the enclosed space. Distance. Distance would be good…. Except now she has to face being alone with him in his apartment… While she is trying to fight a one-sided fire. 

Brilliant. 

They stop in front of apartment 2D at the far end of the hall but, instead of pulling out keys for the lock, he raises a fist to the door and raps twice. Inside, a chair groans against a wood floor and three knocks answer, followed by the sound of a deadbolt being released.

Shirayuki’s heart sinks, sending ripples of despondent aching coursing through her. She’d expected something like this. She knew it was all publicity when she went into this date agreement and she curses herself internally. Men of his caliber are not men who are single and she knows better than to lose her head over some guy just because his charm is natural and unintentional.

Of course he has a secret girlfriend. Of course. Tonight was nothing more than free publicity for an upcoming action star and her father’s new movie. It had always been and still is nothing more than an act- par for the course for a Hollywood hot-shot. Natural chemistry means nothing in the grand scheme of life- especially lives consumed by the entertainment industry.

Hidden behind him where he couldn’t see her face, she allows the disappointment at both her forgetting the terms of their date and his evident unavailability. She wants to run, to admit this was a bad idea and just go back to her apartment to sulk with a tube of cookie dough and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra ice cream, her father’s afterparty be damned. Her heart stings, beating fast and angry against the confines of her ribs. 

As the door opens, she feels the heat of a blush surge to her cheeks as she mentally prepares herself for an awkward encounter with a woman who is likely the stereotypical half-plastic Bunny... tall, blonde, legs up to her neck, and breast augmentation to some obviously unnatural degree- the sort of woman who usually serves as arm candy to Hollywood’s hottest hunks. 

“Thanks, Ryu,” Obi says, startling her from her thoughts. 

A non-committal hum replies before she hears, “I wasn’t expecting you home this early.” but the voice is surprisingly male. It’s youthful and awkward, cracking slightly at the beginning of the statement. Shirayuki peeks out from behind Obi’s arm and comes face to face with azure eyes as wide and deep as the waters of the Mediterranian Sea. She can’t help the squeak that comes out, startled as she is to find a teenager blinking back at her. 

Delight surges through her when she realizes it isn’t last year’s Playboy Bunny of the Year but it is immediately tempered with a heavy splash of cold guilt when the boy’s eyes immediately turn down toward the floor. She hadn’t meant to startle him. She hadn’t expected a child at all, much less one that is so shy. 

“Ryu, Shirayuki. Shirayuki, Ryu,” Obi says by way of introduction as he steps aside to usher her in and the boy ducks back into the apartment. He chuckles and Shirayuki looks up at him. Turning to face her fully, he whispers, “he’s shy and usually keeps to himself but he’s a good kid and a genius with special effects.”

As if that explains anything at all. Who in their right mind decided letting a child stay with Hollywood’s newly crowned ‘Most Eligible Bachelor’ was a good idea? Where are his parents? How did he come into Obi’s care? 

Some of her puzzlement must show on her face, or maybe the gears of her brain are simply grinding too loud because he adds, “I’ll explain later if you want, Miss. But right now I’d just really like to change. This tux is constricting.”

Shirayuki scoffs. He should try wearing a dress sometime. This damnable number the stylists has squeezed her into may look quite fetching with it’s shimmery green fabric hugging her every curve, but she hasn’t taken a full breath in hours for fear of bursting a seam somewhere. She keeps her opinions on formalwear to herself and moves past him into the wide expanse of their living room before it dawns on her that he had successfully distracted her… again. 

To her right is an impressive kitchen area covered in granite countertops and sleek wood cabinetry a few shades darker than what was present in the hall. Ryu sits at the six-seater dining room table with notepads spread out around his laptop as he studies a film she’s pretty sure was made by Wistaria Entertainment. Curious, she thinks. There’s a massive TV mounted on the wall in the living room and yet he prefers to study a film on his laptop. 

“Make yourself at home. I’ll be right back,” Obi says as he walks around her and disappears down the hall. She blinks at his receding back until he turns a corner and is obscured by a wall. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other as a means to occupy herself.

She feels awkward loitering just inside the door with nothing but a studious and shy teenager to keep her company. She satisfies herself looking out the sliding doors of the balcony at the far side of the room to where the lights of the city stand out like stars in the night despite all the lights in the room being on.

“Since he seems to be forgetting his manners, I’ll ask,” Ryu pipes up. His voice is almost a true monotone and she focuses on the back of his head as if it will illuminate how he must feel being left alone with some strange woman nearly a decade older than he. “Do you need to use the bathroom or want something to drink?”

“I’ll wait, but thank you for the offer… Ryu, wasn’t it?”

It isn’t without effort that she keeps her tone light and her voice steady. She doesn’t know how to do this. She was expecting awkwardness with whatever gorgeous woman is in his life, not awkwardness with a child Obi, for some inexplicable reason, has guardianship over. 

He hums as a response, like he hadn’t quite heard her and is silently asking for her to repeat herself before he sighs and sets down his pen. He still doesn’t turn to her but mutters a soft “You’re welcome,” before picking his pen back up in anticipation of whatever is happening on his computer screen.

Tires squealing, glass shattering, and metal crunching on the screen in front of him is followed by rapid movement of his pen across the paper and makes Shirayuki curious so she inches closer. “What are you watching,” she asks, trying to at least keep conversation going until Obi comes back from the depths of the apartment. 

“It’s an old movie about death. I’m studying the special effects used,” he tells her, pausing the film as a log from a semi-trailer impales a car. She recognizes the film. She was nearing the end of elementary school when it came out and she tries not to be offended by it being called ‘old’ since he was probably an infant back then. In terms of Hollywood and technology, it is old. He might as well be studying the Matrix in terms of age but at least the graphics in that movie were ahead of its time when it was released. Maybe he already had, though. 

He presses play and she squints, turning her head sharply to avoid seeing the aftermath. She’s in medical school and can handle blood and trauma at a gross scale but that series of movies are all about the cringe factor and unnecessary, gratuitous gore. She opens her eyes to find Obi leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded across his torso. The amused smirk he wears makes his amber eyes smolder. 

She’s trapped, like the mosquito in Jurassic Park. She knows she’s still breathing because she can feel the fabric of her dress stretch against deeper draws of air because suddenly there isn’t enough oxygen in the room, no matter how full her lungs get. It’s dizzying for a moment, until she manages to pull her eyes away from his.

She bites her lip as she drinks him in. He’s classically handsome in the white tee shirt hugging every curve of hard muscle on his chest and arms and the tailored almost-black blue jeans leave very little about him to the imagination. She definitely does not belong with a man who looks like that. She’s no Pier Angeli. 

Damn, if he doesn’t wear ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ well. 

She’s captivated, lost in Old-Hollywood bad-boy style that seems both true to himself and contrary to the outstanding gentleman he has proved himself to be over the course of this evening, until a shift of his hips breaks his casual lean and brings him to standing at his full height. Shirayuki is a woman who prides herself on not being one to swoon over an attractive man but Obi is making it quite the challenge as he saunters over to where she stands by Ryu. 

The room feels too hot and her skin burns as though she has ben set on fire. She knows she’s blushing from her hairline to her toes. There’s an urge to hide, to turn away and walk out the door, but it doesn’t override her want. 

Obi looks like a certified masterpiece. Even Michaelangelo’s ‘David’ sculpture can’t compare to him as he glides toward her, oozing confidence and sex appeal. “Ready to go,” he asks innocently, as if he hadn’t just watched her ogle every inch of him with a degree of shame that left her blushing but wasn’t quite enough to stop her. He grabs his black leather jacket from the coat rack tucked against the wall behind the dinner table and drapes it over his shoulder before turning back to wink at her. 

Realization crashes over her. He’s putting on a show- he wants her to check him out and she played right into it. She gave him the exact reaction he was hoping for if the dangerous cant of his lips is any indication. Oh, he is a sneaky one. 

He must realize he has been caught and he lets out an amused huff before turning his attention back to Ryu who, mercifully, hadn’t been paying attention to anything but his computer screen. “I don’t know what time I’ll be home, Ryu. You’ll be okay, right,” Obi asks as the second version of the car accident comes to a close and the teens realize they have successfully evaded death. 

He doesn’t look up from where he is still scribbling notes. “I’ll be fine but I won’t wait up.”

“I’ll call or text to check in, okay,” Obi says, ruffling Ryu’s hair. 

He never stops writing as he bats Obi’s hand away but he leaves his freshly mussed hair alone. “Have fun,” he says. He adds, “stay out of trouble,” as an afterthought and Obi laughs.

Obi gestures to head out as he grabs his keys off the hook on the wall and opens the door but she hangs back. “Good night, Ryu. It was nice to meet you.”

He actually stops what he’s doing, then, and turns in his chair to face her. There’s the smallest hint of a smile as he says “You, too, Miss Shirayuki. Goodnight.” His eyes are still lowered but she feels light, like his acknowledgement is his acceptance. 

Since this publicity stunt will be an ongoing adventure, it is helpful that he likes her. Even though Obi has done a good enough job of sheltering Ryu from Hollywood press from what she can tell considering she’d never known about his underage roommate, it wouldn’t be believable if she didn’t get along with those in Obi’s circle of friends. 

Obi closes the door behind them and twirls his keys around his finger as they begin the walk down the hall. “What’s with the keys,” Shirayuki asks as a means to fill the silence. Nothing has been awkward yet but she has no intention of finding out if quietness will breed discomfort and ruin what has otherwise been an evening that is memorable for good reasons. “Won’t they ruin your pant lines unnecessarily if we have a driver?”

“Why, Miss,” he says, lifting his hand to his chest to feign embarrassment but the near predatory tilt of his smile, white teeth bared and flashing in the dim light of the hall, reveals his amusement. He definitely saw her checking him out and has zero intention of letting her off the hook for it. “Are you so concerned with the silhouette of my pants?”

“Not personally. No,” she lies. Keys in his pocket would certainly detract from other views and that would be tragic. “I just figured you would be.”

That startles a laugh out of him. “You are something else, Miss,” he muses. “But I texted my driver and told him to go home to his wife and kids. I’m driving to night,” he adds with another wink. 

The whole night has been an experiment in assumptions being dashed by better realities but hearing that he knows and has considerations for the personal details of the lives of the people he employs is heartwarming. Obi truly is a man of mystery and nothing like any actor she has ever met. 

It is a crying shame that it will end in some sort of grandiose breakup after the movie hype has run its course.

[ctl-yuejie]

My thoughts on the conflict between TangYi and ShaoFei, the tone of HIStory3:Trapped  and how conflict and reveals get presented

Disclaimer: I love this show, I think the acting is great and I am very excited that the production team challenged itself with a more complex story than past HIStory seasons, upped the production quality and overall seemed to pour all the heart and hard work into this. Never forget that I love this show even though this might come off as very critical. Me nitpicking at a piece of media however doesn’t mean that I don’t like it (I seldom waste my breath on bad-mouthing something I didn’t enjoy unless it personally offended me), it only means that I enjoyed it so much that I spent hours thinking about the plot and the characters and generally had a lot of feelings.

        - spoilers up until episode 16 -

Now that the show has only 4 episodes left to air I wanted to take some time to sort my thoughts and feelings.

Overall, I really do enjoy this show, especially the acting, the chemistry between Chris and Jake is stellar (not to leave out Andy and Kenny, I just don’t think I’ve seen enough of their story to comment too much on them yet) and the  brilliantly written romance of TangYi and ShaoFei.

In the beginning the premise sounded tropey and fun and I didn’t expect them to seriously tackle the issue of a cop falling in love with a criminal because the trailer, while being action-packed, looked too light-hearted.

The show however took a surprising twist.

Sure, much of what happens is not realistic: the crime rate in Taiwan is famously low (we had one too many shootings and violent deaths on the show to match with the statistics) and I am pretty sure ShaoFei drawing his gun at TangYi every chance he gets in the beginning and not facing any backlash doesn’t comply with police protocol at all.

However, when they introduced the whole background story of TangYi I started to take the set-up more seriously. Prior to this I thought that I just had to suspend belief in order to enjoy the cop/gangster romance aspect of the show and to be able to ignore any ethical issues that might arise with such a dynamic.  But introducing him as this young adult who’d grown up into a life of crime and no choosing of his own, who tried to cut ties with the criminal world because of a promise he gave to his foster father made me rethink the tone of the show and I started to believe that they would honestly tackle the ethical issues of the relationship between ShaoFei and TangYi.

Trying to live an honest and upright life doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to stop committing crimes on your way to achieve that goal (and I am pretty sure that HongYe setting up that business is textbook money laundering) but I liked to believe that revealing TangYi’s motivation would mean exactly that. Because this promised a challenge, suspense and a struggle worth watching.

Refraining from committing crimes and dismantling his organization while upholding his front as a stone-hearted mob boss would result in much more difficulties when interacting with gang members and trying to not get overpowered by enemies. TangYi would be too powerful otherwise. Most of the problems he has encountered on this show were connected to him trying to protect people that are dear to him, a task that is much more complicated to accomplish when you cannot resort to violence. 

Additionally, I don’t think I could root for TangYi and ShaoFei as a couple if TangYi doesn’t try his best to not hurt other people. Not only because ShaoFei is a policeman, there are enough corrupt or misguided policemen around, but because ShaoFei is introduced to us as someone with strong convictions and an even stronger sense of justice and upholding the law. And to me it didn’t seem like his character arc was set-up for him to delve into a moral grey-area or even to switch sides with TangYi. I thought that his journey would be to fall for TangYi and accept that not everyone is necessarily entirely good or evil and having to grapple with his senior being not the person he thought she was. This does fit in with the latest revelations that the police chief with whom he has a kind of father-son relationship is indeed not the good person we thought he was.

I have no idea how ShaoFei could deal with the idea of TangYi being capable of hurting people when it isn’t done in self-defense and if there are other, albeit more difficult, ways in which he could’ve taken action.

Especially because in the reality this show creates the problems a cop/gangster relationship entails don’t get entirely glossed over. Yu Qi reminds ShaoFei in the hospital that him and TangYi cannot be together, not because they’re both men, but because of their professions. (To be honest the only real beef I might have with this show so far was the weird “love is love” analogy that they freely applied to a gangster/cop relationship. I don’t think it was in any way intentional but reversing that thought might lead the viewer to the conclusion that you are either born into a certain profession or you can choose your sexuality...which is definitely not what the show wants us to think, I hope.) Even earlier on ShaoFei denies that he could have developed feelings for TangYi on the basis that they’re playing on opposite teams. So we have to assume that the show acknowledges the ethical problems of this romance in general but somehow conveniently forgets about this conflict when it should have an impact on the characters behavior. This is especially bizarre because the only function of those scenes then is to act as a tool to not make as forget how cold and ruthless TangYi can be. Because he is a gangster boss.

After revealing TangYi’s backstory on the mountain top I got more excited about the show because I thought I’d understood in which direction they wanted to take the main romantic plot and what kind of tone they wanted to set. The show would be slightly more serious and solemn than I anticipated but I welcomed that approach because it would make for an interesting show while not excluding any possible humour.

However, immediately in the next episode I had to start and rethink my assumptions. By now the low respect for rules on the police’s site and dilettante approach to their job started to stand out, however I was willing to not head those details that much attention because most tv series, even mainstream crime shows, mess up the actual technicalities of the jobs they’re trying to portray. ShaoFei’s fever dream on the mountain however took the disconnect with the previous episode a little bit further. The scene overall did fit in with the humour of the show but the way it was acted out and shot didn’t make it look like an organic part of the rest of the series. However, the scene just left me with a small nagging feeling and wasn’t anything that really bugged me.

My feelings for the show however got tested a bit when TangYi beat up that henchman. I was so convinced that the main conflict of the show would be TangYi trying to maintain is image as a gangster so his gang wouldn’t find out that he is trying to dissolve the organization while having to abstain from using any violence. Something that is made even more difficult by the police getting involved and the mystery from 4 years ago looming over him.

I truly believed that TangYi being left alone in that room would turn out to be a ruse to shake up Ah De (whom, as we later find out, he was already suspicious of). It also made me hope that Wang Kun Chen might have not actually died but that his death was faked in order to go after both the criminals and any corrupt policemen (I will come back to his death later on). But afterwards in a talk with Jack it gets confirmed that TangYi indeed beat up the henchman. This course of action didn’t surprise me that much but to be honest I was just disappointed with how straight-forward and unexcitingly TangYi dealt with Ah De and possibly some other close people going behind his back.

The intention of the set-up with Old Tang’s wish was only based on my assumptions so I can’t really feel that let down by it, but TangYi beating up that henchman threw me because I thought we were supposed to read more into Old Tang’s request and conclude that TangYi would have to live through a constant internal struggle.

In general, I don’t mind when unrealistic things happen in a series, however there has to be an internal set of rules that gets followed and scenes and characters have to make sense within the reality the showrunners created.

To me it is curious that TangYi doesn’t think that he has to adjust how he acts in order to disentangle himself from a life of crime in some scenes but in other scenes suddenly cannot take action in a certain way because of the same reason (mostly when it becomes urgent to eliminate direct threats). It is always up to ShaoFei to actively stop him from committing crimes and we never see an internal struggle. Sure, the task got imposed on him by Old Tang and TangYi doesn’t seem to be propelled by intrinsic motives but due to his emotional connection to Old Tang I’d have thought that he would really have to constantly struggle mentally and physically to refrain himself from using violence.

That does, in no way, mean that I wanted this show to be less dark. I think there’s still a lot of room for even more cruelty and angst even if the main character tries his best not to use violence. The whole set-up is very sad, the element of corruption could also lead to emotional distress at how hopeless ShaoFei’s investigation is, drug trafficking in particular comes with many victims, the betrayal inside the gang and every parental figure in this show either not living up to expectations or being outright abusive are also heavy subjects they could lean into even more. Heck, ShaoFei’s whole investigation and the police’s involvement raise the stakes because there is the possibility of capital punishment for drug offenses in Taiwan. We also have to deal with the fact that TangYi most definitely committed heinous acts in the past, the same might go for Jack. All in all, there are still many options left to make this show even more grim and bleak.

In the end it is up to the writers how they want to spin TangFei’s romance but to me it seemed like they were laying the ground for a different approach to the story then what actually played out. While I am not mad at this show (as I said before this is me nitpicking at a series that I highly enjoy) at this point I don’t know whether I can trust the hints I pick up because I don’t know if it was the intention of the writers to built-up a storyline or if what they did was totally arbitrary, or if they indeed simply forgot what they established in earlier scenes (this is where I had my problems with Hong Ye’s attack on ShaoFei and Ah De’s assault of TangYi. HongYe was introduced as more intelligent than that planned attack was and Ah De’s premeditated assault didn’t fit with his goals and the way he crossed the line earlier on).

This back and forth on characterizations, storylines and tone does confuse me quite a bit and is the only thing so far that made the show fall slightly short of what they could’ve accomplished with more consistent writing.

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Which leads me to how the show is dealing with its reveals. So far, we have the mystery from 4 years ago that still needs solving, TangYi’s real parents’ identity which got revealed in episode 16, Ah De not only being in love with TangYi but selling drugs behind his back, Jack’s identity and real motivation, who really killed Wang Kun Chen, Ah Zi being up to no good and finally the police chief being dirty.

I enjoyed/am enjoying all of these plot-twists, some were more obvious than others but again, the writing of how these things unravel or got revealed is very inconsistent.

I will start with our mystery men. The reveal I enjoyed the most was the police chief being a dirty cop. It pretty much came out of nowhere but now a lot of his actions do make much more sense, especially how he didn’t give much support to ShaoFei and how he was mocking about with his work which I initially wrote off as missing motivation instead of passive sabotage. It also gives us enough room to guess his motivations and to whatever conclusion we might come to, it fits perfectly into the story so far. He might have needed money, or averting his eyes might have led to bigger consequences than he expected, now he is scared to lose his job because his daughter is marrying, or he worked too long in the force so he decided to side with what he felt was the most harmless kind of corruption to be able to focus on the big fish. What is important is that regardless of his motivation his past behavior fits with the reveal and added excitement to the show (to behonest at the moment I kind of lost interest in what happened 4 years ago because it is both obvious and confusing at the same time). Ah Zi was an okay reveal and the general topic of corruption in the work force and presumably good characters turning out grey or bad is pretty interesting but how his identity got revealed with those taunting shots of a man in a jacket were somewhat lackluster. They only spanned over two episodes before the reveal and were pretty on the nose. I would have loved it if they’d built-up his betrayal over more episodes with secretive shots of money and drugs exchanging hands where we couldn’t be sure if we were just shown the inner workings of TangYi’s gang or outsiders trying to get their hands on some extra cash.

Again, two similar reveals came about very differently and with a different kind of depth and detail to attention as well as being tied into the show organically and not so much.

This change in style doesn’t do much good in my opinion. Jack remains much of a mystery even though we need at least some hints in order to root for him and ZhaoZi. Instead their scenes are sweet but not that telling and they never just appear in the background to tie in their romance at all times. There were missed opportunities and many scenes that they could’ve been in finished without them and we went two whole episodes without them. Hong Ye and DaoYi had the big advantage to be present in many of the main couples’ scenes so their romance felt very well written and satisfying. I wish they’d spend even more time and attention to detail on Jack and ZhaoZi because with the added mystery element to Jack’s persona I really need more to get emotionally involved.

Again, I am confused as to how deep the show wants us to analyze its characters’ actions and how tricky the story really is. Ah De selling drugs behind TangYi’s back was mentioned only in a throw-away line and we are to believe that TangYi wouldn’t act more guarded or cautious around Ah De? Are we supposed to question that Jack killed Wang Kun Chen? If so, why was TangYi supposed to get fraimed for his death when it was a set-up by possibly the police? If it was as straight-forward as it’s presented I have my problems with rooting for TangYi/ShaoFei and ZhaoZi/Jack because it would be the first kill since the start of the show and setting up TangYi and Jack as unredeemable in ZhaoZI’s and ShaoFei’s eyes (see my huge paragraph about violence above). If we are supposed to scrutinize the show on the same intricate level as the police chief’s betrayal, some of the other reveals fall flat and are just not on the same engaging level.

The same goes for the messaging: are we to believe that Ah De’s actions were despicable? Wouldn’t we have to apply the same rules to Jack kissing ZhaoZi?

Overall I wish this series was written more tight-knitted, intricate and consistent in tone and message. Because I believe that this otherwise very entertaining story could’ve only benefitted from that.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Worst of 2019 (So Far)

And now we get to the opposite of yesterday’s post: the worst of what we’ve seen so far. Time to give them a proper thrashing before they (hopefully) fade into obscurity. Disappointingly, there's a general lack of films that were bad but in an interesting way. Mostly, it’s either been the same sorta dreck we usually get with a couple of unusually offensive stories and a couple of soul-crushingly bad superhero flicks. Curious? Read on.

10. Serenity

I like to save my #10 spot on the “Worst of” list for a movie that has a chance of becoming a favorite among those who love bad movies. Serenity is competently enough made that it does not belong in the same category as The Identical or Runaway. It’s another kind of bad movie, the kind that baffles anyone who sees it and who will have film historians scratching their heads in the future. It’s not quite on the same level as 2017’s “The Book of Henry” but close. Top-notch actors at the top of their career in a story so poorly conceived it would’ve been brilliant if it weren’t awful and utterly absurd.

The revelation that everything we've been seeing is actually part of a video game programmed by an angry teen who hates his abusive father, and that his actions are tied to those of Matthew McConaughey's character is the kind of nutty decision someone at some point should've questioned. My advice? Surprise some unsuspecting friends with it. Periodically pause the movie so they can write down how they think it'll all fit together and then watch their faces as they're proved wrong.

9. After

I’m not going to remember After down the line so this is my opportunity to give it another flogging. I can’t believe fan-fictions of real people is a real thing and that one of them was deemed legitimate and popular enough to be turned into a movie. It plays out like the clone of a clone of a clone of Twilight. At least that movie had danger in the form of vampires and werewolves. This has nothing to offer except embarrassing drama and a prepubescent’s idea of what romance and love look like. I saw it in the theater with a friend and thank goodness she was there; it made what would've been a chore... slightly more bearable.

8. Dumbo

I’ve already gone on about how I feel about Disney’s string of live-action remakes. For the most part, they fail to validate their own existences; they’re just copies of the original but with “real” actors dancing around animated backgrounds, objects and locations instead of everything being traditionally animated. Dumbo isn’t like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. It does try new things. It diverges from the source material significantly in the worst way. The titular character winds up playing second banana to a bunch of circus performers no one cares about and in the end didn’t contain an inkling of the emotion the 1941 version did.

7. Dark Phoenix

This one’s a triple-whammy. Not only was it a deeply disappointing way for Fox’s X-Men series to end, it retreaded old material in a way that was worse than X-Men 3: The Last Stand AND it was a box office bomb. By the time the story finally comes alive… it’s just about over. The whole thing feels like a mistake, bringing in aliens and asking us to invest in characters we just haven’t had enough time to fall in love with. Makes me wonder what the future of the characters is going to be like. Yes there are a number of heroes and heroines we haven’t yet seen, but are people going to care, even when the brand gets a new coat of paint from Marvel Studios?

6. Men in Black: International

Was anyone asking for the Men in Black series to return? Maybe if they'd had a dynamite story this could’ve overcome the public’s general disinterest, but this was an extremely generic plot you could figure out easily minutes in and lost touch with what endeared us to the first. Even with the combined forces of Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth failed, it to generate many laughs. Worse, to make sure I got any references or Easter egg it might drop, I re-watched all of the previous Men in Black movies, including the horrific Men in Black 2.

5. Replicas

This movie goes about itself in such a convoluted way. First, Keanu Reeves plays a scientist working for a company that wants to transplant the mind of dead soldiers into androids. Then, his family is killed in a car crash, prompting him to use the mind transfer tech to put their memories into new clone bodies of themselves. Problem is, he only has the means to clone three out of four family members. This means he has to erase all memories of his youngest daughter from the others’ brains. Following me so far? Good because it keeps going from there. Actually, that’s just the start of it. It’s a classic case of TMSGO - too much sh*t goin’ on. Even with all that, it STILLL managed to have gaping plot holes. No surprise it came and went as quietly as possible.

4. Hellboy

This one hurt. I wanted to see a superhero horror film badly. The early interviews I read about them wanting to adapt Mike Mignola’s books more closely than the Del Toro films got me excited. I was a little apprehensive when the trailers showed some goofy stuff but I figured these were included to draw people in. I should've listened to that sinking feeling. The actual film is awful, one giant mistake after another. Without a doubt, this featured the year’s worst special effects and even this I could've forgiven but the would-be humorous tone was badly misjudged and the story bloated with way too many elements that might've worked... if we weren't also trying to tell the character's origin at the same time. Hellboy ends with a teaser promising more and there’s no way we would’ve seen a sequel even if this had made money at the box office. Cool demons though, for what it’s worth.

3. Shaft

Looking back, I’m struggling to think of anything worth seeing in Shaft. I hated the film’s approach at comedy, particularly when it reverted Samuel L. Jackson’s John Shaft into the kind of man who proudly doesn’t understand modern sensibilities and spews out one homophobic joke after another. The plot was uninspired and uninteresting - not to mention generic - and none of it felt like it belonged on the big screen. On the upside, it prompted me to view the original trilogy with Richard Roundtree and those were enjoyable.

2. Simmba

Simmba is unlikely to be on the “Worst of 2019” list next January. It probably won’t be at the #2 spot. The film mixes two wildly different tones but not well. It begins as a romantic crime comedy, a dated one, sure. Simmba staging a phoney crime in order for the woman he’s attracted to to call him for help and then use the call as an excuse to stay with her through the night is creepy but I guess it might’ve passed like 20 years ago in North America. What makes this a bad film is the way it then introduces a character’s gang rape and murder as a way to prompt the anti-hero onto a righteous path. From there, it turns into this vigilante revenge film that has disturbing implications. You probably haven’t heard of it before now, much less seen it. I don’t recommend you check it out.

Runner Ups:

Aladdin

A controversial choice, as many casual filmgoers seem to have fallen madly in love with it (similar to the way they ate up 2017’s Beauty and the Beast) but honestly, what does this film do better than 1992’s Aladdin? Add an unmemorable song for Princess Jasmine to sing? Reduce the number of talking animals in order to give us more… nothing? Pile on the CGI to the point you wonder why it was made with live-actors in the first place? Like the innumerable direct-to-video sequels of classic films who've been all but forgotten, I tell you this Arabbian adventure won't endure.

Tolkien

So much potential squandered on a boring story. It didn’t take an astute viewer to recognize the film was crippled by the studio failing to obtain the rights to Tolkien’s actual work. I get the feeling we'll see another shot at a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien in a couple of years and this will be the Christopher Robin to the much superior Goodbye Christopher Robin.

The Hustle

It’s an unfunny comedy, what more is there to say? Rebel Wilson makes yet another bad career choice playing the same character she always plays. I only realized it was a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels while writing my review, which is unfortunate. Hopefully I can expunge this film from my memory soon enough and forget anything it might’ve spoiled about the original Bedtime Story or the 1988 remake.

1. Unplanned

The numerous instances of technical incompetence - mostly coming from the performers who are given lackluster material - would be enough to condemn Unplanned to this list. What made me hate the film is the way it blatantly lies and attempts to manipulate the audience into further entrenching themselves in a certain point of view through cheap, manipulative means. I can respect that genuine passion was poured into the project but the way it goes about it is shameful. Do not go see it, even if you're curious.

Yuck. That last one really left a bad taste in my mouth so I'm going to talk about a movie I did enjoy and am enthusiastic to direct you towards Alita: Battle Angel. Rosa Salazar as the titular Alita impressed me and I really dug the action scenes. I'll also right a wrong from last year by reminding you to find and watch Paddington and Paddington 2, both movies I should've put on my "Best of" lists the years they came out. I don't know what I was thinking but I keep coming back to these in my head. They're excellent for kids and adults.

And with that said, the list is over. Back to our regularly-scheduled film reviews until something big comes up. Thoughts or comments on the list are welcome and I hope you enjoyed reading.

[angel5081]

After Review

I read this book forever ago and posted the review on my website, but I decided I would rather put my reviews for things on here for free than pay monthly for a website so here you go. Also the trailer I talk about is the teaser trailer. 

If you've read this book you either loved it or hated it. If you've only recently come across this book it's probably because you saw the trailer and you were interested. The trailer in question starts off with the main character Tessa telling you something that is meant to be profound, and it kept me watching so I guess it was doing something right. However, the trailer then shows you several steamy scenes between Tessa and her "love interest" Hardin with Ariana Grande's' Dangerous Woman playing in the background (if you're wondering why the trailer was so familiar rewatch the first Fifty Shades of Grey trailer only the Fifty Shades trailer was more interesting in my opinion). Speaking of Hardin, let's talk about that trainwreck. 

In the book, Hardin is a grade-A asshole. The more intimate his relationship with Tessa gets the more toxic and abusive he gets. He gets borderline aggressive when he sees Tessa even blink in another guys direction. He tricks her into signing a lease with him which not only binds them legally to an apartment but he also manages to isolate her from her friends in college by doing so. They fight all the time over the simplest things (I realize couples fighting isn't abusive, but Hardin blowing up when Tessa asks simple questions is). At the start of Tessa and Hardin's' relationship, the two were messing around behind Tessas' boyfriend Noahs back. When Tessa showed a willingness to break up with Noah for Hardin he makes fun of her and harshly reminds her he doesn't date. However, when she leaves him still asleep one morning after one of his drunken rampages Hardin storms into Tessas' dorm where Noah also happened to be and forced her to tell him what she and Hardin had been up to. Hardin blames Tessa constantly for the terrible way he acts and is quick to guilt her into not leaving him the second she shows any sort of resistance. That being said I almost feel bad for Hardin. Until he was ten years old he had to deal with an alcoholic father and witnessing his mother be raped by several men. That's enough to do severe damage to a growing mind. You would think something like that would keep someone away from anything self-destructive like that but that isn't always the case. However, I believe that a horrific past will never be an excuse for someone's toxic actions. 

Now I'm not here to simply pick apart Hardin's' toxic personality, I'm here to also pick apart Tessa’s. Tessa cries a lot and she keeps going back to Hardin even though she knows the lovey-dovey Hardin disappears the second Tessa says the wrong thing. Of course, going back to the abuser is easier than finding someone new. Especially after the abuser isolates you from friends and family (I don't really care about the family part because Tessa's mom was abusive in her own way). The part that annoys me is that every time Tessa acts like she really doesn't want to be around Hardin anymore she goes right back to him the second he's angry and drunk. She is warned several times by her friends and even Hardin himself that he will hurt her and in Hardin's words he will "Ruin her." She was very paranoid about Hardin cheating on her if the "slut" (lord help us) of the story was even in the same building as Hardin. More on that later.  

Like Hardin, you could say Tessa’s personality could be because of her childhood as well. Like Hardin, Tessa grew up with an alcoholic father until she was ten. Then she grew up groomed to have the perfect life as an adult. The perfect career, the perfect husband, and the perfect attitude. If anything was less then perfect her mother would criticize Tessas' actions or appearance. That is enough to make anyone willing to do whatever it takes to please other people. It also made Tessa a bit of a control freak at times. This is also why Tessa feels the need to constantly think insulting things about the way other female characters dress, act, and overall present themselves. So much for Girl Love. 

Something that I would like to touch on briefly is the use of Tessa’s full name Theresa. When Hardin first calls Tessa Theresa she tells the reader that the name Theresa reminds her of her father whom we later learn was an alcoholic. Hardin, despite saying he doesn't drink at the beginning of the book proves otherwise. He is continuously getting drunk because of Tessa (or so he says). He calls her Theresa just like her father did which allows us to draw parallels between the two men. There are two reasons why I only wanted to mention this subject briefly. One being that Tessa’s father is not blamed for the reason behind Tessas' dislike for the name in the Wattpad addition. The second reason is that later Tessa tells Hardin that only "family and friends" can call her Theresa. So either that was a mistake on Anna Todd's part or Tessa just wanted to remind Hardin that he was neither at first because she does let him call her Theresa later on. 

Alright now onto the topic of slut-shaming. Like most books originating from Wattpad there was, of course, our "slut" or as I like to say "girl who was sleeping with a guy before the main character appeared and now all the sudden she's expected to back off". The character in question goes by the name of Molly. Of the little group of "friends" Tessa finds herself involved with, Molly is the character that will sleep with any guy in the story including Hardin. Molly sleeping around isn’t something I take issue with, it's the fact that Tessa and Steph (Molly's friend and Tessas' roommate) continuously slut-shame her for sleeping around with Hardin when he never stated that he and Tessa were exclusive and when it's known that Hardin sleeps around with whoever he wants. Of course, he doesn't get shamed for it through. Tessa is only ever warned that that is something he just does. Which is totally an ok thing to do if you have a little extra between your legs.

Then, of course, the big plot twist at the end of the book (not the Wattpad version) is that Tessa and Hardin’s entire relationship was based on a bet Hardin and every member of this “friend” group made. The bet was started because at the beginning of the book Tessa had mentioned being a virgin despite having a longtime boyfriend. So the race was on between Hardin and Zedd (a character I actually liked) to see who could take Tessa’s virginity first. The icing on the cake is that whoever takes Tessa’s virginity has to have proof, which in Hardin’s case are some bloody sheets and a used condom. Disgusting to say the least. To keep Tessa from finding out about the bet Hardin convinces everyone to keep their traps shut and even went so far as to get into a fight with Zedd. Despite Hardin’s noble efforts, Tessa does find out because she goes to meet up with Steph and finds everyone else there too. Molly leads the group in forcing Hardin to spill the beans. And because Tessa has some sense, after all, she wants out of the relationship. For some psychotic reason, Hardin thought that if the two lived together Tessa would be alright with the fact that their relationship was based off a bet. Like he genuinely believed that as long as they were living together in an apartment where both of their names were on the lease Tessa would be like “LOL this kind of thing happens all the time so of course, I’ll stay with you.” How delusional do you have to be?

I want to point out that this book was (according to the Kindle app on my table) 585 pages. That’s a pretty beefy book for its genre. What’s ridiculous though is that there are three more books in the series PLUS a fourth prequel book that is told by Hardin (an engrossing read I’m sure). I could understand two books in a series and then maybe a prequel but anything more kind of just feels a little unnecessary. I’m also very curious as to how on earth this book is going to be a successful movie. I think it could be if they get rid of the slut-shaming and Hardin’s entire personality. As in making him a lot less crazy. Keep his tragic childhood and maybe even his drinking problems, but leave the manipulation and if-a-guy-even-looks-at-Tessa-I’ll-break-his-face attitude in the book. I don’t mind a little bit of protectiveness in a relationship, but damn that was not it sis.

I might read the second book just to see how long Tessa stays mad at Hardin (if it’s for the same amount of time as the thousands of times she was mad at him in After I’m guessing they’ll be back together by Chapter Three). The only way this series could get any better would be if Tessa and Hardin get some therapy as individuals and then maybe some as a couple.

What did you think about the book? Do you think Tessa will hold out on Hardin until Chapter Three or will she gain some kind of self-respect and get a restraining order? Feel free to comment your thoughts below!  

[under-the-lake]

Crimes of Grindelwald - First Impressions

WARNING: THIS PAPER IS FULL TO THE BRIM WITH SPOILERS

I went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Crimes of Grindelwald on 14th November, when it was released in Switzerland. I had read quite a lot about it before, had asked a lot of questions (see this paper for them; it was written before the final trailer was out: http://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/176871006891/it-has-to-be-you-fantastic-beasts-the-second ), and got some answers and quite a number of new questions. Here’s a first and short delivery of my mind ramblings, but I need to see the film a couple more times to have all the details ready for a deeper delve into it.

The title of that first paper on Crimes of Grindelwald was It Has to Be You. I was sort of gutted because it seemed that this series was going to be The Chosen One  all over again, but IT IS NOT, which makes me very happy. I liked the film, and I’m curious to see how the plot develops from here. I thought there would be more plot development, but actually this second film is preparing the Chessboard for the real action, I guess, narrowing the focus and clarifying loyalties and challenges.

The Crimes of Grindelwald  (CoG) is, on the whole, the start of the Real Thing. Only the start, mind. Seeing the trailers and all the online theorising made me think that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was only some sort of prologue to the other four films. After having seen CoG, I reckon it’s right. If we compare with Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring, Fantastic Beasts was the first 500 pages, until the Company reaches Rivendell, and CoG is the bit from Rivendell to Lothlórien and  the journey on the Anduin to the Falls of Rauros. So a bit slow, but setting everything that needs to be set for the rest of the plot to actually get going smoothly.

The film starts at MACUSA (and NOT the American Ministry of Magic, as stated in the film and unfortunately in the script as well- it was not canon), with Grindelwald being moved to Europe for trial. A couple of things happen here that were sort of easy to figure out would: Grindelwald escapes (that was obvious), with the help of Abernathy (which wasn’t obvious for everyone, I guess), and he has the Elder Wand and a pendant that holds some kind of blood-coloured moving liquid. You might ask why I thought Abernathy was going to betray MACUSA. Well, Abernathy (pic below) was always too oily towards Percival Graves not to be the local Pettigrew, wasn’t he.

Grindelwald’s pendant is a bit weird, at the beginning, because it apparently serves Abernathy to save his own life when he puts it into his mouth? Of course, later in the film we learn what it is, namely a blood pact of nonaggression between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, that they made when meeting in Godric’s Hollow, 30 or so years before. So THAT is the reason why Dumbledore cannot attack Grindelwald. Unless he destroys it, which we can guess he’ll end up doing because otherwise the Chocolate Frog Cards and A History of Magic are lying. Newt’s Niffler sees to the pendant’s being stolen from Grindelwald during that Germania-type meeting in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise at the end of the film, that is so reminiscent of gatherings of Nazi or Fascists during the rise of extremist governments after WW1.

I LOVE Newt’s basement. Just LOVE it. Even that Kelpie I was so very skeptical about. Those animals are great. I’d have loved to see more of them, and also more of the baby Nifflers, but they are all cute. The funniest, though, must be the Augurey, particularly because of the interaction it has with Jacob. Bunty, on the other hand, is just a flat version of Lavender Brown, and doesn’t seem to fill any role in the film. Is she going to be there later? Meh, for the moment I couldn’t care less.

About the new creatures we see in the film, they are really cool. Apart from the Matagots. I mean not the creatures per se, but the way it is so obvious they are CGI compared to the rest, which are brilliant work.

The Kelpie is great, but I still don’t get how Newt can have domesticated it as an underwater creature. It goes against all the lore and even against his own book. Or is it that it’s one more creature he’s nurturing back to health? Still, they tend to eat humans, Keplies do.

The star of the creature show, apart from the Niffler, who’s discreet but capital, is the Zouwu (see picture above), a sort of Chinese dragon, that Newt frees from his chains and that becomes a valuable ally. It is really amazing.

Now Queenie and Jacob. Well, that was sort of foreseeable, wasn’t it? I mean that they end up together. I (and other people online as well) had thought that since the Swooping Evil Venom used at the end of the first film didn’t really Obliviate people but only erased bad memories, Jacob couldn’t have lost his, since they weren’t bad. The last scene in his bakery at the end of the first film is clear enough about that. What is a bit far-fetched to me is the fact that Queenie thinks it obligatory to charm Jacob to make him follow her. Why? Because he wouldn’t leave his flourishing business? He does love her, so much so that he doesn’t want her to risk her liberty for him. She says it’s because of the laws: in the USA, relationships of any kind between the magical community and Muggles are strictly forbidden, and thus a marriage would end up with Queenie in prison and Jacob properly Obliviated (this time).

The use of a spell to enchant her lover reminds me a bit of Merope Gaunt, I must say, with the minor difference that Tom Riddle Sr. didn’t love Merope, and therefore her using a potion (yeh I know, Queenie used a spell) is more ‘understandable’. Plus, if the couple actually travels to Europe, why not marry there where the laws aren’t that primitive? Queenie suggests it, at some point, but Jacob still refuses. This is a complete mystery to me, I must admit. I mean the logic doesn’t fit.

BUT. If there was one of the four heroes who should rally Grindelwald, I thought it would have been Queenie, because she’s got a different sense of right and wrong, because she’s got that weakness when it comes to feelings, and because, on a more ‘evidence’ point of view, her head is straight under Grindelwald’s logo in the San Diego 2018 ComicCon poster. IT WAS QUEENIE. I’m glad she does. We’ll see how it gets going though, I’m rather curious about her future. Will she realise that whatever Grindelwald’s promises, Jacob is not part of them? And how come she doesn’t read his mind? Is Grindelwald using Occlumency against her? But she’s not a canon legilimens, whatever Rowling tries to explain about that. She can’t access people’s hidden stuff. Hmm…

However, I don’t think, as many reports do, that Queenie has turned evil. I reckon she’s only desperate to get above those MACUSA laws that prevent her marrying Jacob. She doesn’t think much, though, does she. Yet she’s been showing wit and presence of mind in the first film, where she plays an instrumental part in saving her friends: when she blackmailed that MACUSA official to get Jacob back, and helping the lot out of the building inside her suitcase. She knows how to use her charms with some cleverness and à-propos. So why the ruddy hell does she let herself draw in by Grindelwald? Why doesn’t she question his statements, while she knows who he is perfectly well? This is really weird. I mean she’d be the perfect character to show that it’s not because someone looks like the local Betty Boop she is a peabrain, and can do nothing of her life but be idle. She’d be superbe at that. Maybe she will, in the end, because she needs to travel through darkness to find her own light. Maybe we’ll have a spy again. Maybe… dunno. Maybe she’ll just stay with Grindelwald. Hope not, though.

About Obliviation…. I didn’t know that it also meant ‘removing only the bad memories off the head’. That sounds weird. So what the Swooping Evil Venom does is wipe off bad memories. That’s what Newt says in his suitcase to Jacob, in the first film (scene 46). Later, when the whole of New York needs to be Obliviated, he suggests the use of that same venom. If everyone in New York had their bad memories wiped off, that means they are starting a completely new life based only on their good memories from the whole of their lives. That’s a bit harsh, like a memory genocide. I mean imagine the whole city waking up and not knowing what bad things had happened, who is your foe or why you can’t get to do something you wanted? Plus, I’m sure that some people had good memories related to seeing creatures in Central Park or things like that. So they would still remember them. This isn’t canon Obliviation, and furthermore, doesn’t stick to the USA law that says wipe off ALL memories of magic from Muggles, not only the good ones. Mind you, how would it have looked like if they had been really Obliviated? A whole city of strangers? Big Loophole, I reckon. Which brings us back to Jacob’s situation. He apparently hasn’t forgotten about everything. But how could you say that being chased off by an Erumpent across Central Park could be a good memory? Yet Jacob hasn’t forgotten about them magical rhinos, since we can see Erumpent pastries in his bakery window display. This is all very strange. Kikimora suggested that actually after the canning factory (that sucks all the life out of him), having such an adventure can’t be a bad memory. I reckon she’s got a point here :P

Leta. Hm…. Well, she sacrifices herself in the end. Is that going to provide some kind of protection to the Scamander brothers? Or was it only because she couldn’t make up her mind between them or between light and darkness? Or because she was feeling too guilty? However, I’m glad that she’s not related to Credence, and that the Lestrange thing is something different. Leta is a complex character, and I’d have liked her to develop a bit more in the future films. It seems like a waste, for the moment.

Now there’s one question, from one snake to another. The Maledictus is Credence’s friend (or whatever you want to call that relationship of two scarred souls). She doesn’t really have a part to play in this film, but I guess that she’s not there for nothing, because of her name, for one. Nagini. That’s Voldemort’s pet snake, that Wormtail milked to feed him when he was trying to survive in Goblet of Fire, which makes me wonder, by the way: how can a snake be milked, unless the final transformation the Maledictus goes through is not complete, and that at the moment of transforming she is with a baby and breastfeeding. Plus, she’d be over 90 years old when Voldy uses her. That’s a lot of interrogations. And second, she’s been separated from Credence at the end of the film, because he was once again lured by Grindelwald, who claims he knows his true identity. She can’t just see him go and that’s it, can she. Third, HOW THE BLOODY HELL COME that seeing this, she would end up joining Voldemort? HOW?

Credence… well. He’s alive, no big deal there, and starting to control both his Obscurus and his magic. He’s joined that weirdo circus because it was travelling to Paris, and he knew there were answers to his quest about his true identity on the Old Continent. He knew about that half-elf, Irma, who had taken care of him on his journey to New York when he was a baby (so it must have been around 1904, right?), so he goes looking for her with the Maledictus after they escape from the circus. Now I don’t get it why he’s drawn to her. Why are they escaping together? Maybe only because they’re both outcasts, and both being in an abusive environment they can’t stand.

Then there’s this Ministry of Magic (MoM) bloke who took the job to track him down and kill him (the job that was offered to Newt but which he flatly refused - You’ve never met a monster you couldn’t love), but he kills Irma instead. Like WHAT? Why? So that she wouldn’t tell him the truth? As if she knew it. We learn later in the film that Credence is the baby she delivered to MaryLou Barebone in New York, but that is should have been little Corvus Lestrange, who was apparently killed by Leta herself on the journey, because she swapped the babies (her brother Corvus was whining too much, and she couldn’t stand it anymore, so she swapped it with another baby, but then the boat sank).

That Ministry bloke is apparently secretly working for Grindelwald because the MoM policies are too soft (see scene under the bridge). So he probably was afraid that Irma’s hugging Credence would lessen his powers since love and family are -again- the remedy to the curse of the Obscurial…

In the end we learn, via the fact that Credence is having a baby Phoenix first (twice in the film, actually), but then because Grindelwald tells him, that he’s actually Dumbledore’s brother Aurelius. Right. I think I’ll keep that discussion for the second batch of reflections, because it needs a bit of digging. Still, I couldn’t resist adding a picture of the cover of the Crimes of Grindelwald screenplay, where it is obvious that a phoenix (or two) are hiding.

Flamel. Something weird about him. ‘We don’t keep food in the house.’ WHAT? Of course he and Pernelle are rich enough with the Stone not to have to cook themselves, but seeing how Flamel moves, I can’t imagine him rambling around Paris to go to restaurants thrice a day. Even climbing into a motor might be something of a challenge. Some could argue the Flamels don’t need to eat. Yeh. Well, since when does Immortality and Wealth dispense you from eating? That’s not consistent with the story around the Stone, be it only the glimpse we see in Philosopher’s Stone or the reality of the alchemical achievement. I’m a bit disappointed in the part the character has to play. Just a safe home for Yusuf to recover and have his water dragon parasite removed from his eye, and that’s about it? We do get a glimpse of the Philosopher’s Stone, and yes, Flamel has some kind of Palantir he uses to see what happens outside, and yes he’s at the Père Lachaise for the final scene, but still I’m like so that’s it right? meh.

We go back to Hogwarts. The young Newt is played amazingly well, given that he had to match Eddie Redmayne. Well done Joshua Shea (and David Yates for casting him and not using visual effects to make Redmayne look younger)! Apart from the pinch when you see Hogwarts appear from above with the Dark Lake and all, it’s nothing special. Leta takes a tour, which leads her to speak with Dumbledore and this dialogue is probably the one worthy of attention during all the Hogwarts sequences (apart from ‘would you like a cup of tea’ in the end) - and adds to the ‘why did you kill her?’ question.

Young McGonagall is completely out of character. Sounds like she’s been taken straight from Cursed Sh***... that was a disappointment. She’d never behave as she does in this scene.

And I still haven’t got over the fact that Dumbledore is teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. No explanation is given in the film. I’m annoyed.

The French Ministry of Magic is accessed via a fountain. As said in my previous paper, I was wondering how people would be entering it in a non conspicuous way, because apart from shrinking themselves in the middle of the street and jumping into the plumbing… well. Apparently they vanish and the fountain sprouts some kind of railings? Come on people, this is a heavy breach of the Statute of Secrecy. Muggles wouldn’t see people disappearing?? No way. It is already bizarre enough at King’s Cross. Second thing is that again, the location tag on the screen reads ‘French Ministry of Magic’. Well, that’s not in accordance with what it is called everywhere else, namely Le Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France’. Why??

Same question in the USA: Why, in the name of Merlin’s most baggy pants, is MACUSA referred to as ‘American Ministry of Magic’? First of all, America is a continent, not a country. Referring to it as ‘American’ (YES, I know it’s common to do that but it still irks me) means that there are no other countries that can claim to be American in all three subcontinents. Try and tell Canadians that they don’t live in America, or Brazilians, or Mexicans. That’s not right. Well. If we set this ‘detail’ aside, the name of the United-Statesian Ministry of Magic is The Magical Congress of the United States of America, and NOT The American Ministry of Magic. Rowling made it quite plain in all her writings on Pottermore, for instance. So why WHY change that now? It only makes canon void of sense and nomenclature confusing.

Apparently, there’s a whole Wizarding layer to Paris, unlike London or New York, that you can enter via a statue of a woman sitting on a column (pic above). The Paris you enter has exactly the same map as the Muggle one, but it’s a parallel Paris. A bit weird, but probably the only way to manage a magical travelling circus without having to make yourself unplottable. Mind you, the Hogwarts Express can’t be seen by Muggles. So why couldn’t the same technique be used on a circus?

I’ll save Grindelwald, the raven and the Lestrange vault for my second piece, as well as Newt, Tina and Dumbledore, I think. I thought I’d leave the Deathly Hallows for the second bit too, but no. WHERE ARE THEY? They are everywhere from the title of the film to all the artwork by MinaLima, but not once are they mentioned in the film. Apart from the Elder Wand, in the hands of Grindelwald. Like the Potter films. Me. Is. Lost.

Many people around me or online have been complaining that this film had killed the wizarding world. Well I reckon it hasn’t, quite the contrary. It’s embedding Hogwarts in the Wizarding World, and not the other way round, folks. Rowling always stated that the Fantastic Beasts series would not be a children’s film series. She also often spoke about this as an allegory of the Interwar period, meaning the rise of extremism in Europe, culminating in WW2. It’s not a fairy tale, and not meant to be so.

Some more questions remain unanswered from before, or some details from this film, regarding the things discussed - or rather said - in this bit of writing:

Why didn’t Grindelwald kill the MoM official at the beginning, and ‘only’ made him fall into the Hudson river?

How come people can Apparate on the Hogwarts Bridge while all sources tell us you cannot Apparate on the grounds?

Why is a bloke called Travers the head of the MoM delegation sent to Hogwarts?

Why is the man replacing Newt to track down Credence so ambiguous? What’s his real role?

What’s Credence’s real family tree? Is he Dumbledore’s brother or half-brother? What’s the story behind this?

Phoenixes come to the Dumbledore family members when in dire need of help. Are there two phoenixes or is the one that comes to Credence actually already Fawkes?

So many questions, and so many more to come... when I get time enough to write the second part of this. Happy thinking, and please comment below with your own thoughts, agreements, disagreements, etc...!

Sources

Rowling, J. K. (2016). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Rowling, J. K. (2018). Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

[winteriron-trash]

Ok, so that fanfic questions ask meme? You wanna do ALL OF THEM?!

YES, LET’S DO IT, HERE WE GO, PREPARE YOURSELF I’m copy and pasting answers I’ve already done just so I don’t have to retype them and there’s a break because god this got long. I might link this on my About Me post, cause holy shit I spent time on this

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Actual fandom? Probably DC. That’s when I started reading fanfiction and really poked my head around online communities dedicated to media and all.

2. What is your latest fandom?

I don’t know, probably Marvel? Maybe Riverdale, but I was a fan of the comics before so

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

If I’m assuming this question is about the actual fandom and not the source material and the people in the fandom and its community as a whole? Probably the Percy Jackson fandom. Not really into it anymore so I don’t know the state of it now, but it was a pretty wholesome and positive community. Any community that calls it’s creator “Uncle Rick” has gotta be pretty dope.

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

Oh lord save my soul for admitting I like this, but definitely Five Nights at Freddy’s. The indie gaming, creepypasta, underground subculture as a whole is something I regret getting into. Don’t get me wrong, I usually love the source material, but the fandom is just so bad. You probably know what I’m talking about, the fangirls who insist they’re insane and are in love with Slenderman or something.

But specifically on FNaF, lord, I don’t even know what the fandom is anymore. It’s a meme, a fetish, and a hellspace all at once. And I’m not gonna fucking lie, I’ve been in this hellhole long before any of that. Like, I can’t even try to escape it, I’m in it for the long haul. I was just someone who joined for the lore and now we’re here with fucking casual bongos and trash gang and fuck I didn’t ask for this. I can’t escape. I know so fucking much about the franchise it hurts my fucking soul. I remember when the FNaF 2 trailer came out and we were all micro-analyzing London Bridge Is Falling Down. I remember when Springtrap didn’t have a name and we called that fucking Spring Bonnie or Golden Bonnie. I survived that era and I have PTSD from it, trust me. I remember when we were naive enough to think FNaF 3 was the last game. I know what channels were born and what channels died because of that series. I know it all.

I’m sorry, I got off topic. BUT I DON’T GET TO FUCKING RANT ABOUT IT ENOUGH, FUCKING FUCKSHIT

Oh, and a lot of bandoms I was in too. I went through an alt phase where I’d only listen to shit like BVB, BMTH, MCR, PTV, SWS, and so on. Once again, that sort of fandom was the same as the indie/creepypasta in being ‘different’ and ‘insane’ and all that and I was no different. I was a weird fucking kid when I was like 13. I regret all of it.

5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?

Marvel, DC, and a couple Riverdale. 

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Not in many fandoms but

Marvel - WinterIronDC - SuperbatStar Trek Voyager - Captain Janeway/Seven of NinePercy Jackson - Solangelo

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

Marvel - Stucky, Stuckony, Romanogers, Clintasha, any incest ones, (save me for admitting this) SpideypoolDC - Any batboys shipped together, Bruce/Talia

And I don’t really have NOTPs for my other fandoms? Marvel and DC are really the only two things I’m invested in the fandom of. I guess you could count Wincest as well for Supernatural.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

What even is my latest fandom? Um, we’ll just say Marvel because I’m really not into joining fandoms much anymore. Honestly, I was a big DC fan who felt the need to hate Marvel because no shit. Eventually, I just got sick of the absolute shit movies DC had and I decided I had nothing to lose by just watching Iron Man. When I watched it I realized “wow, superhero movies can actually be good???” and I just binged the entire MCU in one month and was ready to see the next movie in theatres and I think I’ve seen every single MCU movie in theatres since Civil War? Definitely since Homecoming. I gave up on DC movies. The new Aquaman looks like shit, I’m so fucking pissed they redid Mera’s look when she looked perfectly fucking fine before and now she’s oversexualized and it’s gross. I’m excited for the new DC Batwoman TV show because I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO SEE A LIVE ACTION BATWOMAN SINCE THE DAWN OF FUCKING TIME

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Probably the Tony Stark Defense Squad. As a collective whole, I think the Defense Squad is one of the sweetest, nicest corners of the fandom. We’re incredibly kind to each other, write great meta and fic, and it’s just a great community. Of course, there are assholes, but you know.

I might get flamed for saying this, but also the HYDRA Trash Party corner of the fandom is actually really nice? Like, they understand consent and abuse aftermath and all the real shit better than the rest of the fandom, not gonna lie. Like, for as dark as the fic is you’d expect the people to be fucking nasties, but I have never met a rude HTP enthusiast. Or even one who’s unaware of how consent and whump work. They’re all very aware and kind. It’s bizarre, considering the source material. They get an awful rep though.

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Literally any fandom I’m in besides Marvel and DC. I think I wrote like 2 Riverdale fics. Getting into reading fanfic and getting into writing fanfic are two entirely different ballparks. I don’t really read that much fanfic anyway, especially not anymore. I read Marvel and DC, but even then. I think it’s hard because sometimes you can’t switch off the whole ‘reading like a writer’ thing. That’s why I enjoy classic literature. I’m a slut for some good ass prose and symbolism.

11. Who is your current OTP?

WinterIron, of ducking course.

12. Who is your current OT3?

I’m not really a fan of OT3s, to be honest, I find I’m personally pretty weak with writing poly relationships and I don’t really enjoy reading them because one character is usually focused on a lot more than the other two. But if I had to pick, I would say T’Challa/M’Baku/Bucky only because I am solely responsible for the creation of that abomination and you have no idea how much people begged me for a series after the first one, it astounded me.

13. Any NoTPs?

As before listed, Stucky, Stuckony, Spideypool, Clintasha, Romanogers

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

IronWidow is my top BroTP, but I also like WinterWidow as a BroTP. Stucky is good as a BroTP too, as well as Tony & Rhodey.

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Literally any ship I have. Yall I’ve been here since WinterIron was obscure. But to name a specific one I’m just gonna go with Pietro/Tony. I don’t know, I just had an idea I was writing for them and I was thinking about how much missed out potential there was between them. And with Pietro as a whole, but you know. Marvel has to kill off the only good Maximoff they had.

Oh, Natasha/Pepper too, but they aren’t as obscure, I guess.

16. Are their any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Stucky, clearly.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Stony, and no. They fell apart for me, at least MCU-wise.

18. What ship have you written the most about?

By now, WinterIron, I believe. I recently passed my count of fics for Superbat.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Pepperony, probably. I think it’s actually a cute and sweet ship and I like their in-canon moments, but I just can’t get behind reading fanfic of them? It never works out for me, I don’t really get it. It sucks because I do enjoy seeing their cute moments.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

I’ll do a different answer I thought of besides the first time I answered this. But Thruce was a big shocker for me. I didn’t even think about it during Ragnorak but then I saw an incorrect quote for it and I was like? Oh? This? This is a good, pure ship right here. The funny thing is, I actually wrote a fic with them as a side ship long before they hit it big so like, I was shocked when they came out of nowhere. But hey, I’m fucking here for it. I’ll probably never write it, but I’m here for it. 

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Goodnight, My Angel. It was a Superbat fic and really sad, but I still love it.

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Probably... You Deserve Love And You’ll Get It. No, I won’t link it because I hate it that much. I’m not even gonna talk about it.  It’s my most popular fic too why

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Super dorky, but The (Un)Wanted Kiss. It’s my first finished chapter fic, and the first chaptered fic I did on Tumblr and it just brings me a lot of nostalgia. It reminds me of where I was as a writer when I started it and it was an entire fic spawned from people wanting more of a simple 500-word prompt and that just blows my mind. It reminds me of the power of fans and how much love and support I got from it. It really kicked me off as a “serious fanfic writer” I think.

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

All You Are Is All I Need. That is a hot fucking mess. Probably The Red Halo too.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

*sigh* You Deserve Love And You’ll Get It

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

I bullshit my way through them. My most recent fics have actually followed a trend of being named after songs.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Summaries. I always make them so fucking corny, I hate it.

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

One Foot In Front Of The Other, probably. Just because I want more fem!WinterIron fanart. I can’t say what scene because spoilers but.... yeah, anything from that would be great, really.

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

Sort of. I make some of my friends like Pizza read over my shit before I post it, but that’s not often, only when I think I need it. I don’t just because I write a lot and I’d feel bad for constantly annoying someone with making them read everything I write. I hate inconveniencing people.

30. What inspires you to write?

The better question is what doesn’t. I never stop thinking like a writer. My brain forgot how to turn off that feature.

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

Ummmm, I can’t think of an exact thing? I get so many beyond sweet comments and messages, it’s hard to pin down one comment. I think if I had to pick, I once got a message from someone on Tumblr who was old enough to be my mother complimenting me and telling me I didn’t write like a teenager and I think that was really sweet.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And honestly, any genre. I listen to everything. Everything. But specifically, Emilie Autumn has inspired a lot ideas/fics I’ve written.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All of the above.

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

Around 23k, I think?

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

Yes, and whatever I get prompted for, really.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

For fanfiction, I guess romance? I mean, that’s really all my fanfiction is. Otherwise, I’ll write quite literally any genre I feel like. I go wherever an idea takes me. I’m character based, not genre or plot based.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

Third. I fucking despise 1st person. I just do. That’s an entire rant we ain’t here for today.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

Usually canon characters. I only use an OC when I absolutely have to, to make the plot do the plot stuff.

39. What is you greatest strength as a writer?

Nothing. My writing sucks. All of it is shit.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Everything. I screech the most about pacing and sentence structures though.

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

Most of these are actually on my to-read list but whatever.

Winter's End by ali_aliska Winter is Coming (aka Fifty First Avengers Dates) by 27dragons, tisfan My Love is Vengeance by seikaitsukimizu The caged Hawk by asamandra Fertile Ground by 27dragons, tisfan

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

27dragons tisfanChiaki_Hamano arianapeterson19 thepartyresponsible

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

Not really? I’m not knocking any of the other ‘big names’ in the Marvel fandom, but I don’t really draw inspiration from other fanfic writers. Not for plot, and definitely not for writing style. I get inspiration from fanart I see sometimes, but it’s never one main artist who I stalk to be inspired, just whatever I happen across online.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

WinterIron, duh. I will not rest until WinterIron is the biggest ship in the Marvel fandom.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

I’ve mentioned this fic before and honestly, it hasn’t been topped yet, but  In the Company of Monsters by Chiaki_Hamano. It’s not even a Marvel fic, and it’s not even a ship I like, but god, I fucking adore it. I’d love to write something like it, but with WinterIron if I had the time, I think the entire world and setting would fit WinterIron beautifully.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Well, that all depends on what they’re looking for in my fanfiction. If they’re looking for WinterIron, I’d probably tell them to start with The (Un)Wanted Kiss just because that’s one of my most loved fics and I think I did really well with it. But if they just want a general fic, A Great Connection is one I’m really proud of and I still get gushing feedback about.

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

For just writing fanfic, Ao3. Tumblr can be a pain in the ass, and I don’t even use ff.net.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

Yes. But only if 1, I really, really loved it or 2, I don’t think the fic has enough attention. It also helps if the writer responds to comments. I don’t see the significance of saying “I loved this!” if the fic has dozens of other comments saying the same thing. As a writer, I know what comments writers prefer. Longer ones, deep comments pointing out what things they liked, and so on. However if I write a comment that long, I like to get a response because you know, I love seeing the writer talking about the elements of the story I liked. 

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

Not really, to be perfectly honest. Yes, I love and cherish every kudos and note I get, and the sweet comments make me want to die of joy. But I write for me. Even when I take prompts, in the end, I write because it makes me happy. Yes, I love the validation. But even without it, I would still write. I do not write fanfiction for you, I share fanfiction with you. There’s a difference. Writing makes me happy. If I only cared about the validation, I wouldn’t have a folder reserved of fics I’ll never post but I wrote just because I wanted to. I write to write. The moment I start writing for validation, I might as well stop writing, because it’s not worth it.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

Ummmm I think I was just curious? I was new to internet culture, I saw fanart of Superbat and I discovered Ao3 and was like “wow, this stuff exists??? Words for free????? About my favourite characters being happy and dating each other??????????” and it was a downward spiral. I was like, 11 when I read my first fanfiction. I was obsessed with Superbat fanart, and I thought, what would it hurt to try actually reading it? Like, that was so taboo to me. And now we’re here. Tadaaaaaah

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Oh, a chance to ramble. Yay. I’m gonna rant because I’m a rant-y person.

I think something that annoys me about fanfiction is not necessarily a probably within fanfiction, but rather the outward view of it. Fanfic has an awful rep within the real world. The one-time fanfiction really took centre stage was when Fifty Shades came out, which only hurt the platform by furthering the stereotype that it’s all porn made for horny freaks who just want to get off.

I should not be ashamed to say I write fanfiction. I should not feel childish saying it to myself. No one should. At least half of my ‘fans’ are nearly a decade or more older than me. It’s clearly not something that’s immature or silly. Of course, it can be, but any hobby can be dumbed down to a kiddy version.

But fanfiction at its core is ignored for what it really is. When adults talk about fanfiction they belittle it and only see a tiny subsection of it, ignoring what it’s supposed to be about. It’s about creating transformative works for media you’re passionate about.

Fanfiction gets a worse rep than other transformative works such as fanart or whatever. Writing as a whole does. Fanfic is painted as this utter trash.

I’ve read fanfiction that made me cry, laugh, feel shit. I’ve read fanfiction that tackled heavy topics. Even on a sexual standpoint, I’ve read fanfiction that was willing to write erotica that published authors wouldn’t fucking touch. Both in a kink sense, but also in terms of how the relationship functions. I’ve read shitty fanfictions, sure. But I’ve read fanfictions that were better than 90% of the published books I’ve read. Even fanfics I didn’t like.

To put fanfiction into perspective, the average YA novel (the age group fanfiction is generally but not always aimed at) is 70k words. I’ve read fanfiction that blows that word count out of the water. And it takes fucking skill to write something that long. It’s not just writing a bunch of porn or cute scenes, that takes serious world building and character arcs.

Fanfiction kills so many tropes that are common in YA and literature in general. I read a YA after reading nothing but fanfiction for a long time and I was fucking appalled? It was a popular YA too. I won’t name what one because you could literally imagine anyone and it’d probably fit. The characters were flat, the romance was outright manipulative and toxic, the plot was dull, even the writing itself was bland. This was the type of book years ago I would’ve loved. But compared to most (of course, not all. Shit exists, but I think in fanfiction, we’re able to better filter out the shit) fanfictions, it was fucking trash.

When I started reading fanfiction, I assumed it’d lower my standards. The first time I picked up an actual novel I was relieved, excited to not have to deal with the problems that are in unpublished writings. But I quickly realized it was the complete opposite. Fanfiction threw my expectations through the roof. I expect fiction to include representation, fresh plots, interesting characters, thrilling romances, and decent fucking sex scenes if they’re there. But it just wasn’t there. It all fell flat. As someone seriously into the writing and reading community I hear so often that it’s hard for plots to be original and you shouldn’t judge on originality, but then I read fanfiction written by fucking teenagers that’s fucking mind-blowing with plot twists and original ideas, and I have to wonder is it really that hard? It’s clearly doable, you just have to take away the fanfiction part.

I have YA novels sitting on my sheld I know I’ll never read and enjoy because fanfiction just made my expectations too high. Which is good in a sense because I pray some of these amazing writers, when they get older will go on to write mind-blowing original novels and I hope that this generation of writers will put out great literature in ten to fifteen years, but for now I’m just… underwhelmed. I think it’s why I read a lot of classic literature too. Shit was better back then.

And yet despite all that, fanfiction is still made to look like shit in the modern media. It sucks so badly for fanfiction writers not to look like serious writers. I could publish one book, have it get the amount of attention my biggest fanfic got and be considered a serious author. My biggest fanfiction currently has 40k notes on Tumblr. Imagine if that were a published short story. It’d be a fucking hit. And there are others that make my numbers look small. And yet it’s brushed aside as unimpactful.

I think a lot of that stems from the fact that fanfic writers do generally start out younger. I’m 16. Others either are or were my age. But age does not equate to skill in writing. Sure, that is a factor, but it is not the entire story. I know a 14 yr old who writes some of the best prose I have ever seen. And even if younger fic writers aren’t on level yet, fanfiction is what’s helping them grow as a writer. But because we’re teenagers, we’re turned away just because of that. Even more specifically because we’re teenage girls (for the most part, I’m not saying other genders and/or age groups aren’t writing/reading fanfic) and we all know how society feels about them. It’s just a fucking shame that fanfiction can’t be respected for the legitimate form of writing it is because of the stigma. I’ve seen fanfic writers say they aren’t real writers because of the stigma, it’s awful. We feel the need to tear ourselves down for an admirable hobby. I can’t say my favourite book is a fanfiction I read, when I has every right to be a valid answer.

We’ll cut this ramble off here because wow I really went on didn’t I.

[gojaimas]

Chapter 35 Comment Replies

csgt: “Oh, I forgot to mention it in the past chapter, but I definitely got the feeling that Ben having a new normal watch and Gwen replacing the charm with a normal locket means the definitive end of the ‘hero’ part of their story”

Yeah, pretty much. They’re moving on to new stages in their lives as they grow up.

csgt: “So Lucy is now developing real feelings for both Ben and Gwen? Ohhh, that complicates things… Maybe she will find someone else and get over them? Even though now I’m seeing the chances of ‘Bwenucy’ happening raise a little (maybe 5 percent now instead of 1 percent?)”

Things are a little more complicated now. People have been noticing for a while that there is a chance of the story going in the Bwency direction, so this probably made it seem more likely to everyone. You’ll just have to see how it plays out over the rest of the year.

Davidscrazy234: “If this was made into a live action show, like Arrow and The Flash which cast person would u choose for Ben, Gwen, and Lucy?”

Ooh, there’s a fun question! Let’s see…

For Ben, I’d go with David Mazouz, AKA young Bruce Wayne in Gotham. The scenes where he’s partying and pretending to be a spoiled rich kid makes me think he could totally pull off Ben, plus beating the crap out of bad guys is right up his alley.

For Gwen, I’d say Sadie Sink, AKA Max from the second season of Stranger Things. I’ll admit it’s mostly because she’s a fierce redhead, but she seems talented enough to pull off a character who’s pretty much the exact opposite of Max as well.

And then for Lucy, I’d pick Elsie Fisher, AKA the voice of Agnes in the Despicable Me movies. She did a live action film with Bo Burnham recently too. She’s such a sweet girl and just seems like a constant ray of sunshine, I think she’d be perfect for Lucy.

These actors are 15-17 years old now, so I guess it could only work as a sequel to my story at this point, but they would’ve been perfect for it if the series had started like 4 or 5 years ago.

Guest: “I have a question- is Gwen shorter than Ben in this story? Otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to lean into his chest without having her butt stick out awkwardly.”

Haha, yes, Ben is the taller one now. Gwen used to be taller than him, but he hit his growth spurt and surpassed her, which I sort of eluded to a couple times in Year 3. I remember Ben Ten Thousand being really tall, so I figured this was how they would turn out. The drawing I did of them for the story image is a little closer to what I imagine their current relative heights are now.

Guest: “I’m like the track you’re heading with. Lucy was only featured in one episode in the original and she had so much potential, I always kept an eye out for her. Her characteristics stood out. The wedding when Ben danced with Gwen and then Lucy were really sweet moments. Came for a Bwen fanfic but I’m also in love with Lucy.”

You and me both, my friend. Lucy wasn’t even in the character list for Ben 10 fanfictions until I started this story. If nothing else comes from it, I hope people start to like her a bit more.

Jagcity: “Just a little side inquiry, it seems that Frank loves his daughter (or at least checks up on her) more than Natalie does; I guess Gwen’s mom is simply the stern and frowny type.”

Gwen’s dad is a softie, sort of a typical doting father. Her mom is much more strict, but she’s definitely the one who pushes her to succeed more, which Gwen is mature enough to be thankful for. Ben still finds Natalie mean and scary, and it confuses him that Gwen doesn’t seem to see her that way at all.

Guest: “that bathroom scene was the first time we’ve seen Lucy expressing her true intentions and emotions behind her cherrful happy go lucky mask and she seems to be conflicted… she cares for others which is why she wants Ben and Gwen to be there for each other but at the same, even though I can’t say she’s human, she’s got emotions. She’s just better at hiding it like Ben.”

We have seen her “mask” slip before, which I think is a good way to put it. Back in the summer of Year 2, she broke down because Joel and Camille were missing. That was an unrelated matter, but I hope it effectively foreshadowed how Lucy might not always be the cheerful, happy go lucky girl she appears to be.

Guest: “This was a really effective chapter and it only was that way because of the events and progression leading up to it.”

THANK YOU! Yes! Now you all know why I had to write a story the length of a Harry Potter book before reaching this point. I hope the payoff was worth the wait.

Guest: “I don’t know how to root for right now, it’s like Toradora all over again.”

I’m really glad you brought up Toradora, which is hands down one of the best romance anime out there. It wasn’t one of the biggest inspirations for my story (which would probably be Oreimo in addition to Little Moments), but I can definitely see the similarities.

Guest: “Since you mentioned you’re in college, what’re your aspirations and plans for the future? You’d do great as a author, writer for animes, characters and novels judging by what I’ve seen from you. You seem to have an interest in gaming so you could have a certain paths on that or just take it as a way to kill time. Whatever you’re gonna be in the future you sure as hell are gonna be successful”

Thank you for saying so! I actually graduated about a year ago, but I started writing this story while I was still in college. I’m currently working as an engineer at a medical device company. I have no real training or experience as an author, so I’ll probably just stick with fanfiction as a hobby for now. I’m also learning to draw in the anime art style, so maybe I’ll try making a fan manga at some point as well. In the past, I’ve competed in really low level Super Smash Bros and Magic the Gathering tournaments, but I couldn’t see myself making a career out of it. In about a year or two, I plan to decide if I wanna stick with what I’m doing or go back to school for a bit to transition into something else. I have a friend who got into the game design industry after he graduated, which is something I would love to do as well. Becoming a teacher is another option since I like working with kids and I used to tutor other students in math, science, and programming, plus my aunt is a middle school math teacher. I also have a friend who got into writing for television after he graduated. I was mostly joking, but I already made him promise that if he ever somehow makes it big and gets his own cartoon, he’ll let me voice the villain since I’m “basically already the villain in his life.” I know a lot of my readers are in college, so I just wanna say to all of you that life can be pretty cool after you graduate, and I hope you all do as well as my friends and I have.

Guest: “Do you think Joel is dead in the Last of Us Part 2”

I don’t think so. Wasn’t he in the trailer? Either way, I know I’m gonna play the shit out of that game the second it comes out.

Guest: “God. Been reading from December and this story’s at the TOP of the Ben 10 fanfic section, well deserved. Gosh bless”

Is it really? Awesome! Also, I thought it was funny how you start the comment with “God” and then switch to “Gosh bless” at the end. Lucy prefers “Glob” because she’s a fan of Adventure Time.

Guest: “‘Shut up and put your hands around me’ Gwen is such a tsundere lmao”

Haha, absolutely! I love tsunderes. Totally my type.

Guest: “Since you haven’t seen Alien Force... did you by any chance check out Omniverse since some flashbacks involve the friendship Gwen, Lucy and Ben.”

I only watched a few episodes of Omniverse. I even specifically sought out the episodes that had Lucy in them because I wanted more of her. The show didn’t really appeal to me, but I enjoyed the episodes I saw and the Lucy ones were helpful for crafting her character in my story.

Guest: “We all know Ben and Gwen are gonna end up together and you also mentioned you might write epilogue one shots would it be possible to also write a optionn B) alternative ending where Ben and Lucy got together or would that not fit with the course of the story you’re taking in? Just like how they did Amigami SS, in each 5 episodes, they pair the MC with a girl in alternative ways and timelines of course to see how it would’ve played out. I feel bad for Lucy to be left out and as much as I love Bwen as she does, wish she had her chance too.”

The Bwen ending and the Bwency ending are the only ones that are really on the table right now. I will say that the ending is one of those two options, but I am willing to write an alternate ending for the other one. It’s hard to imagine a Ben/Lucy ending that wouldn’t be completely soul-crushing for Gwen, but I might consider giving it a shot.

Guest: “‘Beeeeeeeen! You...you...You're doing it wrong!’ ‘Give it a rest Dweeb, I'm doing the best I can.’ ‘Ahhhhhhh...Ouch! Wrong hole, Doofus! Do you even know what you're doing down there!?’ ‘Maybe I should've just asked Lucy for help...’”

Hey! How did you get my manuscript for Year 5?? I mean, uh...get this filth out of my Christian Minecraft server.

Guest: “Just wondering, but is this a purely Bwen fic? It seems kinda sad that I read 200K words thinking that Lucy doesn't really stand a chance. I was wondering how much of a jump it would take for all three of them to get together but it doesn't really matter anyways since you already finished writing this work. I just found this piece about 3 days ago and I gotta say I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I look forward to reading what kind of ending you have in store for these characters.”

It’s not purely a Bwen fic. It was my intention for everyone to know Ben and Gwen were going to end up together from the start, but for it to be unclear at this point if Lucy will be involved with them as well. Some of my readers are more convinced it will happen than others, but like I said earlier, I am willing to write both endings. Only one of them is written right now though.

[ideahat-universe]

Bad, Good, Grey entertainment

Okay so there’s been a lot of pedo talk about various forms of entertainment and I want to set the record straight on what we are dealing with here. 

Toddler’s and Tiaras/Dance Moms/Little Miss Sunshine/ and Honey Boo Boo probably:

No one with empathy for children or just humanity in general liked those shows. Those shows were popular and went on for several seasons because the production costs were low and the reality television audience is very passive, very addicted to drama, and love watching freak shows. 

You can’t find a audience more entertained by human suffering than the people that love watching reality shows. 

The success of those shows is not an indictment of America, especially Little Miss Sunshine which is a movie that no one has seen. If you defend Cuties by saying that Little Miss Sunshine had something like that in the third act I have to respond with “No one who isn’t a hipster douchebag or a film reviewer has seen the ending to that film”

Normal people don’t watch shit like that. Do you even remember the trailers? I do! I saw a review for it either and it looked like the cure for insomnia. 

The average person thinks Honey Boo Boo was the worst, they think dance moms is for sociopaths who like seeing little girls cry, and they think Toddler’s and Tiara’s are for pedophiles. 

Big Mouth: 

Big Mouth is a coming of age show for adults and it seems mostly like a thinly veiled excuse to watch westernized lolita and shota soft core porn, it might be that but the big problem with calling Big Mouth fans pedos is that big Mouth is basically like every other raunchy adult comedy, including the sacred cow South Park. 

There’s not a lot of stuff that Big Mouth has done that South Park hasn’t also done and in standard American fashion the art style is more repulsive than endearing and good hentai lives and dies on how well the human body is drawn. 

You have to have a strong understanding of the human anatomy just so you can bend those rules for unrealistic proportions and still have people invested in the quality of your work. It’s real fucking work drawing good looking pornography. 

Big Mouth isn’t drawn like a show that loves the human body. It’s drawn like a show that kind of sees the body as something gross and it’s half played off for laughs while the other half is reassurance that you’re relatively normal. 

If you were going to make a show about a subject matter like this, you probably can’t do worse than Big Mouth and you probably can’t do any better either. 

Cuties:

Cuties exist supposedly as a way to spark a conversation about how we sexualize young girls. It’s from France so it’s probably more relevant there than it is here but not many people are making that argument. I would make that argument though. After all, France is where the infamous novel “Lolita” was originally published (although to be fair it was written by a Russian). 

French culture is extremely sex positive and the plot is about a Somalian girl acclimating to a dance group that would only exist in the western world and would have the most acceptance in France. 

The mass immigration of people from the Middle East created a culture clash in France and other places where people who abandoned religion have to butt heads with people for whom religion is basically everything. 

Sexuality is condemned in fundamentalist Islamic culture, especially the sexuality of women. I could go on for awhile talking about my theories why and how it speaks to a series of social, emotional, and mental disorders hidden within the members of the Islamic faith but that’s a conversation for a different subject. 

America has problems with sex and sexuality but lets face it, if the Somalian girl was Christian instead of Muslim and set in America there wouldn’t be a film or alternatively there would be a film but it would just be Mean Girls. 

Most stories about sexuality and coming of age is usually about riding that line between being liberated but not so far out that you fall in with bad people who want to exploit your sexuality for profit, physically abuse you for pleasure, or give you a disease that will forever lower your quality of life if not be the lead cause of your own death. 

Many stories of sex are about the regret of even having it or having had it with the wrong people or refusing to have it with the right one until it was too late. 

The real question is “Is Cuties truly a satire of french culture?” 

It can’t be satire of American culture because the abuse of children is met with public derision and disgust when it’s brought to their attention. America is still very religious and the inherently conservative nature of islamic culture can fit within America with only modifications to how it views the concept of punishment for breaking religious rules. 

In order for Cuties to be a commentary on how America sees the sexuality of girls it would have to be pro pedophilia because the antagonist that’s being criticized would be the religious faith and not the hedonism of the Cuties. 

This can however be an critique on how France’s sexual openess is just an excuse for debauchery and sexual exploitation. 

Only the French can say for sure or not, I can’t say if that’s a fair critique, my investigations has led to people affirming that French people are “More honest about romance and sex” which is distressingly vague given the subject matter but I don’t know where the french draw the line so I’ll leave it at that. 

In any case the production of the film regardless of intent is child abuse. Either they exploited the pre-existing sexuality of young girls or they sexualized young girls specifically for the film. Effectively grooming them to be sex pots for the purposes of authenticity. They had hundreds of kids tryout for this as well. 

How many of those children have been raped before or during the production of the film? Even when a child is being hired for a G rated kid’s film or show there’s still a high chance that someone on set, in the studio, or in Hollywood has sexually touched the kids, sometimes with the consent of the parents (I mean the parents get all the money, if you were a selfish prick willing to make your child famous so you could get rich, would you care if Dan Schneider touched your daughter?) 

It’s massively irresponsible at best and at worst, part of the film’s message relied on throwing actual little girl’s into the lion’s den to make a point about how immoral and corrupt french people are. 

It got an award at Sundance. The co-founder of Sundance is a confirmed pedophile. If the intent of the film is to oust french people and non religious people as nonces and nonce enablers well mission accomplished I guess! 

I’ve never seen a film throw everyone that liked it under the bus. 

Well. Does Freddy Got Fingered count? I digress. 

That’s the conversation one is supposed to have about Cuties. I get really fucking annoyed when people say “we need to have a conversation about this.” or “it’s a conversation starter.” but they don’t really initiate a conversation and they use that phrase to end the conversation they are currently in so it’s a lot of bullshit. 

We’re done talking about Cuties but we’re not done here yet. 

Hololive:

Some person named Brittany made some video where she took shots at Shark hololive girl. Said the person was Lolibait and that she had an audience of 40 year old men. 

Where does one begin?

Apparently this person has done this before. I keep thinking of Jessica Valenti which is another person so clearly what this person did or does has been lost to me. I can only assume it involved gamergate or Donald Trump because all roads lead to those two subjects for some bizarre reason. 

But that’s the past. Right now is what matters and right now you can’t just make a video saying that someone makes content exclusively for pedophiles which is what she did. That was some Keemstar level shit right there and I’m under the impression no one will make her regret that choice. Everybody always talks about actions having consequences but it appears like only certain people suffer from the consequences. 

But we’ll see. 

She talked about Hololive like it was another Project Melody. Unfortunately for her it’s not, It’s a real business and a real business is designed to deal with defamation in a serious way so things could get ugly if Yagoo actually thinks his ladies are being threatened by drama mongers. 

These vtubers are doing really well. Pokimane deciding to become a vtuber that is just her normal self but animated is boomer level imitation and extremely funny. 

The appeal isn’t that they’re animated by the way, the appeal is that they’re fun people doing streams. The animation works by letting the audience create a para social relationship with a fictional character of sorts so that the actress can have a private life while still maintaining a streaming setup that’s very personable for the audience. 

This is a meaningful evolution of an online persona.

The only real downside is that anyone who wanted to have an animated avatar in general will be defined as a vtuber when that may not be the intention of the streamer. 

I’m just waiting for one of these girls to be part of an ARG. 

Okay so to wrap up:

Reality shows are trash and always have been.

Indie Films are also trash and only pretentious douche bags like them. 

What happens in France should stay in France. 

and Hololive is GOAT but tragedy of the commons is still a thing.